Notes On Video

Canon Cinema EOS 1D C – Vimeo footage and 4K source file direct from card | Andrew Reid | EOSHD A sample from the Canon 1D C that was posted recently: I’ve had a look at the 4096 x 2048 MOV file in Adobe Premiere Pro at 1:1 (100% view). What do I think of it? Well viewed at 100% it is certainly on the soft side. It does not contain the kind of resolution a standard 1D X still JPEG has but for video it is very good. It is not near what true 4K should look like, but then the only 4K cinema camera on the market than can really be considered ‘true 4K’ is the $70,000 Sony F65 with an oversampling 8K sensor and RGB 4-4-4 colour sampling. Work In Progress: The Digital Bolex Camera Is A Crowdfunded Filmmaking Revolution | Jonathan Poritsky | The Creators Project An interview with the creators of the Digital Bolex .  They say it's on tack for August release, but while there's a lot of history of the project, there's not a lot about the status of the camera itself: ...I want...

Canon C300 large sensor camera: the budget Alexa? | David Fox | TVB Europe A round-up of views on the Canon C300 from European DPs: "Buying the first of anything is always a bit of a gamble,” but it has paid off, because the C300 is now flavour of the moment and is “perfect for TV”. He [DoP Tim Sutton] didn’t consider buying any other large-format camera at the time as nothing else ticked all the boxes for picture quality, usability, cost and specification -- mainly the TV friendly codec. “It delivers good looking pictures, is easy to use and producers are not bewildered with yet another format or codec given the C300’s workflow is identical to that of the XF305.” Hands on report on the BlackMagic Cinema Camera | Matt Battershell | Planet5D Matt got to see the BlackMagic Cinema Camera prototype, and is very excited about the camera: I was never too worried about my pre-order on faith, never having touched the camera nor seen really many samples, but now, I am not worrie...

My First Weekend With Sony's New FS700 | Ro Tierney | Blog A fairly detailed report on the first few days with the Sony NEX-FS700 . Seems they are turning up in New Zealand already: The handle and grip are obviously a massive improvement over the FS100. The built-in ND’s, XLR inputs and HD SDI & HDMI outputs reminded me of what video cameras are supposed to have. As for ease of use, well it will take some getting used to with regards to button placement, etc, but everything seems well thought out and I found myself getting used to it very quickly. It is a breath of fresh air. FS700 vs F3 talking head | Mskogstrom Photography Comparing the footage from the NEX-FS700 with the Sony PMW-F3: First inital reaction is Yes. Footage looks very good and looks easy enough to match to the F3. All footage shot to a PIX240 in Prores 422HQ. Both cameras are white balanced in the Key light. Both read 3000K, but there is a distinct difference in the red wall. Both cameras are shot...

Focus On Sony NEX FS700 | BorrowLenses.com | Vimeo An intro to the Sony NEX-FS700 - which is just starting to ship - with some nice pictures of the camera, a demo of camera operation, and video demoing the ND filter, low light, and slow motion: We were very excited to get our hands on the Sony NEX FS700U. We put it through it's paces and showcase some of the cool new features of this awesome camera including the built-in ND filters, and the super-slow motion at several frame rates. And if you're in Boston, check out the Rule Boston Camera Learning Lab on July 11th which will be on the Sony NEX-FS700. Moonrise Kingdom: Wes Anderson's miniatures | Jim Emerson | Sun Times This article looks at how scenes are set up and how the camera movies through the movie: I would estimate that 98 percent of the time (I wish I had a graph), Anderson's camera is situated on a tripod or a dolly, moves only at right angles, and always with clockwork smoothness. (There's ...

Yesterday I went out to Salem MA where a group of enthusiastic DPs and actors had gathered together for a Three-Minute Film Challenge . Organized by Paul Antico and Rick Macomber , everyone was invited to bring a scipt with the object of shooting a three-minute movie. The other wrinkle was that the plan was to shoot it all using a Canon C300 . I'll be writing more about it later - once the video's are complete - but here's some pictures from the event: Paul Antico attaches a rig to the Canon C300 . (clockwise from left: Paul, Matt Stapleton, Todd Mahoney, Adam Kerchman, Rick Macomber) Using a slider in the grass. Paul Antico and Sean Meehan discuss a setup Todd Mahoney brought along this little gem. A Shur-Line 06572L painters-pole with an adapter that lets him mount a GoPro Hero . I always find it interesting to watch other's when they are shooting; how they set things up, placement of the actors and camera, and how they handle lighting. And when it's a...

