Aurora Aperture Variable Neutral Density Filter: Blur the Background in Full Daylight
When shooting outdoors in the sunlight, you’ll often need to use a very small aperture/iris setting to get the right exposure. That is not necessarily an issue unless you want to blur the background to draw the attention of your audience to your main subject. This is where a neutral density filter can help. A neutral density filter is like high quality sunglasses for your camera’s lens. This allows you to use an aperture setting which will blur the background and still allow you to expose properly.
Aurora Aperture was kind enough to send us their Power XND 2000 variable neutral density filter for review.
GVB Gimbal and 3 Low Cost Action Cameras
There are a ton of inexpensive action cameras available on the market and it is hard to figure out which perform best. So let’s have a quick look at 3: GVB Action Cam, Yi HD Action Cam, and ThiEYE i60 Action Cam. Each come in at about $100 USD.
Also, action cameras, just like any other camera, produce jerky and shaky looking video when you hold them by hand. Gimbals can help to stabilize your camera so that the video footage is smoother and more enjoyable to watch. In this episode, we also look at the GVB Action Camera Gimbal, an affordable entry-level 3 axis gimbal for GoPro Hero 4 and other cameras of the same size and weight.
Sound for Video Session: Loudness vs Peaks and Cameras vs Audio Gear
This week we discuss a question from Kevin (AKA The Basic Filmmaker) on why the peaks are always at different levels after you loudness normalize an audio clip. Then I rant for a while on why upgrading your camera every time a cool looking new camera may not be the best use of your budget.
Varavon Zeus Uni - Universal Camera Cage
What is a camera cage? It is a metal, protective piece of gear which allows you to attach accessories, usually with 1/4-20 screws and cold shoe mounts. The trick with most affordable cages is that they are purpose built for a specific camera model. This gets expensive when you go to upgrade your camera because then you often also have to buy a new cage. The Varavon Zeus Uni solves that problem quite effectively with a design that adapts to your camera. Let’s have a look!
Focus Shifter Light Weight Follow Focus for DSLR Lenses
Autofocus on most DSLR and mirrorless cameras while shooting video isn’t that great. It gets confused and sometimes tries to focus on things you dont want it to focus on. But manually focusing can be really tricky too. And what if you want to do a dramatic rack focus? Very difficult.
That’s where a follow focus comes in to play and makes this all quite simple. The problem with most follow focus products is that they’re quite expensive and they require you to rig up your camera with rods which makes your camera rig much heavier. The Focus Shifter aims to solve this problem at a reasonable price and by keeping things very lightweight.
Full disclosure: Engineerable gave me this follow focus free of charge for doing this review. They did not pay me further to do this review and did not specify what I was able to say or not say.
Special Pricing on SanDisk SD Cards
B&H Photo has special pricing on the SanDisk Extreme SD cards today only. Less than $25 for a 64GB SDXC UHS-I U3 card is pretty good. I've had great luck with these in my audio recorders, including my Zoom F8 and Sound Devices 633.
Yi HD Action Camera Review
I have wanted an action cam for a long time, not because I’m an action sports enthusiast, but for cases where I need to mount a camera in a very tight spot or shoot some very wide angle behind-the-scenes footage. GoPros have been around for a long time, but my budget has always been allocated to other higher priority gear. So when the the $100 Yi Action Camera was sent to me for review, I was curious to see how well it would work for my type of shooting. Let’s have a look!
Yi also has a 4K action camera coming in the next couple of weeks which I'll be interested to review. It comes in at $250 USD and has an LCD screen.
Aputure VS-2 FineHD Monitor: See When You Shoot!
The tiny 3 inch screens on most cameras vary in quality but the fact remains that it is hard to compose, focus and expose your video in such a small space. My eyesight is 20/20 but with large sensor cameras, I am often surprised at how often I miss focus when I rely on my viewfinder or 3" screen. I'm also surprised and disappointed at how often I miss distracting elements in my composition simply because I couldn't see it in the EVF or screen.
That's a big part of the value of external monitors like the Aputure VS-2 FineHD. This is a 1920x1200 resolution HDMI monitor that is very reasonably priced and nicely appointed for its $299 price. The kit comes with everything you need to use it right out of the box including a friction arm, 2 HDMI cables, battery, charger, sun hood, and more.
For the last year, I’ve been using a 7 inch HDMI monitor/recorder (Atomos Shogun) which has helped me work more quickly and shoot with more confidence and fewer missed shots.
Aputure was kind enough to send us this unit before they start shipping generally.
Sony a6000: The First 24 Hours
The Sony a6000 camera and 50mm f/1.8 lens arrived yesterday and I spent a few hours putting it through its paces. Not a ton to say just yet but this camera is every thing I expected, mostly good and a bit of bad.
The good: Incredible imaging in a tiny, very convenient to carry almost anywhere little camera body. Full sensor readout for video (vs. line-skipping which many DSLRs and mirrorless cameras do), electronic viewfinder, good build quality, assignable custom buttons. Screen articulates for low and high angle shots. Hotshoe so I can add proper portable strobes. Focus is fast and so far, feels as good as my DSLR. More to come on all of this.
The Bad: Tiny battery needs frequent swapping out, strange, somewhat onerous menu system, how do I get a histogram overlay on top of the live-view image? Video record button in an odd location on the handgrip.
Here's my first real foray into the Sony ecosystem (the camera I bought for my wife doesn't count). So far I really like it. It is small enough that bringing a proper camera with me more often is a real possibility. I'll be putting it to use at a concert later this week alongside my Nikon D750 to see how well it holds up for video and stills.
It needs a fast card to record to the XAVC S 50mbps codec so I'll need to order another UHS-3 card along with a battery charger and extra batteries (we've had good luck with Wasabi Power batteries which are priced at a fraction of the OEM Sony batteries).
Sony a6000: I Caved and Bought It
I've had my eye on Sony for a while. If you've been following the blog here, you know about my mixed feelings on the matter: Sony is innovating like crazy and I love what they're doing. Their cameras aren't perfect but they are very, very compelling! I don't like that they use such tiny batteries that need replacing way too often. I don't like that they shut down after about a 20 minute video clip. I don't like that they don't send 10-bit color out their HDMI port (Panasonic GH4 does). The color science is sometimes a little wonky (e.g., strange looking skies). The menus are a little funky, too. But all that aside, their alpha line of cameras are really, really impressive!
And for me, I like APS-C sized sensors for video. They're a great middle ground. Bigger than micro4/3 which always seems to struggle at ISOs above 800 when shooting video. But not so big that you have to stop way down to get a person entirely in focus like on a full frame sensor. And frankly, for cinema, APS-C/"Super 35" is sort of the closest thing to a standard size. Many of the cinema cameras have sensors this size.
The a6000, in particular has been tempting me for months. I know, it isn't a new camera - in fact, it is quite old (released in early 2014). But Sony has added the XAVC-S codec with 50mbps bit rate. No, it doesn't have any log profiles, but I don't think log profiles on 8-bit 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 color sub-sampling cameras actually works out that well in most cases anyway. Once you get that footage into Resolve or any other color grading app, the image is rather fragile. So I don't think I'm going to miss that too much for my work.
I couldn't pass up the holiday pricing so I just placed my order for the Sony alpha A6000 over at B&H. $398 for the body, $198 for the 50mm f/1.8 lens (when you buy with the a6000 body, $249 otherwise). Can't wait to put it to use!
