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New case study highlights improvements in using online archive content

Posted by Tim O'Riordan on Tuesday 09 April 2013 Tweet this!

Our case study looks at how learners are developing their knowledge of history and online resources using newsfilm hosted by JISC MediaHub. We explore two modules that use this JISC eCollections service to examine the usefulness of news reports in the study of historical subjects. With access to more than 50,000 digital video newsfilm items, students consider impartiality and different styles of reporting through analysing and evaluating news media reports.

Currently over 200 HE/FE institutions subscribe to JISC MediaHub, allowing their staff and students to view and download more than 3,500 hours of digital image, video and audio items. As part of its ongoing improvements programme, the service has added new bookmarking, tagging and commenting features, enabling users to more easily collect and manage items of interest to them. Searching has also been improved with many new functions, including ‘explore by place’.

If your institution isn’t subscribed, you can’t view or download the video assets, but you can access newsfilm descriptions, shotlists and frame grabs - and watch example clips at: on the BUFVC ‘Newsfilm’ website. To find out how to subscribe, see JISC Collections’ Agreements website.

The BUFVC’s new AV Citation guidelines cover the whole range of moving image and sound objects including: film, TV and radio programmes, DVD extras, games, online clips, trailers, adverts, amateur footage, archival material, podcasts, and DVD study materials. They provide straightforward referencing rules that make it much easier for students and researchers to quote time-based content and aids the discovery, use and re-use of av materials - for example, archive newsfilm hosted by JISC MediaHub.

Top Tips for Photography

Posted by Zak Mensah on Thursday 28 March 2013 Tweet this!

1. To get the most out of your camera you should familiarise yourself with its controls and features and take a series of test shots to establish the optimum capture settings for each project.
2. If your camera moves while taking a photo the subject may be slightly blurred, this is known as ‘camera shake’. If you need to hand hold your camera or don’t have access to a tripod or copy stand, you can reduce shake by using shutter speeds slower than the value of the focal length of the lens being used. For example, with a 50mm lens, the slowest shutter speed you should use is 1/50th second.
3. The ‘auto focus’ (AF) function on your camera works best with defined textures and contrast. If your main subject lacks texture your camera may struggle to find focus. If there is an area of detail close to the main subject you can use it to check focus before the image is re-composed and the picture is taken.  With static set-ups (e.g. using a tripod) an object with high contrast texture such as a printed page can be placed on the subject to check focus before the picture is taken.
4. If a large aperture is used the depth of field is shallow and accurate focus is critical, with a smaller aperture the depth of field is greater and more of the image appears sharp. If overall image sharpness is important or focus errors are common try manually selecting smaller apertures - between f8 and f16. This short video explains the role of the aperture in altering the depth of field
5. Most digital SLR cameras have a physical dial or a software menu option to select different focus settings. The ‘M’ setting lets you take full control of focusing. ‘S’ locks the focus when the shutter button is partly depressed or a dedicated AF button is pressed. ‘C’ locks focus to an object selected by partly depressing the shutter release, the camera then tracks the focus as the subject moves.

   

6. Image noise is a random camera-generated texture not present in the original scene. It normally becomes apparent as the ISO (the camera’s sensitivity to light) increases or the shutter speeds get longer. Image noise can normally be eliminated by increasing the light levels and reducing the camera’s ISO setting.
7. If you use your camera to digitise objects, try to make full use of the camera’s sensor by ‘filling the frame’. If the object is framed tightly, more of the photo sites on the camera’s sensor will be used to record detail. However, care should be taken with lenses that introduce image distortions (e.g. wide angle lenses). Zoom lenses can help to frame an image in the viewfinder, on a copy stand the framing can be adjusted by raising or lowering the camera.
8. White balance’ is a digital correction for the colour bias produced under different light sources.  Each light source has its own unique colour quality (colour temperature), video and stills cameras can identify and neutralise (white balance) this colour bias to produce a ‘neutral’ image. Cameras offer settings for familiar light types such as incandescent, flash, daylight, cloud, shade, and fluorescent, and the default auto white balance (AWB) , some cameras can also measure the colour temperature manually using a white or grey reference.  An incorrect white balance setting can result in an ugly colour cast over the image which can be hard to remove.
9. The most commonly used artificial photographic light sources are: flash, tungsten and fluorescent. Side lighting can emphasise the texture of an object and give character to a picture. If your subject is glossy and flat the reflections should not be seen at the camera position. Reflectors can be used to ‘bounce’ light into shadow areas; these can be purchased from photographic suppliers or readily improvised from pieces of white card or paper.

