3 New LED Lights from Fotodiox are Lightweight with Barn Doors

by Eric Reagan on October 17, 2013

in Lighting

Fotodiox has announced three new high-intensity LED lights: the Fotodiox LED-312D, LED-312DS, and LED-1024AL.
The LEDs are upgrades to its past best sellers, and come complete with all-metal barn doors that lock on and stay in place no matter how it’s mounted, to shape and control lighting.

Sony A7 and A7R Officially Unveiled

by Eric Reagan on October 16, 2013

in Sony

Sony has taken the wraps off two of its worst kept secrets, the Sony A7 and Sony A7R full frame mirrorless cameras.

Stunning Special Effects Make-Up Meets 6K with New RED Dragon Footage

Check out some more stunning footage from the RED Dragon, this time from Phil Holland who shows off the detailed work of a make-up artist with his short "It's Just Paint." It was shot in 6K.
Watch below.

Nikon D610 Announced

Nikon D610 Announced (a D600 with a New Shutter)

by Eric Reagan in Nikon

Nikon has finally take the official wraps off of the frequently-rumored Nikon D610, which serves as a direct replacement to the Nikon D600.

Nikon D610 Key Features

GoPro Hero 3+ Unveiled

by Eric Reagan on October 1, 2013

in GoPro

GoPro has announced a refresh to its Hero 3 camera with the Hero 3+.
It is a mild upgrade to the Hero 3; however, the updates address some of the key criticisms of the Hero 3. The Hero 3+ features 30% more

Nikon 1 AW1 is a Waterproof Mirrorless Camera

by Eric Reagan

Nikon has just announced the

A First Look at the Sony PXW Z100

Corporate filmmaker Matt Davis provides a first look at the Sony PXW-Z100 4K camcorder in the video found below.
He says, "The Z100 has got a big, huge 4K emblazed on the side of it. It's proud to be a 4K camcorder. But it's also a really good HD camcorder. This is a 10-bit 4:2:2 recorder using the F5 and F55's codec. And it's got HD-SDI out, it's got timecode in and out. This is a serious piece of kit."
Watch below and read more here on Rick Young's Movie Machine.

LiveU Announces Seamless Integration with NewTek TriCaster

LiveU announced the release of LiveU Link, a software-based solution allowing seamless integration between LiveU’s portable uplink units and the TriCaster multi-camera live production system. With this integration, LiveU becomes a member of the NewTek Developer Network.
Customers can connect their LiveU device and stream live video from the unit to LiveU’s proprietary server, which automatically pushes the stream to a selected TriCaster producer with pre-configured settings.

“This is terrific news for users seeking an effortless way to

High Output LED Field Lighting Solution by Litepanels and Anton/Bauer

Litepanels is pleased to announce the Hilio™/HC Field Lighting Package. This package is designed to provide the Hilio’s high output daylight balanced illumination with a convenient and portable DC power system from Anton/Bauer for ultimate mobility. Portable and high output, this field lighting solution kicks off with special pricing of 30% off when purchased through authorized dealers

BLACKMAGIC POCKET CINEMA CAMERA NIGHT TIME TESTING AT 1600ASA – AND IMAGE QUALITY ISSUES

BLACKMAGIC POCKET CINEMA CAMERA NIGHT TIME

By site editor Dan Chung:

Sanlitun, Beijing – shot on a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and graded with Filmconvert from Dan Chungon Vimeo.

Telestream Announces Major Wirecast 5 Release

Telestream today announced a major upgrade for its Wirecast® live streaming production software. Wirecast 5 adds enhanced encoding and playback options; a new, more efficient user interface; high-quality screen capture; and more flexible input/output integrations for easier, high-quality live streaming.

“With Wirecast 5, we’ve solidified our position as the easy to use, all-in-one, live streaming production software,” said

PANASONIC PRESENTS NEW ULTRA WIDE ANGLE CAMERA AT IBC ‘13

Panasonic Professional Camera Solutions announces its new Ultra Wide Angle Camera at IBC 2013. This camera consists of a unique panoramic video shooting system which combines four AW-HE120 cameras. The Ultra Wide Angle Camera is capable of producing panoramic images in HD quality making it ideal for capturing sports games and events.
Panasonic’s Ultra Wide Angle Camera consists of four lightweight AW-HE120 HD integrated remote cameras, assembled into a

Telestream Initiates Open Source x265/HEVC Project

Telestream today announced the public availability of an open source H.265 (HEVC) encoder. The new x265 project is aimed at the creation of the world’s most efficient, highest quality H.265 codec. Conceived by Telestream, the x265 project was co-founded and is being managed by the company’s development partner, MulticoreWare Inc. The H.265 initiative is being introduced under both an open source and commercial license model.

