25Nov Seiki 39 inch 4k monitor price drop $489
If you’re looking to move up to a 4k editing monitor, prices just got better. The Seiki 39 inch 4k panel just dropped in price from $699 to $489 with free Amazon prime shipping. That gives you just shy of 4 times the working area of a 1080p panel (3840 × 2160p). This basically means you can have a full res display of your editing area while still having more then enough room for your timeline and clips on a single panel.
Just remember, if you’re looking for a 4k gaming monitor, you might want to look elsewhere. These monitors have a max refresh rate of 30 Hz. That’s just fine for editing and graphic design work, but it puts a pretty hard limit on gaming. Still, a 39 inch 4k panel sure would be nice for productivity applications.
22Nov KomputerBay 64GB SDXC cards on sale for $34
Thanks to Johnny for point this out. Looks like Amazon has the infamous KomputerBay brand of SDXC cards on sale right now for just under $34 with free shipping. That’s less then half the price of most other 64GB SDXC cards on the market. I’ve had pretty good luck with Komputerbay’s CF cards but I have yet to give the SD cards a try. Most of the reviews on Amazon are positive, but there are a few sprinklings of failed cards in the mix. It’s a great price, but you might wanna run it through it’s paces before you shoot anything you can’t live without.
22Nov Sony 32GB SDHC 94MB/s cards on Sale
Amazon Black Friday deals continue to cycle through. Today they are offering up Sony 32GB SDHC 94MB/s cards for $29.99 with free shipping. That’s about $16 cheaper than Sandisks 32GB 80MB/s cards. I’ve never actually tried any of these high speed Sony 32GB SDHC cards, but at that price I went ahead and ordered two for testing. Sandisk 30MB/s cards work for video in all of my cameras, so even if the 94MB/s cards are slower then advertised they should have more then enough headroom. Speaking of which, the older Sandisk 64GB 30MB/s cards are currently on sale for $48.50 a peace as part of the same black Friday sale. I’ll keep an eye out for other end of November deals, if I see anything else good I’ll let you know.
22Nov Free Adobe Lightroom 5 Training
I made the transition from Canon’s photo editing software to Adobe’s Lightroom a few years ago. Once you get used to it, you’ll find it much easier to use for both editing and organizing your photos. Lightroom room also provides automatic lens correction information for more than just Canon lenses and offers up a lot more editing options than Canon’s DPP program.
Now that Canon has started to include Lightroom 5 with purchases of both the 5d mark III and Canon 6d bodies, they’ve put together some free lightroom 5 training. The free 5 part training program doesn’t cover everything, but it goes over more than enough to get you familiar with everything lightroom has to offer. After that it’s just a matter of messing around with some of the photo editing features and memorizing the quick commands.
You can find the free lightroom training here. It’s well worth checking out even as a refresher for those who already use lightroom on a daily basis.
21Nov Crucial M500 960GB SSD $527
If you’re in the market for a very large SSD, Amazon has the Crucial M500 960GB SSD on sale right now for $527. That’s a pretty healthy price drop considering drives this big were over $1000 this time last year. This is one of those Amazon Black friday deals (even though its not for another week), so if you want one you should probably hop on it as these deals expire daily.
21Nov Used Gear Watch – Canon t2i body with 4 batteries and grip
Even with two 5d mark III’s in my collection, I’ve continued to use a pair of Canon t2i bodies in my regular workflow. With Magic Lantern installed the t2i is still one of the best values for video shooters out there. Magic Lantern gives you full audio support as well as headphone monitoring and a whole list of other features in this tiny little package.
While I’ve enjoyed using the t2i for a number of years, I no longer need two of them in my collection. So as usual, when i’m about to ebay off my gear, I’ll offer it up to you guys first. Up for grabs is my Canon t2i body, with battery grip, 4 LP-e8 batteries (3 generic one canon), two chargers (one generic one Canon), 16gb sandisk card (with ML installed), original AVC dc400st USB to RCA cable, Camera strap, and original box.
I’ve shot a lot of stuff on this camera and if you like, this can be yours for $350 + $10 shipping. Sorry in advance to the international readers as I’ll only be ship this in the US. If there aren’t any takers, this lovely camera will be going on ebay on monday.
20Nov Used Gear watch – Black magic Cinema Camera $1610 with shipping
Although the Blackmagic Cinema Camera isn’t my cup of tea, it’s still a pretty decent camera. Current retail on a BMCC camera is right at $2,000, but right now on ebay you can pick up this Blackmagic Cinema Camera for just $1,584 + 26 shipping. That $400 in savings could go towards lens, audio gear, or anything else need to support a BMCC work flow.