That was the question a friend asked me the other day. It was a loaded question because he’s a rabid Windows/Android user, and I’m a rabid Mac/iPhone user, which means that we usually don’t talk about computers or phone’s at all…it’s just easier that way. The original Apple TV But the Apple TV …was he thinking of getting one? And what did I think of the Apple TV anyway? I’ve had the original Apple TV since it first came out, and to be honest, it’s been nothing like the iPhone and the iPad . The latter I don’t think I could ever give up, and the former has proved to be a very useful tool for meetings and for trips when I don’t want to take the MacBook along. I could live without the iPad , but that’s primarily because I also have an iPhone . But the Apple TV ? To be honest, I hardly use it. I do use it to rent movies, on those few occasions that I do rent movies. That’s probably once every two months. It works really well for that. It’s simple and easy to rent movies, and ...

Help documents for Creative Suite CS5, CS5.1, CS5.5, and CS6 applications (PDF and HTML) |Todd Kopriva | Adobe The documentation for Creative Suite 6 apps (and CS5) is available online in PDF and HTML format: This page includes links to the Help documents (user guides, manuals) for CS5, CS5.1, CS5.5, and CS6 applications. These are just the English-language documents. I gave links to some documents in other languages here. GPU acceleration in After Effects CS6: Which Mac does it better? | rob-ART morgan | Bare Feats Several Macs are compared, results depend on the brand of GPU you have: Every Mac with an NVIDIA GPU blew away the Macs with AMD GPUs. That's because the Ray-Traced 3D Render option requires CUDA support. Of our test units, the 6-core Mac Pro with Quadro 4000 was fastest at 41 minutes. The fastest laptop was the 2012 MacBook Pro "Retina" at 58 minutes. In both cases, the CPU was loafing along while the NVIDIA CUDA "aware" GPU was doing all...

Rule Boston Camera has announced their Learning Labs and Pub Night for July: Learning Labs: WED July 11: Intro To The Sony NEX-FS700 with Sony's Tom Cubby 10:00am-12noon WED: July 18: LED Lights: Ready For Prime Time with Lighting Designer John Gates 10:00am-12noon WED: July 25: Capturing High-Quality Digital Stills & Multi0Media Content With photographer Steve Dunwell 10:00am-12noon Pub Night: THU: July 26: The Long & WInding Road: Thriving in Today's Film, Video & Digital Cinema World With Cinematographer and Director Austin de Besche 6:00-8:00pm

New F3 Firmware Adds S-Log to Every Camera | Andy Shipsides | AbelCine New firmware for the Sony PMW-F3 : Version 1.40, which can be download here, adds S-Log into the Picture Profile menu of the camera. This allows anyone to turn on S-Log without the RGB key, although you still need the key for 4:4:4 output. Having S-Log in the profiles menu allows adjustment to the other camera settings such as black level, color, and white balance. Canon EOS 7D Firmware 2.0.0 coming August 7, 2012 | HDCam Team The new firmware for the 7D isn't due until August it seems... Unfortunately the announced improvements don’t include much for video mode, besides what is really welcome but supposed to be already in the EOS 7D since very long ago: Manual Audio Gain. At least all EOS 7D users will be able to manually set the audio gain before start recording video. This was a worldwide requested feature that Canon finally decided to include! Sony's Action Cam prototype is incredibly small, w...

Replace the Camera Lens on Your GoPro with a Third Party Lens | FilmakerIQ Third parties offer options for replacing the GoPro lens: I recently scratched up the lens on my GoPro to the point where I was getting some serious lens artifacts when the camera was pointed at any source of light. Contacted GoPro themselves and the best they could do was offer me a discount on a new one. Then I discovered that there are third-party parts manufacturers that are selling lenses for the GoPro. 5 killer Canon Lens for video | stillmotion | iso1200 Nice video that looks at five Canon lenses, and explains why they like them:  Canon 24-105mm f4L IS [$1,149], 14mm f2.8L rectilinear [$2,199.00 through Jun30], 135mm f2.0L [$1,014.00 through Jun30], Extender 1.4x II [ vIII $464.00 through Jun30], 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS [$1,589.00 through Jun30]. Let's take a look at 5 lenses we love from Canon, all of which all been instrumental in our biggest productions over the years. while you've...

Desert shooting with the Sony NEX-FS100 | David Lawless, EMCTV | Google+ I’m really impressed with how the camera performed in high-contrast conditions. Whilst not having built in NDs is a bit of a drawback for run-and-gun style shooting, we made do with a mattebox and filter set and some variable NDs. Where this camera really shines though is in low light. I am constantly surprised at how clean the footage is at 0db gain and even when pushed up to 18db the picture shows very little noise compared to other cameras. Apple publish a white paper on RED Workflows with Final Cut Pro X | fcp.co A white paper from Apple prompts the suggestion that Apple won't be updating FCPX to handle RED files anytime soon: This white paper called RED Workflows with Final Cut Pro X details the methods of working with the files right now. As you would expect it relies heavily on converting them to ProRes first. RED Gives up on Apple, Teams up with Adobe, NVIDIA and HP | Theo Valich | bsn ...

