I was a first-time visitor to Hawaii recently, and shot a lot of photos and video. I’ll be dribbling it to my blog in bits and pieces as I go through the footage. Here’s a taste: a green sea turtle at Ho’okena Beach in Kona, Hawaii. This turtle popped up as I was snorkeling in deeper waters and swam alongside me all the way back in to shore. A beauty. Perhaps she was amazed to see a film/video editor out in direct sunlight?

Meandering tech notes:
Shot with a Creative Vado HD solid state 720p camcorder (1st generation)¹, in a Creative-branded Aquapac underwater housing.

The Vado HD is very similar to the Flip Mino HD and the Kodak zi8; I like it because it features a much wider-angle lens than its competitors. The Aquapac is basically a $30 very clear plastic bag with a watertight seal. Though this one’s branded for the Creative Vado HD, it’s probably large enough to fit two of them side-by-side². One one of my snorkeling adventures I brought along my Canon HV20 in a dive housing, and its remote control (to start and stop the camera’s recording) in the Aquapac alongside the Vado. I probably could have put my cell phone in there as well but didn’t trust the bag yet and honestly didn’t really want it along.

This turtle clip is from the 2nd day of my trip, before I’d figured out that if I squeezed out all the air in the Aquapac before sealing it, the plastic would remain taut over the lens, resulting in a sharper image. Less air in the bag also would have resulted in a tighter fit against the screen of the Vado HD, which would have given me a fighting chance of seeing the image on the Vado’s screen underwater –most of the footage I shot on the trip, including this turtle clip, was shot by blindly pointing the camera and hoping.

I snorkeled with the Vado in the Aquapac bag all week and had no problem with leaks. I was a little worried about this, but wasn’t risking much as the 1st and 2nd generation Vado HD go for $49 these days (B-stock of the 4Gb versions on Creative’s website as of 7/2010).

1. I’ve written up the Creative Vado HD previously here and here.
2. 3D anyone?

Euphonix’s "MC Mix" hardware control surface. A nice piece of kit, costs $999. It’s a little smaller than the Mackie Universal Controller, a plus in my opinion.

Unfortunately, the motorized movement of these faders can also be noisy, especially the clacking sounds emitted as many faders pop into position at once. This can be distracting when trying to mix a quiet, emotional scene. These controllers are also pretty expensive, starting at about $1000.

Enter the iPad and Saitara Software’s “AC-7 Pro Control Surface”:

The control surface in the video looks very cool to me. It’s silent, can be seen in a dark editing room, appears to function as well as I’d need, and the cost of the app is only $9.99. I’ve played with a friend’s iPad, and know the touch-sensitivity of that screen is accurate and responsive enough that I’d have no problem adjusting several tracks at once with this interface. For those addicted to the feel of hardware faders this might not cut it¹, but for me it’d be a big improvement over moving the faders in Final Cut Pro’s “Audio Mixer” window with a mouse. I can’t justify spending $1200 on a set of faders I’d barely touch except a bit towards the end of a project, but $10² ? Hmm.

Yet another reason to consider an iPad. I wonder how long I’ll hold out? Sigh.

1. I don’t think this is just a matter of purely subjective preference –one can feel where a hardware fader’s control is in space, and there’s probably a bit of resistance built in so the user can feel when the level has been set at unity without having to look.
2. $510 if factoring in the cost of an iPad, which can also be used to access the iPoo social network.

Test of NeatVideo plugin; Noise removal from Canon T2i 6400 ISO clips from ZachFine on Vimeo.

if you’re on a fast machine, I’d recommend watching this full-screen with HD set to “on” –if you’d like to download the original QuickTime file rather than watch it embedded in a web page, there’s a download link low on the right side of the movie’s Vimeo page.

I shot some 1080p video in low-light with my Canon Digital Rebel T2i set to its 6400ISO setting, which resulted in very noisy video.

I tested the demo version of the NeatVideo for FCP filter to see if it could remove or minimize the noise. The results were encouraging, so I bought the “Pro” version of the plugin for $99.

This clip shows the results of the application of this filter to a couple of my more dramatically noisy clips. The filter renders very slowly, compounded by the fact that I’ve set the temporal filtration to use 3 frames.

You’ll see portions of the clips both with and without the noise removal, and split-screened sections for comparison. I think the result is pretty remarkable and usable, though the noise is peeking through the darker areas of the frame in the first clip. I wonder if I can smooth that out if I build a better noise profile or if I increase the temporal filtration?

Music:
“Do The Global Twist” by “The Neatbeats”, from the awesome album “japanese groupsound”.

I had to chop the song in half. Go buy the song or album to hear the very enthusiastic jam session in the middle of the track. Fun stuff.

