15Apr Getting ready for the Makerbot.
I haven’t done any CAD designs in awhile and I’m still waiting on my Makerbot. So I thought now might be a good time to freshen up on my CAD skills. I picked up a Digital Caliper and sat down this morning with a plan to make something close to a Manfrotto 501pl quick release plate. Two hours of fumbling around and the concept quick release plate is done.
I wont know if this knock off plate will print out properly until I have the Makerbot setup, but it does give you an idea of what kind of cool designs can be made with a little bit of effort. If I get some time this weekend I might try and design a concept quick release mount to go along with it.
If the design works out, this could end up being a made with about 50 cents worth of plastic. That’s a lot better then the $20 from Manfrotto. I’m also working on a Zoom h1
15Apr Configuring your DSLR Rig.
When you’re configuring a camera rig, it’s a good idea to think about how you film. Are you going to be locked down on a tripod most of the time? Do you need a field monitor? What kind of audio gear will you be working with? Do you need to be mobile?
I figured it might be helpful to go through the thought process I used when putting together one of my rigs. The Idea behind this configuration was event coverage, which means I will be running around a crowded area, grabbing quick interviews and product overviews then darting off. So I started with a stripped down CPM FILM TOOLS cube cage.
A field monitor will add to much weight to a rig that has to be carried all day so removing that gives you room for wireless audio and a mixer. I’ve found that the easiest way to cover event audio is to keep a lapel mic on the actor and a hand held mic on the person being interviewed. This allows you to avoid passing the microphone back and forth. It also seems to keep the person being interviewed focused and cuts down on overly enthusiastic hand motions.
There is always a lot of noise in a crowded room and the audio mixer allows you to control levels and split your audio up into left and right channels. This will make life a lot easier in post when you’re trying to clean up audio and remove noise. One trick I’ve found very useful is to record about 4 minutes of crowd noise with a field recorder. In post you can clean up the camera audio, then layer back in the crowd noise. This helps in a three ways. First, the crowd noise covers up the effect of noise reduction filters on the camera audio track. Second, it allows you to keep volume levels consistent between cuts, which makes the transition from interview to interview smoother and Third, it gives you filler when you need to cut sections out of the camera audio track.
I know I’ve mentioned it a few times before and here it is again. Keep a back up camera with you! DSLR cameras provide great video, but when filming long clips in a hot room the sensor can over heat. You might also want to record something longer then 12 minutes, like a guest speaker, or a zombie walk from the back of a gulf cart. I always have my and a hand full of batteries with me as a backup. I configured this Rig to work with either camera so the change out is simply a matter of pulling one camera off the quick release plate and sliding the other on.
I usually only bring 2 lenses to an event, a prime for low light and a zoom for a little bit of range. I normally reach for the Canon T2i, the Sigma 30mm f1.4, and the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8. I stay away from L glass at large events to keep the dollar value of the equipment on hand down. If someone runs off with the T2i, Sigma, and Tamron, I’m out $1200, which sucks. But It would be a lot better then loosing a Canon 5d with a Canon 50mm f1.2 and a Canon 24-70mm f2.8.
No matter what rig configuration you use, it’s always a good idea to think about how that rig’s style will fit with the subject you plan to film. Just because you have the gear doesn’t mean you need to be loaded down every time you leave the house. Consider what you actually need and go from there. Otherwise you’ll end up lugging around huge bags of gear for no reason at all.
13Apr Loreo Lens in a cap, camera body cap.
The is a lens not much bigger then a
, with a built in 35mm f5.6 lens in the center. Sure the lens doesn’t take amazing pictures, but your pictures will still turn out better then a cellphone camera.
There is a small wheel at the bottom of the lens that allows you to select between f5.6, f8, f16, f32, and f64. The Loreo has no focus adjustment, so if you want more of your subject in focus you’ll have to stop down the lens.
This shot of a Heineken was taken with the Loreo at f5.6 and you can see that the in focus area starts about 6 inches behind the bottle. There is no focus confirmation so you’ll have to pay attention to your subject to make sure it’s in focus.
