ContourROAM Review

by Eric Reagan on August 11, 2012

The ContourROAM is a POV action camera that competes head-to-head with the GoPro line. The ContourROAM is the $200 entry-level model of Contour’s POV camera lineup. There are a couple of key things that separate Contour cameras from GoPro. First, the on/off switch is a big button that slides back and forth on the top of the camera. Slide it forward and it’s on – a red record light gives you visual confirmation along with an audible beep. Slide it back and it’s off – the light goes off and you get another beep. ContourROAM Mounted on Downtube This record switch makes it easy to operate the camera when you can’t see the buttons (for instance, on top of your helmet). I didn’t realize how

LightWave 3D Group Reveals LightWave 11.5

The LightWave 3D® Group, a division of NewTek, Inc., announced today LightWave 11.5, a powerful new edition of its Emmy® Award-winning 3D modeling, animation and rendering software. A complete 3D pipeline, LightWave 11.5 includes many new features to streamline productivity, including a new Genoma character animation and rigging system for Modeler, predator and prey flocking, Instancing, soft-body Bullet Dynamics, interchange support for Adobe After Effects and Pixologic’s GoZ Fiber Mesh, major workflow enhancements, and more.

LightWave 11.5’s new features and enhancements include:

Sony RX100 Hands-On Review

I have been using the Sony RX100 for about a week now and I have to say that it is a stunning little camera. It packs 20MP CMOS image sensor and the fixed zoom lens provides 28-100mm equivalent zoom range with a max f/1.8 aperture. The RX100 gives a proper use of that little 2.7x crop sensor that’s also found in the Nikon 1 Series. And, best of all, it’s a pocketable camera.

While we can stretch or carrying comfort to pack along an interchangeable lens mirrorless camera, very few of us wear jeans that allows us to stuff one of those in our front pockets.

MAXON Announces CINEMA 4D Release 14

MAXON unveiled CINEMA 4D Release 14, (R14) a milestone release of the industry-leading 3D motion graphics, visual effects, painting, and rendering software application. Leveraging more than two decades of 3D graphics programming innovation, R14 delivers breakthrough performance offerings including a new, fully integrated sculpting system, new camera matching functionality, the debut of exchange plugins to two key applications — The Foundry NUKE and Adobe Photoshop Extended — and improved integration with Adobe After Effects. Packed with a number of other powerful workflow feature enhancements, creative professionals – motion graphics and visual effects artists, as well as visualization designers – will benefit from features that accelerate productivity to produce spectacular 3D content more fluidly, and the ability to collaborate with increased efficiency.

CINEMA 4D Release 14 Highlights MAXON offers four versions of CINEMA 4D, each catering to the needs of 3D artists in different industries. Key features and benefits include:

Mountain Lion Available Today From the Mac App Store

Apple® announced that OS X® Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, is available as a download from the Mac® App Store℠. With more than 200 innovative new features, Mountain Lion includes iCloud® integration, the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Facebook integration*, Dictation, AirPlay® Mirroring and Game Center. Mountain Lion is available as an upgrade from Lion or Snow Leopard for $19.99.

“People are going to love the new features in Mountain Lion and how easy it is to download and install from the Mac App Store,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With iCloud integration, Mountain Lion is even easier to set up, and your important information stays up to date across all your devices so you can keep editing documents, taking notes, creating reminders, and continue conversations whether you started on a Mac, iPhone or iPad.” With more than 200 innovative new features, Mountain Lion includes:

Canon EOS M Demo Video Roundup

Canon has released a demo video for their just-announced EOS M, a mirrorless camera coming in October that shoots video at up to 1920 x 1080 at 30 fps with a price tag of $800. And now PetaPixel has rounded up both hands-on and test footage videos that have been popping up on the Internet. Check out four below.

Sony PMW-200 camcorder coming September featuring three 0.5-inch CMOS sensors

Sony has announced the PMW-200 handheld camcorder, adding a relatively low-cost model to the company's XDCAM line of cameras.

Featuring HD4:2:2 50 Mb/s recording capabilities and genlock and

iStabilizer Dolly Universal Camera Mount

iStabilizer announced Dolly, a universal mount for professional-style panning at a range of angles and positions with just about any mobile device. Dolly turns shaky and amateur videos into smooth stunning works of art. It is compatible with any smartphone without requiring the removal of protective cases or bumpers.

