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SmallHD HDMI Active Splitter

Life Saver!!!!

I just recently added a Zacuto Z-Finder EVF to my 5D2 package. (Really great tool to have in your kit) But I was having a little trouble routing my signal through the whole rig. I was going from the 5D to the EVF and then looping out to the Black Magic Design HDMI to SDI converter. While the loop-thru works pretty well, it appears to sometimes be a little intermittent. I think it has something to do with the handshake between all the devices. Thus the SDI feed going out to the client monitor would cut in and out occasionally.

Enter the HDMI active splitter from SmallHD. The unit is about the size of a Zippo lighter (for those of you who can remember a Zippo =) and is self powered drawing it’s juice from the inherent 5V present in the monitor/device connections. It has a great little hook at the top that is perfect 1/4-20 size. There is a little LED at the bottom to indicate if you have 1 or both HDMI outputs in use. Green for 1 and Yellow for both.

The configuration of the connections is really nice. The bottom has an HDMI IN and Out. The top has the HDMI OUT and optional power inputs if needed. The power connectors are 1 DC barrel and one mini USB. I found these were not needed in my rig and wouldn’t be needed unless I was looping a bunch of these little guys together or doing really long cable runs.

The active splitter sends full 1080 HD out each output and maintains individual handshakes with each of the devices connected. The BMD converter’s signal is really stable when the splitter is in line. The one thing I noticed in my testing is that you have to power up the rig after everything is connected to make the handshake process work correctly. Once I did that it was perfect.

I’ll do an update to this post in a few weeks after I have used the system a little more. I just wanted to get the word out how cool this little guy is. And he’s built right here in the USA in North Carolina. The price is a mere $59 and the shipping is fast and easy. Pretty Cool =)

Until next time, good shooting.

TDTrey.com

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Lovin’ Premiere Pro 5.5

Well we are coming up on a year since Apple decided to improve Final Cut Pro for us… And while there are several sites and sources dedicated to the training needed to learn FCP X, it is still lacking in many of the features that we use every day as editors.

Like many video professional last summer, I decided to give Premiere Pro (PPro) a try. I figured that if I was going to have learn a new NLE anyway I might as well make it one that is going to be around for a while. Plus Adobe was giving us that really great deal if we were switching from FCP. Who could pass that up?

So just a couple quick notes on my progress.

  • I like using the FCP keyboard shortcuts. I feel right at home. I hope that they will bring even more of the shortcuts over as the app improves.
  • Bringing in all of my footage with out transcoding is awesome.
  • Knowing I’m using all the horse power under the hood is also great.
  • Dynamic Linking is real handy for moving from app to app in the suite.
These features along with many of the improvements that are coming down the line are going to make PPro an editing force to be reckoned with.
That’s just a quick look at Premiere Pro 5.5 from my perspective =)
Until next time, good shooting.

TDTrey.com

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The Zacuto Z-Finder EVF Pro

The Zacuto Z-Finder EVF Pro – in a word, AWESOME!!!

I finally broke down and bought one this year. (What was I waiting for?) I got it last week for an upcoming 5D2 job and got to use it on an unexpected car spot a few days later. Almost all out side – could have really been difficult. The EVF Pro made it very easy. I used the Zebras and the Action Safe makers all day.

The 16:9 Sun Mask is a must. (DON’T TAKE IT OUT) it is very easy to burn the LCD when shooting out doors – It will happen in just a few seconds. And, the burn ins are YELLOW!!! not black or grey like the old BETACAM days…

I was very pleased with the auto scaling for the 5D REC compensation and the HDMI loop through. I had to put one stage of extension in to get the diopter in range for my eyes. Easy to do. I added an eye cushion to the eye cup for the comfort (and the look factor =). I’m mounting it to my Easom cage with a cine arm right now but will be checking in to something better in the future. I put a Switronix DC cable on it from my Hawk-Woods VL-DC5X D-Tap battery brick distribution system so the whole rig can be powered off of one brick. In the end I think we are all still trying to make these DSLR rigs like our old shoulder camcorders with all the new features of the sensor size and sensitivity.

With all the goodies coming out this year I think it’s a good time to start streamlining your rig and this monitor is a great start. Definitely check it out at the next HD gear show you go to and watch the Zacuto video series on the the EVF – well worth the time.

Until next time, good shooting.

TDTrey.com

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Which Camera (cont’d) 2012

Well it’s 2012… Yeah!!!

And now we have a few more camera choices – woo hoo!!!

The Canon 5D Mark III is finally on the horizon with the Nikon D800 giving it a good run for the money. The flagship DSLRs are also coming out soon. Then onto the big boys, the Sony PMW-F3 now has S-Log built in and the RED Scarlet-X is more then we were really hoping for (or at least the proposed version =) The Canon C300 seemed to be the best of all worlds except for the price tag… As for me, I’m caught in a spiral of full frame DSLR or Super35 camcorder.

