Posts

Showing posts from November 29, 2009

The Camera Curmudgeon - Why DSLR’s make shockingly awful video cameras

Image
I’ve had a Canon 7D for about a month now, and I have to say, it’s turning into a love/hate relationship. On the love side, it is a really nice DSLR. Of course, I would say that; my previous DSLR is the Canon 10D. A couple of notes about the 10D vs the 7D; it’s amazing how similar the two cameras are in size, shape and arrangement of controls. If you’re happy with the way Canon puts cameras together, it’s easy to go from one to the other. And the 7D is definitely a big improvement, though the two things I notice most frequently is the difference in focusing (the extra focus points and routines really change the way that works) and the much larger LCD screen, which makes it easier to review pictures on the fly. There’s lots of other tweaks along the way, and who can forget the difference in resolution, though frankly, I don’t need 18MP… But back to video. Where to start? Well, firstly, the good: It is really neat to be able to use your SLR to record video sequences, even if it’s just im

RED Scarlet

Image
I'm not a RED expert, and if you want to get positively biased information about the RED Scarlet, then you should head straight to the source. I kind of ignore RED most of the time, because their $17,000 camera is well beyond my budget and needs. But a while back they announced a "budget" camera called Scarlet that the RED fans have been saying for most of the year will blow Canon DSLRs - and pretty much every other video camera under $10,000 - out of the water. I just bought a Canon 7D. RED's been dripping out information about the camera for some time now. It's kind of interesting because I have to admit that I've spent a lot of my time over the past year at canonrumors searching for news on new cameras, and appleinsider for news of an Apple Tablet. So I'm a rumors/news junky. But I have to say, hearing about something months and months prior to it's release is a bit frustrating; with that amount of lead time you have no real idea when the came

NXCAM Intro videos

Image
I mentioned the online Sony HD Expo and how there's a video introducing the NXCAM featuring Juan Martinez, SXZenior Product Manager for Sony Broadcast & Professional AV Products and Andy Munitz, National Training Manager . Previously, you had to register to get in to see it, but Sony has now posted that video - along with a teaser promotional video for the NXCAM - on their NXCAM webpage . It's about 10 minutes long, and if you're at all interested in the NXCAM, it's worth watching.

Hitchcock changes name

The iPhone storyboard application Hitchcock, which I reviewed a few weeks back , has changed it's name to Storyboard Composer . The update just appeared - for me - on iTunes , and it said that it added PDF Export, though the function seems to be the same as in the previous release. [ UPDATE ] Interestingly, while the application name is changed, and the exported PDF has a new product name/logo on it, the email you receive from their server when the uploaded storyboard is available still says " Cinemek Hitchcock " [ UPDATE 2 ] Turns out it was Export to PDF fixes .