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Introducting HDSLR101: your Q&A regarding HDSLRs!

May 17, 2011 By

Earlier this week, I released my latest website: HDSLR101.com.

This is a very simple site: each post starts with a question and finishes with an answer.

Questions touch both video and stills and the goal is to cover all the most popular ones in the next few months. We are currently publishing one question per day, so you can either visit the website every day or subscribe to the RSS feed and get a new hint every morning.

Questions are submitted by you, the visitors, and can range from the very basic to the super technical. There is something for everyone. So please pay us a visit, add your voice to the answers or submit new questions!

We are also looking for people willing to help us manage the content. If you are interested, contact us.

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Filed Under: News, On the web Tagged With: , , ,

Book review: DSLR Cinema

December 13, 2010 By

I have been reading the DSLR Cinema book for about a week now and I think it is now time to write something about it.

The short version

For those who do not want to read the whole review: this is the best book/training material about HDSLR video I have seen so far. Get it!

The long version

What I like

The first part of the book is all about how to set the camera/lights to ‘get good clips’. It is quite technical and built on the knowledge published over the years on various HDSLR popular sites/forums/shooters. To my knowledge, it is the only book to cover the, so important, how to expose your image so thoughtfully. Actually, I have been in the process of writing a small eBook on the subject for quite a while now and looking at the book content, there is not much else to say!

While the first part dealt with camera setup, the second part shows how various elements can be used to create the film look and uses case studies to illustrate them. This was my favorite part of the book because it is not too often that get have access to this kind of information from other shooters.

The third part is about gear. Good for people who are green to the field but near useless to everyone else who knows about the various parts/rigs available.

Dont dont skip over the numerous appendix, lots of technicalities about HDSLR there. Actually, I think it would have been better to skip over the gear listing of part three and replace it with an expanded version of the appendix.

What I did not like

First of, the biggest flaw of this book, as it was with the book From Still to Motion, is the lack of reference to this site! How could they?

Also, the title should have been HDSLR Cinema and not DSLR Cinema… You can’t shoot a movie with a DSLR!

Seriously, this book has very few flaws. The one thing I did not like was the tutorials on some applications like the H.264 import plugins, how to use PluralEye, Magic Bullet Looks, etc… To me, this type of content should be either be left in the hands of the software developer or distributed electronically. Reading software how-to does not work for me.

Of course, as mentioned before, the whole part 3 of the book could have been removed.

Who is this book for

This book if for people who want to shoot movies with their HDSLR. As the title implies: DSLR Cinema: crafting the film look with video, all the book content is around cinema/film look. People thinking about getting the book to improve their wedding video skill are only going to enjoy part of the book content.

Conclusion

As I said at the beginning, this is a great book. It summarize of all the information available on the net about HDSLR on top of which Kurt has added interesting case studies and behind the scene tips from other shooters.  Buy it on Amazon!

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Filed Under: Review Tagged With: , ,

Lightroom 3 Review Pt 3: The Develop Module Updates: ACR 6.1, Improved Noise Reduction, Lens Correction Tool

August 11, 2010 By

This part 2 of Jon Lightroom 3 review. You can see the introduction in is first post and the second part here.

ACR 6.1

The newest incarnation of Lightroom uses the new Adobe Camera Raw 6.1 for it’s RAW conversion. Since this is a review of Lightroom and not ACR, I’m not going to get into the nuances of the newest ACR suffice to say that overall it appears to be an improvement over previous versions. One of the first things new users will notice is an exclamation point icon on the bottom of some images. This message is that LR wants to apply the new ACR default settings to the image. Upon allowing the update, you will notice a slight change in the handling of shadows, color rendition and a few other areas and overall, it looks good. If you’re someone who prefers the camera manufacturers software for RAW conversion, you’re probably still going to prefer those. The color rendition, quality of detail and overall fidelity provided in those programs (Canon Photo Professional, can’t speak for NX2) still has an edge over Adobe’s CR. This should be expected, given that ACR accommodates almost all types of RAW images and therefore isn’t quite as specialized as those from the Camera makers. That said, for those who do prefer ACR for it’s convenience and options will be very pleased with the new engine overall.

