This time, Jemery is looking for a cheaper alternative to the ‘official’ Manfrotto tripod.

One misconception that rookies might have is thinking that their old tripod will work just fine for shooting videos with an HDSLR… please don’t make the same mistake I did. If you are going to get serious about shooting video, there are things you will have to purchase in addition to your camera. A follow focus is a must for video, along with a slider of some sort. I had been shooting with a very dependable Targus tripod, just a run of the mill light weight – take it anywhere system… it took only a few shoots to look like an fool thinking that I would be alright with what I had.

Being budget conscious I scoured local stores first, then Amazon for a tripod that would fit my budget (needed to stay under $200) and provide stability along with a fluid head. I purchased the Ravelli AVTP Professional 75mm Tripod and have been playing with it for a little over a week now. The thing is a beast, which in my opinion is a good thing. It is stable enough to hold my Indislider Mini and have it stay perfectly steady even with the added weight of a battery grip. The panning is stiff but smooth. It only took me a couple tries to get the hang of it, but I was rolling well when I was set to shoot. It weighs in at nearly 15 pounds, and could be considered bulky if you were hiking in for an out door shoot. I did purchase the tripod dolly as an addition to the tripod. My thoughts on this are mixed, as the dolly, even when locked down tight, allows for slight vibrations when moving or panning, so for any shot that requires movement I suggest that you not use the dolly. It is nice when shooting photographs inside buildings, allowing for an easy adjustments and saving time – but for video go with the stability of solid ground.

I give this tripod a solid 5 stars. It is an inexpensive alternative to a higher and more pricey system and will serve its purpose well. Even with the dolly you can get shots that work well.

Pros

Inexpensive, solid and sturdy. Allows for little vibrations while shooting. I don’t mid that it is heavy, it can hold 20 pounds of weight effortlessly and that is worth it’s bulkiness to me.

Cons

Stiff while panning. It takes a few tries to get the muscles in your body to remember the tension. There are screws that you can adjust to make panning easier, but if you mess up you can ruin the panning entirely. Not willing to take that chance – not yet at least.

Now the Admin take on this

As stated by Jeremy, there is a big difference between still and video tripods and trying to work with the wrong kind of support system is asking for troubles. I have shot with a vast array of tripods and while the Manfrotto 525MVB (or one of its derivatives) is a solid performer, there are other good alternatives. The most important feature to look for is that you want a tripod with a bowl to attach the head to and not just a flat surface to screw the head to. While the tilt/pan head is a great starting point, eventually you will be lured by the bowl and fortunately for Jeremy, the Ravelli AVTP Professional 75mm Tripod has a standard size 75mm bowl.

A bowl allows you to setup the tripod first, then make it level with the ground instead of having to adjust each leg separately until the whole thing is level. This is a major time saver and well worth the extra money.

There are a few other things to look for but I will keep these for a later post.

Moral of the story? While heavy, the Ravelli is a very affordable entry level video tripod with some pro features. Of course, you can’t expect it to perform as its 1000$ Italian cousin, but at a fraction of the price, it is hard to go wrong with this tool.

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?

My trip to Iceland was my first serious photo trip. And, since baby girl is coming soon, it will probably be the last one for a while too! Anyways, I seriously geared up for this trip and brought with me every single gadget I could think of.

The first of these gadget I want to talk you about is the Columbus V-900 geo tagger. I may have bitched a bit (ehh.. a lot) about Aperture 3, but one of its coolest feature is the addition of Places. While I could complain for a while about the way it was implemented (like the requirement to be connected to the internet), it is still a great tool for the travel photographer.

I am sure some of you are thinking “Why use a separate device? The iPhone can do the job!”. True, but having a separate gps has a few benefits:

• it has better reception / precision
• much longer battery life
• smaller
• more robust
• always in tracking mode

I am sure the iPhone can handle the requirements of most people, but if you are not comfortable having your iPhone hanging from the back of your bag while in the rain, please keep reading…

The device

As you can see on the picture below, it is much smaller than a GPS or iPhone. This is a nice thing when you think that you will have to carry it with you all the time. Also, its simplistic design ensure that you don’t accidentally turn it on/off. While it is not water resistant, I have found that putting it in a ziploc bag does’nt affect performance while keeping it safe.

