The conference was not over this afternoon and I had already received a few emails and SMS from friends telling me how great of an external screen the iPad could be. And now even Philip Bloom talks about it.
I am currently downloading the iPhone SDK3.2 to investigate the possibility but if it is doable, I am not the one who will do it! Way too complicated!
M. Jobs might call the iPad a magic item, transforming the iPad as an external monitor would require massive coding skills. Why? You would have to port the Canon desktop SDK to the iPad which is near impossible unless you are Canon and have access to the source code. OnOneSoftware did it for the iPhone with their DSLR Remote app by using a little trick: they use a computer as a proxy so they could piggyback on the existing Canon API. The next part would be to resize the feed in real time so it fits on the iPad screen, something I doubt the iPad has the CPU power to do. So you see, it is not really possible in the current context.
It is too early to tell, but one thing is for sure: if it is possible, it will be done! The market for such a product is too big for a developer to ignore! And who knows, maybe the solution will come directly from Canon! (wishful thinking!)
By the way, I am looking for a cocoa/Objectif-C dev for a totally unrelated top secret project…
Finally, someone realized that pressing the start/stop button is a pain when using a shoulder rig. While Red Rock Micro already has a solution to this problem, it is not elegant or practical since you have to place the remote in front of the camera. The solution proposed by Switronix is better (since you can position the remote at the back of the camera), yet not perfect. Before going further, lets look at their press release.
NEW FLEX DSLR Remote from Switronix Inc.
January, 27th 2010
Rockville Centre – NY: Switronix Inc releases the FLEX DSLR Remote. The FLEX is a patent-pending, handle mounted DSLR remote unit that triggers HD video start and stop recording for Canon 5D/7D. The FLEX’s unique gooseneck arm houses an optic to be positioned within line of sight to the remote sensor on the Canon cameras (transmits up to 1m away, 135deg spread). Once positioned, the remote transmits a signal through the optic when the button is depressed.
The arm can be extended up to 12″ and coils down to approximately 3″ in diameter. The FLEX’s all metal construction will standup to the everyday rigors of HD DSLR video production. Max clamp diameter 1.5″. Powered by 2 included AAA batteries. The FLEX DSLR remote will have a street price of around $150.
Shipping week of 2/8/10
For more information Visit: www.switronix.com
150$?
Yes, that is a little steep and it does not look super ergonomic to me. While I applaud the idea, I hope someone comes up with a more refined solution. Actually, I know someone who is working on a similar issue: me!
Should you get this?
Unless there is a use case I did not think about or you really have to position the camera in an awkward place, I think it would be better to wait and see what the competition is coming with.
Came back from the electronic store yesterday and got these parts. Anyone guessing what I am working on?
I am giving an HDSLR training class next Sunday. If you are in the Montreal area and would like to know everything there is to know about HDSLR, contact me! The course is for photographers who want to shoot video so we are starting from the very basics and end at the moment where the files are imported in FCP. You will learn everything in between!
The class will be in French and will last around 3 hours, more if needed. It is mostly targeted at 5DMrkII owners but 95% of the content is also valid for 7D and 1D owners. Users of other brands can attend but about 25% of the content wont be relevant to them (ex: I dont know how picture style works with the D300s).
For the amount of content I am packing in and the small size of the class (5 learners), this is ridiculously cheap @ 130$ for what you will gain.
So, if you are interested, contact me for more details.
The guys at Cinema5D have had some fun recently. They received a bunch of rigs from various suppliers and tested them from a HDSLR user perspective. We have done this in the past, but their work is at a total different level of scale! 62 pages of review! It is actually because of them that some of the reviews I was supposed to write were delayed: all the demo gear was stuck in Austria!
While I agree with some of their evaluations and I like how demanding they seemed to be, I don’t agree with some of the ratings, or think they should be put into context. You cant really judge a rig by trying it out in a test environment, no matter the amount of experience you have. These few minutes are good to reveal big flaws and general feeling but not how a rig performs for a real job where you have to carry the darn thing on your back a whole day! Then again, not every camera operator has to walk the whole day with a rig on his back. This is my main complain: the review seem to have been done from a single point of view: film making. Read the rest of this entry »
It is with great pleasure that we introduce our new sister site: the Canon5dTips Market!
What is it?
It is a place for you, the users, to publish ads for gear you want to sell and for prospective buyer to find gear at great price. It is mostly targeted at Canon cinephotographer but you can post gear from any brand. As long at they are related to HDSLR.
How much does it cost?
It is free!
Why use this instead of a forum?
By using various fields to gather the relevant information, we hope to make it easier for buyer to find the gear they want. And if it is easier for the buyer to buy, it will be easier for the seller to sell! The structure we use to publish your ads also maximize their visibility toward Google and other search engines.
Any cool features to help sellers?
To increase products visibility, randomly selected ads will be places it in the sidebar of Canon5dtips. This mean over 1000 people will see the ad every day. If that isn’t giving sellers all the visibility they can get, I don’t know what it is!
