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We just received our first shipment of the PMW-350 cameras, including four that went into our rental department. The demo units I received in the past did not have the Fujinon lens that the camera ships with, so this was my first time seeing the new lens. Watch the video above to see my impression of the lens. You might also be interested in the two part series on the 350 camera that I did when the camera was announced.

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As HDSLR cameras are used in more professional applications, we find our clients looking for ways to make them fit within a more traditional on-set workflow. One of the first issues we tackled was monitoring. These prosumer cameras have HDMI outputs, but our clients need HD-SDI feeds. Our solution is portable and battery powered. Check out the video to see what we came up with, and click the link to view the HDMI to HD-SDI Kit for HDSLR on our site.

I guess you could call this “HD Formats for Dummies”, but if you’ve been reading our blog, you are certainly no dummy. There are so many varieties of HD out there and it can all get a little confusing. My aim here is to help organize the different formats and clear up some common misconceptions. To do this I’ve broken down the HD formats into three categories: Resolution, Frequency, and Frame Rate. With these three parameters, you can come up with any HD signal available. Keep in mind that not all the HD formats we will discuss can be sent for broadcast, so I will also point out those formats and how they effect your final product.

…continue reading Making Sense of HD Formats and Frame Rates

In the vast shadow of the release of James Cameron’s Avatar, the Blu-ray Disc Association released the finalized 3D specifications. 3D media has bounced in and out of pop culture since the 1950s when it was introduced as a way for motion pictures to compete with television. Now the home entertainment industry has embraced 3D technology with a method for delivering the media.

Blu-ray 3D will be 1080p and backward compatible, meaning that the disks will be playable and viewable as 2D on existing equipment and current disks will play on any new equipment. The new compression codec is known as MPC, a variant of the current AVC. Importantly, the new standard will work with “any compatible 3D display,” which sounds vague, but appears to mean that there won’t be any format wars between different monitoring technologies. There are active and passive displays with high and low refresh rates, and side-by-side and line-interweaved technologies. Get ready for a whole new set of specs as different flat screen monitors debut for the home and the professional industry. 3D will work this time because the display technology will drive it directly to the audience. Even the Sony PlayStation 3 is included in the new Blu-ray 3D spec. Soon 3D will be yet another creative tool available to the creative cinematographer – instead of asking for a focus pull or a small dolly creep, perhaps that next dramatic moment will be best punctuated with a “depth pull.”

…continue reading Blu-ray 3D Standard Announced

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Recently, Abel hosted a pair of seminars exploring Sony’s new XDCAM EX camera models. The events at Abel’s New York and Burbank facilities showcased the 2/3” CMOS EX350, which joins Sony’s popular XDCAM EX family. Each of the cameras in the line—the EX1R, the EX3 and the EX350—has a different feature set and form factor, which makes it ideally suited to a particular application. You can read more about these applications on abelcine.com.

At each event, Abel’s Andy Shipsides presented an overview of the XDCAM EX format and gave an EX350 camera tour. Filmmaker (and Abel Rental alumn) Ben Bloodwell joined Andy at the New York event to give his impressions of the EX350. He screened footage from a recent documentary on cyclist Lance Armstrong shot with the EX3. Veteran Network News Magazine shooter Dennis Dillon then spoke about combining the EX cameras with nanoFlash recorders and XDCAM optical discs.

Director of Photography Tim Paterson was the special guest at the LA event. He shared his thoughts on the EX350 and discussed his experiences shooting the recent documentary Michael Jackson’s This Is It with the EX1 and EX3.

Browse the image gallery above to see images from both events.

By the way, we are now taking pre-orders on the EX350, which will begin shipping right after the New Year.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, there was a discussion on the Cinematographer’s Mailing List (CML, cinematography.net) about new camera technologies and future trends in our industry. Neil Smith of Hollywood DI asked me to give Abel’s perspective on what’s to come. Since writing my response, numerous people have commented on it and suggested we re-post it for others to see. It is presented here for you to read and draw your own conclusions.

From Neil Smith, Hollywood DI:

Mitch, I’d be interested to hear your views on how you see the industry changing over the next 12 months … you guys have been in the game a lot longer than most of us and have never ceased to adapt and change and continue to deliver great products and services.

My response:

What we see as the big change in the industry is how the market now leads the manufacturers. Unlike what so many sometimes think, the manufacturers have always tried to listen to their customers to develop products with which everyone will be happy. Focus groups and meetings with large clients worked well in the past, but the business of Image Capture has expanded at an exponential rate. And there are also forums such as this that communicate in minutes what once took months. There are different markets and different ways to serve them. And these markets are letting the manufacturers know this, and the manufacturers are responding. And sometimes a manufacturer just might know something and drop a product that makes everyone stop and take notice.

…continue reading So, What Lies Ahead?

Photo by Rebecca Sandulak

Mother’s Day, a dramatic thriller shot in 2perf, has recently finished production using the Aaton Penelope.  Filmed in Winnepeg, from the Director of Saw II, III and IV, Mother’s Day is a heartwarming, bloodcurdling story of a sadistic family who return to their childhood home to terrorize the new home owners and their guests.

In an interesting twist on the industry’s trend toward digital, Cinematographer Joseph White explained how he and Director Darren Lynn Bousman chose to shoot film.

“We shot Repo! The Genetic Opera on Genesis with great results, but we felt that this film lent itself to a more traditional approach. We wanted a more dramatic, dark, stark look, and 35mm just made the most sense. Darren had done three of the Saw films on 35mm, and although we loved using the Genesis system (for a really stylized movie), we were both really happy to get back to 35mm.”

According to Joe, once they settled on 35mm film the decision to shoot 2perf was driven by two complimentary factors.

“The obvious budgetary reasons for sure,” he said “but being able to shoot around 22 minutes on a 1,000′ mag and 9 minutes on a 400′ mag is pretty amazing. With the finer grained film stocks today, it’s really hard to tell the difference between 2perf and 3perf, so in my mind it was a win-win for me and the producers.”

As for camera choice, Joe used both Panavision in 2perf, as well as Aaton Penelope, and found the Penelope perfect for portability.

“We used Panaflex cameras for our studio cameras, but the Penelope was just incredible when shooting handheld, steadicam, or even just putting it on a sandbag with a long lens to get another angle fast – it was an incredibly versatile camera and gave us so many shooting options. It is really the only compact camera that can shoot 2perf.”

“It really is an impressive camera” Joe enthused. “Gorgeous video tap, very quiet, a dream on steadicam and shooting in cars – many car shots would not have been possible without the Penelope. It’s just such a sexy little camera with every bell and whistle you could want, while still getting the fundamentals right. A camera with a real design sensibility – it has so many uses.”

We asked Joe how he’d feel about using Penelope again on his next film project.

“Absolutely, in a heartbeat” he said. “Penelope is my new favorite camera.”

Mother’s Day is Joseph White’s twelfth feature film. Other credits include Shelter, Repo! The Genetic Opera, Equality U, Open House and Café, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. Joe graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and received an MFA in Film Production from USC.

Mother’s Day stars Rebecca DeMornay and Jaime King. Joe’s crew on this project included operators Paul Suderman and Ari Robbins, along with AC’s Marcus James and Danny Quesnel.