Do you Tango? Students who attended last weekend’s workshop hosted by Abel LA and taught by veteran instructor and respected operator Peter Abraham of Tiffen Steadicam now can! The hugely successful two-day workshop gave students the opportunity to learn hands-on the techniques of flying a camera on a Steadicam Rig. The workshop focused on the fundamentals of setting up a rig, including proper vest adjustment and how to balance a sled. Students were then taught real world techniques such “Tango” and “Don Juan” and tried their hands at flying cameras using the Pilot and the Flyer LE systems, rigs that can handle smaller to mid range cameras ranging from the EX1R to the RED. The class culminated with a long test scene that included navigating doorways and stairs. By the end of the weekend, students were Certified Steadicam Operators and most had discovered sore muscles they didn’t even know they had!

Stop by Abel Cine Tech LA, and Joe Guilfoyle, who was among the newly certified, will be happy show you his “Tango” technique and get you into a rig of your own. For more information on future Steadicam workshops, visit their site, thesteadicamworkshops.com.

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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.

There have been a few updates this month to some of our newest products. Nexto has improved their Video Storage Pro (NVS2500) with several updates. The first is support for MOV wrapped MPEG2 files, so files made in the JVC HM700/100 and from the Convergent Design devices (nanoFlash) can be previewed. They have also fixed some bugs and improved compatibility with USB drives. Download the firmware and read about all the updates here – NVS2500 Firmware 1.06.

AJA has also been working on adding function to their Ki Pro portable recorder. The latest firmware adds an ARM recording option that will allow users to have the device start recording on timecode start. This is an important improvement for anyone wanting to slave the Ki Pro to their camera. Additionally they have made several improvements to stability and user interface. You can download the firmware and read about future updates here – Ki Pro Firmware 1.01.

A few months back I compiled the first set of iPhone Apps for the Modern Cinematographer. We got a lot of feedback asking for more, along with plenty of suggestions for favorite apps from our readers. Every week or two I get another request wondering when we’ll have another list of apps. iTunes has over 75,000 apps now, so there were plenty to find. For many of these apps there are other similar ones that you may find more to your liking. I’ve tried to dig through to find what is interesting and unique about these little gems; your mileage may vary.

Movie*Slate (PureBlend Software, $9.99)

There are a bunch of slate marker apps available now for the iPhone. This one has a clapper that delivers a satisfying audible “snap” when shaken. It also allows for “jamming” timecode between it and other iPhones and iPod Touches, not that this really gets you anywhere because it is still a closed loop. But niftiest of all is a shot logging feature that allows one to insert vocal or typed notes for a given take. For doc work, one can even speak into the iPhone during a take (hey, quiet back there!) and the notes will log the timecode. The material can even be exported in a Final Cut XML file so that it can be laid down along your timeline for editing reference.

…continue reading iPhone Apps for the Modern Cinematographer Pt II

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The NULL Lens optical collimation device has been a very popular product. It is the quickest, easiest and most accurate way to set the backfocus on the RED One camera. We have fulfilled all our pre-orders and now have units in stock and ready to ship.

Now, we are introducing the first accessory in the NULL family, the NULL Target. The NULL Target mounts to the front of the NULL Lens and allows easy and accurate backfocus adjustment by projecting a focusing screen onto the RED One’s sensor. Watch the video to see how easy it is to use.

Please note: the NULL Target is still in the prototype phase. We do not yet have pricing or product availability details on this item. Stay tuned for more information.

If you’ve been working with an HDSLR camera or are interested in purchasing one, then you should know that audio recording can be an issue. The cameras themselves have built in microphones, but the quality is not exactly what most video professionals are looking for. So we approached Jem Schofield from theC47.com and asked him to put together a round up of different audio recording options. He created a great article that we posted in our HDSLR specialty shop. Check out his article here – HDSLR Audio Roundup. It is a great resource for anyone interested in these unique cameras.

Recently I was asked why we sell seemingly similar lights at such different prices. The easy answer is that they offer different lensing, which means different performance. But I thought there had to be a better way to quantify and qualify that, so I made a chart that lays out some of the technical differences such as number of footcandles at a given beam spread. That’s easy, as it can be gleaned from any manufacturer’s website. So I also set up a comparative display of three lights to show qualitatively their differences. I compared the Lowel Pro 200w, Arri Junior 150w, and Dedolight 150w. Both the chart and the display are set up in our NY showroom, and you can watch a video of my test on our website.