Chimera Window Patterns Adds Life to Backgrounds

I like to sometimes use a light pattern (cucalorus or cookie) to add a little life to a solid background or imitate a natural light pattern.  The great thing about cookies are you have a controllable constant pattern that can be anywhere from a sharp to a very soft pattern.   I tend to like a softer pattern when projecting onto a solid background and a sharper pattern on a subject or busy background.  You can see the soft pattern I used behind Katie-Britt Greenway, Miss South Miami Beach, in the image below and the video clip.

Katie-Britt Breenway with Chimera Window Pattern projected on background

Chimera has a new window pattern system that makes having a small, versatile and portable set of cookie patterns available to you on location or in the studio.  Like the entire Chimera, line the window pattern system is sturdy and well thought out. This was evident from the moment I opened the box and found the kit comes in a heavy-duty long zippered bag.

One of the problems of the traditional cookie is that it is usually a full size 48 X 48 or larger pattern made out of wood. This makes it hard to take it with you.  Another problem is that even if you do have that kind of space, you are still limited to one pattern unless you have a grip truck with room for multiple 48 x 48 boards.

Chimera Window Pattern projected on background

Chimera has gotten around that by starting with a collapsible metal frame with a very smart pin system that works with standard grip head to hold it securely and prevent the frame from twisting.  Then there is a black matte to control light spill that fits to the frame with elastic at each corner and is flexible so it rolls up.  The patterns then attach by Velcro to fill the center open square.  The patterns are black and white designs on what looks like a litho film.  One of the beauties of this is that you have a choice of number patterns with the same frame and matte.  If you don’t like one pattern, in seconds you can have a different one installed.  Since there are Velcro tabs on both sizes of the matte, you can combine two patterns.  Note in the image showing the pattern a second pattern is hanging from the Velcro ready to be put in place instantly.

Terry of Chimera told me of a way he uses the system where he attaches the frame to a c-stand and then an arm to the c-stand to hold a light in an open-faced Chimera softbox. This allows for easy movement of the complete light/pattern system together and even more control of light spill.

Chimera Window Pattern in Foreground with Lee White Shooting Video

Depending on your needs, the frame/matte combinations come in three sizes 22X22, 42X42 and 48X48.  For more info go to www.chimeralighting.com

Peaking For Better Focus

Cinematographer Gale Tattersall, DP of the TV show House mentioned the value of Marshall Monitor’s Peaking filter. Focusing with any present HDSLR is an issue. Canon DSLR lenses with their very short focus pulls are problematic which is exaggerated by the very shallow depth of field. Gale used a series of Canon lenses with the assistance of Marshall’s HDMI 7 inch monitor in Peaking Filter mode to keep critical focus. I might have suggested considering the use of either Zeiss’s HDSLR or Cine Lenses with long focus pulls and color matched glass.

Either way, Marshall’s Peaking Filter would have come in handy. A peaking filter is used to help in getting a sharp focus which is especially hard with the tiny LCD on the back of HDSLRs that is normally used. How it works is the picture is turned into Black and White on the Marshall V-LCD70XP HDMI monitor with a red color appearing in the edges of areas where the picture is in focus. Peaking Filters work best after setting the picture to the best exposure and there is good contrast in the areas that need to be focused on.

There is the added benefit of being able to place the camera in positions, such a high or low angles, where focusing with the camera’s LCD would be difficult, by using the appropriate length HDMI cable and being able to continue to pull focus.

Peaking Filter

House Finale From the Inside

Any photographer learning video production would have been very interested in the Cine Gear Expo 2010 at  Paramount Studios in Hollywood.   One of the highlights was cinematographer Gale Tattersall,  DP  of the TV show House, part of Canon’s EOS presentation on using the Canon 5D  for the final episode.  I had a chance to chat with Gale for awhile privately before and after the presentation as well, so I was able to get a bit more information on his digital workflow.

Anyone who wants to see top work with a 5D Mark ll should watch the House finale episode.  To keep everything I’m going to write about this  in the right perspective,  we must keep in mind that Gale is the DP for what I hear is the most watched TV show in the world.  He has a team of experienced professionals working with him and the resources of a major network behind him.  These are not unlimited resources, but they will do.  Plus, he was concerned that he and his team only had three weeks of testing to refine the workflow before he started actually using the camera to shoot the episode.

Right off there was some concern about projecting the clips on a full size movie screen at the Expo.  Banding is a problem when you start off with a highly compressed format like the H264 coming out of the 5D Mark ll.  Everyone in the theater was impressed including Gale and moderator Tim Smith of Canon with how well the picture held up.  Remember, they made sure they started with the picture style set at neutral, the exposure was right on (I’ll write about this more later) and the color balance was right where they wanted it.  Plus, (and here is a big tip) a little film grain was added to smooth everything out.

