This is Jeremy third post. While he provides a cheap solution to the carrying case problem, read until the end to see my suggestion.

I had a shoot out in NY, and discovered that having the proper case makes all the difference in the world. I was almost in hysterics when my case was tipped over by a stranger running for his plane. Camera equipment isn’t cheap, and having a case that is protective is a must. I was using an old camera bag my wife had since her first year of college. A close friend of mine told me about a store that he had gotten a small hard case from for his camera for under $30. So, for those of you looking for a case that you can customize on the inside, you should check out this link here: and also picking up some egg crate foam that you could find at Wal-Mart or even Foam by Mail.

I do suggest that you replace the strap on the case, it was too short and too flimsy for my liking. I ended up with two cases that only cost me $50, so I highly suggest that if you don’t have the money for expensive equipment, consider going cheap and getting better equipment as you grow. Just an FYI, these should fit in overhead compartments on the plane too, making traveling a little less worrisome.

Now the Admin take on this

Jeremy suggestion is good. Actually, I know a lot of photographers who uses these case to carry their gear around. Actually, I am one of these, I have been given one a while ago. While it feels secure and solid, it misses a few things I find important:

• waterproof
• near indestructible
• secure

You may think that I am over doing it a bit but you would be wrong. Waterproof is important when you travel because you never know for how long you will be stuck in the rain waiting for a cab. Having a super resistant case is also nice because you wont be afraid to sit/step on it when ever you need it. And, lets admit it, its cool to be able to throw your camera case around without having to worry about  its content survival. Finally, I need my case to be secure. It has to be lockable and once locked and attached to something, I want to have the peace of mind that it is still going to be there when I will be back. This is especially useful when shooting wedding since I can leave all my gear in the bride room instead of the car for example.

After looking long and hard at the various offering, I picked the Pelican 1510 case. It has the perfect size for travel (maximum size to be counted as a carry on bag when flying) and fits the criteria mentioned above. While not cheap at around 145$, it is money well spent. I actually recommend that you spend a bit more and get the one with the padded dividers. Actually, my suggestion is to buy at least 2 dividers and preset them for the various kinds of shoot you may have to do.

Since about a year ago, I have noticed a lot of new products in the hard case category, anyone had good experiences with one of the cheaper models?

This post is from our other contributor, Jon. Jon is a pro photographer with a lot of experience who will be covering the HDSLR movement from a pro perspective. Go take a look at his portfolio, some great rock climbing shots there!

Since Adobe created Lightroom 4 years ago the software has changed the way photographers work in such a profound way that many have wondered if this little gem might just someday replace the need for Photoshop all together- for most photography needs anyway. Anyone who has used Lightroom extensively as the de-facto front line in their digital workflow can attest to the power of the program as not only an essential digital asset management tool, but also as a potent developing and publishing tool.

With the release of LR3, the gap between what is necessary in Photoshop for photographers and what is achievable in Lightroom has once again shrunken. Why do I mention that? Well, in the past Lightroom has been most valuable as a digital asset management (DAM) tool- importing, renaming, adding /editing meta data, organizing, cataloging etc have all been staples of the program since it’s introduction, along with the added benefit of being able to publish images to web galleries, contact sheets, print, or various resizing options. But LR has come a long way since it’s inception and with each new incarnation it’s become more and more relevant as a developing tool as well. While it has not yet replaced Photoshop for the really heavy lifting in digital imaging, for many photographers it may well be a one stop solution for the majority of their work.

The focus of this review will be to cover the most significant new features in LR3 that I will break down by module over the new few posts. In the meantime, here’s a quick overview of the new features. Be sure to stay tuned for a more in depth analysis of each in the subsequent posts.

So what’s new in LR3?

Accelerated Performance via new 64-bit software engine

Adobe claims that the new version has accelerated performance over previous versions, which we can assume comes in large part from the new 64-bit engine. In case you’re unfamiliar with 64-bit, in short it allows for better leveraging of your systems RAM and therefore potentially increases performance. However, to reap that 64-bit lovin’ you’ll need to be running an operating system that supports 64 bit – Mac Snow Leopard or Windows 7. More on this to come..

Support for Video Files

The key word left out here is “limited”, as the support for video does not extend beyond the Library Module, meaning you can import and achieve general cataloging and organizing tasks but that’s about it. However, we’ll be exploring some of the possibilities with this new feature that may surprise you.

