Notes On Video

There's a write up about photographer Vinvent Laforet's experience with the 5D Mark II at Gizmodo " A Taste of the Canon 5D Marl IIs mindblowing Full HD video ." It's depth of field control and low light performance look soooo cool. Someone posted in the comments: "A top commercial film editor who who regularly edits RED camera footage - and has seen the raw footage from the 5D MKII - says the 5D MKII is "far superior to the RED camera" in terms of low light performance…" RED is a company that's produced a comparatively low cost very high-res digital video camera, and they are supposed to be releasing some kind of SLR/video camera for around $3,000 either later this year or early next year (note that the comment is not relating to the new camera, but the existing one.)

The purchase of the Panasonic AG-HMC70U has meant the purchase of one more expensive item: a new camera bag. Turns out that the bag I have which is quite a bit bigger than the Sony HDR-FX1 I usually schlep around, isn’t big enough to hold the Panasonic. And – all things considered – it’s a big bag! So I had to get an even bigger one. A trip to a local camera store revealed a wealth of bag possibilities; though it turned out most of them were camera bags. I could pull out the dividers on some of the larger ones, but it seemed like you’re paying a lot for that padding. Even for the few straight video camera bags, it was obvious there was no cheap solution. I ended up focused (pun?) on a range of bags made by Kata. I hadn’t heard of them before; turns out they are owned by Bogen. They have a website that let’s you find bags based on cameras , and their selector recommended the: CCC-10-A ( about $240 street) for the AG-HMC70U. Interestingly, I managed to try the CC-195 at the store (abou...

Norwegian Broadcasting's technology site, NRKBeta , got their hands on some video clips from the Canon 5D Mark II and are very positive about what they see. Look better than HDV (25 mbit/s MPEG2) vs the 5DMkII 40 m/bit H.264 Canon says IS-Lense image stabilization is active. You can shoot stills during video, but there will be a break in the video. Meanwhile, on the Rob Galbraith site , it notes that clip length is actually half an hour, or a 4GB movie, but the amount of footage you can cram into 4GB depends on the subject matter. In testing this translated to 12 minutes. Other details: You can capture at 1920 x 1280 or 640 x 480. Canon is moving from Motion JPEG to MPEG4 on all it’s PowerShots. The stereo-in is a 3.5mm jack. Levels are adjusted automatically (no manual override) and there is wind noise suppression applied automatically (and cannot be adjusted or turned off.) White Balance can be set before recording, or Auto WB will adjust during recording. Shutter speed is set au...

While it's supposed to be out in November, there are already reports of high demand for this camera, which may mean you won't get one until the new year if you wait too long to order. Worse yet, it might take a while for the price to go any lower than the list $2,699.99. Meanwhile, the SlashGear site has some links to video shot using the camera . I really like those fish-eye shots.

Only a couple of weeks after Nikon announced the D-90, with it's ability to capture 720p movie clips, along comes Canon with their 5D Mark II a 21MP camera offering 1080p 1,920 x 1,080 video capture at 30fps (with a maximum clip length of 12 minutes.) The clips are QuickTime files, H.264; 38.6 Mbits/sec. Wow! The camera also has a mic input, while the D-90 only had a small built-in microphone (no word on whether it's stereo or mono.) EDIT: reportedly the audio is 16-bit PCM at 44KHz and stereo is supported with external mics. I'm intrigued by this camera because a) it's a Canon mount, b) the video capture could be interesting and sometimes useful, and c) it has a full frame sensor. It's list price is $2,600; more than the D-90, (which is not full frame) but less than the original 5D list price (which is now selling for about $2,400.) If I hadn't just bought the Panasonic, I'd jump out and get one of these; and yeah, I know it isn't practical as a prima...

