Dedo LEDzilla – a lustworthy toy
I’ll admit right up front that one of the joys of the work I do is the acceptance that a lot of the kit I use is actually my own grown-up toybox. There are my favourites, there are some let-downs, and best of all there are the amazing press-nose-to-window must haves to yearn for. And...
So Long SD
I’ve spent the best part of today trawling through the raw footage that I and my colleagues have shot of a particular event over the last five years, and found myself musing at the astonishing jump in quality we’ve witnessed.
So I’m looking at DSR570 footage – this is standard definition, 16:9 DVCAM done right. Putting...
Just one Carnetto…
Almost time to depart on a shoot abroad. Nothing new with that perhaps, save for the fact this time we are shooting in South Africa as a two man team.
That’s meant having to do all the preproduction work that, in the past, has been somebody else’s responsibility – and I wasn’t looking forward to...
LED astray
I shoot a lot of stuff in windowless rooms of swish hotels, pressed into the service of Presentation Theatres. It’s a living. But just last week, whilst shooting in a very new venue next to St Pauls Cathedral, London, I was confused with a problem.
The lighting in some rooms appeared to strobe or flicker. In...
Pimp my EX1
It’s almost a rite of passage. I now own a matte box, and it feels strange.
Matte boxes are exquisitely expensive for what they are. Explain to anyone the cost of this simple lens shade and slot mechanism and jaws will drop. Of course, they’re full of carefully machined parts, hand assembled to fine tolerances and...
Red is no longer the New Black for EX cameras
A little dirty secret about the PMW-EX1 and EX3 cameras was that they were a little eager to boost reds in certain black materials, turning some black cloth brown or maroon. There’s a long story behind it, well told and clearly explained by Art Adams, but what people will want to know is ‘how to...
Sony updates SxS drivers for Snow Leopard, some bugs remain
Oyvind Stokkan has posted the following link on the DVinfo.net board for new drivers for Snow Leopard users.
http://www.sony.ca/promedia/drivers.htm
Thanks to Oyvind for passing this on! I’ve installed it (the download provides an unistaller for the old one, which common sense dictates one should use before installing the new one). And no more Panics! SxS is safe...
How to kill a Snow Leopard
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Sony has released new SxS drivers for Snow Leopard – http://www.sony.ca/promedia/drivers.htm – thanks to Oyvind Stokkan on the DVinfo.net board for passing this on! But for the archive, the rest of the post goes thusly…
Somebody has to be first. Somebody brave or stupid. Or somebody with a full backup sitting on a hard...
More WOOT from the MxR folks
E-Films have some great new toys for PMW-EX1/3 owners that update and enhance the successful SDHC adaptors and add a couple of new products that tick a lot of wishlist boxes.
Ross and friends over at E-Films make adaptors so you can put SDHC cards into your PMW-EX1 for cost effective bulk-shooting. They’re wonderful little things, but...
Google’s bought a codec
The rumours are true. Google has bought advanced video codec creator On2 Technologies.
On2 are famous for creating the VP6 codec made insanely popular by Macromedia’s Flash and therefore the cornerstone of video on the web.
However, whilst the quality is very good and the installed base is wide if not pretty universal, it’s not perfect. There’s...
Build it and they will come
At last. Final Cut Pro 7 is now happily installed and earning money.
But oddly enough, I started a new project this week and, entirely unbidden, we’re suddenly deep into the world of Alpha Transitions: a little animation or visual element that swoops over the screen, hiding the outgoing clip and revealing a new clip.
Although its...
A Case of Upgrader’s Remorse
Final Cut Studio ‘new’ is out. It’s been two years since the last major update, and we’ve been waiting for some pretty spectacular new features. Personally, I’ve been waiting for some pretty spectacular fixes, but that’s a different story.
Cut to the chase: should a Final Cut Pro user upgrade? Is it worth £250?
Short answer: sort...
