Enter today! Ends July 15th.

Today’s prize …

GorillaPod Focus with Ballhead X and Cinetics CineSkates for Focus! Put our professional-grade GorillaPod Focus on wheels and you’ve got an unstoppable combo for photos and video! Capture smooth panoramic shots or experiment with timelapse photography – there are no limits to your creativity with this pair!  Today is the last day to enter so ENTER NOW!

Enjoy this adorable video and then go have a great weekend! Thanks Corey for brightening our days with this video!

“Preta” A day in the life of our dog w/ Nikon Coolpix P7700 from Corey Rich on Vimeo.

I never know what to get my wife Marina for her birthday, but this year I updated her Nikon and gave her the P7700. Best gift in years and I was even able to bank some points with her : ).

That Sunday I found myself sitting in our living room capturing video footage of our dog Preta. Marina walked in and told me to hand over the camera—she wanted to shoot Preta and reminded me it was her camera, after all.

Next thing I knew we were fully consumed with shooting an impromptu short film, capturing a day in the life of Preta. We’re not crazy, but Marina and I will often project Preta’s emotions and thoughts; other dog owners do this, right? Our little game turned into a key part of our film, “Preta,” and our Sunday quickly bloomed into a full shoot day, documenting everything that Preta did. We even decided to strap the P7700 to Preta’s back by using her life vest and a Gorilla Pod for a POV shot. With a camera this easy to use, Marina said we had to try everything. By the way, if you sent me an e-mail and I didn’t reply two weeks ago, I apologize, I was completely consumed with shooting this video.

What started as a simple Adobe Premiere edit on my laptop turned into a legitimate post-production project. I even brought out my audio kit so that Marina and I could do voice over for Preta (and Preta’s friend, Royal). By the way, Dane, thanks for letting us rope you and Royal into our little production.
Marina and I couldn’t stop laughing at each other the whole time. At one point in the shoot Preta looked at us and we knew she must be thinking: should I start filming the two of you now? Making “Preta” was a total blast, and Marina and I realized something important. We live in a time where sophisticated compact cameras like the Nikon Coolpix P7700 provide us with easy to use features and tools to seamlessly become still photographers or filmmakers. This camera has all of the necessary technical functionality that allows the user to focus solely on creativity. For Marina, the birthday girl, it left her with a final project that has great sound and a cinematic look—a look she totally takes credit for (I’ll let her have it).

Whether it’s your dog, your cat, or your kid, get a camera and tell your story. Our world is amazing, go capture it!

P.S. Don’t forget: if you’re going to blow off work for the day to shoot, make sure you turn on your e-mail auto-responder so others will think you’re busy actually working!

The newest in their suite of awesome gear is CineMoco—a motor controlled dolly and slider for video and timelapse photography. They just launched on Kickstarter and have already reached their goal, but trust us, you’ll want to get in on this project.

Check out everything that CineMoco can do in this video.

To join in the fun, pledge to their Kickstarter campaign here. To learn more about the rest of the Cinetics family and how fabulous they pair with GorillaPod Focus and GorillaPod SLR-Zoom, check out CineSkates and CineSquid!

Off we go! If you read nothing else from this series, read this. This super simple tip will transform your iPhoneography, guaranteed.

Auto-Exposure / Auto-Focus Lock in the Native Camera App

So you want to take a picture of your kitchen table and and the pretty tulips sitting on top of it. But,  it looks like this—dark, with emphasis on the brick wall behind your subject instead of the subject itself. Here’s what you do …

Tap on the tulips to focus on them. Hold down and the camera will lock both focus and exposure on those tulips, instead of the wall behind them. This will bring your tulips into focus and correctly expose them all in one swift move. Click the camera shutter and you’ve got the perfect shot you envisioned.

It’s that easy and that awesome.

Here’s another example. The camera focused on the red brick wall in the foreground, but at this exposure, sky is totally blown out. Bummer.

So I locked focus and exposure on the lighter buildings in the background, bringing back in the sky.  Now I have a more balanced photograph with more information. Plus, it’s much closer to what I saw in the moment.

Auto-Exposure / Auto-Focus Lock in Camera+

If you want even more control over the focus and exposure, Camera+ allows you to separately lock focus and lock exposure.

First, tap to choose the focus point. Then hit the + icon in the upper right corner of the focusing square. Your focus and exposure controls will separate. Move the focus square onto the main subject of your photo, and then move the exposure circle around the frame until you’ve found the exposure that suits your fancy.

You should end up with something like this—focus point where you want it and an exposure that brings out the best in your subject matter.

Very nice.

Update! SmugMug’s new FREE app Camera Awesome also allows users to separately lock focus and exposure.

Stay tuned for more awesome tips from the JOBY Team and our smart photo friends! Happy shooting!

CineSquid Suction Mount from Cinetics on Vimeo.

The CineSquid is a super strong, versatile suction cup camera mount system, which allows filmmakers to capture previously unthinkable shots by attaching their camera to smooth surfaces, from any angle. Cinetics has already built a huge following of filmmaker enthusiasts with the launch of CineSkates, an innovative camera tripod dolly that made great use of our GorillaPod Focus.

The CineSquid system combines powerful suction cup technology with the flexible GorillaPod Focus Tripod and BallHead X to create a portable and modular system that filmmakers can take anywhere. Different from other suction cup mounts on the market, the flexible tripod attaches to contoured, multi-level surfaces, and users can even manipulate the camera frame once the suction cups are mounted.  The triple suction cup design ensures CineSquid will not lose its grip.

Not unlike us here at JOBY, Cinetics founder Justin Jensen is “encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive support from our community of users to create a simple, interchangeable system that replaces their bulky gear.”

In case you’re curious, here are a few examples of what CineSquid can stand up to …

* High-speed chase or automobile cruising scenes
* Aerial views from the belly of an airplane up to 200mph
* Scenic or landscape shots from a boat, train or any moving vehicle
* Time-lapse video with a rock-solid connection to any smooth surface

To celebrate the launch of CineSquid, Cinetics is hosting the CineSkates Showdown Video Contest. The winning videos will be featured in future Cinetics videos, and the winners will each receive the new CineSquid component along with a GoPro® HD HERO2 Camera.

Congratulations to our friends at Cinetics on another fabulous product!