Press Release: Lawrenceville, NJ and Photokina (Hall 4.1, Booth E010/F019) – September 1, 2010 – Datacolor® (www.datacolor.com), a global leader in color management solutions, today announced SpyderLensCal™, a reliable method of measuring the focus performance on camera and lens combinations that delivers razor-sharp focusing using modern DSLR autofocus micro-adjustment.

SpyderLensCal Lens Calibrator

Photographers have enjoyed the benefit of autofocus for 25 years yet many still struggle with its accuracy and repeatability. Until now, lens calibration inaccuracies were corrected by shipping the camera and lenses to the manufacturers for servicing. This can be both costly and time-consuming, with each new lens requiring calibration. By adding the SpyderLensCal to their gear bag, photographers can easily calibrate interchangeable lenses on their own and eliminate the need for service.

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Panasonic has released new 8GB and 16GB SDHC cards with maximum read speeds of up to 60MB/s and Class 10 speed specification complementing 3D and full HD video recording features of recently released cameras. it features protection against power failures and a Super Intelligent Controller that cleans up errors preventing data damage. The memory cards will be available from November 2010. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of their expensive P2 cards for anything less than a Panasonic Vericam, which is the only type of cameras justifying expensive cards with speeds up to 1.2 Gbps. Below the Vericam level, most prosumer and professional cameras work below 60MB/s, which until now was only seen in CF cards.

Here’s the press release:

Berlin, Germany (September 1, 2010)

Panasonic announced today its newest 8GB*1 and 16GB SDHC UHS-I Memory Cards – the RP-SDY08G and RP-SDY16G.  UHS-I is the new standard for higher-speed Bus interface defined by the SD Association as part of the SD Memory Card Specification Ver.3.01, which provides up to 104MB/s performance. Both memory cards have maximum data transfer speed of up to 60MB/s*2 and Class10 speed specification.

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FxFactory Youtube Filter Tutorials for Final Cut Pro

Noise Industries is a great company from Boston that makes some of the best visual effect plug-ins for Final Cut Pro, Motion, Final Cut Express and Adobe After Effects that I’ve ever seen. I will write more about their plugins on a new post. For now, I would like to point out their fantastic Youtube tutorial videos. It’s rare to see so much attention to user guidance. Those videos are well made, fast paced, effective and to the point. They add value to their products and save their customers valuable time. You can find their youtube videos here:

youtube.com/noiseindustriesllc

and this is their web site:

noiseindustries.com

Make sure to check them out, they are excellent, maybe essential tools for serious Final Cut Pro editors.

I will write more detailed posts about their products soon.

Nikon D5000

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I’ve been asked about the best way to export Quicktime movies from Apple computers to share on the web. Normally, if I want wider access, I would prefer exporting to Windows Media, but Quicktime is fairly popular these days.

Mac OS X now offers a video share option, but I find the standard settings to produce average results. So if you want quick and safe settings to export a medium sized Quicktime video (640 x 360 for wide format), here are the steps to follow.

Export to QT 264

Open your movie in Quicktime Player Pro and select Export

Select a name for your movie file, then go down to Export and select Movie to Quicktime Movie

Click on the Options tab

Export Settings

Select Prepare for Intertnet Streaming, with the Fast Start option.

Select the Size for the movie, if it’s an HD movie, a good medium sized export size would be 640 x 360. At this size I would go for 2200 kbits/sec. The movie will be perfect this way. But if you opt for larger sizes or HD sizes like 1280 x 720, I would recommend going for 4000 kbits/sec at least.

After you selected the movie size, go to Settings

Export Settings

Here are the quick settings that will give you fast and good results.

Compression Type: H.264
Frame Rate: Current
Key Frames: Automatic
Data Rate: Restrict to 2200 kbits/sec
Encoding: Faster encode (Single-pass)
Frame Reordering: Yes

Remember that you will get no benefits at all selecting Best Quality. Multi-pass will take much longer and doesn’t do much at this data rate. It is intended to optimize small data rate movies, back in the times when people used to encode under 800 kbits/sec, a practice that gradually disappeared at the turn of the 21th century.

That’s it. Press OK and you will get a very good looking Quicktime movie.

I received an email from a visitor and he had the following problem: he imports and works with progressive video on Final Cut Studio 3, but exports interlaced on segments with effects and transitions. The timeline acquires the video settings automatically after the first cut is dropped on it. We would all assume that by acquiring the original formal they mean making the two formats identical. Unfortunately Steve Jobs, just like present Sony managers, don’t understand progressive technology and try to remove it where they can, forcing users to revert back to 1920s interlace technology.

So in a few words what happens is that then you drop your footage on the timeline, if in doubt about the footage field order, the timeline will assume interlaced. That makes no difference when editing with cut and paste, but it will make a real difference when applying some effects. The problem affects Canon 5D Mark 2 H.264 files (among others), which are progressive but not recognized as such after import in FCP.

The solution is very simple. After importing your footage you only to add a small extra step before continuing with your editing:

Find Sequence and select Settings

Change (Upper Odd) to (None).

Now your problem is solved.

Final Cut Pro Field Order Sequence Settings

Sanyo Xacti HD2000

I ordered a SANYO Xacti Digital Movie HD2000 and was very curious to test it. All reviews are excellent but I wanted to test it for myself. The Xacti is a small pocket camera with excellent performance for its size, market segment, and for its incredibly low price. I can confirm that there is nothing on the market at the same price level that offers the same quality. You would actually have to pay three times the price to get anything with a similar quality.

