A week or so ago, I mentioned that I might start shooting and sharing video of the unboxings that I do of different photobooks and whatnot.

Well, here’s my first attempt (really, it’s the second, but that one was a bigger fail even than this one, if you can imagine…):


Admittedly, there are some problems with this, and my apologies to Ms. Prince for using her book as a guinea pig. Consider this a list of things to try to improve in future versions…

  • Audio… Some commentary would be good. I made some comments while flipping through the book about the binding, some of the pictures, etc., but the audio from the D7000 was horrible. In the future, I might try doing a voiceover after, or maybe I’ll rig up some sort of audio capture thing. To my mind, it would obviously be better if I was speaking live…
  • The framing is a bit off. I either need a wider lens for the D7000 (this was shot with the 28-105D at 28mm) or need to get farther away. It’s fine for the book portion, but for larger media it’s going to be a problem.
  • The lighting needs to be softer. I might try to rig up the little lamp I’m using to point into an umbrella… window light would also be good, but my time to shoot these is currently limited, and so artificial light will be better.

Here’s my current (sad) setup:

There’s plenty of window light at this time of day, and I’m blessed to live in a light-filled home, so there are other, more comfortable locations I could shoot this in; I could even take it outside.

Maybe a comfy chair with a little table next to it… something more Mr. Rogers-like. Allahu alim.

Also:

  • My hair is a mess, and I look a bit tubby, so maybe I need a better angle: more over the shoulder rather than looking down from on high.*

But for a first attempt, I’m happy-enough with it, I guess.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please leave them here or on YouTube. I look forward to them.

*or maybe some exercise and better posture?

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