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Life In Singapore – Captured With A 60D And A Kessler Pocketdolly
| Rick Macomber | DSLR News Shooter
Rick put together a really nice video on his recent trip to Singapore, and he's written a blog about how he did it here:

As a TV photojournalist I’m big on the handheld run and gun style of shooting. Especially with these small cameras. Much easier than the huge monster Sony XDCam 700 I shoulder at CBS Boston. For the Singapore film I used creative handheld methods like slow rocking on my feet to get a fluid look as well as finding level surfaces to place either a camera or the Pocketdolly. The subtle side to side or pushing in and out rocking shots look much better than trying to handhold a camera perfectly still. You will always see those tiny vibrations that way.

Controlling Depth of Field with the Canon C300 | Mitch Gross | CineTechnica
AbelCine brings us this video intro looking at the Canon C300 and explaining the large sensor and how shallow depth-of-field works:

When you think of a 35mm sensor camera, what characteristics come to mind? Probably the first is shallow depth of field. It is part of what many consider the “look” of that imager size and a principle defining difference between it and other formats. But while some consider this the chief attribute of the format, others may find it to be a detriment in certain situations. For those shooting documentary, run-and-gun productions, a deeper depth of field may be preferable to maintain focus.

Canon C300 + Glidecam + Grading examples | Joe Simon Films | Vimeo
Joe posts another video of his first shooting days with the Canon C300:

Shot on the Glidecam 4000HD + Skateboard. Shot at C-Log except for the 4th shot which was done on a cine 2 setting with some custom adjustments. The shot at the end in 60p was shot at 720 and upressed to 1080.

F3 - C300 - 1D side by side | Mario Feil | Vimeo
This video was posted some time back, and seemed to suggest that 6400 on 1D = 20000 on the C300. But check the comment's thread for a comment from Thomas Lennon Films which has a response from Larry Thorpe of Canon:

Larry Thorpe, a very senior engineer involved in creating the c300, promised he would look into it and he did. In a follow-up letter to me, he says the tests above do not correctly compare the ISO sensitivity of the c300 to the 7D/1D, due to a lack of technical rigor. He doesn't explain how the results at such different ISOs could appear similar, but suggests the following approach in a future test:

Scarlet X issues, input, experiences, please share | Jeffrey Loewe | REDUser
A couple of days ago I linked to a post on the REDuser forum from a user that had problems with a Scarlet. It now appears that thread has been deleted.



FS100 Grabs | Sam Morgan Moore | DSLR 4 Real
Some nice frame grabs from a music video shot on the Sony NEX-FS100. He notes that they are probably a stop under-exposed to protect the highlights.



The Fletcher 2012 Camera Comparison Chart | cinescopophilia
Link to Fletcher Camera's Camera Comparison Chart:

The Fletcher Camera Comparison Chart covers all the important things you need to know about large medium and compact cine cameras like Sensor Sizes, Base ISO, Frame Rates, Recorded Bit Depth, Weight, Power, and Highlighted Positives + many more handy features you may need to take a quick look at on a handy chart.

Build a DIY Backdrop Stand for Photography and Video | Chadwick Paul | Blog
How to build an inexpensive backdrop:

The final stand is probably as strong as you can get without shelling several hundred on a pair of C-Stands. It is 10 feet wide and can easily go up to 9 feet tall. I have had toddlers running crazy in my basement with no fear of anything falling. Now, I have no more excuses for not creating awesome visual content and neither do you.

Still No Apple MacPro Update Should Make Video Pros Nervous | Mike Wilhelm
| Videomaker
This article notes that there's not been an update for the MacPro in a long while...and will there ever be? Interestingly, now there are rumors popping up about a new MacPro appearing soon; and maybe an update to Final Cut Pro X as well...

While it’s true that thunderbolt allows for an amazing amount of modular expansion in terms of storage, monitors, and even PCI slots for GPUs, thunderbolt doesn’t address the limitation of RAM and processing power. If you’ve ever rendered out a complex After Effects composition, you know the importance of hyper threaded virtual cores and piles of RAM, something that out of the entire Apple line of computers, only the MacPro can provide.

FCPUG Changes Name to Creative Pro Users Group | Studio Daily | Beth Marchant
A short piece on the dropping of the F from the Final Cut Pro User Groups:

The new name, and the wider range of tools and allegiance the name implies, is welcome news to Apple’s competitors, who have frequented and eventually presented at SuperMeets in recent months. Adobe, for example, used the January 27 meeting to unveil an upcoming tool called Prelude, a rough cut application that simplifies ingest by creating proxies at the same time and lets shooters log, annotate, transcode and export footage for an easier transition to editorial.

Top Five Essentials for Shooting Your Indie Film | Jason Sokoloff | No Film School
In this guest post, Jason offers some lessons he learned working on other film projects:

Over time my work experience as a production manager and line producer proved to be invaluable. I found myself surrounded with inspiring and passionate filmmakers, actors, agents, and other talented people in the industry. I learned first-hand what it takes to get an indie film off the ground.

[NOTE: corrected the name of the author]



There’s A Fiber Optic Connection Built Into Every Mac | Larry Jordan
I didn't know there was a digital optical connection on all Mac's either:

The Microphone In and Headset Out ports of ALL Macs support BOTH optical and copper signals (digital and analog). If you plug in standard audio plugs, the ports become analog. However, there’s a special TOSlink adapter that turns a standard 1/8-inch miniplug into a hollow tube that light shines through. Plug this into ANY Mac and the port switches from analog to digital.