Notes On Video

Hands on with the PMW-F3 Models Shot with the new Sony F3, Sony 35,50,85 mm lenses, Cooke S4 21,50,100 lenses Models - Sony F3 from Nigel Akam on Vimeo . Bonhomme From Sony, shot with the PMW-F3

Panasonic has released a 16-page PDF brochure on the upcoming AG-AF100 : Panasonic :  Panasonic AG-AF100 PDF

Last night was the latest Boston DSLR Meetup at E.P. Levine in Waltham. A capacity crowd turned up and filled the studio to hear Rich Harrington, a video editor, producer and co-author of multiple books, including From Still to Motion [ Amazon $31.49 ]. I've seen Rich speak before, and he certainly believes in packing in the information. I suspect he drinks three or four cups of coffee before he begins, and once he starts, he doesn't stop - and only takes questions in 30 second breaks along the way. Pizza and socializing before the meeting starts He's a man of strong opinions too, quite happy to tell people when they are wrong. Noting the variety of people in the audience - from still photographers to videographers, producers and editors - and the need to cover many different topics, he suggested that if you found yourself bored during the talk, just wait two minutes. Rich Harrington getting ready while Dan Bérubé stands in for the screen There was a lot ...

Iris adapter for Canon lenses on 4/3rds mount Thinking of getting a Panasonic GH2 or a Panasonic AG-AF100 , but already have Canon EF lenses? A mount from Kipon in Hong Kong provides a manual 14-blade iris (there's also a US manufacturer developing an adapter for Canon to the 4/3 mount, but there's no information available about it yet.) EOSHD : Canon-Micro 4/3rds lens adapter with mechanical aperture control Large Sensor Cameras High Definition magazine features an article about the new large sensor cameras from Panasonic and Sony (you can read it in a flashy online viewer.) HighDefinition : Digital Issue 45 Createasphere Webcasts Createasphere has a series of webcasts coming up featuring creative teams from the TV series GLEE , Dexter and Boardwalk Empire discussing the challenges they face. Createasphere: The Best of TV Webcasts Canon 7D used to shoot Community stop-motion episode NBC used a 7D for an upcoming Christmas episode of “ Community ”. Broadc...

Learning Lab Series December 15, 2010 Arri’s Alexa: Compact and Affordable Digital (35mm Film-Style) Camera December 15, 2010 Join Arri’s Technical Sales Rep, Guenter Noesner, for an inside look at the new Alexa – an affordable alternative to film with superior image quality, portability, direct-to-edit workflows and much more. RSVP to: events@rule.com 10am to 12noon December 15, 2010 Rule : Events Page

Sony PMW-F3 Target Release Date Sony hopes to release the PMW-F3 on Feb 1st. "Pre-orders will have priority" Zeiss CP2 Review Matthew Duclos got his hands on a set of Zeiss CP.2 lenses, and he thinks they are worth the wait. These lenses have very similar optics to the ZF (ZE Canon) series, but the focus throw is extended to about 300 degrees, there's an interchangeable mount, and they have uniform housing dimensions. But if you're on a budget, and the $3,900 (or more) price is too much, consider getting a ZF lens instead... MatthewDuclos : Zeiss CP.2 Arrives, Worth The Wait? B & H : Zeiss Compact Prime CP.2 28mm/T2.1 Cine Lens (EF Mount) [$3,900] B & H : Zeiss 28mm f/2.0 Distagon T* Lens with ZE Mount for Canon EF Mount SLRs [$1,283] Webcast: Shane Hurlbut, ASC and Jacob Rosenberg discuss how their movie Act of Valor was shot using Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR cameras Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 12:00 PM EST Due to its small, unintimidating...

The Filmmakers Collaborative is offering a workshop on film pitching this February 12th from 9:30 am - 12:20 noon at the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston MA. Speakers : Sonia Feigenbaum – Program Officer, National Endowment for the Humanities Beth Hoppe – Executive Producer, “ Frontier House ” (PBS); “ Curiosity ” (Discovery Channel) Joseph Tovares – Senior Vice President, Corporation for Public Broadcasting Julian Hobbs – Executive Producer, History Channel Pitching your film project effectively is one of the most important elements in helping with outreach, collaboration and fundraising. Join us for this exciting pitch panel with selected experts, who will help deconstruct your pitch and teach you how to be successful in pitching your film projects. If you would like to pitch your film or work in progress, please submit a short description of the project and a link to a video sample to jen[at]filmmakerscollab.org by Friday January 14th. $40 regular registration...