Equipped with a built-in iStabilizer Mount, Dolly works with most mobile devices or digital cameras measuring up to

Grass Valley Ships Latest Version of EDIUS with Cross-Platform Codec and Powerful 3D Content Editing Features

Grass Valley™ has begun shipping the highly anticipated latest version of its EDIUS® multiformat nonlinear editing software. EDIUS Pro 6.5 now includes a comprehensive 3D editing workflow and cross-platform codec support.

Grass Valley is making its renowned intermediate codec technology freely available to other third-party applications. In addition to the PC-based HQ/HQX codecs, a QuickTime version of Grass Valley’s HQ and 10-bit HQX codec (for Windows and Mac platforms), is now available as a free download. “We were careful not to release this new version of EDIUS until

Magic Bullet Photo Looks 2 Released

Red Giant has take wraps off of Magic Bullet Photo Looks 2. The feature set matches up with that of Looks 2 (the video app), which means you can now share presets between photo and video host apps. Additional new features include:

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4: This Image Management Software Will Also Please Video Producers

By: Oliver Peters For the fourth iteration of Lightroom, Adobe has enhanced the processing capabilities and added features to aid photographers with handling modern photographic challenges, such as the integration of video. Although Lightroom is primarily a photographer’s tool, it is also indispensible for video producers and editors who have to deal with a large volume of photographs, such as when producing documentaries that are based on archival images. Lightroom is the ideal application to store, organize, adjust, crop and prepare stills for video editing.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 offers enhanced image processing, such as improved highlight recovery.

Beauty Box Video 2.0 Released for Easy Skin Retouching in Assimilate Scratch and Sony Vegas

Digital Anarchy announced Beauty Box Video 2.0 for OpenFX, a new release that brings their award-winning skin retouching plug-in to ASSIMILATE SCRATCH®, SCRATCH Lab®, Sony Vegas Pro®, and Sony Movie Studio®. Beauty Box now uses OpenCL, a new technology that runs on ATI and Nvidia cards, to automatically reduce wrinkles and blemishes. Fast rendering allows it to fit into any workflow pipeline. Version 2.0 also introduces a new smoothing algorithm that improves automatic masking, and adds shine removal for hot spots on skin areas.

The First Wedding In the World Filmed With Ultra-High Definition 3D Cameras

from http://gizmodo.com " I always hated video in weddings. The quality always look so cheesy. But not this one. This one was filmed with RED Epic cameras on 5K resolution and 3D! These are the same cameras that Peter Jackson is using for The Hobbit or Ridley Scott used for Prometheus. Gizmodo's friend Peter Chang—from Golden Gate 3D—sent us the teaser trailer for the world's first 3D wedding video shot in stereoscopic 3D on 5K resolution RED Epic cameras. They didn't take any photos, as "each frame can also be extracted as a high resolution 3D still image." That's a technique that some photographers are using now with mixed results—although most photographers don't film with RED Epics. The wedding was celebrated at The Mirador Estate, in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, California. Peter says that the garden was in full spring bloom, "resulting in some gorgeous 3D visuals to complement Julia and Stuart—the bride and groom." I hope Julia and Stuart got a 3D TV in their wedding registry. What do you think? Maybe a bit overkill? Perhaps, but I can guarantee you that most brides would feel jealous. [Thanks Peter Chang, from Golden Gate 3D]" link for video in 3D

AJA Video To Support Thunderbolt™ on Windows

AJA Video Systems, announced support for Thunderbolt™ on Windows with select products in its line of professional video I/O solutions. Today Intel is demonstrating the first Windows PCs with Thunderbolt ports to deliver ultra-fast bi-directional 10Gbs performance to video professionals. The speed of Thunderbolt-enabled data transfer offers myriad advantages for video workflows. “The popularity of Thunderbolt is apparent in the rapid rate of adoption of our Io XT video I/O device with dual-Thunderbolt ports,” said Nick Rashby, president, AJA Video Systems. “The increased speed provided to external devices by Thunderbolt has really given our Mac customers great flexibility and we’re looking forward to providing the same level of support to our Windows customers as well.” “Thunderbolt delivers unparalleled performance, flexibility and simplicity to personal computing,” said Jason Ziller, Intel’s director of Thunderbolt Marketing. “Products like the Io XT from AJA Video Systems help highlight what Thunderbolt makes possible.” http://www.aja.com/ http://www.videomag.gr

