Need Adobe LightRoom? Here is a 50% rebate from Adorama!

September 1, 2011 By

I usually try not to write article to promote a specific rebate (since I receive these kinds of email almost daily) but here is one that may interest a lot of you: Adorama is selling LightRoom 3 at 50% off! This is a time limited deal, so think fast!

While it is still twice as expensive as Aperture, if you have been considering joining the Adobe wagon, it could be the perfect time!

I switched to LR more than a year ago and I am quite happy about the move. While I think Aperture has better curve controls, for the rest LR is much better.

Here is the link

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Review: Polaroid Battery grip

August 4, 2011 By

Since I used to use my 5DMrkII mostly to shoot video or take architectural pictures, I did not feel like I needed to buy a battery grip. Especially since the one sold by Canon has a prohibitive price. But now that I have resumed shooting stills in a semi-serious way and most of my shots are portraits, I decided I needed one before damaging my wrist.

The product

After some googling, I bought the Polaroid grip on Amazon. Note that it is also available for the 7D.

I used to use a Canon battery grip with all my previous cameras and I really appreciated its texture and built quality. The Palaroid grip feels pretty much the same. The finish is not as great at what you can find on a Canon grip but it is close enough for me.

Trigger

The one big difference, and that is something you notice as soon as you take you first shot, is the different feel of the trigger button. It does not feel Canonish at all. You really have to press it hard to take the picture. Is this a bad thing? Not really, you get use to it after a few minutes but it could be an issue for people who put the AF and trigger on the same button (which is a bad idea anyways)

Handling

The handling is excellent. It does not feel slippery at all and the added weight really improve the balance of the camera.

Comfort

As you can see in the pictures, the grip texture is very similar to the one on the camera body and it not just a textured hard plastic like some other grips.

Batteries

While the grip can use 2 standard Canon batteries, you can also use an adapter to use standard AA batteries which is a great thing when you are travelling.

The features

Canon grip only provide additional battery capacity and better handling. Polaroid grip on the other hand is going the extra mile to add value, such as…

Intevalometer

The key feature of the grip (and the reason I picked it) is that it comes with a built-in intervalometer. It means you have one less piece of gear to put in your bag. From now on, whenever you are shooting, if you see an opportunity for a time lapse, you can do it. This is something Canon should put in all they camera bodies, like Nikon, until then I will use Polaroid grips.

Clock

When the intervalometer is not used, it shows the time.

Remote IR trigger

To top it off, Polaroid added an IR sensor on the grip and gives a remote trigger. While this is a great addition, I think they should have put the sensor somewhere else because there is not much room for it to see the emitter.

The bad

I have used the grip for around 10 hours of shooting so far and it performs great but some things could be improved:

  • The documentation about how to use the intervalometer is erroneous! I am probably going to post a tutorial on this soon to save you all some time!
  • The grip texture attracts more dirt than the one on the body (as you can see on my pictures). Nothing problematic but if you are a neat freak, you should be aware of this!
  • I had some random issues with the back LCD/intervalometer. The screen did not lit up. The solution was easy and worked every time: pull the battery off and push them back in.

Conclusion

At 80$, the Polaroid grip is a steal. I know there are some cheaper grips on the market but this is the best I have found in terms of built quality and features. I can hardly see how this could be a bad purchase. Even if you dont think you need a grip, you will appreciate this one for its additional features.

Where to buy

It seems like only Amazon has these right now. And remember, by clicking the following link before making your purchase, you help support this site and help me convince my wife that I should be doing this for a living!

Polaroid Battery grip for Canon 5DMrkII

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LockCircle Making of video

August 3, 2011 By

Do you know what the LockCircle is? It is a metal body cap for your camera EF mount which replaces the cheap plastic one provided by Canon. Useless accessory? Maybe, maybe not but one thing for sure: it is expensive at about 100$.

As some of you know, I have trie in the past to have some specific HDSLR parts manufactured so I was very curious when I received an email from LockCircle about their machining process. Take a look, it is pretty cool and it gives a good idea why these cant be sold for 10$ as some people requested. Are they a bit over engineered? Probably. But I am pretty sure there wont be any knock off of these made in China!

 

LockCircle – The Making of – Canon 5d – Canon 7d from LockCircle on Vimeo.

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DIY Alert: RigsWheels are on sale!

August 2, 2011 By

To all the DIYers out there, RigWheels is currently having a sale so it may be a good opportuinity to get a set of wheels for your slider. The rebate is around 15%. I have been playing with the RigWheels for a while now and my conclusion is simple: if you want to buildyour own slider BUT value your time, get them! You will save a lot of time trying to find wheels that 1) roll smoothly and 2) are easy to install on your rig. Trust me, I have been there, I have visited all the hardware stores in my area when I was working on my slider and couldn’t find anything half decent.

NOTE

A few people contact me trying to compare these wheels with pro level solutions like the pocket dolly or the Cinevate sliders. Of course these solutions are better, but they are 6x the price so they have to be! The true power of the RigWheels are their flexibility, you can use them to create 10 foot long sliders if you need to, something you can’t do with other pro solution.

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Still trying to sell my 400L5.6, looking for a 90mm TS-E and other stuff

July 15, 2011 By

Ok guys, last time I bug you down with my trying to buy/sell stuff on the blog. But I want ot let you know what I still have my 400L5.6 for sale and now that I have sold my 17-40L, I am looking for a 90mm Tilt-shift. So if you are in the Montreal area, please contact me!

Why a tilt-shift? I have set a new challenge for myself: this year, I want to start selling prints. So far, I have been able to make money with my photography/videography doing portraits, weddings, product shots, etc… But so far, everything I ever shot was at the request of a client. So my challenge now is to shoot something that others will be willing to pay for, even tho they have no connections to it.

