Are you a flower person? Do you love your greens? Well we have just the lights for you. These lights are grow lights, which means they help your plants grow faster and stronger than usual. In this video we showcase different sized and different watt LED grow lights. Hope you enjoy!
Links to all lights are down below
Links:
Are you looking for something to spice up your room? Maybe for a holiday event with lots of guest you’d like impress? Well we might have something for you. In this video, we showcase three mood enhancing lights for whatever project or event you have. Many different colours and various different options available.
Links to all the lights are shown below.
Having a community and following is something that most companies and people desire. It can be hard to maintain and expand that community but there are steps that can be taken to ensure the community is happy and lasts for a long time. The three simple steps listed will be targeting the right audience, maintaining and focusing on the needs of the community and growth & expansion. The examples listed will include big name companies to small groups. No matter how big your community is, there is always room for expansion and things that will bring everyone together.
Having a community and following means you need to treat the people who are in the community with some respect and carefulness. Many people join these communities and followings because they all share a common interest or belief. Keeping your focus on these core beliefs and values can ensure the community stays together and focused on goals and tasks. It is also important to listen to feedback and general comments. They can provide a lot of ways to improve and grow communities and followings.
A good example comes from an online video game. Overwatch is an online video game where changes happen a lot in their game. Characters and new things being added to the game influences a lot inside. The game has a player base of over 35 million players monthly and many of these players have their own opinions to changes in the game and the overall state of the game. The developers at Blizzard Entertainment do a great job of listening to the community and fitting their needs. The development team and support team are always active on forums and social media to inform and assist others. They also release monthly update videos to give the player base an update on what they are doing with the game and what they want to know from the community about these changes etc. Blizzard shows a great example on how to create and maintain a large community and keep them active and happy in where they are.
Having a community and following shouldn’t be focused on profit and general gain for yourself or your company. A lot of people can rely on these communities and believe it progresses people’s lives and other aspects. A community’s voice can even have a large impact on companies and other products. For example if you are making a change to your website that many members of the community dislike, you may want to change the plan or ask the community how they would like it. It seems like a simple concept except many large companies can sometimes fail to suit their community’s needs.
This is an example of a game publisher focusing on economical gain and not listening to their community. Electronic Arts (EA) published the video game Star Wars Battlefront 2 which was hit hard with negative reviews and feedback from the community. A lot of the issues were profit orientated and didn’t work well with the large player base. Issues included loot boxes which you have to pay for, paying for in game bonuses which is unfair and other features that made the game almost unplayable. EA’s response is the current most down voted (disliked) comment on Reddit with over 600,000 down votes. Their response to the situation and lack of care for their community resulted in negative sales for the game and a stock decline in an already declining company. EA’s response was listed as one of the worst company decisions of 2017. EA has also been nominated as the worst company in the U.S of 2017 and almost won that award as a result of this backlash. All they had to do was listen to the community and make the appropriate changes and maybe they wouldn’t have lost millions of dollars and decreases in stock prices.
Growing and expanding your community is a future goal that most people look forward to. It allows the community to grow even more and allows for a wider range of ideas from going outside the target interest to even creating live events to becoming a company. There are many success stories of companies and communities doing these things.
For example, many universities across North America have been creating varsity level Esports teams and clubs across campuses. Scholarships and other programs are now being offered for playing video games at a high level. This started as a simple idea. For example, the University of Toronto had a Facebook page for all of their students who enjoyed playing video games. It slowly kept on growing and other universities did the same. As popularity of these groups became more popular, they expanded and reached out to other universities about hosting friendly tournaments etc. Eventually over 30 universities signed up for the first tournament and this started what is now known as the University Esports League. Now there are over hundreds of universities, colleges and even high schools doing the same thing in North America. This all started as a small Facebook group talking about video games to a multi-million dollar investment.
All the examples listed showcase the large impact that a community can have and ways a company or leader can turn things around. Some of the most important steps are to keep a maintained focus on what the community enjoys and what they want out of being in a community. Making changes or doing things that will upset the community will lead to problems occurring and can go downhill. The most important step is making sure everyone in your community is doing well and truly caring for them.
– Benson Lam
Toronto has always been considered as a potential film location for many years in the industry. Recently big hits such as The Handmaid’s Tale, The Shape of Water and many other productions are taking place in Toronto. No wonder why Ontario has drawn over 2.9 billion dollars from the film industry.
(Pre-Edit Scene from The Shape of Water)The film industry’s rapid growth started in the late 90s and slowly started building up into the 21st century. It has been continuously growing and has recently started speeding up. Award winning productions such as The Shape of Water are all to thank for. This rapid growth has been noticed as many new productions are starting in Toronto. Shows such as Star Trek, Suits, The Expanse and many more are continuing production in the city.