When : Thursday, December 9, 2010 6:30 PM Where : EP Levine, 219 Bear Hill Road, Waltham, MA 02451 Network & socialize with fellow DSLR filmmakers for our Holiday gathering of the Boston DSLR Meetup and Boston Final Cut Pro User Group ! Plan to have a great time to screen your shorts and meet some great DSLR shooters, filmmakers and digital storytellers and talk about movie making! COLLABORATE & START A PROJECT And, for December, we will begin our mission goal to get members involved to collaborate together in crews to start a project - Stay Tuned for updated details! DSLR Workflows – From Pre-Production to Post Richard Harrington , Rhed Pixel Join Richard Harrington, a Director and Editor as he shares practical workflows for DSLR projects. Learn essential planning techniques including planning for storage, synchronization, and gear selection. Rich will also demystify post production with a particular emphasis on native editing. Learn how to transcode less and edi...

A few weeks ago I attended the Public Television Quality Group's Boston Workshop. This two day event covered everything from shooting and editing to delivering the program to PBS. But you didn't have to be a PBS producer to get something out of this experience. Emmy award winning SMPTE Fellow Mark Schubin started off the event with a presentation entitled: Things You Can and Can't Fix in Post . Beginning with the statement: You can fix anything in post only if you have enough time and money, Mark covered a wide range of topics from lenses to lighting. He demoed using a polarizing filter to cut reflections, he pointed out that it’s not always a good idea to do filtering during production since most optical filtering can be closely emulated by digital filtering - and he stressed the fact that it's the camera operator that's the most important function in the equation. Here's some of the themes of the talk: Acquisition starts the chain and affects eve...

This evening Jason Wingrove will be the guest in the planet5d HDSLR chat. Jason is one of the first to have used the new Sony PMW-F3. The chat will be starting at 8pm EST. Planet5d : Learning about the new Sony PMW-F3 – planet5D HDSLR chat Monday December 6th

The PMW-F3 launch event will include a screening of some of the first footage acquired with the camera, and a panel discussion with the production teams involved. You'll also have a chance to demo the camera. Date : Thursday, December 16, 2010 | 6 PM Location : AMC Empire 25 with IMAX Theatre | Auditorium #14 | 234 W 42nd Street | New York, NY 10036 Seats are limited. Register : Sony Electronics Community

Zoom Q3HD Video Recorder Looking to improve the quality of your video's audio (though maybe not the video itself?) Zoom has combined what looks like the mics from the H1 with a video camera to create the Q3HD (think of it as the love child of a Flip and an H1 perhaps?) Price is $299, and it's just started shipping. It's an intriguing option perhaps for musicians who want a simple way to make a self video with better audio. I'm just not convinced that to improve the audio you always want the mics on the camera... Zoom Q3HD:   Product Page B & H: Zoom Q3HD Handy Video Recorder [ $299.00 ] iPhone as Audio Recorder Speaking of the Zoom H1   Photo Cine News has a short article about using the iPhone as an audio recorder in place of buying a separate device like the H1. I'm partial to the idea, though the other day I was doing just that - using the iPhone as an audio recorder for an interview - when I got a phone call. Messed up the recording. Photo C...

Where : Robertson Auditorium, Mission Bay Conference Center (William J. Rutter Center)- UCSF When : Friday, January 28, 2011 (Doors open 3:30PM for SuperMeet Digital How Much? EARLYBIRD $10.00 per person plus ticket fee $6.00 for Students with valid ID $20.00 at the door **Tickets on SALE now** Agenda to be announced soon ... SuperMeet

It's annoying when programs do things they aren't supposed to - like crash while saving, or a feature won't work when your project gets too complicated. But I've had pretty good luck with Final Cut ...until last week when I was editing the ATC "making of" music video. Everything was going fine - I'd even done some test exports - until I made some changes and did another export and suddenly something very odd was happening; a still frame from a completely different clip was being rendered in place of a couple of clips at one point in the timeline. It didn't happen while playing back in Final Cut ; only when I exported the clip using the Using QuickTime Conversion option.. In the past I've found that odd things like this can sometimes be "fixed" by adding a "non-filter" to a clip i.e. forcing the editor to do some processing to the clip before it exports it. I tried moving the clips to another track, as well as putting anothe...

