blog bomb – 5dmarkii manual posted

Thanks to Paul D. of canon5dmkii.net for the heads up:

Peter, today Canon posted the 5D Mark II manuals:

http://tinyurl.com/479wb6

We’re gettin’ closer!

Paul

And of course, we all immediately skip ahead to page 121 to learn how to shoot movies:

Because, we’ve all seen this photo on Stu Maschwitz’s blog…

…and we’re saving up all our loose change to get one from redrock micro!

proactively • updating my Christmas wish list • peter

america’s scariest halloween attractions 3

Membership has its benefits, so here’s a few screen grabs of the upcoming America’s Scariest Halloween Attractions 3.  Premiere will be this Sunday, October 26th, at 11pm following Ghost Adventures.

Had a lot of fun editing and grading this show.  A whole lot of around the clock work.  We averaged 125 shots or more per 4 minutes, which trumps the hell out of the 600 shots per 44min show average I read somewhere.  Here’s the final time line before going to tape.  Mind you, this is after conforming for the grade in Color, QC’ing flattened titles and what not, and syncing audio stems:

00:44:45;00 to the frame per broadcast clock.  Ow, my brain…

And just because I love you guys, here’s a sample screen shot from the color grade.  First pic is 30″ left hand Apple Cinema Display, second pic is right hand 23″ Apple Cinema Display:

Oh yeah, and here’s the two main errors I experienced during post:

Not too bad, but I recommend the hell out of getting 8GB of RAM for posting any 1×60 HD program.  Got this show printed to tape by the skin of our teeth after crashing 4 minutes in on the first try.  Seriously, yes, 4GB of 667Mhz RAM is worth the extra 1200 bucks.

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Epic shout outs:

Susan Norton – Executive Producer

Thomas Quinn – Supervising Producer

Arthur Hsu – Associate Producer

James Morley – Editor & Segment Producer

Ashley Kalena – Production Assistant

Joel Reyes – Engineering Support

Archie Bustamante – IT support

Mom & Dad – Love & Support

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So, tomorrow is the move to the new apartment 4 miles away.  Saturday the new leather sofa arrives.  Sunday, resorting it up at the company offsite.  I’ll have a beer and a shot in my hand 11pm Sunday night for the premiere, hope you enjoy it!

proactively • HD 1×60 in the can • peter

FCProse Episode 4 – cut color compress 5dmarkii footage

Here’s the all-in-one video tutorial showing you how to cut, color, and compress 1080p video captured with Canon’s upcoming 5D Mark II Digital SLR with three Final Cut Studio 2 applications: Final Cut Pro, Color, and Compressor. I recommend clicking thru for the hd version to better see the application interfaces.

In this episode I walk through the steps to edit your footage in Final Cut Pro, perform a broadcast safe grade in Color, and then make a web compression for upload to YouTube and Vimeo using Compressor.

I work directly with the source H.264 video Vincent Laforet made available for download (no H.264 -> Apple ProRes 422 transcode this time around). I also discuss some system specs and rant about High Dynamic Range video. A quick tag surf lead me to this post that has an example of HDR video captured by something called the HDRC® MDC04 CL camera system.

What’s High Dynamic Range (HDR), you ask? Check out yet another Chad Richard HDR timelapse (click thru for the full HD effect):

Mr. Richard has done a lot of heavy lifting to convert a series of HDR stills into 1080p video (and then compress for Vimeo, of course). Check out his tutorial for this process here.

We’re at the forefront of a paradigm shift where digital photography and high definition video are converging. Check out Romy Ocon‘s 5dmkii bird photography, err, video:

Right now is an exciting, exciting time.

proactively • sitting in a front row seat • peter

how to – make an HDR timelapse

While I’ve been on the subject of tutorials, here’s one that I’ve found that is, to coin a phrase, picture perfect:

How to make an HDR timelapse

I found Chad Richard on Vimeo while researching the Canon 5dmarkii and HDR imagery.  Chad shot the above HDR timelapse with the Nikon D700 (if you want to check that camera out, too).

Wow, Chad’s a great find.  Here’s one reason:

Thanks for stopping by Chad, and thanks for publishing your process to create HDR timelapses.

You’ve inspired my imagination.  And I have a new reason to break out my trusty old Nikon 5700 Coolpix (RAW images & Auto Exposure Bracketing 3 or 5 frames within +2 EV, yay!).

proactively • grateful • peter

FCProse Episode 3 – Color Grading 5dmarkii footage

Here’s part 2 in an initial 3 part series of Final Cut Prose video tutorials working with footage from the new Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR. I recommend clicking thru for the HD version to better see Color’s GUI.

One considerable addendum to the tutorial. I loaded the h264 source files into Color and observed far different measurements in Color’s waveform monitor. Check this out:

Broadcast safe on:

Broadcast safe off:

So it would appear there were some luma and chroma changes taking place during the conversion from h264 to ProRes. Almost as if Compressor applied a broadcast safe filter during conversion. The h264 source video that Vincent Laforet provided for download does indeed appear to be sans color correction.

Bleh, the h264 to Apple ProRes 422 workflow will need improvement. Well, it’s a working model. You are witness to my real world self-analysis, right here before your eyes, humble reader.

If there’s an FCP, Color, and / or Motion topic you would like me to cover, then post a comment and let me know. Check back soon for FCProse Episode 3 – Compressing 5dmarkii Footage for Web.

In the meantime, here’s some HDR timelapse footage (click here for a how-to) shot on a digital SLR in San Francisco by Chad Richard.

Know any $2600 video cameras that can produce these results?

proactively • sculpting my brain to comprehend this new world of possibilities • peter

FCProse Episode 2 – Editing 5dmarkii footage

Whipped up a quick video toot for anyone who wants to edit the Reverie footage but is having a tough time working with the native 1080p h264 Quicktime files. I recommend clicking thru for the HD version to see the FCP interface text clearly.

Hopefully everything I’m saying there is making sense. Fast, good, and cheap; I picked fast and cheap.

**UPDATE**

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation has posted their video analysis of 5dmkii source footage.  With the disclaimer that this analysis is based on footage produced by a beta model of the camera, they report:

It looks like the GOP-structure of the clips are one I-frame for each 15 P-frame. No B-frames.

Click thru for the full report and pics of bitrate histogram and footage properties! (In English)

**UPDATE END**

And in case you haven’t seen the Reverie film because the Canon link is down, here’s the video on Vimeo until it’s taken down:

And here’s some more footage shot with the 5dmkii for your viewing pleasure:

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With the wireless WFT-E4A backup disk attached:

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Vimeo member Sebastian Stevens commented on this last video, stating

Watching the movie above seems to show the seem rolling shutter problem the nikon D90 has, but when you download the original video file, the video is very stable and shows no weird image skews.

I’m really looking forward to finding more original footage from this camera. In the right hands, this is going to be a killer video capture device. Now, what about audio recording… ?

proactively • 5dmkii’ing • peter