The EOSHD 5D Mark III Raw Shooter’s Guide – AVAILABLE NOW!

Monday, 17 June, 2013 12:26

The EOSHD 5D Mark III Raw Shooter's Guide

Dispelling the myths – optimising performance – never read another endless forum post again!

Payment via PayPal, just $19.99 (usual price $29.99)

My third book launches today. It is available to download immediately and for the first week you can get 33% off the usual price making it just $19.99.

It is an enormous 12 chapters and 106 pages.

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It lives! 5 year old $350 Canon 50D becomes raw cinema monster

Sunday, 26 May, 2013 01:15

Magic Lantern 50D C

Avoid the inevitable price rises and buy your 50D now on eBay

It seems the 50D is the best Super 35mm DSLR for raw video from Canon.

The sensor resolves very clean highly detailed raw video with hardly any moire or aliasing, at a higher quality than the Rebel lines does.

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2.5k CinemaScope anamorphic raw on the 5D Mark III

Monday, 20 May, 2013 20:33

Get the EOSHD Anamorphic Shooter’s Guide for a comprehensive guide to anamorphic lenses, which ones to use, how to get them and how to shoot

Download the 2.5k 2560×1280 Vimeo file and playback on a 2.5K or 4K display for best results

Download a pack of DNG frames from the original raw files to judge quality

The spec sheet is impressive. 14bit linear bayer raw is sub-sampled from a 6K sensor, giving 1280 lines of extremely clean resolution with an anamorphic compliant 4:3 aspect ratio.

This is in a similar league to the image quality of the Sony F35 (Superman Returns, Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland) which cost $250,000 just 5 years ago.

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A look at raw video on the Canon 600D

Saturday, 18 May, 2013 15:59

Download the sample DNG frames from continuous raw video on the 600D

Though most of the development at Magic Lantern has been focussed on the powerful 5D Mark III, the latest firmware builds have also been ported to the 600D. How does it perform for raw video?

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Easier 5D Mark III raw installation guide in 4 steps

Thursday, 16 May, 2013 23:51

A full guide is now available – The EOSHD 5D Mark III Raw Shooter’s guide contains 106 pages and 12 chapters of expert advice on raw recording with the 5D Mark III and Magic Lantern!

Here’s a quick and easy way to get raw recording setup on your 5D Mark III thanks to the recent Magic Lantern developments.

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Filmmaking tips from J.J. Abrams – plus is he actually any good?

Saturday, 11 May, 2013 17:32

With the rise of J.J. Abrams, TV’s aristocracy has morphed into cinema’s with JJ Abrams to direct Star Wars Episode VII in the UK next year.

J.J. Abrams comes from a family of TV industry figures, his father a TV producer and his mother an executive producer. His sister is a screenwriter. Now with a string of successful TV shows behind him, he’s had a string of hits at the box office too.

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3.5k Canon 5D Mark III raw video with Magic Lantern and latest updates

Wednesday, 01 May, 2013 23:52

These past days I’ve been trying to make myself useful to Alex at Magic Lantern, testing the DNG raw video recording on the 5D Mark III with a nightly build of Magic Lantern.

Here’s what the video quality looks like in the DNG video modes at 30fps.

Click the image below to expand…

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MoVI set to revolutionise filmmaking – Vincent LaForet shows gyro stabiliser by Freefly Systems (with footage from GH3 and 1D C)

Friday, 05 April, 2013 11:45

Check out the GH3 MoVI footage and donate to charity – $3 at Vimeo On Demand

There’s more – particularly on how the wireless video monitoring and camera operators work with the MoVI – by Timur Civan here

If you’ve ever wanted to pull off just about any camera move with a tiny handheld rig, that just became reality. Potentially replacing the traditional steadicam at a stroke the tiny lightweight MōVI (easier to Google as “MoVI”) is a gyro stabilised platform with gimbal and hand grip. It appears to be so effective it allows you to execute a tracking shot without a track, a pan / tilt without a tripod and a dolly shot without a dolly!

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First 4K Canon 1DC drone flight (and FS700 / C300 also gets airborne)

Thursday, 04 April, 2013 15:30

The Canon 1D C has taken to the skies for the first time thanks to Perspective Aerials founder Anthony Jacobs, who has just stepped up their drone to fly heavier cameras. The new rig has a custom built RC follow focus by Anthony Lenzo of Air Sea Land (ASL).

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Spellbinding 1200fps slow motion from the Phantom Flex and the mysterious 65mm Phantom 65 Gold

Tuesday, 02 April, 2013 16:51

Cheetahs at 1200fps on Vimeow

I love slow mo and it is great to be able to do it now on the Nikon 1 series at 400fps, albeit limited to a low-fi look (the 1200fps on that camera is extremely low resolution!). Now the technique has gone 65mm – yes medium format sized. The Phantom 65 Gold is a 14bit raw 4K cinema camera. It can shoot 200fps in 4K mode, 396fps in 2K anamorphic (2.35:1 – 2048 x 872) and up to 718fps at lower resolutions.

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Radioactivity – my 400fps shoot with the Nikon V1

Wednesday, 20 March, 2013 00:02

The Nikon V1 is a $300 camera – buy it now on eBay

High speed shooting hasn’t been possible on DSLRs until now. Again it is the much dismissed Nikon V1 providing the creative inspiration…

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Rarity – Kubrick on tape

Monday, 18 March, 2013 17:37

An early self portrait of the young Stanley Kubrick, photographer - Image source: British Journal of Photography

In a 77 minute interview recorded over chess between takes on 2001: A Space Odyssey in the mid 1960′s Kubrick describes selling his first photograph, his first short and making his first feature.

