Photography Gear News

Does the 5D RAW hacked replace cameras like the C300, F3, F5 or FS700 in regular documentary or corporate production? Of course not. But used appropriately, it may have a place.

"A new anamorphic lens for Canon DSLR cameras will be announced at this year's NAB show..."

"I don't know much about those two images of a Phase One 645DF camera with a Leaf Aptus-II 12 digital back mounted on a video rig with focus pulling and external mic, but I do know that back in 2010 there were some rumors that Phase One is working on a medium format digital back with live view and RAW video recording."

"I went to Nikon yesterday with my photojournalist friend Keith Bedford to get hands on a pre-production D800 and in particular look at it’s video functionality. As with my previous look at the D4 I was unable to take away any recorded imagery but we were able to test the camera with a range of accessories to see how the camera would work when set up for video. Here are a few of my notes and observations."

"More C300 eye candy and praise
Jon Yi has provided a fantastic “test” video from the new Canon EOS C300. His conclusion, “C300 = awesome”.
There’s some great info about ISO performance and workflow. A worthwhile watch."

"I have used twixtor myself for a few projects but I have never had terrific success with it. One of the best filmmakers I know who uses Twixtor really well is my friend Salomon Ligthelm, whom I met when he lived in Dubai back in January last year. He put up a new video a couple of days ago, Gravity, and he was kind enough to write this guest blog post on how to get the best out of it.

Twixtor will not give you as good results as a dedicated high speed camera of course. They do that job incredibly well. You need to light a lot to make them work but as you will read below you need to do the same with twixtor to get the high shutter speeds needed. But for those whose budget means renting a Phantom Flex or something similar is out of the question Salomon guides you through the best ways to make the most out this powerful, but tricky plug-in."

Via planetMitch

Olympus has announced the LS-20M pocket camcorder with built-in 24 bit/96 hHz Linear PCM stereo sound recording (or perhaps one of its sound recorders with built-in video). Capable of recording full 1080p HD videos, it features a 2" color LCD, an additional 1.46" data LCD, two microphones and HD output. It also includes the company's 'Magic filter' processing effects. The camcorder will be available from June 2011 at a suggested retail price of $299.99.

The widespread availability of HD video recording on everything from mobile phones to DSLRs has seen us capturing events in better quality than ever before. DSLRs in particular have proven a revelation in movie capture: what they lack in video ergonomics and ease of focusing is more than made up for in flexibility and sheer quality. Indeed many professional film and television producers are adopting DSLRs for a variety of tasks from backup cameras to primary capture devices.

"Sony have today released the first sample videos from the NEX-FS700. The video features my friend Den Lennie (who created my DSLR training DVD alongside me) and various other filmmakers who have had a chance to shoot with pre-production cameras.

It was also very interesting to note that Sony met with Den to discuss camera development six months ago – clearly they are actively listening to shooters needs..."

"Before the advent of the Nikon D800 and D4 there was no choice if you wanted a full frame DSLR shooting 1080P video – it had to be a Canon. This past week, I and several other members of the photo and video press and bloggers have been guests of Nikon Europe in New York on the “48 hour challenge”: getting our hands on production models of the D800 and being allowed to shoot what we wanted."

"Photo and video accessory giant Manfrotto are finally branching out into the DSLR and video support gear market with a new range of rigs called SYMPLA. The main features of the rigs seem to be tool free assembly, modularity and a rather giant mattebox.

Manfrotto products have a reputation for keen pricing coupled with Italian quality design and construction. Dslrnewsshooter.com will be at NAB2011 to see if the company’s claims that SYMPLA are a game changer are true."

"GoPro has launched the HD Hero2, an updated version of its sports video camera. The latest version features an 11MP sensor (up from 5MP) and can now shoot 1080p30 video at a choice of 170deg, 127deg or 90deg angles-of-view (the original Hero could only shoot 1080 at 127deg or lower resolutions at 170deg). The redesigned lens is claimed to be twice as sharp as its predecessor. It also gains an external mic port and Mini HDMI socket. The company has also launched the WiFi BacPac accessory allowing live streaming from the camera from the Hero2. It can also be used to control either HD Hero via the included remote or using an App on a smartphone or tablet."

"With the introduction of the new Cinema Picture Profile, I wanted to do a quick post on MY favorite picture styles as well as how to use/install them. Picture Profiles/Styles (PP) are meant to optimize the dynamic range in the image. One of the hardest parts about them though is picking the right one for the right job. I find that it all depends on shooting conditions and final output.

For the longest time, I had no idea that you could load PP’s onto your camera that were not pre-loaded. I also did not really think that the results would be much different. Wow, was I ever wrong!

For some shooting conditions, I find that some of the PP’s perform worse than others. At any given time, I will have three PP’s loaded on my camera to switch between.

Final output also determines which PP I will be using. For all projects that I am producing, I always shoot the flattest image I can get. However, when shooting for others, if the turn around time does not allow for colour timing/correction, I will shoot less flat (typically neutral).

Now you ask, why is a flat profile important?"

Via planetMitch