Notes On Video

The authors of From Still to Motion: A photographer's guide to creating video with your DSLR  -- Richard Harrington, Robbie Carman, Matt Gottshalk, and James Ball -- held a webcast last week. I had hoped to catch it, but was unable to. Fortunately, they've now put up a recording of the webcast . Unfortunately, it uses a special webex player which seems to take it's time to load and sucks up resources, but at it's free.

Canonrumors.com seems to think so .

Peter Cote at the DSLR Show does a short piece on Rolling Shutter and mentions a couple of plug-ins that can be used to try and remove the problem from footage after-the-fact. Rolling Shutter from The Foundry looks good, but it's $500. Meanwhile Load & Lock X from CoreMelt, which is a motion reduction filter, evidently also works for Rolling Shutter, and only costs $149. They also have a 15-day trial available.

Henry Corra has been making documentaries for twenty-five years, producing in that time a total of twelve feature documentaries and over twenty shorts. In college he saw the movie “ Grey Gardens ,” made by the Maysles brothers , which he describes as “the most extraordinary odd and beautiful film I had ever seen in my life.” Inspired by their work, when he got to New York in 1980 he went to Maysles Films and asked them for a job and they hired him. Corra's latest film, the “ Disappearance of McKinley Nolan ,” had a sneak peak at the Independent Film Festival of Boston,  where he spoke at the Discussing the Documentary panel. The film will have its proper world premiere in June, but Henry was excited to be screening the film for an audience: “It’s amazing the first time you see your movie through an audiences eyes, it’s somebody else’s movie all of a sudden, you really can step back and look at it differently.” Rebecca Richman Cohen and Henry Corra The idea for the movi...

I'm not usually one to pick apart production values in commercials - heaven's that could be a blog all it's own - but this Rhapsody commercial was playing a lot this week, and every time I heard it the audio really bothered me. Listen to the woman, and then to the guy. Notice how at the beginning he sounds like he's in a tin can or something, while she sounds very different (and they're in the same room!) And he doesn't sound consistent either: listen to the line " But how much is that going to cost us? " then his next line " But how much per song? " He sounds completely different. Admittedly, in the first line he is further away from the camera than the second line, but it's in a room in a house. You don't expect a persons voice to sound that different as the camera cuts from one perspective to another! Am I over thinking things?

I was doing some work on a small project for a client in Flash the other day. I’ve done Flash work for him before, and he had called up about a month ago and said he needed something in Flash so that he could put it into a PowerPoint presentation, and I didn’t question it. The work primarily involved adding captions and highlighting to a stock video sequence, though there was also some adjustment in frame rate and some other graphical bits and pieces added. It took about an hour, went together okay, and the client was happy. Job done. He called again last week saying he needed some more changes, which included adding another clip at the end of the sequence. This required some futzing, as the two clips played at different speeds, were different sizes, and didn’t smoothly transition from one to the other. Getting a nice transition in Flash was a bit of a struggle. It was only after we were wrapping it up that it occurred to me that I’d been using the wrong tool from the beginning....

Adobe and Apple continue to duke it out over Flash , with Adobe evidently complaining to the FTC and/or the Department of Justice , but incase you're worrying that this may spell trouble for other things (i.e. Adobe software on the Mac) MacWorld reckons that you have nothing to worry about; Captivate is coming to the Mac ! But I'm not sure that current announcements should be taken as indicators of future actions and intentions... Meanwhile, Opera's product analyst Phillip Grønvold tells TechRadar that Flash is important for interactive content, but shouldn't be used to playback video: But flash as a video container makes very little sense for CPU, WiFi battery usage etcetera – you can cook an egg on [devices] once you start running Flash on them and there's a reason for that. Hear Hear! I hate how toasty my Mac gets when playing YouTube video... TechRadar : Opera joins in Jobs v Flash argument

The footage from the Vincent Laforet's creativeLive 3-day workshop is now available . Vincent comments on the class on his blog .