Seems that everyone is doing compact action cameras, and now Sony has announced their own; though they haven't announced a price yet: SONY DEVELOPS AN ULTRA COMPACT HD VIDEO CAMERA SOLUTION FOR POINT-OF-VIEW SHOOTING AND ACTION SPORTS NEW YORK (CEA LINE SHOW BOOTH #71), June 26, 2012 – Sony today announced that it is developing a new type of high definition wearable video camera which answers the demand for premium point-of-view and action sports filming devices. The new video camera will feature Sony’s hallmark SteadyShot® image stabilization technology, found in its portfolio of digital imaging products, to reduce blur and deliver stunningly smooth footage. The video camera’s small, lightweight body will also house an Exmor® R CMOS image sensor for excellent low light shooting and an ultra-wide angle Carl Zeiss® Tessar® lens. Additionally, Sony will offer a suite of mounting attachments, including waterproof and ruggedized housings. By combining this technology with m...

Last week I sat in on an introduction to Adobe Story webinar given by Maxim Jago . For those unfamiliar with it, Story is a script writing application. The interesting thing about it is that it’s actually an AIR application, and it either runs on the net or locally. One advantage of this is that sharing files via the internet is very simple. Story was previously available as a free beta version, but they have now transitioned to a “freemium” model. Since Story is a service, it’s not a part of the Master collection, but it is a part of the Creative Cloud subscription. A free version is still available; Story Free requires that you remain online all the time while Story Plu s allows you to work online or offline. Sharing is also limited for the Free version, but as long as one person has the full version of Story , other people with free versions can access and edit things, while the full version “Runs the Show.” Story , of course, supports the standard movie script format (as...

The Sony NSZ-GP9 and remote SONY’S NEXT GENERATION SET-TOP BOX WITH GOOGLE TV™ ARRIVES JULY 22 SAN DIEGO, June 25, 2012 – Sony Electronics Inc. today announced the availability and pricing of the NSZ-GS7 Internet Player with Google TV™, originally introduced in January at CES . Powered by Google TV, the Internet Player will be available at retailers nationwide on July 22, priced at $199. Pre-orders begin on June 25, 2012 at www.sony.com/sonygoogletv . [...] In addition to the NSZ-GS7 Internet Player, Sony’s newest Internet Blu-ray Disc™ player with Google TV, the NSZ-GP9, will be available at retailers in time for the holiday season, priced at $299. The NSZ-GP9 player features Sony’s proven Blu-ray Disc technology coupled with the robust Google TV platform. Complete Text:

NeedCreative Podcast Ep. 1 - Check 1, 2 | AnticipateMedia | Podcast Boston based filmmaker  Paul Antico and musician  Jason Sidelinger have started a new weekly podcast about filmmaking, audio, and the creative process. Their first effort is online now and includes a  discussion about audio and microphones. Well worth checking out: The NeedCreative Podcast is a weekly podcast catering to the independent digitally-powered Creative, with a focus on photography, filmmaking, music creation, and sound engineering among other audio and visual arts. Your hosts come from a varied background in Media production, and will expore all manner of topics each week from gear to story to the inspiration and passion. My Love Affair With The Sony F3 | Adam Shanker | Crews Control Adam writes a love letter to his Sony PMW-F3 : The F3 encourages creativity. I can set the camera to shoot in slow motion or in quick motion. The push/dial on the side of the camera easily gets into thi...

Does the Sony NEX-FS700 image improve when using an external recorder? | Matt Allard | DSLR News Shooter A quick test reveals little difference using an external recorder: Well in short the answer at the moment seems to be no. Sony have said the camera will be capable of outputting a 4K 12bit RAW image at some point in the future but sadly it only outputs 8 bit 4:2:2 over the HD SDI output at the moment. My interest here is solely in actual image quality so I’m not going to go into all the technical reasons for this – if you are interested in finding out more there is plenty of in depth technical information around the web. How to Wrap Cables and Avoid a Tangled Mess | Evan Luzi | The Black and Blue Perhaps the most important tip of the day; how to deal with cables! That solution is known as “the over/under method” and is one of the first things you should know how to do when getting into any type of film or video production. It is one of the best skills you can learn on a set...

Colorist Rob Bessette of Finish Post presents an overview on the art of color correction with a step-by-step look at the finer points of Black Magic Design's DaVinci Resolve : WED: June 27th, 10:00am - 12noon RSVP: events@rule.com