The only downside to the new engine is that you need to have ACR 6.1  running on your system, meaning you need to be running Photoshop CS5. If not, than you will need to render RAW images in LR before opening in Photoshop, which means an extra TIF (if that’s your selected preference for external editing) on your drive and more time spent waiting for an editable-image to be created before being re-opened. Of course, LR offers the option of “open anyway” rather then “render using Lightroom” but the results are inconsistent and frankly a bit unreliable for accurate rendition and conversion. So, if you’re not running CS5 be prepared for a little extra leg work to reap the full benefits of Lightroom3’s develop Module.

Noise Reduction Improvement

Adobe is pushing heavily the improved performance of Noise Reduction in LR3, which is no surprise since Noise Reduction is an item of large interest for photographers given the “Noise Wars” being waged between the camera manufacturers to push the high-iso-noise-performance envelop further and further. So the question is, how good is LR’s new noise reduction? The short answer is very good, in fact certainly better than previous versions of Lightroom and Photoshop. Luminance and color noise are handled nicely with details staying largely intact (compared to previous versions) and realistic. To get a sense of the improvement, I’ve set up the comparison below between LR3 and LR2, Aperture3 and noise Photoshop plugins Nik Dfine and Imageonic Noiseware. I’ll be posting the results soon.

Lens Correction Tool


Another crucial addition to the develop module is the inclusion of the Lens Correction tool. The LC too is taken directly from Photoshop, with all of the same parameters with the exception of scale and edge transparency (I would not recommend using the LC tool for scaling anyway). In addition to the default Photoshop parameters, Lightroom has raised the bar by including it’s own camera/lens profiles- similar to DXO software. These profiles, when applied, automatically correct a the image based on the lens and camera preset detected by LR. This is an excellent feature, and works well for most images. I would, as a recommendation use the automatic profiles as a starting point, as different images shot in varying situations will certainly require different levels of correction. Another great feature is the ability to batch lens correct, as the lens correct option has been added to the list of options when syncing develop settings across a number of photographs.  Overall, the LC tool is yet another vital work flow time saver especially when trying to stay solely in Lightroom for image editing.

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Filed Under: From the contributors, Photo, Review Tagged With: , , , ,

From Still to Motion: book review

March 31, 2010 By

Things are moving fast here: I talked about the book two weeks ago, received my copy last week and just finished my first reading. Verdict: I am loving it! To put it simply: it covers almost everything! From shoot preparation, gear selection, editing, etc.. It gives a solid foundation to any photographers who wants to move to video.

It is all about the content…

First, the book assumes only one thing: you are a photographer shooting stills and you want to learn how to shoot video. That is it. It goes over all the lingo, gear and processes used in cinematography and give you a working knowledge of what is required and involved in a shoot. The content goes wider and deeper than any DVD training material I have seen so far. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Review, Video Tagged With: , ,

5D FilmSchool training DVD review

December 6, 2009 By

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 more...]

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Filed Under: Review Tagged With: , , , , ,

Meggie + Corneliu: how we did it

September 19, 2009 By

A few people asked me to give more details about how we shot the love story clip (posted here). Instead of writing a structured post, I am just going to go with the flow and write everything that comes to my mind.

The clip was shot on two days. Originally, it was all planed to be done in a single afternoon (and end with a sunset shot) but a series of incidents (read: traffic) slowed us down and delayed everything so we had to split the shoot.

Pro Tip: Plan your itinerary ahead of time, map it in Google Map and make sure everyone has a copy. Park the car as close as you can to the location. Walking from one location to the next is a big time sink. Even more so when you have to carry tripods, sliders, bags, props, etc… Try to travel with as few cars as possible to reduce time spent finding a parking spot.

The crew was: Robert as the main shooter/director, me getting the wide shots and details, Christina to carry stuff and use the reflector and Florin as a photographer.

Pro tip: have the smallest crew you can manage and make sure everyone know his role. The less you are, the easier it is to manage and the faster you can move and make decisions.

