HDSLR Niche Market – Catvertising

The following video is great news for the millions of Canon 5DMKII users who constantly post videos of their cats on Vimeo and Youtube. It’s also justification (finally) for camera reviewers who are so lazy that they don’t bother walking outside to test shoot the camera who feature cats prominently in their reviews.

This trend is being watched carefully by advertisers and HDSLR photographers should take note of statistics like this:

By 2015, cat videos are going to represent 90% of the content on the world wide web – Catvertising

Check out this informative (and totally real) docudrama for more background on this growing trend. … Continue Reading

Audiophile Gear for Photographers

Photographers are often fetishists when it comes to gear and gadgets. I know I am. I think it stems from the fact that we rely on machinery as part of our creative process and we have to be familiar with the inner workings of these machines for our lively hood, especially now that our cameras are delicate electronic instruments. I think the following soldiers chant from Full Metal Jacket sums up our relationship with our gear nicely:

This is my rifle camera. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle camera is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle camera is useless. Without my rifle camera I am useless. I must fire my rifle camera true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy competition…

As a result of this symbiotic relationship with gear, our brains have become hard wired with an affinity and understanding of mechanical gear and electronic gadgets. The fact that photographers are primarily Mac users supports my fetishists theory. We like high style with great design that inspires us which includes iDevices loaded with shoot playlists and recreational soundtracks. … Continue Reading

Canon C300 Wireless iPad Control with WFT-E6A

I didn’t get any photos of it because I didn’t see it in action in the exhibition hall but there was a quick look at wireless control of the Canon C300 on an iPad. According to the brochure I picked up this is accomplished with the WFT-E6A Wireless Transmitter.

The EOS C300 and C300 PL come preconfigured so that camera settings can be viewed and securely controlled on third-party devices with common web browsers….With the WFT-E6A module, the camera can be controlled from up to 150 feet away over an 80211b/g/n/z wireless network. The WFT-E6A lets you start and stop recording and also adjust focus, white balance, gain and other parameters as well as adjust the aperture of Canon EF lenses.

This is going to be a handy tool for filmmakers.

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Canon EOS C300 (live updates from event)

It’s official, Canon just announced the new EOS C300. It’s the hybrid camera I thought it would be. The initial presentation is over and we should get specs soon. I’ve just posted pictures and updated details below.

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And Now For Something Completely Different

Just in time for Christmas 1974 2011, the wacky low-fi analog film lovers over at Lomography have come up with another nostalgic treat for the serious toy camera market – the LomoKino, a hand cranked 35mm movie camera.

Bringing analogue back to the movies with a bang in the 21st century, the LomoKino is a Lomography movie camera that shoots short, creative movies on 35mm film – LomoKino

The camera uses 35mm rolls of still photography film which will yield 144 frames shot at 1/100th of a second. There are aperture settings between f/5.6 to f/11 and you control the film advance with a manual crank. There’s also a hot shoe that can be used with Lomography flashes such as Fritz the Blitz and other strobes.

I can see where shooting a series of rough hand cranked stills using a strobe could open up some creative photo opportunities and I’m sure there are a ton of people out there who would spend $80 to give this little camera a try. There’s even a screening room on the LomoKino site with sample movies. After watching a couple of these I realized that we’ll be seeing a lot of LomoKino footage in opening credit sequences of movies and HBO shows. It’s absolutely the perfect vehicle for establishing a quick nostalgic burst of imagery to grab the viewers attention.

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HDSLR State of the Union

A lot has happened in this space that’s been dominated by HDSLR cameras since we started writing and teaching about the subject in mid 2009. I was hooked on DSLR video from the day I first shot it and proceeded to teach myself this new technology while sharing this information with other photographers making the leap. Lou’s article for Digital Photo Pro was how we found each other. His article clearly spelled out the milestones that I also saw developing in the photo and filmmaking communities so we started a collaboration that took the germs of what Tom and I started with Collision Conference and grew it into PhotoCine News, PhotoCine Expo and more recently the book – PhotoCine: Digital Filmmaking with DSLRs.

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