Sun Mask for Zucuto Z FinderPro

Bought a new Z Finder Pro to go along with my Canon 60D.  I’m sure everyone is familiar with the Zacuto loop-type viewfinder and how the magnifier can burn the LCD in just a couple of seconds.

Zacuto has come up with a simple solution that could help this problem called the Sun Mask .   It’s a little 16x9 matt that fits in the eyepiece that blocks at least 50% of the light hitting the magnifier yet leaves your view of the LCD unhindered.  Zacuto charges $3 bucks for a little piece of paper that costs .30 cents but think of what it could save in burns.

And everything that’s old is new again.  When the Zacuto viewfinder first came out you basically glued a little frame to your camera and the viewfinder snapped onto it.  Then, Zaucto came out with the Gorilla plate, a more elegant but heavier solution.  

The Gorilla plate really doesn’t work with the 60D’s flip out VF so you can still buy the old plastic frame for $6 bucks and can use the viewfinder in any position.  The downside is you can never "close" the LCD screen but when do you close the LCD on a 5D/7D?  And I still use the Gorilla plate when I'm shooting normally to take the stress off the little plastic LCD hinge.

http://store.zacuto.com/Z-Finder-Sun-Mask.html

My Canon 60D

I'm now the proud owner of a Canon 60D.  After shooting extensively with both the 5D and the 7D I decided I wanted the deeper depth of field that comes with the smaller “Super 35” sensor. 

Although I love the look of the ”Full Frame” (full still camera frame) sensor of the 5D, the shallow depth of field can be both beautiful and challenging. The smaller sensor give you a fighting chance to ride focus when you’re working wide open but still give that large sensor shallow depth of field look.

The real disadvantage of the APS-C size is the 1.6 crop factor that makes every lens longer.  For example, a 24mm lens becomes a 39mm.  It’s hard to find a sharp, fast, reasonably priced wide angle zoom then I found the Tokina 11-16 which I’ll cover in a later blog.

The 7D, 60D, T3i and T2i have the same exact sensor and processers and record the same signal, so why the 60D?

To start, I wanted a flip out LCD.  I’ve put my head in the dirt too many times to frame a low angle shot with the 5D/7D fixed LCD and I wanted the ability to see the VF from any position just like any other video camera I've ever owned.

While the T3i also has a flip out LCD and is cheaper than the 60D, it doesn’t have the full set on controls of the 5D/7D/60D, most notably the big Quick Control Dial.  And the big multi-function Multi-Controller star button is easier to access than on the 5D/7D.

Finally, on the 60D the dial locks and has a special position just for video so you don’t have to constantly hit the “Live View” button.   You turn the camera on and it’s ready to shoot video.

As with most things, there’s a down side:  You can’t take stills in movie mode unless you’re rolling video.  Stop recording and you have to move the dial to a still photo setting.  Luckily, I’m usually either shooting stills or video or trying to grab both at the same time.

http://usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/slr_cameras/eos_60d

Making of "In Your Arms" Music Video

Talk about tenacity, 1357 hours to shoot 2460 frames using 288,000... and no green screen.  Here's the making of video which is much more interesting to me than the actual video.

Or you can watch the music video first...

Canon C300

I went to the Canon C300 event at Paramount which took up stages 1 & 2 plus the theatre.  First, let me say I rate everything by how good the parking and the food was and both were very good.  Now, about the camera.

The Canon C300 has the best picture of all the mid and low end ($20,000 and less) cameras I've seen and can easily compete with the Epic.  The only nicer picture I've seen is the Alexa.  It's the queen of latitude.

The C300 is without a doubt the cleanest looking camera I've seen at high ASA's.  While you might push other cameras to 1600 ASA, the Canon looks clean at 3200.  In fact, it looks pretty clean at 12,000.  Even 20,000 ASA only looks like 9db of gain.

The C300 only weighs 3.5 pounds, is built to use all the Canon EF glass and has everything a shooter would want in a camera including built in ND filters and full size XLR's.  It's the perfect camera, right?

Well, to start, how many times do you need to shoot at 12,000 ASA?  And look close, the XLR's aren't built into the camera, they're actually in the separate LCD screen.

I'm a real button pusher and I think I went through every single button and menu.  I got to meet one of the designers who asked me for feedback and as an operator my major complaint to him was you couldn't turn off all the info from the screen and leave the frame lines, it was all or nothing.

