Gave the first of my two talks last night at the Montreal Final Cut user group with Mathieu. It was a fun night and I learned a lot from others experiences. Some people raised very specific questions that I couldn’t answer right away so I will use the blog to answer them in the next few days.
The attendees were coming from a wide variety of backgrounds (about 50% photographers) and it was interesting to see how each domain had its own vision of the HDSLRs.
We might have only have been 60 people, but I think we were the conference with the biggest selection of camera and rigs! Attendees could try: 5DMrkII, 7D, 90D, D300s, E-P1 and GH1 bodies mounted on Shape, Zacuto or Red Rock Micro rigs! The Zacuto Z-Finder was the star of the night with a lot of people wanting to try it out to see if it lived to the hype. I think Zacuto is going to receive a few more orders in the next few days!
I would like to thank everyone who came, sorry if I did not have the time to talk to everyone. If you want to follow up on our conversations or start a new one, just email me. And if you have any pictures of the event, please send them to me! That is something we totally forgot to do.
Dont forget my golden rule: if the image does not look good, just convert it to black and white and boost contrast!
Also worthy of notification: Canon5DTips has reached the 500+ RSS subscribers and we have been averaging over 2000 visits per day for a while now!
I have spent the last few days working on the content for my presentation at the HDSLR conference at the Montreal Final Cut Pro user group.
We have a lot of great sponsors who sent us gear to test and I would like to thank them: Lozeau (camera store in Montreal who loan us a lot of stuff), Zacuto (for a Marksman and Sharp shooter) and Shape (Sumo shoulder rig).
We spent the whole Sunday playing with various rigs and HDSLR camera. Our goal was to test every single camera and rig. We were supposed to test the Nikon D300s and D90 but couldn’t because of a small error when we picked up the gear at the store but we should put our hand on them at the conference.
Here is a quick video showing some of the gear we had. In the upcoming weeks, I will post a review of each rig and camera we tested.
A little bit eclipsed by the announcement of the 1DMrkIV, the announcement of an upcoming firmware update for the Canon 5DMrkII that would give it 24p and 25p is, for most people much more news worthy.
The first benefit of shooting in 24p is, of course, getting the elusive film look we have been talking about since almost a year.
I personally dont care too much for 24 vs 30p. The important element in this news for me is how Canon is going to implement this feature. Are they just going to drop down the frame rate so we can record longer clips or are they going to use the 20% saved bandwidth to increase the bitrate?
We wont know until next year (please make this January!), which make me wonder how it could be so long to implement such update.
It was expected, it is now out.
You can read the Canon official announcement here and look at its spec sheet here. Basically, it is a 7D with a 1.3 crop, 10fps, 16mpx sensor.
Here is a list of the key features:
- New 16.1 Megapixel APS-H CMOS sensor
- 10 frames per second continuous shooting
- Up to 121 large JPEG images in a single burst
- New 45-point wide area AF with 39 cross-type sensors with f/2.8 sensitivity
- High-speed Dual “DIGIC 4” processors for superb image quality
- 12,800 high ISO expandable up to 102,400
- Full HD movie recording at 30, 25 and 24 frames per second
- 3.0” Clear View II LCD with Live View mode
- Durable dust and water resistant body with 76 rubber seals
I have to admit that the 10fps is a bit of a let down for sport shooters hoping for more. But that is still a pretty impressive package!
It is available for order from Amazon
But I hear you thinking ‘how does it perform?’
Our friend Vincent Laforet and Stu teamed up to create a new video Nocturne. Shot at ISO 6400, take a look
Looking at the comments from Vincent and Stu, it seems like ISO 6400 is not a problem for video and, read this carefully, rolling shutter is minimal! Both of these news are great and I cant figure out which one has more impact.
BTW, I am ordering one.
First, if you have not seen this clip yet, watch it. It is interested in both its form and its content.
Battle for Hearts and Minds Trailer from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.
Next, go read Danfung Dennis explanations of how it was shot and the gear he used. I like his Glidecam setup, looking at the picture you can see how many plates he used to balance the rig. Having played with a Glidecam 4000 balanced for the 7D, I can confirm how much weigth one has to put on this thing to make it stable.
Things might have been quite on the blog but not for me! I have been invited to present HDSLR at the Montreal Final Cut Pro user group. This is a great honor for so many reasons, the first being that the MtlFCP group is huge and the tickets for the show sold out in less than two days! Of course, the attractive and unbeatable price of 5$ per tickets might have something to do with its popularity.
So, if you are from the Montreal area, don’t miss the conf. It is going to be good! Mathieu and me are going to cover pretty much everything there is to say/know about filming with HDSLR in less than 3 hours. We will have gear for you to try out from pretty much every manufacturer too so it will be a great opportunity to play with the rigs you have always been dreaming of buying.
If you cant make it, no worries. All the content will be put online via the Final Cut Mtl podcast.
It is out, and while I don’t really enjoy Nikon bashing because I think they make great stills camera, I have to say that I am not impressed. While it is going to be a great tool for photographers who wants to be able to shoot occasional clips, its lack of manual control over fps, short HD clip duration (5mins) and restriction to 720p, is really limiting!
On the other hand, the high ISO is really impressive, but unless you are constantly shooting in the dark, it is not a key feature as it used to be before the ISO 3200 era.
Basically, the current generation of HDSLR belongs to Canon, even more so with the upcoming announcement on Oct 20 of the expected 1DMarkIV.
Some reading about the D3s:
Up until two days ago, I did not. Oh boy, was I in for a surprise! Trammel has been working hard and added a few cool features. Some of these will be in the next firmware update, so stay alert.
1080i output from the HDMI out of the camera
Why this is great? Because it allows us to use an external monitor such as those made by Marshall
Cool stuff, mostly for people using the 5DMrkII to shoot films since it requires a bigger rig than what I could carry for my wedding jobs.
SMPTE Time code
If you need time code, you will be happy. If you dont, you wont care.
Warning
As always, you should understand that if you use the hacked firmware and blow up your camera, I cant be held responsible. The good news is no one ever complained about an issue with the firmware so far.
Just saw this on twitter. An anonymous donor gave a 7D to Hudson. While you might be thinking “So what? I have a 5DMrkII!” and even be a bit frustrated to know the 7D might take some time away from Hudson to work on the 5DMrkII, this could be in fact a good news.
Quoted from the Magic Lantern site FAQ when asked about if it would be possible to add 24p to the 5D:
Additionally it might be possible to read the firmware in the 7D or 500D/T1i to see how the different frame rates are selected and to program the DIGIC4 in the 5D Mark II with the same values to see if it works.
Only time will tell.
As you may have noticed, I am now looking for sponsors. While one spot is expected to be filled very soon, the other is up for grab! If you know a manufacturer or software developer who could be interested, please point them here.
Thanks to this change in philosophy, very soon you should see pop-ups and blinking images all over the place and I will be rich! Ehh.. not! I am very ethical person and every ads you see here will be non intrusive and have my seal of approval. I pride myself on providing quality content to trusting users and I hope to keep the same standards going forward.
So what does it mean for you then? Basically, it means more content! I am already pushing all the money generated by the blog (thanks to people buying stuff via our Amazon links) back at it and these news incomes streams will be put to good use. Trust me, I have great plans ahead!