Looong Steadicam Merlin + Canon T2i shot from ZachFine on Vimeo.

This is not the most exciting shot in the world to watch, but it was for me the most successful of my increasingly steady pairing of a Steadicam Merlin with Canon EOS Rebel T2i and Rode VideoMic .

In order to stop down the kit lens’s aperture enough to achieve anything approaching deep focus in the relatively dark location, I had to shoot at the camera’s 6400 ISO setting. My next big purchase will probably be a fast superwide zoom, maybe the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 . My Canon 20mm f2.8 is just not wide enough –it’s the equivalent of a 36mm field of view on these APS-C sized sensors.

The steadicam was balanced so that it was just barely bottom heavy. About a 4-5 second drop (when the contraption is swiveled so that the camera and the counterweight are both level in front of me, it takes the camera about 5 seconds to float back upright). I enjoyed working with it so balanced.

The terrain was a little tricky. I had to weave around furniture, adults, and running little kids. It’s not the smoothest path I could have carved through the space, but I’m pleased with the improvisation. Around 45 seconds the camera tilted a bit, probably after I ran into something. I tried to tip it back.

The Rode Videomic is just directional enough to isolate bits of conversation in front of the camera. I can clearly hear my cousin Bruce explaining the intricacies of the game “Risk” and my Uncle Bob talking about a play he’d seen called “The Whipping Man ” as the camera passes each of them.

I applied a very temporary color correction with Final Cut Pro’s 3-way color corrector filter, and applied very sophisticated titles and transitions, and exported to 1080p H264 using Compressor before uploading. Yay.

If it looks stuttery, try toggling “HD” to “off”.

pizza and the dream of not being filmed from ZachFine on Vimeo.

A little video of an evening of pizza-making and camera-dodging.

Shot and uploaded at 1080p resolution, so feel free to toggle HD to on and play this one back fullscreen.

Video shot with Canon Digital REBEL T2i DSLR set to the “superflat” picture style. Canon 50mm f1.8 lens.
Converted to Apple Prores, edited in Final Cut Pro 7.0.2, graded in Apple Color.

Exported to the QuickTime H264 at 1080p24, restricted to 8000kbps, audio 44.1Khz 16-bit AAC 128kbps.

Music: the first third of “free space incesticide” by Eight Frozen Modules.

I shot the same setup with 5 different color style settings, and will be looking at all of them in Apple Color in order to determine which setting I prefer.

I’m well aware that tradition holds that no camera test is complete without a photo of a beautiful lady holding a redundant umbrella and smiling at the photographer, but I decided plastic grapes would just as ably serve that function¹.

1. And the grapes had to stand-in, as no people were around when I shot these tests

To enable this column, just right-click any column header, and select “Show Thumbnail” from the contextual popup menu:

Just as in icon view, you can click on each thumbnail and drag left and right to scan through the clip’s contents. If you press the “control” key any time while scanning through the clip and keep it held down as you release the mouse button, you’ll change the “poster frame” displayed in the thumbnail for that clip to the last frame displayed.

It’s worth noting that the thumbnails, at least in the case of the 16:9 clips I used for these screen captures, are not displayed at the proper aspect ratio. It is also worth noting that the thumbnail doesn’t change size if the user widens the Browser’s Thumbnail column. I’m sure these small issues will be fixed in some future version of FCP (wink wink nudge nudge Apple ;) .

Canon EOS Rebel T2i (Body Only) – $799.99

I’d expect the fact that they’re taking preorders means they have a shipment coming to their distribution centers from Canon. Just a guess.

When I bought my T2i, it seemed only the kits with lens were available for purchase. I decided I didn’t mind having the extra lens, as then I could loan my Rebel XT to people with a decent lens that I didn’t care too much about. But maybe that was just rationalization and if the body-only version of the T2i were available I’d have gone for it.

My previous post, on how to get a discounted price on a Canon T2i, might still apply (if you want to buy the camera on eBay).

For those wondering why I’m so excited about this camera; It’s because the T2i is a way to shoot decent HD video with a relatively large sensor and great lenses for under $1000. Such tools for good-looking budget filmmaking are hitting the streets and will change the nature of online video, if not also segments of television and theatrical film.

Posted via email from Zach’s posterous

Remember Microsoft Bing? The search engine that Microsoft will pay you to use? That’s step 1.