The Loreo Lens in a cap is a toy lens, that’s fun to play around with and takes ok photos while also protecting your camera body. At $25 you can’t expect award winning photos, but if you spend a weekend playing around with it and show it to a few friends I’m sure you’ll get your money’s worth. Plus you’ll always be ready for that random off the cuff shot.
11Apr Cool Little flex arms with clamp.
I picked these up off ebay a few weeks ago and they’re pretty handy. The (11 inch) runs about $62, and the
(7 inch) is $49. The smaller friction arm also includes that little cold shoe adapter. The clamps are a lot smaller and lighter then a Super Clamp but strong enough to hold some weight.
The nice thing about the clamp is that it’s small enough to attach to 15mm rails. Which could be great for a boom mic, monitor, or field recorder. Just as an example I mounted my Lilliput monitor and Haier monitor to the carbon fiber rails on my CPM FILM TOOLS rig. The clamps hold firm and the arms give you plenty of room to adjust your equipment.
Add a and you can adapt this to all kinds of stuff. I think both arms are nice but it might be worth it to spend the extra $13 on the longer arm. Either way, if you’re looking for a nice arm to attach to the rails on your rig, these low price arms are defiantly something to consider.
10Apr Building your own Camera gear.
There have been quit a few times that I’ve been searching for some kind of connector or adapter that would finish out a rig I use, but no one makes the part I have in mind. So I end up finding something that works but isn’t really what I wanted.
This happens enough that I’ve decided to buy a Makerbot. Basically it’s a small robot that prints out CAD designs in ABS plastic. A good friend of mine has the micRo-CNC mill and we’ve used it for a number of great projects. The Makerbot uses the same CAD software so I shouldn’t have to many problems getting my design idea’s out in CAD.
At $1200 I don’t know if I’ll see payback on this, but I can think of a lot of things that I could build that would really be handy for filming. It looks like I’ll be waiting for about 4 weeks for mine to ship, so this could take awhile. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
10Apr Speeding up editing with an SSD drive.
When I’m at home editing on my desktop, I have a set of velociraptor 300gb drives in RAID 0 to give me speed. But on my laptop the 7200 rpm drive doesn’t always keep up. If you’re looking for RAID 0 speeds in a compact package a solid state hard drive (SSD) might be something to consider.
The average read speed on my velociraptor setup is around 130 MB/s. The average read speed on a modern 2.5 SSD drive is around 190 MB/s which is more then enough to keep up with HD editing. The down side is of course the price. The cost of SSD drives has dropped quit a bit over the last few years but you can still expect to pay around $250 for a 128gb drive. The Velociraptor 300gb drive, on the other hand, is around $140.
Depending on the size of project you’re working on, 128gb might not be enough space, so you might have to split your project up into a few sections. This might be a little bit of a pain, but if you need the speed, it’s worth the hassle. I can usually squeeze a 15 to 20 minute timeline into about 120gb depending on the number of cameras and effects. So for music videos, safety videos, and commercials you should have plenty of room. You can buy larger SSD drives but the price jumps up fast.
Some will say SSD drives are safer then spinning drives. I personally don’t trust having an important project with no backup. You can always back up to a cheaper 7200 rpm drive between projects.
09Apr Tascam DR-05 v.s. the Zoom H1, test and review.
I was able to spend a day messing around the Tascam DR-05. It’s definitely built better then the Zoom H1. The controls deliver a satisfying click when pressed, and there are no loose parts. The Tascam DR-05 also has a number of features that the Zoom H1 is missing including power for an external mic, the ability to edit audio tracks, and instrument tuner. Two batteries in the DR-05 also gave me a little more battery life then the H1, although the battery life wasn’t double as I would have hoped.
I miss spoke in the video, the Zoom H1 does have a built in speaker. It’s just so small I never noticed it. Some have also glued a peace of rubber to the Zoom H1’s battery door to fix the rattle.
I don’t know if any of these features will be a must have option for filming, but if any of them are important to you, that might be a good enough reason to choose the Tascam over the Zoom. The Tascam DR-05 also includes a 2gb micro sd card as apposed to 1gb card that comes with the Zoom.