The Nikon D90 I may have to switch camera brands. A little back story. When I first got into film photography, I really wanted a Nikon SLR because I was under the impression that they were THE camera for 35mm. I never did get a Nikon, and as luck would have it, I ended up getting a Canon DSLR partly because they were first to come out with a reasonably priced DSLR, and partly because I had one on loan for several months and loved it. I’ve been very happy with the Canon over the years, and always felt that the difference between the Nikon and Canon SLRs have been – at least from my perspective – mainly issues about UI and minor performance differences with no obvious winner unless you are at the extremes: if you’re a sports shooter versus a studio shooter, one camera may be clearly better. But unless you’re a pro-photographer, either brand will probably serve you nicely. But then Nikon went and announced the D90, which has one very interesting feature: Movie capture: 24fps 1280x720 moti...

I’ve had the AG-HMC70U for a couple of weeks, and shot the first project with it the weekend before last. Here’s some follow-up thoughts about the camera. The audio options are really nice. I put a wireless mic on one XLR channel, but was still able to use the internal mic for the other channel. While the internal mic is not the greatest, it did provide good backup for the wireless mic to record other sounds that weren’t being captured (like someone not on the mic.) I used auto volume control so I didn’t have to mess with things, and was happy with the results. It’s really good to be using a shoulder camera again. Particularly for man-on-the-street interviews. The first day I went out to shoot with the camera I was mainly doing experiments, and holding the camera in my hands as I’ve kind of gotten used to that with the FX1. I was disappointed with the results as the images seemed much shakier. I was much happier with the results this time; it worked much better being used how it was in...

I downloaded the trial for VoltaicHD to see whether it would be a better alternative to the Final Cut Express import process for AVCHD files (or even if it would be useful for converting AVCHD files that aren't recognizable by FCE.) Note: the demo is good for 10 conversions, with a maximum file size of 50MB First the good news: It converts .MTS files (native AVCHD files) no matter where they are, so that's a big plus over FCE and will be useful for archiving .MTS files. I copied a .MTS file from the camera card onto the Desktop and then successfully converted it. The program has a simple, but intuitive interface; drag the files into a list, where you can select them if you want to transfer them, and you can see a preview of the first frame of the clip by clicking the Details button. There's no In and Out point selection as there is in FCE, but I can live with that. The bad news: it takes much, much longer than FCE to do the conversion. A 15 second clip took FCE 32 seconds ...

To provide a little more illumination on how the SDHC conversion works in Final Cut Express; When you either mount the camera in disk mode (or have the SDHC card inserted in a card reader) and open the Log and Transfer window, the name of the volume appears with a spinning progress indicator: After about 20 seconds, a list of clips appears. You can preview them, set in and out points, or simply drag from the top window to the bottom. The bottom window is a queue of clips to be converted. Note that FCE only seems to recognize AVCHD files if they are contained within a valid file structure. If you try and copy the .MTS file into Log and Transfer from another location, you get an error message:

I had two concerns when considering getting an AVCHD camera: 1. Dealing with archiving all that video content that I could no longer just file away on the tapes on which it was recorded. 2. Editing the AVCHD content I’m still working on 1, but issue 2 seems to work okay…though there are issues. I’ve been using Final Cut Pro for a couple of years, and Apple announced support for the AVCHD compressor with the latest release of it and FC Express. That meant upgrading, and – long story short – I ended up buying Final Cut Express 4.0, because it was cheaper than buying the Final Cut Pro suite. After shooting some video with the Panasonic AG-HMC70U – and installing the software – I tried inserting the SDHC card into the card reader, mounting that, and accessing the files. The card mounted fine, and revealed a somewhat confusing directory structure, but I eventually found what I took to be the data files (.MTS) in a folder called STREAM. Unfortunately, these files were completely unrecognized...