Toronto has a wide range of areas both inside and outside of the city. From dense urban environments to quiet and forested areas up north. This allows filmmakers to have a variety of environments around them without travelling around too much. For example, the popular horror movie IT was filmed in Northern Ontario which featured small town vibes.
Another reason why filmmakers are taking an interest in Toronto is because of it’s cheaper prices and similarities to other cities. For example, a scene in Suicide Squad was set to take place in New York City at night. Instead filmmakers took the streets of Toronto as it had similarities and would cost less than closing down a street in New York City. Many productions use Toronto as an alternative to other cities such as New York City, Chicago, Atlanta etc. If you want a large city landscape mixed in with a water front, a dense isolated forest or even a mountainous wilderness – Toronto and Ontario has it all.
One of the many local Toronto forests
Ontario has generated almost 3 billion dollars from the film industry as of March 2017. That number has grown since then to approximately almost 4 billion dollars. British Columbia is also experiencing the same surge as major films such as Deadpool 2 and War for the Planet of the Apes is also increasing the B.C popularity. The Canadian growth in the film industry is a large benefit to the country and the cities involved. Toronto has been constantly been progressing in the industry, new additions to the film sector allowed new areas to be built and renovated.
Cinespace Film Studios – A new Marine Terminal Studio project will add 165,000 square feet of studio and support space to Toronto’s film industry infrastructure right on Toronto’s waterfront and on the edge of the City’s Port Lands in the heart of the City’s studio district. (CNW Group/Cinespace Film Studios Inc.)The renovations and new additions to the industry in Toronto have already been seen in the past years. Cinespace is a good example as they are a large force in the film industry involving Canada. Cinespace opened a production studio this year at the Marine Terminal 51 which is a 165,000 square feet studio space. The large space is used for various productions and has been used by many producers in the past. The studio expanded the film sector and allows better transportation and co-ordination in the productions. The new space is a sign of growing industry, Toronto will continuously prosper from the industry and hopefully it keeps rising.
CBS is now opening a large 260,000 square feet facility outside of Toronto. It will act as a centre for film and tv production. This move is costing millions of dollars and will help CBS and Toronto prosper as CBS already has many things in production. Some hope that other major networks will make the move in a growing location.
CBS Producers, Frank Siracusa and John Weber
A good effect from the large amounts of productions is what the city benefits from. Many shoots do take place in locations such as the port lands and other largely used locations. The city and the film board bring ideas for reconstruction or renovation for those areas. In time, that means we can see the locations being cleaned up and “big screen” ready. As the film industry grows in Toronto, we should see a large influx of remodelling and construction of new areas.
Toronto has been growing a multi billion dollar film industry and that number will keep rising. The number of current and future productions will increase with companies such as CBS and Cinespace growing facilities in the GTA. Hopefully Toronto maintains their ground and advancements on the film industry as it is a strong economic power for Toronto. Maybe the next time you are in the cinema, you might see a Toronto landmark – with the amount of productions happening right now, there is a high chance you will.
– Benson Lam
August featured the reveal of Nvidia’s new line up of graphic cards. They revealed their 2000 series with large upgrades to their 1000 series previously released in 2016. In addition to faster clock speeds, GDDR6 VRAM and a larger amount of CUDA cores – Nvidia has branded their new flagship from GTX to RTX featuring the latest real time ray tracing technology.
Ray tracing is a method of rendering which produces a realistic and completely computer generated light effect. Ray tracing is used by film makers and producers through the industry. Ray tracing combined with the vast improvements of CGI and other graphical technology will make films and other productions look fully realistic.
This video released to demo their real time ray tracing shows the impressive abilities and features that can be used in the industry.
Ray tracing technology has been around for sometime in the film industry and has been in large usage due to the large amount of CGI used in recent films. So why is ray tracing such a surprise to the industry?
Ray tracing in the industry has been mainly done through expensive CPUs and other large server systems. Many companies can spend hours rendering each frame using ray tracing. The addition of the market being diversified by the new tech, we can expect companies to increase productivity and have larger access to these cards. Smaller production companies can now produce CG based films and other projects much more easier than before. Many game developers and small time studios can have better results with the real time ray tracing and can push the limit of what they can do.
The addition of these new graphics cards affects mainly the industry as it allows developers and producers to utilize a strong graphics cards with real time ray tracing. If you are not into a developing or producing, the card’s strong performance will increase speeds, improve texture quality and even use ray tracing in programs or games you might use. Many game developers have already begun integrating real time ray tracing into many upcoming and trending games.
Below are examples of Battlefield V an upcoming game using real time ray tracing technology.