Camera Raw 5.7 Processing

LR uses the newest Adobe Camera Raw engine, which is a much improved and powerful RAW converter found in Photoshop CS5. However, if you’re not using CS5 (and therefore ACR 5.7) you’ll have to jump through a couple extra hoops to gain the benefits, which I’ll be covering.

Noise Reduction performance

In short it’s excellent, far better than anything we’ve seen from Adobe to date. I’ll be covering this individually since it’s sure to be a topic of interest for most photographers. I’ll be showing side-by-side comparisons with previous versions, as well as comparisons to other NR software like NIK Dfine and Imagenonic’s Noiseware Pro. Should be interesting.

Improved Watermarking

Perhaps one of the biggest improvements over previous versions is the improved watermarking feature, which is such a vast upgrade from the horrendously limited version that it alone could be worth the upgrade. Forget having to create a droplet in Photoshop and batch export in LR in order to have a custom watermark. LR3’s new engine has full support for custom watermarks and more flexibility for creating a simple text based watermark.

New Import Dialog

A nice upgrade to the import dialog, overall it’s more of an aesthetic change than a complete revamp. Of course, previous versions were great and for those used to the simplicity and speed of past versions it may take some time to grow on you… I’ll explain why in upcoming posts.

Lens Correction Tool

Finally! One of the most useful and essential upgrades in the new software is the all mighty lens correction tool, taken directly from Photoshop. For those of you familiar with this tool it is an absolutely essential tool and a welcome addition. Not only does LR now include the tool but also has built in camera /lens profiles (similar to DXO optics) for precise and automated lens correction.

Tethered Shooting

Another welcome feature, the new tethered shooting option eliminates the need for the camera manufacturer’s propitiatory capture software getting in the middle of shooting tethered and importing to Lightroom. Is it as effective as Nikon Capture or Canons Digital Photo Pro? I’ll let you know when we get to the Library section of the review.

There are a few other less significant new features I’ll be covering that are not game changing per se but still nice features for some folks. These include the ability to add film grain, improved slideshow capabilities (including exporting slideshows to mp4 and support for audio), new publishing options, and some new print options, among others.

I’ll also be breaking down what WASN’T included in the new update, and what we can /should expect from Adobe in the future with Lightroom.



This Jeremy second post where he explains how he moved from HDV video camera to embrace HDSLR. While I bet a lot of you already prefer HDSLRs over video camera, I am sure a lot of readers could tell the same story, hence the reason I wanted to repeat it.

When I was looking at getting into the video production field, I decided to go with what I knew at the time. In college (I graduated in 2005) everything was tape based, so the thought of going strictly digital was un-nerving, so I went with what I knew. After digging around and knowing my budget I went with the Sony HDV-A1U. I thought I was in 7th heaven when my camera arrived. The quality of video was great, the size of the camera fit my needs for shooting in tight spots and traveling; but the thing that bugged me most about the purchase was the lack of depth of field. I knew what shots I wanted to get, and the only way to make it work was taking the camera out an extra 10 or 20 feet from the subject I was shooting and zooming in to sort of macro/mock up the d.o.f. I was aiming for.

A friend of mine who owns his own production company pointed me to the 7D and 5D, a better alternative in his mind than buying a Letus35. Don’t get me wrong, the Letus35 is a great tool, and who’s to say that some day down the road I won’t purchase one; but my thought process was in the order that I know that having a 2nd camera as a backup, and a second angle during shoots was a positive for what I could offer my clients, that solidified my decision to get the ball rolling. So through many freelance jobs and my nose to the wheel I was able to purchase the 7D and it was like something just clicked in my video production ability. The reason my shots were better is that I was very familiar with the EOS and the way it ran. I had been working with a Canon 4D for almost 2 years, and with literally a turn of a dial I was able to get the shots I had wanted since my re-emergence into video.

For any people who are on the fence or are just starting out in the video field, I am telling you that the HDSLR’s are the best way to go. With your choice of lenses, the ability to take photographs along side video and the ability to shoot at 24, 30 and 60 frames per second… you will not regret it. Just be aware that your shooting time is limited because of over heating issues. Shooting long interviews or long wedding ceremonies will be limited.

Comments from Alain, the admin

Jeremy highlighted an important point: HDSLRs clip durations are capped. While this is not an issue for most people who are shooting weddings or video clips, it is problematic for shooting interviews or performances. While you can always try to work around the limitation by timing your questions, the only real work around is to work with two cameras and start/stop them before the time limit in interval and fix the missing parts in the edit room.

