Developing my Photos and Films; Plus Knitting Socks for Socktober!

Hey everyone! How's your Wednesday so far?

So as you most likely already know I'm a filmmaker, I love recording and editing videos and I've been at it practically my whole life. I also love taking photographs as you can tell by what I post on this blog. I thought I would show off some of my equipment and software I use to take photos and put together my videos in this blog for everyone. To start it off I want to show everyone one of the cameras I use, it's much more portable than my other cameras and I can take clear photos and videos with it...

This is a Nikon Coolpix camera, it's got 6X wide optical zoom with 16.0 Megapixels and despite its size it's got a lot of power in it, I take it everywhere with me due to it being pretty portable. I've had this camera for a couple of years now so the new Coolpix cameras have better improved specs but this camera still holds up and kicks butt. 

This is an example of the photographs I take with this camera. This was a lucky shot actually but it came out amazing. After I import all my photos off my camera (Via USB) I take them into a program called Paintshop Pro, I've been using Paintshop Pro for as long as I've used a computer so I know my way around it.

I know a lot of people use Photoshop but I love Paintshop Pro and it's always gotten the job done. Other cameras I use are my iPad and phone, because well they're the most convenient cameras I own.

As far as my films go this Nikon does pretty good as well, I do have a bigger camera for more fancier films but this little camera does the job just as well. After recording though I take all my raw footage into my editing program. Now I own Sony Vegas and that's what I've been using for years now but earlier on this year I was graced with an amazing new program...

This is Hitfilm, an editing software yeah but that's only half of it... It's actually a visual effect compositor as well! This program has been a godsend to me as I haven't had access to a full visual effect compositor before and having it be an editor and compositor is so convenient. Even better this does the jobs of Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects all in one little package, you can do exactly the same things as those Adobe programs on here. Okay here's the really cool part, it's free. Yes I said it, the magic word, it's free. Hitfilm 4 express is complete free for anyone to use, there is a pro version of course and it doesn't come with all the visual effect packs but it's got plenty in it by itself so you won't need to upgrade to make great films. Though if you do upgrade though you get a massive amount of visual effect packs, some new rendering options and well stuff to make it more professional.

I actually took an online course on visual effects to learn how to use this program earlier on this year and also with the amount of tutorials on Hitfilm's Youtube Channel (They post every week with awesome filmmaking tutorials and tips) it's easy to learn your way around this program especially with its easy and clean layout. You can go to the Hitfilm website to check out and download the Express version of Hitfilm 4 here!

Before I move on I want to show everyone this video I made using Hitfilm. It was taken using my Nikon camera mentioned earlier so it's a good video to show off how well this camera records. It's not a super long and fancy edited video (I can be pretty crafty in the art of editing, I hope to show that off in the future.) but I hope you enjoy it regardless.

Cool, huh? I know it wasn't long but it was just something quick to show off my camera. Hope it wasn't too shaky I wanted to record handheld even though I own a tripod.

ANYWAY let's pick up the knitting needles now! (And hope I haven't dropped any stitches.) I've been planning this new project for a while now but I wanted to get all my dishcloths finished before I started...

Can you guess what this is? This is the beginning of a.. Sock! Yeah just one sock for now but don't worry though I will be making the other sock, so both feet won't be cold this winter. Now I was told that this month is apparently Socktober! I had absolutely no idea it was Socktober (I'm new forgive me.) but I'm starting this sock in October so it still counts, right? My mum recommended making socks to me because she believed, and I've come to believe, that this will be a great learning experience for me as a beginner knitter. I'm using 4 size 3 DPNs (Double Pointed Needles) and I've casted on 20 on two needles and 24 on the third needle making up 64 stitches total. This was not easy by any means, I mean yeah you cast on like normal but you got like multiple needles getting in your way and my man hands are way too big for these tiny needles so casting on was almost a little frustrating at times. I am persisting though and it's getting easier as I go along, I'm getting used to using four needles at once.

Muggles won't understand this symbol, but we all know knitters are magical, right?

So this is my progress as of writing this blog early this morning, I casted these on last night and I've gotten two rows done so far, not counting the cast on. It's getting easier as I go along but I don't know how I will fare with the heel and toe part of the sock, I guess I'll just keep going and find out. Now I'm a guy who loves to experiment so I've decided to do my second sock using Magic Loop, It's another way of doing socks and I've decided to make this pair of socks an experiment so I can learn how to use DPNs and Magic Loop all in one go. I hope I can keep my tension the same between both socks but this is going to be a fun experiment regardless. Anyway with the help of Mum and tutorials online I'm sure I'll be just fine and have these socks done and looking great before you know it.

Oh god I just realized something... How would you even do colorworks using the DPN method? I actually had the idea of doing a little colorworks at the top of a pair of socks (Not these socks, these are going to be just simple socks.) in the future but how would you even handle two colors at once with these needles? Oh boy I guess I'm going to have to figure that out in the future, maybe magic loop would be a better option for that.

Anyway I hope this blog wasn't too long for everyone to read, I tend to ramble on a bit and I'm sorry about that. Hope you're enjoying your Wednesday and hope that you knitters out there are enjoying Socktober! Don't forget to check out my social media links on the side to keep track of me and what I'm doing! I actually had to fix all those links yesterday because my HTML broke on the site for some reason, I didn't even change anything it just all broke on me. Oh yeah one last note, the Volcanion event for Pokemon XY and ORAS ends on October the 28th so don't forget to head to GameStop to pick up your codes!

See you on the next blog!