Did a little redesign on the openning sequence for Rebel Vibe.

Plunging Into The DSLR Phenonema

Melissa & Dennis' wedding - another view from Neil van Niekerk on Vimeo.

So I have finally made the plunge. I have laboured with my trusty Canon HV30 and it has served me well but it time to get me some of that DSLR video goodness. I have been courting a serious window shopping for all different types of DSLR, mirrorless and Micro four thirds cameras for quite some time. One of my friends was like "O lawd just buy the ting already!!!" What she didn't know was the true range of choices before me. So in my usual REBEL style I made the best bang for buck decision- the Nikon D3100. It ships to my neck of the woods next week.

I was initially going for the Canon T3i but due to a tight financial situation the Nikon fit my budget without compromising video quality as much as I previously thought. My only problem is that the Nikon D3100 doesn't have an audio input however since all my upcoming work utalizes the Tascam DR-05- (a superb audio recording device!!!)- I can live with lining my audio and video from separate sources in my post production.

The above video showcases the superb quality you can get out of the Nikon D3100. Again I will stress its not always about your gear but how you use what you have.

Photoshop Magic Is It Real?

People often ask me to touch up some photos and overlay some graphics. Its no fault of theirs but its like they expect you to wave a magic wand over an image and presto you have a wonderful final image.


I firmly believe that before you touch up a photo in photoshop its best you get the photography part right. That means proper lighting, composition and ensuring your photo has the right amount of exposure. But the truth is you wouldn't always get an ideal image to work with.
The above image was given to me by a friend and while it was not the most ideal image I ever worked on, it had a decent exposure and composition. However he had already manipulated the image and resized but the proportions was wrong his frame ended up being too wide for his height. and this image was taken with a cell phone camera and there were some noise artifacts that were particularly troublesome on the edges where his skin began to meld with the background in a weird freaky noise dance. I had to cut him out using the pen tool and guesstimate edges that crossed over into green in some cases to help keep him in natural form. Once that was done I re-proportion his width to his height- another guesstimation. Some aggressive colour correction and a brush dabs and end up with this:

Its not my best work but I still pulled off a pretty decent final image. So is photoshop magic real? Of course it is but with every other skill you need to practice your art until you are good enough to whip some magic...

Nikon D3100

Amazon is current selling the Nikon D3100 SLR for about $530 US. It is a tempting buy. At this price it is a worthwhile alternative to the Canon Rebel t2i and t3i. I have been reading up some reviews and my only problem with is the lack of audio input for your video recordings but I still plan to check it out for myself soon...

TWISS Radio

TWISS stands for Tird World International Sound System. It is a DJ sound system owned and operated by Fadda Flex. After I created and conceptualised Rebel Stream Flex continues to help me operate and formulate the groundwork for Rebel Stream as a medium for grassroots urban culture.

We both agreed that as operators of Rebel Stream and TWISS that we would push and support local music from Trinidad and Tobago as much as we possibly can. Flex has since started TWISS Radio an Internet Radio station and I wish him all the best as he continues to operate it.

Elance.com is Nice!!!!

So I just discovered elance.com. So far it looks like a great platform for freelancers and I now I think I am ready to step out hold the bull by the horns and start my freelance business online.

it even has a greater tracker system that can log your hours on a project and automatically send a report to your client. I'm really new to this but I plan to get as familiar as i can with this tool and try to have a great profile to attract clients...

http://www.elance.com/samples/fadda-flex/34964402/