Apart from the usual pampering that the bike normally gets before it’s first outing of the year I also set up my new GoPro cameras for they’re first test run. One was mounted permanently on top of my helmet and the other was moved around the bike a bit to see how it coped with vibration and shock.

Both cameras were recording at 720/60p which although is not the best quality option does allow you to create nice slow-mo footage by confirming it to 25 fps in cinema tools.

The only problem I had with the cameras themselves were minor, firstly the lenses kept fogging up, I’m not sure if this was due to it being pretty cold but I had to keep stopping and opening the waterproof housings to let the lenses de-mist. I also didn’t have the angle of the helmet camera right, I’ll correct that next time!

Generally the biggest weakness is rolling shutter which results in a lot of wobble where there’s vibration. It’s not impossible though, I’d be happy using at lease some of the shots.

Below is a quick video showing a sample of the results, nothing has been colour corrected, it’s just straight out of the cameras and converted to ProRes so that I could edit it in final cut. Note the flying cat basket towards that tries to take me out towards the end! Don’t worry, I think it was empty!

The music is by one of my all time favourite bands ‘Killing Joke’ Click here to buy it on iTunes

These little cameras are supplied in waterproof housings and considering their small size actually record pretty nice quality video. of course it’s nothing like the quality you would expect of a 5D mark II, but then even though the 5D is smaller than my EX1 I still don’t want it on top of the helmet!

I’ll write some more about these cool little cameras soon when I get out and test them on my bike, but just to give you a rough idea of their capabilities they can shoot in 1080/3op and even 720/60p which should be great for doing slow motion. They have an incredibly wide lens which is even more extreme when shooting in the 720p mode.

I was faced with a slight problem in that they do not come with a charger unit and require charging via USB. This is great under normal circumstances but I didn’t plan on taking my laptop on the road so I had to find an alternative solution. I decided to give my iPhone charger a whirl as that uses a USB connector and it seems to do the trick just fine. I have two of those so problem solved.

If you’re interested in trying them out for yourself B&H Photo Video sells the whole range.

Here’s a really cool example of what these things can do.

Video by Alan Fendrich courtesy of vimeo.com

Thanks to Genus products for the lead on twitter.

Canon have also released some sample footage shot at 24p and a video showing the new menu options although at the time of writing this I can’t get the video to play.

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!

In the post Simon talks about how shallow depth of field has become an obsession and the huge amounts of “test videos” that now populate vimeo. I read the article with mixed feelings. On the one hand I know I’ve enjoyed my fair share of bokeh and contributed a few of those videos, but even though I agree with a lot of what Simon says about the lack of narrative in these videos I still think people have a right to be creative in their own way.

I’ve been a bokeh addict for around three years now, and I haven’t touched a drop for around 24 hours!

I would love to shoot a narrative piece, but the reality is that so far I’ve either been too lazy or too busy to make the effort to organise such a project. So does that mean I should have refrained from shooting at all? I think not, to me these “test videos” were an important part of my progression. If you create such a video and are proud of it for whatever reason why shouldn’t you share it? After all, thats the beauty of the Internet for us as content makers.

The reason I’m a little bit torn over this whole subject though is that I can’t help feeling that Simon does have a good point regarding the DSLR revolution as it’s become known. The DSLR has resulted in a flood of shallow depth of field montage style videos, much like the kind of thing I’ve enjoyed making too. It seems that what was once a visually interesting and thought provoking project for me now looks like 1000 other videos on vimeo.

Simon is definitely wrong on one count though, I’ve seen numerous narrative films shot on DSLR that look gorgeous and deliver a fantastic story at the same time, he is right however that they are very much outnumbered by montage pieces. Hasn’t that always been the case though?

I’ve also been re-evaluting my 5D shots in comparison to some of the footage from my EX1 and I realise I’ve been drawn into this DSLR thing and lost sight somewhat of the other factors that make a good quality image. It’s worth taking a step back sometimes and looking at the bigger picture.

Am I going to stop shooting on the 5D? Lord no! I’m still addicted to bokeh! I am however  starting to have a better idea of it’s limitations.