Notes On Video

FS100, 5D MKII, & AF100 Depth of Field Comparison | Cinescopophilia Magnanimous Media from Chicago have put together a DoF comparison for the Sony NEX-FS100 , Panasonic AF100 , and Canon 5D MKII using the same two lenses; a Canon 24-70mm and 70-200mm L-Series. As expected, the 5D has the shallowest DoF and the AF100 the widest. 3D Haters Beware: Peeking at a 3D Future with the JVC GS-TD1 Twin-lens Camcorder | Zack Lieberman | NoFilmSchool Zack is aware that there are a lot of 3D haters out there, and seems to spend half of this article alternately saying that's okay to be that way, but 3D is real cool. Either way, he got to spend some time with the 3D JVC GS-TD1 camcorder [B & H $1,699], and really liked it. He's also at work on his feature film debut, which will be shot in 3D. Shooting 3D takes some getting used to; while I’m steadily learning, I definitely wouldn’t call myself truly skilled. That said, the camera makes it as easy as possible and has grea...

It's dated September 12, 2011 on their website, so it's unclear if they entered a time warp or accidentally pre-released an announcement, but Samyang has posted a press release for their upcoming 24mm f/1.4 lens . There have been rumors about this lens for the past couple of months, and their 35mm f/1.4 (sold under different brand names) has received many favorable reviews, so this should be an interesting lens! No firm ship date or price yet. September 12, 2011 Samyang 24mm f/1.4 ED AS UMC is coming. Samyang Optics is proud to inform about the upcoming release of the new Samyang lens 24mm f/1.4 ED AS UMC.　 Optics of the lens has been constructed based on the system of 13 lenses arranged in 12 groups. It should be noted that 4 lenses has been made of the low-dispersion glass (ED), while two another are aspheric lenses. We have also employed multi-layered and anti-reflexive coatings of UMC type adding to the perfect light transmission. Samyang 24 mm F1.4 ED AS UMC has b...

Upgrading to After Effects CS5.5? | Chris and Trish Meyer | ProVideoCoalition A collection of resources that explain what’s changed in the latest release. Is This a Video of the Sony A77 Camera in Action | Cinescopophilia The Sony A77 is expected to be announced in a couple of weeks, and some are speculating that this video features the new camera. Personally, I wouldn't put a camera in the sand like that, no matter how water and dirt proof it is! After Hollywood: the rise of the international box office | Phil Hoad | The Guardian A look back at 2004 when Hollywood's supremacy faltered: As the studios shut their specialty arthouse divisions in the second half of the decade, they were setting up international arms to produce local-language hits in individual countries: Warner, an early overseas player, was making 40 films a year for these markets by 2009. The double-front offensive seemed to be working: last year, American films still took nearly 60% of intern...

Choosing your lens – which stills lenses for video? | Matt Allard | DSLR News Shooter This article looks at things to consider when buying lenses: The second thing you have to decide is whether to get a prime lens or a zoom lens. There is no right or wrong choice here: it comes down to the individual operator and what he or she needs the lens for. Zooms can save you a lot of time as you don’t have to keep changing lenses, you don’t have to move around as much and you don’t need to buy as many lenses. When looking at a zoom lens you want to make sure you get something that has a constant aperture eg f2.8. If you have a zoom lens with variable aperture, the aperture will change when you change the focal length – this is a major pain for video. Nikons biggest error yet - talking lenses | Sam Morgan Moore | Dslr 4 Real Canon DSLR owners looking to move to cameras like the Sony NEX-FS100 have been faced with a problem because their Canon lenses aren't easily used in manual mode...

BlackMagic Hypershuttle vs. FS100 AVCHD | Frank Glencairn | Vimeo Should you use the AVCHD internal recording of the NEX-FS100 , or should you send the signal out HDMI and record it using an external device? Frank does a test with the BlackMagic Shuttle and finds the difference very hard to see, he even says that he doubts he'll use the Shuttle very much at all: As you can see, you can´t see barley any difference at all. Only in fast motion some minor differences are visible. Even with excessive grading to the material (much more than you would normally do) both material holds up about the same, before it falls apart. Actually I´m shocked how good Sony´s implementation of AVCHD is. One reason the difference doesn't appear to be that large may be because the NEX-FS100 is sending out an 8-bit signal rather than a 10-bit one. SONY NEX FS 100 35mm Digital Video Camera [Updated] | Zane Egginton | ZedSpace Zane updates an earlier post with notes from playing with a came...

D|Zoom Gear Review | Justin Gustavison | Blogspot A video review of the D|Zoom , a gear-driven zoom lever for pulling focus. This review finds the device works well, though he felt he could do the same effects without it; it just made it easier to do some moves: " The D|Zoom worked flawlessly, and did everything it was designed to do. " Sony FS100 AVCHD holds better in color grading than anything else | Frank Glencairn | Frank Glencairn Wordpress An interesting post about grading video from the NEX-FS100 using the original AVCHD footage, vs converting it to Cineform , or Black Magic codec uncompressed, 8 Bit YUV, 10 Bit YUV and 10 Bit RGB. It appears that he's doing this in Avid Media Composer . In truth, this really has less to do with the NEX-FS100 and more to do with the vagaries of working with different file formats, as well as converting between formats. 3 Great Reasons To Use a LCDVF DSLR Viewfinder | Glidetrack Blog Describes "three more gr...

