Notes On Video

Canon EOS 7D Firmware Version 2 Coming Soon | CanonRumors There's been rumors of a Canon 7D firmware update appearing over the last couple of weeks, and CanonRumors now has what appears to be complete - unofficial - details of the update, which includes lots of things for still photographers, and even something for video shooters: MANUAL ADJUSTMENT FOR AUDIO RECORDING LEVELS During EOS Movie shooting you will be able to manually adjust the audio recording levels to one of 64 levels, whilst the sound volume during playback can be set to one of 11 levels. During movie recording noise from the aperture is reduced and the camera also has an automatic wind cut filter. Jag35 Street Runner Review | Rick Macomber | Vimeo Rick has put together a nicely shot review of this camera rig: The Street Runner is a new affordable rig from the folks at Jag35. It's very similar to it's bigger brother, the Field Runner, which has two front grip handles, a top handle and a slightly di...

The next Pub Night at Rule Boston Camera is Tuesday June 12, 6:00pm to 8:00pm and will feature DP Zach Zamboni. RSVP: events@rule.com

Canon announced a new, lost-cost pancake lens along with the T4i . Specifications are listed below: This EF 40mm f/2.8 STM Pancake Lens [$199.99] from Canon is a welcome addition to Canon's line-up of EF lenses--a light, inconspicuous "normal" lens. At a featherweight 4.6 oz, this is the lightest lens (along with the 50mm f/1.8 II lens) in the EF family. It's less than one inch long, so it will never draw unwelcome attention to you when you're shooting in public. A bright f/2.8 maximum aperture allows you to shoot under pretty much any lighting conditions, and the sophisticated lens configuration, including one aspherical element, guarantees high image quality from the center to the edge of the frame. The optimized coatings used in constructing the lens greatly reduce ghosting and flare, and deliver superb color balance. STM functionality provides quiet, smooth and continuous autofocus during video operation. The circular aperture formed by 7 diaphragm blades...

Continuous AF during HD Video Recording For the first time in a Canon EOS DSLR, the EOS Rebel T4i includes Canon’s new Movie Servo AF for recording video. When used with Canon’s new EF and EF-S STM lenses, the camera can provide smooth and quiet continuous AF while recording video. This technological breakthrough enables the new EOS Rebel T4i to achieve AF while still retaining a DSLR camera’s signature background blur and image quality, producing stunning videos of parties, events, summer vacations or graduations. When shooting video with Canon’s STM lenses, AF also remains silent, helping ensure you only capture the sound of the scene being recorded. The EOS Rebel T4i features a built-in stereo microphone, a first for the Rebel line, that includes an attenuator function to reduce audio distortion in extra loud situations. Canon also announced two new STM lenses, the EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens and EF 40mm f/2.8 STM lens. Estimated delivery is end of June. Pre-orde...

Don't Mean To Be Alarmist, But The TV Business May Be Starting To Collapse | Henry Blodget | Business Insider Interesting suggestion that television is in the same place as newspapers was a few years back...i.e. heading for doom ... We still consume some TV content, but we consume it when and where we want it, and we consume it deliberately: In other words, we don't settle down in front of the TV and watch "what's on." And, again with the exception of live sports, we've gotten so used to watching shows and series without ads that ads now seem extraordinarily intrusive and annoying. Our kids see TV ads so rarely that they're actually curious about and confused by them: "What is that? A commercial?" Anatomy of a video file | Bryan Hastings | Macworld A look at MPEG4 and AVCHD: AVCHD (pronounced by its initials) stands for Advanced Video Coding High Definition. It arrived on the scene in 2006, is more fully featured than MPEG-4 and is rapidl...

I like wide-angle lenses. Whether using video cameras or still cameras, inevitably I find that I need to get further back to get the image I want. And sometimes, you can't physically move back far enough. I think I also like the somewhat distorted point of view you get. I better admit up front that my favorite lens is Canon's 16-35mm L lens. It's a great lens - particularly if you have a crop sensor camera like the Canon 7D . Solid, smooth, and it produces a great image. I love this lens. But at $1,600 it is expensive. What about something a bit cheaper? Samyang has a reputation for making good quality, inexpensive lenses. But you might not have heard of them because they aren't sold under the Samyang name here in the United States. Instead, they are sold under a variety of names including Rokinon and Bower. I already have another lens from Samyang, the 35mm f/1.4 lens , which at $499 is a good deal itself. But I recently got to play with the Rokinon 14mm f/2....

I bought one of the original Lensbaby's - now called the " Muse " series [$149.95] - several years ago. I think that was before we were using DSLR's to shoot video and still thought of them as just "still cameras" And as a still effects lens, the Lensbaby can be a lot of fun; it provides a very ethereal, unworldly feel to an image. Lensbaby Muse The problem with the Muse model is that it uses a flexible tube that you push and pull against to create the effect. That's mostly okay for stills, where you can push it into place, hold it still for a second while you take a picture, and then let go....and try again if it didn't work out. But for video, that doesn't work quite so well. Actually, that flexible tube can be pretty stiff to hold in place even while taking stills. Lensbaby then followed the original series with the " Control Freak " series [$309.99], which use three metal rods to keep the lens in position. An improvement - I...