I currently have an EX3 and a 5D Mark II both of which get pretty regular work. The 5D2 has picked up a little more action this year which is great. I’m waiting to see what happens at NAB – it’s going to be crazy this year!!! The acceptance of 35mbs /sec has been hanging in there for a while but now with the Mark III at an estimated 90+ mb/sec it could set a new standard for most cameras. If I go on with the DSLR plan I’ll likely go to the 5D3 first and then the next offering (4K ?) after that. I do have to say the Nikon line up is looking pretty good. I was all Nikon for years and then moved to the Canon side of the street when the 5D came out. Clean – uncompressed 4:2:2 is a step in the right direction for sure… I’m waiting for a box with any mount and a clean out, place for a monitor and external recorder!!! This would be the best solution ever — just change out the body when a new one comes out. Maybe later this year??

At any rate the next 2 months will be really exciting!!!

Until next time, good shooting.

TDTrey.com

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Shooting with the RED is EPIC

So I got to spend 3 days with the new RED Epic-X last week. Really nice. Some quick notes:
  • I like the touch screen menu adjustments. Although, we got the side grip the day before the shoot and I must say that it lays out a lot like a Canon system when you start accessing the menus that way.
  • We are using mostly zooms on this shoot for moving fast. The RED 18-50, RED 50-150 and the Tokina 11-17 PL. We have the full set of RED primes with us but have decided to lean on the zooms. A lot of the work is being done from my Porta-Jib Explorer camera support system. We are using both the JIB and the slider configurations so the zooms are coming in handy.
  • Playback is still forthcoming so we are treating this like a film shoot. If the client wants to review a shot they go over to the DIT station and look at it there. (usually after the card has gone in for offloading). It will be great when it is put in a future build.
  • The media management seems pretty straight forward. Very much like an EX workflow. We are getting the MacBook Pros to play back at 1/8 resolution in REDCINE-X with out much problem. No real color adjustments are being made on the set – We just check to see when there is a problem that we will be able to remove it in post.
What a great camera package for digital cinema. I’m looking forward to the next time I get to shoot with this camera.

Until next time, good shooting.

TDTrey.com

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Exit the ScarLETUS – Enter the Scarlet-X !!!

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was at the Technology Expo in Burbank today, visiting the Canon booth, waiting to hear the good news about their new $6K HD camera like everyone else. They had no news. The Paramount team hadn’t called yet. At 3:30pm I started getting phone calls about the Canon presentation at Paramount: The camera is cool, great form factor, very sharp…. then the price came out — $20,000 freakin’ dollars!!!

Hop over to RED. The stage is set. Every one is hoping for a Hail Mary and RED delivers!!! A gigantic round for their bazooka. Dead hit! 4K Super 35 for under $10K Yippee Cy Ya M… F….

Sorry. I’ll reel in the enthusiasm a little. I’ve just been waiting for this camera for soooooo long. I got a fast track lesson on the EPIC yesterday. I’ll be shooting with it next week. I was very impressed. I had relegated myself to the idea that the Scarlet could possibly fill a gap for me until the EPIC-S/Scarlet S35 eventually came on the scene. As in my ScarLETUS blog I was even planning a way to make the fixed 8x lens concept work for the mean time with my 35mm LETUS adapter. Well I don’t have to worry about that anymore =)

I’ll just say that my EX3, 5D and F3 were filling in the gaps and if I were to buy another camera it would need to really stand out. EPIC not withstanding, (out of my price range) the EPIC-S was going to be the only contender for that position but had reportedly gotten pushed to the back of the line – SOOOOO glad that RED brought it out as the Scarlet-X.

Great job RED!!! Now I can look forward to the Digital Future with hope =)

Until next time, good shooting. (Go RED!!!)

TDTrey.com

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Zeiss ZF.2 lenses with the DuClos Cine-Mod on the F3

Well we had the chance to spend some quality time a Duclos Lenses last week and try out the new Zeiss ZF.2 lenses with our F3. These lenses all had the Dulcos Cine-Mod: aperture de-clicked, solid focus gear added and an 80mm front ring put on. These were fantastic.

Matthew Duclos took us through the 5 lens kit they are now offering – what a cool deal. They also have these available for rental as kits configured with 5 or 9 lenses. The typical group consists of a 21mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm (macro) and an 85mm. You can also get an 18mm, 25mm or the 100mm (macro).

Zeiss makes a great lens and the Cine-Mod just adds to the experience. A very robust a solid feel with the added features of the focus ring and the common 80mm front. The rotation of the barrel is 270 degrees to 360 degrees in some cases – very nice. To that, very little breathing.

