10Sep Metal Gopro Hero 1/4 20 tripod mount
Scouting around on ebay, I came across this metal 1/4 20 Gopro adapter (on the right). There really isn’t anything wrong with the Plastic adapter (on the left), but the metal adapter is machined from a single piece of aluminum and feels pretty nice.
It took a week or so to ship from China and arrived in a thin plastic envelope. At the time I ordered it the price was the same for the machined aluminum part and the plastic part ($4.99) so I thought I’d give the metal adapter a try. Now it looks like the metal adapters have jumped up to around $13. Not really sure if it’s worth the price difference unless you’ve had problems with the plastic version breaking or really like the look of machined aluminum.
When the price was exactly the same, I would have said “go for the machined aluminum”, but now that it’s $8 more it’s a hard sale. The more expensive versions are at least anodized and you can get them in multiple colors but that’s still not much of a selling point. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice mount. I’m just not sure how many people need machined aluminum when the final attachment point is still plastic on the housing. If this is really a must have for your setup, keep an eye out on ebay
, maybe the price will drop back down to $4.99 again. At that price it’s a pretty good deal.
09Sep Yongnuo YN568EX II Canon Flash – First impressions
The Yongnuo YN568EX II showed up this weekend while I was out of town filming and I shot this quick unboxing video to go along with my first impressions. Not sure why, but I also received two softbox flash adapters with my order from Amazon. The softbox adapters are a little big for my taste, but they were unexpected and free, so thanks Amazon.
In my hand the build quality of the Yongnuo YN568EX II feels decent, solid, and well built, though there is still a noticeable difference between the plastic used on the Canon 580EX II and YN568EX II. The rotating flash on the YN568EX II takes a little more force to turn, but doesn’t “click” as loudly as the 580ex. Buttons click nicely and generate a satisfying tactile feel.
Menu systems work very similar to the Canon 580ex II. A long press on the YN568EX II is required to get to the Master/Slave, HSS, chimes, and channel settings. Sub menu selections are made with the 4 way selector switch.
From left to right we have the YN568EX II, Canon 580EX II and YN565EX II. The buttons and layout on the YN568EX II are similar to the 580EX II however the on/off switch requires a long press instead of a simple click and the scroll wheel is replaced with a 4 direction selector. The buttons themselves are a noticeable upgrade when compared to the YN565EX II, and cosmetically the black on black looks nicer to my eye then the white on black used on the YN565EX II.
The YN568EX II (center) is slightly shorter and a few millimeters chubbier than the 580EX II and the battery compartment layout incorporates a slightly different design. Canon uses a slide lock latch on the 580EX II which provides an extra layer of protection, while the YN568EX II slides into place without the extra locking switch.
In this quick test, I set the Yongnuo YN568EX II up in HSS Master mode and set the Canon 580EX II to optical slave. The YN568EX II managed to trigger the 580ex II with the proper settings and without issue.
In previous Yongnuo models “Flash C.Fn settings” in camera were disabled. However with the YN568EX II I found the menu enabled and was able to fiddle around with a few extra flash control features. The Canon 6d body I was testing seemed to see the YN568EX II as a fully supported Canon flash. The limited number of shots I fired off with the Yongnuo YN568EX II were exposed correctly and the focus assist beam was nice and crisp.
A preset feature of the YN568EX II is a chime that plays each time the flash has recycled. While I can see why this feature would be handy, it was one of the first things I disabled. I do not enjoy my flash beeping at me when it’s ready for the next shot.
So far I feel like the Yongnuo YN568EX II is a pretty solid flash head for the price. I’ll spend some more time playing around with it before I post a full review.
08Sep Behind the scenes on a special effects shoot
I spent most of my Friday night and Saturday morning filming special effects and shooting a few dialog scenes for an upcoming feature length. The location was out in the middle of nowhere and we were forced to use a generator in order to run lights and equipment. We finished the last special effects shot at around 4 in the morning and made it to the motel around 5:30 a.m. Instead of posting nothing all weekend, I grabbed the Gopro Hero 3 and shot some behind the scenes.