I just saw a review of the Sony MDR-V55/BR DJ style Headphones : Review: Sony MDR-V55 DJ Headphones | Cam Curran In terms of comfort, the MDR-V55s fare well enough, but in the end, any pair of on-ear headphones has the tendency to make you pretty hot after a few hours, not to mention some slight pain on the outer ear. They're highly adjustable however, and rugged in a way many DJ-style headphones can only aspire to; these are not a flimsy set of plain ol' plastic-and-foam cans. From the description, I'm not sure I'd like them. I've already had a bit of experience with Sony headphones over the last few years: The first high-quality headphones I ever bought were a pair of  Sony MDR-7506  [$99.99] that I bought in the late 1990's. They weren't cheap then, but they are still going strong (they have been repaired with Gorilla glue, and the outer cover of the headphone pads have peeled off.] I like the sound quality of the MDR-7506's , they are light, a...

CHART OF THE DAY: The Explosive Growth Of The iPad | Jay Yarow | Business Insider Pretty amazing chart showing the growth of the iPad vs the iPhone and iPod . Of course, when you think about it, it's probably unsurprising that the iPad sales are faster and higher than the iPhone ...the iPhone  establishing the business, but being a specialized and more expensive choice. Three choices | Oliver Peters | digitalfilm Olivier looks at Adobe, Avid and Final Cut Pro and offers his interpretation of which environment will appeal to which users: In closing, remember this is just a simple way to present the options. There’s nothing that says you can’t mix and match After Effects and/or Pro Tools with EDIUS, Media Composer, Vegas, Media 100 or any other variation. My world is headed primarily to an Apple/Adobe witches brew of applications. RAW 1080p is Coming with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, but Can You Afford the Hard Drives? | Joe Marine | No Film School The problem with...

Sony FS700 test footage. Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis, MN | AlokaKasina | Vimeo More slow-motion footage from the Sony NEX-FS700 . Some of it is quite good, but after about a minute it feels like the novelty wears off. We're all going to be sick of slow-motion by the end of the year: Footage captured with a prototype Sony FS700. In-camera 240fps_1080p and 480fps_720p. Compressed to H.264, 720x1280, 23.976. How to Set Up the Canon 5D To Shoot Video | Michael Britt | Photo Cine News A setup video for the Mark II (not the III): I just put up a short video about how to set up the Canon 5D MKII for Video. I’ve put some of this information out before in our book and some other blog posts but this time I go step by step through the menus for capturing video. I do this in my Intro to DSLR Video seminar and decided to provide this video as a resource to my students, Samy’s Camera customers and PCN readers. If you have a Canon 5D Mark III, and want to shoot underwater, you can now ...

For the last couple of years, Zacuto has been hosting a camera shoot-out where they get a bunch of cameras, shoot some test video, show the results to different people, and then release a web series on the making of, and the reactions to the footage. For the latest go-round, the Boston Creative Pro Users Group is hosting a showing in Boston. Here's the details: BOSCPUG is proud to host the Boston 2K screening of the Zacuto REVENGE of the GREAT CAMERA SHOOTOUT 2012, featuring footage shot with cameras including the ARRI Alexa, Canon C300 and 7D, Sony FS100, F3 and F65, Panasonic GH2 and RED Epic. Headed by Bruce Logan, ASC and featuring Rodney Charters, ASC, Polly Morgan, Nancy Schreiber, ASC, Mick Jones, Johnny Zeller and other industry cinematographers. DATE : Thursday, June 13, 2012 TIMES : 7PM - 9PM (doors open at 6:30PM, Screening begins promptly at 7PM) WHERE : Theatre 1/Space 57 at the new Revere Hotel | Boston Common 200 Stuart Street Boston, MA 02116 (formerly...

6 Filmmaking Tips From The Coen Brothers | Cole Abaius | Film School Rejects Tips from the Coen's: Don’t Be Afraid to Offend “‘Taste,’ says Joel, ‘has never been something we’ve worried about.’ ‘We’re not big on taste,’ agrees Ethan, his grin broadening even further. ‘And actually, if you don’t pander to undue sensitivities then it ends up usually not being much of a problem. In The Big Lebowski, we dumped the crippled guy out of the wheelchair, and no one seemed to mind that. Everyone was saying, You’re going to get a huge amount of mail from disabled people about this. Selectively De-Animating Video | Jiamin Bai et.al. | Berkley.edu Interesting paper (and demo) about technology for greatly simplifying action in a sequence: via Jack Nack : We present a semi-automated technique for selectively de-animating video to remove the large-scale motions of one or more objects so that other motions are easier to see. The user draws strokes to indicate the regions of the video th...

