Why change the mount on the camera when you can change the mount on the lens? Zeiss will soon ship a version of their Compact Primes in Canon EF mount for EOS cameras such as the Canon 5D Mark II. The Zeiss Compact Primes are designed to cover the full 24mm x 36mm image area of the stills format, and these new lenses will come with the facility to swap out the mount to PL (and who knows, maybe something else in the future?). This makes the Compact Primes the “Everything Lens Set” for use on all popular cameras. These lenses are inexpensive and lightweight, yet built to professional cine standards with integrated gearing and large scales. Stills format lenses often have weak mechanics, nearly-useless focus scales, servo drives with “infinity spin” focus dials, image shift and breathing in the focus, and axial-expansion that hampers use of accessories such as matteboxes & follow focuses. All of these issues are removed with the new Zeiss Compact Prime Series II lenses. Above is a photo of a prototype at the Zeiss factory and the lenses will debut at NAB in April (come visit our booth #C8740).

We recently rolled out an upgrade to our website, www.abelcine.com, that includes many new features, including the ability to process international orders. Now, for the first time, our international customers can purchase items directly through the website using fast and secure Google Checkout.

Many of the features we included in this update came directly from client feedback and are designed to improve your shopping experience. To learn more about all the recent upgrades, click here.

Many of you may remember the Panasonic AJ-PCS060G, the P2 reader with a built in 60 GB hard drive. It was a great device at the time, but the 60GB hard drive doesn’t do much for customers with 32GB & 64GB P2 cards. So Panasonic has come up with a new device for downloading P2 cards in the field. The AG-MSU10 or P2 Media Storage Unit. The MSU10 has two slots, one is a P2 card slot and the other accepts a hard drive enclosure from Panasonic (the AG-MBX10). The enclosure has USB and eSATA connections on it and can be filled with any 2.5″ SATA drive, including solid state drives. The P2 Media Storage Unit features a 3.2” LCD screen that displays a P2 thumbnail screen and supports master-quality 10 bit AVC-Intra (100/50) and DVCPRO HD, DVCPRO50, DVCPRO and DV recording formats. With a single touch, AVC-Intra 100 or DVCPRO HD content can be transferred from a P2 card to the solid-state drive at four times real-time (faster at lower data rates). The MSU10 is battery-operated. We are looking forward to seeing the device, which will sell for under $2500. The hard disk is not included, but can be easily be purchased at any retail store. See the full press release here. 

A couple months ago, I wrote about Panasonic’s mention of a single card reader to come. Well the official announcement is finally here. It’s called the AJ-PCD2, and it will sell for less than $350. So many of our P2 clients have been asking for this type of product for years, and we are happy to see it here. The PCD2 comes with two USB 2.0 cables, which power the device (2 USB connections equals twice the power) and connects it to a PC or Mac. This makes it a very portable device for field use, which is exactly what we’ve been asking for. The device will be fully compatible with PC & Mac and will be available in April. Read the full press release here.

Right on the heels of the Ki Pro update, Nexto has also released their own 1.10 firmware for the Video Storage Pro (NVS2500). This update is has several improvements including:

• Added preview support for MXF files Convergent Design’s nanoFlash. (Previously only MOV files were supported for preview)
• 2x faster M-Copy & SYNC speeds (approx. 30MB/s) for faster USB hard drive syncing and copying
• 2x faster CF & SD/MS copy speed (approx 30MB/s)
• 5x faster full verify speed for SxS (approx. 80MB/s)
• Added Copy & Verify function. Automatic full verify after copy.
• Export the backup folder in internal HDD to CF/SD/MS.
• Added Delete for memory cards including SxS and P2.
• Added preview for external devices such as P2/SxS/CF/SD/MS and external USB hard drive
• Display file name during the ‘Clip View’ mode
• Added support for SxS-1(indication on life time expire)
• Preliminary support for AVC-Intra50
• Support for ‘avi’ file for the Sony PMW-350

This is great news for any NVS2500 owner. Make sure to update your device. The firmware update can be found here - NVS2500 1.10 Firmware

AJA has just released firmware version 1.1 for the Ki Pro, and going up .1 turns out to be a major upgrade. Here is a list of the improvements :

- ProRes 422 LT and Proxy recording has been added. These formats are supported in Final Cut Pro 7, and allow for longer recording times at minimal quality loss.

- 720P variable frame rate support has now been added as well. This is great for VariCam users that want 720p24 (23.98), 720p25 and 720p30 (29.97) native recording.

- 1080p support has also been improved by enabling the auto-detection of 1080p 23.98, 1080p 24, 1080p 25 and 1080p 29.97 signals. This, along with PsF playback, gives the Ki Pro more functionality for high end users.

These updates, as well as a couple other new features, make for one big update. See the full release notes here, including a list of updates still planned for the future. Download Ki Pro Firmware 1.1 here.

In the last few years, MTF has become a buzzword in both cine and HD lens circles, but there is still a lot of confusion about just what it is, what it can and can’t do, and what it means to the cinematographer in a practical sense. In this article, I will attempt to clear up some this confusion by explaining what MTF means from a technical standpoint.

You may already know that MTF is an abbreviation for Modulation Transfer Function. MTF provides a way to objectively measure image sharpness in a practical and repeatable way that also correlates well with subjective perceived image sharpness.

The smallest practical unit for measuring image detail is a line pair, which is a black line and a white line, side by side. The measurement is line pairs per millimeter, and not lines per millimeter. It is very important to note that we are always talking about a black and a white line pair, and we are counting them as one line pair (1 lp/mm). In the digital realm, we need at least one pixel to represent the black point, and one to represent the white point. So we need a minimum of 2 pixels to image 1 line pair.

…continue reading What Is MTF?