I had earlier wondered if the forthcoming Sony/Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens that SonyAlphaRumors has mentioned was an E-mount or on A-mount lens. Today's post at the site confirms that it will be an E-mount lens and will cost about $999. [1] Which raises an interesting question; if you have an E-mount camera, such as the NEX-FS100 (or the forthcoming NEX-VG20 ), should you buy an E-mount lens, or spend money on another lens and use a lens mount adapter? It's an interesting question, because Sony's E-mount has a short flange focal length[2] and because of that it's possible to use lens adapters for many other lenses with the E-mount.[3] However, the reverse is, I believe, unlikely; it won't be possible to use an E-mount lens on your Canon, Nikon or 4/3rds camera. On the other hand, there's a lot to like about a lens that works with your camera without an adapter, not least of which is that you don't have to deal with an extra piece of equipment. Secondly, unl...

The History of the Space Shuttle | The Atlantic Lots of interesting - and some amazing - photos from the Shuttle space program collected together in an article at The Atlantic . Some of them seem more like works of fiction than photo's of actual events. {All Photos: NASA)

Video Review: SONY HX9V – almost the ultimate run and gun cam | Johnnie Behiri | Vimeo/Cinema5D Lots of people have said good things about the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V [$349] a little point-and-shoot camera that produces surprisingly good video. This review covers just the camera's video shooting capabilities and judges that, used in the right way, it will produce results that rival a real video camera. Unfortunately, there's little manual control. Interestingly, he demonstrates using the camera with a Zacuto Z-Finder . Note : 50p setting is for Europe. Set it to 60p in the US. Streamlining Color Correction in Premiere Pro | Jeff Sengstack | ProVideoCoalition An introduction to color correction in Premiere Pro : In this tutorial I show you how to do all of your so-called primary color correction work using only one video effect and two scopes. Primary color correction changes the tonality and color of an entire clip. You use secondary color correction techniques to ...

How did we do our Last Snooze… | Tirso | Rocanblog Notes from a shoot using the NEX-FS100 with additional comments about lighting, Zacuto rigs and Magic Bullet Looks . Exposure and white balance preset buttons: makes balancing and recalibrating WB a bliss. In our case we were moving from shooting looking to a window, to shooting from the window looking inside the room. This gave two very different lighting conditons and having the switches, allowed us again to improvise and then… if we were already past the sequences from the window, we could always go back and recall the Exposure and WB setting. Testing the new Sony FS100E | Håvar Karlsen | hkarlsen Mixed, but mostly positive impressions of the NEX-FS100 , along with a sample video: It's really puzzling to me why Sony has left so much great qualities from the F3 in the FS100. Its the same large S35 sensor and therefore very similar great low light capability. Sure, the FS100 is only AVCHD, but so is its main competitor (t...

Canon USA routinely offers rebates around this time of year. Once again they are offering them on several lenses, here's some that might be of interest for video use: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM Lens [Rebate $70 , price now: $979.00 ] I have this lens and really like it for it's macro capabilities. Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM Lens [Rebate $100 , price now: $1,249.00 ] The f/4 70-200 often gets overlooked because of the fantastic f/2.8 lens from Canon, but there's a couple of advantages to the f/4 lens; it's half the price, and half the weight (1.67lbs vs 3.28lb). Canon Normal EF 50mm f/1.2L USM Autofocus Lens [Rebate $120 , price now: $1,499.00 ] At f/1.2 this is a pretty neat lens, though I think I'd be more interested in it if I had a full-frame camera, rather than a crop-sensor, which turns this into an 80mm lens. Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM Autofocus Lens [Rebate $150 , price now: $2,049.00 ] I'm sure this is a great lens, but it...

It appears that BBC's Top Gear show might have done some manipulation when they went for a drive in the all-electric Nissan Leaf . Or so reports George Monbiot in The Guardian :  Top Gear's electric car shows pour petrol over the BBC's standards . While the car was delivered with a full charge, Top Gear rigged that test by starting their drive with the batteries depleted. They set out on a 60 mile trip with the car telling them that the range left was only 30 miles, something that wasn't mentioned in the show. But even that may not have been enough for the producers: ...in order to stage a breakdown in Lincoln, "it appeared that the Leaf was driven in loops for more than 10 miles in Lincoln until the battery was flat." When Jeremy Clarkson was challenged about this, he admitted that he knew the car had only a small charge before he set out. But, he said: " That's how TV works ". Monbiot's article mainly takes Top Gear to task for cri...

The Trivialities and Transcendence of Kickstarter | Rob Walker | The New York Times Another look at Kickstarter , though this time from the perspective of the site management rather than those who have created Kickstarter campaigns. There's some interesting information that I didn't know; for example just under 2,000 proposals are received a month, and about 40 percent are rejected, although mostly for not following the rules: With so many ideas pouring in, Kickstarter could adopt a passive stance and simply let “the Internet” take over. But instead, approved projects often get a little advice: make a video, adjust your rewards, lower your funding goal and so on. Kickstarter is as much about unlocking creators’ marketing potential as their creative potential. The company takes a cut — 5 percent — of the money raised on successful projects. (The transactions are processed through an Amazon.com service, which takes a slightly smaller cut.) The founders say it is profitable. ...

$9.99 eBook Deal of the Week This week's $9.99 eBook Deal of the Week from Peachput Press is: Nuke 101: Professional Compositing and Visual Effects By Ron Ganbar Published Apr 13, 2011 by Peachpit Press. Pages: 464 Watermarked eBook, includes PDF and EPUB For many visual effects artists who are just starting out or are moving from After Effects, Shake, Fusion, or another compositing tool, they are learning that Nuke is quickly becoming the feature film compositing industry standard. While there are several online turorials and courses available, there is currently no book on the market for those who need to know all the ins and outs of the software. Until now. It's $28.59 for the Kindle edition at Amazon: Nuke 101: Professional Compositing and Visual Effects Canon VIXIA HF G10 Amazon Discount The Canon HF G10 has been appearing discounted $30-$50 by various resellers on Amazon. The price has been changing day by day and even Amazon has discounted it up to $30 a f...