All posts tagged video

OWLE Bubo for iPhone

By | February 16, 2011 | Gear Reviews | No comments
owle

A Better iPhone Solution

So I have had the iPhone4 for several months now and I love the fact that it shoots 720p HD.  However, the BIG problem that I saw is that when I try to shoot a video I could barely hold the phone still enough to get a smooth shot.  So, I found myself shooting much more video than normal but it was coming out shaky.

I saw that Zacuto had come out with an iPhone support system that looked really cool, but was a bit out of my price range.  Then I stumbled across the OWLE Bubo I decided that I had found what I was looking for.

The OWLE is basically solid piece of machined aluminum that you iPhone will securely fit into with the use of a rubber bumper.  It adds a considerable amount of weight to the iPhone which stabilizes it tremendously!  Check out this video of a side-by-side comparison of an iPhone with the Bubo and one without:

So you can see that is stabilizes the picture and also gives you a wider shot due to the external lens.  The cool thing about the lens is that you can also add filters or other lens as you see fit.

The OWLE also comes with an external mic, which I have honestly had some problems with.  I like having it be more directional, but it tends to crackle a bit so I would probably suggest upgrading the microphone if you are serious about your sound quality.

The other thing that I don’t like is that the encasement completely covers the on-board flash, so not only is it unusable but you need to turn it off because if it does come on it shines right into the lens.  However, the rig also allows you to attach a light (or other non-powered hot shoe device) to the top of the camera.  Also you can mount any of the four corners to a tripod for added stability.

All in all I think this is a great piece of hardware to have if you want to be able to always have a camera with you without having to lug around the rest of your gear!

The NEW MeatloafMedia

By | February 7, 2011 | General | No comments
road

A Blog???

It’s been a long road with MeatloafMedia…my wife and I started in 2005 serving up a healthy assortment videos, images, and sermon outlines.  We did our thing and thousands of churches have used media provided by us to make their sermons more relevant.  A few years later we followed God’s leading produced a short kid’s movie “Treasure Seekers, Inc” which is now being distributed nationally.  And now we are doing our best to follow God leading by stopping the current MeatloafMedia store selling videos and such and transform it into…{drumroll} a blog.

What??  Are we crazy?  Maybe…however I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the “industry” and felt that we could make a bigger impact by just writing out thoughts on a page…or screen, phone or whatever.  The reason that we launched MeatloafMedia to begin with was to help churches become MORE creative.  In the end, however, I feel that we actually helped them to become less creative.

Instead of a church using their creative juices to create a video they might come to a site like ours at the last minute and just download a video…hoping that it would suddenly transform their sermon.  I am certainly not knocking the videos we sold or the churches that bought them, but I started feeling like God has given each church a creative “pool” that they should tap into.

The church that I work at uses video regularly, however I have noticed that the videos that we produce “in house” are always received so much better because it has our own heart and DNA embedded into it.  Wouldn’t it be cool if churches used the creativity that God has given them to create, innovate, and…well, I can’t think of another rhyming word…

Yeah, I know it sounds a bit anti-climatic, but we have decided to take MeatloafMedia in a drastically new direction.  Hopefully one that will inspire and challenge you to use YOUR creative abilities for God and His Kingdom.

This will certainly be an interesting journey, but I invite you to come along…it should be fun.  So, please bookmark this page, subscribe to the RSS so that you won’t miss any of the exciting posts coming soon.