Porn for Dummies:

A beginners guide to making your own pornography!

I get a lot of questions about what kind of camera’s and lights we use, and I am not one of those people who claim that they are trade secrets and never tell anyone anything.   I feel if people surpass my own production values I will just try harder to improve.  So on to the goods.

Camera:

We use a Canon Vixia HF S100, just like the HF S10 only it’s cheaper because you have to purchase your own memory cards rather than having an internal Hard Disk.

Lense:

After you’ve bought the camera you’ll probably notice that you can’t get a clear shot with everything you want in the frame, and if you do you are much to far away to still be involved with the scene.  That’s why I recommend the Canon WD-H58 Wide Converter Lens. There are cheaper imitations on the market I am just usually skeptical about buying anything but Canon or equivilent grade products.  I’ve heard the other lenses have blurring around the outside of the frame.

Mic:

Now you may or may not want better sound quality than what your camera offers.  That is why I purchased a Rode VideoMic – Camera Mounted Shotgun Microphone.  Unfortunately non-professional class canon camera do not come with a standardized hotshoe for the Mic so I purchased a converter from DM-Accesories.

Lights:

Lighting is one of the most important and yet underrated parts of shooting everything.  I personally have 3 24×32 inch Flourecent SoftBoxes.   The first I bought from Konova, the second from B&H, and the third from some ebay retailer that I cannot seem to find right now.  I have three 6 1/2 Foot stands for them too, each from their respective seller.  I can’t say which of them is better, I can just tell you that you usually get what you pay for.  And eventually when I have more space I would like to purchase a much larger continuous lighting kit.

As for the placement.  I don’t really have any set method.  I wish I could say that I keep to a standard three light scheme, but usually for photography I like stronger shadows so I only use one light pretty close up.  As for video I like to move the camera around a lot and have no angle off limits so I just move and turn off the lights as I see fit.  That’s why I prefer the smaller lights. I can take them with me to various locations as well as move them around while shooting.  Also I prefer to use as much natural light as I possibly can, which can be very difficult because of the climate in which we live.

Editing:

The greatest part of making any kind of film or video is the hours upon hours you spend editing and rendering and uploading the footage.  I just use Adobe Premier CS4 to do all of my editing and rendering.  I do this mostly because I taught myself to use it ages ago and now I am just too lazy to learn anything new.  I also use adobe Photoshop CS4 to make all titles and to editing all images and stills on our site. www.fetishkitsch.com

Oh and if you were wondering about my photography.  I am kind of ashamed to say this but I use almost no professional equipment.  Just the aforementioned lighting kits, a Canon PowerShot SX1 IS, and a whole lot of Photoshop CS4.  I would very much like to purchase a more expensive DSLR in the near future but they are just so expensive, so I will have to make do.

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps anyone who wanted to know.

-Dan