“Telestream and Multicoreware have had great success in

Sony adds 4K* consumer camcorder to its Handycam portfolio

Sony unveiled its first 4K consumer camcorder, the new Handycam® FDR-AX1E. Now video enthusiasts can capture 4K content for expressive, powerful imaging with incomparable levels of clarity and exquisite colour in every scene.
Four times the detail of Full HD
The FDR-AX1E camcorder records 4K and HD movies in the XAVC S format, using MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Long GOP for video and Linear PCM for audio compression, while saving files in an MP4 wrapper. The XAVC-S format allows longer recording times, storing almost two hours of 4K video on a 64GB XQD memory card, making 4K recording easier and more convenient. Switching to Full HD recording can store almost 3 hours of 1920×1080 50p footage on a single card. For further compatibility with existing consumer devices, AVCHD format is planned to be updated by the middle of 2014
The FDR-AX1E camcorder features a 4K image sensor that is essential to the stunning image quality it can achieve. The 1/2.3-type Exmor R™ CMOS sensor captures true 4K resolution (3840×2160) images, containing four times the picture detail of Full HD, and has the output speed required by the massive 4K 50 fps data stream. The powerful image processor, identical to those found in professional 4K camcorders, rapidly processes signals transmitted from the CMOS sensor and finalizes images in real time at 50p.
Pristine imagery is also assured by the high quality Sony G Lens™ which redefines what an aspheric lens and special low-dispersion glass combination can reproduce. The G Lens is specially tuned to capture qualities of definition and colour that put this groundbreaking Handycam® camcorder in a class of its own. In addition, the lens offers a broad zoom range from wide-angle to 20x optical (31.5-630mm 35mm equivalent); while Optical SteadyShot keeps footage crisp and stable, even at telephoto mode.

Creative controls and pro-style ergonomics
The FDR-AX1E camcorder offers several functions to

Blackmagic Cinema Camera Vs. Pocket Camera

In the short camera test found below, production company A Couple of Night Owls compared shots from the Blackmagic Cinema Camera to those taken with the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera.
They explain on their Vimeo page, "Same lens (Canon 35/1.4L) on both cameras and the Pocket Camera was mounted on top (and beside) the BMCC so any differences are really the difference in sensor size and any differences inherent to each camera."
Watch below.

Produce Your Best Ever HD-SLR Video—6 key areas to consider

Produce Your Best Ever HD-SLR
 Video—6 key areas to consider
by Nikon

“The use of D-SLR cameras for professional movie and film capture has taken off like wild fire. Almost every videography professional with whom I have worked either uses an HD-SLR for filming or has tried it,” shares Skyler Proctor, an Idaho Falls, Idaho, based director of photography. “I personally like the smaller format D-SLR because the FX sensor is so large and gives a look no other ‘typical’ video camera format really can. I prefer it for short films, commercials, music videos and documentaries.”
A longtime video devotee with experience using all ranges of traditional studio cameras, his first brush with an HD-SLR came through a film industry peer five years ago. This peer was sharing personal reasons for

Video Aspect Ratios from RED Digital Cinema

A video’s aspect ratio is an important creative choice that can affect the feel of footage, but it’s also a key technical consideration that affects how and where this footage can be displayed. This article gives an overview of the various capture settings and applications.

 

HISTORY

The origin and evolution toward the

Topaz ReStyle

Topaz ReStyle: New Photoshop/Lightroom Plug-in

Topaz Labs has released a new application,

Slow-Motion and Colored Powder Make for a Fantastical Skateboard Video

Sebastian Linda uses high-speed cameras, colored powder, and some good old-fashioned beautiful cinematography to create the short skateboarding video, "The Revenge of the Beats," a Vimeo Staff Pick.

Says Linda in the behind-the-scenes video also found below, "The point was to bring back the fantasy to skateboarding." (via Fstoppers)

LightWave 3D Group Unveils LightWave 11.6

The LightWave 3D®Group announced new features in LightWave 11.6, the newest version of its award-winning 3D modeling, animation and rendering software for artists and designers. LightWave 11.6 software offers modeling, rigging, animation, effects, dynamics, and near limitless render nodes in an award-winning integrated LightWave render engine—providing studios and artists with everything they need to create an affordable and powerful end-to-end production pipeline.

