Sorry folks for the delay in announcing this, work got in the way. The winners in the My Horizons film contest are:

1st Prize: Bob Wall FW Focus Productions and “Choices”

2nd Place: Anna Possberg “My Ice World”

3rd Place: Boris Watz “Bridge in Tunnel”.

I was particularly impressed by the use of real people to tell the story in “Choices”. The subject is not the most interesting of topics but the film is well shot and edited and this means it is enjoyable to watch.

So here’s a little something I have been working on. This was born out of necessity and the reality of shooting 4K ENG style with a large sensor camera. Like many I needed a zoom lens with a good zoom range. 10x zoom was my minimum. While you can get some very nice PL zoom lenses, for example the Fujinon Cabrio 19-90mm this is only a 4.7x zoom. There are higher ratio zooms like the beautiful Angenieux 24 to 290, but this is a massive lens requiring a massive tripod and not at all suitable for ENG or handheld shooting. Sony F3 and F5/F55 users do have the option of the Sony SCL-Z18X140 which is an 18mm to 240mm servo zoom. It’s a good lens, not fast (f3.5 – f6.3) but useful, but quite a lot of money for such slow lens that is clearly based on DSLR optics. So, what about a DSLR lens? Well that’s what I started to look at, there’s plenty of choice, including the Tamron 18-270 a nice and useful 15x zoom range (just be aware that the Tamron’s focus back to front compared to most broadcast and film lenses). There are also the Canon and Sigma 18-250mm lenses.

Anyway… I’m trying to standardise on one DSLR mount and that’s Canon, so that means I need electronic aperture control for many of my lenses. Why Canon and not Nikon with it’s manual iris? Well almost all Nikon lenses focus back to front which is a real PITA. I purchased an MTF Effect Canon mount and control box, this gives me a Canon mount and now I have electronic iris control plus optical image stabilisation if the lens has it. But the electronics engineer in me started to wonder if it was also possible to add a servo to the lens to create a power zoom. After several abortive attempts, lots of swearing and not an insignificant spend on motors and gearboxes I finally got it working, a servo motor to drive an off-the-shelf DSLR zoom lens, or a PL mount zoom lens. Then I wondered about combining the zoom rocker with an iris control. This is where things got really interesting as I was delving into new territory for me and that’s micro controllers. In addition Canon don’t publish details of the language and signals needed to control their lenses. Almost no-one has completely cracked all the codes needed to drive the lens, so I had to reveres engineer the protocol. After a few weeks of tinkering late into the evenings (sorry to my wife and daughter!) I finally had the major codes and could program a controller to drive the lens.

Now it’s all combined into a single box. A zoom rocker and servo motor to drive the zoom ring. A thumb wheel on the hand grip that operates the iris and a second small box with a knob to control focus, plus image stabilisation control. This means you can fit handles to the ring and have the focus control wherever you want. I have also developed a miniaturised lens control box without the zoom servo and rocker. This is the size of a match box and includes a thumbwheel/knob for iris and a port where you can plug in the remote focus control.

The next phase is to add Bluetooth control. This should be relatively straight forward now I know the lens protocols. I can already add bluetooth to the micro controller, so I just need an App to talk to it. Anyone out there good at writing iPhone Apps? I’d really like to get full remote control of zoom, iris and focus on an iPhone.

When will this become a product? Well I am working with a well known manufacturer in the UK at the moment to see if we can make this an affordable product. If that deal doesn’t work out then I’ll go the Kick-Starter route and do it myself. It will probably end up as two different products. An all-in-one box with zoom rocker and Canon lens controls and a second unit that just has the zoom rocker and servo for use on PL or Nikon lenses.

There’s only one place left on my storm chasing workshop if you fancy a workshop with a difference and a bit of an adventure. https://www.xdcam-user.com/2013/05/storm-chasing-workshop-and-adventure-may-23rd-to-may-30th-come-join-me/

I have been given the opportunity to place an order for a minimum of 5 Zunow 16-28mm f2.8 FZ mount lenses. The list price for this lens is EUR 7650 ($11K) but if we can order a minimum of 5 it will be EUR 3,800 ($5K approx). If as a group we buy 10 the price would be even lower at EUR 3,600 ($4.5K approx). Prices exclude any taxes or shipping (from the EU).

