As you all know from my previous reviews, I am a big fan of the D-focus follow focus system. It is priced cheap enough to make even Indian stuff seem expensive while doing a decent job. While following Dave on Twitter I noticed his tweet about every new D-Focus coming in black with an accessory port to plug a crank or whip. Cool!
The more I use my follow focus, the more I realize how useful whips can be and I am probably going to add one to my 350$ follow focus rig.
This is a nice improvement which places the D-Focus in an even better position to compete against more expensive alternatives. Nice job Dave, now could you please make a 100$ Steadicam alternative?
Picture source: DFocus twitter account
Jon Fairhurst made an excellent review of various audio devices you can use with the 5D MrkII. While the video are a few weeks old, I just discovered them (shame on me). Fortunately, the timing is perfect since I am looking at a complementary audio solution to my Sennheiser MKE 400
Speaking of this mic, I challenge anyone to find a better shotgun mic at the same price and size. I love it!
The review is divided in six part and I have included them all in this post to save you some clicking time.
The reviewed units are:
I have seen this question a few times in various forums so I thought it would be another good fit for the “The Basics” section.
Since people rarely explain what they would consider “best”, I assume they are talking about the best shutter speed to achieve a filmic look.
This brings us to the question “what makes a film look like film compared to tv or Canon 5d standard clips” ? Contrary to the general belief, it is not the number of frames per second but the duration of each exposure that creates the look. Read the rest of this entry »
While Vimeo, YouTube and SmugSmug are great to store and distribute your clips, your control over the way they are presented is minimal. An easy and cheap solution is to use a blog engine, such as Wordpress, to create a blog and then publish your clips there. Unfortunately, generic blog themes, while able to display embed clips, are not designed/optimized for this purpose.
This is where dedicated vlog themes take the stage. I have been working for a while on another blog (more on this soon), with a lot of video content, and needed to see what was available.
After some researches, I have collected the following list. I will keep it updated as much as I can. If you see a cool theme missing, leave a link in the comments.
Note: if you need help to set up a blog, feel free to contact me.
So you want to create a miniature effect like this :
Without having to buy one of these:
Easy! just download the (free for this week!) ShrinkRay plugin from Crumple Pop. Even if you don’t own FCP3 now, get it in case you decide to buy it later on! They also have a few other cool free FCP plugins, pay them a visit.
I prefer using this plugin to the Photoshop action filter because (1) I dont have to go into photoshop and (2) the controls are easier to manage.
Thanks to FinalCut Montreal for pointing out this promotion.
This one might be obvious to many but it just saved me about 100$ so I thought it would be a good idea to share my experience.
Two weeks ago, my 50mm f1.4
Lucky for me, I remembered that I bought the lens with my credit card (VISA) and it had an extended warranty feature which doubles any warranty up to another year. I quickly called the insurance company to confirm and it seems like everything is fine! Only have a #$%#$ form to fill.
Of course it is going to take forever to repair but at least it will be free. I suggest you check if your cards provide the same coverage, it was free and worth it!
The sad part of the story is that I will have to use the 50mmf1.8 for filming for the next few weeks which I already foresee as a real pain.
This is the second post in the part 2 review of the Zacuto Gorilla rigs. You can look at the review of the Rapid Fire here.
Meet the Quick Draw
The first time I saw the Quick draw in the Zacuto promo video, the thing that came to my mind was “WTF?”. I couldn’t figure out how someone was supposed to use a rig without having both hands on the camera. Also, having the points of contact far apart (compared to the Rapid Fire and Tactical shooter), would make it less stable. Read the rest of this entry »
Guys, if you dont know the creative gang from Still+Motion, you have to look at the awesome stuff they are doing. They are the vangards of wedding movies and the way they always push the limits of creativity and gear is a real inspiration for me (and probably a lot of other people too).
That being said, they made this cool video as a promo for the Cinevate contest:
The rules are simple:
Cinevate wants you to get creative and build your own DSLR Rig, film it and share it with us. The rig must be built from recycled materials or food products and presented as a 30 second (max) film.
The prizes are a shoulder rig and a matte box, quite nice stuff!
You have until the end of the month to submit your clip. No time to waste! Open the fridge and see how much shoulder padding you can get out of these steaks…
At the same time, dont forget our linking contest to win my old radio triggers…
In this second part of the review, we are going to look at what are the differences between the various rigs, how they affect their uses and what are their strong points.
To save you from reading a long posts, I have spread this part in three articles.
Meet the Rapid Fire
The main strength of the Rapid Fire is that you, as a photographer, don’t need to learn a new way to hold your camera. You still have the left hand on the lens and the other holding the right side of the camera. The Rapid Fire simply adds another point of contact.
If you need to travel light and shoot fast, this is the rig to get. While it is the least stable of the bunch (more on this in the next part of the review), it is the smallest and most compact. Also, by keeping both hands on the camera, you can easily adjust exposure or start/stop recording quickly which results in saving of precious CF card space.
Adjusting the rig
It is so simple, I wont even do a video for this! Just tug the gunstock at the junction of the pectoral and shoulder muscle. Loosen the gunstock adjustment lever a bit and find a comfortable angle while keeping both hands on the camera. Twist the lever and you are set.
Using the rig
The biggest mistake I made when I first got the rig was to assume that pushing the gunstock against my shoulder would be enough to keep it stable. The problem was that I would move my arm while panning or reframing a shot. The movement of the arm would move the shoulder/pectoral muscles which in turn moved the camera. The solution took some times to get used to: instead of moving the camera using your arm, move your whole upper body. All of the action should come from a rotation of the hips, not the arms. This might be obvious to videographers but trust me, it is something totally new for a photographer!
Film like a ninja
Most people who see me shooting in public with this rig think that I am just a photographer using an “original” support device. It is very convenient when the subject might change its behavior if he knew he was being filmed. I have noticed that people are now used to be photographed, but as soon as you say that you are filming, they suddenly change their body language. This rig might help you to solve this issue. It is also useful in places where you can take pictures but not film.
Note
I think that most of the stability problems of this rig are going to be fixed once I get my view z-finder. I will update the post once I receive it to report on the results.
I usually don’t cover software updates, but the latest version of Magic lantern is awesome! Here is the executive summary:
- Custom cropmarks bitmap file
- Live histogram while recording
- Time remaining estimate indicator
- Automated Focus pulls
- Focus stacking
- HDR exposure bracketing
- Lens data (hyperfocal distance, DOF, etc)
- Cleaner, multi-level menus that timeout automatically
- Audio monitoring can be turned off during clip review
- Internal mic can be used (must enable audio.mic-power=1 in config)
- Output audio volume control
- Configuration file can be saved to magiclantern.cfg
Yes, you read it right: Automated Focus pulls! Go here to read details. I am not seriously thinking about installing this firmware on one of my 5D. Look at this video demo.
Hudson is doing some impressive stuff. I hope Canon is paying attention to his work and implement some of these features in the next update.
Thanks to 5D User for the heads up!
Update: Read the manual here.
