Tascam DR-60

Cannot wait for the new Tascam DR-60 audio recorder to come out. This new unit has been specifically designed for use with DSLR cameras.

Check out this link for further information:

http://www.gadgetsboy.co.uk/tascam-dr-60d-portable-recorder-the-ideal-audio-recorder-dedicated-for-use-with-dslr-cameras/

The unit goes on sale in the UK next month (May 2013) for a suggested price of £319.

It looks great with a lot of features for the money, including 4 track recording (in two stereo pairs), built in safety track, camera IN and camera OUT. LOVE IT :)

Canon C100

Could the new Canon C100 be the way forward?

An interesting article here:

http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2012/08/29/canon-c100-leads-to-murky-future-for-mid-to-upper-range-video-hdslrs/

The Lens Doctor

Just discovered "The Lens Doctor" who can modify older film camera lenses to suit the newer EF mount. What I especially like is the "de-clicking" modification he can perform whereby the aperture blades can be smoothly opened and closed. This is great for filming when one wishes to change the exposure slightly instead of stopping up and down in a stepped motion.

This video demonstrates this here:

http://vimeo.com/18217032

Show Racism the Red Card

Delighted - a short video I shot and produced for a local primary school in Nottingham for their entry in the "Show Racism the Red Card" event, won the local heat at a judging event at County Hall, Nottingham on 17th October 2012. The whole short was shot on a Canon 550D DSLR, 24 to 105 f/4 IS L lens, Tokina 11 to 16 f/2.8 lens and Jag35 follow focus. Sound was handled separately using a Zoom H4N and Rode NTG3 with full Rode "blimp". The most pleasing aspect was that I had just 2 hours to shoot the 3 minute short (and the weather wasn't kind either). Editing was via Final Cut Pro, ProTools, Pluraleyes and Magic Bullet Looks for final grading.

I am informed that the short has now been entered in the national competition to take place at Wembley.

Vari-ND

My cheap 77mm vari-ND filter arrived today, so when there is some sunlight, a test video will be created. This filter will enable one to use a wide aperture, 1/50s shutter in sunlight to give both the correct exposure and shallow DoF.

Two new videos

I have just made another two basic videos to showcase the difference in both depth of field and field of view between the Canon 550D and Canon 5Dmkii. With the 5Dmkii being a full frame sensor one must compensate between the two cameras by either adjusting the focal lengths of the lens differently, or by positioning the 550D further back from the subject.

The first test was to place the two camera bodies as close to each other as possible and the same distance away from the "30cm" marking on a tape measure. Focal length was then adjusted to approx. 70mm on the 5Dmkii and 43mm (approx.) on the 550D, thus providing the same field of view. Secondly, the same focal length was set on both cameras to show the difference in field of view / depth of field for both camera bodies.

The second test was using to try and demonstrate the difference in camera position required to give the same field of view for the same focal length setting. The 5Dmkii was positioned approx. 75cm from the subject (in this case a plant!) and the 550D was positioned approx. 120cm from the same subject (i.e. to take into account the x1.6 crop factor).

In each case the ISO values were set identically on both cameras, the same 24 to 105 f/4 L lens was used (set to f/4) and the shutter on both was set to 1/50s.

Videos are available on the usual www.vimeo.com/digitalvideoslr pages.....

Sensor size and DoF

Have just been considering the effect of sensor size and the depth of field achievable for the same focal length and the same aperture. I have just been using an on-line depth of field calculator (www.dofmaster.com), which interestingly stated that for the same distance to subject, using the same focal length and aperture, the depth of field will be shorter on the cropped sensor camera compared to the full frame. However, one has to remember that on the cropped sensor camera, the effective field of view will be greater (x1.6 crop for example) resulting in a shorter DoF since the magnification will be greater. If however, the distance to subject is increased for the cropped sensor to provide the same effective field of view for both cameras (and to compensate for the magnification due to the cropped sensor). then the DoF will be shorter for the full frame sensor.