But these are all just nit picking.  What really surprised me was the 8-bit mpeg2 recording format... with no other outboard option. I really thought Canon was going to come out with some sort of Canon Raw, especially at the $20,000 price point.  And it's limited to regular shooting speeds, no high frame rates for slo mo.

The C300 doesn't compete against the Sony FS-100 (pictured above) like I thought it would.  The FS-100 is also 8 bit (and who cares because all monitors are 8 bit) but has the option or recording uncompressed 4:2:2 outboard.

At $20,000 it's competing against the Sony F3 and the Scarlet.  The Scarlet is recording 4K, both good and bad because I don't know any client who's posting in more than 1920x1080. The F3 can record 10 bit 4:4:4 outboard, but again, who's posting 4:4:4?  Maybe the 8-bit mpg2 format is what producer's need but I can get just about the same thing from a $5000 FS-100.

Finally, a quick word about the new Canon Cine glass.  These are primes that compete with the best lenses and are just about as expensive.  Each prime costs $6700 bucks so you can get a Zeiss CP2 for less than $4000 and for just a thousand more than the Canon you can have a Cooke.  Enough said.

So, do I like the C300.  Yes,it would be my first choice if it was $5000-8000 bucks but at $20,000 they may have missed the market.

http://cinemaeos.usa.canon.com/products.php?type=Camera&model=C300

Mini Mac for Pro Editing

You say you're looking for the cheapest editing system you can get and still cut 1080 HD video?  Check out this Guatemala Edit System.

It uses the  The Mac Mini.  These things start at $599 and can have dual core i7 chips,  8 GB of RAM and have the new Thunderbolt I/O ports.

Thuderbolt features two 10 Gbps channels of data transfer.  That's 12X faster than FireWire 800 and 20X faster than USB 2.0.

You can daisy chain six peripherals thru Thunderbolt including an Apple Thunderbolt display.  And because Thunderbolt is based on DisplayPort technology, Mini DisplayPort devices plug right in.  Plus, the Mac Mini has a HDMI port.

My first edit bay cost $250,000 and if I made a dub, I could do a dissolve.  Now, you can have an edit system with 100,000 times the power for the price of a case of D2 tape stock.

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/atepper/story/mac_mini_for_pro_video_editing_a_field_report_from_guatemala/
http://www.apple.com/macmini/
http://www.apple.com/displays/

Canon EOS-1DX DSLR

Canon's revamped it's 1D into the Canon EOS-1DX with some real improvements including Intraframe compression, free run and record run time code, manual audio control while recording, a faster imager (read higher ASA) and longer record times.  Its slated to be available in March 2012.

The time code allows you to sync up audio recorders and multiple cameras.  ISO settings range from a new low of 50 ASA (great for working outdoors) to a whopping 204,800 ASA, which is useful for law enforcement and other field uses.

The 4 GB/Fat 32 is no longer a barrier.  You can now record for almost 30 minutes and there's dual CF card slots.  Plus, Canon claims to have made changes so there's less moire.  It better be a lot less with a price tag of $6800 bucks.

Oh, and it also takes still photos, I think...

Read the press release:  http://www.studiodaily.com/main/news/prc/Canon-U-S-A-Introduces-The-New-Canon-EOS-1D-X-Digital-SLR-Camera-Re-Designed-From-The-Inside-Out_13497.html

German Octocopter with a Red Epic

OK, here's something crazy:  A German Octocopter with a Red Epic attached.  It's not the helicopter that's crazy.

In fact, I saw this local guy flying this little electric helicopter with a small Canon "point and shoot" camera that also records video (did I mention it was electric?  Very quiet).

No, the crazy thing is putting a brand new Red Epic on one of these fixed pitch helicopters.  It's one thing to put a $150 camera on one, but as a helicopter pilot, I'm here to tell you that if the engine fails on that German drone it will drop like a anvil and there will be lots of pieces of Red Epic everywhere.

Maybe that's why the German helicopter never flies higher than 4 feet above grass...

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/11/german-video-effects-company-builds-camera-drone-for-the-red-epi/

Canon Opens Tech Center at Sunset Gower

Last week Canon opened the Canon Hollywood Professional Technology and Support Center inside Sunset Gower studios.  The facility plans to offer "comprehensive product repair" starting later this year for Canon 5D's and 7D's now in wide use in production.

Canon wants to make it a one-stop-shop that will include two camera body and lens adjustment rooms, calibration equipment, a vast spare parts inventory and experienced staff.  Live workshops and training sessions will also be offered.

