Some people seem to have a lot of time on their hands to invent and create new ways of doing follow focus with VDSLR cameras. This guy (who doesn’t identify himself on his web pagesbut I’m inferring that he is Scott Lerman from his URL and the name of one of his products) has created two unique and decidedly low-tech ways to get follow focus with his 5D.
Quick note (thanks to a tweet from Rodney) about a new piece of software that is sure to set the VDSLR world on fire. A fantastic color correction suite that used to cost $200,000 is now available to run on your Mac for (a mere) thousand bucks. Check, out the full review at MacVideo (link below)
Blackmagic roll out DaVinci for $995
World-class colour correction software now affordable to the massesRick Young
DaVinci for $995 – FCPUG NAB SuperMeet, April 13, 2010Blackmagic Design has announced a revolution in high end color correction with new DaVinci Resolve 7.0 that includes support for the Mac OS X platform, upgraded user interface, improved video field support, a new EDL library, improved shared database support, as well as new pricing for all models starting from a very affordable $995.
[From MacVideo - Editing - Features - Blackmagic roll out DaVinci for $995]
I’ve just stumbled upon this site that seems to answer all of a photographer’s questions about how to optimize their Mac computer to work most effectively with photo-centered applications. The Mac Performance Guide is really up to date too – I found it after noticing a mention of optimizing your mac for Photoshop CS5! You can even buy pre-configured systems from them that are pre-optimized for you.
Now, if only he would do this for Final Cut we’d be off to the races 
I’ve been saying that it was coming – really, how could it not be coming?! but I was surprised to see Panasonic as the first company with a VIDEO camera that has all the advantages of a VDLSR (for shooting video anyway) but in a better form-factor and with a lot of extra features that are likely going to make the VDSLR format irrelevant for motion shooting.
No, it won’t shoot stills in the middle of a motion shoot but people don’t really seem to use their 5D’s that way anyway. With a sensor as big at the 7D it gets the “film look” that all the VDSLR shooters are excited about (though many still mistakenly think it has something to do with frame-rates…?) PLUS it shoots 16:9 natively, a wide range of interchangeable lenses, pro-audio inputs, direct AVCHD capture, timecodes, and 128 GB of storage (eventually) on dual SDXC cards. How long do you think that it will take them to provide a 24 FPS firmware update once the screams start from the cinema crowd? And, let’s face it, Panasonic knows a lot about pro-video!
P.S. I told you so...
Electonista has a full repot (see it an the articles full page)…
If Canon can get HD video out to CF cards at ProRes 4:2:2 for their video cameras can the same feature really be far behind for a VDSLR? I don’t see this as a firmware upgrade but I suspect that the 1DS or the 5D3 might do something similar. Now if Canon would just put the 7D sensor into their video cameras we could all go home!
Canon’s turn at NAB launches was headlined today by two pro-grade camcorders. The XF300 and XF305 both use Canon’s XF Codec to capture 50Mbps, 4:2:2 1080p video and store it directly on dual CompactFlash cards. The output gives it twice as much color resolution compared to regular HDV and should also be a widespread standard with Apple’s Final Cut Studio, Adobe Premiere, Avid and other editing suites.
[From Canon pro cams record 4:2:2 1080p to flash | Electronista]
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It’s been called a RED Killer by some and it certainly might upset the apple cart but what it really is is a film killer. I won’t go into all the specs here becuse, let’s face it, the guys at Gizmodo have actually held one in their hands while I can only dream… Have a look at their whole article and go to tech heaven (link at end of article).
The big “reveal” at the invitation only DGA event was that it uses the Sony SxS 32 GB memory cards for storage (yes, 2 of them) and that the “memory” module is replaceable as memory technology improves. Oh, and it shoots directly into Apple ProRes 4-4-4 so that the files drop immediately into an editing workflow. Cool!
