Learning to See » Canon

Change, Flux, Reinvention

Jon Roemer — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:27:15 +0000

A Canon C300 at the AbelCine introduction. NY, NY, January 25, 2012.

It’s a weird time – I just redid my people print portfolio, first time in years. Yet, last fall was dominated by video work. So, as I redo books (architecture is next) I’m also thinking about video, cameras both still and video, upgrade paths, compromises, choices and where best to allocate resources.

My still cameras, Canon 1Ds Mark III’s, have served me well. Four years old, rock solid. The next generation has been announced and should be out this spring, the 1D X. Primarily, a still camera but with 2nd generation DSLR video (less moiré, less artifacts).

And then there is the C300, a video camera. Stunning images, easier workflow and handling than when shooting DSLR video and the ability to take all of my Canon lenses. And no visible moiré or artifacts.

The former promises a better focusing, higher ISO camera, with slightly better video workflow and (most likely quality.) The still quality is not likely to be noticeably better except in low-light or in AF challenged situations. The latter is orders of magnitude better on the video front – no more of the subject sitting down and moiré rearing its head and no more unusable shots because there are too many artifacts. Plus, it is better on the high ISO front and second system sound recording can be eliminated if desired.

Attendee tries out the C300 in stripped down mode. Looks and feels much like a medium format still camera - think Hassie or Mamiya. AbelCine, NY, NY, January 25, 2012.

While the options cost real money they also end up in the same ballpark when all things are factored in (old cameras sold, etc.) So, what’s it come down to? In the end, the same ever present question -> Who am I and what do I do? Not what do I do in terms of making the choice seen in the paragraphs above but what is it that I do as a person, as an individual, day to day, as one following my interests, and as one in the still motion world that is photography in 2012. In the end the question is not about equipment, it never is.

In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

Jon Roemer — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:25:23 +0000

Jumping to Lion.

Friday night, somewhat on a whim, I decided to upgrade my Mac Pro to Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Lest that seem haphazard or foolhardy it wasn’t quite that spontaneous. A Mac Pro has four drive bays and I always have a full clone of my primary HD with the OS. I also made sure that my key software would be compatible and I jumped through all the hoops one normally would with an OS upgrade. My HD was freshly cloned, I repaired permissions, I made sure to unhook all external hard drives, and I copied all of the settings for my printers and the color profiles I have added to the system.

My Mac Pro was one of the first Intel Xeon models, a 2x – 3 GHz dual-core. It has performed well and I am amazed (knock wood) that it is still running and viable. Next fall it will be six years old. I will most certainly get a new one when the Mac Pro gets a refresh (the line hasn’t been updated since 2010) but until then I’ll tweak things a bit to get whatever boost out of it that I can.

Earlier in the day on Friday I had swapped out its OEM HD (a WD 250gb 7200rpm) with a new 2TB Hitachi drive. I didn’t need 2TB but this drive is highly rated and tested to be one of the fastest. The change proved easy (there were no permissions or software registration issues) and it provided a small but noticeable speed bump. Certainly to be expected with a ’11 drive vs. an ’06 one.

I think the ease of that switch along with an inkling to get going on Lion now that it is 10.7.2 and to jump into some iCloud features prompted me to make the leap.

Installation of Lion (you buy it via the Mac App Store) was quick and painless. It was done within twenty minutes. Instantly my system saw a big increase in speed. Booting up which took a couple of minutes (? – I never timed it) or plus another 30-45 sec. for email and my web home page to be up, running, and fully functional; now is done within 48 seconds with everything good to go. Programs open quicker across the board. Scrolling and other actions are lightening quick.

I like some of the new visual simplicity of Lion. All windows, scrolling, and GUI items seem to be tuned to making the content the king. It takes some getting used to what feels like reverse scrolling. This is similar to an iPhone or iPad where you scroll in a more logical/correct way, e.g. to scroll down the bottom of the page is pulled up. If you don’t like that behavior on a desktop you can always switch back to the old way in System Preferences. Similarly, moving back and forth between pages viewed in Safari is now done with a one finger swipe across the mouse, much the same way you would leaf through pages. The iOS influence doesn’t stop there, you can double-tap on an image or text in Safari to make it fill the window.