1. Go to www.bing.com, sign in or create a “windows live”³ account, then search using bing for popular product lines like “ram” or “xbox”.
2. Look at the top of the search results for a “Bing cashback” link to eBay like the one I’ve annotated above. Click the words “Bing cashback”.
3. You’ll be taken to eBay. There’ll be a banner at the top of the page telling you that you’ll get an 8% “Bing cashback” if you purchase the item using eBay’s “Buy it now” link and if you pay via paypal. The key thing to note here is that the cashback happens regardless what item you buy at eBay, it doesn’t have to be RAM or XBox. In your case, search eBay for a Canon T2i.
4. In your search results, click the “Buy it now” tab to filter your search to only show items that can be purchased using that method.

I wonder how Microsoft cashback actually works. Does the money come from Microsoft? From the participating store (eBay in this case)? Maybe it’s just money rained down by the universe as a reward to people for continuing to go through the motions of participating in the market economy as the walls crumble around us.

Microsoft’s cashback takes a while. But a month or so after your purchase, they’ll deposit the cashback value directly to your paypal account. eBay has their own sort of cashback program going on, called “eBay Bucks”. For your purchase, you’ll earn 2% of its value in eBay Bucks, which can be used for future transactions. So within a month or two after your purchase, you’ll have received 10% of the total in Bing Cashback and eBay bucks.

I’m sure if you can wait six months a better deal will come along. Maybe the Canon T2i will be available at Dell Small Business store and you’ll be able to get %15 off buy using a coupon. But if, like me, you’re ready now to replace your several-generations-old DSLR, this is probably not a bad way to go.

1. At least in part due to its HD video capabilities
2. $799 for the body, $899 for the body in a kit with lens
3. The terms “windows” and “live” are meaningless Microsoftian buzzwords that are completely unrelated to this context. But the marketing folk at Redmond are only satisfied when those words are platered on top of every product.

1. Choose a representative frame in each clip. (Click any of these images to see them nice and big.

2. Send the clips to FCP’s Batch Export feature and bring up its “Settings” window.

3. Choose the destination for the exported files and set Batch Export to create still images.

The result will be a folder full-resolution PNG images, each named after its parent clip, deposited in the chosen destination folder.

I often end up processing directories full of such uncompressed images further using the excellent command-line Imagemagick utilities using the tcsh shell’s¹ “foreach” command to iterate through all the images.² It generally goes a little something like this:

$ tcsh3
% cd directory_of_images4
% foreach foo (*.png)5
foreach? convert -geometry 330x800 "$foo" "$foo:r.jpg"6
foreach? rm "$foo"7
foreach? end8

The result of this command is a set of JPEG-compressed images, one per clip selected in step 2, each resized proportionally to fit within a 330×800 rectangle.

1. This is also easy to do with OS X’s default bash shell, but I’m more fluent in tcsh.
2. You may prefer GraphicConverter, Photoshop, or MS Paint. Imagemagick combined with the command line is mad fast for both image transformations and automatically renaming files.
3. Switching to the tcsh for this because I have yet to internalize Bash's foreach syntax.
4. If you're unfamiliar with command lines and shells, please note that the "%" character here represents the tcsh command-prompt, the "$" in the previous line represents the typical Bash command-prompt. Don't type these characters in your commands, they're just here for show.
5. "foo" is a placeholder of my choosing. There's nothing special about the string "foo". You can replace it with anything you like, such as "image", "placeholder", or "your_mom". Just make sure to use the same string in place of all the "$foo" commands below.
6. Each time tcsh iterates through your commands, it will replace the string "$foo" with the filename of an image from the set chosen by "*.png", which is every file in the directory ending in ".png". Adding a ":r" to "$foo" indicates that tcsh should expand the filename but leave off the period and filename extension –in this case "$foo:r.jpg" removes ".png" from the file and adds ".jpg" in its place. The quotes around "$foo" are optional if your filenames do not contain spaces or special characters.
7. Removing the original png file because all I ever wanted were the tiny JPEGs.
8. One more note from Captain Obvious: If you try to copy and paste any of these commands, be sure not to copy and paste the superscript numbers that lead to these footnotes.

Montcalm road, Lowell, Michigan

When the traffic signs are riddled with gunshot, it’s probably best to wear orange clothing and remove your bambi costume.

Does the windmill at the center of this field really serve any function at all? And what crop is that? It’s not corn, not wheat. Everything in this photo might represent form without function. I’d have trudged further out into this field to get you a better view, but the wacko crop made it difficult and I was worried the farmer would appear and shoot me.

Oh hey, a cat. Who doesn’t love cats?

1. Yeah, one would think that swapping partitions was a “Free Love” era tradition, but it continues in all modern operating systems. There are even key exchanges.
2. Photos shot on 10/18/2009, click any of them to see them writ large.
3. “Begin” is an anagram for “being”. Think about it. Stop thinking about it.

What he said.