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Camera Support
Review: Manfrotto 504HD/ 546GBK Video Support System

The three levers, tilt, pan and slide plate lock, all have 6-position spring loaded lever arms allowing easy re–positioning at 60º intervals, although the latter two are not retained, so can easily be wound clean off the head. They all look readily replaceable in the event they take a fatal smack.

I have read somewhere that there is an issue with the slide plate lock lever swinging above the head plate and thus not allowing a “hippy” camera system to lock, or only with difficulty. As that lever only requires a 90º swing from full lock to off, and vice versa, and the lever arm is repositionable in 60º increments, if you can’t configure the lever arm not to swing above the head plate, you simply haven’t grasped how these levers work. This is a non-issue, and it’s simply not true.

Post Production
A Spring Surprise from Adobe: CS5.5

Adobe has surprised those of us who have long been accustomed to a major release roughly every 18 months. Just a year after launching the CS5 titan, they announced not only a new version of the Creative Suites, but a new release schedule and a subscription option for their suites. The just-released CS 5.5 is an incremental version that provides improvements in 5.0’s first-generation 64 bit features, several cool new tools, and one of the most asked-for changes to the suite’s software line up: the return of Adobe Audition.

Sony XDCAM
First S-Log Test with Sony F3

First, before I finish the story, allow me to explain what S-Log is, and why its so darn significant. The Sony F3, a phenomenal 1080p HD camera already, records 8-bit 35mbps XDcam to SXS media cards. This is the standard recording media for all mid-range professional Sony cameras working right now. When Sony created the F35 camera a few years ago, they built a full Super 35mm sized CCD sensor capable of producing some of the best images in the digital cinematography world. This was a camera designed from the ground up to be a full cinema-style system that records to the highest quality footage to HDCAM SR tape (it also costs about $250,000). The standard XDCAM recording format would not cut the mustard with such a high end camera, the problem being that video systems in general are not able to capture the wide latitude of exposure that film can. Sony thought of a clever solution. They created S-Log.

Post Production
Transitioning Into Adobe Premiere Pro CS5

For our third article in a series covering Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, we’ll take a brief look at the advantages of Premiere Pro when working with contemporary HD video formats, specifically the tapeless acquisition systems offered by Canon, Sony and Panasonic. That’s followed by some user testimonials culled from our online discussion groups involving some of our DVi community members who have switched or are in the process of transitioning to Premiere Pro from other video editing programs. Then we’ll look at hardware options for configuring a desktop system or a mobile editing laptop using Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.

Camera Support
Review: Libec RS 250M Video Support System

The pan, tilt and slide plate lock levers have stops preventing them from being accidentally unscrewed from the head. In addition, the slide plate lock lever has a 90-degree throw from horizontal against the “off” stop to vertically downward, which keeps it from swinging above the head plate, which would prevent it locking with some of the more “hippy” camera rigs. Should that change due to wear, it is adjustable using an Allen key. Interestingly, that lever shows no signs of self-locking during transit, which is a big plus, but its position down behind the RH pan bar rosette and lever is the usual pain for access. The head is very easy to level, perhaps the easiest of the bunch, as a result of having exceedingly smooth finishes to both the head ball and the receiver bowl, in combination with a very jitter free levelling bubble and a “bubble centre” dot aiding correct alignment, IF you can get a hand to the clamp knob, which I’ll go into later.

Post Production
Premiere Pro CS5 Tips, Tricks, and Notes

As a follow-up to Pete Bauer’s recent DVi feature article Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 Six Months Later, we’re presenting a collection of user tips, editing tricks, and a couple of notes regarding RAM and operating systems designed to assist your transition into Premiere Pro. Culled from various Premiere Pro discussions from within our own Adobe CS5 forum, this article takes the golden nuggets that might have been harder to find on their own from within the myriad topics on our site and presents them all together here in an easy-to-read abridged format (including links pointing to each original thread, in case you want to dive in to any particular point and explore it more thoroughly). Whether you’ve already made the switch or just recently upgraded from a previous version of Premiere Pro, or even if you’re still just thinking about it, we hope you’ll find it useful.

Post Production
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 Six Months Later

Does anybody out there think their computer is just too fast? Wish you’d have bought a slower one? Doubt it! There’s no such thing as a computer that’s too fast. The better configured your system is, the more capability you’ll gain from PPro for your multi-stream HD editing. I think realistically you’ll really want an i7 and all the DDR3 RAM you can cram in your system, as well as the right video card (more on that later). While naturally Adobe isn’t going to reveal their secret recipes, it appears that PPro holds as many frames in RAM as it can – which is a lot more with 64 bit addressing – using only as a last resort the much slower temp/preview files and the swap file on the hard drive.

Camera Support
Review: Vinten Vision Blue

Right from the beginning, Vision Blue threw up some pretty major conundrums. On the one hand, the spec was for a system priced for amateurs and semi pro’s, which the proposed price most surely is. On the other hand, the spec was, to use a motoring analogy, like asking Rolls Royce to make a Mini at a Mini price but with all the quality and performance of a Rolls Royce. I just could not see how Vinten were going to square that circle without taking some serious liberties with something. Surely it couldn’t be done without cutting corners somewhere? So it was with an air of mild foreboding that I embarked on my investigation of the Vision Blue system.

Canon EOS
City of Lakes: A Hybrid Production in India

Our production was never short on challenges. They were immediate, frequent, and often unbelievable. One thing that never failed us, however, were the D-SLRs. From the beginning, getting through customs was not an issue. Shooting quickly and unobtrusively in crowded areas, in the streets or in the middle of a massive festival was something very doable with our small crew; which often times meant we had to take a back-to-film-school approach. We could shoot multiple cameras simultaneously during live events and transition quickly to a scripted scene with ease.

Acquisition
Honorarium: a Hybrid 7D / EX1 Short

This has evolved into a long article as I have not only ventured into the technical aspects but into a broader perspective of filmmaking. For me, technical choices are mostly tied to aesthetic decisions. Sometimes aesthetics determine the technical choice and sometimes it’s the other way around. As I started this piece I found myself wading into issues that ultimately pushed this project in a distinctive direction, far outside issues of frame rates, shutter speeds, ISO, and codecs.

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