Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
Heads up to everyone who wants to get more into HDSLR video capture – Gale Tattersall is on CreativeLIVE this weekend with a full 3-days of HDSLR instruction. If you aren’t familiar with the name, Tattersall is the Director of Photography for House. He shot the House season finale last year with the 5D Mark II.
It’s free while running live and will be available for download afterwards for a fee. Details about the program are here on CreativeLIVE. The free live stream is here on CreativeLIVE.
If you’ve got any interest in using a DSLR as a serious video camera, chances are that you’ve heard of the Zacuto Z-Finder. As I have been learning the ropes of shooting video on the 5D Mark II, I’ve found the Z-Finder to be an indispensable piece of equipment for mobile operation of the camera.
Read the rest of the review at Tech Tilt: Zacuto Z-Finder Review.
DIY DSLR Wooden Shoulder Rig from Jonathan Clifford Bergqvist on Vimeo.
I’ve seen some clever DIY setups for HDDSLR rigs and focus pullers; however, Jonathan Bergqvist’s wooden rendition for his Canon 7D in the above video takes the cake. The integrated focus puller on the left handle is really a nice touch.
[Vimeo via Crunchgear]
The Manfrotto 501HDV is a dedicated video fluid head. As camera manufacturers add more and more DSLRs with HD video capture, photographers’ interest in video seems to be growing at an exponential rate. I know my interest has been piqued since I picked up a 5D Mark II roughly a year and a half ago. One thing we’re learning though, is that good photo equipment doesn’t necessarily make good video equipment as well. [Read more…]
Remember when creativeLIVE launched earlier this month? There have been a lot of great courses since it launched, but I’m watching Vincent Laforet’s course, “An Introduction to HDDSLR Cinema” right now, and I gotta tell ya, it’s good stuff. It’s also free while it’s live.
If you’ve missed the first day today, it looks like they are doing a re-watch stream of the entire class tonight starting at 11PM ET. Laforet has got content going for the next two days as well, so you might want to shelve Photoshop CS5 for just a bit and tune into creativeLIVE to learn the ins and outs of your HDDSLR if that’s something you’ve been curious about.
Here’s the link: creativeLIVE.com
Finally, if you can’t tune in this weekend, you can pre-order the video of the full weekend class for $79. If you wait until after the class is over on Sunday, it goes up to $129. Having watched it for the past few hours, I can assure you that it’s more than worth the $79 if you are new to shooting video with an HDDSLR camera – and there’s gonna be two more full days of content.
Switronix, maker of a variety of video accessories for HDDSLRs, has introduced the Powerbase 70, which will be on display at NAB 2010. The Powerbase 70 is a dedicated accessory for the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D and provides up to 6x runtime thanks to its 14.8v battery pack.
More details in the press release below.
Mastering HD Video with Your DSLR is a new book dedicated to learning how to capture and edit footage captured with the new video-capable DSLRs. Mastering HD Video with Your DSLR is authored by Helmet Kraus and Uwe Steinmueller. The book retails for $34.95, but is available from Amazon.com for $23.58 at the time of this post.
More details in Rocky Nook’s press release below. [Read more…]
After posting firmware version 2.0.3 earlier this week, a problem with the 5D Mark II video recording capabilities was apparent. As a result, Canon has posted firmware version 2.0.4 for the 5D Mark II, which aims to address that issue. [Read more…]
[UPDATE: Canon has posted Firmware Version 2.0.4, which is intended to address the below-described issues.]
Canon has released a statement on the 5D Mark II Firmware Version 2.0.3 info page describing problems caused for some users by the firmware update. [Read more…]