Sony FZ mount for PMW-F3, PMW-F5 and PMW-F55

• Focal Length: 16-28 mm
• Minimal optical distance: 1.1 ft/0.3m
• IRIS: F2.8-22
• Front Diameter: 98mm
• Filter Screw 95mm P1.0
• Weight: 1.9 Kg/4.19 lbs

Made in Japan by renown lens manufacturer Zunow the lens is a beautiful low distortion wide angle vary-focal lens. At 16mm the wide angle views this lens has to offer are beautiful. Designed for 4K it is sharp and clear out into the corners. Flare is minimal and contrast excellent. At f2.8 for a 16mm lens this is respectfully fast. At 24mm there is near zero geometric distortion making the lens particularly well suited to industrial and structural imagery where pin cushion or barrel distortion can be a significant problem. Even at 16mm the distortion is minimal. The iris is an 8 blade iris, the bokeh is very pleasing. It is not designed as a zoom lens, the focus shifts slightly as you change focal length. What it is, is a single wide angle lens that can provide a variety of focal lengths without the need to swap lenses while maintaining prime lens image quality.

The lens has large and easy to read markings for aperture, focal length and focus distance. The focus markings are in both metric and imperial. The rear element is baffled for 16:9 to reduce flare and reflections within the camera body. The construction is all metal, mostly black anodised aluminium alloy.

So how will the group buy work? First use the contact form to contact me if you are interested. I will have a sample lens available at some of the workshops I’m running in the UK and I hope to take one with me to Cinegear at the end of May. I wish to close the deal during the week commencing June 10th. Payment for the lenses will be made to the European Distributor who will then ship out the lenses. Buyers will be responsible for all taxes, duties and shipping charges. These are in addition to the group buy price.

Below are some frame grabs from the lens, shot using a PMW-F5 with the frame grabs pulled from the raw clips in Adobe Premier. Aperture was between f4 and f5.6. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger version and then click on the link above the image for the full 4K frame. Please consider this is a very wide angle lens when looking at the images.

Fancy something a bit different? Want a bit of excitement and adventure whilst learning new video and photography skills? Why not join me on this week long adventure workshop? Don’t forget as a training workshop this trip is tax deductable!

Departing early in the morning on the 23rd of May from Oklahoma City we will seek out some of the most breathtaking weather on the planet. Along the way I will share my skills and knowledge as I teach you to capture impressive images, whether video or stills. Late May is prime time tornado season in the USA.

SUPERCELLS: The most spectacular storms on the planet!

The storms that produce the Tornadoes are called “Supercells”. These are intense, long lived thunderstorms that can often look like scenes from sic-fi movies. We should see incredible landscapes and scenery, cloud formations that will amaze, incredible sunsets and if we are very lucky maybe a tornado or two.

Is it dangerous? Not as dangerous as it may appear on TV! These storms are incredibly powerful, but I am not out to get as close as possible to a tornado, nor am I interested in getting into any other un-necessarily dangerous situation. I have been chasing storms like these for over 12 years, I know how to stay out of trouble and the van will be equipped with both a satellite data system and a GPS and cellular data based storm tracking system. Using these I will know exactly where the most dangerous parts of the storms are and in fact tornadoes are actually quite predictable.

If a safe opportunity to approach a tornado presents itself then I will take advantage of this, but what I want is beautiful, jaw dropping images of the storms and storm structure. These take a couple of minutes to compose so I will often be hanging back a little to give us more time to get those once in a lifetime images. After dark I don’t like chasing barely visible tornadoes, instead I will find a good place a little way away from the storm to shoot the often incredible lightning that occurs.

