Welcome to Cool Stuff, a weekly feature where we post our favorite links from the past week, including our favorite articles and how-tos, videos, images and more.

• We rent a lot of fancy video gear, but if you find yourself up at over 13,000 feet needing, for example, a boom or dolly or jib, you might be well-served watching this video from our friend Chase Jarvis on how to improvise when necessary.
• So we knew the Nikon D3s is a tough camera. Nikon Rumors has a nice piece on just HOW tough it is.
• Models, you need to read this piece on DIYPhotography. Model Jen Brook has an open letter to other models on a few things all models ought to pay attention to.
• From our friends over at Profoto, here’s a really cool piece on how to light and shoot a 40-foot yacht.
• And finally, for those of you who like free (at least for the moment) software, the folks over at Red Giant have launched a public beta of their video workflow app that fits in between your camera and your editing software. Bulletproof is well worth a look if you’re seeking something along the lines of Lightroom for video. Here’s a video preview…

That’s it for this week’s Cool Stuff! As always, questions and feedback are welcome in the comments below.

Welcome to Cool Stuff, a weekly feature where we post our favorite links from the past week, including our favorite articles and how-tos, videos, images and more. (more…)

Welcome to Cool Stuff, a weekly feature where we post our favorite links from the past week, including our favorite articles and how-tos, videos, images and more.

• First, from our friends over at PetaPixel, this one gave most of us butterflies just thinking about it. Actually doing this? No thank you. But we’ll watch the video anyway.
• Our tablets (like the iPad) are getting increasingly powerful, and Adobe has a plan to put that power to good use. The fun stuff starts at 18:09 in the video below.
• Budding photojournalists, heads-up! The folks over at Fotopedia have launched an iPad app that lets you create and view stories on the go. If you haven’t checked out Fotopedia, you should – they have a pretty nice platform for telling photo stories.
• We love our timelapses, but this one takes the cake. Two months of an Antarctic ice breaker’s journey, compressed into 5 minutes.
  
• And finally, to those who have a hundred questions about photography, here are your answers. Zack Arias, photographer and educator extraordinaire, has taken the best of his Awesome “Photography Q&A” Tumblr and turned it into an awesome book.

 And now, for the BorrowLenses.com Roundup!

• To anyone who doesn’t live close to a pickup location, this one’s for you: We have new shipping rates that make it even more affordable for you to rent gear.
• The Canon 800mm f/5.6 isn’t the only game in town anymore! Nikon’s 800mm is finally here…
• A big thanks to everyone who came by and said hello to us at Photo Video West last week!

That’s it for this week’s Cool Stuff. As always, questions and feedback are welcome in the comments below.

Welcome to Cool Stuff, a weekly feature where we post our favorite links from the past week, including our favorite articles and how-tos, videos, images and more.

• This one falls into the “Ooops, how’d I miss that?” category. Canon is presenting a series on time-lapse photography with none other than Vincent Laforet. Part 2 is now out, and is embedded here for your viewing pleasure. (more…)

The Rebel T5i performs as well as it was expected to but is it really any better than its 2012 predecessor, the T4i? BL investigates.

BorrowLenses.com is at the 2013 NAB Show in Las Vegas! If you are here, too, please come visit us in booth #C9550! We have great cameras for folks to try out and other surprise goodies, including a chance to win a free rental from us!

Not at NAB? That’s ok – take a virtual tour with us below. We’ll be posting pictures and videos all week so be sure to check our blog for more fun footage!

Ben on a greyish-blue background.

The image above was not shot on a white background. It has a minimal level of adjustment in Lightroom to it, mostly to clean up the edges, but that’s about it. It was taken in front of the greyish-blue wall in the lobby of the BorrowLenses.com offices in San Carlos.

The thing about a relatively light-colored background is that it lends itself to a surprisingly large number of options for photographers. Though grey backgrounds work best for this, you can with some tweaking, turn just about any light-colored background — grey, blue, beige — completely black, as I demonstrated in this article on how to kill your background completely.

In this article, I’ll show you how to blow out that background completely to make it look like you’re shooting in front of a white backdrop.

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