It will also be Canon's Research and Solution Engineering Department to engage studios, production houses, networks and rental facilities to beta test upgrades and new cameras.

Canon Press Release

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/about_canon/newsroom?pageKeyCode=pressreldetail&docId=0901e024803b2337

Tascam DR-40

If you've been shooing with DSLR's you've probably used the Zoom H4n audio recorder.

Now, there's new contender, the Tascam DR-40.   What's the big differences for recording audio?

1. Price, the DR-40 cheaper, less than $200 bucks.
2.  Dual Recording Mode captures a safety track at a lower level to avoid distortion, sort of like recording channels 1&2 at 0 db and 3&4 at -3.
3. The DR-40 has locking XLR inputs.  Working with the Zoom always makes me nervous because the cables don't lock in and a kick out is possible.

But I've used the Zoom a bunch and is it better the devil you know?

http://tascam.com/product/dr-40/

Dana Dolly

At DV Expo I also saw the Dana Dolly.  It's your typical skateboard wheel dolly but what separates the Dana Dolly from the competition are the Track End Brackets.

They are flat on one side for laying on the floor, apple boxes, counter, etc., have junior receiver on the other side for mounting on standard stands and are designed to hold 1 1/4" pipe.  That's Speedrail to you and me so you can cut track any length you need.

The complete Dana Dolly kit is $600 (the show special was $550 so they will deal) but the real deal is you can get the Track End Brackets for $70 bucks each.

For lighter cameras and for travel they have a Dana Dolly Jr.  The complete Jr. kit is $400 (show special $350).  These Track End Brackets and U bolts for accepting all kinds of pipe so you could buy cheap pipe on the road and toss it at the end of the shoot.

http://danadolly.com/

Litepanels Sola 600

At DV Expo I had the chance to play with Litepanel's Sola 600.  The is a direct competitor to Arri's LED fresnels and you couldn't have two more different design philosophies.

The Sola 600 is made of carbon fiber/plastic material and seems like it's not as well made as the Arri BUT (and notice that's a big but) it's much lighter than the built-like-a-tank Arri.  The Sola 600 weighs less than 10 pounds while the Arri weighs 14 with active cooling and a whopping 24 pounds using passive cooling!  The Arri would be great in the studio but there's no doubt I'd be taking the Sola out on location.  Plus, the Sola seems to burn cooler and you can easily handle it when it's powered.

The Sola 600 also has a nifty little LCD screen in back to tell you what's going on but it would be useless if it's hanging in the air.  Up in the grid the Sola can be controlled through DMX.

One of the big differences between the Arri and the Sola is color correction.  Arri has a tungsten balanced Arri L7T, a Daylight balanced L7D and on the Arri L7-C color temperature can be change electronically at the head or through DMX.   The Sola's daylight balanced and requires color correction filters.

The Sola 600 has the light output of a 600 watt tweenie and it has a great spot/focus range from 70 degree flood to 10 degree spot (Arri is 15-50).  At $2850 it costs about 4 times as much as a Mole Tweenie but you can run 6 Sola 600's on the same amount of power as 1 tungsten tweenie, you'll never have to buy a new bulb for it and you'll never burn your fingers.

Litepanels also has a Sola 400 that is priced at $1500 bucks... but no fancy LCD screen.

Canon Aperture Ring Patent

Canon has applied for an Aperture Ring Patent and bringing back the physical ring on the lenses.

The new lens design separates aperture adjustments between movie capture and still capture.  When capturing movies, aperture changes are made via the lens ring.  When the mirror is down and capturing still images, aperture changes are made via the camera body. 

There are also numerous other features that could be built into these lenses (e.g., programmed/remote focus pulls, smoother/slower AF adjustments, etc.); however, this patent application was limited to a specific feature-set tied to this new aperture ring.

Read more at:  www.photographybay.com

Mosaic Engineering 5D Anti-Morie/Aliasing Filter

The name of the Mosaic Engineering 5D anti-morie/aliasing filter is self-explanatory. The filter really helps with morie and aliasing problems but you can't use this filter with a wide angle, the edges get very soft.

Supposedly you can install and uninstall in just 20 seconds but I'd hate to have to do this in the field every time I wanted to use a wide angle lens.  The MSRP is $385 bucks.  Check out Philip Bloom's review.

http://www.mosaicengineering.com/products/vaf-5d2.html
http://vimeo.com/29069158

iPhone 4S

I've been holding out for a shiny new 5 but it's looks like I'm going to have to get a 4S.  It's got a new 8 MP still camera but the big news is the 4S shoots 1080p video instead of 720.

