28Nov Refurbished Nikon D800 $2348 with free shipping
I’ve never really been a Nikon shooter, but the Nikon D800 and Canon 5d mark III have always been neck and neck in the performance department. Well the option to shoot raw video with the ML hack caused a spike in 5dmk3 pricing, the D800 has continued to drift downward in price. Right now you can pick up a refurbished Nikon D800 on sale for just $2348 with free shipping on ebay. That’s a pretty decent price on a very nice full frame body.
28Nov Adobe Lightroom 5 on sale for $99 on Amazon
Adobe lightroom 5 is currently $99 right now on Amazon as one of their black friday deals. If you haven’t used Lightroom, it’s a great tool for managing your photo and even your video collection. It also has all the tools you need to work with raw files and generate some great looking images. If you’re not sure if lightroom is for you, take a look at the free training videos and see what lightroom 5 can do for you. I’m glad to see that Lightroom is still offered as a stand alone program or as part of the cloud, lightroom is often more than enough for many photographers.
28Nov Canon 6d body $1400 on ebay
Right now, the Canon 6d body is at the lowest price i’ve seen it. Currently on ebay you can pick up a 6D body for just $1400 with free shipping. Previous to this $1499 has been the lowest new price i’ve seen. The Canon 6d is a great value for the price, and only a few hundred more than a used 5d mark II body
at this sale price. I’m guessing this is another black friday deal, so if you want one you might want to jump on it.
You can check out my review of the Canon 6d body here.
28Nov Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 VC on sale for $859
The Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 VC has become one of my go to lenses for many applications. Image quality is great, Vibration Control (Tamron’s version of IS) does a good job of stabilizing the camera, and over all image quality is better than the original Canon 24-70mm f2.8. Normally this lens will set you back close to $1100, but right now you can pick it up on ebay for a buy it now price of $859 with free shipping
. These thanksgiving sales don’t last, so if you’re in the market you might want to pick one up
.
27Nov Aputure V-Screen VS-3 7 inch IPS HDMI field Monitor – First impressions
The Aputure V-Screen VS-3 7 inch field monitor showed up last night and I thought I’d post my first impressions before I disappear for the holiday weekend. This 1,024 x 600 7 inch panel has some decent specs and falls into the sub $400 price range (around $370 on ebay
), so lets take a closer look.
When you picked up the Aputure vs-3 monitor, the first thing you’ll notice is the nice rubberized coating on the external parts of the monitor. The coating gives the monitor’s plastic exterior the feel of a much more expensive device. You’ll also notice the monitor is surprisingly lightweight for a 7 inch panel (13 oz). There’s only one mounting point but at least it’s an all metal 1/4 20 mounting thread at the base of the unit and gives you a nice and solid connection point. I also like that they chose to place the headphone jack at the bottom of the monitor instead of the sides or top.
Controls for the Aputure vs-3 are straightforward and simplified when compared to some of the other sub $400 IPS monitors on the market. A power button, a source selection button (labeled A/V) and a 4 way D-Pad (with menu button in the center) are located on the right hand side of the monitor set in a black anodized aluminum trim.
Digging further into the Aputure vs-3’s package, you’ll find a right angle hdmi to hdmi mini cable, 1/4 20 to cold shoe ball head, usb cable for firmware updates, wall wart power supply (not pictured), and an allen wrench with a 1/4 20 stud. The hdmi to hdmi mini cable included with the monitor is more than long enough for most rigs and the right angle plug is a nice touch.
On the back of the panel you’ll find support for both HDMI in and pass through as well as component video. The battery plate on the Aputure vs-3 is designed to work with Sony FP-N type batteries, but with a 12 volt barrel plug you could easily power this monitor with an external source.
The Aputure vs-3 comes with a pretty decent sun hood. It uses two loops around the edges of the monitor and a long piece of velcro which attaches across the bottom of the unit. It’s well padded and the embroidered Aputure label looks sharp.
Boot time on the monitor is reasonably fast, but it still takes a few seconds to sync up. I timed the start up a few times and the Aputure vs-3 consistently came in at just under 5 seconds, which is about the same as the Smallhd DP4. Image quality so far is very good/excellent for a monitor in this price range, colors look almost identical to the image on the 5d mark III’s display.
Menus on the Aputure vs-3 are extremely easy to navigate and labels are very straightforward. You don’t have to dive any deeper than the screen above to get to every setting on the panel.
The “Shortcut” menu is also very handy. Basically it allows you to assign commonly used functions to the D pad at the bottom of the screen. If you don’t want to scroll through the menus, you can simply assign peaking or histogram display to one of the 4 arrows on the D-Pad. Press the direction on the D-pad once and the setting is displayed, a second press and the setting is enabled or disabled. The idea is simple, but it’s something that makes the monitor much easier to use.
