TicTocPop 2.0 and Some Thoughts on Fair Use

Since my last blog post about the issues I’ve had with the TicTocPop Popping channel there has been some communication with us about the issues raised both in this blog and in the community. Otis and I had some civil and productive messaging about the clips. Since then, he has posted a new version of the clip and given both Studio G in the DMV and Electrosoul a shoutout. He has also included a link to our jam footage. It seems that he has also been doing that to all the other clips he’s been posting. Those are good things!

It is important that I give credit where credit is due. Regarding the tone of his clips, Otis has explained he did not intend for things to become mean spirited. If you watch this new clip I think you’ll probably agree.

I think in terms of the popping community, it is important to stay positive. We have entirely too much shit talking these days in my opinion. Some of my friends thrive on this sort of drama but I’m definitively not in that camp. I shared these sentiments with Otis and he seems to be on the same page. I believe in the heat of the moment we sometimes say things we don’t really mean to be permanently archived and played over and over again.

For my part, I removed the initial copyright claim on the YouTube clip(s) that I filed 2 weeks ago. I decided to do so before we had actually chat. I think I need to be very clear here that while this particular set of clips from Electrosoul 7’s battles may have been the catalyst for this process…it was the larger issue of copyright that got my attention. It could have been any clip that triggered my response. I don’t monetize dance clips. I do monetize others. Who knows I might have to fight for one of those some day.

The bottom line is regarding the Electrosoul 7 video clips I was prepared to just let this go anyway. If I had to fight for them it would have taken more effort in the long run than it was worth. In the end I also wasn’t entirely sure that tictocpop or anyone else didn’t have the right to use the footage the way it was used. The courtesy i have asked for has now been given. My issue with tictoppop has reached its conclusion.

On that note, i believe there are other important things to think about. I’ve learned that many people out there on YouTube, Facebook, and social media in general have what they think is a good grasp of what is “right” or “wrong” with respect to digital content. They have preconceived notions about what is protected and what isn’t. Most of them are very confident in their positions. Well… I’ve learned that most people know nothing. I include myself in this. I’ve learned a lot from this process.

There is a difference between what YouTube allows and or facilitates with content claims, and what is defined in the law. There is a difference between what people do routinely with digital content, vs what they have a right to do. There is a difference between knowing your rights vs defending your rights. Many of my friends even think of themselves as knowledgeable on this. Well, with the exception of a couple attorneys I know..they are not. For the most part, as content creators and consumers, we are all out in the wild.

If you create something and you feel it is infringed upon then you must defend yourself vigorously if you want anything done about it. youTube will not do that for you. They get 3 million content id claims a year (at least) and it is for the most part automated. Any dispute that is truly worth fighting for between the two parties will in the end be decided in a courtroom or between a lawyers. None of what happened here rose to that level for me. I just don’t have the time to defend a clip and/or photograph that makes no money.

This is a fascinating subject. The more I read on it, the more I respect both sides of the argument when it comes to what is called “transformative” use of copyrighted material. That is the key issue that has consumed my brain for a couple of weeks. Some people believe that parody/commentary by their very nature are transformative. Take Honest Trailer’s for example. That is one of my favorite youtube channels. It is absolutely using copyrighted material. Now, ask yourself, are those clips up because ScreenRant has a 1) right to do it and it is legally permissible or 2) did they have permission to do so? Why don’t we see entire movies uploaded with commentary? How does the famous “Phantom Edit” of the prequels for star wars exist? It is transformative I guess…but how much so? Does it completely replace the original?

The answer? It’s complicated.

I would just leave you with one thought. Don’t let the fact that you copy and repost photographs and/or video clips on a frequent basis erode the knowledge that content creators have rights. Just because you haven’t been confronted yet doesn’t mean there aren’t worthwhile principles you should be considering.

 

More Fun with my Sony A7ii and 30mm Macro

I’ve been more vigilant now about keeping an eye out for things that might be interesting on a macro level. It is something that takes getting used to as far as a mindset. It figures though, that on days I don’t have the macro lens on me, I notice the things I need the lens for. Luckily, in the case of this cicada shell, I had time to go home and come back. This little guy was going nowhere.