Will Video Cameras Kill Still Photography? Red Epic Vs Hasselblad

The difference between cameras The Hasselblad H3D-22 medium format camera Camera Type Medium Format Interchangeable Lens Camera with Reflex Viewfinder and Integrated Digital Back Image Quality Image Sensor 36.7 x 49.0 mm, 22 Megapixel CCD Effective Resolution 22.2 million pixels Color Depth 48-Bit RGB Color Modes Full Color Image File Formats RAW 3FR TIFF (8-bit) Recorded Resolution 4080 x 5440 pixels The Red Epic 5k Video Camera Camera Type 5K High Resolution Video Camera with Interchangeable Lenses Image Quality Image Sensor 30mm x 15mm, 14 Megapixel CMOS Effective Resolution 13.8 million pixels Color Depth 24-Bit RGB Color Modes Full Color Image File Formats RAW R3D TIFF (16-bit) Recorded Resolution 5120 x 2700 pixels more at http://fstoppers.com/hasselblad-vs-red

Matrox Releases Adobe Creative Suite 6 Drivers

Matrox Video Products Group today released support for the new Adobe® Creative Suite® 6 Production Premium software and Adobe Mercury Transmit with the Matrox MXO2™ family1 of I/O devices and the Matrox Mojito MAX™2 I/O card.

The award-winning Matrox I/O products provide broadcast-quality video and audio input, output, and monitoring to enable

Side by Side: Scarlet-X & C300

by Sanjin Jukic This is my first side by side test with RED Scarlet-X and Canon C300. Cameras were set like this:

Humorous Nikon D800 vs. Canon 5D mkIII Shootout

Sony HXR-MC50U Camcorder Review

The Sony HXR-MC50U is a pro/prosumer-level camcorder that is packaged with a shotgun mic. The MC50U captures 1080/60i AVCHD video at a max 24Mbps bit rate. The MC50U features a 1/2.88″ Exmor R CMOS sensor, 10x optical zoom and a 3.5″ touchscreen LCD. As for storage, the MC50U offers 64GB of internal flash storage as well as an SDHC/MemoryStick card slot for external storage options. The internal storage gives you about 6 hours of storage at the max resolution/quality setting. A 32GB SDHC card will, in turn, give you approximately 3 hours of storage.

The storage space will easily outlast a single battery charge, which offers about 3 hours runtime, although higher capacity batteries are available.

Litepanels Introduces Sola ENG Flight Kit

VAN NUYS, CALIF.: Litepanels has introduced the Sola ENG LED Fresnel lighting kit in an FAA carry-on size case. The Sola ENG Flight Kit consists of three Litepanels Sola ENG Fresnel fixtures and accessories including stands, gels, power supplies and cables, barndoors, soft box, a custom rolling case and more. Battery or A/C powered, the Sola ENG is designed for on-camera and portable use. Each fixture offers focusable output comparable to a 125W HMI yet requires 30 watts to power it.

LockCircle is announcing LockPort 800 for Nikon D800

The LockPort 800 is a new product developed to help avoid damaging your D800 mini HDMI camera port. The LockPort 800 protects definitely the fragile output on your camera from tough production abuse with a rock solid universal clamp and a smart mini to full-size HDMI adapter.

The LockPort 800 camera plate is designed to fit easily every head, baseplate, sliding plate, support out there using the original camera screws already there. Ready in 10 seconds! The LockPort 800 safely secures a 90° FRONT/REAR mini HDMI to full-size HDMI adapter, protecting forever the “expensive to repair” mini HDMI port on your expensive HDSLR camera. The Adapter has gold plated contacts and the full-size female output allows you to use stronger standard HDMI cables, you can purchase everywhere! Standard size HDMI plugs locks securely in the socket – no signal loose, and if somebody walks over your cable, the plug still can pop-out saving your camera from falling on the ground. The full-size HDMI 90° output can be used in FRONT or REAR position (2 different adapters) to reach the best cable ergonomics solution on your rig set-up! The LockPort 800 adapters are availbale in FRONT and REAR editions, also available in kit or sold separately to upgrade the kits or like spare parts! http://www.lockcircle.com/ http://www.videomag.gr

Test Footage from the Blackmagic Cinema Camera

John Brawley provides some of the first test footage from the $3K Blackmagic Cinema Camera, one of the biggest announcements to come out of this year's NAB. Below is a look at how the camera handles dynamic range. Check out Brawley's blog here for more of his footage, which include low-light testing. http://www.creativeplanetnetwork.com

Nikon D800 vs. Hasselblad H4D-40 by Eric Reagan on April 21, 2012

http://www.photographybay.com

Digital Video Magazine Announces 2012 NAB Best of Show Black Diamond Winners

From www.dv.com. & http://www.creativeplanetnetwork.com Digital Video magazine, published by NewBay Media, announced its Best of Show Black Diamond Awards today at the 2012 NAB Show. NewBay Media's Broadcast & Video Group of products, which also includes DV.com, Digital Video Expo, and the Creative Planet Network of sites, is uniquely poised to recognize the full spectrum video technology on display here at NAB. A select panel of engineers, editors, and production and post professionals joined the magazine staff to judge the Best of Show awards for Digital Video.

