Sensible Digital Cinema: The Arri Alexa

A very funny video showing the Arri Alex however I have not used it or even seen the real thing, I can say it is quite easy to go through the settings. If you view the vid you can see the simple menu, plus also you can visit the Arri Alexa website and play with the menu in a online simulator. Also great that there are now more companies competing in the 4K competitions and also making them more manageable sizes and weight cause the RED ONE was one giant heavy camera which only useful on a tripod, dolly or crane. You had to be a super strong to try to hand held one and need to use a special harness to be able too. You can view a behind the scenes vid showing how the Alexa is behind used and handheld which shows how they use it and able to hand held it or use it on a steadicam.

Canon EOS 550D native ISO

The native ISO with the no or less noise are 160, 320, 640, 800, 1250, 1600, 2500. From 160 to 800 there is almost no noise at all and the 1250,1600, 2500 have an equal amount of noise. To able to enable these iso settings you need to install magic lantern on your camera.

View the test in the vid below which you can view the noise of different ISO, recommended to view it in HD will Full screen to able to see the tiny or large amount of noise.

Credit to Tim DaCosta for ISO test video view his Vimeo page here.

48 LED UFO Light

This is the actual silver one you can buy from Ebay that is send from Hong Kong or China. The version in the video is the 4 battery version however I do advice to check which version you are buying and rather go for the 3 battery version. It is a strong and bright light and very great for using it as a fill light during the day or nice soft ring light effect at night. I will also make some more vids in the future showing how to use the light. If you want to buy it I recommend to click the link below to buy it at Amazon which is a quite good build but if you want to pay even less than 10 US dollar you could try searching on Ebay for 48 LED UFO light.

How attach anything to a tripod

It just with a tiny adapter, however this tip is mostly for Europe where you can't get the nuts and bolt in the inch system cause in Europe we use the metric system. With this small adapter glued to all kinds of things like certain lights make it possible to put anything on tripods to be extra help on a set without having to need people to hold it but just stand on a tripod.

How to use ND filter for DSLR filming

The old way was to have allot of ND filters and had to change it each time the conditions changes. But that was cause you didnt want to change the ISO of the film each time, which meant you had to change the whole film roll. But with the new DSLR you can take advantage of the ISO and use an actual slightly too dark ND filter and add ISO to brighten it, while keeping a wide aperture with a slow shutter speeds. What it also does most wide aperture lenses actually have problems when used wide open they give a soft glow at over exposed areas. But having the lighting slightly under exposed makes the soft glow go away and amping the iso help you getting the light back and able to film wide open while it is sunny plus removing some problems of the lens.

9:16 film test

This is something I wanted to try for a while cause 9:16 is filming in portrait which for certain shots looks much better than landscape. However in filming its very different however cause of the iPad or tablets you could easily watch a movie sideways. But its kinda has it own charm plus having a digital magazine with few moving images this way is quite interesting. Also in portrait it also nice to show people in portrait cause landscape you only get to see so little or you have a full body shot but have allot of open space for the background. Too bad Youtube isn't really good in handling or showing 9:16 but luckly Vimeo does a good job with it.

Untitled from Jona Lam on Vimeo.

Follow focus with Magic Lantern

The new functions is actual an digital follow focus so now dont need to turn the focus ring but just while holding something in front of the LCD sensor you can press up to focus in for in the distance or press down to focus to something close up. You can change the focus speed at the rack focus speed setting inside the Magic Lantern menu.

You can download the ML build here.

Audio with Magic Lantern on 550D

Here is a video showing the sound menu of the Magic Lantern trying to explain how it works cause the manual does not explain allot and there are allot of people saying you should use a certain setting which is not true and makes people to do the same mistake.

And here is a vid how to wire your camera to sound monitor and also few tips about monitoring.

Hope you find these vids helpful to learn how to use the audio with the Magic Lantern. Especially I had to learn it all by myself with testing cause there are not that much information to learn allot about sound recording. Especially quite useful as I would like to record sound with out external recorder of sound operator.

How to wire double mono mics to your camera

Not sure why, but direct upload to youtube seem to make the vids darker. Now back to topic I actually already showed this in my AGC Hack vid but now a separate video for it you can find this tip easier without having to watch the agc hack also explaining and showing it in use. The wires I used for this are: 3.5mm Male Jack to RCA Female and 2x 3.5mm Female Jack to RCA Male Jacks. You can use this to wire up 2 mono mics so one is standard into the left channel and the other would change from left to the right channel. This give option during editing to play around with the sound or actually add or remove stuff.

Upcoming lens review

Just a heads up of which lenses I am going to review in the coming time, have like collected most lenses I wanted and going to review them before I trade them in for ones that I really want instead. The list of lenses that still need to be reviewed.

Vivitar 28mm f2
Zenitar 16mm f2.8
Porst Color Reflex 55mm f1.2
Olympus OM 50mm f1.4
Super Takumar 50mm f1.4
Vivitar Series 1 35-85mm f2.8
Sigma 28-70mm f2.8
Tokina ATX 80-200mm f2.8

And stay tuned, hopefully I am able to do one each week.

Bokeh effects with Cokin filter holder

A short video showing what I used to make the bokeh effects which I did with my new years video showing happy 2011 in fireworks. I actually used the P194 or the P375 set which has a filter or gelatine holder for the Cokin P filter holder. Then I cut out a shape that is within 2cm out of a black card board and place it in the gelatine holder and now have a nice filter for bokeh effects. You can also put a piece of clear plastic and use a marker to draw or write something inside the bokeh.

Bogen Manfrotto videopod 560B-1 with rc700 review

Here is a certain setup I use allot for filming events and also shooting movies, mainly it helps run and gunning allot faster than using a tripod and its much more stable than using a monopod. Also this kind of monopod can be easily made into a simple steadicam by just adding ankle weight on the bottom to make it less top heavy.