By site editor Dan Chung:
We interview Brian Valente of Redrockmicro about his latest products. Interesting for Documentary shooters may be the new Blue rig range that can be quickly reconfigured from Shoulder rig to a more stealthy configuration.
By site editor Dan Chung
We’ve just finished our second live show from NAB on Livestream. We were extremely lucky to get an exclusive first live Q and A session about the new Blackmagic Design’s Digital Cinema camera with the company’s Director of Sales Simon Westland. He brought the camera to the booth and you can check out what he had to say in the video below:
Also featured on the show are Linda Bulk of Droidworks multicopters, John Raadqeep with the Alphatron EVF, Roland Boucher with the Viztools Handizoon, Nicol Verheem with the Teradek Bond and Robert Rozak of Juicedlink.
By site editor Dan Chung
This is the first of our dslrnewsshooter.com live panels from NAB2012. Today’s is on the state of newspaper video moderated by Sean Samuels of Hungry Eye mag with Chuck Fadely of the Miami Herald, Duy Linh Tu, professor and director of digital media at Columbia Journalism School, Matt Allard of Aljazeera and myself. Many thanks to Teradek and Livestream for hosting the event.
The second live broadcast will be a conversation between Matt Allard and myself about the what we’ve seen at the show. The discussion will centre on the new gear and the people we’ve met. It will be on Tuesday 17th April, at 12pm Pacific Time (19:00 GMT)
The third live broadcast will be called “I used to just shoot news” and feature some of the best known shooters who either made a start in, or still do TV broadcast news. On the panel will be Philip Bloom, Den Lennie, Rick Macomber of CBS Boston and Matt Allard. It will be on Wednesday 18th April, at 12pm Pacific Time (19:00 GMT)
To watch the rest of the week go to http://new.livestream.com/teradek/ at the appropriate time.
By site editor Dan Chung
Last night I attended the Canon EOS-1D C and C500 event at NAB on behalf of photography website DPreview.com. You can read my interview with Canon’s Tim Smith here.
By site editor Dan Chung:
The Dslrnewsshooter crew on the show floor at NAB with sponsors from Teradek and Kessler
It’s that time of year again when the worlds of television, cinema and web video collide at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas. The Dslrnewsshooter team is bigger and better than ever before – covering the show looking for all the new gadgets.
This year Matt Allard and myself will both be on the show floor checking out all the latest equipment of interest to news and documentary shooters. We will be assisted filming on the show floor by the multi-talented Scott Karlins and others.
But this year we are not just going to look at the gadgets – we’ll be holding a number of live discussion panels hosted by our sponsor Teradek and viewable on Livestream here.
The first of these will be called “The state of newspaper video” and panelists will be Chuck Fadley of the Miami Herald, Duy Linh Teh of the Columbia Journalism school and myself.
We will be discussing the latest trends in newspaper video and discuss what the future holds for photographers and videojournalists working in the field. It will be held tomorrow (Monday the 16th April), 2pm Pacific Time (21:00 GMT) and you can access it via our Livestream page.
The second live broadcast will be a conversation between Matt Allard and myself about the what we’ve seen at the show. The discussion will centre on the new gear and the people we’ve met. It will be on Tuesday 17th April, at 12pm Pacific Time (19:00 GMT)
The third live broadcast will be called “I used to just shoot news” and feature some of the best known shooters who either made a start in, or still do TV broadcast news. On the panel will be Philip Bloom, Den Lennie, Rick Macomber of CBS Boston and Matt Allard. It will be on Wednesday 18th April, at 12pm Pacific Time (19:00 GMT)
We are very grateful to our sponsors Kessler and Teradek whose support has made this all possible.
Eric Kessler, owner of Kessler had this to say – “We are proud to be a sponsor of DSLR News Shooter’s coverage of the 2012 NAB Show. The news shooting community has been a very good supporter of Kessler products, with a growing number utilizing products like our Pocket Dolly and Stealth sliders on their projects.”
“We’re excited to partner with Dslrnewsshooter on this show” says Nicol Verheem, CEO of Teradek. “In 2011 we saw a healthy demand for web coverage of NAB with our show that featured Dan Chung, so we decided to step up the game this year. It’s such an amazing time for video producers as a whole, there’s a brave new world of gear out this year, and opposing media properties are all converging to live video like never before. We’re seeing traditional print properties like NY Times and others doing live video on the front page of their website every single day. They have to – that what the readers and viewers want. Teradek products plays right into that convergence, making it easier and more affordable than ever, so that’s why NYTimes and other are using the Cube or Bond to stream it live to their CDN. Dslrnewsshooter has its finger on the pulse of the news industry across all these verticals, so we’re looking forward to some great panel discussions.”
We’ll be updating the blog every day and you can also follow us on Twitter @dslrinformer
By site editor Dan Chung:
It seems like Ikan have been busy creating new gadgets for this NAB. One that they have let out of the bag early is this prototype wired electronic remote grip for Canon DSLRs.