What about features for buyers?
They are coming…
I don’t have anything for sale and already have all the gear I need. Anything I can do to help?
Of course! A market place is only as its popularity. So please, spread the word: Tweet about it, talk about it in forums, Facebook it, etc… The bigger the site grows, the easier it will be for you to buy/sell gear when time comes!
Anything else coming up?
Yes.
Final word
I know the system is not perfect, yet, but I am working on some improvements to come in the next few weeks. If you have any cool idea, please contact me.
The contest is now open. You can read the rules here.
The prizes are quite good: the choice between a 5DMrkII and a 7D, a lens (selected from a long list), a few days to shoot with Vincent and a year subscription at Vimeo. I dont know who made the prize list but I would like to know why someone would pick a 7D over a 5D! You could get the 5D, sell it, get the 7D and you would be left with some change. Even worst, the lens selection includes lenses ranging in prices from 700$ to almost 5000$. Who would be stupid enough to pick the 700$ lens (EF 15mm2.8) when you can have a 300L2.8?
Dont get me wrong, I think these prizes are awesome (especially the days with Vincent!) I just wonder how long the guy who made the prize list thought about it.
US ONLY
Now that we look at the prizes, we can somewhat guess the reasons about the US only restriction: the plane trip to see Vincent. I am sure this is the part that complexity everything for the lawyers. It is quite sad because I had a good idea and there is a building that looks exactly like the ending still near my loft…
This one has been one of my biggest pet peeve for a while and I think it is time to use my very limited influence to correct this:
We should say HDSLR, not HD DSLR!
You probably know what a SLR camera is: SLR standing for Single Lens Reflex. A few years ago, the D was added for “Digital”. Actually, it should have been NSLR for Numeric SLR (since the SLR at the time were already using digital technologies) but I think marketing departments thought it did not sound cool enough and went with DSLR.
Fast forward a few years and the term HDSLR starts popping around as an acronym for Hybrid Digital Single Lens Reflex. By hybrid we mean a camera that can take both stills and videos.
The fact that the first popular HDSLR (Nikon D90
- DSLR already produced high definition images
- It does not say anything about the video capability of the camera.
So a DSLR that can shoot video should be called HDSLR! Pass the word.
I had the opportunity to play with a old Zeiss lens last Tuesday. I only had the lens for a day (actually, a night) and did not have much time to do serious testing so I decided to skip the standard and boring sharpness assessments and move to a topics you will find more interesting: how it performs for video.
About the results: the Zeiss lens is an old model and the newer version should perform significantly better. The reason I was interested in this old lens is that a lot of people are using old Nikon and Zeiss lens to shoot video instead of using original Canon products. Some people do it because they prefer the look produced by these models or simply because they bought them before the release of the 1.1 firmware and stuck with them. Of course, these older model are also significantly cheaper! Read the rest of this entry »
Canon announced the release of a new file transmitter earlier today. We talked about the earlier version of the product a while ago when reviewing the iPhone application DSLR Remote. At the time, everyone agreed that the WFT was nearly useless for 5DMrkII owners because of its slow transfer speed.
That is why I was quite intrigued to see Canon releasing a newer version of this aging product. You can read the full press release here but here is a summary:
- uses 811.a,b or G no N! This is a big let down. Sorry Canon but a G network cant handle a trigger happy event shooter! Like with the previous version, the camera uses the CF card as a buffer and send the files over the air as fast as it can. Which is ridiculously slow when you think about the card filling rate of cameras like the 5DMrkII and 1DMrkIV!
- easier network setup: finally, a lot of people complained about the setup of the previous product. Nice to see improvement in this area.
- FTP/server mode: allows photographers to connect to the camera with their browser and directly download files from it. Notice that I did not say pictures but files. We we can get video and stills. It also allows the users to control the camera from their browsers. We dont have details about the resolution of the liveview feed but if it is good enough, maybe a laptop could be used as a wireless camera monitor! Then again, lets not get too excited, I am sure the resolution will be 640×480 or lower…
- EOS utility: similar to server mode but uses ESO utility instead of a browser.
- Camera linking: allows you to remotely trigger a bunch of camera when you take a picture with the ‘master’ camera. I see this as being of marginal use, unless it can also be used to start/stop movie recording. Then it would be incredibly useful in a multicam setup.
- USB Host: For me, this is the big thing. A USB connector allows you to plug a GPS or.. a USD hard drive! I can clearly see myself use this with a G-raid Mini
and shoot all day while never having to worry about data security and filling my cards! Lets hope the USB plug is sturdy enough so the cable can hold.
- Presentation stuff: plug-play into some presentation stuff. Seriously, who cares?
And now the price… 700$ Is it worth it? Unless you really need one of its features (like the USB host), I think it is wise to pass.
As most of you know, news products generally mean new firmware coming up soon too! Lets all cross out fingers and whisper 24p/50p!