The Nvidia RTX cards are the top of the class as of right now for both having real time ray tracing accessible and strong gaming potential. Real time ray tracing is still a new technology being reinvented but gameplay and recent renders from the new RTX cards shows a lot of potential. AMD has been rumoured of making their new GPUs with ray tracing technology and NVIDIA has the trend of releasing improved cards a year later of release. If you are planning to get a ray tracing card, it would be best to wait out for AMD’s release and other potential upgrades. If you want to wait till the prices are lower, you may have to wait over 5 years for it to become the norm in graphics cards.
The RTX cards have released on September 20th of 2018 with AMD coming out with their own rumoured around 2019. The market for RTX has opened up dramatically with these releases. Don’t get your hopes up too quick. Ray tracing is still a high end technology. The RTX cards will cost between 800 CAD to 1500 CAD depending on the model. NVIDIA explained that the Star Wars render shown was run on 4 high end GPUs that costed 60,000 dollars USD. The price difference will obviously result in a downgrade in quality but given the upcoming years the prices will go down – all thanks to the start of the competitive market between AMD and Intel for both GPUs and CPUs.
US Prices for the RTX cards
The new ray tracing cards are a sign of rising technology being more advanced and more accessible to the consumers. Many can be put away due to high prices but due to a competitive market, prices are actually decreasing. A high price results in realistic graphics and high performance in games, fast video related tasks such as rendering and the ability to use real time ray tracing technology. The new cards give us a glimpse of what to see in the future as ray tracing and even faster tech will be available for consumers and for those in the industry. The large rise in growing technologies is giving tech companies competition to see how will grow more successful.
– Benson Lam
The 100w LED studio flood light with 18x fresnel spot lens is an effective tool in providing both film and photographic solutions. This light gives you full control over its brightness level, flood and spot focus through its digital control panel and adjustable (rotating) lens. This light also comes with a diffusion dome to produce a broader flood light effect. It is power efficient, with a power consumption rate of a 100 watt, and it emits a colour temperature of 56ook daylight. This Light can be mount on any Bowens’ mount and works with Bowen’s accessories. You also get free shipping on this item anywhere in Canada.
The bluetooth speaker with touch lamp is one of our smart home products in Big City Lights. It’s a multi-colour led lamp with built-in speaker. You can play music from the lamp either through bluetooth, auxiliary or a micro SD card. It’s a lovely bedside and study companion. It’s also a pretty light, and can fit right in your bag, so you can take it along with you when you go travelling or camping.
Watch the video below to see it in action.
You can buy it HERE
The Big City Model 1 Shoulder Rig Kit comes fully loaded with all of the essentials to get awesome stabilization, for your shots. The complete kit comes equipped with the shoulder mount, handle grips, an overhead grip, matte box, follow focus ring, and camera plate. There is also an option to just purchase the shoulder rig without the complete kit, which includes, the shoulder mount, grips, and camera plate. The rig is made up of metal, but is extremely lightweight. It is extremely simple to setup and use right out of the box!
This piece of gear is an essential for the arsenal of any aspiring filmmaker, or videographer. It is also a great option budget wise, if you are looking for something to get you stable shots without an expensive gimbal. If you would like to purchase this product, please visit the links down below.
Big City Model 1 Shoulder Rig Kit
This quick video goes over the differences between the classic LED soft box and the LED Bi-Colour soft box.
We compare size, power, features and more, in just one video.
Find out the in’s and out’s of all three Super Panels that we have to offer and how they compare with each other.
Are you thinking of buying a ring light, but you don’t know which one to buy?
Well, at Big City Lights, we have a variety of different ring lights to choose from. So we have made a video explaining the different types of ring lights we have, and their purpose and features. This video talks about 5 different lights, a 12″ Fluorescent, 18″ Fluorescent, 18″ Dimmable Fluorescent, 18″ LED Dimmable, and the 18″ ULTIMATE. Basically, the 12″ ring light is a fluorescent light, that is only recommended for close up shots only (head / shoulders) Next, the 18″ Fluorescent is just like the 12″, but more for a wider shot instead of closeups. Next, the 18″ Dimmable Fluorescent, this light is very similar to the regular 18″, but it also has a dimmer which allows you to turn down the brightness of the light. Next, the 18″ LED Dimmable, this is very similar to the previous 18″ model, but it uses LED technology. This means you don’t have to replace the bulb because it will last you a very long time, as it is also more durable. Finally, the 18″ ULTIMATE Diva, this ring light has the most features out of them all, it comes with a cellphone holder and a mirror. Also, the light has a dimmer and it is bi-colour, which means you can change the colour of the light to a cool white (5600K) to warm white (3200K) or anywhere in between.
To see a more in-depth explanation of each light, and to see them in action, watch the video above.
Current Ring Light Pricing (with stand, all prices in Canadian dollars):
As technology becomes much more advanced every year, it helps companies such as Go Pro to create better action cameras.