The front panel of the device has a single button and 3 status LEDs. While the device captures your location every few seconds, you can also click on the button when you are at a special place to make it easier to identify the location afterward. This is a feature I should have used more during my trip to set some reference points to ease the photo-GPS associations.

The features

The geotagger comes with a lot of features but I have to admit that I restricted myself to the bare minimum: geo tracking. For examples, the Columbus can beep when you exceed a predetermined speed, record voice messages or be connected via Bluetooth to your computer to acts as a GPS.

In my case, I received the unit only a few days before my trip and read the instructions while on the plane. Not wanting to jeopardize my logging, I stayed away from all these features.

Once the trip is captured, you have to transfer it to the computer. I dont understand why but the computer will not recognize the card while it is plugged in the V-900, you have to use a separate card reader. It is not so much of a problem but still, it means you have to carry one more peace of hardware in your bag.  It is also worth noting that the USB cable used to charge the device cannot be used to plug an external HD to your computer. I discovered this the hard way. So, if you plan to carry a single USB cable for both your Columbus and External HD, you better use the HD cable for both.

Now that your log files are on your computer, you have to convert to a format that is readable by your favorite application. In my case, I had to convert them to the gpx format for Aperture. The task is done using the free application provided by the manufacturer. IMPORTANT NOTE: the version that comes in the box does not export to gpx, you have to get the latest version (free on the manufacturer website).

Conclusion

My overall impression of the device is positive. While it is not the cheapest of the bunch, its high precision and long battery life make it stand out from the rest. I would advice it to every travel photographer or location scouts. There are some hurdles, like the cheap USB cable, but nothing to worry about.

Amazon does not sale this device but offers instead the VGPS-900 which looks pretty much the same. I just dont understand the bad reviews because the device has been working flawlessly for my whole trip.

For those still waiting for the story about my trip, here is a teaser of the locations we shot at. FYI, my plane landed in Akurery and we drove around the island clockwise.

Edit: I have had two visitors pointing me toward the Amod AGL3080 GPS Data Logger. It is a cheaper alternative and with Aperture 3 geo tagging, it solves the biggest issue owners had: linking pictures to GPS data.

Following the comment of PH Photography on the quality of the Fader ND, I decided to do more extensive testing. As I was stating in my original review, I was having great results while using the Fader ND in video mode with my 24-70 (main video lens).

So, today, I decided to review what I have shot so far in Iceland with the filter. Up until this morning, everything was shot with the 17-40L4 and was good enough to be put on the web at 720p. So I was having different results than what PH Photography was getting. Then, I reviewed the clips shot with the filter mounted on my 400L5.6. Oh boy!

These clips are not sharp at all. While very usable for web display in a downscaled window (as on Vimeo), the 100% crop was not satisfying at all.

I understand that using a variable filter at such a long focal range is not common so this might be the reason why so few people have reported the issue. That being said, I am getting very good results with my other lenses. If someone has a 400mm lens and a Sihn Ray, I would love to hear your results.

Now that I think about it, anyone else experienced sharpness issues with the Fader ND on a telephoto lens?

Should you forget about the Fader ND?

Fortunately, the Fader ND manufacturer is coming very soon with a revised version of the product which will be using much higher quality glass. Cant wait to test these out. Until then, I will not use the filter on any of my long focals.

Disclaimer: Light Craft Workshop is now a sponsor of Canon5dTips.com. If you read the sponsorship page, you know that I only agree to promote products that I actually use and love. So if it wasn’t good, I would not recommend you to buy one, as my painful Pocket Wizard TTL experience proved.

If you don’t know what a ND filter is or why you need one, take a look at this post on the subject (coming soon).

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The great thing about the NAB is that we will see a lot of new products targeted at the HDSLR market. The bad thing is that most of these wont be available for my trip to Iceland…

The first of these product is the HDSLR PowerBase 70. First, the picture:

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From the readers is a new category of articles I am working on. As a blogger, I get daily emails about what gear one should buy or how to do X thing. Since the answer to these questions is generally of public interest, I have decided to turn them into articles. If you have any questions you would like answered, feel free to contact me.