Notes:

-Immediately upon installing Lion I had one screen issue. Black boxes and bars where showing up as the mouse or a window was moved around the screen. Turns out this was because I had my desktop set to a jpeg image (flat grey, at 100, 100, 100). Switching that to an official desktop choice of dark grey (very close at 95, 95, 95) in the System Preferences corrected the problem.

-In prior OS upgrades information like custom saved printer settings, custom color profiles, software registration, and monitor calibration profiles were often lost. That is not the case with Lion.

-The only big bug I have hit so far is that Aperture would not send files to the trash bin in the dock. They would disappear into the ether. Some searching shows this to be a common problem and one thread in Apple Discussions has the solution. A reset to the trash bin needed. In my case, my Aperture library and all of my image files are on an external raid. To correct the problem the trash bin on my main HD had to be reset. ***Update 12/19/12 – Fix doesn’t hold. Problem reappears.***

-I have two Epson printers (a 3800 and a 7800) plus an Epson scanner (Perfection 4870 Photo). All work fine under Lion. The printers had to be deleted from the System Preferences list and then reinstalled. Both of the printers are connected via ethernet and the 7800 had to have its ethernet cable disconnected and the reconnected to get it to appear as a new printer.

One note about the scanner and Photoshop CS5. The scanner works fine running under Apple’s scanner import or Epson’s “Epson Scan” but you will no longer see the scanner show up in PS CS5. This was the case before Lion. PS CS5′s scanner interface, twain importer, no longer ships with CS5. You can get it from Adobe and install it but it will not appear within PS unless you force PS to run in 32-bit mode.

-I have a third printer, a Lexmark laser printer, and it had no hiccups. It was there working with no need to delete and reinstall.

-Canon DPP looks to work fine in Lion but Canon EOS Utility does not. For those of you shooting tethered you’ll need another route (e.g. tethering via Aperture). Canon is promising a Lion compatible EOS Utility in the first quarter of 2012.

-A quick check to FCP 7 along with Soundtrack Pro showed them to open and work fine. I was able to open an old FCP project and everything was intact. FCP X, of course, is fine as well.

-X-rite, née Gretag-Macbeth, Eye-One Match is not compatible with Lion. I knew that going in. X-rite has a listing of compatibility and upgrade paths here.

-NEC Spectraview II works fine but you’ll need to set it to save profiles to “per user of this computer.”

-Saving the best for last, hard to believe on an almost six year computer, but the speed bump in Aperture going from 10.6 Snow Leopard to 10.7 Lion is ~25%. Processing out the same 206 raw files (Canon 1Ds Mark III) to jpegs averaged 13.73/min in 10.6 and 17.17/min in 10.7.

The Crane Life

Jon Roemer — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:45:08 +0000

A month ago in The Cranes and Me I posted stills from my work documenting a construction project in Manhattan. Here is a short video made from the time lapses produced that day:

I set up two cameras to shoot the time lapse sequences and they were used in two different locations. This created four sequences.

The cameras fired at five seconds intervals which was determined based on their needing to run for an hour, the image file size and the size of the compact flash cards. Due to the contrast of the scene (deep shadows, bright highlights, and white tents) the images were recorded as raw files.

In terms of post workflow – the raw files are optimized in Aperture and exported out as full res jpegs. The jpegs are then brought into Quicktime to create a 24 fps sequence and then sent to FCP X for editing.

Psst, Psst… HISP

Jon Roemer — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:49:19 +0000

In early November I spent the day with Taiye Lambo of eFortresses, a data and information security training and certification company. To a non-corporate person like myself that’s a mouthful but if you live in the corporate world and your job intersects with data then you are likely to know and call on someone like Taiye.

eFortresses is partnering with Marlabs of Piscataway, NJ, to bring Taiye’s HISP program (Holistic Information Security Practitioner) to the northeast. My job was to create a video announcing the program, emphasize eFortresses holistic approach, and keep it interesting so that it is not just a one-shot of a talking head.

This was done on a tight budget with a limited crew (myself & one assistant.) Since it was a one-camera setup we filmed Taiye’s primary script with additional takes from a second angle. This gave us footage to cut to to keep it interesting visually.

