Danita Delimont

From Still To Motion

From what I have read online and seen in a few tutorials, this book is an excellent resource for all photographers looking to make the move to video with their new DSLRs.

All killer and no filler. Written by the experts in easy to understand language, From Still to Motion breaks down each step to get from beginner level clips to full length professional looking video production. It also includes a DVD with further instructions and tutorials to round out the most important lessons.

Get your copy today and start the journey!

Tips for Shooting Video With Your New DSLR

Here is a great beginners list taken from the Gadgets Blog over at the NYTimes. The author got to spend a day working with Canon expert Bruce Dorn on a commercial for the Canon T2i and came up with some very helpful observations:

• It will take some practice, but you must learn to focus manually. For Mr. Dorn, autofocus is just not acceptable.

• If your camera allows, use manual exposure settings when shooting video because exposures will change as you pan the camera.

• A good shutter speed for video is 1/50^th second. That’s the “classic sweet spot,” Mr. Dorn said.

• Set the ISO to 200.

• He recommends an aperture setting of F/5.6, which he says is used by many cinematographers.

• If your camera accommodates 24 fps video capture, use it.

• Avoid auto white balance at all costs. Instead, pick one white balance mode and stick with it throughout the video.

• Use the camera’s neutral image setting; it will give you the most latitude for postproduction work.

• Focus where your subject will be, not where it is.

• Always shoot a minimum of 15 seconds per take.

• Never shoot vertical, unless you want to mount your HDTV sideways.

• Invest in a good high-performance memory card. Slower cards will conk out when their buffer becomes overloaded.

• If you’re serious about video, invest in an add-on microphone, like the $200 Sennheiser MKE 400 shotgun microphone.

• Use a neutral density filter, like an N.3 or N.9; stick with one brand if you buy several filters.

The Great Camera Shootout 2010

The fine folks over at Zacudo undertook a very daunting task back in March of this year. They set out to compare each of the best ‘Video DSLRs’ on the market side by side next to 35mm film.

This resulted in a 3-part web series that is sure to surprise a lot of you. If you currently own one of these DSLRs, are thinking about purchasing one, already shooting video like a pro or looking to get started this is a very informative and interesting viewing experience.

Head over to www.zacuto.com/shootout and get out your popcorn.

“Which Video DSLR should I buy?”

Our friends over at DSLR University have put together a very comprehensive piece attempting to answer this very tough question. As they state right off the bat, it all depends on personal preference and what you plan on using it for, but they do a great job of weighing the pros and cons of each of these video-capable DSLRs:

Nikon D3s

Panasonic GH1

Canon T2i

Canon 7D

Canon 5D Mark II

Canon 1D Mark IV

New Canon 5D Firmware fixes Aperture ‘Phenomenon’

Translation: Phenomenon = Glitch.

Firmware changes

This firmware update (Version 2.0.7) incorporates the following improvements and fixes.

1. Fixes a phenomenon in which the aperture exhibits abnormal movement when shooting movies in manual exposure mode and Aperture Priority AE (Av mode) using some Canon lenses (such as macro lenses).

2. Fixes a phenomenon in which the exposure level shown in the LCD panel differs from what is shown in the viewfinder when shooting still images in manual exposure mode.

3. Fixes a phenomenon in which the Wireless File Transmitter (WFT-E4 or WFT-E4 II) may not automatically power off when used for FTP transfers.

These phenomenon only occur with the Version 2.0.4 and Version 2.0.3 firmware.

The Version 2.0.7 firmware being released this time is for cameras with firmware up to Version 2.0.4. If the camera’s firmware is already Version 2.0.7, it is not necessary to update the firmware.

Download it HERE.

Learn FINAL CUT EXPRESS 4 with Izzy Video Tutorials

ATTN: Footage Shooters!

There is a free set of tutorials for Final Cut Express 4 available online done by Izzy Hyman.  There are 9 lessons with a total of 2.5 hours of tutorial.  A few of us in the office went through these tutorials and learned almost everything we needed to know for submitting quality edited clips.  It breaks down the editing process and color correction in a few short and easy to follow segments, and even teaches a lot of keyboard shortcuts to further simplify post-production.

You can find this tutorial and many others at: www.izzyvideo.com

The Final Cut Express tutorial is on the products page at http://www.izzyvideo.com/learn-final-cut-express/ and just follow the instructions on the page. The tutorial is available to download in it’s entirety in the zip file called Learn_FCE.zip.  Also download the sample videos  from the link at the Chapter 1 table of contents called ch01media.zip.  He uses these clips to create a fully rendered video and you learn by watching the tutorials in QuickTime, while copying what he does step by step in Final Cut Express!

This is a very powerful and useful tool for our mac users! Take a look and start editing… Good Luck!