Introducing, the Go Pro Hero 5, with it’s release on early October 2016. The Go Pro Hero 5 is a much more improved upgrade comparing to it’s older model, the Go Pro Hero 4. With a similar model to the Hero 4, The Hero 5 has much more features to offer.
First, let’s compare the Hero 4 Black to the Hero 5 Black.
The Hero 5 has it’s own waterproof casing, meaning you don’t need to buy an extra case and it comes with a little more reinforcement. This means, with both cameras naked, the Hero 5 is quite bigger comparing to the Hero 4 without the waterproof case. The waterproof housing can allow the Hero 5 to be submerged unto 33 feet underwater, and can protect the camera against dust and sand. But comparing to the old waterproof case on the Hero 4 (which can go up to 131 feet) it’s relatively better. If you are planning on going below 33 feet with your Hero 5, then you can purchase a “Super Suit Housing” for your Hero 5. This also means that the Hero 5 will weigh a little bit more than the Hero 4 without the waterproof casing:
Hero 5: 4.2 oz (118 grams)
Hero 4 (without case): 3.1 oz (87 grams)
Hero 4 (with case): 5.3 oz (150 grams)
But what makes the Hero 5 a major improvement, is it’s new built in LCD touch screen display. But comparing it to the Hero 4 Silver (which also had an LCD display) the Hero 5 has a much more sharper, brighter and easier display. Also, as it is waterproof without a case, you don’t have that back door panel, which makes it more responsive. This makes it much better when trying to control and adjust your camera’s settings.
The way to control the two cameras are still roughly the same, with three customizable buttons and an LED display in-front (which was improved on the newer model), but now on the Hero 5, you also have a voice activation feature which can be very helpful depending on what you are doing. So if both your hands are occupied, with the voice activation feature of the Hero 5, you can say simple commands such as: “GoPro start recording” or “GoPro take a photo” to control you camera. There is also a waterproof remote that you can purchase to control your camera from a far distance.
The Hero 5 has also a much more improved video shooting features compared to the Hero 4 Black, even though both can record 4K at 30 fps, 1080p at 120 fps and 720p at 240 fps, the Hero 5 won’t eat up all that memory card space compared to the Hero 4. Also with it’s new video stabilization feature, which can reduce the shakiness of your video. It also comes with more linear FOV, which removes the fish-eyed view of the camera. Both shoot in NTSC or PAL formats and both produce H.264 MP4 videos.
The Hero5 also adds three new options that can be useful:
Both models have an image size of 12MP (4000 x 3000 pixels) and can take similar images, but the Hero 5 can produce much more clearer images and can be seen when viewed at 100%. The Hero 5 comes with HDR, GoPro calls it WDR for Wide Dynamic Range and it aims to capture extra details in shadows and highlights. Another thing is; RAW image format. Shooting in RAW mode have pros and cons. The main reason why, is for the for better image quality. The downside of shooting in the GoPro’s RAW format is that the images need to process and convert to JPG before sharing.
Like the older models, the Hero 5 has the ability to take time lapse of images and video. The first is old way of shooting a sequence of images, downloading those images from the memory card, and bringing them together on your computer using a separate software. Like previous models, the available intervals are 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 30, and 60 seconds. You can also have the camera compile the video to create a time-lapse video. The new model adds a new option, and it’s a lower resolution which is 1080p. The reason for this, is it has been added is to make it easier to share the time-lapse video without dealing with the massive files from 2.7K or 4K video. With the smaller 1080p video it’s much quicker to take the footage from your camera, to your phone then upload straight to social media.
The Hero 5 can also take external microphones, but unlike the old model you’ll need the new USB-C mic adapter.
The battery life on the Hero 5 has improved and is using a higher capacity battery at (1220mAh vs. 1160mAh). With the new USB-C port, the Hero 5 allows fast charging. There is a slight problem though, the new USB-C port isn’t USB 3.0 it still uses a USB 2.0 for data transferring. Which means, you can’t have that fast transferring speed. If you’re using an external microphone, you’ll need a new mic adapter. It also has a micro HDMI (Type D) socket to connect to a TV or display device.
There are a bunch of things that have also been tweaked and improved, which are:
It automatically detects which way is up.
You can turn off the LEDs selectively.
The longest auto-off setting is now 15 minutes rather than 5 minutes.
In the end, the GoPro Hero 5 can do what the previous models can do, but with a lot more features and higher quality camera. As for now, the Hero 5 is still very limited to new accessories, unlike the Hero 4. Overtime though, that will change because of how advanced technology can become.
If you’re looking to buy a GoPro Hero 5, you can find them at various different websites and stores such as Amazon, Sport Chek, Best Buy etc. with a price of: $530.00 CAD
– Carlos Jochico, Big City Lights