Notes On Video

When DPReview reviewed the Sony NEX-5/3 , they weren't impressed at all, noting slow start-up times, confusing interface and limited controls, and though they didn't get too detailed about video they did point out the very limited video control with no aperture control or exposure lock . So that's the end of that. Except that now Camcorderinfo.com has reviewed the NEX-5 , and while they also are disappointed with the lack of manual controls, they were somewhat impressed by how well it did with it's automatic settings: The NEX-5 has some of the best auto controls we've seen on a video-capable DSLR. Its continual autofocus is quiet and fast, and its auto exposure system works surprisingly well. In contrast, however, the camera has very little to offer in terms of manual controls when shooting video. I wouldn't buy the NEX-5 for its video capabilities, but if you're looking for a still camera that also does video, it might be worth considering. And i

A friend is editing a video he took of a stage performance, and I recommended the utility PlurtalEyes for syncing the different video clips. PluralEyes is a software program that will take video and audio files and match them based on the audio tracks. He downloaded the beta of the Premiere Pro version - after having trouble finding it because he thought I was talking about a tool called Pluralize - and found it did a pretty good job of matching the tracks, but he felt it was perhaps a frame or two off in some cases. It was only after talking about it for a while that it occurred to us that the speed of sound might be coming into play; he has one camera set-up on the stage, and two set up at the back of the auditorium. He reckoned it was about 100 feet from the front of the stage to the back of the hall. A quick search turned up the speed of sound in feet per second: 1,125. Which translates to: 37.5 ft every 1/30 second. Which means that the audio could be two or three fr

People don't seem to like the after-the-fact 3D added to The Last Airbender . A few more like this and 3D will be dead again. Salon.com: How bad 3-D is ruining movies

DSLR Viewfilder Comparison Nino Leitner has put together a comparison of several different DSLR viewfinders: Zacuto Z-Finder Jr. Cavision LCD viewfinder set for 5D Mark II LCDVF DSLR viewfinder Hoodman HoodLoupe 3.0 Redrock Micro microFinder Loupe Accessory Kit Z-Finder Pro 2.5x For those on a budget, he recommends the Z-Finder Jr . or the LCDVF . Otherwise he likes the Z-Finder Pro. 2.5x . I've been considering the Z-Finder Pro , but was confused about the difference between the 2.5x vs. the 3x, and which was the best one to get. I was therefore interested to read Nino's comments about the two: To be honest, I found the 3x magnfication of Z-Finder v2 too extreme as it was impossible to view the entire frame at once – I found myself looking around all the time and I ended up with some shots that showed more than what I had in mind when shooting it. If you're thinking of getting a viewfinder, you'll want to check this out. He also reports that he will be getti

The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA is running a Trailer Smackdown competition. Create an original trailer for the fictional movie “ Labor Day ” which must include one item from each column listed on the entry form (“Genre”, “Location”, “Character”, and “Action”). One written-in “Wild Card” will be allowed per entry. All films submitted must be less than two (2) minutes in length, and the entry deadline is July 13th . It costs $10 to enter. Brattle Theater: Full Competition Rules: Smackdown 2010 Entry Form [PDF] This contains the categories required

Createasphere/LEARN is offering the following free webcast on July 8th, 11:00am PDT (limited to 500) The RED MX cameras and the soon to be released Epic are forcing a rapid evolution in RAW image capture. The industry is faced with the fact that beginners and experts alike all need to master new workflows. Information sharing is the best way to make sure everyone is aware of current capture, post, and distribution methods. So, we have designed this webcast to cover the urgent topics of the day from the experts in the field. In this webcast we will discuss optimized RAW image capture on the RED MX and Epic cameras, preparing a proper post workflow in every genre, color sciences of RED for film and RED for television, and how RED is being used on international projects. Steve Freebairn , will share his experience with on-set RED management for feature films (like Pirates 4 ) Chris Parker , from Bling Digital, will address using RED across multiple countries for network TV. Michael

File this under " news that's not news ," but Steve Jobs has confirmed that Blu-ray will never come to the Mac. MacRumors.com posted extracts from an email exchange between Jobs and a customer, the highlight being: Bluray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD - like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats. Not really s surprise given past indications, but in a way it's nice to have it finally confirmed. I guess we can all get on with our lives now... MacRumors.com : Steve Jobs Suggests Blu-ray Not Coming to Mac Anytime Soon NotesOnVideo : HDMI in Mac Mini, but no Blu-ray?