What will you learn? As many of you may know I am an expert on camera setup and camera technology. I’m also a highly experienced documentary film shooter. I will happily pass on as much of that knowledge as you wish. I can teach good exposure, framing, picture profiles, log and raw shooting, editing, time-lapse and photography techniques. Why sit in a boring class room learning this stuff when you can have a real adventure at the same time. I find I always learn more about shooting techniques when the pressure is on!

Typically on day 1 I will teach basic framing and exposure with tips on how to prepare your camera for the scenes we are likely to encounter. Day 2 would be lesson on time-lapse techniques and methods. Day 3: We can look at raw and log formats and how to use them correctly. Day 4: Picture Profiles and advanced camera setups. Day 5: Documentary shooting tips, location sound and industry best practice. These are just some ideas, the tuition would be tailored to suit the needs of those in this small group.

Will we see storms? Well that is the big question. Unfortunately there is no guarantee that the weather will co-operate. However one reason this trip is being arranged and run last minute is because I have been keeping an eye on the weather trends and long term forecasts waiting for as best as I can see a good window of opportunity. Mid/Late May should be well into the storm and tornado season, this is the time of year when things are normally at their best. The global weather pattern that produced the surprisingly cold Spring is starting to break down and a much more typical late Spring pattern is on it’s way in the coming days. I would be very surprised if we don’t see storms on at least a couple of days, but I cannot guarantee anything. Typically for a storm chase in May I would expect to chase active strong to severe storms on 4 out of the 7 days. Down days are often needed to re-position for later active storm days and of course down days are days where we can have further tuition.

So what’s it going to cost? I try to make my courses and workshops as affordable as possible. This is no different, but there are many costs to be covered including vehicle hire, fuel, data and accommodation. The cost for this workshop is $1,900 USD per person. This includes a full week of tuition, motel accommodation between  check-in on May 22nd and departure on May 30th, and transport during the trip (starting and ending in Oklahoma City). It does NOT include any food or drink or your transport to the start and end point (Oklahoma City). Compare this to the cost of a typical Storm Chasing tour, that does not include video production tuition and you will see that this is remarkable value. If your coming to the US for this trip then do consider that the Cinegear Expo trade show at Paramount Studios takes place May 31st and June 1st.

If you wish to come please use the contact form to contact me ASAP. Places are very limited (5 places maximum) on this exclusive workshop. It will be fun, informative and an adventure.

Sony have released version 2.0 of the firmware for the Sony Action Cam along with updates for the Play Memories Software that is used to remotely connect to the camera via an iPad, iPhone or Android device. Click Here to go to the update page. Not a huge update by the looks of things. You get 1080p60 and new white balance settings for use underwater and the ability to turn the key press beeps off. No 25p or 24p sadly 🙁

Following feedback from NAB Convergent Design decoded to make some changes to the pricing of the Odyssey7 and Odyssey 7Q. In case you haven’t already heard about these devices they are 7″ OLED monitors that also have the ability to record to onboard SSD’s. Originally the Odyssey units were not going to include any recording capability as standard. All the recording options were going to be paid for updates or available for short term rental. However Convergent Design have now decided to include the ability to record using Avid’s DNxHD codec within the original price of $1295 for the Odyssey 7 and  $2295 for the more advanced 7Q. There is however a small catch. In order to use the “free” codec options you must use a Convergent Design supplied SSD.

The Convergent Design SSD’s are more expensive than most off-the-shelf SSD’s but they are tested and certified to work with the Odyssey and some of the very fastest SSD’s available today.

Initially, this means that the Avid DNxHD codec, Avid DNxHD-36, -100, -145, -220 (8-Bit) and 220x (10-Bit) will be included). Advanced recording options such as Raw will now only be available on the 7Q.
Note: All prices are quoted as United States prices.
Prices around the world have to be different due to shipping, customs import fees, other taxes, and exchange rates.

