News From Here & There

Canon EOS-1D X First Look Video | Dan Chung | DSLRNewsShooter
At London's Canon Pro Solutions show Dan spoke to Canon's Mike Burnhill about the EOS-1D X. He's posted a 14 minute video of the demo/interview which is well worth watching.
They discuss pretty much all the - hopefully - promising improvements in this new camera:
  • There's some discussion of the new compression option (ALL-I and IPB) All-I makes every frame a key frame (to display the frame, software won't need to render the other frames.) This improves editing performance, but the file size is about three times the size of IPB. IPB is an updated version of the compression used in the previous cameras.
  • Rolling Shutter should be reduced because they're doing a faster read-out from the chip (which was added to improve the frames-per-second still image capture.)
  • Aliasing and moirĂ© reduced because it's not line skipping.
  • HDMI output isn't clean, but it doesn't drop-out when you go to record. Dan asks a rather sticky question about why that is, and the guy sort of suggests that it would compete with the video division!
  • There's a dedicated button for zoom magnification.
  • They try it with a Zacuto EVF and a Cinematics USB follow-focus (both work fine).
  • Official footage probably won't be out until next month or later.
There's also an interesting discussion about why they pre-announced the camera so early:
"The whole reason we've announced the camera so early is people complain we don't give a roadmap, that we just bring out cameras straight away....so this is the first time we're kind of announcing a camera as a roadmap, and we're allowing people a first hands on. So the product's still being worked on, some of the features will change perhaps."
Business 101: Pre-announcing products usually kills sales of existing products. You only pre-announce if 1) you don't already make something that competes with what you're announcing, or 2) you're concerned about existing customers jumping to another vendors products. I wonder whether they really want to provide a roadmap, or delays in production forced them to show their hand before they could ship the camera.



Think You Don’t Need to Focus? Think Again | Chase Jarvis | Blog
A cheeky little post about the Lytro camera which allows focusing after-the-fact, noting that just because the camera no longer requires you to focus, doesn't mean that you don't have to focus on other things...like content.



Lighting Tip | David Kruta| Twitter
David posted an interesting tip on Twitter for creating a "no light" effect:
Lighting for that "no light" look using what I call HannaLights. Xmas lights taped to bounce board  pic.twitter.com/ltpIQYVb


Quick Links


Boston SuperMeet
Today is Boston's Second Annual SuperMeet, and I'm off to the event in a bit. Last year I had planned to post some live reports from the event, but it turned out to be too difficult, so I'll probably just write something up tomorrow.
Have a great day everyone!






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sony GV-D200 review

Image
Sony GV-D200 I've been using a Sony GV-D200 deck to transfer old Video8 and Hi8 tapes. Some of these tapes are over twenty years old, and no longer having a Hi8 camcorder that worked I was concerned that if I didn't do something about transferring them to a more modern format soon, I might never be able to. While Sony no longer make camcorders that use these tapes - that I know of - Sony does still sell the GV-D200 deck (or Video Walkman, as it's sometimes labelled.) They also offer the GV-D800, which is almost identical but adds a small LCD screen for about $120 more. I didn't think I'd need a screen since I was using this to capture to the computer, but you will need an external monitor when you first set it up. Physically, the device is small. At 5 7/8" wide, 5 3/8" deep and 2" high, it's the smallest video deck I've encountered. I used to have a Video8 deck that I thought was small; and it was twice as deep and twice as high. The t
Read more

Response: Which iPhone to Get?

Image
In response to my iPhone musings, I got the following reader email which actually sums up a lot of my second and third thoughts too: You might have a point about the fancier camera, but otherwise I would buy the smaller model. Its screen is about the same size as that of my Nexus 4, and I don't feel at all like it limits me with a too-small screen. But I do sometimes stretch to get my thumb the reach to the other corner of the screen. It is plenty big for a phone. A phone is a pocket thing. (Well, in my case it lives an ancient REI soft sunglasses case that I have on my belt.) Ubiquitous, handy, convenient, almost always with me. Small is crucial for all of that. Certainly a large screen is cool, but you need a place to put it: don't break a fundamental feature of a pocket phone by getting too big. That is what your small tablet is for. I have my phone with me almost always. I have my Nexus 7 tablet with me nearly as much. The bigger screen is great, yet it fits in some
Read more

Should you buy the Sony NEX-FS100 Kit Lens?

Image
The Sony NEX-FS100 is available in two configurations: B & H : NEX-FS100U Camcorder only $4,999 B & H : NEX-FS100U (with 18-200mm lens) $5,599 But what does that extra $600 get you? It get's you this: Sony 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Zoom Lens for NEX Camera This lens is also available separately for $799.99, so at $200 off you'd think everyone would be jumping on it. But not so fast... In his article about switching from the Canon 5D Mark II to the Sony NEX-FS100 , Paul Antico  at Need Creative says of the kit lens: 7) Its 18-200 F3.6-6.3 kit lens absolutely sucks and should be avoided (thankfully, you can order it without one) [ 1 ] But is it that bad? At B & H 's site, 43 reviews give it an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars. That's not a bad rating, though many of these people are using it for stills, and the most common complaint noted is how large and heavy it is. Of course this feeling of size would be exacerbated when you put it on a tiny camera
Read more