At Wide Open Camera Jason Wawro has a short video and article about the Marshall LCD70XP-3GSDI 7" monitor, a cool little beasty that will run you $1,200 or more depending upon the options. An external monitor is an excellent alternative - or even adjunct - to the optical viewfinder options for SLR cameras, and have both plus points and minuses: they are easier to work with in many situations; you don't have to have your eye right behind the back of the camera while shooting extra features like screen markers, false color and peaking can be useful BUT they are large (and require some kind of mount or rig to attach it to) expensive and the HDMI port on most SLRs isn't the securest way to connect a monitor in the field. WideOpenCamera : Marshall Monitor Review

I bought the iPad Camera Connection Kit because I'd heard it allowed you to connect a regular USB keyboard to the iPad , as well as USB microphones. Also, I was curious what support there was for video cameras. I ordered the Kit from Apple ($29) as it wasn't available anywhere else. The quoted deliver was 2-3 weeks, though it arrived in about a week and a half. The Kit has two parts; a USB connector and an SD card connector. So far I've used the SD card reader (the USB experiments are next!) I'm not going to focus on still camera support (there are other reviews that go into this at length) though I will say that my experiment with an 8mp camera with JPEG images went very smoothly. The still camera I used - a three year-old Canon PowerShot - shoots 640 x 480 video. The iPad Photo application recognized the video, and let me select it and import it. I could also play the video without trouble, and move back and forth within a clip very easily: clicking on the tim...

This is the second part of the discussion from the panel Discussing the Documentary panel held at the recent Independent Film Festival of Boston .  Rebecca Richman Cohen worked in film, went to law school - interning at the special court for Sierra Leone - and ended up going back to filmmaking. Her first film, “ War Don Don ”  tells the story of the trial of Issa Sesay, one of those tried for war crimes in Sierra Leone. Prior to going to law school, Rebecca had meet a director who went to Sierra Leone and interviewed one of the war criminals. While watching the footage she had a visceral reaction: “Oh my God,” she remembers thinking. “I can’t believe you met this person; he must be evil. Did you shake his hand? What was that experience like? This is someone that’s guilty of the worst crimes in the world….” The turning point came for her while at law school and working as a public defender in the South Bronx,  with clients who - as she says - were invol...

When I first heard about the 360 panorama feature of the new Sony MHS-PM5K Bloggie, I was very intrigued . But the local Sony store didn't get one in right away, and Amazon didn't have them  for ages, and I really kind of forgot about them. So I was a bit surprised when today someone showed me a video on YouTube taken with the camera. I guess I'm glad I didn't get one; it's an interesting effect, but the wavy effect that seems to be going on is way too distracting. Pity. You can see the unconverted video here .

Marshall Levy reports that Sony has a firmware fix for the problems with Buffer Overflow when doing dual recording, as well as the "Error writing to external memory" error on the HXR-NX5U. Unfortunately, the camera has to be sent in to Sony - You must complete a RMA form and send in your cameras to Sony in Teaneck, NJ. Call Sony support for complete details and the required form. You pay for the shipping to them, they pay it when going back to your location. DVInfo: NX5U Buffer Error w/ Camera & FMU128 | Solution for Firmware Update

Right now Amazon is offering the Sony HDR-AX2000 at $3,329.00. It's actually Sold by HCost and fulfilled by Amazon (so you still get free shipping from Amazon.) I'm not sure what this does to Amazon's return policies etc. Interestingly, Amazon themselves is offering it for $3,459.02 Amazon : Sony HDR-AX2000

Apple seems to add Final Cut  plug-ins to their site in bunches, rather than as they come available. Here's the latest additions: The Distortion-collection 4.013 distortion video effect plugins. (Demo) Atomic Fusion 1.0 An Avid, P2 and Ikegami MXF importer for Final Cut Pro. (Demo) Raylight 3.0 Instant Panasonic P2 MXF editing with Final Cut Pro without log and transfer. (Demo) FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2.4 [NOTE This is not an Apple update] A utility pack designed to keep your Final Cut Studio machine running at optimal performance and help resolve problems when they arise. (Demo) Preference Manager 2.0.6 Allows you to trash, lock, backup and restore Final Cut Studio preference files. (Freeware) Loader 2.0 Loader is a companion application for Final Cut Pro that streamlines the process of importing media. (Demo) Final Print 1.8.4 Print Final Cut Pro bins and markers with columns for thumbnail, timecode and comment information. (Demo) TitleExchange 1.9.35 A unique tool...