BOSFCPUG presents in association with RULE Boston Camera PHILIP BLOOM $99 DSLR WORKSHOPS - "Harnessing the Power of your DSLR" Only $99, this one day Philip Bloom DSLR workshop will take place on Saturday, July 17th and will be repeated on Sunday, July 18th - Note: This is a one day intensive workshop that is repeated on both Saturday and Sunday. Covering all the Canon EOS DSLRs and the Panasonic GH1, this all day class is for intermediate users, ideally for people who have the cameras already and are looking to take their skills to the next level... Topics covered include the following and much more: Differences in the cameras Lens selection: When to use the right lens for your shots Choosing the right accessories for your DSLR Lighting for DSLR filmmaking Recording proper sound for DSLR filmmaking Timelapse recording with your DSLR Production workflow techniques Philip's post editing best practices using Final Cut Pro, Adobe Creative Suite 5 and Avid DA

It's been a week since the release of the iPhone 4 with it's HD video capabilities; where do things stand? First music video shot entirely on the iPhone 4 [CHECK] Complaints about poor image quality, wobble and rolling shutter [CHECK] Professional productions shot on the iPhone 4 [AT LEAST ONE IN PRE-PRODUCTION] Over 350,000 results returned for the search "iPhone 4" on YouTube [CHECK] All-in-all, it's looking pretty impressive, even though I agree; the iPhone 4 does have terrible wobble and rolling shutter, and really only deserves attention as a video camera because you're likely to have it with you. Specifically setting out to use it for a project - now that so many people have done most of the firsts  - just seems a bit silly. And the  iPhone 4  won't be getting the distinction of shooting the first feature film. At least one film has already claimed that title: South African filmmaker Aryan Kaganof shot  SMS Sugar Man ” earlier this yea

The iconic company Polaroid has sold off it's photo archive, donated it's artifacts to the MIT Museum... ...and appointed Lada Gaga as their Creative Director! Earlier today, Lady Gaga presided over a product design and development session for future Polaroid products. Today’s session is a milestone in the road to developing Lady Gaga’s co-branded Polaroid products that blend fashion, technology and photography. Life has finally caught up to Andy Warhol. Polaroid : MIT Museum's Polaroid exhibit to feature exclusive Lady Gaga Polaroid photograph

This months Boston Final Cut Pro User Group meeting looks especially interesting; July 14th Workflow Mixer: "The TAO of Color Grading" Wednesday, July 14, 2010 from 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM @ Autodesk, Inc., 1560 Trapelo Rd, Waltham, MA 02451 Patrick Inhofer will present the Boston premiere of "The Tao of Color Grading - Featuring the Euphonix MC Color control surface and Apple's Color" And this month admission is free (though you must register) BOSFCPUG Home Page

I'm a big fan of wide-angle lenses; it always seems the lens I have is never wide enough! For camcorders, a lens converter (a lens that screws in front of the camera lens) can go some way to solving this problem; though these can be expensive (the wide-angle conversion kit for the Sony HXR-NX5U costs $800) and the quality of the image won't be as good as the original lens. On the consumer front, the choices are a little cheaper. For my Sony HDR-XR500 camcorder I found the Sony VCL-HA07A which fits the 30mm filter size of the camera and costs about $30.  It also includes 25 and 37mm adapters. Sony VCL-HA07A, lens covers and adapters For $30 I wasn't expecting much, but at the some time, the risk seemed small. Even if the lens was only used for occasional shots, I felt that being able to get a little wider would be useful. While the lens is glass, the lens shell of the VCL-HA07A is plastic. The plastic construction might even be considered a feature; it's still a f

Jared Abrams at Cinema5D posted links to a couple of videos showing a very impressive quadrocopter being used as an aerial platform for an HDSLR. Makes for some impressive shots. Cinema5D : Perspective Aerials Helicopter HDSLR Rig. If you're interested in building your own quadrocopter, you can find information about a system from one company at Quadrocopter LLC , and there are more examples of aerial shots posted on Vimeo by user FLV-Leif, including this one:  Random Okto . The test shot with a Sony HDR-SR10 is good too. There's also MikroKopter . If you want to go a little simpler than these multi-rotor systems, you could go to an RC helicopter: DIY Photography : Photographer Rigs A Canon 7D To an RC Helicopter (Kickass Video + Short Interview) But having attempted to pilot an RC helicopter, I'm going to stay away from these things, and try something more like this: Kite Aerial Photography: Rig and Camera