Footage Seminar Postponed

We are very sorry to announce that our upcoming series of Footage seminars, scheduled to begin on April 5th, have been suddenly postponed. Our web broadcast service Creative Techs has taken on a new owner and changed their name to Creative Live. They are also re-evaluating their upcoming curriculum and are unable to give us a new start time for the series, or even acknowledge that they will honor their commitment to us for the broadcasts.

9 days before our first class was scheduled to start, we received an email from owner Craig Swanson as follows:

“I’m sorry to do this. …there are some big changes coming up for our classroom in April.  Chase Jarvis is now a co-owner of our online classroom, and we’re having to adjust some schedules around some big events that he is part of rolling out.”

Needless to say, this unprofessional behavior is unacceptable to us and we are now looking for alternative ways to conduct and deliver the seminars. We will let you all know as soon as suitable arrangements have been made.

In the meantime, please don’t stop shooting and submitting your footage! If you have not yet started, talk with Danita or Jeff Lawrence about how to submit your clips. The web site is still going live with footage on April 5th as originally planned and we are adding clips as soon as they are ready.

While we were hoping to save the following announcement for our April 12th seminar on editing footage, we are pleased to announce that we have made arrangements to provide our photographers with extremely reasonable pricing on post production of footage clips! Remember when you used to send your film in for processing? Well now that same convenience is available for editing your footage clips! Just send in raw footage in clips of 60 seconds or less and you will get back time edited, color corrected, and keyworded clips ready for submission to us for immediate uploading. And if you need special effects like zooming or panning added in post, this too can be done at low cost. Just contact us for pricing.

We hope this hasn’t caused you any inconvenience. We’ll keep you posted!

Just Released: EOS MOVIE Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro

EOS MOVIE Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro (ce1100x.dmg.zip) is now available.  This is compatible with files shot with the EOS 7D, EOS 5D Mark II, and EOS-1D Mark IV.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&tabact=DownloadDetailTabAct&fcategoryid=314&modelid=17662

Go to the product page, use the drop-down menu to select OS-X operating system, and it should be sitting right there.

Further down the page you will find a Quick Start Guide PDF document describing its operation.

Firmware Update for 5D Mark II Released

UPDATE: Canon has released a small fix for this update, firmware update 2.0.4, to address concerns about Custom camera settings in the 2.0.3 update.

Canon recently released their firmware update 2.0.3
Head over to the Firmware Update page and get the low down on how to upgrade your camera to the latest and greatest.

This latest upgrade brings 5 major improvements to the movie function and fixes a bug in the manual sensor cleaning function. Here are the full specs from the Canon website

1) Adds or changes the following movie frame rates.

NTSC:

1920×1080 : 30 fps (changed – actual 29.97 fps)

1920×1080 : 24 fps (added – actual 23.976 fps)

640×480 : 30 fps (changed – actual 29.97 fps)

PAL:

1920×1080 : 25 fps (added – actual 25.0 fps)

1920×1080 : 24 fps (added – actual 23.976 fps)

640×480 : 25 fps (added – actual 25.0 fps)

2) Adds a function for manually adjusting the sound recording level (64 levels).

3) Adds a histogram display (brightness or RGB) for shooting movies in manual exposure.

4) Adds shutter-priority AE mode (Tv) and aperture-priority AE (Av) mode to the exposure modes for shooting movies.

5) Changes the audio sampling frequency from 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz.

6) Fixes a phenomenon where communication between the camera and the attached lens is sometimes interrupted after manual sensor cleaning. (This phenomenon only affects units with Firmware Version 1.2.4.)

Save the Date – Stock Footage Webinar

Photo © Larry Ditto / DanitaDelimont.com

Although shooting video with DSLR cameras may be intimidating and confusing at first we feel that with the right guidance and information everyone can learn to embrace it and produce quality footage. As we have been moving into the footage market over the past few months we have come across many experts, useful tools, software and hardware that have proven to be very valuable. We are encouraging all of our still shooters to get into this new market and we now can show you how to do so with just a short learning curve and a modest investment in gear.

We are pleased to announce that DanitaDelimont.com will be presenting a FREE 5 week online footage course for our contracted photographers starting April 5th.  Each Monday classes will be streamed live online from the Creative Techs classroom at Art Wolfe’s studio in Seattle and will also be available later for downloading from the Creative Techs website.

The program is titled “Producing Great Stock Footage with Your DSLR”. Each week we will tackle different topics and will have various experts and product representatives leading the discussions. We will be updating you as the schedule is finalized, but be sure to mark Monday, April 5th at 11:00 AM Pacific time and the following four Mondays on your calendar.  There are also seats available in the studio audience so if you are in Seattle, please attend the live session!

We look forward to helping you get acquainted with shooting and processing footage.  Let us help you to add a great new revenue stream to your business with much less effort than you ever imagined!