Strange mix of high & low tech in The Mill’s “Apples”

Since the iPhone 3GS came out with video recording features, a small subset of people have been pushing the limits of what is the accepted norm and using the device in actual production work. When the 3GS came out, Alex Lindsay put out a humorous video in which he attached the phone to a full Redrock Micro shouldermount stabilization rig. We all had a good laugh, and then suddenly Zacuto and others started making professional grade accessories for the device. There are handheld rigs with wide lenses, and even an iPhone stabilizer in the works. For the most part, iPhone video seems to be limited to quick and dirty video blogging, and the occasional music video. But by far the most professional use to date has to be the following spot courtesy of the geniuses at The Mill…

DSLR Video and Aliasing Artifacts

If you are shooting video with one of the hot new DSLRs, you are probably aware of the aliasing issues found in some of your footage. If not yet, you will at some point. Just keep shooting, it will show up. Fine detail aliasing has always been an issue for any camera system, but it’s particularly prevalent in DSLRs as they lack an Optical Low Pass Filter (OLPF) that is specifically tuned for video. In the case of the 5D & 7D, engineers at Canon have also chosen to sample a limited number of lines from the image sensor to downsample to 1080p. This is quick solution, but not the highest quality way of doing things; it creates aliasing image artifacts, and reportedly limits the resolution of the cameras at around 720p. It’s almost as if these tools were primarily designed as still cameras! How strange. At any rate, I’ve learned to warn my clients before interview shoots not to wear shirts with fine detail patterns, as they will moiré faster than you can say “how the hell do you pronounce that word?”

Release the Hidden Graphics Processing Power in your Macbook Pro

Since sometime in late 2008, Apple’s 17” and select 15” Macbook Pro models have included not one but two graphics processors, the nVidia 9400M and 9600M GT. It is my understanding that by default the laptop uses the integrated lower-wattage 9400M, which includes 256MB RAM and helps extend battery life. It will run the main laptop display and push an external display as well. The additional nVidia 9600M GT graphics option is actually a discrete internal PCI-E card featuring 512MB of RAM and offers significantly faster Motion GPU rendering performance. You can see both of these cards listed separately in your System Profiler. So how do you tell which card you are using, and how do you switch between the two cards? I’m glad you asked, grasshopper. Read on and I’ll tell you how…

11 Excellent FCP Tips & Tricks

Editor/Colorist Oliver Peters has posted a really nice collection of Final Cut Pro tips that are bound to save you time and effort. His suggestions are not “how to use”, but more about Preferences, Settings, and project setup options that can help you avoid the gotchas of editing with FCP. There are great tips here for novices and seasoned editors alike. Check it out.

Photography Books for Cinematographers

David duChemin is offering 50% off his Craft & Vision photography ebooks...use discount code BLKFRIDY to make these $5 titles just $2.50. He has made the promo code valid until December 7. So get them while they are hot!

Titles include:
* Drawing The Eye - Creating Stronger Images Through Visual Mass
* Chasing The Look - 10 Ways to Improve The Aesthetics of Your Photographs
* TEN – Ten Ways To Improve Your Craft. None of Them Involves Buying Gear
* TEN MORE – Ten More Ways To Improve Your Craft
These books are aimed at photographers, but there are wonderful lessons here for cinematographers. I’ve personally purchased Drawing The Eye and Chasing The Look and am loving them. They are beautifully laid out, and the info is fresh and relevant. A steal at $2.50. As a side note, I have more Black Friday Deals for Video Geeks listed in this post.

Increase your Canon 7D or 5D dynamic range

Stockholm-based Canon 7D shooter Luka has posted a wonderful tutorial on Vimeo on maximizing the dynamic range of your DSLR video. As he states in the video, the tutorial is not aimed at making pretty pictures directly from the camera...it is intended to give you more information to work with later in post and color correction. It’s a very well done tutorial, and applies equally well to Canon 5D MKII Picture Styles. It’s also rather funny. Check it out below.

Apple’s new iFrame codec implementation

So recently Apple released specs on a new video format they are calling iFrame. What is it, and how will it affect you, the video professional? As all consumer codecs seem to trickle into the professional space in one way or another, I expect the same to happen with this format. So here’s some info to provide perspective in case you are called upon to deal with the codec by clients. Read on…

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