A funny thing happened the other day. In addition to some still pictures, I shot a short clip of video at the Rule Camera Event, but when I transferred the photos from the Compact Flash card, the file "went astray." I say that because I thought I copied all the files across to my hard drive before I deleted them from the Compact Flash card ... but when I looked in the folder on my hard drive, the movie file wasn't there! Let me repeat that: I  thought  I copied all the files across to my hard drive  before I deleted them from the Compact Flash card [ emphasis added. ] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=macintosh+file+recovery+software The above search turns up a couple of applications, and I downloaded the trial version of Drive Genius and it did seem to find the file; but they wanted $90 to get it back. For many things, $90 would be well worth it, but I was pretty sure the clip wasn't that great... So I looked for something free; and fo

This afternoon Panasonic will be hosting a live Webcast on "Full HD 3D technology" with Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, Chief Technology Officer, Panasonic Corp. of North America WHEN: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 Starting at 3:00 p.m. ET WHERE: Panasonic Full HD 3D Channel on Ustream http://www.ustream.tv/channel/panasonic-3d

Matrox is offering a free webinar on H.264 encoding on July 13th. Topics: Why H.264 has become an industry standard How to accentuate the positive and overcome the negative aspects of working with H.264 How to deliver H.264 files using your favorite encoding applications — Apple Compressor, Telestream Episode, Adobe Media Encoder and more How rendering times compare Ways to speed up rendering The key to creating high quality video for low bandwidth web connections There are two sessions: Date : July 13, 2010 First Session : 7:00 am Pacific / 10:00 am Eastern Second Session : 10:00 am Pacific / 1:00 pm Eastern Attendees have a chance to win a Matrox CompressHD H.264 accelerator card. Webinar Registration

Canon Rumors The Canonrumors website has had a bunch of interesting reports over the past few days about a 60D (with articulating LCD screen) a 3D (something between the 5D and 1D ?) and some kind of video camera with an EF mount. The 60D seems very likely since the 50D is aging and Canon may have even stopped production of that model, but the 3D has been rumored off and on for the last couple of years...it also seems odd that - if the rumors is to be believed - they'd use another vendors chip in a camera. Canonrumors.com Color Grading in Photoshop Extended Richard Harrington, one of the authors of the book From Still to Motion has posted a video from the book to YouTube that covers using Photoshop for Color Grading. Note: you need Photoshop Extended to do this. YouTube : Color Grading Footage In Adobe Photoshop Extended Interview with Zacuto co-founder Steve Weiss The latest Digital Convergence podcast has an interview with Zacuto co-founder Steve Weiss. Za

Dina Rudick at The Boston Globe sends word of a new video project she just completed about Haiti that is up on The Globe's website. Reginette's story was shot by Bill Greene (with a Canon XHA1 ) and Dina (with a Canon Mark IV ), and Dina produced it. Audio for the interviews was recorded with a separate recorder and synced in post with PluralEyes . For the rest of the audio Dina used a Rode Video Mic on the Mark IV . Boston Globe : Reginette's story Related: NotesOnVideo : Dina Rudick - photographer & videographer

Dashwood Cinema Solutions has released a significant update to its Stereo3D Toolbox plug-in for stereoscopic 3D mastering, as well as an inexpensive limited edition (LE) version. Both plug-in suites are powered by FxFactory and are designed to work with Adobe After Effects , Apple Final Cut Pro , Apple Motion , and Apple Final Cut Express applications. Stereo3D Toolbox v2.0 Feature Highlights Precise Stereoscopic Alignment : Filters allow adjustments to the convergence of scenes with horizontal image translation (HIT), while eliminating vertical, rotational, keystone and focal length disparity using either pixel-based or scalable percentage sliders. All adjustments can be keyframed with sub-pixel precision and "ease in/out" Bezier curves. The "Geometry" filter also features the "autoscale" function to automatically eliminate cropped edges, as well as stereoscopic scale, rotation and reframe tools. Advanced Stereoscopic Mastering Tools : The "