At first, I thought it was easy but now I realized how much of a challenge it is, especially given the incredible choice potential clients have. So I am setting up a strategy which I am going to share with you in the next few months. Stay tune for updates.

On a side note, I have been shooting a lot lately (hence the hiatus on the blog) and I use FCPX to edit everything since the target media is the web. And believe it or not, the more I use it, the more I like it! Of course it has a lot of missing features or strangely placed ones (btw why do we have to use a predefined set of values when retiming a clip?) but it really speed up my workflow at the cost of some precision. Still, in my case, it was a worth it.

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Filed Under: News

Adobe Premiere rebate: from rumor to reality

July 2, 2011 By

Seems like, for once, I got a good source for my rumors! As I talked you about 2 days ago, Adobe went into fifth gear in its assault on FCPX today with the launch of their marketing campaign by putting the focus on the pro market.

Will it work? I pretty sure it will! The deal is excellent since you can get the suite for around 850$. It is more expensive than FCPX with Motion + Compressor but you get Photoshop and Illustrator included in the deal too! Adobe tailored the whole Premiere website to target frustrated users, it is going to be very interesting to see Apple response.

In my mind, there is only one thing Apple could do: refund everyone and make this first version of FCPX free.

FREE?

This may sound a bit extreme but losing FCPX sales is nothing compared to what could happen if people started to move to CS5. Why? They would quickly realize how PC are faster than Mac when running AE and Premiere Pro thanks to the Mercury Preview Engine. So instead of losing sales of FCPX, they would be losing Mac Pro sales which a much more damaging.

Knifes are out!

What ever happen, we are going to benefit from it! On my part, I keep giving FCPX a chance. Why? It is far from perfect and I am still trying to figure out how to do a few things but it works very well for what I do which is only targeting the web / Apple devices.

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Don’t switch to Adobe CS just yet!

June 29, 2011 By

With the FCPX debacle, a lot of people jumped ship prematurely based on their emotions instead of sound reasoning. And, as most decision based on emotions, it is a bad choice, here is why:

First, the old and trusty FCP7 is still as good as it was two weeks ago. So, if FCP7 was good for you, it is still good now.

Secondly people are still discovering how to work with the software. Blame it on the lack of available training material but there are a lot of features identified as missing which are actually there under a different name or working in a different way. Spending some time with the software should actually fix most of these issues. I know because that is what happened with me!

But here is the most important reason why you should wait: according to my source, Adobe is going to start a switching campaign very soon to capitalize on the FCPX launch fiasco. According to this source, Adobe was not prepared for this since they were actually expecting FCPX to be a successful launch. Their planned response strategy was totally different than what they have to do now, hence the reason why you should wait a few weeks for the campaign to start if you want to benefit from it.

So, no matter what you are thinking about doing, you should take your time and wait before making any major decision.

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Pretty cool spot motion made with a 5DMrkII

June 24, 2011 By

I love stop motion videos, problem is, I dont have time to even think about starting one! Here is a very nice one, which looks almost 3D if it was not for the BTS video. Take a look and dont think about how much time it takes to cut all these sheets…

And the making of…

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Who is FCPX target market?

June 22, 2011 By

It is us! While we read about pros complaining about FCPX all over the place, everything I have read (and personally tested) about FCPX pleases me.

Call it Apple biggest mistake if you want but they built this app for people like us. People who shoot-edit-deliver all by ourselves. By simplifying the timeline and media management, they made it even easier for us to edit our clips.

Other than the multicam, I don’t really care about all the other ‘missing’ features from FCP7 since I never had to use them. I am not saying those who needed these should not be frustrated. Just that it does not affect me, nor does it affect you (most probably).

By rebuilding the app from the ground up, they gained a lot:

  • The app is FAST! I edit H.264 without transcoding or proxying without any issues (so far).
  • The new interface is very slick and functional (once you get used to it). Lots of refinements.
  • Better integration with Motion.
  • Rebuild the editing paradigms/metaphors to be better aligned with how people actually use the application.
  • A software architecture that actually uses what OSX has to offer.

Now the bad part

I installed the app without realizing that my current plugins would not be compatible nor would I be able to open my old projects. This seriously sucks. There should have been a warning somewhere. Not that I was stupid enough to upgrade in the middle of a project, but simply because I may want to go back to an old project and rerender it into another format…

iMovie import? Seriously, this is the thing you see when you open the app and it is a bit insulting.

Conclusion

Depending of what you do, there are a lot of reasons to hate FCPX, but there are a lot of reasons to love it too. And if you make a living from your HDSLR, odds are that you will love it.

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Filed Under: Review, Video Tagged With: ,

First wedding of the season

June 17, 2011 By

Last weekend, I shot my first wedding of the season with my friend Robert Cato (see below). This gig had me play with a few new pieces of gear, like using a monopod instead of a shoulder rig (more on this in the next post) but what I wanted to talk about is the newest genius idea Robert had: hiring an assistant for the day!

Yes, adding a +1 to the crew cost some money but I think it pays for itself pretty quickly.

How? Time saved: having someone else worrying about moving the gear around and keeping it safe while shooting outside is a great time saver. The guy is the last to leave the set so he is in charge of managing all the gear and making sure you are not leaving something behind which is one of my constant worries. He manages batteries, CF cards and lens changes. Forgot a lens in the hotel room? No problem, send the assistant! Want a drink during the cocktail? Send the assistant! (this last part was my idea)

Of course these are all things you could do by yourself but having an extra pair of hands and eyes to take care of everything that is not directly related to shooting makes the whole experience even better.

I am now wondering how I will ever be able to shoot without an assistant!

Here is the clip, edited the next day by Robert, the guy is a real trooper. What I was doing while he was editing? Sleeping!

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