Stabilizer Innovations

So a company that works in aerial cinematography with professional camera helicopters and what not decided to make a stabilizer. It's godly. Hence the $15,000 price tag (There will be a cheaper version that's half the price). It's a complete redesign of the popular steadicam design that adds some new features to the stabilizer business. Basically, your camera is not going to move. At all. It's perfection. It's being advertised by Vincent Laforet, a popular filmmaker. (Note: we also watched one of his short films in class. He dropped an 'L' series lens in it. It was a horiffic sight.)

One thing that people seem to worry about is that I believe it requires two operators: one to move the camera remotely with a computer or some device, and one to actually move with the camera.
Either way, it's the first of its kind and nothing but good can ensue. So I look forward to when this is affordable to people, who, you know, don't have $15,000 sitting around (aka me.)





And the Behind the Scenes. Watch it, too. Let's you see how easily it's operated.

Bad Boredom Ideas

I was relatively bored after returning home after school today, so I decided to take apart a lens. I'd been wanting to for a while now, but never got around to it. The aperture was stuck wide open and the aperture ring wouldn't change it. It was an old Auto MC 28mm f/2.8 for Canon SLRs that I mounted onto my newer DSLR with an adapter. However, because the adapter had additional corretive glass in it, the quality of the lens was degraded. With that problem and a broken aperture and the cheap price, I didn't really mind taking it apart. I had no clue what I was doing whatsoever. I took apart a broken Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 previously because it was a common problem and partially, temporarily fixed it before it broke about half an hour later and the glass elements just came out of the front...but that fix was completely based off a tutorial printed off the internet. And that lens is relatively simple and cheaply made, as seen through the low price tag. Old lenses were all metal, which I really like, and apparently, have a lot of parts. Also, mad props to lens creators back then, the focus rings are smoother than butter, and to be honest, smoother than most 'L' series lenses I've felt. Even the cheap old lenses felt better. They're just built so well.

So here are some pictures from the process. Didn't feel like doing editing because it would be really light editing either way.

CAP Hollywood Preparations

So. CAP Hollywood is coming up. And I'm pretty excited. I like videos. and I've been done with this documentary project a while. Oh, and about that. My group got an honorable mention. Yeah, that's cool. Proud of that. I think I'll try next year, but who knows? So for CAP Hollywood, I'm definitely going to put in work. For once. I loaf...too much. I really should try more. I could probably do okay in school. In preparation, I bought a new lens and a mic. I previously had no audio equipment/experience. It'll be something new. Maybe I can learn a bit in terms of audio effects for a certain character in our short story. I've never explored the depths of Adobe Audition.

The lens I got was an old Russian M42 screw mount for, I believe, Pentax cameras. I've been in the need for a 50 prime for a while, but didn't want to get the popular "nifty fifty" Canon 50mm f/1.8 because my sister already has it. No need to get the exact same lens. And I like to do my research, and eventually concluded to get the Super Takumar 50mm f/1.4. Quite a nice lens I must admit. Nike bokeh and what not. Not going to get into specifics. One interesting thing about this lens is that some of the glass elements contain Thorium-232. Now, Thorium is special, because it's radioactive. Boom. Whoa. After a bit of research, I found out it's ever so slightly radioactive, though. Had my family concerned for a moment there. Apparently, you would need to be exposed to it for 100,000 hours a year for it to reach the minimum dose linked to increased risk for cancer. There are a bit under 9,000 hours in a year. So, we're fine. The half-life is 14 billion years...So Thorium over time decays, and tints the glass a bit yellow. This can be fixed by exposure to sunlight or UV light. That's all the details I'll give. But it's a fantastic lens. Mic hasn't arrived yet. So until then, here are pics from the lens.

 

Extracting Quality Stills from Video

So, recently enough, Canon released the newest 1D camera, their most professional grade camera line. It's the Canon EOS 1D-C. Now, this is something new, because the C stands for Cinema. It's the first DSLR to be able to shoot 4k video, which is 4 times the size/quality of 1080p.This camera is basically a replica of the Canon 1D-X, except its video capabilities. Something itneresting about it being able to take 4k video is that you can actually extract frames from the video to use as pictures. This wasnt possible previously because the quality of video was less than half the quality of a "medium" size picture file. The details in the picture would be much less, and colors more easily blown out. Now, with this camera, one frame is about the same size as an 8 MP shot on my much cheaper T2i. Yet, at the same time, you get video, and the ability to choose from 24 frames each second for the one perfect shot, compared to the about 3.7 on my cheaper DSLR. However, there is a slight downside to this 4k video on the 1D-C: it's compressed, not RAW. Many photographers shoot in RAW uncompressed files so that they can be more easily manipulated in post, however, video is almost always always compressed, as is the case with the 1D-C. I mean, it'll still look incredible and be quite usable, but it's still not quite there. Currently, to get RAW 4k footage, you'd need an actual cinema camera that would likely cost upwards of $20,000 such as the RED Epic (about $35,000 to get up and running) or Sony Cinealta F65 (More than that).

Check out a investigation done by cinematographers (including the famous Phillip Bloom) here:




If you're interested in buying it, look here, and then give up.

New Equipment - Glidecam Stabilizer

So, today I bought a Glidecam 2000 Pro. This is one of their previous models that was replaced with the slightly different Glidecam HD2000. I've been wanting one for a while. Steady footage is just too perfect. I'll be putting up a test in two weeks or so when it's arrived and I have it moderately balanced. Some people complain about the difficulty of balancing them. But I think it's definitely worth it.

Glidecams...well, make your camera glide. With practice, a user can full on run with the camera looking absolutely steady. It makes the camera look like it's floating, flying, etc. They stabilize your camera's footage by counter balancing it. They have a 3-way gimbal that you hold that reduces the shake from the holder's hand and arm. The main pole can be extended to also help counter balance the camera. And on the bottom are weight plates to create the balanced weight.

Some Glidecam 2000 Pro videos:

(This one also happens to use half the equipment I want...Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, Samyang 8mm f/3.5, and Canon 50mm f/1.4)