All these features make the Tascam DR-05 a better value then the Zoom H1. So why go with the H1 over the DR-05? The biggest issue is size. The Zoom H1 is almost half the size of the DR-05 which could be enough for many people to choose the H1. The other lesser issues are the microphone pickup pattern and finding a windscreen.
After running a few audio tests, I don’t think the microphone pickup pattern will cause you much of a problem. As of today, I was able to find for $23, and I’m sure in a few months some more windscreen manufactures will come along.
I don’t think most of the features on the Tascam DR-05 will be something I need or use very often. On the other hand the size of the Zoom H1 is still very handy. I think I’ll have to hold on to both for awhile longer before I can really decide which one I’ll be holding on to. I have more pictures of the two units side by side in this earlier post.
08Apr Shape Cameleon shoulder rig.
A few friends have been telling me to checkout SHAPE rigs, so I spent the morning looking at the offerings on their website. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man these rigs looks ugly. They do have some interesting features like a joint in the middle that allows you to fold the rig in half, and an optional boom arm attachment.
$468 on B&H seems a little high for an entry level model, but thats about $100 lower then the price list on SHAPE’s site. With no rails you might have a tough time attaching a follow focus and mounting locations are limited. Once you get into SHAPE’s higher end lineup the style and design starts to get better.
SHAPE calls this rig the “COMPOSITE FICTION“. It still looks like the baby was dropped on its head, but now at least someone put a hat on it. The composite fiction is SHAPE’s high end model and it does look like they’ve made some upgrades. The mounting square is a nice feature and I do like the idea of the boom arm slash support bracket. But it seems like there are so many things attached to the rails that there isn’t much room for any of your own gear. $1384 also seems like a steep price for this rig when you consider offerings from CPM FILM TOOLS and .
I think this rig might work better with a traditional video camera, but it probably wouldn’t be my first choice for a DSLR.
07Apr Very cheap Cold Shoe mount.
I’m still sold on the Frio cold shoe adapter, but this is the cheapest I’ve seen. At $4.29 with free shipping from china, I wouldn’t expect much, but if your looking for the lowest price, this is it. Before this, the cheapest cold shoe adapter I’ve found was $8.49. I’m guessing at $4.29, shipping is at least $3, which doesn’t leave much room for profit.
06Apr Tascam DR-05, first impressions.
The Tascam DR-05 showed up on Monday and I was planning to start doing tests earlier this week, but my schedule just didn’t work out. I did get a chance to thumb through the manual and there are a number of features crammed into this unit that aren’t available on it’s competitor (the Zoom H1) including an instrument tuner (a little flaky), track splitting, and microphone power for the line input. Tascam also ships the unit with a 2gb micro sd card, Zoom only gives 1gb.
The Tascam DR-05 is about about 3/4 of an inch wider then the Zoom H1, but the height and thickness are about the same. The build on the DR-05 feels better then the Zoom H1, the battery compartment doesn’t rattle and buttons have a nice satisfying “click” when pressed. The Tascam DR-05 also turns on about 3 times faster then the Zoom H1.
I haven’t been able to do a lot of back to back tests yet, but i’m guessing the Zoom H1’s X/Y mic pattern will give better coverage. If you want an adjustable mic pattern from Tascam you’ll have to spend another $50 on the Tascam DR-07 Mark II.
The 1/4 20 thread on the back of the Tascam DR-05 is made out of plastic, just like the Zoom H1. The two AA batteries also make the DR-05 noticeably heavier then the Zoom H1. It seems like the Tascam DR-05’s size and weight might keep a lot of people away from it as a hot shoe mount field recorder. Even though the Tascam is a better value for the price, It would be hard to convince a Zoom H1 owner to switch over.
I haven’t had a chance to test out the battery life on the Tascam DR-05, but it’s on my list of things to do. I should have a full video review and audio tests up by the end of the week. At which point I’ll have to decide which one is going on ebay. I wonder if they make a wind screen for the DR-05.
Update: Full video review posted with audio test.
