It is now official. The soon to be released firmware update will give us 24p/25p, live histogram, some better audio and that is about it. Sure it is great, but I guess I am not the only one who was hoping for more (as in 60p@720).
Still, I am an happy camper. On top of having a more film like look, 24p clips will take about 20% less space on my CF cards or be 20% longer.
Are we going to see another firmware update until the 5DMrkIII? I doubt it. The 5D has now evolved into a full cinephotographer tool and Canon answer to the Red Scarlet is probably going to come in some other form.
Canon rumors has a picture from a presentation where we can see the list of features which will be added with the next firmware in March.
The features are:
- Manual sound recording level & meters
- Histogram display when shooting in manual mode
- AV and TV mode for shooting video
- Increased audio sampling rate to 48k.
- 24/25 fps at 1080p.
So what does that mean?
First, no 60p720. That really sucks if it is true! I wont talk too much about this simply because everybody must feel the same as I do about it.
On the other hand, the new features are great! Shooting in AV/TV mode is an incredible feature if you need to shoot a subject moving in a variety of exposure and want to maintain a constant look.
While I dont care too much about the audio features, I know a lot of people who will appreciate it.
I kept the histogram for last. If there is one feature that can redeem the lack of 60p720, it has to be this one. While it is impossible to get a perfect exposure by judging the LCD image, using the histogram makes this job ridiculously easy.
What about stills?
Seems like there is nothing new for still photographers. This is a little bit ridiculous. How hard can it be to add a 5-7-9 exposures bracketing or auto ISO limits? Lets just hope there was a second slide to this presentation.
Shipping date
The week of March 17 is the rumored date and fits in the time line I was given (post Olympics) so I tend to believe it. I guess we will see soon enough!
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.
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…
I while ago I came across Syndicate 7D tool but for some obscure reason, it did not catch my attention. Now in this article (twittered by Dan), we have more details about how the software works.
Maybe I am getting a bit ahead of myself here. Lets start from the beginning. What is 4:4:4? 4:4:4 is a video encoding format (like H.264) which preserves much more information, than let say, ProRes 4:2:2. I dont want to rewrite the excellent article on Wikipedia so if you are interested in that technical stuff, go and take a look. The important thing to understand is that being able to get a feed directly from the HDMI output of the camera that has not yet been encoded has a much higher image quality than what you can get from the H.264 file. Read the rest of this entry »
Some people are just luckier than me. The folks at Still Motion put their hands on a 1DMrkIV and had the great idea to make a side by side video comparison with the 5D and 7D. Read their comments here and check out the clip.
Sorry for missing this one! Actually, I did not miss it, I was just too busy working on a very special project (more on this tomorrow).
As you have all read elsewhere, rumors are that the next 5DMrkII firmware will include (as we expected/hoped) more than just the 24p frame rate. It would include 60p and 50p.
The thing is, the screenshot that was posted everywhere was not from the 5DMrkII but from the 1DMrkIV. So basically, nothing is set in stone yet and Canon could ditch the added feature at the last moment.
On my part, I am hoping (of course) for higher framerate but also for advance features like those we can find in the Magic Lantern firmware. Please Canon, give us serious video functions or at least full HD video out form the HDMI plug!
I just completed the 101 and 102 classes of the 5DFilmSchool training and would like to share my thoughts with you about it (as some others have already done).
I have been watching training videos for a while. Like I said in a previous post, I am a big fan of Lynda.com and spent countless hours in front of my computer learning about new software/techniques. This also means that my expectations regarding training video are high, very high. According to my experience, to be effective, a training has to: have the right pace, be precise (never leave any confusion in the head of the audience), have useful content and be entertaining. Lets see how the 101 class rated according to these criteria.
Note: I watched the digital download version and I suggest you do the same. It has a better resolution than the DVD version and you can watch it right away! Read the rest of this entry »
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.
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.