Example: (using the DoF master software)

Full frame 5DMKII with 50mm f/2.8 lens with a distance to subject of 10 feet:

Depth of field: 2.06 feet

APS-C 7D with 50mm f/2.8 lens with a distance to subject of 10 feet:

Depth of field: 1.29 feet

However, one must remember that the 50mm lens on the APS-C camera will behave more like an 80mm lens (50mm x 1.6), meaning the field of view will be "closer" and the DoF will be shorter (as DoF is also a product of focal length too). Therefore, if we "move" the APS-C camera further away from the subject to say 16 feet, then the field of view for both cameras, with the 50mm lens should be the same and hence the DoF on the APS-C camera should be deeper than the for the full frame.

A test video needs to be created for this.... watch this space!

Also, to provide approximately the same DoF for both sensors, as well as as moving the cropped sensor further away from the subject to provide the same field of view, one can decrease the aperture of the lens on the full frame sensor too.

Vari-ND

I can feel another video coming on. I have just purchased a 77mm Vari-ND filter which will be useful for well lit situations where the shutter needs to be kept at 1/50s (PAL) and the aperture of the lens needs to be wide open too. It's only a cheap filter, but I am hoping that for demonstration purposes, it will be reasonable enough.

Video will be posted on this Blog and via Vimeo as usual, hopefully within a few days.....

Canon 6D

17th September saw the announcement by Canon of the new 6D FULL FRAME DSLR camera! The specs look good and one wonders now whether to purchase one of these instead of the new Canon 5D MKIII or the MKII!

 

"ISO 25"

Another cracking new feature which I have just discovered in Magic Lantern is the ability to lower the ISO beyond the standard minimum setting of ISO100. It is now possible to reduce the ISO to ISO25, meaning a two stop reduction in sensor sensitivity. Why would you want to do this I hear you ask? Well, there are two reasons I can think of immediately:

1. Shooting outdoors in bright daylight. Unless one has a neutral density filter on the front of the lens, the only way to maintain a short depth of field (wide lens aperture), but avoid over exposure, is to decrease the shutter speed lower than the standard 180 degree shutter of 1/2n, where n = the frame rate. The main issue with doing this however, is that any movement in the shots can become very "staccato". This is often used in fight / action sequences for creative effect, but it is often not desired for normal shooting. Therefore, if one can reduce the ISO to ISO25, the aperture can be opened up two stops, which will help maintain the short depth of field which DSLR video so easily enables. Let's take an example where say the camera is set to ISO 100 and a shutter speed of 1/50s (i.e. standard 25fps shooting). To avoid over exposure, the aperture of the lens needs to be reduced from f/2.8 to f5.6 (two stops reduction). However, in doing this, the depth of field is increased beyond what is required. If the ISO is now changed to ISO25, the exposure will reduce by TWO stops meaning that the aperture on the lens can now be returned to f/2.8, giving the desired short depth of field. Therefore, this new feature acts in a similar way to using a two-stop ND filter.

2. Shooting timelapse sequences using the FRAME RATE OVERRIDE function. If shooting with say a frame rate of 2fps, the shutter speed is also greatly increased, meaning lots of light, meaning potential over exposure, even with the smallest of lens apertures (f/22 for example). However, with the ISO reduced to ISO25, again, one can open up the iris of the lens somewhat higher than its minimum setting.

The DOWNSIDE to this feature, is that some of the over exposed regions can become pink, but this can be corrected in post. 

A VERY nice feature!

Intervalometer in MOVIE mode / Frame Rate Override

Another test which I plan to carry out this week is Magic Lantern's intervalometer in MOVIE mode. As previously discussed and demonstrated, Magic Lantern has a built-in intervalometer which can be used to automatically press the shutter at set intervals. The resulting still images are then convered into an image sequence using some software such as Quicktime Player 7.

The frame rate override function within Magic Lantern has also been investigated as well which is where the frame rate, in MOVIE mode is lowered to say 2fps, which allows timelapse sequence to be created directly as a movie (this also helps to avoid some of the artefacts caused when using a series of still images too).

