5DmkII All Grown Up

So since my last entry for the 5D I have added a few new goodies to the rig... As you can see (kind of) I have the whole enchalada mounted in an cage (love it) which makes grabbing this camera and using it a dream. The cage is made by Easom and this particular version is called the Halo. It provides 2 ribs for connecting the upper and lower sections and I have them staggered here. Their other model called the Solo has only 1 rib - an equally nice cage. Also I found a great D-Tap power distribution company: Hawk-Woods in the UK. They sell a kit that allows you to use you V-mount batteries with DSLRs by way of voltage regulating the power with the adapter that goes into your camera where the battery fits. Now I power my camera, monitor and any other goodies from a single B4B V-mount battery. This is a mid sized battery 6Ah/90Wh and lasts about 2 to 3 hours each.

To go with the "all growed up" look I added my RedRock follow focus and CA Vision matte box. I had to go up to 18" rods to make everything fit and balance out but it all sits there nicely now. I put a small Pony clamp on the back of the cage handle and slid both of my Sennheiser wireless receivers on there for a tight cable package. I used XLR splitters to feed the mic's outputs to both the ZOOM and the 5D at moc level. There is an XLR to stereo mini adapter cable in there going into the 5D itself.

Rounding out the system I have a Zoom H4n mounted to another part of the cage and my Marshall monitor is being held on my a Manfrotto mid sized articulating arm. It all fits... and comes in at about 16.2 Lbs.... ouch =) I have another Noga arm on order that should drop a pound or two off the total weight of the package. I'll keep you posted.

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www.filmmakingwebinars.com

This new and not new site is terrific!!! They offer really helpful tips and tricks on digital film making, media managing and all sorts of other great tools for aspiring movie makers. So, I'm a little biased... they have asked me to do a segment on corporate events and how to cover them ENG style.

This company is a part of NewMediaWebinars.com which has been around for some time. Great work on bring info to the masses. This particular webinar that I am doing will focus on the steps used to do a successful coverage of a corporate event or retreat. We will talk about planing the shooting days out. Shooting for the edit. Camera choices and media management techniques. It should be helpful for viewer of all skill levels =)

The Webinar will be live February 17th from 10am to 11:30am PST and the be available for download starting the next day. There will be a small price for the download version but you will get a lot of extras that won't be in the initial live airing. To listen and view check out www.filmmakingwebinars.com for all the latest info.

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time,

TDTrey.com

Canon 60D - first impressions

Just got the new Canon 60D camera this week as a second camera and back up to my 5Dmk2. I've only had a few minutes to play around with the menus and do my basic setups for my style of DSLR video work. Seems really straight forward. Easy to move around in and match most of my 5D settings. The audio is manual or auto just like the 5D ( Yeah!!! ) and has the same menu settings and adjustments.

The 60D uses SD cards as apposed to CF cards - that was a little bit of a surprise. But I use Hoodman RAW cards with their adapters on my EX3 as a backup kit for the SxS cards - so I just grabbed one of those and was good to go. They are Class 6+.

With both the 24-70 2.8 and the 70-200 2.8 lenses the 60D did a great job of focus and control. FAST autowinding. Wow. I had to turn that off... I hit a test run on the shutter release and fired off like 30 shots.

The pop out LCD panel is a real nice feature. I almost feel I don't have to put my Marshall on top to use the camera... We'll see...

Well that's it for now. I'll have more to report once I've used it on a set and gotten the "in the trenches" feel for the camera =)

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Creatashpere 2010

This year's show was the best yet. There were many new vendors to show their wares and new, up to date exhibits. LOTS MORE 3D !!!! Great to see all the support this new technology is getting.

Things that really got my attention were the Genus / Manfrotto booth, the GlideCam booth, the Da Vince Resolve software and the Panasonic AF100 exhibit - very cool. Also we checked out Able Cine, O'Conner and Samy's.

The lectures were very good - we attended the DSLR intensive given by Bruce Dorn: iDC Photo Video. Great talk. Good Q&A.

Looking forward to next year's events.

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5Dm2 as a still camera

I have been having the best time just using my 5Dm2 for stills. I've shot Nikons for over 10 years and really like them for their ease of use and general sharpness. I was mostly using medium-fi glass and Nikon's basic SB28 flash.

Enter the 5D. I put it all in one lens - the Canon L series 24-70 2.8. Very sharp. I bought the 430 mid-pro flash - again, very nice. Now even if I'm just doing a quick snapshot at a party the images come out great. The product stuff I've been shooting for my wife looks terrific. Shallow DoF!!! I love the ISO up to 3200 (let alone 6400) and still holding a good image.

Basically it's just a great camera. I thought I would only use it for HD video... Nope. It's becoming one of my new favorite tools =)

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ZOOM H4n Digital Recorder

Recently got to use the new ZOOM H4n on a project to track GOPRO cameras in a car interior setting - Worked great. We first used them with the internal mics place near the interviewee - that worked OK but had a little too much road noise. Plan B, we already had the people miked from the other part of the interview process with Lectrsonic 195 systems so we just added the ZOOMs to our field mixer bags and set those in the back seat during the "on-the-road" interviews and used hand claps to sync them up later. Sounded great.

Things we learned:

• 4gig - class 4 cards were fine
• 48/16 WAV files fit right into the edit
• Batteries would last almost all day - 10 hours
• New front panel design was much easier to read and operate
• Mic level in to the XLRs from the mixers worked great*
• Gain staging mixer to H4n had plenty of wiggle and head room
• Make sure you don't bump the MIC/1&2 buttons - Silence... OOPs

*In preparation I had done a lot of reading up on the new H4n and most said "no line in". I understand the combo inputs are designed to accommodate HIGH impedance signals from guitars and basses 10k. Well I did some testing after the shoot, -10 line out of my FP33 @ 0vu yielded a nice signal when the record levels on the ZOOM are set relatively low. No sonic coloration that I could hear - Tone and Dialog.

I have the H2 and the H4n. The H2 stays with my FP33 as a piggy back dual system recorder and the H4n stays with the 5Dm2. Nice kit to have...

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CineGear Expo

Wow!!! What a show!!

I wasn't able to get to NAB this year and had to live vicariously through all the videos from the floor. Great coverage but still not like being there asking all the questions...

Then came CineGear!!! Yeah!!! All of the booths I was most interested in seeing at NAB were at CineGear. I started in the two large sound stages and then made my way out into the backlot - there was literally something cool on every corner.

Some of the things I liked:
Tiffen/Steadicam/Lowel
RED
Redrock Micro
Tons of lighting - LED, Tungsten, Florescent, Panel, specialty, Etc...
CineToys / GearNex
All the 3D stuff
Pretty Much everything...

If you get a chance next year - Check It Out!!!

TDTrey.com