The Digital Video Black Diamond Awards recognize outstanding achievement in the advancement of video technology. The 2012 Black Diamond Award winners are:

The Nikon D3200 is a 24.2MP DSLR

The Nikon D3200 is a 24.2MP DSLR capable of shooting 1080p HD video. It offers an expanded sensitivity range of ISO 100-12800 and will capture still images at a rate up to 4 fps. HD videos are captured in either 24p or 3op frame rates. The D3200 features an 11-point AF system and is compatible with the Nikon WU-1a Wireless Mobile Adapter, which allows image sharing with Android devices (iOS devices are planned for future integration) and remote operation from the device.

The Nikon D3200 retails for $699.95 with an 18-55mm VR kit lens and should be available in May. Check availability at B&H Photo. Highlights of the Nikon D3200: 24.2-megapixel DX-format CMOS sensor Full HD (1080p) video recording with fulltime AF, manual exposure control and stereo sound via a microphone input jack Optional WU-1a Wireless Mobile Adapter lets users remotely control the Nikon D3200 and transfer photos for sharing from Android platform smartphones and tablets Intuitive Guide Mode to walk users through key camera functions and settings 4 fps high-speed continuous shooting at full resolution Standard ISO range of 100-6400, expandable to ISO 12,800 EXPEED 3 Image Processing and an 11-point AF system that works with Nikon’s Scene Recognition System The Nikon D3200 outfit with the AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens will be available in late April for $699.95 SRP The optional WU-1a Wireless Mobile Adapter will be available in late May for $59.95 SRP More info in the press release below.

The First Footage from the Sony NEX-FS700

Sony Professional: Introducing the Sony NEX-FS700 from Sony Professional on Vimeo.

Sony’s new palm-sized NXCAM HD camcorder

Sony is giving video professionals enhanced operational freedom with the HXR-NX30E high-definition camcorder, a palm-size addition to Sony’s NXCAM™ line-up. The new model uses Sony’s Balanced Optical SteadyShot™ image stabilisation technology to make it ideal for mobile shooting applications. The new camcorder also offers convenient features such as a built-in projector, all combined in Sony’s smallest, lightest handheld professional camcorder.

“This high-quality yet easy-to-use camcorder is an extremely versatile field production tool,” said Bill Drummond, Strategic Marketing Manager, Sony Europe “It’s perfect for videographers, journalists, educational establishments or .....

Sony introduces smallest and lightest XDCAM camcorder

Sony introduces the full-featured yet light and compact PMW-100 handheld camcorder. The PMW-100 joins the ever popular XDCAM HD422 line-up – making it the smallest and lightest camcorder in the XDCAM family. Advancement in digital imaging technology has enabled professional journalists and videographers to cover stories by using portable devices such as mobile phones, DSLRs and consumer camcorders. However, when compared to main-stream shoulder mount camcorders, there is still a significant gap in image quality, ease of editing and data management. The PMW-100 achieves the best of both worlds, by recording full broadcast quality MPEG HD422 video within a hand-held form factor.

Equipped with a newly developed 1/2.9-inch “Exmor” CMOS sensor, it delivers excellent picture performance and also .....

5D Mark III Demo Video by Eric Reagan on March 13, 2012 in Canon

enjoy at 1080p

Sony Expands NXCAM Line with New Full-HD Super Slow-Motion Camcorder

Sony has announced the new NEX-FS700U Full-HD Super Slow Motion camcorder, the latest in Sony’s line of NXCAM interchangeable E-mount camcorders. The new Super 35mm model is designed for high-speed shooting, capable of capturing footage at up to 960 frames per second. The camera also features a range of capabilities such as 3G HD-SDI output and built-in ND filters. Additionally, it also offers several creative options, shooting styles, and enhanced ergonomics -- all based on customer feedback -- to deliver a flexible production tool that can fit seamlessly into a variety of shooting applications.

“This camera opens a new door to creative shooting,” said Juan Martinez, senior product manager at Sony Electronics’ Professional Solutions of America group. “You can record beautiful high speed full HD movies with .......