What interests me now is using the intervalometer directly within MOVIE mode, which instead of taking a single image every few seconds (for example), will take a 1s movie clip at a user defineable interval. These short 1s movie clips can then be joined together to create a timelapse sequence.

Watch this space for the results......

EDIT: a couple of tests have recently been carried out and the results are as follows:

1. When using the intervalometer in MOVIE mode, the results are decent, however, as the camera is taking a 1s movie clip at regular intervals, the outcome can be quite "jerky". A test was carried out where a 1s clip was taken every 60s for around 2 hours and the results were good, however, when speeding the clip up by 2000%, a much smoother clip was produced.

2. When using the FRAME RATE OVERRIDE function, set to 0.5fps, the results were very good indeed as this basically produced a sequence with the same effect as using a series of still images with a shutter frequency of once every 2 seconds. I did however find that increasing the playback speed by 500% yielded an even better and smoother result. Therefore, if this is the case, it would probably be better to use around a frame rate of 2fps rather than the 0.5fps I tested.

A video of the video discussed in (2), can be found here:

https://vimeo.com/47586109

The main issue with both of these functions is that the Canon 550D can overheat fairly quickly (after around 15 minutes!) but turning off the LCD display on the camera can apparently help increase overheating times quite substantially - again, watch this space!

Magic Lantern New Version - TODAY

Today sees the latest release of Magic Lantern become available, for all users, for free.

There appears to be some cracking new features available in this latest upgrade, including the abaility to shoot video at a frame rate as low as 0.2fps (equivalent to timelapse shooting of 1 frame every 5 seconds). This is a feature I will definitely be investigating.

Latest version can be downloaded here:

http://www.magiclantern.fm/releasenotes

Timelapse vs. Frame Rate Override

A couple of short timelapse demonstration sequences, one shot using MOVIE mode and the "frame rate override" function to reduce the frame rate to just 1fps. The other shot using a series of still images (lowest JPEG setting), taken every 1 second, strung together in Quicktime Player 7. Both of them were shot over a 15 minute period. (The problem when using such low frame rates is that the camera wants to overheat quite quickly!).

The latest version of Magic Lantern, which was only installed today, enables frame rates much slower than the previous version, which on the 550D, only allowed adjustment as low as 4fps.

The main issue when shooting at such a slow frame rate in MOVIE mode, is that the image can easily be overexposed. With not a great deal of light available, the aperture on the lens had to be closed down to its minimum setting (f/22) to prevent over exposure. Therefore, an ND4 filter was attached to the lens which enabled the aperture to be widened slightly to f/11.

For the timelapse shot with a series of still images, the ND filter was removed to allow the same aperture of f/11 with a shutter of 1/40s. The "LENS TWIST" method was also employed (see previous post), to ensure that the aperture blades were held in the same position for each shot.

On the plus side, using such a slow frame rate would allow fantastic low-light shooting, especially with a fast lens such as the Canon 50mm f/1.8II currently being used for these tests.

Results:

Frame rate override using ISO: 100, 1fps, f/11.


Timelapse using ISO:800, shutter frequency: 1s, f/11.

Higher quality version at Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/46747324

Aperture flicker and other artefacts

Found that when using the 24 to 105 f/4L IS lens, there seems to be quite a lot a movement between the stills in a timelapse sequence and also, there is quite a lot of "aperture" flicker between shots too. Aperture flicker occurs because the aperture blades of a lens return each time a shot is taken and apparently, the camera cannot precisely close the blades by exactly the same amount each time the shutter is released.

Firstly, another lens - the Tokina 11 to 16 f/2.8 was tried and this produced zero movement between shots (which is interesting in itself) and also, the "twist" method to keep the aperture blades on the camera constant was used on the 24 to 105 as well, which is a neat trick:

Aperture fix via "twist" method demonstrated here: https://vimeo.com/30974031

A couple of very shorts tests were carried out with the camera set to take a shot every 2 seconds over a period of approx. 1 minute. The clips below are therefore extremely short, however, they hopefully aid this discussion. 

