Newly Refined Rig for TV Commercials

Since the earlier post detailing the HDSLR rig we were using for the ABC Family commercials, my team has done several more tv commercials and have extensively refined the kit. The last setup was highly functional but a bit of a Frankenstein monster.

The new rig is more compact, cleaner and more functional, especially from the standpoint of pulling focus — which is kind of a big deal. You can see the new rig in the slideshow below. The major changes outlined underneath.

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HDSLR Rig for “ABC Family” TV Commercials

In the past year, TV commercials and short branded films have taken over the commercial side of my business (after years of advertising photography, aside from the book and exhibition work) — which is great, I love creating motion content.

I work with whichever camera is most appropriate for the job, ranging from Red MX cameras to vintage low tech options such as Super 8 film. As is often discussed here, sometimes an HDSLR is the right combination of look, economics, weight, light sensitivity, and workflow. This has been the case on a series of commercials I’ve been shooting for ABC Family.

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Aftermath of the Haiti Earthquake

National Geographic photographer Alison Wright captures the destruction and relief efforts in Haiti on the Canon 5D.

Lens adapters for Micro Four Thirds and Canon HDSLRs

If you are looking for a lens adapter to shoot Leica M on a Panasonic GH-1, a Nikon lens on a Canon Camera, or any lens/camera combination you can come up with, Fotodiox seems like the place to go since they have pages and pages of adapters for medium format and 35mm lenses.. I first saw them mentioned in the comments section on Shane Hurlbut’s blog post called Still Lenses That Can Grace The Big Screen.
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Canon EOS Movie Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro is Out

The Canon EOS MOVIE Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro is now available and you can download it directly from the Canon website – not from the Apple Final Cut download page as stated in the earlier Canon press release covered by PCN.

Once you are on the Canon 5D Mark II page, click the Drivers & Downloads tab and then use the “Select OS” pulldown to choose Mac OSX. The plugin should now be at the top of the “Software” list. If you want to download the user guide scroll down to “Guides and Manuals” and grab the PDF or click here.
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Canon EOS 5D Mark II Firmware Update – “We’re Sorry”

Canon Issues Fix for Audio Problems in 5D Mk II Firmware

Version 2.0.4 available for immediate download.. Never ceases to amaze me that companies release this stuff into the wild and then f&*^* it up like this…

We apologize sincerely for the inconvenience caused to our customers by suspending the availability of the Version 2.0.3 firmware.

We are now introducing the Version 2.0.4 firmware. This firmware corrects the malfunction that occurred in the previous Version 2.0.3 firmware, in which the manual recording level changed and made recording impossible.

Customers who have the Version 2.0.3 firmware on their cameras should update the firmware to Version 2.0.4.

[From Canon EOS 5D Mark II Firmware Update]