hey everybody its norm from tested and it is the end of 2019 as is tradition
starting this week the tested team will be sharing their favorite things that
they've learned about BOTS discovered throughout the year and I'm gonna kick
things off with something that was released this year and a lot of people
in asking what's your favorite VR headset this year surprise surprise it's
not the oculus quest which I do think is probably the most important VR headset
of this year but the one I'm finding that I'm going to and playing games in
on a regular basis it's the valve index I am a heart a PC gamer I'm playing
games off of my computer and yeah you can use the link cable for the quest but
I love the comfort I love the visual fidelity and I love the valve index
controllers can't wait for half-life Alex next year I want to stick with VR a
little bit earlier this year we also did a VR video project and des got me
thinking a little bit about capturing 180 stereo video whether you want to
call it VR or not the camera we use for that was a high-end prosumer camera
called the ZK mk1 Pro but there are plenty of other three or one a TV our
stereo cameras you can buy right now that basically operate like a
point-and-shoot and my favorite once you use is this right here it's the insta
360 Evo and it works as both a VR 180 stereo camera or you can actually press
the button and it folds and then does a mono 360 and it knows what configuration
it's in stitches it in the app and I've been using this a lot in the home
because I also have a new baby he's kind maybe one of my favorite
things of the year but I won't bog you down with too much baby stuff what I
actually been doing is we've been filming the baby once every month and
it's a transformative experience if we take a lot of photos with our of the
baby with DSLR with our phone cameras but filming him in VR 180 and you want
to watch that whether in headset or through one of these accessories that
comes with this camera it lets us really experience his growth
and how transformed he is once a month it's so different every two weeks that
we love documenting that and then seeing how not only how he looks
but also how he's actually behaving and it's been one of my favorite things to
do this year one more piece of VR we later on in the year I started doing
some mixed reality videos we start experimenting with the live app and one
of the things that we bought to work with that was this little capture device
it's from El Gato this one is a cam link 4k and super simple you have HDMI on one
side USB on the other side and so it does capture essentially from whether
it's your DSLR if HDMI out or even the camera that we're filming with right now
and that goes right into your PC over USB a lot of streamers use something
like this to do capture from their consoles and then you can use the
software with green screening keying to do something like mixed reality
super simple part and kind of essential if you want to be capturing video and
doing something like twitch streaming today on the camera side I don't have a
another camera recommendation but you have an accessory recommendation this
was a something I learned from our friend toy photographer Sargent bananas
aka Johnny and he introduced me to the loom cube set of tiny lights these are
wonderful even if they're not just for photography if they're LED lights are
very powerful and the accessories that come with them essentially allow you to
turn your tabletop into a miniature photography studio key word being
miniature because I'd be doing something like toy photography you have gels
change the color temperature there are many degrees of brightness and your
accessories like diffusers you have these barn doors and little snoots and
at the scale of things like one six one tenth one twelve it really feels like
you have the power of an airy light right except at the tabletop scale this
is the travel photographers kit which comes with two of these lights they do
get a bit heated so I would combine these with like Joby Gorillapod or some
type of small pub tripod with a quarter inch screw mount to operate that really
fun and takes your miniature photography to a whole new level I will have one
baby recommendation it's actually off camera right
here if you are going to be a new parent one of the things I wish someone had
told me about is this car seat is from the company called do not do oh and a
and not only do I like the look of this car seats very rugged it's ready to be
very safe but it doubles as a stroller yes instead of having to buy two things
too expensive things can buy one thing that you can travel with it's a
transformer actually show you one now it's a stroller and baby is good to go
we took it cross-country for Thanksgiving it's in the end I'm taking
it to LA it will work up to babies up to about 30 pounds so you know a year year
and a half depending on how big your baby is but this is one of those things
I wish we had gotten four when we first had the baby last year we got it middle
of the year and happy making the most out of it now it wouldn't be a norm V do
if I didn't have a collectible to talk about and I've bought many of those this
year one toy I want to put a spotlight on is something from an artist I'd never