The special effects team did excellent work and the shots turned out great. All three of our actresses did a great job suffering through the makeup and fake blood. It’s always nice when a long night of film making turns out positive and it’s very satisfying to work with an enthusiastic group of artists.
05Sep Yongnuo YN-568EX II TTL Master flash with high speed sync
My current flash lineup consists of one Canon 580ex II, a Nissin Di866 MK II, and two Yongnuo YN565EX. Last night I was working on some product shots and my Nissin Di866 stopped firing, i’ve only been using it a year so it doesn’t give me a lot of faith in the quality of their products. On the other hand I’ve had the two Yongnuo YN565EX flashes for about the same amount of time and they’ve proven to be very reliable even with the lack of HSS and master control.
I was about to pick up another used Canon 580ex II to replace my Nissin, which ironically replaced an old 580ex II last year, when I thought about Yongnuo. It’s been awhile since I’ve taken a look at their flash offerings and I’ve been pretty happy with their YN-622c wireless TTL flash triggers as well as the YN565EX.
It looks like Yongnuo has really raised the bar. Just a few months ago they announced the Yongnuo YN-568EX II
Before I make the call to switch back to repurchase some Canon 580ex IIs, I think i’m going to give the Yongnuo YN-568EX II
04Sep Samsung 830 512GB SSD $319
Just a quick heads up for those of you upgrading your PC or looking for a large capacity SSD. There’s a batch of Samsung 830 512GB SSD drives with a buy it now price of $319 a peace with free shipping on ebay. They are brand new drives, not refurbished or used and the price makes them very tempting if you’re in the market. At that price I’m not sure how long they’ll last so if you’re thinking about upgrading or need a scratch drive, you might want to check it out.
04Sep Cracked Nexus 7 screen an excuse to upgrade?
Ironically I was mentioning the dangers of storing a tablet or laptop in the back compartment of a camera bag just yesterday. Not following my own advice I found my old Nexus 7 cracked after it’s return from travel in the back compartment of my camera bag. I could fix it and they do sell replacement screen kits for around $30 on ebay. Replacing the screen doesn’t look very hard, but used Gen 1 Nexus 7’s only sell for around $130 (still a decent field monitor for the price) and cracked tablets sell for around $65. Not sure it’s worth the $30 profit margin to do the repair and sell the tablet. I’ll probably just sell it with the cracked screen.
The damage isn’t horrible, but I think I might use this as an excuse to upgrade to the New Nexus 7 with it’s beautiful 1920×1200 display. I don’t really need to replace my old tablet, but the current price of $204 on Amazon’s warehouse deals definitely makes it tempting. I’m guessing remote desktop apps would really benefit from the extra ram and higher resolution display and the 9 hour battery life makes it handy for travel. I might have just sold myself on the upgrade.
03Sep Native raw support Codec update for Windows 7 & 8
Every once in awhile Microsoft releases a new pack of codecs to support the native viewing of raw files in windows. If you’ve purchased a newly released camera over the last few months, you might not be able to view your raw files in windows explorer. The new list of supported cameras is long and you can find it here on the download page. For Mac users, continue to enjoy your native support for the vast majority of raw formats. You win this round.
03Sep Gopro hero 3 Black edition price drop to $329
More and more companies are entering the action cam market and a lot of them like Garmin’s Virb Elite, are offering more features at a lower price. It looks like Gopro is responding to the competition with a price drop on the Hero 3 Black edition. Last week the price on Amazon quietly dropped from $399 to $329.
My experience with the Hero 3 has been mostly positive and the updated android and IOS software has made the wifi features much more usable. There are still some occasional bugs like batteries dying after being left in the camera overnight and a few random restarts, but it still packs a pretty big punch for $329. You can check out the full review here.
I’m not sure if this is a permanent price drop or just temporary, but as of this post you can find it on Amazon for just $329 with free shipping. That’s $70 less than I paid for it at the beginning of the year and that includes some much needed firmware fixes that were missing when I first picked it up.
03Sep Tamrac Rally 6 3446 camera bag Review
I’ve been on the pre-order list for the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema camera since the day I got my hands on it at NAB. But after multiple delays and a sketchy list of features, I canceled my order, got my $1000 refund, and picked up a Canon 6d. I’ve had a love hate relationship with the 6d, at the original list price I felt like it wasn’t worth it, but at the sale price of $1499 I felt it was well worth it to pull the trigger.