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: The Basics Tagged With: , , ,

What is the best shutter speed for movie mode?

August 24, 2009 By

I have seen this question a few times in various forums so I thought it would be another good fit for the “The Basics” section.

Since people rarely explain what they would consider “best”, I assume they are talking about the best shutter speed to achieve a filmic look.

This brings us to the question “what makes a film look like film compared to tv or Canon 5d standard clips” ? Contrary to the general belief, it is not the number of frames per second but the duration of each exposure that creates the look. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: The Basics, Video Tagged With: , , ,

Focal length and perspective

July 2, 2009 By

This is a repost from my old blog. It was one of the most visited page and since I keep seeing people asking the same question over and over again, I think it would be a good idea to forward them here. I have a few more of these posts that I will file under ‘learning the basics’.

Using tools in new ways is an essential skill for the photographer who wants to develop his creativity. In this post, I am going to do a quick exploration of the link between focal length and perspective.

To better appreciate the differences between wide and long lenses, it is important to understand two key principles:

  • The focal length of a lens determines the field of view. This number, expressed as an angle, determines the amount of information that is available in the viewfinder / sensor.
  • Sensor/negative size is constant. This means that if you get more information in the frame (using a wider lens), all of these elements will take less space on the sensor to make them fit.

Knowing that, if you take two shots of a subject at different lens range (let say 24mm and 70mm) and you want the subject to be the same size in both picture, you will have to be closer to the subject when using the short lens.

Now lets put this into practice! The shot bellow is done using a 24-70f2.8L at its shortest focal length (efl 24mm). Notice how much of the background is visible and the distance between the two pots.

24mm

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: The Basics Tagged With: , , ,

Custom Function: Autofocus Micro adjustment

June 26, 2009 By

Unless you are very lucky, you have probably noticed that not all your lenses focus perfectly every time. Some might focus a little bit in front of the subject, others a bit behind it. These issues appear mostly when using a long and wide aperture lens such as the 50mm 1.8 (or 1.4) where the depth of field is less than 1cm.

While there might be a few possible cause for this issue (ex: faulty AF on the lens, problem with the body, etc) the most common is a small discrepancy between the lens and its ‘perfect’ version that was supposed to come out of the factory. There is no need to return the lens, it is almost normal for lenses to be a little bit different from each others. This difference make them focus a bit differently while the body is set to work with the ‘standard and perfect’ version of the lens. This is why two copies of the same lens might focus differently from each others on the same body, and even differently from one body to the next.

Fortunately for us, manufacturers are aware of this and have taken care of  the issue in their pro and semi-pro bodies. This is where the custom function AF Micro adjustment comes into play. This function allows you to correct slight front or back focussing issues for each of your lenses. People generally refer to this operation as ‘lens calibration’. It used to be quite a chore because of the lack of tools to support the process but now it can be done in less than 2-3 minutes per lenses.

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: Photo Tagged With: , , , , ,

The effects of shutter speed control

June 20, 2009 By

Before the release of the firmware update, I wrote an article about why controlling the shutter speed would be as important for us, cinephotographers, as controlling the aperture. I promised to show an example video at the time. Well, it took some time but I finally managed to get the required clips! The best subject for such an example would have been to shoot an helicopter but since I could not find one, I picked the next best thing: a waterfall.

Notice, in the clip bellow, how the water looks different according to the shutter speed. While on the left it looks like ‘normal’ water, on the right it looks like something else. It is because each frame in the sequence on the left has some blur while those on the right are super sharp. While the blurry frames are blending nicely with each others at 30fps, the ones without blurs looks very harsh.

As you can see, the difference in the shutter speed is only noticeable when comparing the extremes, so as long as you keep the shutter under 1/250, anything moving slower than the water in this clip should look natural.

Note: The constant exposure was created by increasing the ISO. Notice how, even at high ISO, the image quality is very usable. The rightmost section was shot at ISO 6400.

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Filed Under: The Basics, Video Tagged With: , ,
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