1. Using the Canon 24 to 105 f/4L IS lens, the lens was stopped down to f/8 to close the blades down a little and using the trick mentioned in the video above, the blades were forced to stay in this position. Interestingly, flicker was noticeably reduced, however there was still some slight movement between some of the shots as this very short clip demonstrates.

It might not be noticeable in the video above, but there is some slight movement between some of the shots. There definitely therefore appears to be an issue with lens when used for timelapse sequences.

2. Using the Canon 50mm f/1.8II lens with its aperture blades forced down to f/8, the same short sequence was shot and again, the results were much better, with no noticeable movements between successive shots:

The power of Vimeo as an e-Learning tool

I've had my Vimeo pages and Vimeo channel for around 2 years now and in that time posted quite a few demonstration /instructional type videos covering AV and in that time received quite a few international comments. Only yesterday, after someone from Norway had viewed an instructional video I had made on "safety recording", did he get in touch requiring some help and guidance; something I was very happy to provide.


There are many user groups within Vimeo and when certain videos are added to these specialist groups, interest in what one is doing starts to increase; the videos on my pages received 50 plays yesterday alone for example.

Bulb ramping / Frame rate override

Just realised that after discussing Magic Lantern's Intervalometer, it has a built-in "bulb ramping" option whereby, after a period of calibration, the software can automatically adjust each shot to maintain the same exposure. This would be particularly useful in shooting a day to night sequence for example where the lighting is changing constantly, but one wants the exposure to remain constant to avoid "flickering" during the final output sequence.

Something else to try!

Another alternative method to taking a series of still images, is to make use of Magic Lantern's Frame Rate Override function and use video mode instead. Usually, the DSLR will only go down as far as 24fp, but with the override enabled, the frame rate can go as low as 4fps. I have just briefly investigated this and the results seem good although, if shooting in daylight with such a slow shutter (in this case 1/4s, 360 degree shutter), one has to close down the aperture of the lens a great deal to prevent over exposure.

More to try again!

DSLR Moire FCP Filter

One of the drawbacks of using DSLR cameras for video work is their inherent moire problems when shooting certain types of image.

I have just stumbled across this "moire" removal plugin for Final Cut Pro, and must give it a try at some point:

http://colorbyjorg.wordpress.com/plugins/

Magic Lantern

For anyone wishing to shoot video with their Canon DSLR, they should seriously think about installing Magic Lantern. I have had Magic Lantern running on my own 550D for about 18 months now and whilst it can be a little on the "flaky" side on occasion, it really does open up a raft of extra features including manual audio gain control (an absolute must!) and an excellent intervalometer for timelapse.

It also now seems that Magic Lantern has a new website and yet another new version out:

http://www.magiclantern.fm/

Sorry, just checked - the new version is only currently available (31st July 2012) for PayPal contributors. However, it will be free to all from Monday 13th August 2012.

Ultra HD Timelapse

Usually, the lowest JPEG setting on a DSLR is more than adequate to turn the series of images into a full HD timelapse sequence. The lowest quality JPEG setting on the Canon 550 happens to be 2592 x 1728 pixels, which is obviously more than enough for 1920 x 1080 video. However, I plan to take this much further and string together a timelapse sequence made from the highest setting of 5184 x 3456 pixels, which will then be cropped down to a 4k image, which Final Cut Pro will support. The Canon 550D also as a "Normal" and "Fine" mode for its image quality settings, so to help keep the filesize down a little, the plan will be to probably just opt for the "Normal" setting!

Not only does using 18M pixel images enable the creation of ultra-HD sequences, but one can effectively pan and zoom within the large image and still create a full 1080p sequence too, without any loss in quality.

Results of both of these experiments will be posted shortly.....

Ice melting timelapse

Still playing with timelapse techniques for next year. Using the Magic Lantern software "hack", the in-built intervalometer was set to take a shot every 2 seconds. Mode on camera: AV, manual focus. Canon 550D with Canon 24 to 105 f/4L IS lens.

Update: 2500 still images (approx), taken into Quicktimer Player 7 and exported to Pro Res 422 LT, preserving a 1920 x 1080 aspect ratio using a crop.

Video available at: https://vimeo.com/46635877