The images from these lenses are very sharp and clear. I did not see any contrast ratios that were out of range or false sharpness. CRI seemed right in there with our Sony PL primes. We did a comparison between the 50mm PL prime and the 50mm ƒ2.0 Zeiss and focal length was identical (within an inch at 10 feet side to side) and the Zeiss was a little faster. (I’ll post some frame grabs soon)

Over all I think these lenses are a great addition to any camera package and deserve a closer look.

Until next time, good shooting

TDTrey.com

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Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5 for the Mac

Well it’s a whole new world… FCP is, well, X’d… Like many others I’ve been clinging to my FCP 7 but with the announcement of Apple shutting down any future support or development for Color and many of the short comings of FCP X I am looking to other NLE possabilities.

After looking into many options I decided I wanted to find a “bundled” package similar to Final Cut Studio – Enter Adobe’s Production Premium Bundle: Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and the list goes on and on. I had been waffling because I didn’t want to spend the $1500 full street price and just then Adobe dropped the crossover price to $850 – Yeah!!! So I downloaded the 30 day free trial. (If you do this, make the time to give it a real good try. I was put off the first afternoon because I didn’t give it enough time to set in to my way of thinking.) I can officially say that after 3 weeks of testing and learning I have made leap and bought the bundle.

The cool things for me are round tripping with After Effects, Photoshop and Audition. Also the importability with many different CODECs and formats. I just dropped a bunch of footage from my EX3 in after choosing the right sequence settings and there it was in realtime – pretty nice.

I’m using mine on an older MacPro (2006) tower 2.66 Quad Core with a Black Magic Design Intensity Pro video output card. I just upgraded the driver to 8.2.1 and it seems to work fine. I’m going to upgrade the CPU soon and add an NVIDIA FX4800 GPU card to activate the Mercury Engine features of the package. I hope to have more info on that soon. For the mean time I am putting it up against my FCP 7 package and working through the similarities and differences. So far so good.

Until next time, good shooting or editing

TDTrey.com

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Porta-Jib Explorer

I have been following the Porta-Jib product lines for a few years now and am constantly impressed with each new creative tool they come up with. Most of my work revolves around talking head and product shoots. And usually are steeped in a long shot list with a short time frame. Creativity is generally the first casualty of the shooting day. With the Explorer system, I’m finding I can “buy back” some creativity / inspiration without much cost to the day.

I recently used the Explorer on a car review for Kelly Blue Book and was extremely pleased. The director said “Sure. Bring it along. But I don’t want to be slowed down or have to sacrifice shots while you are fiddling with adjustments.” I’m happy to report we finished 15 minutes early and had at least 5 extra shots in the can. He loved it!!! We never came off the system. We did both JIB shots and then worked the heck out of the TROLLEY / SLIDER config.

I’ve used the system with everything from a SONY Z7 to a SONY F3. (And that includes my 5Dmk2 and EX3). The Explorer system seems right at home in any environment. I see this system as a fantastically versatile opportunity to recapture some of the excitement and creativity we all enjoyed when we were first starting out.

Thanks Mark and Scott. Great Job!!!

Check out my video review – Trey’s Gear Review: Porta-Jib Explorer

Until next time, good shooting =)

TDTrey.com

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IR filters for the Sony EX cameras

Defining the problem
If you have used the Sony EX1 or EX3 in a setting with black or gray fabrics you may have seen a magenta shift in the picture. One little catch with the new Exmore sensors is they have a big sensitivity toward the Infra Red (IR) spectrum. We did a bit of testing here and found a good workaround with some screw-on IR filters.

As you can see in the pictures the uncorrected shirts have pretty a good magenta shift. The set is lit with one Diva 400 at 3200k. We found in interview settings under either 3200k or 5600k the shift still happens. We talked to a few filter manufacturers and narrowed it down to Tiffen and Schneider. Both had nice offerings for IR filters. Tiffen has their series call Hot Mirrors and Schneider suggests the 77E IR cut (486). We found that the 77E (486) worked the best on both our EX1’s and then the EX3’s. So far we have not noticed a need for the IR filters on our Sony F3. Yay =) Originally the 486 was sold as the best filter for the RED and the Hot Mirrors were the best for the EX cameras but as we tested the opposite was true and that’s why we went with the 77E (486) for our cameras.

Care and Handeling
At first we were putting the filters on when we saw the problem and then removing them after the shoot as they are almost $300 each… After a while we realized the potential to damage the filter when adding or removing it was greater than just replacing our UV filters with the IR filters permanently.

Playing well with others
The filters seem to work well in conjunction with other filters and 4x4s in line. We have had no problems using the IR filters and screwing our Polarizers on in front of the IR.

Best of luck with your filters and lens kits.

Until next time, good shooting.

TDTrey.com