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Live Events with the New iPad 3
Apple’s New iPad 3 is making quite a splash. Several key features really play out to the benefit of media producers for whom ultra-fast turnaround is paramount. With the latest processing horsepower and the latest version of iOS iMovie I think a lot of computers are going to be left collecting dust with this.
The new lens touts many advancements for stellar images.
The New iPad (they’re not calling it iPad 3, for no fathomable reason) is all around better. Better lens. Lots more megapixels. Image stabilized HD video. Faster A5X chip. So it’ll be able to handle shooting video with ease, “zooming” with your feet (by walking closer) of course.
Massive resolution in a small 10" screen.
Then you can look at your video with the massively increased resolution of the new “Retina” display. Now it’s well over full HD resolution. So get some bifocals or reading glasses and get closer to the action because there’s tons of resolution in this little 10″ screen.
iMovie Editing with themes for quick, polished looking and sounding videos.
Then we get to the new iMovie for The New iPad and you can use themes to “wrap” your video and provide “a cinematic soundtrack” to go from raw clips to a polished presentation much faster and easier than ever before. The increased processing horsepower of the iPad will again come into play here for any effects you add to your video- and there are lots of effects in the new imovie so you can make it look quite different than what you started with.
The new iMovie is also available for iPod Touch and iPhone, so those users can get in on the act here as well.
Te AppleTV enables wireless playback of your videos for everyone to see.
Lastly, the AppleTV, which is still just a stand-alone product, now operates more like a wireless playback accessory for the iPad. You can connect this to any projector or TV at the event and wirelessly send your finished video from the iPad (or other iOS device) to the AppleTV and deliver it to your customers without ever having to move it from the camera.
As an added bonus, the new 4G LTE lets you also push it to online video services with record speed, so everyone attending can watch it again, or share your video with others. And in this age of social media, being shared is very good business indeed.
Do this a couple times and the hardware has literally paid for itself.
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Affordable Digital Bolex Camera Captures Raw
Affordable Digital Bolex Captures RAW
They call the Digital Bolex a “digital cinema camera.” This means it shoots RAW images also called Digital Negatives rather than the compressed video we all use today. Unlike the expensive digital cinema cameras like the Sony CineAlta, RED ONE, Arriflex D-20, Panavision Genesis, and others used on big budget films, the Digital Bolex is designed for consumers as well as pros. It’s inexpensive, compact, and easy to use just like its namesake, the wonderful film Bolex. This was one of the film cameras I owned and occasionally used on freelance jobs. I had the 16mm version, but there was also an 8mm version.
The Bolex H16 built by clock makers.
But Look At This New Wonder
The Digital Bolex Specs:
- Resolution 2048 x 1152 (Super 16mm mode) 1920 x 1080 pixels (16mm mode)
- Format Adobe CinemaDNG, TIFF, JPEG image sequences
- Color depth 12 bit 4:4:4
- File size 2 to 3 MB per frame in RAW
- Sensor Kodak CCD 12.85 mm (H) x 9.64 mm (V)
- Pixel Size 5.5 micron
- Frame rate up to 32 fps at 2K, 60fps at 720p, 90 fps at 480p
- Sound Balanced, 2 channel 16 bit, 48 kHz via XLR
- Viewfinder: 320×240, 2.4” diagonal, with Focus Assist
- Video out 640 x 480 B&W via 1/8” video jack (HD-SDI available in separate unit)
- Ports 1/8” video, headphone, USB 3.0, Audio XLR (2), 4-PIN XLR
- Data Storage Dual CF card slots, SSD (buffer drive)
- Power Internal battery, 12V External via 4 pin XLR port
- Body Milled steel and hard plastic
- Size (body) Approximately 5”H (without pistol grip) by 4”W by 8”D
- Size (grip) 5”H by 2”W by 5”D
- Lens mount C-mount comes standard, PL, EF, B4, are available
- Weight 5lbs
- ISO Options 100, 200, 400
- Also in the box pistol grip, USB 3.0 cable, internal battery, 4 pin XLR Battery cable, video cable, transcoder/raw conversion software
Joe Rubinstein set out to raise money on Kickstarter to manufacture the first 100 Digital Bolexes.
So far they’ve raised $287,759. They’ve sold out of the 100. You could have bought one for a donation of $2500. The cameras is expected to become available to the general public in late Summer/Fall 2012. The estimated retail price for the D16 and its accessories is $3299
BTW, did you know that Kickstarter will probably raise more than The National Endowment of the Arts this year? Yancey Strickler, one of Kickstarters three co-founders, says they are expecting to distribute over $150 million which will fund users projects in 2012. The entire 2012 budget for the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) is $146 million. Things are changing fast.
PS. If you pick up a film Bolex on eBay or in a pawn shop, You can learn how to use it with the Virtual Bolex Tutorial.
Encouraging the “Unplugged Event”
A notice at a recent event. Photo by Jodi Miller Photography
Do you take this woman to be your… WHO LET THE DOGS OUT, RUFF, RUFF.
Cell phones, cameras and other devices can absolutely ruin a wedding ceremony. So the policy that all phones, cameras are other devices must be turned off for the wedding ceremony is a growing trend. The only ones who are exempt are those who are hired to record the event.
In all my years of video taping Jewish events in the Temple, I never saw the same usage of still cameras as I see in churches, or in ceremonies held outside of religious houses. Temples have very clear rules about the use of electronics and it really keeps everyone (okay, maybe not the 13 year old kids so much) focussed on the ceremony and the family. This is good.
