Tag Archives: science video

A Shutter Remote Controller for Your iPhone Camera

Posted on by

I often work alone and need to stop and consult my notes when filming an on-camera speech or demonstration. In such instances, I would have to leave my position in front of the camera to start and stop video recording, which is inconvenient and time-consuming. There have been other times when I tried to film myself from an unusual position or from a distance away from the camera and wished that I had a way to operate the camera remotely.

You can use wired or wireless remote controllers that operate the shutter on a camera, but I’ve just never gotten around to purchasing one. Recently, I came across an advertisement for a shutter remote controller that can be paired via Bluetooth to any iOS device. It’s called Shutter Remote and costs about $40. Since I often use my phone to record video and take photos, I decided to give it a try with my new iPhone 5s.

The device is small and easy to operate. I found that it worked well to start and stop the camera app on my iPhone, which made filming a whole lot more efficient. Below is a video I made showing how it works and how to pair it with an iPhone.

The Shutter Remote is supposed to work with any native iOS app and also with some 3rd party apps (although I have not tried these). You can also pair it with a Mac computer to, for example, control a Keynote presentation, video playback, or music. If you use iOS devices, especially to record video, this item might be helpful.

I’ve used the shutter remote several times, but not enough to say much about durability. The only problem I’ve encountered so far was that my phone camera app once got stuck in record mode, and I could not stop it with either the remote or phone controls. I had to power my phone off to stop the recording. However, that happened only once and was easy to rectify. Otherwise, it worked as advertised.

Using a remote controller to trigger the shutter on your camera will definitely make your filming a lot easier if you work alone. In addition to filming yourself, you might also need to remotely control a camera to film wildlife; for example, a bird nest high in a tree. Once the camera is set up, you can observe from a safe distance and trigger the shutter to record whatever activity is of interest without scaring your targets away. There are many other examples.

If you’ve tried this or some other shutter remote, please share your experience.

NASA Visualizers Win NSF-Science Magazine Video Contest

Posted on by

“What safeguards our solar system is our star. The sun provides a shield stretching dynamicearthstillbeyond the last planet in its orbit..a force field that deflects these cosmic rays. But these solar winds can be dangerous, too. Especially during outbursts called coronal mass ejections. Want a vision of Earth gone wrong? Just look at what solar storms do to our sister planet, Venus.”

That is the opening narration (by actor Liam Neeson) of the NASA film, “Coronal Mass Ejection and Ocean/Wind Circulation”, that has won first place in a contest sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Science Magazine. What follows are outstanding animations of cosmic particles spreading across the solar system and sweeping around Venus and the Earth. The video goes on to explain how Earth has avoided the fate of Venus and then describes how most of the solar energy is deflected but what is absorbed is enough to drive our climate. The latter is illustrated by animations of wind and ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream. This video is an excerpt from a larger movie called the Dynamic Earth, which is being shown in planetariums around the world.

Watch the winning video (with Liam Neeson narration): http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11003

Watch the version submitted to contest on YouTube:

More about Dynamic Earth: http://www.dynamicearth.spitzcreativemedia.com

More about the International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge: http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/scivis/index.jsp

Image Credit: Still from “Dynamic Earth”, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11003

The NASA video and most of the videos that won Honorable Mention in this contest were created by skilled teams of animators and videographers. However, one of the Honorable Mentions was produced by a team of scientists led by Geoffrey Harlow, a biology student:

Science Field Courses That Emphasize Videography

Posted on by

The video opens with a scene of a rainforest followed by footage of spiders and the aquatic ecologist who studies them. Christopher Holmes, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, explains that spiders are a lot like us, “They need to eat, build a house, and survive and reproduce.” He then uses the analogy of a human fisherman to explain spider ecology in greater detail.

Some students take field science courses as part of their training. Such courses often require students to conduct an independent research project and then write a report and/or give a presentation at the end of the course. With the advent of digital media, some of these courses are now encouraging or requiring students to create a video, a course blog, and/or a course podcast as part of a growing emphasis by educational organizations to teach communication skills to students.

Naturally, I think this is an excellent idea.

In the next video, Ralph Saporito, a Tropical Biologist, and Nick Batoro, Ph.D. candidate, describe some of the trials and tribulations that researchers and students encounter when doing fieldwork:

The above videos were co-sponsored by the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), which offers a variety of field courses and study abroad opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. Students taking Introduction to Tropical Biology (Winter 2014) created, with the assistance of Day’s Edge Productions, several excellent videos about their topic of interest and posted them on YouTube. You can go to the course website to watch all of them. Thanks to Andrés Santana, Graduate Education Department, OTS, for permission to embed two of the videos here.

OTS also offers a field course for science teachers, during which they design their own research project and produce their own videos to “bring their personal experiences in the rainforest to life for their students”.

Field courses like these are great opportunities for science students and educators to be exposed to videography and science communication. I’m pleased to see that organizations like OTS are taking the initiative to teach media skills along with learning about tropical ecosystems. I helped teach an OTS course in Panama many years ago, long before I took up videography. I can now think of many ways that video could have enhanced that course…from filming some of the organisms and their behavior…to producing student videos about their experiences.

If you are teaching a field course or any course with field trips or laboratory exercises, you might consider having students create a video as a course assignment (or as an alternative to a written report). They can easily accomplish this with a digital camera (that shoots video), an iPad, or a Smartphone.

 

Use Time Lapse To Reveal Unseen Biological Phenomena

Posted on by

I’ve written previously about how useful time-lapse video can be in showing biological or physical phenomena that cannot be readily observed in real time. Most people are fascinated by time-lapse movies—a reaction the scientist videographer can use to advantage. I came across an article in the BBC News Magazine about “Underwater time-lapse shows secret life of a coral reef“.

You can see the video that accompanies the BBC article here. It includes a lot of amazing time-lapse footage of coral reefs. You can also get an idea of how the scientist (Dr. Pim Bongaerts of the University of Queensland) captured some of the footage in aquaria or in the field.

If you are interested in using time-lapse photography in your research or in a science video, check out my tutorials explaining how to shoot time lapse below:

How to create a time-lapse video with a smartphone

How to make a time-lapse video from still images

8 Steps to a Good Video Abstract: Embeddable Slide Show

Posted on by

More and more journals are publishing video abstracts to call attention to articles and the researchers. Even if your journal does not support video abstracts, you can still create and post one yourself, which will help raise your paper’s online visibility. And, as we all know, the more people who are aware of our work, the more likely it will be cited.

So I decided to create a slide show that covers eight basic steps for creating a good video abstract. This slide show is available on slideshare.net, where anyone can get the embed code to install on their website or share with others.

See below for how the player looks: