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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Quick Links

Canon EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.1.3 | CanonRumors
The firmware update adds some fixes for several lenses, as well as:
  • Fixes a phenomenon in which an image may become underexposed when using the Auto Lighting Optimizer for continuous Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) shooting.
  • Fixes a phenomenon in which the backlight of the LCD monitor may not turn off depending on the camera settings and timing.
  • Fixes a phenomenon in which the camera’s power may not turn on when a super-telephoto lens*1) is mounted to the camera with an extender*2).


DSLR Case Study: Lie With Me | HD Magazine
Director Jamison Brandi explains how he went about shooting his feature with the Canon 7D:
“We were not going to spend thousands of dollars a day on all the Prime lenses so we came up with a plan to cover our shooting range. We decided to use the Canon zoom lenses, the 24-70mm and the 70-200m. We didn’t want them as zoom lenses but were going to set them at certain focal lengths and use them as Primes lenses in that way.


Sony launches next generation 4K digital projector | Ian Sandwell | Screen Daily
Digital comes to more theaters...
SRX-R515 is designed in particular for use in small or medium sized screen auditoriums and for budgets of smaller cinemas, also allowing them to offer new services beyond traditional content such as sports, theatre and multi-user big screen gaming.


A PC Tower of Power: HP z820 RED Edition (with CS6 Inside) | Beth Marchant
| Studio Daily
HP develops a custom machine for RED editing:
Terry Brown, HP Workstations Vertical Market Manager [...] says Adobe was a driving force in the collaboration. "This really came together when Adobe said to us, 'We need to create a system that's a reference system for RED workflows in Adobe Premiere. CS6 is coming out and we have a huge amount of questions from customers who are confused about their current platform and we need to be able to guide our them to what system we think is going to do the job, especially with RED workflows, which tend to be pretty CPU- and GPU-instensive and RED ROCKET-intensive."


Zacuto Revenge of the Great Camera Shootout | Alister Chapman | XDCAM User
Alister talks about seeing the Zacuto Shootout footage:
The discussion at the end of this set of clips was very interesting. One of the main conclusions drawn was that as much as assessing the actual look of the camera we were also assessing the DoP’s artistic interpretation of what made a good shot. Some clearly favoured highlights, some shadows. It was clear to us all that in the right hands almost all of the cameras were capable of producing great looking pictures in this controlled environment (would be interesting to see a less controlled scenario).


Investing in DSLR Lenses for Cinema Use? Here Are Some Tips for Picking the Right Ones | Joe Marine | No Film School
Tips on choosing lenses taken from Matthew Duclos:
His first suggestion is to get a good set of prime lenses, but not the L series lenses from Canon, as they don’t have accurate distance markings, have more looser internal parts, and are harder to service than manual focus prime lenses. While there’s nothing wrong with them optically (they are amazing), if you are going to invest in lenses, you want something that will be easy to service but will also allow the most flexibility on the most camera systems


Is 2/3″ also dying? Fast track to S35 Digital Cinema | Michael Sutton
| Wide Open Camera
Thoughts on the fact that a rental company just sold several Sony F35's for under $10K:
...the fact that 2/3″ seems to be dying off in favor of S35 size sensors limits the acceptability of a S16 image to a user base that demands more. It seems strange because people still buy 1/3″, 1/2″ cameras all the time. Some people spend almost ten thousand dollars on these cameras.


Some Demo Videos:
Some NEX-FS700 footage here, with the obligatory slow-mo included:


FS-700 Demo | Genesis Matrix | Vimeo

CORAÇÃO by SONY NEX-FS700 | SSSmarimo | Vimeo

Singapore by Night | Alister Chapman | YouTube
Here's a compilation of a few clips I shot of the city of Singapore by night. I used a Sony PMW-F3, NEX-FS700 and NEX5N for the shots. I used S&Q motion at 1 frame every second in the F3 and FS100 and then tweaked the speed in post. The last two shots are from the FS700 at 100fps. Well I had to stick some slow mo in there somewhere!

Canobie | Anticipate Media | Vimeo
Paul shot this handheld with the Canon C300:
Shot with a 24-105 Canon lens, completely and utterly handheld (grip attached) with no stabilization hardware at all or monitor unit. Running around with my child meant I had to gather shots on a moment's notice so I was quite limited in what I could get.


Portable Lighting with the Rosco LitePad Kit | Shane Hurlbut | Hurlbut Visuals
A look at an LED light:
I am always in pursuit of new lighting technology, and this Rosco LitePad kit knocked me out with its size, versatility, color and punch. This light is LED technology, but used in a very different way than all the other lights on the market. It requires no heat syncs like a LitePanel light and is 3/8 of an inch thick. The big difference is that it does not fire the LED directly at you. It fires them sideways onto a white source that becomes your light. This is a very big deal. We are always looking for soft sources, and these are very creamy without diffusion added.


Red October | Shaftoe | imgur
Shooting a plate for the Hunt for Red October. Oddly enough, I saw a bit of a documentary last night about a real-life event that was partly the inspiration for the book:
I forget the year but I was part of a crew that worked with Boss Films to create the plate shots for the Hunt For Red October. This was the setup for the scene where Ryan and Ramius were on the conning tower at the end of the film.


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