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Nikon V1 – shooting 4K 60fps raw for $200

Monday, 11 March, 2013 22:27

Above – the compressed 2.4k version of 4K raw from the Nikon V1 (download the original at Vimeo) by Javier Sobremazas

The Nikon V1 is $220 (body) or $300 (kit) on eBay – get it whilst you still can

There’s a dark horse in our midst which very few know about, a camera which can shoot 4K raw at 60fps for $200.

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DJANGO UNCHAINED – Anamorphic is Tarantino’s preference – how DP Robert Richardson shot masterpiece ‘spaghetti southern’

Thursday, 28 February, 2013 19:41

Thanks to Volker for spotting the info. Image credits and further reading: Django Unchained / Robert Richardson at The American Cinematographer Magazine ~ Django Unchained echoes spaghetti westerns at Kodak camera and television

Learn the ropes and unholster your gun – The EOSHD Anamorphic Shooter’s Guide

I honestly can’t remember the last time I was so gripped by a mainstream piece of cinema. For the first half I had a permanent grin etched on my face for at least an hour, and for the second half I was on the edge of the seat with the kind of tension and sheer terror that you rarely see with the pacing of most mainstream movies – Ridley Scott did it with Alien and Tarantino’s completely mastered it here. The first act is like the journey of a roller coaster up the tracks and then for the 2nd half it comes rocketing down and you’re terrified.

Django Unchained is a towering achievement – and here’s how it was shot.

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Digital Bolex D16 cinema camera gets huge upgrade

Wednesday, 30 January, 2013 09:50

I’m really impressed by this new Digital Bolex blog post detailing what they have been spending all this extra time on. The project has had a massive yet very sensible improvement on the original specs of the camera.

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Sony F35 reaches $12,000 on eBay from $250,000 in 2008

Tuesday, 29 January, 2013 21:54

View or buy the Sony F35 for $12,000 on eBay US (this version is enhanced by Clairmont camera in Hollywood)

A Hollywood workhorse to this day, the Sony CineAlta F35 (also rebadged as Panavision Genesis) is a Super 35mm PL mount digital cinema camera and also an extraordinarily good deal on the used market in 2013.

It has 14 stops of dynamic range and a global shutter. It has taken CMOS sensor in the F65 a full five years to surpass the CCD sensor in the F35 / Genesis, which was used to shoot Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, Superman Returns and Apocalypto.

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Sony FS700 slow mo goes low light with Speed Booster and the new SLR Magic T0.95 lenses

Thursday, 24 January, 2013 04:12

Please email SLR Magic here to order their new lenses

I’ve had a FS700 for a few days and tonight myself and Rudi of Slashcam.de got out and gave it a test run in Berlin. We only shot for 2 or 3 hours and after editing the test I had a lot of ideas for slow-mo shots that would have worked with the song – slow-mo is actually a great creative tool, not a gimmick. Had we the FS700 for longer then I think I could run with this theme of rushing commuters set to the David Bowie song Move On, which pokes a little fun at wanderlust.

Alas slow-mo is the FS700′s best feature. I consider the ND as a bit of a clumsy bolt on, the Sony F5 does it much better. I will consider the 4K output when I see it. Until then this is a 1080p camera.

I’ve also been shooting with the new SLR Magic 35mm T0.95 (Leica M / E-mount) and 25mm T0.95 (Micro Four Thirds / Blackmagic Cinema Camera MFT). Shooting slow mo in low light, you need them.

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Shooting a feature with the Panasonic GH2 and LOMO anamorphic lenses

Saturday, 19 January, 2013 13:10

A guest post by director Roberto Miller.

Andrew asked me to write a brief article for EOSHD about the experience of making my feature film, Mandorla, now in post, with a pair of GH2s and LOMO anamorphic lenses. I’m happy to do so because, truth is, it’s Andrew and the EOSHD community that inspired me to go the GH2-anamorphic route, which achieved a cinematic look and vibe that I never thought possible for a low-budget indie feature.

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Super 35mm just went full frame – Metabones Speed Booster

Monday, 14 January, 2013 01:01

The Speed Booster will be available from Metabones later at a date TBC

Are you sitting down? Sensor size is history.

An optical reducer is something I have long thought was possible on a DSLR and wondered why nobody had made one. If your sensor is smaller than full frame, shrink the image that the lens throws to fit over it. That is the principal behind the Metabones Speed Booster which essentially gives you the full frame look and a brighter image all at once on your Sony E-mount camera.

Crop factors are a thing of the past.

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“Hurt Locker” lens Canon 8-64mm T2.4 PL zoom – perfect companion for the Blackmagic Cinema Camera?

Friday, 11 January, 2013 17:48

UPDATE: Shane now seems to say it vignettes at 8-12mm. Take all this with a pinch of salt until he makes his mind up

Usually most Super 16mm cinema glass won’t cover the larger sensor in the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. The sensor is closer in size to the Panasonic GH3. However Shane Hurlbut has had a rather useful discovery, in shooting with the Canon 8-64mm F2.4 on the BMCC he found it covers the sensor just fine without vignetting.

Canon 8-64mm T2.4 PL / Arri on eBay US

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Category: Creative Filmmaking