Taiye’s diagram work at the board meshed beautifully with his voiceover helping to support the words with images. These latter clips were filmed with the camera on a monopod to introduce a bit of movement and to counter the locked-down-on-a-tripod interview segments.

Other b-roll includes the course materials. These are shot with a Kessler 3′ slider – the motion helps give a sense of the breadth of the course materials, their organization, and overall quality. The slider move, like the monopod for the diagrams, adds some visual variety to the piece.

The last b-roll comes from working in Marlabs’ server room. When brainstorming about potential b-roll and how to efficiently show data on the move, the server room was a perfect fit.

In terms of lighting I have three 1×1 Litepanels in my kit along with two Lowel Omni lights. We took the existing tungsten light in the boardroom as a given. Its color temperature was read via a color meter and the 1×1′s filtered to match. They provided the key, fill, and rim light on Taiye. The rim light also help spark up the row of chairs behind Taiye.

The two Omni lights did not need filtration since they are already tungsten. One provided fill in the back and the other was blasting the chair on the far right. That chair, for whatever reason, sucked up light like a black hole and needed anything I could throw at it.

Most of the b-roll was shot available light except for the course materials. They were shot with one 1×1.

Down by the River, Up by the Tomb

Jon Roemer — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:37:35 +0000

On location yesterday in NYC to shoot time lapse segments for a short video. Out the door at 5:15am and at the site by 6:30am. Set up location #1 in West Harlem Piers Park, on a pier in the Hudson right by 125th St and the West Side Highway. Fortunately, Fairway’s parking lot is open and affords us a staging area.

The weather is rainy and windy. The goal is to time lapse the installation of a billboard from three vantage points via three cameras, all with different lenses. The billboard company says they cannot install the new board if it is rainy or windy but they will not make the call until 7am (with the installation at 8am.) So, we have to be ready regardless.

Camera #1, on the river, gets setup with a 70-200mm and weatherproofed. Two assistants are left to run it, watch it, and have each other’s back.

View from camera #1. The top most billboard will be replaced. 6:50am, NY, NY, Dec. 6, 2011.

I head up to the grassy knoll on the north side of Grant’s Tomb, out of view of the river site and about five stories higher in elevation. Alternate side of the street parking means no go on street parking so I end up in a lot at 134th St. I meet assistant #3 there and we begin the long wet march back to the grassy knoll, across the famous elevated portion of Riverside Drive which seems to be a resting place for all of the dog poop in the city. Watch where you walk and what you drag the bags through or fail to do so at your own risk.

We set up on the knoll, locations #2 and #3, one camera with a 300mm for the tight shot and the other with a 90mm for the wide shot. We weatherproof them and the client joins us.

Assistant #3 = Jon, I = Jon, and the client = John. Three Jo(h)ns on a grassy knoll in a New York City park. Sounds like trouble.

Camera #2, Canon 1D Mark IV with a 300mm lens. NY, NY, Dec. 6, 2011.

A time lapse is math. How long is the action you’re recording to take place? What size is the memory card in your camera? How much space does each image take up? And in this case, the billboard company has told us that the installation could take 4-6 hours, so add in camera battery life as another factor. Run the numbers, do the math. Worst case scenario we need about 10 seconds between images if we shoot jpeg. Raw files are too big and not doable if we have any hope of catching the raising of the new billboard and also being prepared for a potential 6 hour time-frame.

Camera #3, Canon 1Ds Mark III with a 90mm TSE lens. NY, NY, Dec. 6, 2011.

Fortunately, the weather cleared just enough for the billboard installation. The crew did a super fast job, taking only one hour. We stay on site another couple of hours to get enough tail end footage. When all is said and done, each camera yields a 35 second clip (one frame every 9-12 sec. depending upon the camera, each running for about three hours, images funneled into a 24 fps video.)

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Update – 12/21/11: B-ball B-board <- video created.

Canon EOS C300

Jon Roemer — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:46:51 +0000

I had mentioned the Canon’s new 1D X when it was announced in mid-October. Right on the heels of that Canon revealed its new EOS C300, a cinema style camera which kicks things up many notches in features, quality, and… price point.

Director/DP/Editor Jonathan Yi has posted what may be the world’s greatest test video of a new camera. As someone who has run into the HDSLR interview setup many times where the subject sits down and the moiré springs to life I can really appreciate the humor here.

