The Sony NEX-VG10—The End of DSLR Video?

Being hailed as the new sheriff in town with aspirations to kick HDSLRs out of the video market, the Sony NEX-VG10 with its interchangeable lenses and larger chip may just herald the end of professional applications of DSLR video. However, a closer examination seems to indicate it may still lack some of the key features so endearing to those of us who shoot with HDSLRs.  So before you go running to ebay or your local pawnshop with your HDSLR you might want to consider the NEX-VG10’s limitations. 

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Amazing Guy Walks Across America video

There’s been a great new “viral” video making rounds recently, Guy Walks Across America. It’s currently at over a half million views on You Tube and will likely continue to rise as it’s buzz grows. It’s kind of like a stop motion / time lapse and is quite an amazing accomplishment technically. There’s a behind the scenes video as well that offers a glimpse into how they achieved the effect. It’s embed after the jump.

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Sony’s 1st response to HDSLRs, its segregated progressive policy, & implications for users

As first covered here in ProVideo Coalition by Matt Jeppsen, Sony has just announced the NEX-VG10 as a first response to HDSLRs which have been used for HD video productions for quite a while already, despite their well known limitations. Fortunately, the NEX-VG10 eliminates several of those HDSLR limitations, while establishing some of its own, with its initial segregated progressive policy. This article will establish the details of these limitations, their workarounds, and the way a professional “big sister” will likely make them unnecessary, although certainly at a higher price.

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HDSLR Revolution: Gale Tattersal Talks about “House”

“Help Me”, the season 6 finale of “House”, was shot with Canon 5D Mk II HDSLRs using off-the-shelf Canon still lenses. This past week, Director of Photography Gale Tattersal quashed a few rumors about how the show was shot, and commented on what he liked about using the Canons as cine cameras.

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Magic Bullet Grinder grinds your DSLR footage into a more editable format

Red Giant Software has just dropped a new tool into the family of Magic Bullet products and it might be of great interest to the DSLR shooter. Magic Bullet Grinder is a simple application tasked with transcoding your Canon 5D/7D/1D files out of their H.264 native state and into something a bit more usable. It also can create lower resolution offline versions of the same clips for editorial should you be in an offline to online position. While simple, Magic Bullet Grinder works quite well and has a few tricks up its sleeve.

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Stunning DSLR Timelapse of Shuttle Launch

Awesome timelapse of the weeks of NASA preparation before a shuttle launch, culminating with the launch sequence. Watch below.

DSLR Workflow Pt 2 - Keying, Time Remapping & Stills in Premiere Pro CS5

For this piece, we’ll take a look at using the new Ultra Keyer in Premiere Pro with some Canon 7D footage. What’s great about this is the fact that the green screen was unevenly lit, and with minimal effort, I’m able to pull a rather impressive key, literally in seconds.

Following that, I’ll show you the easiest way to time-remap footage (both speeding-up and slowing down) directly inside the timeline. One thing that I neglected to mention was that you can (of course) keyframe time changes (but you’ll see a little tool-tip pop-up during the video). Once keyframed, you can adjust the ramp of the speed/duration into the time change as well. Powerful stuff, and very easy to apply.

And lastly, I’ll showcase the ease of the new ‘Export Frame’ option,… more »

Monitor your Canon HDSLR Wirelessly

Berat User, a DP working in Chicago with Canon HDSLRs, came up with a clever way to monitor the camera’s image remotely while walking around the set.

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HDSLR Revolution: House Party

Ready or not, here they come: HD-capable DSLRs are being used for high-end productions, despite their various shortcomings. One of the boldest such experiments is the 17 May episode of the FOX TV drama “House”, shot entirely with Canon 5D Mk IIs using stock Canon stills lenses.

Read up. Prepare. Watch. There will be a test afterwards, so pay attention.

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Native DSLR Editing in Premiere Pro CS5

Now that CS5 has officially been announced, launched, and available for download and purchase, I figured it was time to blog about one of my favorite features in Premiere Pro…Native DSLR editing.

A few months back, while on Press Tour in Singapore I purchased a Canon 7D. Having only worked with some 5DMKII footage (during our demo-asset creation phase) I was really psyched to ‘get my hands dirty’ and see what these cameras could do on the video side. And more importantly, really test the power and push the boundaries of the Mercury Playback Engine.

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