Because there are no ways to start/stop movie recording with a cable remote (it only works with the IR remotes RC1) and you can’t use an IR remote to control a specific camera (it would start/stop both camera at the same time), you have to press the SET button manual to manage the recording which could be a pain if the two cameras are far apart.

Using two cameras is also a good protection versus camera over heating or malfunctions. While I know most people do not have the budget for a second 5DMrkII, a good solution is to use one of the cheaper Rebel models (ex: Rebel T1i) with a 50mm for a close up shot on the subject face and keep the 5D for the wide shot.

A few weeks ago, I was looking for contributors to the blog and Jeremy was one of the selected few. Jeremy will publish periodic articles about the life of a rookie HDSLR worker. I am sure his experiences will connect to a bunch of readers. My goal is to cover the spectrum from both end: Jeremy is the “Rookie” and I have another contributor coming up who is a full time pro. I hope you enjoy these posts.

After my post requesting help, I received a lot of applications from all kind of people. I selected Jeremy because he is a perfect example of the new generation of HDSLR film maker: people with no formal film school training who decides to make an important career change. He is embracing the HDSLR revolution and will probably rise with it.

Film is fun. Let me clarify, making movies, weather it is for business or pleasure has it’s ups and downs, but if you are reading this there is a 90% chance that you agree that film is fun. I am at the belief that sometimes your career ends up finding you, the thing that you really want to do kinda springs out and place itself in your lap. Maybe it was a friend who called you up to be an extra in a movie they were making for laughs. Maybe it was creating a skate board video with friends that planted the film seed in your mind. But somewhere, along the path of life you have made the decision to move in the film direction and that you were not going to settle for being second best, you were going to do it and do it right.

That is me. I got a taste of film from college where I just pumped out the videos with my Sony Handycam with friends and found a passion. Of course life had taken me in a different direction, I got a job marketing for a real estate firm and one thing led to another, my Handycam was shuffled to the back of the closet and was forgotten about.

6 months ago I was laid off from my job. The high end real estate that I was marketing stopped selling because short sales were up, the company I worked for had to let me go and I was left with two options. Find a job doing what I was good at, or make a career for myself with what I wanted to do and that I truly believe I will thrive at. The film seed was still in my heart, it just needed to be watered.

This blog will be about my life creating a film career for myself. I have invested a lot of money into the required programs and computers. I am armed with my 7D, several lenses, a Zoom H4n for recording audio and a very basic lighting kit. I will admit I feel over whelmed with the things I need to learn, the equipment I will need to purchase, the techniques I will have to harness and mistakes I am already anticipating, but the seed is growing now, and I can’t wait to see how high the bean stalk will take me.

This week big news was Canon announcement of their wonder camera. If you have not see it yet, here it is.

You know what this reminds me of? Videos from the 60s saying everyone would own a flying car in 2000…

Some of the technologies highlighted in the video already exists and I am sure they are working hard on those that do not. Still, I believe it is all vaporware coming from Canon marketing department.

Think about it: why would Canon design a camera able to do everything in a single unit? We are talking here about a company that is over protective of its product lines and would rather limit customer options than cannibalize its sales. If you dont believe it, just think about where we were 18 months ago with Canon stalling the 5D  MrkII firmware to protect the video division. To make it happen Canon would have to merge the DSLR, point and shoot and video (pro and consumer) divisions under a single entity. Unless there is a big mentality shift at Canon, I can’t see it coming anytime soon.

Instead of this presentation, I would have preferred seeing one about Canon vision of what it coming in the next 3-5 years. Then again, CEO are like politicians, they only promise stuff that is going to happen when they are out of the picture.

Am I the only one wondering where is the 3D?

For various reasons, I rarely post videos from others on the blog, focusing instead on creating original content. Yet, I can’t resist the urge to show you this clip from Clemens Wirth. The guy is super creative and mix 5DMrkII footage with visual effects perfectly.

I asked Clemens to share some tips and he gladly accepted.

He shot almost everything with the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Macro (this one was easy to guess) with one sequence from the 100mm f/2.8 Macro. He also used the Z-finder to achieve critical focus. Having played with macro videography in the past, I was curious about his lighting setup and I was quite surprise by its simplicity: two 100 watts bulbs for indoor shots and the sun for the rest!

For those who never saw the MP-E 65, it is a manual focusing lens with a macro ratio of 5:1. As far as I know, it is the only commercial lens with such a magnification factor. While hard to use, it can produce some incredible results as Clemens showed us.