Please note – some language and images may be deemed NSFW.

Jonathan has written an article for Canon on the C300. His Vimeo page has some information as well. Canon has a site dedicated to the camera, cinemaeos.usa.canon.com.

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Related – 1/26/12: Change, Flux, Reinvention.

Stopping Short of Rails

Jon Roemer — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:10:28 +0000

Back in April, in my post Zacuto Stuff, I looked at mating a Zacuto Gorilla Plate or DSLR Baseplate with Really Right Stuff rails and clamps to create a quick release system that would allow you to move from platform to platform without having to reconfigure your DSLR.

Zacuto Z-finder, RRS MPR-73, RRS B2 AS II clamp, and Sachtler FSB-8 head all playing nice together.

That setup worked well but it fell short in one area – the addition of longer lenses with their own lens collars and mounting feet. On shoots this past year I have had to switch between my 70-200 lens, my 300 mm lens, and shorter focal lengths on many occasions. The problem with this is the orientation of the RRS rail which parallels the film plane when mounted via the camera body but is perpendicular to the film plane when the body/lens combo is mounted via a lens foot.

You could use a screw driver on location and change the orientation of the RRS clamp as needed but that is leaving room for error and it eats up time. Likewise, you could set your camera up on a 15mm rail system with its own lens support but that too adds time and it adds to the overall bulk of the system. Lastly, you could opt to not support the lens and continue to the mount the camera by its RRS rail but you are asking for trouble with that setup. It could damage the lens mount on cheaper cameras and on all cameras it creates an unbalanced, somewhat wobbly setup.

My first attempt at conquering this involved using whatever I had on hand MacGyver style. In this case, I had an extra older RRS base clamp and an extra Zacuto Gorilla plate. The latter was needed to raise the level of the second clamp up higher (a lens foot mount is often low and with a taller camera body there can be clearance issues.)

Two RRS clamps at 90 deg. to each other to accommodate a long lens or a camera mount.

While this setup worked, in practice it was a bit unwieldy. It required turning the Sachtler camera plate 180 deg. depending upon which clamp was being used and with a taller DSLR there were still some clearance issues.

The answer I found required getting a new Sachtler camera plate and a new RRS clamp. Since I had bought my FSB-8 fluid head Sachtler had released a new camera plate, the DSLR Plate. It is longer to allow for more balancing options with longer lenses and it is slightly raised at the mounting point to give additional clearance.

The new RRS clamp I opted for is a pan head, the PCL-1 Panning Clamp, so you can leave it locked down on the tripod’s camera plate but rotate it 90 deg. as needed to shift between a lens mount or a camera mount.

While this costs more money it’s a far more elegant solution. It can adapt quickly to a lens mount or a camera mount and it stops short of everything that comes with putting the camera on 15mm rails, needing a matte box, or in a cage.

Sachtler DSLR Plate for FSB fluid heads and the RRS Panning Clamp.

The Panning Clamp has a 3/8-16 center socket and a 1/4-20 side socket allowing for two mounting points.

The Panning Clamp's large knob is to lock the clamp, the small knob allows rotation.

Canon 1D Mark IV, 70-200, with Sachtler DSLR Plate and RRS Panning Clamp.

The setup allows for just enough clearance to leave a Zacuto plate and RRS mount on the camera body.

As with the prior picture you can quickly switch to a short lens and use the camera mount.

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Notes:

Zacuto has two plates called the Gorilla Plate and the DSLR Baseplate. Both allow you to mount a Zacuto Z-Finder.

Sachtler’s new plate, the DSLR Plate, is made for their FSB series fluid heads.

Really Right Stuff (RRS) makes the clamps, panning or fixed, and they make the rails which will fit a lens collar mount.

Canon EOS-1D X

Jon Roemer — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:56:33 +0000

Canon EOS-1D X

Canon, never one to shy away from confusing product names, has announced their latest flagship camera – the *1D X. The web is already becoming inundated with information.

CPN Europe has a lot of information including a 12-page technical paper.

Canon Japan has a short film made with the camera which includes stills and video. At the very end it lists which lenses were used and what ISOs were utilized.

