Notes On Video

The Sony A7 and A7r are trickling out, and we're starting to get a better idea how they perform as video cameras. It seems like the RX10 is the one for video (though at least one poster has reservations - see below.) At $1,298 the RX10 is not cheap, but it's considerably less than the A7 ($1,698) and A7r ($2,298) . It seems that if you're looking for a full-frame camera, the Canon 5D Mk III still does a better job in video than the A7r (that's disappointing.) The RX10 is scoring because it has less moire and artifacting present in the footage compared to the A7's and it includes built in-ND filters. There's no interchangeable lenses, and the sensor is not as big as the other two, but it's small and light, (you can't have everything!) Finally, it looks that the A7 and A7r video are very similar in quality, even though they use very different chips. Sample video – comparing the Sony RX10, A7R and FS100 | EOSHD Andrew Reid at EOSHD has pos...

Sony A7-first look | Cinema 5D Cinema 5D takes a look at the video capabilities of Sony's new A7, and finds it an improvement over previous Sony's (like the A99) BUT they also think that the A7r will have better video (though at $2,299.99, it better be incredible!) I'm curious to see how the two compare, as I thought when the cameras were first announced that there were people saying that the A7 would do a better job in the video department... Sony themselves are looking at the A7r as superior in image quality when it comes to video. For that reason a dedicated full length A7r review is coming soon. Daytime Sony A7 footage will follow soon too. Adapting Your Canon Arsenal with Duclos | Shane Hurlbut With Canon’s new arsenal of Cinema Primes and Cinema Zooms being either PL or EOS mount, we have a predicament here. Who has the money to buy two sets of lenses? Which rental house has all this money sitting around to engage both mounts? To my knowledge, Can...

INTER BEE 2013 LIVE SHOW REPLAY: SONY NEX 18-105MM F4 SERVO ZOOM LENS SHOWS PROMISE | News Shooter If you have a NEX mount camera, I think this lens looks really interesting, the $598 Sony E PZ 18-105mm f/4 G OSS Lens : The new lens seems well suited for run-and-gun shooting with its constant f4 aperture and Optical Steadishot coupled with a nice mid-wide to mid-telephoto zoom range. Autofocus seemed quite snappy although it did struggle from time to time in the low light of our set. Manual focus is fly-by-wire which works quite well, but is no substitute for a ‘proper’ manual focus ring. It should be available before the end of the year. 3 SIMPLE BUT CRITICAL FILMMAKING TIPS FROM RON HOWARD | Fast To Create Challenge your story idea. Imagine yourself asked to watch it. Really imagine others committing the time to view it. Understand what you and your friends would appreciate about a movie version of your idea, then go for it. HEVC H.265 Royalties Are Killing It Even B...

Are Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) Files Backwards Compatible w/ CS6? | ProDesignTools Adobe officially states, “Each of the following CC apps support the ability to export to the CS6 version of the program: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash Pro, Dreamweaver, and After Effects” – with the caveat that, “New features added may not be supported in the exported file or implemented by the CS6 application.” And the same would go for CS5, CS4, or CS3. Fare-thee-well Magic Bullet Grinder | ProVideoCoalition Grinder’s demise probably happened upon the launch of Magic Bullet BulletProof. The good folks at Red Giant confirmed that Grinder is indeed gone. That is entirely understandable as BulletProof is a one-stop-shop data-wrangling and DIT tool for all things DSLR. BulletProof incorporates pretty much every feature that Grinder had so it might seem rather pointless for Grinder to still be developed.  Red Giant replied: Red Giant ‏@RedGiantNews Our plan is to add more automati...

RODE INTRODUCE THE VIDEOMIC GO – A LIGHT, COMPACT AND BATTERY-LESS MINI SHOTGUN MIC | News Shooter A new small and light mic intended for basic portable recording, and it's just $99 : The mic weighs a mere 73g (2.5oz) and also equipped with the excellent Rycote Lyre suspension system similar to that on the latest VideoMic. This eliminates a lot handling noise and the occasional bump by isolating the mic effectively from the camera. New H.265 codec on test – ProRes 4444 quality for 1% of the file size | EOSHD CineMartin are the first company I know of to give us H.265 HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) conversion with the just-announced CINEC v2.7. It supports up to 4K resolution and you can try it today. In case you live at 12 Under Rock Drive, the H.265 standard is the biggest codec of the decade. It supersedes today’s most common codec for encoding and internet delivery of video (H.264) and makes 4K recording to SD cards possible on DSLRs. Perspective Control an...

Last week was InterBee 2013, and News Shooter has posted some interesting reports from the event. The three most interesting over the last couple of days: INTER BEE 2013: TESTING THE CANON C100 DUAL PIXEL CMOS AF | News Shooter I have to say I am tremendously impressed with the results. It seems quite responsive without looking like a mechanical movement. In our tests we let the camera try to track the subject continuously to see how well it coped, but I think my preference would be to set the autofocus to only active when the Push AF button is pressed. It is however a shame that the AF box is currently locked to the centre of the frame and is not movable. INTER BEE 2013: NEW FOSTEX AUDIO ADAPTERS FOR DSLR AND IPHONE | News Shooter Fostex are an established maker of audio products and are best known for their range of sound recorders. At Inter BEE they were showing several new products – a simple minijack stereo mic adapter called the AR101 for iPhone and DSLR, and the AR501...