Plus, Apple says the "backside illuminated" CMOS sensor will capture 73 percent more light, the 4S has a sharper f2.4 lens, noise reduction and a built-in image stabilizer.  They also claim white balance is 26% better, whatever than means.

And it can also make phone calls...

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Big Canon Nov. 3 Annoucement

I've been waiting for this third shoe to drop.  First Panasonic, then Sony and now finally on November 3 Canon is announcing a new product in Hollywood.

The Hollywood location is a giveaway that it's something for the motion picture types rather than for the still photographers, although some speculate this might be the a new mirror-less 5D MarkIII.  More likely it will be something completely new to compete with the AF100 and the FS100.

Now, if they've only given it a name that's two random letters followed by 100...

Final Cut You Tube

YouTube is adding an integrated YouTube editing program but it feels more like a color correction feature.  You can stabilize hand-held footage, rotate videos and boost the colors and contrast.  The “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature will allow for one-click color correction.

YouTube’s team also collaborated with Picnik to provide new aesthetic effects. This makes it possible for you to add filters, such as black and white, lomo-ish and cartoon to your videos.  There’s even an option to swap out your audio for something else by choosing from a number of available tracks. And if you have a video with too much footage at the beginning or end, you’ll be able to trim some of that out as well.

Popular videos with more than 1,000 views and videos with third-party content will only be saved as new videos once edited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G-n9p28Yh8w

Canon FD to NEX Adapter

I'm close to pulling the trigger on a FS100 (I'm waiting to see the new 5D which supposedly will come out in October).

I have a few Canon FD lenses from my old still camera that I'd like to use on the FS100.  These lenses are fast, sharp and unlike the newer EF lenses, FD lenses have a physical f-stop ring.  As a bonus, Ducloss will de-click FD lenses for $60-100 bucks, depending on the lens.

B&H sells an adapter for a whopping $212 bucks and Amazon sells one at $30 but I found an adapter on ebay for $20 bucks.  On a still camera FD lenses are normally wide open for focusing and then change f-stop when the trigger is pushed.

These adapters allows you to change the iris manually for use on a video camera.  Now, I can't wait to see the lenses on the FS100...

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/737807-REG/Novoflex_NEX_CAN_Adapter_for_Canon_FD.html

http://www.amazon.com/Fotodiox-Adapter-mount-NEX-VG10-Original/dp/B003Y302CG

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=canon+fd+lens+to+NEX+adapter&_sacat=0&_odkw=canon+fd+lens+to+Sony+FS100+adapter&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313

Canon EF to F3, FS100, AF100 Adapter

Philip Bloom was at IBC 2011 and saw the prototype of an adapter that allows the use of Canon EF lenses with the F3, FS100 and AF100.  The trick is being able to adjust the electronic iris in an EF lens.

The prototype control box is just a knob and display and can control the iris in 1/8th stop increments.   The cable that connects to the adapter is hard wired because there isn't room for a lemo in the adapter.

Another box to hang somewhere but it works.  Now, how much will it cost?

http://philipbloom.net/2011/09/09/ibc-2011-new-canon-ef-mount-that-controls-iris-for-f3-fs100-and-af100101/

Pre-Order Your Sony F-65

"Band Pro is now accepting pre-orders for the new Sony F65 digital cinema camera. With Sony's F65 Introductory Pack you can be one of the first to get their new 4K camera when it starts shipping in January 2012. And, with the full compliment of accessories that are included in the pack price of $85,000 you'll be ready to shoot 16-bit 4K footage out of the box.

The Sony F65 Introductory Pack* includes:

• Sony F65 Camera Body with Mechanical Rotary Shutter
• Sony HDVF-C35W Color Viewfinder
• Sony SR-R4 Digital Recorder
• 1x Sony 256MB SRMemory Card
• Sony SR-PC4 Data Transfer Unit

The Sony F65 camera utilizes an 8K digital sensor to generate a next generation 4K image."

Will the F65 give the Alexa a run for it's money?  $85,000 grand seems expensive until you remember the base price of the optical Alexa will be around $135,000.  14 stops of latitude is hard to beat but so is an 8K chip...

http://www.bandpro.com/products.html?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&category_id=75&product_id=189