The AG-HMC70U comes with a 2GB SDHC card. That should hold about 20 minutes of video at the highest quality setting. Not too bad for playing about with, but not enough for everyday use. B and H Photo (where I bought the AG-HMC70U), lists – amongst accessories - a Panasonic 16GB Class 6 card for $129.95. Considering what I’ve paid over the years for Compact Flash cards, that’s almost like giving them away, but I thought I could do better. A search for SDHC cards at Amazon came up with only a few 16 GB cards (though I think the number increases each time I go back there!) My first preference was for a name brand card. The SanDisk Ultra II seemed like the obvious choice, which they were selling for $89.99. SanDisk is a “known” entity; they have been around for a while, and I have several cards from them already that I have been happy with. But a little research revealed that this card is a Class 4, with a maximum transfer rate of 15 MB/sec. The AG-HMC70U maximum bit rate is 13, so in theo...

A few first impressions of the AG-HMC70U: It’s pretty big. I was expecting that, but it’s somehow bigger than I expected or imagined. I guess I’ve been spending so much time with “small cameras” I forgot how big, shoulder cameras tend to be. The size isn’t an issue when on your shoulder, but it does make it more awkward to schlep around, and though I have a large bag I carry the HDR-FX1 around in, it’s too large for that. Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised at how solid the body felt. Frankly, I was thinking that it might feel like a big empty plastic box, given that there’s no tape mechanism, the electronics are probably pretty small, and I imagine there’s a lot of empty space in that shell. Weight wise it’s probably a little heavier than the FX1, but not by much. Speaking of the body, it’s surprisingly devoid of buttons and switches (the FX1 is covered in them.) The BNC and XLR jacks certainly take up a lot of space on the back, but take those away and there are not many oth...

I'm not a big fan of those unboxing videos and articles that people keep doing, but since I got the thing and I had a camera near by... Unboxing the Panasonic AG-HMC70U: Open the box (left), and you find inside another box (right) that looks almost exactly the same; only slightly smaller Open the top, and you see the software discs, memory card (2 GB) and the side of the camera. The right-hand side compartment holds the power supply. Lift that tray out, and you see the lens cover and remote (right) and protective packaging: Take out the next layer, and there's the camera, sitting in a protective baggy: And here she is, right out of the baggy, with a piece of protective wrapping around the viewfinder arm (the rubber eyecup for the viewfinder isn't attached); Here's the camera, with all the parts in front, clockwise from left: * Manual and CD's (one has electronic manual and the other has software). * Battery * viewfinder eyecup * battery for remote * remote * should...

I have had a Sony HDR-FX1 for about three years now, and wanted to get another HD camcorder so that I could do multi-camera shoots. I had been looking at the Sony HVR-HD1000U; a long name for a fairly straight-forward camera. The HD1000U is a one chip HD camera in a shoulder-mount form factor. Its big selling point is that it sells for $1,599. That’s basically half what the FX1 cost. Also appealing – for me - was the shoulder-mount form factor. While I like the FX1, it’s one weakness is that it’s not usable on the shoulder; so most of the time I hold it in front of me. That’s fine for a lot of things, but sometimes a shoulder-mount camera can be really useful. An additional plus point is that being from Sony – I felt – would mean that color reproduction was probably pretty similar to the FX1, and I thought it would make for a good pairing. Then I heard about the Panasonic AG-HMC70U. Like the HD1000U, it’s in a shoulder mount form factor, but it also has XLR audio inputs, which - if you...

It’s hard to get excited about a camera I know I will never buy ( okay, maybe not that hard ) but I keep finding articles about the Sony PMW-EX3. The EX3 is a “serious” camera (since it supports interchangeable lenses and costs over $13,000) so we need some serious people to look it over. Alistair Chapman provides a very deep overview of the features , that is in English, even if the navigation isn't! As one obviously favored by Sony, his review might be a little too positive (though it is early days to really evaluate it) but he covers all the ins and outs of the camera. Michael Perlman does a much briefer hands on at camcorderinfo, while Philip Bloom covers his own exploits using the camera for some testing, and has a video you can watch! All good fun, though as one forum poster noted; $13,000 seems like a lot when you compare it to offerings from Red One.

