Notes On Video

An abbreviated post from my iPhone about the Canon Expo. I'll just list the highlights and try and do a more in-depth report next week. 1. Coming down I read a couple of Tweets from another blogger that described it as "corporate" and rather lame. Maybe I was expecting the worst, or had my expectations lowered, but I'm pretty amazed. They have ice skaters!!! 2. Vincent Laforet looks like the guy from C.S.I. 3. New York is humid and crowded. 4. The 4k camera is amazing as a demo, even if they didn't really have many details. 5. Ice skaters! 6. Daniel Berube from the Boston Final Cut User Group may get drummed out of the group; he was demoing Adobe Premiere! 7. They have an amazing print-on-demand machine...for those interested in that kind of thing. 8. I was surprised by the best speaker of the day; Corbin Bernsen. He's pationate about indie film making. I may not agree with all his ideas, but he has a lot if them! Well worth hearing. [ UPDA

Steve Jobs rolled out the expected new version of the Apple TV that's 1/4 the size, and geared towards streaming and rentals of TV shows/movies (it has no internal storage.) You can still stream from your computer, so I assume you'll still be able to buy TV shows and movies using your computer if you want to. In the past, Steve somewhat dismissively said that Apple TV was a hobby, and they even riffed on that at the beginning when he said "One More Thing" and the screen changed to "One More Hobby." I was a bit surprised that the interface seemed almost identical to the current Apple TV; it had been rumored that it would use iOS, but when introducing it, Steve listed things they'd learned from the original Apple TV , and one of them was that people " don't want a computer. " The Apple TV will retail for $99 and be available in four weeks. It has HDMI output only (which is a problem for my old component only TV.) Steve also demoe

Today Apple is doing a press announcement, and everyone seems to think that they will announce a new iPod Touch , and a $99 Apple TV . The latter will be a new version that runs the iOS (like that used in the iPhone and iPad ) and they'll also have rentable TV shows for 99 cents, and maybe other streaming deals (Netflix?) I'm wondering if my old Apple TV will now become irrelevant. Announcements start at 1pm, and Apple themselves are streaming the event. That in itself, might be a hint at what's to come, as they haven't been streaming their events for some time. Does this mean they think there will be a smaller audience than for iPhone rollouts, so they can handle it okay?; Or is it so there won't be so many bloggers live blogging the event and ruining Steve's wifi/cell access? Or does it mean they have a much bigger streaming service online to handle the demand? Guess we have to wait and see. I'm really hoping they'll either announce the avail

According to an article on Canon Europe's site: The XF models use a new 1/3-type, 2.07 Megapixel Canon CMOS sensor, adapted from the 3CMOS sensor system employed in XF300-series models , captures Full HD video at native 1920x1080 resolution. The XF100-series has a new Infrared (IR) shooting mode that’s activated via a switch on the front of the camcorder, beneath the lens. With a built-in IR lamp, both green and white light shooting options. A single manual lens ring provides control over focus, zoom and iris, with a side-mounted switch allowing the user to switch instantly between modes. A new Face-Only AF mode limits autofocusing to detected faces only. Two CF slots for continuous (relay) recording. SD card slot for stills. PRICING According to a post at the dvinfo.net forum, the pricing of the cameras will be as follows: The Estimated Street Price for the XF100 is $2999 and the Estimated Street Price for the XF105 is $3999. However, Canon has made a corporate decision

XF100 I'm still getting over the announcement of the XF100 today....okay, it's not like the world completely changed, but in this day of rumors and leaks, it's a little shocking to see something like this appear without any prior hint. So what are the XF100 and XF105, and how do they compare with the XF300 and XF305? There's some information still missing (i.e. price) but comparing the available specs, you can see that the XF100/XF105 models are quite a bit smaller in size and probably lighter, with a shorter zoom (10x instead of 18x.) The cameras appear to use similar CMOS chips (at least the resolution is identical) with an approximate total number of pixels on the chip of .37 megapixels (2044 x 1160 pixels.) Obviously only 1920 x 1080 are actually used. The other significant difference is that the XF100 & XF105 have a single sensor, while the XF300 & XF305 have three. Sensitivity seems a little lower too, though this could be due to the slightly slower

Well this came out of left field! Everyone was so focused on the 60D , that there wasn't even a hint of this announcement: two new "compact" camcorders that fit under the XF300/305 range, but look pretty "pro" anyway; 4:2:2 color! No prices and aren't scheduled for availability until first quarter 2011. PRESS RELEASE LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., August 31, 2010 – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging, today announces the new Canon XF105 and XF100 Professional Camcorders for mobile HD video capture in a compact form factor. Canon's smallest professional camcorders, the new XF105 and XF100 utilize the same Canon XF Codec featured in the Canon XF305 and XF300, introduced earlier this year. The Canon XF Codec is an MPEG-2 4:2:2 50Mbps codec used for exceptional high-definition image quality, full non-linear editing (NLE) systems compatibility and efficient, robust workflow. These camcorders include in-camera features enabling the easy set-up and capture

Jason Levine: DSLR Video Editing for Photographers Jason Levine has posted part 1 of DSLR Video Editing for Photographers . It's centered around Adobe Premiere CS5 . Jason Levine : DSLR Video Editing for Photographers Canon 60D lacks AF microadjustment Heavens! I didn't even know what AF Microadjustment was until I saw this posted at the Canonfumors forum, but it appears the 60D lacks this feature. Petitions will soon be happening! This article at Northlight Images explains how to do it (on cameras that have that function), though I'm trying to figure out if I even want to begin doing this... : Camera AF Microadjustment - for free Canonrumors.com : The 60D Needs AF Microadjustment Manfrotto’s 504HD Fluid Head overview Ian McCausland at CineTechnica takes a look at the new 504HD Fluid Head in this two minute video. It's an overview of the features, not a review of the head itself. CineTechnica : Manfrotto’s 504HD Fluid Head overview

A couple of months ago the B-17 Liberty Belle visited a small airfield north of Boston, and I went out to shoot some video of it. It was mostly a learning exercise as it was one of the first time's I used the Canon 7D to do an extended shoot. The weather was awful; during all of the time you could get close to the aircraft it was pouring rain, and the sky was totally white with clouds. I did a rough cut, and was somewhat happy with it, and then I went to the Philip Bloom workshop - it's never a good idea to do something like that in the middle of a project; you end up hating everything you've done - and decided the rough cut was too rough. There wasn't anything I could do about re-shooting, but I could do some visual effects. I ended up adding cloud effects using Apple Motion , which got rid of the boring white skies, and some zoom and panning to give the thing more life. Fortunately, all of the middle sequences were shot on a tripod, which - luckily - made addin