So far, the Aputure vs-3 has impressed me. The screen looks good, the controls are easy to use, and the build quality feels great for a monitor in this price range. The shortcut settings as well as the simple menu system make it a very user friendly field monitor. I’ll post some more info on focus peaking and other display settings once I’ve had a chance to play around with it a little more.
27Nov Zoom h2n $109 on Amazon’s Lightning deals
If you don’t mind messing around the Amazon’s Lightning Deal system, they currently have the Zoom h2n on sale for just $109 (normally around $170). If you’re a podcaster or do a lot of round table audio, the Zoom h2n is a great device to have around. This is one of Amazon’s rotating deals, so if you want one, you’ll want to pick it up before the deal expires this afternoon.
26Nov Canon 50mm f1.4 on sale for $314
Right now Amazon has the Canon 50mm f1.4 on sale for $314 with free shipping. That’s a savings of $85 over the normal price of $399. The 50mm f1.4 is a big step up in build quality over the $99 50mm f1.8 and well worth checking out if you’re in the market for a fast 50.
Above I have it pictured next to the Canon 50mm f1.2 lens (more on that here), both the 50 f1.4 and f1.2 are in my collection and both have their positives and negatives. Not sure how long the price drop on the 50 f1.4 will last, so if you’re in the market you might want to pick one up.
26Nov Canon EOS-M w/ 18-55mm lens $299
The Canon EOS-M continues to drop in price. As of this writing, B&H is offering up the Canon EOS-M body with 18-55mm kit lens for just $299 with free shipping. Considering the lens has a resale value of around $120, you’re basically getting an EOS-M body for right at $180, making it when of the most affordable DSLR for video on the market.
I’ve been testing the EOS-M running the latest version of magic lantern for almost a month now, as a video camera it easily keeps up with any of Canon’s current APS-C offerings. You can find out more about the EOS-M here. If you’re on a very tight budget, you could easily pick up the Canon EOS-M body with 18-55mm kit lens $299, resell the lens on ebay and use the profits to pick up 2 or 3 FD lenses. You can get a pretty good deal on the Canon FD 35-105 f3.5 if you keep an eye out, along with many other FD mount lenses.
25Nov Senal SMH-1000 Studio Monitor Headphones Sale
So far, I’ve really been enjoying those SMH-1000 headphones I wrote about last week (check that out here). They comfortably got me through 4 hours of mixing over the weekend and I’ve really enjoyed the sound quality. They aren’t quite as flat of a response on the low end as my AIAIAI TMA-1 headphones, but i’ve actually grown to like the slight lift in frequencies below 100hz.
At the time I picked them up, they were around $89 a peace, which put them in the same price range as the very similar Sony MDR-7506 Headphone, but right now B&H has them on sale for $69 with free shipping. With the detachable headphone cable and great audio quality the discounted price makes them a very reasonable choice for a very good set of mid range headphones. So far, the SMH-1000 headphones have impressed me.
25Nov Watson Duo LCD Charger battery plates
Several of you were asking about the charger plates for the Watson Duo LCD charger I wrote about last week. Here we have a few different flavors, they look the same from the front of the box, but each contains a different type of battery plate.
On the left we have Canon BP-900 plate, in the middle a LP-E6 charger plate, and on the right a Sony NP-F970 battery plate. All 3 of them slide easily into the charger while fitting snug on the back of their respective batteries. The Sony plate seems to attach itself pretty well to the battery and does require you to put a thumb on the plate while inserting and removing the battery from the charger.
In this case I have a BP-900 and Sony NP-F970 battery plugged into the Watson Duo LCD charger at the same time. Both batteries were able to charge to capacity without a problem. You can charge a single battery of any type, two batteries of any type, or two batteries of the same type without an issue.
As for charge times, the Watson Duo LCD charger seems to charge faster than the Dual charger that comes with the Ninja 2 when working with Sony NP-F970 batteries, but I haven’t actually taken the time to run down two batteries and time the recharge. Usually the Ninja 2’s charger will take about 4 hours to 5 hours to charge up the batteries, while the Watson seems to get it done somewhere closer to 3 and half. Again, I haven’t used a timer on this so I can’t say for sure.
A few of you also reported humming and other high pitch noises coming from the Pearstone Duo charger (cheaper version of the Watson). After a week of use I haven’t had any noise or humming issues coming from the Watson Duo LCD charger, this could be why it’s on the higher end of the charger price range. I’ll post a full review once I’ve had a little more time to spend with it.