Odyssey7 $1295 (US Price)

Avid DNxHD Recording Capabilities are enabled, for free,
upon insertion of a Convergent Design SSD.
No other recording options are offered at this time.
Initial Shipments of the Odyssey7 are planned for November 2013

Odyssey7Q $2295 (US Price)

Avid DNxHD Recording Capabilities are enabled, for free,
upon insertion of a Convergent Design SSD.
Additional recording options are available as described below.
Initial Shipments of the Odyssey7Q are planned for August 2013

High Performance Convergent Design SSD’s

240 GB $595 (US Price)
480 GB $1195 (US Price)
960 GB $2195 (US Price)

Odyssey 7Q Recording Options

FS700 Support: $1495, $75/day rental rate (US Prices)

HD/2K Raw up to 240fps (.dng format – Cinema DNG),
Quad HD/4K YCbCr Uncompressed up to 30 fps (.dpx format)
This option scheduled to be release in August, 2013.

Canon C500: $2495, $125/day rental rate (US Prices)

Quad HD/4K Raw 10-bit up to 60 fps,
Half QuadHD/Half 4K Raw 10-bit up to 120 fps (.rmf format);
Uncompressed HD/2K RGB 4:4:4 10/12-bit up to 60 fps (.dpx format);
DNxHD Compressed HD YCC 8/10-Bit up to 120 fps
(880 Mbps, .mov format).
Support for all C500 frame rates/modes for in one unit.
Some modes require two SSDs.
Simultaneous RAW and Proxy (DNxHD-36) up to 60 fps supported
(which is the limit of the camera’s monitor output)
This option scheduled to be release in August, 2013.

HD/2K High Frame Rate/RGB 4:4:4 $1495, $75/day rental rate (US Prices)

DNxHD Compressed HD YCbCr 8-Bit/10-Bit up to 120 fps
(up to 880 Mbps, .mov format)
Avid DNxHD-36, -100, -145, -220 (8-Bit), -220x (10-Bit)
Uncompressed HD/2K RGB 4:4:4 10/12-Bit up to 60 fps (.dpx format)
Also accepts 4:2:2 YCbCr and records in 4:4:4 RGB(.dpx format);

Quad HD/4K Support: $1495, $75/day rental rate (US Prices)

Uncompressed QHD/4K YCbCr 10-bit up to 30 fps (.dpx format).
For Sony F55 and other cameras that can output uncompressed 4K over four HD-SDI Single-Link Outputs.

HD/2K Raw: $2495, $125/day rental rate (US Prices)

HD and 2K Raw, up to 120 fps (.dng format – Cinema DNG).
Supports cameras from IO Industries, Lux Media Plan, Indiecam, Weisscam, P&S Technik X35

ALEXA ARRIRAW: $2995, $150/day rental rate (US Prices)

ARRIRAW (16:9 up to 60 fps, 4:3 up to 48 fps) with VariFrame and de-squeeze support (.ari format)
Simultaneous RAW and Proxy (DNxHD-36) up to 30 fps supported
(which is the limit of the camera’s monitor output)
This option scheduled to be released Q4 2013

Quad Stream HD Recording: $3995, $200/day rental rate (US Prices)

Supports recording up to four separate (Genlock not required)
video streams into four separate files using Avid DNxHD,
up to 1080p30/1080i60 or 720p60
(up to 220 Mbps/stream, .mov format).
The four HD streams may be displayed in separate quadrants on the OLED monitor and/or external monitor.
This option scheduled to be released Q4 2013.

With the release of Firmware version 1.13 for the PMW-F5 and F55, Sony enabled the use of EI gain when shooting using the Cine EI mode. It’s a little unusual in that the EI gain only goes below the default/native gain and not above.

So what is EI gain and how do you use it?

EI or Exposure Index gain is a way of changing the gain of the monitoring outputs, but not the gain of the primary recordings. Currently with the F5 and F55 the signal seen on the HDSDI, HDMI output and viewfinder outputs are the same signals as recorded to the internal SxS cards, so EI gain is also added to the internal recordings. However EI gain is not added to the raw recordings recorded by the R5, these are always done at the native ISO of the camera, 1250ISO for the F55 and 2000ISO for the F5. The EI Gain is selected in the camera menu, it cannot be selected from the hot keys around the info LCD.