heard of before this year this is a wonderful figure from a 3a and it is
from the artist Chinese artist name is a luau I'd never heard of her before she
doesn't even really have an Instagram but I saw this listed on one of the
places I'd normally shot from my figures and I was so striking I then did a deep
dive and bought one of her art books from the gallery nucleus website and
it's it's like there's it's a whole new world of artists that I haven't exposed
to it's a there's a little bit of a Miyazaki chibi style to her work but
it's all done with ink brushes and so that media combined with that aesthetic
is so wonderful her book has just these wonderful creatures characters they they
are right out of historical fantasy and this figure here with this child riding
what looks like a giant flea monster but also some cotton that you then used to
make look like a cloud I just adore this and also really fun to photograph now
we're gonna move on to some of the coffee table books this one recommended
in general exemplar of independent artists putting out and
working with some independent publishers collections of their works it's not a
graphic novel it's not a sketch book but it's really just a compendium of just
individual pieces that maybe have a cohesive aesthetic theme but not
necessarily tied together in the stories a lot of artists put out books like that
and I recommend supporting them directly but more traditional coffee table books
this one I love it's a collection of cross sections it's called look inside
we're gonna look inside it right now show you a few pages but it's wide
ranging cross sections from architectural drawings of famous
buildings to engineering diagrams to even pieces from like friend of tested
Jason Frannie and the kind of anatomical cross sections he does it really is
taking that one idea of what it means to take and look into a slice of an object
whether it's do photography through illustration through painting or through
computer drawing and really go showcase all the different artists who work in
that format really love this coffee table book in the pop culture world got
a few more books as well this one is also independently published con
engineering an empire one of our favorite TV shows on Netflix of the past
two years is the toys that made us and if you haven't seen it highly recommend
it deep dives into the making of things like the Star Wars toys transformers and
deter ttles and if you ever watch one of those episodes and wanted to deep dive
more into the backstories this book is for you this one specifically is about
the Star Wars Kenner figures and it profiles all the engineers and the
executives who worked at Kenner when the first toys were released not only the
prototypes that are featured here but also the memos the notes the sketches
and this is created by fans and release at this past year Star Wars Celebration
and you can also buy it from them directly I love making of movies books
there is the making of art books but one making of movie book that I think stands
out this year is the making of Solo a Star Wars story regardless of whether
you like the film or not I love this book it was done by the effects
supervisor from ILM Robredo and he had access he wasn't the stills photographer
he was the effects supervisor I'm hit everything and so this book is his
journey through production when he was brought on by Ron Howard to finish the
film and he's a wonderful photographer a great eye and he was able to capture
from his perspective what he needed for the visual effects a collection of
hundreds of images whether was on set whether it was at the prop departments
and one of test its contributors Cates a Bakr is even featured in this book a
lovely lovely book not just about the art and pre-production but actually the
making of the film being on set one of the things that we'd like to do here at
tested JW Rinzler is a Faye he's a prolific writer that I really like he
did the making of the Star Wars books the original trilogy there's these
massive tomes that released a couple years ago and now he's taken his
research skills and writing to the making of Ridley Scott's alien this is a
massive coffee table book that I barely had a chance to dive into but it's one
of those like if you want the definitive history of the make thinking of a
beloved classic film you can't go wrong with a book written by J double ribs or
anything from him I'm bound to get but my favorite coffee book this year it's
from Taschen I know it's a little bit cliche choose a dashing book because
they just do massive coffee table books but my favorite TV series this year was
Disney pluses the Imagineering story and if you enjoyed the six-part
Imagineering story about the making of Disney parks Disneyland and all the
Imagineers and the story that's Quantic old at
least from Disneyland in this book Walt Disney's Disneyland it has the
photographic equivalent of the behind the scenes video we saw in the
Imagineering story and it goes ride by ride development of all those wonderful
things that make Disneyland so fun and wonderful and I really love going
through this book so few of my favorite things this year we'll have many more to
come in the coming weeks wish you all a happy Christmas Happy Holidays and we'll
see you in 2020 Thanks you