I went to McKee Beshers Natural Preserve in Montgomery County MD for a morning of shots with my family. I’ll be writing a more complete post of that later. This was one of the shots I caught using the macro.

These tiny purple flowers off a bush were only about 6 or 7 millimeters in diameter.

These white flowers are very common in Maryland. You see them everywhere. I’m trying to find the name of them so I can update this later. Please if you know what they are go ahead and put it in the comments.

As usual, I edited my photos in Adobe Lightroom CC.

Tictocpop’s Passive Aggressive Response

I’ll keep this brief. The first post can be read here.

As if by clockwork, Otis Funkmeyer posted another video today which was a combination yet another one of his “commentaries” of a call out battle against him from Devious. I won’t link to his page from mine just on principal.

The punchline? He added another #Electrosoul 7 clip. One he missed earlier. It was the same. No credits and no permission. All of this was done with full knowledge of our position. Actions speak loudly for this man don’t they?

This was the original footage of the call out battle uploaded by Devious on the Gr818ers facebook page. It’s a fun clip and not full of drama at all. Watch and decide for yourselves. You don’t need anyone to give you a play by play. You have eyes and ears.

It’s getting kind of boring now so back to more interesting subjects!

My Problem with the TicTocPop Youtube Channel

The clip above and three others is what this post is all about. This will probably be a rare occurrence in my blog. I’m taking an opportunity to complain about something that I feel was a transgression on my rights, and my #Electrosoul Team’s rights as a content creator(s). Forgive me if this is a little long, but Otis and I as it turns out have mutual friends. Some of them needed a good explanation of why I’m angry about this subject.

This is essentially about actions taken by Otis Funkmeyer, the man behind TICTOCPOP on YouTube. This is not a huge deal. No one died. What it is at the least for me is extremely irritating. At the worst, I believe it is copyright infringement. In the middle? I think he did something wrong. I’ll get back to this. First let me give you a context.

We held the 7th iteration of our local jam Electrosoul on July 30, 2016. It was overall, a good experience. As always we have things to learn and intend to get better each year. For those who are unfamiliar with our jam, it is a dance competition we hold every year which thanks to a lot of teamwork and goodwill has been growing. We get more and more participation every year from both locals and guests from out of town. Our visitors and participants have come from all over the world. We are still what I’d consider to be a medium size event in the grand scheme of things.

Throwing a jam is a lot of work. It takes a long time to plan. We have to line up potential judges, djs, battle guest(s), venue(s) all of which take time and money. There is the fee for each vendor, the prize money, the travel costs, food…yada yada yada. You can fill in the blanks. We get ready all year by having fundraising events and also spend money out of our pockets. We line up a team of about 12 volunteers as well. Then of course we have all the networking and marketing we need to do to get people to the jam. At best, we hope to break even somehow. That doesn’t happen much. Not yet. It is completely ok with us we know it takes time to get a local scene large enough to fund the type of jam we like. We throw this jam because we love doing it.

At the end of the day, the only evidence of our jam every year is our youtube presence. It is a critical part of our outreach. I think it is the same for every promoter. We have great tools, but there only a few. Nowadays it is Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.We take the time to capture the jam on video. I personally own all of the equipment so it is yet another expense to throw on the pile. We then make sure to categorize the clips and upload them with a jam trailer in the beginning. This jam trailer is critical because it identifies who we are and it also gives a shout out to our key sponsors. That is a big deal. We could not function without them. We do a similar thing in the jam description. We repeat the jam and sponsor info and we add references to our judges, battle guests, djs, and anything else that is relevant. They deserve a credit. Here is what it looks like. Notice the view count at the time of this blog. This is our original upload from #Electrosoul.

What tictocpop did, was take 4 clips from our battle and copy them without our permission. The clips were shown almost in their entirety and joined into one clip about 30 minutes long for use in Otis Funkmeyer’s commentary.  They were critical clips in our collection since they were of the battles lead up to the final. From a promoter’s perspective they are the highlight of our years worth of work and preparation. I don’t like his commentary because I find him to be rude at times. This is not why I take issue with tictocpop. Frankly, other people are making that case far better than I could and it will resolve itself.