YouTube to let partners charge rentals for videos YouTube engineers are working on a self-service method that will give moviemakers the ability to upload and provide their streaming content for rent. The service will be available only to YouTube Partners. OnlineMediaDaily: YouTube Developing Self-Serve Rental Model Cnet: YouTube will let some users charge for rentals Mashable.com: YouTube to Let Partners Charge Rental Fees for Video That whole H.264 licensing thing Nilay Patel at Engadget takes a look at the whole H.264 licensing thing, and answers some of the myths and rumors; will it cost you money? is it okay to use your video camera? The answers are pretty much the same as the summary here . Engadget: Know Your Rights: H.264, patent licensing, and you Microfilmmaker.com I only just came across this website, though it seems it's been going for a while. Interesting articles in their latest issue include: Film Promotion 2.0: Getting Your Film Out Into The Wor...

This past weekend, Vincent Laforet spent 3 days giving an HDDSLR cinema workshop hosted by creativeLIVE . You could watch it for free, or if you missed it, you can "purchase" a copy for $129 (it was $79 up until the end of the course.) The format was pretty simple; Vincent in a room with about eight students, lecturing, demoing and also having them do things while it was all beamed out on the internet. I managed to catch a few hours here and there through the weekend, and it actually looked to be a really informative event. Unfortunately, several times the video dropped out; at one point I was "listening" to an explanation of using Apple Color , and you really need to see that! When it worked - and they had several thousand people viewing at once most of the time - the video and sound quality was very good, so the recorded program should be great. If you're just starting out making videos - even if you aren't interested in HDDSLR movie making - you...

Consumer Reports on 3D TVs; don't buy one yet Consumer Reports took a look at two Samsung LCD sets and a Panasonic plasma TV with 3D capability and were impressed. They say that the 3D images had excellent depth, color, and high-def details, creating a compelling 3D picture as good as a movie theater. However, for consumers who are satisfied with their current HDTV and aren't burning to have the latest technology, Consumer Reports recommends waiting to buy. The price of 3DTVs and Blu-ray players is likely to drop, and there should be more 3D content to watch in time. Panasonic's set performed better than the Samsung: The Samsung LCD TVs displayed subtle ghosting of 3D images to varying degrees in different scenes. Such ghosting, technically called "crosstalk," indicates that the images for each eye aren't being kept completely separate, as they should be. On the Samsung 7000 model, testers also noticed some cloudiness caused by uneven backlighting in da...

You might think I put this video up because I thought it would encourage you to make your own camera shoulder rig. As if .... No, you'll have to be pretty proficient in wood working to make something half as good as this. But Jonathan (or is it Clifford?) Bergqvist made a nice like video of his father building the rig, which is worth checking out. Note the very cool mechanism for pulling focus! DIY DSLR Wooden Shoulder Rig from Clifford Bergqvist on Vimeo .

Yesterday, when posting a link to Philip Bloom's review of the new Zacuto viewfinders , I mentioned the lower priced LCDVF viewfinder . In the video below, Adam Weiss gives a short show & tell on the device at Sunday's  Boston Media Makers :

Hmmm....so Canonrumors.com seems to be getting pretty confident that the 60D will be announced within a month, which means that all those thinking of getting a T2i or 7D might probably be having second thoughts. And if you don't need the camera right now, then it might be a good idea to wait. I say that mainly because we don't know what features it might have. Sure, it'll probably have a lot of the features we're familiar with in the T2i and 7D. And the body will be not quite as weatherproof as the 7D, but more solid than the T2i, with a feature set somewhere inbetween. But what if they add something unexpected; like full 1080 out the HDMI port with no red dot? Or something interesting like that? Ehhh, we're probably dreaming.

Episode 16 of the Digital Convergence podcast interviews Gale Tattersall - Cinematographer, Director of Photography for FOX's House MD Gale discusses the reasons why they chose to use video DSLR's to shoot the season finale and his experience and impression of using these cameras. He also talks about the challenges of filming episodic television. Gale also talks about how video DSLR cameras have democratized cinematic filmaking - making it possible for many on limited budgets to realize their dreams to create a cinematic film - assuming they have the skill to tell a good story!

