03Sep Polaroid Fader ND v.s. Light Craft workshop Fader ND Mark II Video test
Fader ND filters are very handy, but is it really worth it to DSLR film makers to spend big bucks on higher end brands? That was the question I had when I first started looking at the LightCraft Fader ND. The cheap Polaroid Fader ND filter that I’d been using seemed to work just fine, but is there really that much of a difference in quality between a mid range filter like the LightCraft Fader ND when compared to something on the lower end like the Polaroid Fader ND?
This footage took me a few tries to put together, the first time I filmed, I accidentally switched the camera into AWB mode and all of my shots ended up being useless. Then I had to wait for a day with enough sun to film again. But after all of that I finally managed to get all of the clips I needed to put together a few minutes of comparison shots. I tried to keep the settings for each shot as close as possible, but they aren’t perfect. A few of the shots are very slightly darker on one filter then the other. I shot all of the comparison clips on the Canon 7d with a Canon 50mm f1.2 lens. The settings on the camera where 1/60, iso 100, and an f-stop of 3.5 to 4.5 (depending on the amount of light) with daylight white balance. I tried to make sure the Fader ND was set about the same on each shot by using the light meter but its not perfect.
The song playing behind the test footage is one of mine. If you like it, you’re welcome to download it for free, if you really like it, just send me 99 cents via the donate link at the very bottom of the right hand column.
Over all the results aren’t nearly as dramatic as I thought they would be. My earlier shot of that train car was probably a AWB problem more then a filter problem because I didn’t end up seeing anything that dramatic in my final set of tests. I will put that one down as operator error. I captured the same shot again and the difference was much more subtle.
I looked over the footage quit a bit and it seems to me like the Polaroid Fader ND still causes a slight color change, and a few things looked soft around the edges, but over all I don’t think it did to bad. It did seem like overall the LightCraft Fader ND came out on top, but I’m interested to know what everyone else thinks. Is the difference enough for you to justify spending $85 more on the nicer filter?
If you’re looking for a high end option, Singh-Ray makes some very nice Fader ND filters, but I’ll warn you, the prices are almost as much as some people spend on cameras. Regardless, I hope these tests help those of you still in the market for a Fader ND find something that works for you.
02Sep Saying goodbye to my Lilliput 8 inch monitor.
I’ve been using this Lilliput monitor for over 2 years. It does a great job, but it’s time to let it go. I don’t need to have 4 HDMI monitors laying around the house. So the first up on the chopping block is the . I have it listed now on ebay if anyone is interested. Buy it now price is a very reasonable $160.
Three are included with the monitor along with 2 chargers and a few extra cables. So if anyone needs a low price HDMI monitor,
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30Aug DIY Wireless Android camera controller for your Canon DSLR.
More and more interesting android related camera controllers keep showing up. Manis404 has just posted a how to guide on his wireless camera controller. It basically uses an Arduino Pro mini controller, a USB host controller board, and a Bluetooth host module to create a wireless bluetooth controller for your Canon DSLR. All of the parts add up to about $50 and when you combine it with the YaNiS EOS app for your android phone, you’ll end up with a very interesting wireless controller for you Canon DSLR.
The project is still in Beta, but it looks like it has a lot of potential. If you feel up to building this little guy, check out the IO page blog. If you do take the time to build this, make sure you let them know what you’d like to see added. Beta testers are key to advancing projects like this.
I’m very interested to see how this progresses.
26Aug Meet up in Kansas City.
I’ll be spending the next 3 days in Kansas City at Crypticon running a booth and promoting one of our feature length films. So if you’re looking for something to do in the Kansas City area this weekend feel free to drop by the convention and heckle our cast and crew. This should be our last convention of the year before we start production on our next project at the end of September.
26Aug Is the Sony NEX-5N the next Killer DSLR?
The Sony NEX-5N is now available for pre-order and looks to be a very tempting follow up to the less then perfect NEX-5. The two key features that make me salivate are 1080p at 60fps and the mirror less form factor . This thing is thin, it makes a slice of toast look fat, and all that thinness means you can fit just about any type of lens on this guy. 1080p at 60fps means you can get those slow motion shots without having to upscale your 720p footage and the low light performance still looks usable at 3200 ISO. You also have full manual control of your settings in video mode and auto focus in video mode with supported lenses. To top all of this off, early reports suggest that this camera doesn’t suffer from jello cam in high motion. All of this at a starting price of $599 seems to be a very good deal.
But as always there are downsides. First, no manual audio controls, which is a shame for such a lovely little camera. This problem could easily be fixed with a small software update. Canon refuses to update the 7d and Sony hasn’t learned anything from it. It’s very frustrating and unnecessary. I’ll admit I’m probably the only person complaining about this but the other problem is that there is no 1080p at 29.97. Sure Sony has included a 24p mode and if you want, you can record 1440 x 1080 at 29.97, but why not just include full 1080p at 29.97 in the line up?
I know James Cameron and I are alone on this one, but I don’t really like the choppy look of 24p. Many people love it and it’s a great selling point for a lot of filmmakers, but to me faster frame rates look better. If I want that motion blur look, I’m usually happier with 29.97 at 1/50 shutter speeds. It gives me just a hint without going overboard. I’m sure I’d be just as happy shooting at 1080p 60fps, but I would still like to have that option available in case I need it.
I think if Sony manages to fix the glaring audio issue by the time the NEX 5n is released, you’ll have a camera that will easily take over the sub $1000 portion of the market. Although I’m sure many of us who have already developed and adopted dual system sound work flows wont have a huge problem with this issue. Just add a Zoom H1 and you’re gold.