It can start/stop, zoom to check focus and adjust other camera settings using USB protocols – in a similar way to other manufacturers like OKii.
The Ikan DSLR remote grip front view
What is different is the form factor – it is designed to be used as a handle on DSLR rig and has a 1/4 20 threaded socket on the top to allow attachment.
Ikan have not said when the grip will go into production or given pricing details. Hopefully the finished product won’t be in the rather odd purple colour though.
The rear of the controller and the 1/4 20 thread on top
By site editor Dan Chung
The new Zacuto Recoil with Tornado remote focus and C300 grip relocator
Zacuto are launching a raft of new products at NAB 2012. So far announced are new Recoil kits, a C300 grip relocator, a quick release shoulder pad, the Tornado mechanical remote follow focus system and the Zacuto Plasma light.
There is a new Recoil kit designed to work with the Canon C300. Cleverly it relocates the original Canon handgrip from the side of the camera down to the rig’s handgrip position. You can start and stop the camera rolling just as if the handgrip were still on the camera. There is also the Tornado remote mechanical follow focus that allows you to pull focus from the other handgrip. A new quick release shoulder pad completes the setup – this can be ejected at the push of a button for quick packing into a case or changing to a tripod setup. The three together mean that the camera’s major controls are comfortably at your fingertips while the camera is balanced comfortably on the shoulder.
There are also versions of the Recoil for Red cameras, Sony FS100 and also DSLR. Zacuto now distributes the OKii systems remote controllers for Canon DSLR and there will be a version of the Recoil which integrates it to the rig handgrip.
The other main news is the Zacuto Plasma light or Z-light. It is a patented AC/DC softlight that uses Microplasma technology. Zacuto claim they are as soft as a Chimera.
We are very much looking forward to seeing these working at NAB.
Full disclosure: This website is a Zacuto affiliate.
By site editor Dan Chung
Electronic viewfinders (EVFs) are fast becoming a must have accessory for news and documentary shooters with newer cameras like the Sony F3, FS100 or Panasonic AF100. They can also be used to get a much clearer view of what is going on in the frame with some video DSLRs. They are essentially a mini monitor with a loupe attached.
At the NAB show this year Alphatron are showing their high resolution competitor to the popular Zacuto, SmallHD and Cineroid EVFs. Alphatron’s EVF-035W-3G main selling point is that it has a higher resolution along with both SDI and HDMI connections. The product is made in co-operation with established monitor manufacturer TVlogic.
The Alphatron EVF has both HDMI and SDI connections
The interesting thing is that the Alphatron display is a 960×640. 3.54 inch (diagonal) display which looks suspiciously similar to the one found on the Apple IPhone4S. When displaying a16:9 widescreen image the EVF will place bars top and bottom resulting in 960×540 pixels being used.
According to Alphatron this is significant because this resolution allows the EVF-035W-3G to downscale a HD 1920×1080 image with a downscaling factor or exactly 2. The resolution of 960×540 is exactly half of the full HD resolution which is 1920×1080.
Other competing displays with a lower 800×600 resolution have a greater downscaling factor of around 2.4. Because this is not a whole number Alphatron claim that there is a significant difference in picture quality.
Alphatron claim the downscaling factor of 2 is a ‘magic number’. This is what is says on their website:
“The EVF-035W-3G shows 1 out of every 2 pixels. However, if the downscaling factor is not an integer (i.e : 2.4 or 2.25), some of the horizontal and vertical pixels cannot be reproduced in a correct way. Hence, fine details, particular those for accurate focusing, cannot be reproduced.”
Other specs of the EVF are shown in this table:
The Alphatron seems to be a slightly bigger unit than my current Zacuto EVF and so it will be interesting to see how it really works at NAB 2012. Pricing has not yet been confirmed.
By site editor Dan Chung
Olof Ekbergh is a shooter with a passion for designing new and interesting camera rigs. His company Westside AV has been manufacturing custom supports mainly for regular video camera for several years. Perhaps his most famous product to date is the wooden handle for Panasonic cameras. Several TV news shooters I know use Olof’s gear.
With the introduction of newer large sensor camcorders Olof has re-invented the camera rig by almost doing away with 15mm rods commonly used by other manufacturers. Instead he has created a lightweight and quickly assembled system that has multiple configurations – some of which emulate the design of a proper ENG camera but for a large sensor camcorder or DSLR. His new products can be found on the UniCamRail website.
He sent me this explanation of the system:
“Here is my expanding new kit for any camera. It is lightweight, compact and sturdy. The parts assemble quickly and are easy to reconfigure.
It can be ordered in many different configurations, and I am adding more parts to the kit as I develop them.
I use this kit myself on the Panasonic AF100 and on my Sony EX1R and I have also used it on the Canon XF305. The nice thing about it is that it will fit any camera in the future as well as the one you have now. It also fits DSLRs and the new Canon C300 and Sony FS700.