Originally I was looking for a good travel bag for the BMPCC and came across the Tamrac Rally 6 camera bag, but it ended up being a great travel bag for the Canon 6d. It looks like a messenger bag, but has enough room to hold a few lenses and there’s even enough room to support lenses as large as the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 while still remaining small enough to rest on the hip.
I chose the Tamrac Rally 6 because it was the only bag out of the “Rally” series that didn’t incorporate a laptop or tablet pouch. With bags like this the manufacture always tries to fit a laptop pouch on the back side of the bag. With a laptop inside, this padded compartment ends up being very uncomfortable and puts the LCD screen of your laptop or tablet in danger. Sure the compartment is padded, but do a little running or jump off of something and the bag will slam against your hip. You might get away with it once our twice, but after awhile you’ll end up with a cracked screen.
The Tamrac Rally 6 only gives you enough room for a manual or a few documents. This prevents you from being tempted to use the back compartment for anything larger. It also makes the bag a little more flexible on the hip.
Looking inside you can see that I’ve divided the Rally 6 into 3 compartments. I have the Canon 50mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.8 stored at the bottom of the left and right sections and I’ve left plenty of room in the center compartment for the Canon 6d with 17-35mm f2.8 lens attached. None of the lenses touch the bottom of the bag when attached to the camera so I’ve left a lens and body cap at the bottom of the center section.
The front pouch has just enough room to hold a battery charger, spare usb cables, a quick release plate (Manfrotto 501PL) and the Dinkum flex clamp. The zipper is held in with double stitches and feels very well put together.
You can see the small handle as well as the back flap. As I said before the back pouch isn’t designed for much more than papers and that’s the reason I picked up the Tamrac Rally 6 instead of the Rally 5 or Rally 7. The 5 has a pouch designed for tablets and the 7 is designed to hold up to a 15 inch laptop. I don’t want to carry either of those on my hip.
Over all I’m pretty happy with the Tamrac Rally 6 camera bag, see the video above for other thoughts. This is the first post using this format, so let me know what you think. I apologize for the sub-par audio quality in the video, I was in a hurry and just grabbed a Gopro hero 3 with a random mic. The random mic turned out to be the V-mic that had all the noise issues. I should probably give those away or toss them. Maybe a giveaway is in order.
31Aug Old Canon lenses look great with in camera lens correction
This old Canon 17-35mm f2.8 L lens used to be number 1 back in the late 90’s but it was eventually overtaken by the Canon 16-35mm which in turn was replaced by the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 MK II. Even though it’s an old lens, it doesn’t mean it’s ready for the scrap pile. Many of the problems that make this lens inferior to new models can be corrected in camera.
It’s not well advertised, but newer Canon cameras like the Canon 6d and 5d mark III support in camera lens correction. When this feature was first announced, it was limited to a hand full of L glass, but lately the list has expanded to cover not just L glass, but also pretty much any EF mount Canon lens to date.
This feature will allow in camera correction for up to 40 lenses. By default Canon cameras ship with a hand full of random lenses already selected but to get the feature working on older lenses like the Canon 17-35mm (above) you’ll need to add support in EOS utility.
To do this, you’ll need to plug your camera in to your computer. Then open up EOS utility, select “Camera Settings/Remote shooting” from the menu.
From there you should get a control box that looks something like this. If it’s not selected already click on the camera icon next to the flash symbol. You should see the “Shooting menu” displayed. About 5 selections down you’ll want to click on “Lens aberration correction”.
If all goes well you should get a window that looks something like this. Right now it’s showing only the lenses I have selected, but you can find the entire list of sported lenses here. Simply click on the “Show selected lenses only” button to view all supported lenses. Select the lenses in your collection and hit ok to save them to your camera.
Once you have a lens attached, take a look in the Lens correction menu to make sure that correction data is available. I know you can make most of these corrections in Adobe Lightroom, but it’s much easier for me to set and forget. Once it’s in your camera, it’s one less thing you have to remember when processing your raw files.