MAXON Announces CINEMA 4D R15 for Professional 3D Content Creation

MAXON introduced CINEMA 4D Release 15 (R15) that redefines the 3D motion graphics, visual effects, painting and rendering software workflow. The next generation release of the widely-used 3D software platform reinforces the leadership MAXON has earned over the past 25 years by elevating the creative experience from project planning to content delivery, and is marked by powerful enhancements to modeling, text creation, rendering and sculpting.

Time-Lapse Gets Trippy in 'Mirror City'

Today's must-see time-lapse comes courtesy of Michael Shainblum and it's a real eye opener.

"Mirror City" turns San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Chicago into beautiful, abstract kaleidoscopes. Shainblum tells Planet 5D, "I have been mirroring images and video for a really long time, it has always been a certain stylistic choice in some of my abstract work. This project, however, has taken about 4-5 months to conceptualize and complete. The idea has been floating around for a long time in my head, it wasn’t until about 4 months ago when I made the idea an actual project.

Read more here and watch "Mirror City" below.

Watch a Free Video Tutorial on the Raw Canon DSLR Workflow

Neumann Films has provided a free video tutorial detailing their workflow for using the Magic Lantern hack to get raw video out of the Canon 5D Mark III.

They say, "The quality is really amazing in this raw video. I would compare it to shooting 1080p moving cr2 files which is the file type that you get with doing raw photography in the Canon cameras. So just having this option in the Canon 5D Mark III and other Canon cameras is just huge. Even if you're only going to use it twice a year to shoot greenscreen work, having the option in the camera instantly bumps up its worth at least a few thousand dollars."

Watch below. (via Cinescopophilia)

Watch New Test Footage from the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera

Matrox Releases Support for Adobe Creative Cloud and Avid Media Composer 7 on Mac and PC

Matrox® Video  announced the immediate availability of full support for the latest releases of the Adobe® Creative Cloud™ and Avid® Media Composer® 7 families of professional video editing and content creation tools with the Matrox MXO2™ family of I/O devices and the Matrox Mojito™ MAX I/O card. The award-winning Matrox I/O products provide broadcast-quality video and audio input, output and monitoring to enable traditional tape-based workflows including deck control for frame-accurate batch capture and print-to-tape. They are also the only I/O solutions on the market that let users encode H.264 files for delivery to the web, iPad® and iPhone® up to five times faster than software alone without sacrificing quality. In addition, MXO2 devices provide cross-platform Mac® and Windows® support and are still the only solutions that connect anywhere, Mac and PC, via Thunderbolt™, PCIe® or ExpressCard/34® — with the same versatile unit.

Grass Valley has released EDIUS 7

Grass Valley has released EDIUS 7, the latest version of its nonlinear video application. EDIUS 7 is now a native 64-bit application for Windows 7 and Windows 8 64-bit operating systems, taking full advantage of up to 512GB (dependent on Windows version) of installed memory for super-intensive media operations, such as multilayer 4K and 3-D editing.

Atomos’ Most Advanced Recorder/Monitor/Deck now Shipping Worldwide

Atomos, the creator of the award-winning camera mounted recorders Ninja-2 and Samurai, and the Connect converter range, have commenced shipment of their latest recorder/monitor, the Samurai Blade.

The new Samurai Blade offers a stunning 1280 x 720 SuperAtom IPS touchscreen, at 325ppi 179-degree viewing, 400nit brightness and multi-frequency (48/50/60Hz) operation depending on video input giving super smooth monitoring and playback. Every screen is calibrated to SMPTE Rec 709 colour space and a D65 white point with 100% gamut from factory. On the fly screen calibration is built into every Samurai Blade so you are always accurate in any shooting environment.

 

Samurai Blade adds essential set up tools with full waveform monitor functions, including vectorscope, RGB and LUMA parades with transparent overlay and bottom right, lower 3rd or full screen positioning, making it an extremely flexible tool

Canon 70D Promo Videos

by Eric Reagan on July 3, 2013

in Canon

The Canon 70D looks to be more than a worthy successor to the 60D, particularly with the new Dual Pixel AF system, which is demoed in some of the promo videos below.

Ninja-2 Record + Monitor + Playback + Playout + Ready-to-edit

The Ninja-2 is a portable, intuitive touchscreen-operated HD recorder, monitor and playback device for professional media producers. It captures pristine 10-bit 4:2:2 video and audio direct from any HDMI source: DSLRs, decks, switchers, PC, Mac, iPad and iPhone. The Ninja-2 consumes very little power, ensuring long recording times (up to 16.5 hours on a 750GB disk) and the efficient use of batteries.

Easy to use on the go

The AtomOS operating system driving the Ninja-2 allows access to

MōVI BTS – With FreeFly Hand Held Stabilized System