More on this and what else I saw …

Customizable Music with Vocals are here!

News from NAB 2010.  The new “Voxation Series” from SmartSound the royalty free music company I suggest gives a new dimension to customizable music for your video and multimedia productions.  The brand new Voxation Series features lyric-based vocal music from talented bands and musicians.  This lyric-based vocal music is still easily edited in length, arrangement and mix using Sonicfire Pro.

It works by having the instrument tracks and vocals on separate layers, which allows Sonicfire to manipulate the songs to fit the changes in your video.  SmartSound is the only company that can offer this level of adjustability.

These first two albums are one by Brady Harris with melodic tunes and savvy lyrics and the other by Indie Pop/Rock band Steep with more to follow.  SmartSound is going to keep the lyric driven music series growing and is working with a number of bands and musicians in developing more albums.

The pricing is $149.95 for an album and $59.95 for singles from the albums and as in the past are available online or in disk form (at a additional charge).  Visit Smartsound.com for more information and hear samples.

Atlanta “Secrets of Video Production for Photographers”

There was another big turn out for my Atlanta “Secrets of Video Production for Photographers” given for APA Atlanta.  Along with gear I had from my sponsors Apple, Manfrotto, Zeiss, Panasonic, SmartSound, RedRock Micro, Beachtek, Marshall Electronics, Sennheiser, LaCie and Hoodman, Apple was there showing Final Cut Studio and gave away a $1000.00 Final Cut Studio suite of video editing software.  The Zeiss representative showed their special Canon and Nikon mount lenses with long focus barrels and color-matched glass.

Showcase camera store of Atlanta, a beautiful fully stocked professional camera store, also supplied additional gear from the above mentioned sponsors to give attendees a chance to see the various pieces of equipment up close and personal.

Big Studio, 404-874-6111, was a wonderful host of both the Thursday evening event and Saturday workshop.  It is a great studio to work in and Megan the studio manager was both gracious and professional.

Below are pictures Lindsay Lewis the director of APA Atlanta took during my evening presentation.  The first is me talking about the false color filter of Marshall Electronics V-LCD70P-HDMI monitor.  The second is me talking about the Sonicfire Pro program and five royalty-free multi music tracks.   I have arranged for every attendee to either of my events to get the music tracks for free.

Lee White with Marshall Electronic false color filter

The Saturday workshop was especially interesting for me, as I got to really delve into shooting video with stills then editing.   We talked about planning and equipment in the morning and after the lunch I provided from a tasty deli nearby, we got into the gear.

Everyone had a chance to try some hands on using a complete video rig.  I did a couple of lighting demos and shot a short commercial.  The picture below shows me shooting the commercial using a Reckrock Micro rig with a microFollowFocus geared to a Zeiss ZE 50mm F1.4 lens, on Manfrotto  sticks (tripod) and fluid head with a Beachtek 5d audio adapter cabled to a Sennheiser ME66 microphone.  On top of the rig, you can see the Marshall monitor showing the camera feed.  In the foreground is a Litepanels MicroPro LED light and in the background a medium Lastolite Skylite diffuser.

After shooting the video, I took it into Apple’s Final Cut Studio and showed how to transcode the files into a more edit friendly format using Compressor onto a LaCie rugged drive.  A step you can bypass when using video cameras from Panasonic.   Then I show everyone how to get the files into Final cut Pro, edit them into a commercial and output several distribution formats.  I ended the workshop by showing how easy it is to match music from SmartSound’s Sonicfire Pro with video or pictures.

Denver Video Workshop Loads of Fun!

My Saturday’s workshop was a fun and educational experience.  In the morning, there were a few hours of chatting about video in general and the new skill set needed to estimate and shoot video along with stills.   After a quick lunch provided by APA-LA, there was a simple combination photo/video lighting demonstration followed by a hands-on follow focus experience by each attendee.

I then set up a simple commercial spot production and shot clips to be edited into a commercial.  Following the production, I delved into putting the clips together in Final Cut Studio to finish the commercial.  First, I showed them how to transcode the HDSLR files into a more edit friendly format of ProRes422. You can skip this step with video clips from video cameras like the Panasonic.  I brought the clips into Final Cut Pro to edit them into a sequence and did some color correction. I then showed a couple of output options.

Following all that, we had a chance to explore the Sonicfire Pro application and how it creates custom length royalty-free music.

I make sure every attendee to either my Thursday evening presentation or Saturday workshop gets a copy of the Sonicfire Pro application and five free multi-layered music tracks they can use commercially.

Denver’s Video Production for Photographers

Denver had a great turn out for my “Secrets of Video Production for Photographers” an APA-LA event that is a first step in building the APA Denver chapter. One photographer drove six hours through the snow, literally it snowed, I’m here, I saw it, to attend. First let me say the people in Denver are great, especially the folks at Denver Pro Photo who helped put on both last night’s Thursday APA event and the upcoming Saturday workshop.

