Notes On Video

Canon has a new version of it's Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS lens coming (the Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS II ). Ronald Martinsen already has a short post up about his experiences with a pre-release version at the Olympics, describing it as possibly Canon's greatest lens. Interestingly, Ira Fried at CNET got to play with one briefly at the Olympics too. Unfortunately, there's not much information to be found, other than Canon and Nikon is making available a lot of equipment. A great looking lens, the only downside is that it's going to cost about $2,200. Ronald A. Martinsen's Photography Blog: First Look: Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS II - Perhaps Canon's greatest lens! CNET: Olympic notebook: Canon, Nikon get in the picture Canon: 70-200 f/2.8L IS II

My almost 10 year old HDTV has one minor problem; it only has two component video inputs. Okay, there's other issues; it doesn't have an HDMI input and it's a 36 inch tube set, so it weighs a ton, but that's beside the point. The two component inputs weren't a problem until I got an HD cable box when I switched to Verizon last month. Prior to that I had a standard cable box, a Blu-ray player and an Apple TV hooked up, but the HD cable box makes three devices, and so I need either a component video switch, or to buy a new TV. My initial search has turned up three choices, none of which I'm certain about: StarTech's 4 to 1 Audio/Video Switch This one is both the cheapest, and also has audio and video inputs for four devices, which is appealing. And it's only $29.99, which is both amazing and troubling at the same time. I have cables that cost that much, so it's got me wondering if it might not be a bit too "cheap?" It's rated at 3...

Not a huge surprise, but Philip Bloom basically likes the T2i . It doesn't have the build quality, and some of the features of the 7D, but the video quality seems to be practically identical. And Orange Video Productions has a comparison/perspective on the T2i vs. 7D : So. Am I going to toss 7D away and get another T2i? NO. Am I going to return T2i and get another 7D? NO. I would still feel more comfortable having 7D around, but I see absoutely no reason not to buy T2i as your first HDSLR camera (for the video use, of course). I personally like 7D because it's slightly bigger, heavier and weather-resistant.

" Job Security " won the first round of the Story Beyond The Still competition (remember that this is Chapter 2, as Chapter 1 kicked off the competition.) And wow! It's pretty unbelievable. They put a huge amount of effort into producing this video (where'd they get the prop chest?!) This really poses a challenge for the next round contestants; if I was thinking of entering the competition now I think I'd be even more intimidated! Get to work, you have until March 22nd to enter the next round! Job Security from Runner Runner on Vimeo . Here are the credits for Chapter 2: Credits for "Job Security" from Runner Runner on Vimeo .

The Wednesday, March 24th BOSFCPUG workflow mixer will be held at the New England Institute of Art at 303 Boylston Street in Brookline, MA. Topics include: Boston's first public viewing of a new super-secret software tool from Intelligent Assistance Founder Philip Hodgetts that will revolutionize media tracking in Final Cut Pro; and David Bigelow and David Gutter of Gray Matter Entertainment, and special guest Hayes McCarthy of Hasbro's Cakemix Studios discuss RED Commercial Production and Post at Hasbro's Cakemix Studios . The registration link was supposed to go live yesterday, but at the moment it is still dormant.

AppleTV support was dropped from Boxee when they introduced the beta in December, but now support is back .

At Cnet there is a video - really a slideshow - showing what it's like at YouTube, with various employees talking about the company. I'm not sure if it's an ad or a news report, but if you're curious what their office space is like, take a look (no pictures of the server farm though.) CNET: So stupendous living in this YouTube

Canonrumors.com seems to think so. They also seem to think that in addition to 24p/25p , it will have Live Histogram for Video and Sound Level Control . I'm sure all those features will be welcome, though I'll be shocked if the latter is true; they didn't put either of these features into the 7D or T2i, so unless they are trying to make the 5D Mark II into a "professional" model versus the other two, it would seem odd to add this feature and not do it for those cameras as well....( wait for the internet groundswell of conspiracy theories! ) They also mention that there's no word on 60fps (which would be 720p) but I'm pretty sure the consensus a few weeks back was that 60fps would not be in this release. UPDATE: A screenshot from a Canon presentation suggests that those features (Histogram and Sound Level Control) are indeed coming! Interestingly, shutter and aperture priority modes, as well as a change in audio sampling from 44.1 to 48 KHz is al...

Blockbuster just announced a $435 million loss . It seems that people have moved to Netflix and/or online. Certainly, they aren't buying DVDs .