I've been following Rick Macomber on Twitter ( boston_camera ) for a month or so; though we'd never met and I can't even remember how I came to follow him. But last week he tweeted that he would be shooting a music video of a local band,  Air Traffic Controller,  and was looking for people willing to volunteer to crew the shoot. On a whim I dropped him a note and said I was interested in covering it for the blog, and he said 'come on down!' or words to that effect. Rick is a broadcast news photojournaliat with WBZ TV Boston, but for side projects he's been exploring HDSLR filmmaking. A musician himself, Rick first met Dave Munro of Air Traffic Controller through an open mic that Dave's brother Jeff runs in Malden. Rick has produced, directed and edited four videos for ATC. The other videos were shot using a Canon HV40, but this video, " Brightest Moon, " was shot using a Canon T2i with 17-50mm f2.8 lens. The video was shot at 60 fps with Dav...

Tuesday, December 7th - 11:00 AM PDT A discussion on making your digital archive profitable and accessible today and in the future. From production to consumption it is essential to identify and capitalize on what is in YOUR digital archive. Exploring assets interactively & visually Search-ability Metadata Storage and preservation Understanding usage trends over time Where to extend & expend resources in your organization Join Alex Grossman , CEO from Active Storage; Chief Technology Officer, Mark Lemmons from Though Equity Motion and Project Director, Philip Spiegel from Video Resources Group, ABC News in this lively discussion. Createasphere : Mining & Monetizing your Digital Archives

A couple of weeks ago, Amazon rolled out Amazon Studios , which they describe as " 21st-century technology creating ways to make and share movies and scripts more easily than ever. " Amazon Studios is notable because Amazon said that they would be giving away money to prize winning scripts and movie ideas. It must have hit something of a nerve as they say that "more than a thousand scripts" have already been uploaded. But not everyone thinks it's such a good idea. Jesse Harris , Filmmaker and Executive Director of NFFTY, National Film Festival for Talented Youth, describes it as a PR stunt and an insult to writers and directors: Here’s the fine print, and what makes this so shady. First, Amazon Studios isn’t funding great ideas, they are asking for them for free. If you submit a script or “test movie” as they are calling it, you give Amazon an exclusive 18-month option for your project without any pay. Meaning you can’t pitch or sell your idea to anyone els...

Everyone's been wondering what the XF100 & XF105 , the little brothers to the XF300/XF305 would get priced at, and now we know; the XF100 is listing at $3,299.95 and the XF105 at $4,299.95 at B & H with an expected arrival of January. At the moment you can't pre-order. This is slightly under the $4,000 and $5,000 price mentioned back at the Canon New York show. Small and light, these cameras are particularly interesting because they record with 4:2:2 color sampling, though they only have 1/3" sensors. They would make a good B camera to the XF300/XF305, and might be useful for 3D work. B & H: Canon XF100 [$3,299.95] B & H: Canon XF105 [$4,299.95]

Is this the end of DSLR filmmaking?! I just placed my order for a Panny AF 101. Hurrah! -Philip Bloom @ twitter [ UPDATE ] Clearly my use of italics and exclamation mark weren't enough to indicate the tongue placed firmly in my cheek, as Philip has gone and posted: Don't be silly! it's comments like that don't do anyone any good. If you read my blog you will know my feelings and that I am sticking with DSLRs! -Philip Bloom

Sony announces 35mm 4K RGB sensor Hugo Gaggion, Sony Broadcast & Professional Solutions CTO, presented 2K/4K roadmap at NYC 2010 HD World show in mid-October. Sony published a video of this presentation discussing color filter pattern innovations, among many other things. Image Sensors World: Sony CineAlta Moves Beyond Bayer Tokina Vs. Canon Jared Abram takes a look at the Tokina 28-80mm f2.8 Vs. the Canon 24-70 f2.8 as well as the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L IS vs the Tokina 80-200mm f2.8. The Canons seemed to be a bit sharper than the Tokinas. The Tokina had a cooler/blue looking lens flare to my eye where the Canon was much warmer/yellow. I'm guessing the Tokina's are new, as I can't find them listed at Amazon or B & H . Vimeo : Quick Take: Tokina Vs. Canon Zooms Zacuto Z-FinderEVF Zacuto has been leaking out information about their upcoming EVF viewfinder in drips and drabs - actually, it's almost like we're sitting in on the design process. The...