   Image on left taken under bright sunlight, image on right taken under bright sunlight with collapsible reflector on shaded side to 'fill' shadows.

10. If the camera is being used as part of a digitisation project the optimum capture settings should be recorded in the ‘good practice manual’.

Further resources

• Light Sources for Still and Moving Images
• Taking Pictures under Available Light

Digital Agenda for Europe survey

Posted by Zak Mensah on Wednesday 13 March 2013 Tweet this!

We will achieve that by supporting ICT research & innovation and by deploying our regulatory and policy tools in order to boost growth and to create jobs. We will get there by setting an example as a lean and effective modern public actor. DG Connect is making a call for evidence and for your help. We ask all stakeholders & interested parties to respond to this questionnaire.

Read all of the details and survey.

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Older posts

• Top Tips for Photography

  Posted by Zak Mensah on Thursday 28 March 2013
  

  The typical digital camera is highly automated and can enable novices to produce usable images with the minimum of effort. However, despite the excellent technology cameras often fail to give good, repeatable results.

• Digital Agenda for Europe survey

  Posted by Zak Mensah on Wednesday 13 March 2013
  

  DG Connect hopes to make everybody in Europe digital. 

• Webinar disseminating the developing digital literacies projects

  Posted by Zak Mensah on Wednesday 13 March 2013
  

  Each webinar will last up to an hour and will discuss an aspect of the programme’s work. The webinars are free and open to all. Sign up.

• Using SVG image file format

  Posted by Zak Mensah on Tuesday 12 March 2013
  

  SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic) has been around since 2001. It uses XML to display the image within a browser which gives it some interesting properties that we leverage. Effectively the browser renders SVG images "on the fly" (coordinates and instructions), enabling us to view the image in all modern browsers (Google chrome, Firefox, safari and Internet explorer 9+) including smartphones and tablet computers.

• National Recording Preservation Plan

  Posted by Zak Mensah on Wednesday 20 February 2013
  

  The plan is the result of over a decade of work by both the Library and National Recording Preservation board, comprising of 32 recommendations, both short and long term. The recommendations within the plan include a national discography, university based degree programs in audio archiving and an audio-preservation resource directory.

• First filming shoot through the eyes of an intern

  Posted by Sophie Allen on Thursday 07 February 2013
  

  As a new intern at JISC Digital Media with a fair but limited amount of knowledge and experience of filmmaking, an opportunity recently arose to gain more of both. So last Thursday, after frantically attempting to dig my car out of what looked like the result of a small avalanche after the recent snowfall, I accompanied JISC Digital Media video advisor Steve to a local house where filming was to take place. The filming in question, was of actors performing a series of good and bad interview scenarios and techniques for medical students at the University of Bristol.

• Sustaining Our Digital Future: Institutional Strategies for Digital Content

  Posted by Chris Roberts on Wednesday 30 January 2013
  

  JISC and Ithaki S+R release new report "Sustaining Our Digital Future: Institutional Strategies for Digital Content".

   

• New top tips for video editing guide

  Posted by Tim O'Riordan on Tuesday 29 January 2013
  

  Today we'd like to share with you our new guide: 'Top Tips for Video Editing'.

• Closed due to adverse weather conditions

  Posted by Zak Mensah on Friday 18 January 2013
  

  Please note that we will be closed on Friday  18th January from noon due to the poor weather conditions. 

• Announcing the MediaMosa Foundation

  Posted by Steve Hull on Friday 11 January 2013
  

  Today sees the creation of the MediaMosa Foundation, an organisation to oversee the continued development and promotion of MediaMosa.

• JISC Digital Media - Now in 3D!

  Posted by Stephen Gray on Wednesday 12 December 2012
  

  This week saw the long awaited two-day conference '3D Scanning: Artefacts from the past, for the future', organised by Dr Phillip Lindley and hosted by Cambridge University.

• Free Augmented Reality webinar

  Posted by Zak Mensah on Monday 10 December 2012
  

  JISC Advance are hosting a free online webinar session on Wednesday 19th December about using augmented reality to develop new materials.