The Sony NEX-5n is $599 for the body pre-order on B&H and $699 pre-order on amazon.
24Aug SDHC memory card speed tests.
These are just a few of the random memory cards I have laying around the house. I thought since my collection stretches back to the Canon HF100 I might as well run a few of them through a speed test. I used H2testw 1.4 to run the tests. This is the same program I use to check for fakes or bad memory cards when buying from ebay. I’m sure there are a lot of other great speed check programs that could be used, but this was simple and easy. The only thing I’m not sure of is the packet size written by the test. Larger or smaller size wirte files can sometimes make a dramatic difference in speed test results with flash memory. This isn’t really intended to be a perfect speed test, but more of a chance to compare and contrast different class memory cards using the same program.
The first test was the SanDisk Extreme 16GB card. This ended up being the best out of the tests I ran this morning. 15.9 MByte/s Seems to be the high mark in which to compare the rest of these cards.
The SanDisk Extreme 32GB card did test out a little bit slower then the 16GB version at 15.3 Mbyte/s. This ended up being faster then most of the cards I tested, but it’s odd that it’s results were slightly slower then a card of the same rating and brand.
The Transcend 16GB Class 10 came in 3rd place behind the 2 SanDisk cards at 11.3 MByte/s. The performance is still good, but there is a noticeable speed drop from SanDisk to Transcend cards.
This Adata 16GB class 6 card was kind of a surprise. I was expecting it to kick out numbers around 8 or 9 MByte/s but ended up with a respectable 10.5 MByte/s. I wonder If I got lucky with this card. I’ve seen many complaints about Adata cards being much slower then other brands.
This Is the PNY 32GB Class 4 card. The speeds are pretty good for a Class 4 card, but a bit slow for DSLR film making. PNY prominently displays the word “premium” across the front of the card, but it’s 7.71 MByte/s seem to drop out about every 3rd shot on my T2i. This card, on the other hand works great on my old Canon HF S100.
This last one is the Patriot 32GB Class 4 card. It’s data speeds are very close to my PNY card at 7.68 MByte/s. I think I originally paid around $80 for this card and used it constantly in numerous AVCHD cameras over the last few years.
These class 4 and class 6 cards are rarely used in my Canon T2i, but it’s nice to see how they stack up against newer and faster SDHC cards. Early AVCHD cameras encoded video at about a 1/4 the data rate of Canon’s current DSLR cameras and even the newest AVCHD based cameras encode video at around half the data rate of the T2i. These slower cards can easily handle that.
I’ve even heard from a few people that they’ve had little to no problems using their old 16GB class 4 cards in their DSLR cameras. Although I don’t recommend it, there are some cards out there that work great regardless of what’s stamped on the front. These tests aren’t perfect, but they should give you something to think about the next time you go memory shopping.
23Aug FEELWORLD 7 inch Sunhood/Sunshade for your field monitor.
I was a little disappointed with the sun hood that was included with the SmallHD DP4 monitor. After all that talk about build quality you end up with a hood that doesn’t really fold up that well and is kind of a pain to attach. I was searching for a nicer sunhood option when I came acrros the Feelworld sun hood. Unfortunately for me, it wont fit the DP4 monitor, but if you’re the proud owner of a Lilliput 7 inch monitor then you’re in luck. The monitor in the picture is actually the and Feelworld lists compatibility with all of Lilliput’s current line of 7 inch monitors. So if you haven’t already made your own sun hood out of cardboard and Velcro, this might be a good option to consider. My search continues.
23Aug Zoom H1 shock mount in the wild on a boom.
Ryan posted this video comparing the Zoom H1 against the Rode VideoMic. It’s always interesting to see how the H1’s built in mics compare to dedicated microphones. But what really puts a smile on my face is that he’s using the NOOB Shock mount throughout the test. It always makes me happy to see my Shock mount out in the wild.
The he’s using is also very handy. It does a great job and is well worth the money, I have one for both the Zoom H4n and H1. As far as I know they are still the best windscreen for the price.
Coincidentally the also fits the Tascam DR-05 without covering up to much of the screen. The only downside is that $35 is a lot to spend on a windscreen when your field recorder costs less then $100.
22Aug The SanDisk memory cards came in.
Those SanDisk prices were so good that I went ahead and ordered 2 32GB cards and 2 16GB cards. I’ve been testing out Qscale setting that are available with the magic lantern firmware updates to the Canon t2i. My Transcend Class 10 cards don’t seem to keep up with higher Qscale settings, at about -11 I start to get drop out. The SanDisk cards on the other hand, have been recording with out much problem at -14 and -15 so far.
This demo gives a good idea of what Qscale does for video quality. You can actually reduce the bit rate enough to record up to 200 min as apposed to the 12 min with Canon’s normal compression rate. It’s very interesting to mess with, but I don’t know if these settings are ready for prime time just yet. Either way I think SanDisk cards are still a great value right now.
22Aug 2 SanDisk 16GB Extreme cards for $62.98
I posted last week about the SanDisk Extreme 32GB cards being on sale over at B&H. Brandon pointed out that there is also a sale on the 16GB 30MB/s cards. Two of the Extreme cards for $62.98 means $31.49 a peace. That’s only about $6 more then some of the other brands on the market.
It used to be that SanDisk cards where priced well above most of the other brands in the same category. They are great cards, but In the past I could never bring myself to pay the premium. It’s very nice to see that the pricing is starting to get a lot more affordable.
