Those with keen eyes will also have spotted the move away from stick-on mounts to a mounting system that requires the use of plates under the camera. Also new in the Pro models are anti-fog glass, lens caps and rubber boots to stop the diopter thread from collecting dust and dirt. There’s also a mention of a protective case.

I’m not sure I’d welcome the additional plate under the camera, the design looks great and I can imagine it makes the rig a lot sturdier but with that extra plate and something like a Manfrotto 394 fitted under it there’s going to be a lot of height between the camera and whatever it’s mounted to. With the new plate and a 394 fitted it must put the camera a long way above the rails on something like a mini-baseplate. The rails on my rig can only go up another few mm so I’m not sure I could even make that work.

Find out more at Zacuto.com

Click here for more info

If you’re getting an unsupported media message then click here to find out what’s going on.

http://ninofilm.net/blog/2010/02/23/canon-550d-review/

It’s nice to see footage samples without any post processing so that you can see the real quality of images that the camera is capturing. The 550D footage at 720p seems just as nasty as the same mode on the 7D to me, although the much nicer 1080p footage seems to match up too.

There’s no mention of 720p frame rates but after trying that mode on the 7D and not being impressed with the quality I’m not really bothered about 720, the EX1 is way better for that job. It will be great to have native 25p though!

Theres’s also some surprises in the list;
• Manual sound (gain control) with 64 levels and an on screen meter!
• Histogram whilst recording video
• Av & Tv modes whilst shooting video – Couldn’t we already shoot video in those modes?
• Audio sampling changed from 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz.

All great stuff. There’s apparently also been a release date of March 17th bouncing around on the web, let’s hope this is all true!

Check out all the colours at www.redheadwindscreens.com I went for a gun metal and a midnight for $54 with free worldwide shipping.

People say that much like dogs, an h4n often looks like it’s owner… I don’t believe a word of it!

Find out more at www.redheadwindscreens.com

Vincent Laforet – So what does an HDSLR hybrid shoot look like?

Blimey!

Who would have thought a few years back that video imagery would reach this level for less than $900! Canon have posted a sample video from the 550D on YouTube.

Find out more at Canon UK

The music in my videos plays as much part in conveying emotion and feeling as the footage, in fact the emotion while I’m creating it is mostly driven by the music. I’ve looked for royalty free music in the past and found it very difficult to find music that inspires me. It’s for this reason that I’ve been drawn to using music I know and love.

I recently discovered jamendo who are making creative commons music easier to find and offer a very practical solution to our needs as videographers. As you’ll see in the post there are a few things to look out for but from what I’ve seen so far it looks to be a good way for creative people to share their work and benefit from each others art.

At the bottom of the HV20.com page the author gives a link to a talk by Larry Lessig, a co-founder of the creative commons movement and I highly recommend you watch it as he describes the current situation with copyright law in a very entertaining and interesting way.

If anyone has any experience with publishing using the creative commons license then please feel free to post a comment.