Greg Sandoval at CNet thinks it's time for Apple to get serious about TV (or more accurately, time to fix the Apple TV .) With Wal-Mart acquiring Vudu , the stakes have been raised. Of course, this is nothing new. There have been complaints about the Apple TV since it's introduction, and more recently a rumor that Apple is looking at upgrading the Apple TV OS to something more like the iPhone OS. While this might happen, I don't think it will happen soon. Apple is going to be busy focusing on the iPad (and iPhone ) and probably hoping to sell more video to iPad users.I don't see investing in the Apple TV being a priority for them. And believe me, I wish they would, since I own an Apple TV . CNET: Time for Apple to get serious about video

Filmmaker, DP and producer Nino Leitner has a blog, and his latest post is about his impressions of the Canon 550D (T2i). A short film he shot called "February" is included. It was shot using a pre-production 550D that shows lots of selective focus fun; note that it was shot using the "flattened" picture preset and there's been no color grading, so the colors are not as punchy as you might see in other clips. The article is particularly interesting because he had considered getting a 5D Mark II over a year ago, but ended up buying a Sony EX3. I went with the EX3 and have never regretted that choice. [...] Nevertheless, I always – of course, like everybody else – was striving for a filmic look on some jobs and projects. At that point already I decided that a DoF adapter like e.g. a Letus wasn’t the way to go for me. I don’t want to loose more light and is an overall too bulky setup to use on a regular basis. [...] To make a long story short: I decided a...

From Still to Motion : A photographer's guide to creating video with your DSLR  is conducting a poll on their  Facebook page to choose which sample chapter to post from their book. Find the poll here: We'd like to share a free sample chapter from the book. Which one would you like to see most? You can Pre-order from Amazon.com for $31.49: From Still to Motion: A photographer's guide to creating video with your DSLR (Voices That Matter)

At his A PhotoEditor site Rob Haggart interviews Vincent Laforet about his "his transition from newspaper photographer to Hollywood commercial director" and working with HDSLRs. Compared to RED camera for example, an HDSLR production can come in at half to a third of the price. Because of the weight of the camera, it’s sensitivity to light, and the support systems– you don’t need as large of a crew and it’s also significantly faster to set up and take down (again related to weight and size). And, it can look better in certain instances. These cameras shoot on a full frame sensor and they are astonishing in low light. Nothing comes close to it in low light. Another key factor is that these cameras can better take advantage of available light like few other cameras can – this means that you don’t necessarily have to bring in cube trucks full of lighting equipment in some instances – and obviously lighting is not only a big line item in any budget – it also contributes to more...

Is also in stock at  B&H Photo , ($500 rebate applies until 3/31).

Adam Welz has a blog on NXCAM (and the HXR-NX5U.) He's posted about his experiences getting the camera upgraded to support PAL formats (25p, 50i). He notes two issues; The camera reboots when you switch modes You have to reformat the media to record in the different modes Not deal breakers, but something you might like to know. WorldCam upgrade of HXR-NX5U: Some limitations encountered

Well, since I posted about the HXR-NX5U, I guess I should add that the Canon T2i SLR Kit w/ EF-S/18-55 IS is also in stock at B&H (but not the body alone.) It's not at Amazon yet... if I didn't have the 7D, I'd be all over this camera.

Just got an email notification that the Sony HXR-NX5U is in stock at B&H Photo , and as of right now it is still listed "In Stock". Now, if only I could afford one...

Five finalists have been chosen for the first round (but second chapter) of "The Story Beyond The Still" competition, and you can vote. I must admit, I didn't even realize there was a public voting phase. Vote quickly; on February 26th, the winner will be announced and a new still will guide the way for Chapter 3 entries.

Just got an email about upcoming events at Rule | Boston Camera (though they aren't up on their events page .) Mar 3 10am-12pm Shoot Edit, Deliver with Apple, Matrox and Panasonic Mar 10 10am-12pm Green is Good: Integrating Environmentally-conscious Lights Into Your TV Studio Design Mar 17 10am-12pm Updated & New: Sony XDCAM & NXCAM Mar 24 10am-12pm Camera Assistant Workshop Mar 31 10am-12pm Acquire, Edit and Convert with AJA's Ki Pro, Io Express and mini-converters

About 25 percent of ABC's news division will be affected by planned buyouts and layoffs .

Philip Johnston at HD Warrior has an HXR-NX5, and though he hasn't been able to do a real review, he has posted his initial thoughts . While he's critical of the rotary shutter button, and the over-cranking isn't up to much, but in general he loves it: I did not know what to expect with this camcorder but after Mondays shoot looking at the pictures side by side with the PMW-350 I am still reeling from shock at the fantastic pictures this camcorder produces compared to the 350. In other words and I can’t quite believe I am writing this but there is little to choose between the two cameras.