The F55 supports Exposure Index values (400EI/640EI/800EI/1250EI) in Cine-EI mode.

The F5 supports Exposure Index value (640EI/800EI/1250EI/2000EI) in Cine-EI mode.

So as we can see from above we can reduce the EI gain, not increase it (the F3 and most other cameras allow an increase in gain). What happens when we do this? Lets say we decrease the EI gain on an F5 to 800EI or 640EI on an F55, just a little over a one stop reduction. The image seen on the monitor or viewfinder screen gets darker. If your using a light meter to expose you would set your light meter to the new EI ISO.

If exposing according to that light meter, it would tell you to open the iris by a little over 1 stop. This would then return the brightness on the monitor or viewfinder back to where it was before you selected the new EI ISO. Now remember that the actual raw recording ISO does not change. So as you open up the iris (as that’s what the light meter or monitor image tells you to do) the raw recordings become brighter. With most conventional cameras this could be a problem as it might result in an overexposed image. But the F5 and F55 have so much dynamic range that for most typical scenes the exposure will still be OK. My experience with the F5 and F55 is that when shooting at the native ISO you normally have plenty of headroom. Raising the recording levels like this will allow more shadow and dark detail to be seen. So what you are doing is in effect shifting the cameras latitude down by just over one stop. Assuming your correctly exposed at the cameras native ISO you get +7 stops and -7stops, but now with the EI ISO set 1.25 stops lower, the dynamic range becomes +5.75 stops -8.25 stops. In addition as you will be bringing levels down in post production (compared to footage shot at the native ISO) you will end up this less noise in the final results.

So the current EI ISO settings on the F5 and F55 allows you to shift your exposure range down to produce a less noisy image with greater shadow latitude, but decreased highlight latitude.  Interestingly this is the opposite to the way EI ISO on the F3 works, the difference being due to the F5 and F55’s much higher dynamic ranges but more importantly the linear raw recording allowing for better use of the top end of the cameras dynamic range. A camera like the F3 that uses log recording cannot be significantly overexposed as the log compression of the highlights would cause problems with the brighter parts of the scene becoming excessively compressed. I would imagine that Sony will  include EI ISO settings that are higher than the native ISO in future firmware releases, but for the moment we can only go down.

The Sony firmware guy’s have been busy as they have also just released a firmware update for the PMW-200.

http://www.sony.co.uk/pro/support/software/SET_BPE-SS-1013/10

NEW FEATURES & IMPROVEMENTS:

1.) i.LINK DVCAM Input
Stream signal recording via i.LINK DVCAM input is available.
2.) Adjusting the Brightness of the EVF Screen
The default value of EVF has changed from ±0 to +30.
3.) Selecting AUDIO IN Reference Input Level
The default value of Audio Input has changed from -40 dB to -60 dB.
4.) External Device Connector
A message will be displayed if a USB device which is not supported by this unit has been connected.
5.) Auto Focus
Auto focus performance is improved. Focus instability near the focal point and with a high-luminance background has been reduced.
6.) Auto Knee
Auto Knee performance is improved. Emphasis of white for an object with a high-luminance background has been reduced.
7.) ATW
ATW performance is improved. When ATW mode is set to Natural, automatic adjustment for wider brightness range when shooting outdoors is available.
8.) Matrix Adjustment
Can be put on OFF in PICTURE PROFILE SET.

Sony released a further firmware update for the F5 and F55 on Friday. Version 1.13 adds EI exposure index modes to the Cine EI mode and the ability to trigger the record start and stop from the Hirose 4 pin power ports. In addition LED 4 can be assigned as a record indicator and there are some improvements to the cameras noise reduction in standard modes.

http://community.sony.com/t5/F5-F55/NEW-Firmware-v1-13/m-p/120839#U120839