I agree with the sentiment of Unplugged Weddings, especially after being forced to set up my camera gear at the rear of a church because of a “no photography” policy. A policy that all the attendees completely ignored during the service. They even went so far as to walk up around the alter area to take pictures with their (then) cruddy camera flip phones. This was long before the amazing capability of today’s technology.
Nowadays, nearly every cell phone can shoot decent photos, and full HD video. I’ve done events with 15 year old Cousin Billy standing next to me, shadowing my every move, and using my camera light to provide good video for his point-n-shoot still camera. You know he’s going to make a video of it and show off his good work- his lighting, his framing, his years of experience as to when to be where to get the good shot. Etc. That’s to be expected, here and there, but it’s a growing trend, more and more, every day.
From Offbeat Bride – Photo by Nora and Troy at Aurora-Photography
The photographer, Jessica Charles, includes a letter from a bride that goes on to give the reasons why, including the fact that the ceremony at the aquarium would be held in front of a floor-to-ceiling fish tank.
A nice and attentive crowd- not distracted by trying to take their own pictures or video.
We got married in front of a giant fish tank in low lighting and we knew that most people would not think and use their flash. That would cause a reflection off the tank, thus ruining the professional pictures we were paying for… even if we had picked a different venue, our decision would still be the same. For me, it was about respect for my photographers. We also chose this because because we wanted our guests to emerge from behind their electronics and be fully present in the moment with us.
So in talking about upcoming events with your clients, suggest going “Unplugged.” Even if it is corporate. The same rules apply. It certainly can’t hurt to bring it into the conversation- it costs nothing. But the benefits it can bring are great: keeping the attention of those attending, removing distractions.
For us, it removes competition- and obstacles like the nitwit who invariably stands right in front of my camera because that’s where the good shot is. But it also enables us to give our customers a better product.
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Taxes and Your Video Business
It’s almost tax time so why not get a jump on it and start organizing your numbers now. There are a number of issues you’ll want to consider. For instance, the home office deduction is one of the most misunderstood IRS rules. Here’s some of what the IRS says about this deduction:
Computing the Amount of Home Office Deduction
Generally, the amount of the deduction depends on the percentage of the home that is used for business. The deduction will be limited if gross income from the business is less than the total business expenses.
A taxpayer can use any reasonable method to compute business percentage, but the most common methods are to:
Divide the area of the home used for business by the total area of the home, or
Divide the number of rooms used for business by the total number of rooms in the home if all rooms in the home are about the same size.
To learn more about the home office deduction as well as other important issues and deductions read Your Video Business & Income Taxes.
What the Canon 5DmkIII Means To Me
It’s finally here- the successor to the full-frame DSLR that sparked the entire Video-DSLR revolution (or upheaval as many called it.) On Friday, March 2nd, Canon announced the 5D MarkIII with several notable improvements. But do these make this camera another game changer, or do they just refine what the 5D is in the market?
The Full Frame 5D is back for more in "Mark III"
Truth be told, that as the vDSLR movement grew and successors to the 5D came out, the competitive advantages of the 5D became less and less. Especially in recent months with the release of Nikon’s D4 and D800 series cameras. But the 5DmkIII brings Canon right back up to the bar in terms of capability. So “Cannonites” need not start to consider trying to jump ship to Nikon.
Several key features for videographers stand out:
- New sensor with 2-more stops of light gathering. Better for low light work. Better to let you close down a lens to get a deeper depth of field and keep focus easier. Reportedly smoother images.
- New DIGIC 5+ processor. Reportedly greatly diminishes the problematic moire and aliasing that plagues the 5DmkII.
- New compression choices. Including “All-I” frame compression where each frame is compressed individually- making for much easier editing because a given frame does not have to first decode the frames around it to be seen.
- Longer recording time. Now you can record up to 30 minutes (instead of 12 minutes on the mkII) and the camera will automatically break the video into 4 GB chunks on a FAT-32 formatted card, a process called “spanning.”
- A headphone jack. Now you can monitor the actual audio the camera is recording. Coupled with this…
- Better audio control while recording. 64 levels- adjustable before and during recording. Together, these two features greatly lessen the need for an external audio recorder for many projects.
- Better LCD screen. If you want to travel light (without an outboard monitor) the improved screen will help.
- HDMI out no longer drops resolution to SD when recording.
A headphone jack and better audio controls are notable improvements.
But several caveats still remain:
- No clean HDMI out. If you don’t use an external recorder, this isn’t an issue.
- Moire & aliasing. The PR says “significantly reducing” moire and color artifacts. It doesn’t say it has eliminated them.
- The 60 fps video is only 720p, finally reaching what HD camcorders have been doing for many years. This is still less than the new AVCHD spec of 1080p60.
- Timecode capability. It’s finally there, but given that so many workarounds already exist, it’s not much needed any more.
- CMOS “jello” remains. It’s a large sensor with lots of pixels so refreshing it faster is still a very hard thing to do.
- No “crop” modes like Nikon / Panasonic Lumix. These help with using different lenses and also let one lens act as two or three.
- It’s $3,500 without glass. So, if you really need that shallow depth of field, it’s a choice, but now you are clearly approaching the same cost of real, large sensor, video cameras. If the cost is the same, choose a video camera to do a video camera’s job.
Some improvements, but not a "game changer" because the game has changed around it.
If you are already heavily set up for 5D video, then swapping out the body and getting the new benefits is a no-brainer. If you are new to vDSLR work, then strongly consider a large-sensor camcorder- purpose built for shooting video, as opposed to a vDSLR.
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