No, for me it is different. I take issue with him not approaching me for permission to use our jam footage. I had just finished putting trailers on almost 50 clips and uploaded them all. Not even 48 hours later, he had done the following with the 4 clips he hijacked.

1. TICTOCPOP Removed our intro trailer. This is significant because using a trailer days who we and our sponsors are. It is a common practice used by most jams( that have the time to do so) today.
2. Next he made his commentary and embedded our video(s) in his frame. The frame which includes advertising of his own brand.
3. He added a closing trailer for his own business. The word production seems a bit of a stretch to me.
4. He added ANOTHER closing trailer for his own business.
5. He had his own YouTube description for the video which had none of our information or credits.

Other than the obvious issue of him removing all the original shout outs and replacing them with his social media platforms and his book and his businesses..notice something else. The view count. The new compiled video  has 1099 and the original final battle has 1026.  Look, I’m not one who obsesses over hit counts. In the end, I think our video will showcase the jam, the competitors, the djs, the venue, and the guests just fine. I’m irritated by the principle of the thing. His channel is siphoning off activity from ours without giving credit back to any of the participants.

TICTOPPOP is not a part of our team and should not be using the results of our hard work at #Electrosoul to promote his brand without our permission. There are arrangements that can be made for this sort of cross promotion. GR818ers already reposted our clips with our blessing! They made sure to refer back to the original source and shout out the jam. Everyone is happy. Unfortunately, for this case, we just don’t like TICTOCPOP’s channel. That is not personal. We just don’t. We should have the right to decline to have our footage that we capture of an event that we organized and financed to not be used in such a way. This is not unheard of at all. There is a reason people can’t just hijack JusteDebut footage and use it anywhere they please. I’m not saying we are that large. We shouldn’t have to be.

To make matters worse, I am fairly sure Otis Funkmeyer knows I don’t want our footage used by now. Nothing has changed. The video is still up. I don’t know if that will be the case forever. I’m just making my case for those who are interested.

Who do I think will be interested? Other promoters. Just look at this thumbnail list of uploaded videos on tictocpop. Maybe it is an assumption on my part but I don’t think he got permission to use any of these clips. Not all of them are from jams so I have no idea what total metrics are here for clips from other promoters. It does look like a substantial number. You know what? Whether there is infringement or not, it is nice to be asked.

 

 

My First Macro Lens experience: Sony 30mm f3.5 E Mount

Well I finally got a macro lens! It has been a long time. I was eyeing the 90mm f2.8 FE Mount for a while, but since I’ve been spending so much money on other prime lenses lately I decided to go cheap. I just won a $100 Prize from a step challenge so I new exactly where to put the credit to good use! I bought it used on Amazon for about 198 bucks so I only put out about 100 cash.

I couldn’t wait to get out there and try it. First off, let me just say I have developed even more respect for those great macro photographers out there. This is not easy. It is especially difficult to catch bugs with wings. They are so fast. I’m amazed now when I see the great closeups how patient the photographer must have been. Also, you need a very steady hand. The little bugs that crawl aren’t that easy to catch either. It may seem counter intuitive, but when you are zoomed in so close on something when it moves it can easily out run you. I observed the main reason for that being that as humans we simply cannot track something so close to us with our wrists bound together. The shot of the polka dot beetle above was one among 30 shots I took. Although I was happy with it I do wish I nailed the focus better on the shell. I think I was at f 3/5. I would have probably been better off with f 4.0 but things were happening so quickly I couldn’t adjust. The autofocus was lagging trying to catch the little guy.

Capturing the flower was easier as long as it wasn’t windy! I was pretty surprised how close I could get. The lens was only an inch away in this shot. As I got closer, things got more abstract. I did seem to lose some sharpness though.

I couldn’t tell what settings would work best here. I will keep practicing!