The From Still to Motion's facebook page had a status update today that was intriguing “ Listening to SyFy Caprica podcast... just heard them say that many of the sequences are shot using DSLR with a Lensbaby Composer ." I’d never even heard of Caprica , but I did a search and found the podcasts . Caprica seems to be something to do with Battlestar Galactica (sequel or prequel or something) I’m really not sure.* But at the moment there’s three podcasts up for Episode's 102, 103 and 104, and even if you’re not that interested in the show - I haven't seen it yet! - anyone interested in video production will find them worth listening to. They’re really like DVD director’s commentaries, except that they are a podcast. They feature the executive producer (and others) watching the episode and talking about how it was done and the issues they dealt with. I’ve listened to part of Episode 102 and all of Episode 104’s podcast, and I'm intrigued. The first podcast (E...

Apple and Matrox are conducting a video editing workflow presentation at Rule Broadcast Systems, Boston on March 3rd. An Apple representative will demonstrate Final Cut Pro and Compressor and Matrox will showcase H.264 encoding accelerators and audio/video input/output devices. Register: Shoot, Edit, Deliver - 2010 Matrox Road Tour March 3, 10:00AM - 12:00PM, Rule Broadcast Systems, Boston

Sony pushing for consumer 3D cameras Put this under the category of "hardly surprising," but DP Review is reporting that Masashi ‘Tiger’ Imamura, President of Sony’s Personal Imaging and Sound Business group told them Sony is pushing to produce a 3D digital camera. A still camera? A video camera? Consumer or professional? Nobody knows...I'm just hoping that if I lie down, this whole 3D thing will blow over... Canon EOS-1D Mark IV review DP Review also has it's full review up for the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV . Interestingly, they aren't too happy about it's video functionality. While they say "the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV offers Canon's most sophisticated implementation to date," the video formats the camera supports seem to be the same as those of the Canon 7D . Worse, the EOS-1D lacks the dedicated video mode button of the 7D and functions more like the 5D Mark III. To shoot video you first go to Settings to set up the Live View mode: Once thi...

Jan Ozer at StreamingMedia.com has put together their annual look at the features and output of video encoding tools in four categories: free, standalone, enterprise-grade, and hardware co-processor. There's some interesting notes, including another bash at the quality of Apple's H.264 compressor (it seems they really need to do something about that): In terms of [H.264] quality, codec vendors MainConcept (Adobe Media Encoder, Sorenson Squeeze, Rhozet Carbon Coder) and Dicas (Telestream Episode) have been doing an interesting dance for the past couple of years. Specifically, first, MainConcept would pull ahead, then Dicas would catch up, then MainConcept would pull ahead again. In June 2009, the codecs were about even; by the end of the year, MainConcept was ahead again. That said, while it’s noticeable in side-by-side comparisons, the difference isn’t commercially relevant because viewers rarely see side-by-side comparisons. On the other hand, Apple’s codec is a clear s...

Salon.com has another installment from Raymond De Felitta, the writer/director of the upcoming City Island , on his experiences in getting the film made. In the latest installment, he writes about casting problems, and how getting the first thing you ask for can sometimes be a problem: Ultimately, though, I began to sense that the problem was one of expectations. You see, nobody really expects the first person you offer a movie to take it. Once Michael said yes, I think my producers began to wonder along these lines: "If the first guy who we tried loves it, maybe we can get..." And the names start swirling about: De Niro! Bruce Willis! John Travolta! You name it. It's interesting to read through to the - totally expected - conclusion.

I've been experimenting with timelapse sequences , taken using a DSLR, and got pretty good results. The only problem is some noticeable flicker. After some searching, I found a filter plug-in called GBDeflicker that seems to do a good job of removing - or minimizing - the flicker. And the price is reasonable too: just $79.00 That's the good news. The bad news is that it doesn't work with Final Cut Pro , it only works with Adobe After Effects , Premiere Pro , and Premiere Elements . And I don't have a recent (i.e. HD capable) version of any of those. Out of curiosity, I downloaded the 30-day trial of Premiere Element s, and the 15-day trial of the software of GBDeflicker and gave it a run through. If you look at the two examples (before and after) you can see that the flicker has been reduced noticeably - and this is only with the standard settings, I didn't try experimenting with the parameters. Now I have to figure out if I want to get one of those progr...

I just worked on a studio show this past Friday where I'm pretty sure the director would have liked to have replaced some of the cameramen, and now it seems it's possible to replace them.....and maybe the director as well! Dubbed the Autonomous Production of Images based on Distributed and Intelligent Sensing (APIDIS), the system combines the video stream from several cameras, says Christophe De Vleeschouwer at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), in Belgium. Tracking a ball across various video streams is relatively easy, says De Vleeschouwer, but viewers also want to see what the players are up to. So APIDIS aims for a shot of the action that is a compromise between focusing on the ball and wider views of the pitch by tracking the ball and players simultaneously, calculating which camera captures the most detai While this may be appealing for sports, I'm not sure if this will work so well for dramatic production. The idea of having multiple views and then having...