The Casio EX-F1 would be just another 6MP, 12x digital camera if it wasn't for one neat trick: burst shooting capabilities that promise 60 frames per second at full resolution and up to 1200 fps at 336 x 96. The high-frame rate is cool, but it comes at a price: as you go higher, the frame size gets smaller (and the quality of the image itself progressively gets worse too.) Gizmodo has some test clips , which show that at 512x384 and 300 fps you can get a pretty good image. The 600 fps and 1200 fps clips aren't nearly as good; the frame is small, cropped strangely, and the image gets darker and more pixelated. I would consider the 1200 fps material unusable. It would be interesting to take a 300 fps clip from this camera (which, at 512 x 384, is close to - but not exactly the same as - Standard Def) and compare it to a clip captured with a regular camera and slowed down using editing software. My guess is that the EX-F1 clips would be useable; and a better effect.

B & H sends out an electronic newsletter and it often contains some nice little articles showing you things you can spend your money on(!) The latest one has a short piece on how to get better sound without a sound man . There are some good ideas about setting a mic up on a boom - and some interesting gadgets -(though personally, a wireless mic is a lot easier to use if you don't have a soundman.) There's also an article that explains the differences between CCD and CMOS cameras . After reading it, I couldn't help but think that maybe CCD's where better than CMOS (even though manufacturers seem to be moving to CMOS more and more.) Sometimes, the more you know, the less you understand.

I’ll admit to being a Red One skeptic from the beginning. Maybe I just don’t like hype or freaky fan boys, but something turned me off, and I was skeptical that they could even pull it off. But they did release their Red One 4K Camera on time, Peter Jackson is a fan , and so are others ; it’s getting harder to maintain that cool indifference. And now they have gone and announced the Scarlet , a 3K resolution camera that they expect to release next year at a price point under $3K. Not only that, it will support frame rates from 1-120fps and a 180 fps burst mode, Compact Flash storage and full manual shooting modes are promised, as well as wi-fi control ( hmmm… ) It’s enough to turn the head of any skeptic; even if the design of it does look a little like some underwater diving camera. Camcorderinfo.com has an interview with Ted Schilowitz from Red One, who seems to think that soccer moms might want to use the camera. I’m not so sure about that; an 8X zoom seems a little on the whimpy ...

It’s NAB and everyone is making announcements! Seems like Sony just likes to torment me. First came the PMW-EX1, a really cool looking semi-pro camera that records to solid-state SD cards. Part of the reason I like it – perhaps – is that it has the same basic camera shape as my HDR-FX!; just squashed down a bit. I’d really like to get away from tape, but at $6,000 the EX1 is out of my reach. Well, now they’ve gone and announced the PMW-EX3 (what, no EX2?!) which is going to cost $13,000 and has interchangeable lenses. The body has also become more angular at the back, and I wonder if that will make it any better for shoulder shooting. PMW-EX3 On the bright side, it makes the PMW-EX1 seem almost affordable. Or, you have until the third quarter of 2008 to save for the EX3. Though I have a Panasonic VCR that has lasted for years, I haven’t had many dealings with their cameras. Maybe that should change as Panasonic went and announced the solid state HPX-170 which records 1080 HD and SD t...

There's an "unboxing" at Tracy and Matt's Blog of the HDR-TG3E (the Europena version of the HDR-TG1. I often find these unboxings pointless, but there were some interesting snippets: First impressions are that this is an amazingly small and light camcorder. The size and weight isn't achieved at the expense of build quality either as the TG3 looks and feels very solid, probably thanks to the chassis being made from titanium. [...]I recorded a few sample clips in low-light conditions last night and I'm very impressed how well the TG3 performs. [...] there are no obvious compression artefacts. As the camera uses no moving parts for recording there's no tape or DVD motor noise on the playback and it also means that recording is silent.