The camera looks to be intriguing, interesting, and a bit of a challenge to or, maybe better put, a practical recognition of shooters needs. For the first time Canon is lowering the megapixel count of its flagship model, in this case from 21mp to 18mp. This is being done in favor of lower signal to noise ratios and it should add another 2 stops of range over the Canon 1D Mark IV.

The 1D X is also a merging of Canon’s two pro lines, the 1D series and the 1Ds series. Canon themselves foretold this a couple of years ago – saying that once processing speed allowed there would no longer be a need for a sports optimized camera and a studio optimized camera.

Having shot with both the 1Ds Mark III and the 1D Mark IV I can see the value in splitting the difference between two. My clients rarely need a native resolution file from the 1Ds Mark III and the 1D X promises to still hit tabloid size at 300 dpi. Add in the 1D Mark IV better low light performance, its better focus, and better screen, then improve them all (Canon claims) and it should make the 1D X a great tool.

On the video front the changes look encouraging as well. Canon states that moire will be greatly reduced (“virtually gone” in some reports) and rolling shutter will be lessened. The 1D X will offer two compression options for video capture. Both are h.264 but one uses very little compression (e.g. ~6 min. of 1080p on a 16gb card vs. ~48 min as in the past.) There will be the ability to set sound levels before and during recording via a touch screen, two timecode options, and the clip length is expanded to 29 minutes and 59 seconds.

For those who wanted raw format video, xlr or sdi ports, in-camera sound monitoring via headphones, it’s not going to happen. But I wouldn’t have expected it with a body that is a stills camera at heart. There just isn’t the room, the available processing power, or the need. For that you might want to look to Canon’s big announcement on November 3rd in Hollywood…

Canon USA on the 1D X

Planet 5D beyond the press release

RobGalbraith.com

DSLRnewsshooter.com write up and news on expanded 1D X triggering options.

DSLRnewshooter first look (added 10-27-2011.) In the 14 minute video, the Canon rep states “no line skipping” in video mode on 1D X – that’s huge and will reduce if not eliminate moire and aliasing. Dan also tests a few accessories on the prototype body.

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*In the early 00′s Nikon had the D1x.

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Update – 12/12/11: Information on the Canon EOS C300.

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Related – 1/26/12: Change, Flux, Reinvention.

Manhattan from Weehawken

Jon Roemer — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:16:59 +0000

A week ago today, coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel and up onto the helix. We had just hit the 14-hour mark but the view back to Manhattan was too stunning not to stop and haul out the equipment yet again.

View of Manhattan from Weehawken, NJ. August 15, 2011. Click image to enlarge.

The noir version:

Music: title score from Scene of the Crime, 1949.

Wait Wait… We’re Home

Jon Roemer — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 02:45:35 +0000

We’re back from Maine after a long drive with stops in Bowdoinham, ME for lunch and the always reliable Rein’s in Vernon, CT for dinner. My kids are usually plugged into their iPods for much of the trip but a chance listening to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me led to a marathon session of five or six WWDTM’s at their urging and courtesy of the free iPhone Public Radio Player app. Wait Wait… if you are listening – thanks for that bit of shared family fun on the way home. It’s a great way to end a vacation. President Clinton… if you are listening – nice job on My Little Pony.

I shot a lot this trip as evidenced by all of the square Hipsta photos preceding this post but the bulk of it was video on my 1DM4 and my iPhone or stills on my iPhone. My 1DsM3 spent much of the trip in its bag chilling out. I attribute that to a number of factors – this trip was not about doing as much as relaxing. You need a crowbar to get teens out of bed in the morning so we didn’t fight it. They could sleep late, we could kayak or run or read, and we would all do something together in the afternoon. That in itself led to being in less places which in turn led to less photos. I have also been to this area of Maine so many times that video and the Hipsta stills offered a way to see it new, so I gravitated toward that instead of feeling a need to work with the 1DsM3.

Afternoon on the links, Sedgewick, ME. July 7, 2011.

The one thing, the only thing, I photographed with the big camera was the early morning scene on Crockett Cove. Light, water, and mist too beautiful to turn my back on.

Sunrise, Crockett Cove, Deer Isle, ME. June 27, 2011. Click images to enlarge.

Sam's Island, Crockett Cove, Deer Isle, ME. June 27, 2011.