Canon is now hosting a full page in its digital learning center about the FCP E1 Plugin that we previously talked about.
Canon also used the opportunity to send a quick jab to Nikon when talking about H.264: This is an ideal file type for video capture in an SLR camera, delivering relatively compact file sizes with image quality noticably superior to alternate video compressions (such as Motion JPEG).
From what I have been able to gather from the various screenshots, there is not much new. On the contrary, some of the wished for features (lens & exposure metadata) are not present.
As I predicted, the sentence ’start editing right form the CF card‘ wasnt really true. The plugin converts the clips to ProRes (you can pick any variations) before you can do anything with them. Canon talks about a 3x speed gain over the standard Compressor transcoding. That is nice but that is about the same thing you can get by using MPEGstream clip. Actually, I wonder if that is what they are using under the hood!
For who is this for?
Log and transfer is a workflow tool. It is near useless for 95% of the 5D users, but, for those who are going to use it, it is incredibly useful at helping them to organize their files and automating their backup strategy. Oh, there is also that Timecode thing that would be so useful if there was an easy way to synchronize the date/time on multiple camera at once.
While there is no harm in installing the plugin once it is available (March), unless you are shooting against a script, the organizing features of the plugin will be overkill.
BTW, thanks to David Guset for the link to the Canon page.
News from BeachTek
First, got this email from BeachTek:
To everyone waiting for the new DXA-5Da XLR adapter for DSLR cameras, they have now shipped ahead of schedule to both B&H and Adorama. The first shipment is in very limited quantities but we are expecting the next, much larger batch to arrive before the end of March. The new DXA-SLR with built-in preamplifiers and phantom power is still on schedule to be shipped by March 30th.
next, the MultiMount5D will be available at the end of March for 89$.
Vimeo goes 1080p and HTML5!
You can read about it here. I dont know which one is the most important: 1080p or HTML5… So far, these upgrades wont affect many people/video since most people are not using a HTML5 browser and the clips are rarely uploaded at 1080p resolution.
At least, now you know and you should change your Compressor presets to use the new resolution.
5D Firmware update
A lot of people have been talking about the upcoming firmware update. Planet5D is now talking about a March launch. Guess what? That is what I have been talking about since 2009! The release of the firmware was bound to the Olympics. Canon wants videographers to shoot the events with the 1DMrkkIV and not the 5D (they want people to see pro using the pro bodies). Once the Olympics are over, they will push the new firmware.
Zeiss new HDSLR lenses
I could say a lot of things of why this is big news, but Vincent did it very well already in his post.
Aperture3
I have been using A3 for over a week now. Expect a detailed review by the end of the weekend.
Edit: forgot to add this link to a quick overview of the video feature of A3 by the folks at Still Motion.
New content
I have been working on a few personal projects recently expect to see some of my work soon. Both in stills and motions.
Art Beat is giving away a free clip every day.
Visit the link and register to get your clips because you never have enough cloud/wave/nature/etc clips. The quality is incredible and with some color correction, you can give these clips a totally different style. Best of all: they are all free!
Actually, just browsing the library is a nice source of inspiration (just wasted 12 minutes doing so)! I love the church series for example.
Since so many of you liked the 5DMrkII vs 7D one, here is the newest iteration from Philip. I am sure a lot of people can relate to this. Thanks to Harry from Beach Tek for pointing out the clip, I almost missed it.
Just received this email from our BeachTek rep friend:
I found a Dealer that has stock of 6 DXA-5D adapters with phantom power. You can contact Nick at Roberts Distributing at 800-726-5544. They are selling them for $333.33 each.
The newer cheaper model (DXA-5Da) does not have phantom power so this might be a good opportunity for you to grab on if you need it and save over the new DXA-SLR model we talked about earlier.
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…
In case you are in needs of more memory card (who is not!), Amazon is selling some fast & big CF cards today in their ‘End of Year deal’ section.
The best deals are with the Lexar Pro UDMA 16 GB 300x CF card
Just a quick reminder: HDSLR dont need super fast card to record video, any recent CF card will be fast enough. The added speed is only useful to save time when transferring the data from the card to the computer. Even then, you will need a fast card reader such as the LexarCF FireWire 800 Reader
Amazon also has a nice rebate on the Pelican 1520 Case
Vincent Laforet updated his blog with some interesting content last night.
First, he republished the Nocturne film on various video hosting platform and added a behind the scene video (available only on his site). Wish it was longer.
Finally, he teases us with a upcoming announcement of another film contest. To all the people who are sponsoring these contest: you know that it is -25 degree outside? Cant you make these contest during the summer?
Hopefully, submission will not have to be exclusive and contestant will be able to submit their films to more than one contest (the other being Can-do fest). I would hate to have to choose between two contests to submit my film to!
With the increasing visibility given to the 1DMrkIV, you can tell that the Canon marketing department is hard at work in the preparation of the release of their new body.
Also, from what I head, the release date of the 1DMrkIV would be after the Olympics. I bet that it is only when the demand for the IV has stabilized that they are going to release the 5DMrkII firmware update. Just a feeling 
