Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

 

‘Act of Valor’ Shot on 5D Mark II Picked Up for $13 Million

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‘Act of Valor’ is a film that I’ve heard a lot about over the past couple of years from cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, who has been a big proponent of Canon HDSLRs.  He’s been talking about how they used the 5D Mark II to get shots they couldn’t otherwise get – using Zeiss lenses and helmet cams for a unique combination of shooting rigs.

The film is looking to be a pretty big deal for Hurlbut and Bandito Brothers. Relativity Media announced today that it picked up worldwide marketing and distribution rights for a $13-million guarantee. [Read more…]

Canon 5D Mark II Firmware Update Ver. 2.0.9

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Canon has released a firmware update for the 5D Mark II. The new firmware version 2.0.9 provides the following updates.

  1. Improves writing/reading speeds when using UDMA 7-compatible CF cards.
  2. Fixes a phenomenon where the IS function will not work when custom function C.Fn III-2 is set to [5: IS start] and the lens attached does not have an AF stop button. This is because custom function C.Fn III-2 allows users to assign IS start to the AF stop button on the lens
  3. Corrects misspellings in the menu screens displayed in Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai languages.

The firmware is not yet available on Canon USA’s site; however, you can find it Canon’s Asia site here.

The Chapel, HDR Video Shot with 5D Mark II

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Patrick Kizny shot this HDR sequence inside an 18th century chapel in Poland. Whether you like HDR or not, you have to appreciate the amount of work that went into this production – particularly, how smooth the slider shots were for the timelapse sequences.

He used a number of different cameras, but primarily relied on the 5D Mark II for the timelapse shots due to its high resolution.  If you are interested in more about how he made it, check out the behind the scenes video below.

A detailed description of the post-production timelapse HDR workflow can be found on the Looky Creative blog.

Atomos Ninja Hands-On

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I checked out a lot of cool new stuff at NAB 2011; however, one of the coolest pieces of tech that I got up close with was the new Atomos Ninja HDMI-based recorder.  In short, the Atomos Ninja captures the uncompressed stream from your camera’s HDMI output.  The stream is captured as Apple ProRes HQ in a much higher quality than what goes through your camera’s compression onto the CF or SD card. [Read more…]

HDSLR Gear That Saves the Day

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I’ve been working on a short film project recently with my church (along with our in-house video director/my very good friend Nick, and some very talented volunteers). The short film is something we plan to use as part of our Easter morning service later this month.  We’re shooting it entirely on the Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 7D. We shot most of the scenes in one day at two locations (around 25 total set ups for a 16+ hour shooting day).  Yesterday, we wrapped up with the intro scene, which calls for the lead character in a vehicle talking on a cell phone.

I thought I would share some of the random little tools that really saved the day and helped us get the shots (and audio) that were critical to this production. [Read more…]

Short Film ‘Tick Tock’ Shot with 5D Mark II in Seamless Take

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Anyone who has tried their hand at video knows that long takes are challenging from both a technical and creative aspect.  For one, everything has to go right with the camera and all the surrounding technical components.  And two, the subject matter has to be engaging enough in order to justify the long take.

This student short film managed to wrangle both challenges for a very compelling short film made up of roughly a four and a half minute seamless take.  It was shot with a 5D Mark II and 24-70mm lens on a Steadicam Merlin.  They shot 36 takes in total.

Check out the behind the scenes video below. [Read more…]

New HDSLR Hub from Shane Hurlbut and B&H Photo

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Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut has teamed up with B&H Photo to create the new HDSLR Hub, which is anchored by a series of educational of videos beginning on February 28, 2011. There are six episodes in this series, which runs through April 4, 2011, and aim to cover gear, workflow and more.

If you want to take your video-capable DSLR seriously, this would be a good place to start.  You can find the teaser video above, while the series will launch next Monday at HDSLRhub.com.