Cretique has put together a collection of 12 Beautiful Videos Shot with the Canon 550d/Rebel T2i . Includes videos by Philip Bloom, Dick Chua and Jeremy DePoyster. And if you're interested in the Canon 7D , Cinema5D has “ The Chrysalis ” by Jeremy Ian Thomas, which was shot using the 7D . There's also an interview with the director . Zeiss on Bokeh Bokeh is a term used to describe the quality of the blur produced by lenses in the out-of-focus area of an image. The quality of the lens, as well as the shape of the aperture greatly affect this effect, and can produce pleasing blurs or distracting shapes. (Generally, the large number of aperture blades, generally the more pleasing the results produced.) Zeiss has some articles on Bokeh , including a PDF : Depth of Field and Bokeh Zeiss : Nine rounded iris blades guarantee images with a harmonic bokeh Canon G1 in space This is from last year, but I hadn't seen it before and thought it was fun! Astronaut and STS-1...

You can watch a short " Behind-the-Scenes " video of a shoot for a Mercedes-Benz commercial done with two RED cameras in a Lightspeed's DepthQ Stereoscopic rig . Some stills have been posted on Flickr to. YourTube : Mercedes 3D - Behind the Scenes Video Flickr : Mercedes 3D Menwhile, Roger Ebert has written an "I Hate" 3D article for Newsweek. At least he's consistent .

Last week I came across a video piece on The Boston Globe site that I was so taken with that I had to find out more about it. It was produced by Globe photographer Dina Rudick, and Dina was gracious enough to let me interview her about her work. Dina Rudick has been working as a photographer at The Boston Globe for eight years. Four years ago, when things were already starting to change at the Globe , she began thinking about what might be next in her career. “I’ve always been blown away by putting images and sound together” she says, and though the paper was initially uninterested, she bought a video camera and started playing with iMovie . A year later she’d switched to Final Cut , and the Globe sent her to a television news workshop, “It wasn’t actually what I wanted to do, but was really excellent for learning the visual vocabulary. It’s the opposite of shooting stills.” She then trained the rest of the staff. Haiti: A Globe journal from Dina Rudick on Vimeo . Over the...

Philip gives his opinion of the new Zacuto Z-Finer Pro 2.5x  ($375) and Pro 3x ($375) and the new Junior  (about $250). He likes the Pro 2.5x and 3x, and seems to prefer the 3x, though he says it's very close and he likes the 2.5x for some things (the number refers to the magnification.) He particularly likes the new anti-fog glass on these models. He doesn't like the Junior as much however, particularly disliking the mounting frame, and thinks that pretty much everyone should get one of the Pro models. For those looking for a really cheap alternative, today I saw (and tried) the LCDVF viewfinder , which is $180. It attaches using small magnets and, like the Junior, does not have a diopter, so it isn't much use to me, but if you're looking for a viewfinder viewer at rock-bottom prices, this may be it. Philip Bloom : Review of new Zacuto Z-Finders

Adam Weiss was riding the Boston T when there was a minor emergency. Grabbing some video with his phone, he uploaded it to YouTube and it was on the local TV news within an hour later - much to his surprise! He tells the tale at The Boston Media Makers meeting, May 2nd 2010.

Engadget has a picture of what they are told is a prototype EX3 3D camcorder. They don't have any other information about it. It's hardly surprising that Sony is up to something like this; I actually thought they might announce something at NAB. At a lecture a couple of months ago, a Sony rep actually talked about a 3D camera they were developing - though he wasn't saying there was any product coming - and he showed a picture, but it wasn't this camera. Don't forget that the EX3 has a bayonet lens mount; maybe this is a 3D lens unit that simply plugs into the EX3? [ UPDATE ] It's surely an early prototype; if Sony was close to a real product, it surely would have been shown at NAB. Also, it's been pointed out that this camera is missing a viewfinder; though a regular viewfinder may not work very well with this.