Later I took some pictures of food close up. This was great. Who doesn’t like giant meatballs?

At a Vietnamese Restaurant i took a picture of my pork dish.

Here was a picture of my iced coffee.

As usual, I edit all my photos in Adobe Lightroom CC. Currently I’m shooting with my Sony a7ii.

 

 

My Strobist Journey Starts Here!

Well I’ve finally started down the path I’ve been avoiding for a long time now. The past few months I’ve been researching the different techniques I want to try. I’ve decided to by the equipment piece by piece rather than get those kits that are available for between 40 to 200 bucks on Amazon. This will without a doubt cost me much more in the end but I’m trying to get some good quality equipment that will last longer. This is not to say I’m trying to break the bank. Light stands and backdrops can get very expensive. Light diffusers and strobes also range in price a great deal.

In the picture clockwise from left to right:

• Manfrotto 5001B 74-Inch Nano Stand.
• Manfrotto 026 Swivel Lite-Tite Umbrella Adapter
• Nissin ND700AK-S DI700 Air and Air 1 Kit for Sony (Black)
• Westcott 2001 43-Inch Optical White Satin Collapsible Umbrella
• Fotodiox Pro 5×7′ 2-in-1 Black/White Collapsible Background Panel
• my Sony a7ii (currently with FE 85mm f/1.4 GM)
• and of course a Zebra to set focus when i don’t have a willing subject

I’m starting out with single flash and diffuser for now. It’s time for me to cut my teeth into the manual settings. My first focus will be to play with some low key photos. More to come!

 

Banding during High Speed Sync

I’ve recently started (finally) to practice and play with my flash. There is a lot more to come but I decided to play with High Speed Sync the other day on my Sony HVL-F32M.

Right now I’m just trying to learn some consistency with my a7ii/F32M setup getting some nice falloff during a sunny day. There isn’t a great deal of info out there about the Sony a7 series and HSS… at least not for those of use teaching ourselves. I’m still trying to fully grasp what is happening with this shot. Feel free to comment or link me to articles on this subject.

This was obviously indoors. My brother was back lit and I was experimenting with HSS to try and balance it out with my flash on camera.

Shutter speed 1/6400, ISO 400, f 1/4. Flash fired with HSS. You can see the banding on his face so I know HSS was working at least. I’m going to continue researching why this banding is happening with my particular settings.

Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 G Master: Sample Shots 1st 10 days

My last post I detailed the shopping anxiety. Once that subsided I embraced being an early adopter and all that entails. For good or for bad, this lens is mine now. I may as well enjoy it. Normally, I share shots that are edited in light room. For this post I will share the images that have not been edited at all! I’m quite impressed with the results. All of these were taken on my a7ii. I made sure to install the most recent 3.10 firmware before I started to use the lens. When I could, I shot wide open so I could soak in all that beautiful “fall off”.

I have noticed that nailing the focus does seem a bit difficult. My camera was hunting around a bit. I’m not sure if it was me though. I may not have all the settings done as well as I could. This was true of both AF-S and AF-C.

The bokeh is gorgeous in my opinion. I was waiting for the Batis to come out and I gave up on the long wait to get this one. I hope to be able to compare the two someday. I think if the Batis 85mm shows up on the used market I’ll consider adding that to my collection. The 85mm GM is a bit heavy.

The blue/pink contrast really pops out at you here!

This shot I took of my brother using an on body Sony HVL 32m flash. I am trying to learn High Speed Sync techniques. This was shot at about 1 pm with the sun blazing.

This chalk on rock shot was actually something I took just to try to expose for the background. I wasn’t going to keep it at first but I liked it. You can see how sharp the details are if you go the original image.

This was a well lit situation at night. Between the darkness behind the house, the light from the trucks, and the light in the house I think the GM 85mm really showed some good contrast.

I was tempted to edit this one because of the slight haze but I think it still looks good. There was a lot of moisture in the air with all the water and fire hitting each other.

This was just a fun shot. The Mastiff weighs 170 lbs!

This shot I tried to nail the focus on my own reflection but I didn’t quite get it. Still, it looked pretty good.

