Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

Canon 60D Review

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The Canon 60D is prosumer DSLR with video capture prowess.  It sports an 18MP APS-C format sensor and a swivel LCD.  As the successor to the Canon 50D, it’s somewhat of a change in the natural progression of the xxD line of cameras.  A smaller form-factor gives it a more Canon Rebel look and feel; however, the video features and articulating LCD display take it up to and beyond some of the capabilities of the Canon 7D and 5D Mark II.

To see whether the Canon 60D is right for you, read on. [Read more…]

 

Proof That Multiples of ISO 160 Work Best on Canon HDSLRs

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If you’ve tinkered around with Canon HDSLRs, then you may have heard that its best to shoot video using sensitivity settings that are multiples of ISO 160.  I’ve been doing this because I have heard folks like Shane Hurlbut and Vincent Laforet say for a couple of years now that that’s the way to do it.

Andrew Schär gave us some proof for our eyes in this test with the Canon 60D that he uploaded to Vimeo yesterday. [Read more…]

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.

Canon Plug-in-E1 for Final Cut Pro Ver. 1.2 Now Available

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Canon 1D Mark IV

Version 1.2 of the Canon E1 plug-in for Final Cut Pro is available for download now.  The new version allows you to import files without the need to maintain the CF card folder structure.  It’s designed to work with the Canon 5D Mark II, 7D, 1D Mark IV and 60D.  I’ve heard unconfirmed reports that the new version will work with the Canon Rebel series DSLRs but nothing for certain yet.  For more details, see the original post here.

You can download it on product pages for Canon DSLRs.  Here’s a direct link to the 5D Mark II Drivers & Software page.  Just select Mac OS X as your OS and then choose the download link for the plug-in.

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…]

No New Canon DSLRs This Week

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For those of you holding out hope, Canon’s own Chuck Westfall confirmed to me today that there will be no new Canon DSLR announcements this week.  The ‘major product announcements’ set for NAB were the recently announced video lenses and 3D firmware upgrade for the XF300 and XF305 camcorders.

For DSLR users, Canon’s biggest news has been the Technicolor ‘CineStyle’ and the update to the EOS Movie Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro.

I’ll have more details about the CineStyle profile later – hopefully, tonight.  Stay tuned.

Canon EOS Movie Plug-in-E1 for Final Cut Pro Updated

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Canon 1D Mark IV

Ahead of NAB 2011, Canon has announced an update to the EOS Movie Plug-in-E1 for Final Cut Pro.  If you aren’t familiar with the plug-in, it aids with importing .mov files from Canon DSLRs. It transcodes the files to Apple ProRes 422 much quicker and easier than using MPEG Streamclip, which is what we used before the plug-in originally came out.  The plug-in works with files from the Canon 1D Mark IV, 5D Mark II, 7D and 60D.

One of the previously frustrating features of the plug-in is that you have to maintain the folder structure of the CF card on which the files were captured – even if you move the files to your hard drive before you import the footage.  The updated version will make this process easier and allow users to import files from any folder “without needing to mirror the folder structure on the camera itself.”

Although many FCP users have developed a consistent workflow to accommodate this file structure when importing Canon EOS movie files, it will be a welcomed change to take this superfluous step out of the workflow.

Version 1.2 of the EOS Movie Plug-in-E1 for Final Cut Pro will be available to download for free on April 25, 2011.  Watch the front page for the link as soon as it is available.