Last week, Chase Jarvis published a very popular article about his workflow/backup strategy. The article was retweeted and by many and commented by Vincent Laforet who gave it his nod of approval.

Well, I am not the kind of guy who is impressed by cool charts and I found two flaws in Chase workflow.

Flaw 1: Archive the cards, not the file!

First, I would remove Aperture from the On Location process. A better way to import data from CF Card is to create disk images of these cards. This is a trick I picked from the book From Still to Motion. It is a better way to organize files by keeping all related data in the same place (DMG). Also, if you archive the physical cards, it makes the matching of virtual archives to the physical ones trivial. I never really though about keeping CF Cards until Shane Hulrbut mention it and with the decreasing cost of CF cards, it makes a lot of sense.

Flaw 2: Live work backuped with Time Machine? WTF!

First off, don’t get me wrong. Time Machine is good, very good. It is a set and forget kind of thing: it will backup files that have changed between two drives every x minutes. That is its strength but also its weakness: it does the copy based on time and not on milestones.

Lets take a worst case scenario: Time Machine just copied your project, then you decide to make three variations of one of your file. A few minutes later, you are done and while waiting for the automatic backup to happen, disaster strike: HD failure!

Here is another scenario: in the span of an hour, you modify a file three times then realize that you need version #2 which was not backuped by Time Machine (it saved #1 & #3). What can you do?

These are two example of how time based backup can (and will!) fail. While they are very good a copying stuff when you would not think about it, they dont have a notion of what is important for you to backup. Losing an hour of work on a file does not always mean that you will be able to get it back by spending another hour on it. Creativity and inspiration are not a function of time.

The classical approach to this kind of problem is to “save as” every minute and create a multitude of copies of a single file and manually backup this file on another drive. Not very practical.

Fortunately, there is a better solution. It is free, powerful and easy to use! And you know the best part? You don’t even need a complex IT infrastructure to make it work. I would never dare to say that I am the first to think about it, but according to Google, I am the first to blog about it: using GIT as a version control/backup system for your visual assets!

What is GIT

GIT is a distributed code versioning system. It is used by programmers to keep an history of all the modifications done to each file and distribute these files/change. In plain English, it means that it tracks changes to files, can go back to any milestones in its history and can apply all the modifications done on workstation to all the others.

GIT is the industry standard in the IT field and while its features set is an overkill, its performance and ease of use makes it a mandatory tool for every paranoid virtual asset owner.

How to use GIT

Understanding how to use GIT is out of the scope of this article. I am planning to publish a detailed article on the subject soon. If you can’t wait, and want your work to be meteor-proof, go take a look at the GIT Ready website. While the content is targeted at programmers, it will teach you the basics (tips: just read the sections about the init, add, commit, push and clone commands).

Conclusion

If there is one thing I hope you learned from this post is that a full featured backup solution is not simply about having multiple copy of your (RAW) files in various location. That is only part of the equation (which is fully covered in Chase video). The other part is making sure that you will also be able to access the version (live work) that is important to you (which I will cover in an upcoming article).

I have been working real hard for the past few weeks on a music video we shot for one of my friend. I shot a few clips for him in the past (the single camera on tripod kind of thing) but this time, he wanted something more. Since I am always up for a new challenge and I was totally naive about the amount of time it would take to shoot the clip, I accepted.

While the whole thing could have been done in a weekend under perfect circumstances (and a bit more experience and preparations), we did a few mistakes that really made it harder to do the edit.

Since I am the kind of guy who loves to show my errors in front of thousands of people, I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of all the things I learned so it could help anyone who would be crazy enough to start the same endeavor!

Note: a lot of these tips are targeted at people crazy enough to do clips which require lip sync. If you can keep the images and the music separated, things will be much easier.

Planning

Having a plan in your head is good, but not enough. Music video are all about timing and if you dont want to end up with blanks in your sequence that you wont know how to fill, make sure you have a storyboard covering the whole clip! In my case, I totally forgot to get something to cover the bridge section of the song, 32 seconds of nothingness… I guess it is good to stir creativity.