It doesn’t come with a copy of Resolve, but the latest version of Resolve lite supports almost anything you would need to get by. That even includes UHD formats just shy of 4k. It’s a pretty decent deal if you’re in the market.
20Nov Switronix TorchLED Bolt sale
The TorchLED bolt by Switronix is one of the few LED camera mounted lights I’ve used that actually puts out enough good light to be useful. It’s bright, it’s battery powered, and it’s portable (check out my review here). Right now through December 31st B&H has the TorchLED bolt with battery kit on sale for $259 with free shipping, that’s about $100 off the normal price.
One word to the wise, don’t spend $40 on the Switronix power adapter, you pick up a generic one for much cheaper. You can find out more about that here. Also you can get the batteries for this light for around $30 to $40 cheaper on Amazon. I’ve had pretty good luck with the Wasabi NP-F975 clones which also happen to work in the Atomos Ninja 2 as well. The Wasabi NP-F975 will run the ninja 2 for 5 or 6 hours and give you about 1 to 2 hours on the TorchLED bolt depending on your use.
20Nov Tehkron Gopro hero 3 Cage Pro – A Blunt Review
The Tehkron Cage pro showed up this morning. I forgot I had preordered this thing after seeing it on twitter a few months ago. For those of you not familiar with the Tehkron Cage pro, it’s basically a hero 3 cage that allows you to power and charge your hero 3 with standard Canon LP-E6 batteries. This, in theory should provide you with up to 5 hours of run time (as stated on the box).
The Tehkron Cage pro is actually a good idea on paper. It gives you the ability to use a pretty common battery (Canon LP-E6) to increase the run time of your hero 3 and provides protection from major impact just like any other cage on the market. However, unlike “any other cage on the market” the entire front of the unit, as well as the battery section is made out of weak feeling plastic. One drop on something solid and the only thing that’ll be providing protection is the gopro’s actual case.
The cage is also huge, as in larger then a 5d mark III body. The Hero 3 was designed to be a tiny, portable, mount anywhere camera, but with this cage attached you might as well have a DSLR for the amount of physical girth this thing adds. The sad thing is, this could have been much smaller if it were executed properly.
Flip it over and you’ll see the electronics board that adapts the exposed Canon LP-E6 battery to the Gopro hero 3. No plate, no covering, just bare electronics out in the open. If you look close you can even see the gobs of hot glue which are the only things securing the hero 3 power cable and battery cable to the board.
That same power cable makes it a pain to actually get the hero 3 into the cage. Every time you try to insert the camera the cable gets in the way and jams things up.
Even if you manage to get the cable out of the way, the large USB plug sticking out of the side gets in the way. The hero 3 barely fits in the Tehkron Cage pro without the usb. Attach the cable and you basically have to jam it in. On top of that the USB cable covers up the HDMI port and prevents you from using the USB port for audio which makes you wonder what you actually need all the mounting points for.
The mounting system is also a big disappointment. Instead of a nice solid bolt going through the mounting bracket on the hero 3’s case, you get this plastic little nub with a philips head screw at the end. This flimsy piece of plastic is supposed to secure the hero 3 in place, thankfully jamming it in past the USB cable does most of the actual securing of the unit.
This whale of a cage pictured above next to a standard hero 3 combat cage is poorly executed. They’ve taken a great idea, marked it up to $180, and delivered at best a crappy prototype. Sure it sounds nice to be able to power the hero 3 from Canon LP-E6 batteries and it would be great to have 5 hours of battery life, but this thing only hints and solving the problem.
You need to actually be able to remove and install the hero 3 into a cage and you need a cage to mount stuff. If you can’t use a monitor or microphone with the hero 3 in this unit, what exactly do you need the cage for? You can plug a USB battery pack into your hero 3 for a lot less than $180 and end up with the same results.
In my opinion, unless you have a very compelling reason to buy the Tehkron Cage pro, get a regular cage or use a USB power pack. This thing is just not worth the money.
19Nov Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB on sale for $99
I posted that external hard drive teardown last week and now the external drives are back on sale. Right now on Amazon you can pick up the Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB drive for $99 with free shipping. The only difference between the drive in the teardown and the one on sale right now is that the front metal cover is black instead of gray. The internal 3TB drives are still priced at $119 so with a little work you could save $38 on a raid 1 storage setup.