A Cautionary Tale for the FCP Switcher | Walter Biscardi | Creative Cow Walter very publicly broke up with Final Cut when FCPX came out. He switched to Avid, but here he documents the many problems he ran into with the kind of work they do. Now he's trying Premiere Pro: In short, Avid has opened up the workflow on the front end of the process by allowing editors to work natively with multiple formats via AMA, but on the backend the software itself throws up a lot of roadblocks when trying to conform and export a timeline from the application. I describe as "We've made it a lot easier for you to start editing, but good luck getting your project out of our software." If you're going to finish your project inside Avid, you're good to go. But when trying to get outside the software, the tightly controlled database gets in the way. PART TWO…”In two minds” | Philip Johnston | HD Warrior Philip continues to be in three minds about whether to switch to Final C...

Adobe After Effects CS6 | Jeff Foster | MacWorld A big thumbs up for the new After Effects release: If you held out updating After Effects from CS5 or earlier, I urge you to consider this upgrade—or get left in the dust. That sounds like a strong statement, but I believe it's justified. After Effects CS6 is the most important upgrade the program has received since the first major update in version 7. It's not just a bunch of additional features and add-ons, but rather a truly rebuilt, reworked, and enhanced powerful compositing and motion graphics creation tool. Studying 3D Camera Tracker | Jerzy Drozda Jr | Maltaannon A tutorial on After Effects Camera Tracker: Some time ago I’ve posted a short introduction video on YouTube about the new 3D Camera Tracker available in After Effects CS6. I’ve got a lot of comments and questions since then, so I decided to make a more in-depth video on the various aspects of match-moving. If you tried solving a 3D camera on your own ei...

What’s in a Name? | Alexis Van Hurkman | Blog For those interested in color grading, an interesting discussion about the use of the in-phase indicator as an approximate guideline for the angle at which human skin tone may fall: To clarify, I would never and have never suggested that this line is a strict guideline for human hue. In my “color correction handbook” I wrote and illustrated more pages then my editor may have wished about the subtle variations of human skin tone, color interactions between a subject and the illuminant of a scene, and how the in-phase indicator under discussion is merely a general signpost. Like speed limits, nobody follows them exactly, but they let you know you’re around what you ought to be doing. Review of Sony NEX FS700 Part 2: Pros and Cons | Philip Bloom | Vimeo Philip finishes up his review of the Sony NEX-FS700 , listing the five "cool" things he likes best about the camera, and the four "no so cool" things: Cool: 1. Pric...

Behind The Lens – Episode 1 | F-Stop Academy In this episode, a discussion with Philip Bloom & Rick Young about how they got started in the business: "In this 5 Part Webisodic Video Series Cinematographer Den Lennie and Director James Tonkin host discussions with leading figures from the Indie and mainstream film community in Europe. Behind the lens - perspectives on Digital Cinematography is an insightful look at modern Cinematography and digital production" “Jump-start your production with Prelude CS6″ with Wes Plate, seminar recording and notes | Todd Kopriva | Adobe The webinar on Prelude I watched last week can now be seen in replay from this page: What is Adobe Prelude? Adobe Prelude is an application for ingesting, logging, and optionally transcoding tapeless media and assembling clips into rough cuts for use in an NLE (a nonlinear editing application). In addition to the summary in Wes’s presentation, both video2brain and Lynda.com have summaries that...

The Five C’s of Cinematography | Matthew Jeppsen | Fresh DC It's not about the gear, it's about: 1. Camera Angles “Camera placement is determined by narrative significance.”This is very important. Why are you looking at what you are looking at? Is it because it looks good, or because we need to see it to move the story along? It should always be to move the story along and never solely because it looks good. 6 Crowdfunding Mistakes That Can Kill a Campaign | Scott Steinberg | Mashable What to avoid when you start your crowd-funding campaign: 1. Nobody Knows Who You Are Among the most common reasons campaigns croak is the lack of a meaningful brand identity. Projects with existing followings or known personalities attached (e.g. Wasteland 2) often do well. Unproven or obscure projects, such as Class of Heroes 2, don’t fair as well. In fact, according to Kickstarter, 75% of projects fail just in the video game space alone. It makes sense that building and maintaining tr...

Review of Sony FS700 part1 live! | Philip Bloom | Blog Philip posts the first part of his video review of the Sony NEX-FS700 : The review is broken up into two parts. This one focuses on initial impressions and the super slow motion function. Part two is coming shortly in the next couple of days and focuses on the pros and cons of the camera. It's advantages and limitations, an examination of the image and it's low light performance.. Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 | Antony Bolante | MacWorld Another review of Premiere Pro CS6 : With the introduction of Prelude and SpeedGrade—not to mention the advent of the Creative Cloud—it’s tempting to define Premiere Pro CS6 in terms of a larger video workflow. [...] CS6 extends the performance gains of CS5 to a wider range of users, particularly mobile editors with the proper laptop configuration. But what makes CS6 a worthy upgrade is its focus on enhancing its raison d’être: more fluent video editing. After Effects CS6 (11.0.1) updat...