Syncing

If you can find a clip concept where you can get away with lip syncing, do it! It is a huge time sink. That being said, in the case you have to show the singer actually singing, here are a few pointers:

• Shoot with as many camera as you can (see below)
• Prepare a MP3 version of the song with a very loud and short BEEP at the start and end.
• Use an electronic slate to sync the various camera together (in case because the audio is not never perfect)
• dont start editing until you have trimmed and synced all your clips

Shooting

Bring as many camera as you can! In our case, we only had 2 5DMrkII and I wish we had at least one more. The more coverage you have of each sequence, the easier it will be once you are in the edit room. For Traumatic Head Injury, I decided to focus mostly on the head so we shot a few versions with a close up cam on Jon face (using a 100mm Macro and 24-70L2.8) and the other camera right on top of him. Here is a picture of the ghetto setup we had.

The shooting settings were f4 to 5.6, 1/50 sec at between ISO 800 and 1600. Shooting with a wider aperture would have been asking for trouble since it was already hard to manage the depth of field. I would strongly advice you to use zooms when working in tight spaces since they make framing so much easier.

Framing

Don’t capture the singer lips unless you have too. This way, you can reuse sequences in other part of the clip and no one will ever notice. Also, in a multicam setup, make sure there is a significant change in the point of view from one cam to the other, else it just feels weird when jumping points of view.

Lighting

We shot the clip with minimal gear. We only had two cameras, two tripods, a slider and three lenses (50mm, 24-70L & 100macro) but no lights. Fortunately, the surgery lights were quite good but I wish we had a few more to put at the back of the ’surgeon’ to have a nice outline. Actually, if there was one piece of gear that I would have rented for this shoot, it would have been a few small spot lights, preferably LED to not eat the place too much.

Location / preparation

Location is important. We had access to a surgery room and I think it really contributes to the feel of the clip. I wish we could have used more of it. For example, I wish we had a shot of the stretcher coming in the surgery room for the intro sequence, or as a dreamy sequence in the bridge section.

Unfortunately, all these good ideas are worthless if you can’t execute them! So make sure you visit the location a few days before and give yourself enough time to come up with concepts and shots.

Consistency

If you are going to shoot multiple take of a scene, make sure everyone does the same thing every time. And if you see the singing head at the same time, make sure the actions always happen at the same time. This may sound obvious but it is so hard to execute perfectly. We had a lot of issues with this for our clip, so much that maybe 40% of the footage was unusable because of a lack of consistency.

The solution (that I figured afterward) is to have someone narrating the actions as they are coming while watching the initial shot on a laptop.

Editing

My first idea was to assemble all my clips as a single multi-clip in FCP and cut from there. Unfortunately, it did not work, my machine was not able to manage the 16 simultaneous HD sequences, even with a RAID-0 of 2 VelociRaptor. My next approach was to create small resolution proxies but, there again, 16 feeds were too much so I gave up and stacked all the sequences in the timeline and cut from there. If anyone has advices regarding this, I would love to hear from you!

What I would have done differently?

Lots of things, but the one thing that hurt me the most which I could not fix once in the edit room was the lack of coverage of some parts of the song. At the beginning of the clip, I am forced to cut on the beat while I know (as most of my friend told me) that it would have been better to be off beat for a few cuts to increase intensity and expectations.

Unfortunately, I couldnt because I would not have had enough footage to make each shot look different. This is why getting coverage is important and you can never have enough cameras filming at once! Never!

Conclusion

I have shot films, wedding video, travel and corporate video and let me tell you: music video are the hardest! If you are getting paid to to it, make sure you allocate 2-3x more time for edits and don’t sell yourself short. I am sure there is a lot of money to be made shooting music video with HDSLR, but that is something I will leave for others!

The result

Here is the first minute of the clip. The current grading is a place holder, made under a minute in Magic Bullet Mojo, until the final style is applied.

I will be reviewing Sonic Fire Pro soon,  until then, you can download the free Express Track version to play with it and get some single track for only 9.99$ (normal price is 30$ each). This is a great rebate and a good opportunity to stockpile tracks for the next year. Each of these tracks can be used in a multiple of ways which make them great value. Go take a look.

Sales end June 9.

What is Sonic Fire?

It is an audio clip editor that uses special smart sound clips to make editing easier. Audio clips automatically adjust to fit the desired duration and you can add/remove instruments or change the mood when ever you want while staying within the same track. In short, the perfect tool to get a good soundtrack when you dont know anything about scoring!

I am looking for someone to help me add content to the blog. This participation can take many forms.

I want to push this blog to the next level and could really use a hand to do so.

Compensations will be based on the level of contribution.

If you are interested, please contact me at: boss @ canon5dtips . com

EDIT: fixed a typo in the email