Of all the lenses related question touching the 5DmrkII, one that keeps coming up is What should I do with the kit 24-105L4IS? I receive questions about this lens at least once a week and it is a popular topic in forums as well. While I cant provide a straight answer that will hold true for all readers, I think I can give you some interesting pointers.

First, lets see why people have this lens in the first place. Most of the time, it is because it is a popular kit lens. After doing some maths, a lot of prospective buyers saw that if they bought the 5DMrkII kit and sold the lens, they could save some money over the body only box. Proud of their calculation, these fine accountants rush to the store and get the kit then realize how hard it is to sell the 20-104L4IS at their expected price.

Why? Supply and demand. While the 24-105LIS is a great lens (more on this later), too many people did the 5D kit thing and now want to sell theirs too, pushing the price down. While this lens used to worth about the same as the 24-70L, it is now advertised on Craigslist at around 900$ or lower.

But, why people want to sell the lens? Is there something wrong with it? Is there something better for the price? Actually, for its price, the 24-105LIS is an incredible lens. While the f4 aperture might be a bit small for photography work, it is perfect for video. The image quality is very good for still and even better for video and the huge zoom range means that it is a great do it all lens. Add IS to the list and you get a very decent lens for photo and near perfect for all around video. I have shot a few clips with a 24-105 hand held and it worked way better than I expected thanks to its IS. If you dont remember how useful IS can be for video, check this old clip.

So, if it is so great, why so many for sale? From my personal experience, I can see three reasons:

1. As mentioned above, they think they can turn a quick profit.
2. They realize (a bit too late) they need a wider aperture lens for their shooting style.
3. They follow the herd and forum trolls without even giving the lens a real try.

Last night, I was discussing with a few other cinephotographers about how people (mostly converted photographers) want to shoot video wide open while they would get much better results by using a small aperture. Unless your storytelling requires strong subject isolation, an aperture of f4-5.6 is fine for most CU and medium shots.

Let say that you really need a lens with wider aperture. What could one get for selling the lens? While the choice is quite easy for most photographer, since they will pull some more cash out of their wallet and go with the 24-70L2.8, for videographers there are a lot of other options. A popular choice is to go with a Canon 50mm f1.4 and a Canon 85mm f1.8 . These are both excellent lens. If 85 is too long, one could go toward Sigma 20mm f/1.8 (we talked about it before) and the same 50. There are other options and even more if one wants to look at alternative lenses coming from Nikon, Zeiss, etc.

What ever you do, make sure you dont overlap the focal range and that you are getting at least two stops of light in exchange. Also think about the complication involved in a multi-lens kit. Switching lens in the middle of a shoot is not practical, even more so when shooting in a dusty environment.

I just finished reading this post and I am not sure if I managed to clear the situation of just put more confusion into the mix. If I did so, sorry! The general idea behind this post was to show how great the 24-105 is and how hard it is to replace such a versatile tool.

Post publication edit: as stated in the comments, I screwed up and invented 2 lenses… lens models corrected now to reflect current Canon offering!

While there are a lot of shoulder mounts and follow focus available on the market, the options regarding viewfinders are quite limited. Everyone I know love their Z-finder and those who dont have one wished they did and complain about the price.

Well, the Z-man listened and thanks to pressure from competitors (LCDVF anyone?), they just came out with new iterations of the product divided into two product line: the Jr and the Pro. The differences are explained in the chart below (taken from Zacuto web site).

First thing we can notice is the change in z-finder to camera attachment. The new system looks much stronger and will probably give more confidence to those who were afraid of the clip system used in the first system (which never gave me any issues). Zacuto also added a lens tube production boot and cap which is a great idea since I had to design one on my own.

I hope to put my hands on one of these soon to give you a side by side comparison with the existing model.

A while ago, we announced that the BeachTek DXA-5D was discontinued and confirmed that a new version of the product would be out ’soon’. Soon in this case sounds like the end of February /March. Just got an email from BeachTek announcing these:

I know a lot of people prefer to use en external recording device such as the Zoom H4n but being able to record (and monitor) directly on the 5D means no sync in post which can be a real time saver and less clutter in your bag.

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…