First of all the Xacti is very easy to handle. It holds perfectly in one hand and all the functions are clear. The menu is perfectly laid out and clear. The instructions manual is unfortunately not nearly as good. You need to use Google to find out more about the camera operation.

This Sanyo camera is capable of full HD resolution (1920×1080) real progressive scan at 60Fps. The data rate varies depending on the resolution and FPS settings. Unfortunately the user cannot select a data rate independently from the resolution and FPS, so the only combination that offers the high 24 mbps rate is full HD at 60 FPS. Any other combination will cut the data rate to half. This is unfortunate because not everyone wants so many frames per second and only fast computers will handle this footage well. Many users transform the footage to 30 FPS before editing, depending on specific needs.

The camera stores the video in MPEG-4/H.264 format on SD/SDHC memory cards, which is very high quality and ready to edit or store immediately. This is great format that very few video cameras adopt.

The quality of the video is very high, surprisingly high even in difficult low light conditions. Once again, there is nothing that even comes close to the Sanyo quality for the price.

The lens are good, given the size the zoom is excellent, there was no noticeable chromatic aberration or any flare. Just this makes the Sanyo lens superior to most Canon cameras, which are known for the CA problems.

The Sanyo HD2000 makes sharing your films easy thanks to its built-in HDMI, component and USB ports, and all cables are included in the box. Another excellent point is the inclusion of connections for an external microphone and earphones.

The Xacti also takes good pictures for a camcorder. Video and photo modes both allow for full manual control or full automatic use. The camera fits well in any pocket and is ready to operate the moment you lift the display. Folding the display back down will put the camera back in standby. This is very practical.

Image stabilization is good but not always capable of handling the shaking typical of such a small device size with strong zoom capacity. Paying a little attention will certainly benefit overall image stability.

I was overall very impressed with this camera and as soon as I got it I immediately sold my Canon handheld camcorder, which was more than twice as expensive but could not keep up with the video quality.

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Screenplace STEADY-FLEX

Screenplane, a newcomer from Germany, presented very innovative professional solutions for 3D video at NAB this year. We noticed in particular the impressive Steady-Flex, an automated rig that works in a parallel mode, with two DLSR sized cameras. This is perfect for high quality 3D output from two Canon 5D MII cameras or RED Scarlett. Convergence is to be set in post, on a Mac or Windows based system.

The Screen Plane’s tilt pivot is at its center of gravity, which provides excellent balance and handling, an essential feature when working with the weight of two Canon bodies and professional lens. The system will be available initially from rental houses in Europe and the US this year, and then for sale sometime after that. The SCREEN PLANE STEADY-FLEX rig is extremely compact and lightweight and therefore ideal as a small production rig as well as for steadycam and hand-held shots or macro photography and close-up work.

The producer’s web site is here: http://www.screenplane.com

LUMIX G 3D Lens

Panasonic has announced it will launch a 3D interchangeable lens for the Micro Four Third system to be launched by the end of 2010. The special lens will project left and right image pairs into the camera sensor. The split images can later be combined to provide a single 3D image.

It is not still clear how the video will be handled in editing, post production, and burned to media like 3D Blu-ray discs. While it will be soon inevitable for most professionals to work with 3D video, I’m afraid it’s still too early to expect a standard workflow compatible with most platforms and software. I’m sure some will be quick to jump on the new Micro Four Thirds 3D lens, but I have a few doubts about the overall quality of the output.

Splitting the single sensor image in two parts will in fact reduce the video resolution by 50 %. I don’t have any detailed information but I suspect the resolution of each split image will probably be 960×1080, which will certainly not look as good as the commercial 3D titles. Also, the small sensor and limited data bandwidth are not ideal for optimal 3D HD quality.

A similar 3D lens technology would make more sense on a Canon 5D Mark II, but Panasonic should be praised for its innovation efforts in the consumer sector.

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SIGMA APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM
Case, Petal-type Hood (LH850-02),
Hood Adapter(HA850-01),
Tripod Socket TS-21 supplied.
Corresponding AF Mounts:SIGMA, SONY(D),
NIKON(D), PENTAX, CANON

The Sigma Corporation is pleased to announce the new Sigma APO 70-200 F2.8 EX DG OS HSM.
This large aperture telephoto zoom lens incorporates Sigma’s original Optical Stabilizer function. The lens covers focal lengths from 70mm to 200mm and has a large maximum aperture of F2.8 throughout the entire zoom range. Two FLD (“F” Low Dispersion) glass elements, which have the performance equal to fluorite glass, and three SLD (Special Low Dispersion) glass elements provide excellent correction of color aberration. High image quality is assured throughout the entire zoom range and an optimum optical power layout provides superior optical quality in all shooting ranges from close-up to infinity. The OS (Optical Stabilizer) function offers the use of shutter speeds approximately 4 stops slower than would otherwise be possible. For Sony and Pentax mount, the built-in OS function of this lens can be used even if the camera body is equipped with an image sensor shift anti-shake system. As compensation for camera shake is visible in the view finder, the photographer can easily check for accurate focus and ensure there is no subject movement. Super Multi-Layer Coating reduces flare and ghost. This lens incorporates HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor), ensuring a quiet and high speed AF as well as full-time manual focus capability. The lens has a minimum focusing distance of 140cm(55.1″) throughout the entire zoom range and a maximum magnification ratio of 1:8. The rounded 9 blade diaphragm creates an attractive blur to the out of focus images. This lens is equipped with a Petal-type hood. For digital cameras with an APS-C size image sensor, a dedicated hood adapter, which expands the length of the lens hood, is supplied.

More information and specifications here.
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