The kit works in conjunction with my AF100 wooden handle and AJA KiPro Mini/Nanoflash/Ninja/Samurai external recorder brackets.
Alternatively here is an AF100 with complete straight kit, using IDX batteries for counter balance. This is perfectly balanced and the new 3″ wide shoulder pad with 3/4″ thick foam is very comfortable, this is my wife Sharyn’s favourite setup.
An adjustable EVF bracket can be mounted to the front of the rail with a 4″ extension. Like any other part of this system it can be quickly installed, adjusted and removed.
Above is a Sony EX1R with a wooden handle and a remote controller. I will have the remote control wood handle available for many different cameras soon. For some cameras like the AF100 the start/stop button is built into the handle, but LANC-controlled cameras can use any controller mounted to the top of the wooden handle. Some controllers like those for Sony EX are unique to those cameras and they attach the same way.
The next configuration is a 5D mkII with a Zacuto EVF and IDX battery for balance. The battery can be used to power lights or external audio recorders etc attached to the cheese plate.
Above is a family portrait of some of the kit components.
Lastly, the straight kit without camera. This picture shows the components. On the left is the adjustable height 15mm rail adapter allowing you to use an existing follow focus or mattebox. Soon I will have mattebox and follow focus options which attach to the system without the need for rails.”
By site editor Dan Chung
The Canon EOS-1D C
The Canon C500
With NAB2012 just around the corner Canon have chosen today to announce their brand new C500 and EOS-1D C.
The C500 shares an almost identical body design to the C300 but is a much higher end Cinema camera inside. The C500 shoots uncompressed 4K RAW (4096 x 2160-pixel) 24,25,30,50 and 60fps video to an external recorder in 10-bit 4:4:4 using 3G HD/SDI connections. Step the camera down to 2K and it will shoot 12-bit RGB 4:4:4 up to 60 fps. No information as yet about which external recorders will work with the camera or how much they will cost.
It can also shoot 120fps for slow motion in 2K and 1080P resolutions. Not only that but when it shoots quad full-HD (3840 x 2160), 2K (2048 x 1080) or full HD (1920 x 1080) the output is downsampled rather than cropped the image unlike Red’s Epic and Scarlet cameras.
Internally it records 50 Mbps HD proxy files to CF cards.
The Super35 sensor in the C500 is reported to be similar to that in the C300 but the data is processed differently. The C500 will be available in either EF or PL mount options.
The C500 actually has two 3G HD/SDI connectors so that users can also monitor the image in 4K too with the right gear.
The only thing not present on the C500 which real world users will miss is the excellent handgrip which has given way to more connections.
Whilst the C500 may appeal to cinema shooters it is probably overkill for many news and documentary makers. That said the size and form factor mean that it could have a place for those wanting to get the very best images in real world scenarios.
Rear view of the C500 showing its 3G HD-SDI connections
Perhaps of more interest to news shooters is the new EOS-1D C Cinema EOS DSLR. Previously shown as a concept under glass, the EOS-1D C is based on the chassis of an EOS-1D X DSLR but with much improved video functionality.
The 4K video image is an APS-H crop of its full-frame sensor. Full HD can be either a 16×9 crop of the whole sensor or a Super35 sized crop captured from middle of the sensor
The EOS-1D C is capable of shooting 8-bit 4K Motion JPEG (4096 x 2160 pixel) at 24P as well as 1080P at 24,25,30,50 and 60P. There is no recording limit for video. 1080P video can be recorded in IPB or All-I as with the 5D mkIII – the question being whether the image will be substantially better than that camera.
The EOS-1D C shares the same Canon Cine log gammas as the C300 and C500 which should make it a useful B camera for some shoots.
Slightly disappointingly the camera only has a HDMI output and not HD/SDI. This may well limit its appeal. That said it does output uncompressed 1080P 4:2:2 over HDMI which should meet many broadcast specifications.
On the audio side it has the much-needed headphone jack which was omitted from its cousin the 1D X.
What this camera is missing is built in ND filters, XLR audio and importantly zebra or peaking focus aids. It is also unclear right now if the image can be magnified whilst shooting to check focus. 25P shooting rates at 4K also seem to have been omitted which may cause problems for PAL country shooters.
The Canon C500 rear view
What would make this camera a real option especially for newspaper multimedia shooters is if the EOS-1D C has the same level of stills performance as the EOS-1D X. It does do 12 fps, 18 megapixel stills but it is not clear what compromises to quality have been made to optimise it for video (Edit – Canon Press release claim the EOS-1D C is the same stills quality as the EOS-1D X).
The downside? Cost is projected at around 10,000 Euros or $15,000 US.
Where this camera may find a home is in the hands of news and documentary shooters who have fallen in love with the DSLR form factor but want better image quality. There are many assignments where even a C300 is too big or obvious and the EOS-1D C might be better suited.
We’ll be on hand at NAB 2012 to get the full run down on these cameras.
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