If you are in Denver and need equipment, supplies or rental, Denver Pro Photo is the place to go. Beyond the well- stocked store, they also have a number of different size stages including a huge one, football field huge, plus a complete grip room.

Some of the sponsors like Zeiss with their long focus pull lenses, Marshall Electronics with their video monitors and SmartSound with royalty music, were there to answer specific questions on their video solutions. I understand a lot of this is completely new to photographers so it is good to have experienced resources to answer the large variety of questions photographers have.

I had a chance to meet some of the attendees and once again heard some unfortunate stories of jobs lost because the video component could not be handled. Some were as simple as snips for the web but it was smart of the photographers not to get into something they knew little about. It is much harder to get a client back after messing up a job than truthfully saying, presently, part of their needs cannot be met.

During the presentation there was lot’sa interaction and after the presentation, I had a chance to answer some questions about challenges some of the photographers were facing with learning video production.

I want to thank the nice lady who won the complete Final Cut Studio program that I personally provided for the raffle for giving me a hug. She was so excited.

Tonight is Denver Secrets Night

Tonight’s Secrets of Video Production for Photographers will be at stage 3 next to Denver Pro Photo starting at 6PM.  You can see more details at APA-LA.com blog and, of course, in recent blog entries here.  I’m looking forward to Saturday’s workshop at Stage 3 as well.  Workshops are always fun because I get time to really get into the subject, meet people and hear about what they want to know.   If you’re in Denver I hope to see you there and get a chance to meet you.

5d with 44.1 kHz vs. 7d with 48 kHz sound? What’s the problem?

First, what is being referred to is the sample rate or how many times a second sound is being measured. Without getting too deep into the science behind sound,  to have good sound it should be sampled at  least at 40 kHz to capture the higher frequencies.  So the 5d with its 44.1 kHz is sampling at a rate that is high enough to capture the higher frequencies and is considered CD quality often used for music.  Digital video cameras generally use 48 kHz to capture sound, as does the 7d, which is considered one of the professional sample rates.
A warning here is that some DV cameras that offer four tracks of 32 kHz which can lead to compromised sound quality.
To convert  5d’s 44.1 kHz sound to the  DV standard of 48 kHz is easy to do.  You will actually do it when  converting  the 5d H264 files to a more friendly format for FCP editing like one of the Apple ProRes422 formats.  If you are using Compressor from the Final Cut Studio suite, simply make sure to go to the inspector panel and select sound settings.  The settings should be the following:  Format: Linear PCM, Channels Stereo (L,R), Rate: 48,000 kHz, Render Settings: Quality Best, Linear PCM Sample size 16 bit.  This will bring the audio up to the correct sample rate without distorting the sound.

Holiday and End of Year Tax Savings

I hope you will all join me at the Advertising Photographers of America Los Angeles holiday event. You can hear about my up coming video production for photographers events coming in January.

The holidays are here and so is the end of the tax year. While you’re out getting gifts for everyone else, think about what you might like for a gift to yourself. With all the early mornings and late nights you spend happily toiling away at making images, you deserve to take advantage of whatever tax saving you can while getting the equipment and software that make your life easier. Of course, always check with your tax advisor before making purchases.

I want to remind you of the Apple Member Purchase Program available for APA members. Do any of us ever have enough computing power? The iPhone can be like an office in your pocket. I have fellow APA members that have their portfolios and videos on their iPhones to show anytime and anyplace, plus they can email images to potential clients in an instant.

Adbase has a load of services for your online marketing needs and is offering 25% until December 30th. Call to see how this fits in with the 15% APA members get as a membership benefit. Make sure you know what your needs are and how they can help you before signing up. Check out their website and don’t be afraid to call them to get answers to all your questions. The phone number is on the home page.

Zeiss is quickly developing a line of Canon ZE lenses with two new additions of the Makro-Planar T* 2/50 and 2/100. Both macro lenses render objects in close-up on a scale of 1:2. To enable such detail, these lenses include Carl Zeiss’s acclaimed “floating elements” design. This special lens alignment enables high optical performance across the entire focusing range, from 0.24 m to infinity as in the case of the 2/50 ZE lens. The Makro-Planar T* 2/50 and Makro-Planar T* 2/100 are currently available for F bayonet (ZF) and K bayonet (ZK) cameras. The Makro-Planar T* 2/50 is also available as a ZF.2 version. Both lens systems are optimized for analog and full-format digital SLR cameras.

The Makro-Planar T* 2/50 ZE will begin shipping in December 2009 and the Makro-Planar T* 2/100 ZE will be available in early 2010.

There are loads more local and national member benefits at the Los Angeles chapter website apa-la.com under the drop down menu MEMBERSHIP