When I crop in on that you can see that I perhaps missed focus and was on the grains of the wood rather than my own reflection. Still if you look you can see how it caught my brother and girlfriend in the frame. It looks like there is some chromatic aberration. I will try cleaning that up in the future.

More to come! As is NOT normal, I did NOT edit these photos in Lightroom CC.

Sony G Master 85mm f/1.4 Mass Hysteria

I have been waiting for several months, like much of the rest of the Sony Alpha world, for the release of the Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8. The frustration has been tangible online. There were so many reviews from the lucky few bloggers out there who were given advanced copies you could throw a rock and hit one.

Several months passed without any indication from Zeiss when the lens would finally be delivered. This didn’t stop anyone from taking preorders mind you. I had mine in for a long time. Well, recently Sony then announced it was starting its new GMaster line of lenses. I guess it would be their professional lens category. I would compare it to the L glass line for Canon. Unlike the Batis, it seemed that the arrival of this lens was going to leave me with a short wait. I canceled the Batis preorder and pivoted over to the Batis. Within a few days, I had it! Here was the box opening.

Soon after getting it however, I noticed it was very noisy on startup. Now bear in mind I’ve never owned an 85mm 1.4 of any brand in the past. I’ve never had a lens that had autofocus with as large a diameter and heavy a lens element as this. I could only compare it to my other Sony Lenses which are quite a bit smaller. I made a video of the sounds here.

Soon after noticing the sounds, I did what every google nut does. I searched the phrase “Noise Autofocus G Master”. Immediately I was hit with three threads already. They were on sonyalpharumors.com, fredmiranda.com, and dpreview.com

The speculation was already at a fever pitch. People were reporting scratches inside the lens that could be seen. I was swept up in this panic as it seemed dozens of us early adopters were worried we just shelled out a ton of cash for a shoddy product. Here is a video I made showing the alleged “scratches”.

Well I was starting to have my doubts but I realized I should have better information before returning the purchase. I made posted these videos to the forums and they were used in some cases to spur on discussion. Sonyalpharumors even used my video in one of there update posts!

I was feeding the paranoid beast apparently. Many people started to return their purchases. I held on..hoping for some seasoned expert to weigh in. Well I got it. These guys are superheroes as far as I’m concerned. This “Emergency” Breakdown by lensrentals.com brought me back down to earth.

I’m glad I waited. I’ve loved the lens so far. I’m still very new to this level of glass. Apparently piezo motors are just louder that’s all.

Stay tuned for some G Master 85mm adventures!

Blizzard 2016 with my Sony Distagon 35mm f/1.4

Well, it’s officially over. Blizzard 2016 hit us hard this past weekend. I went out and got some shots in the middle of it. On the first night, with only about 8 inches on the ground, the roads were already covered. With the roads blanketed in white, Wheaton looked like a small town. The guy above was leaving the only open bar that night, The Limerick Pub.

These workers got a very early start shoveling in front of Safeway. It almost didn’t matter, because it snowed for another 32 hours straight after they finished.

This was one of two other businesses that were open that night besides the Safeway and the pub. Two Chinese takeouts stayed open. They didn’t make it the second night though.

On the second night, the scene became more surreal. You can see to the right of the girl and her little dog how deep the snow was. The cars are completely covered.

The winds were blowing very hard in some spots. Snowblindness really meant something in these spots.

These kids were trying to make toboggans out of cardboard. I’m not sure it would work. I didn’t follow them around to find out.

I did have some lessons learned. With the snow blowing hard, often times my uv filter would get wet. I’m not sure how easy it would be to deal with this but I’m going to start researching. I actually had a hard time focusing sometimes with the snow blowing around between me and the subject. I was using autofocus. My hands were a little too cold to do manual focus. I think I need to get some good gloves that are not too clumsy.

As always, might photos are edited in Lightroom CC. I sometimes increase the contrast on my editing. I found that it didn’t really help me get the image I wanted in these cases. The snow in the air became much less interesting with increased contrast in my opinion.