Reddit reviews Trudeau Silicone Twist Jar Opener (Random Colors)

lincthesink had some good comments, here's what I'd like to add on to them:

1 - You shouldn't really be depending solely on your LCD monitor to judge exposure of the scene. So many factors are in play here (the light hitting the monitor itself, the general light conditions of the scene, etc.) and can cause the apparent exposure on the LCD screen to vary. What you should be doing is base your exposure judgements on a histogram or waveform display that should be overlaid on top of your screen. You can then check if anything is "clipping" in the scene (peaks going beyond the right or left extremes) and adjust accordingly. I believe the 60D has this feature natively, but you should download the Magic Lantern firmware for your camera anyway. It has tons of videography tools that are of great help - you can customize your waveform display settings, you can turn on "zebras" (which highlight underexposed/overexposed areas in the way lincthesink is talking about), you can turn on focus peaking, and much more.

2 - I haven't had much experience with this problem firsthand, but my guess would be that your actors/scenes are on a different plane than where the tripod is set up, so even though your camera's "levels" are accurate for the tripod plane, the plane your actors are on might be crooked. This is a fairly simple fix in post-production though, at the cost of some video quality (rotate the image and zoom in as necessary).

3 - Nailing focus is one of the most difficult things about shooting on DSLR, especially if you're going for that cinematic shallow depth of field look. If you preset your focus with the digital zoom and you shoot on a tripod, the image will always remain in sharp focus as long as there is no movement in the scene. Because I'm guessing most of your scenes contain movement (otherwise, it would be a boring film!), you often need to compensate for the movement by adjusting focus during the shoot - this is called "pulling focus" and is such a difficult job that it is a highly paid role all by itself on a full film set.

On DSLRs, you can maximize the chances that your shot will be in focus by: 1) stopping down the aperture. The smaller the aperture, the greater the amount of the scene that will be in focus. This is often the most practical solution to solving focus issues, but it requires that you have a lot of light to shine on the scene (to make up for the loss of light entering the lens). 2) using a wide-angle lens. The smaller the focal length, the greater the amount of the scene that will be in focus. This is why GoPro footage usually always has all of the scene in sharp focus - their fisheye lens combined with a narrow aperture ensures that everything will be in focus. 3) pulling focus during the shot. This is the solution that most filmmakers tend to use, as oftentimes you will want to use a close-up lens with a wide open aperture for artistic effects, or because there's not enough light in the scene to justify stopping down. However, physically putting your hand on the focus ring and turning it to adjust the focus tends to shake the camera too much and is generally not ideal. Thus, it's best to invest in a "follow focus", which is basically a gear that attaches to the focus ring that allows for external control of the focus (typically by a knob). You can get simple ones for as cheap as $3.50, but the more "legit" ones typically start at around $50.

I could write a whole other post just about the process of pulling focus, but there are basically two ways to do it: by eye, or by pre-marking the scene. If you want to pull focus by eye, I'd suggest investing in an external monitor for your DSLR or at the very least a viewfinder extender. This will allow you to see the image and judge focus much more clearly. You'll want to turn on focus peaking in Magic Lantern, which will highlight the in-focus areas with brightly colored dots. Then, as the scene progresses, you can adjust the focus nearer or farther away as your subjects move. This method is very hit-and-miss, but if you take time to develop this skill you will eventually get better at it. The second method is to first "block" your scene - have all your subjects move to where they will be moving, practice all the camera movements, etc. At certain points in the scene you will use a tape measure (or other distance measuring device) to measure the distance between the subject and your lens and write it down, making a marking on your lens or follow focus device so you know where to turn to at that point. When all this is done, during the actual shoot, you'll rely on these focus markings and measurements to operate the focus rather than looking at the scene. This has the potential to be much more spot-on than just doing it by eye, but it requires a lot more prep work and is typically a stand-alone job apart from the main camera operator (as it's difficult to move a camera and operate a follow focus at the same time!)

Hope this helps!

I've used these before and they're not great, but are sure cheap.

These seem like they would work well.

Not amazing, but do get the job done, but take some effort. They do have a bunch of other uses, though.

In my city, there is a surprising number of young women who leave their doors or windows unlocked and have had a guy nicknamed the 'sleep watcher' enter their house/apartment. As obvious as this sounds, my recommendation is to lock your doors and windows. Also consider a silicone jar opener for all your pickle needs.

silicone lid opener works every time

you can get a cheap one at the $0.99 store or go fancy and put something like this one your keychain: http://www.amazon.com/Trudeau-Silicone-Opener-Random-Colors/dp/B003FPEA0I/

I think you're talking about follow focus? And if you are trying to follow focus with a kit lens (probably the 18-55mm or something similar?) it's definitely tricky to do that. Back when all I had was a kit lens, my friend turned me onto these little jar openers to wrap around the lens. The slight resistance makes it much easier to change focus manually.

I do recommend buying some better glass and a decent tripod. Even Canon's 50mm is only about $100 and it looks great as a beginner lens.