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Brunei bike week 2011 – Day 2

surkrew — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:30:26 +0000

Day 2 of the Brunei bike week 2011 today 12 March 2011. Went to JP earlier this afternoon and took some quick snaps.

Filed under: Bike, brunei, Photography Tagged: 2011, Bike, brunei, week

Brunei bike week 2011

surkrew — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:00:09 +0000

11 March 2001 marks the start of the first Brunei Bike week 2011, held at the Amphitheatre, Jerudong Park. I went there earlier tonight and here are a few pictures from the event.

This might be the first Bruneian car with a hydrolic absorber system

Filed under: Bike, brunei Tagged: 2011, Bike, brunei, week

Glidecam Tutorial

surkrew — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 16:00:06 +0000

Here’s a very good tutorial on using the Glidecam. I wish I can say that I did this tutorial, but no, it’s from the creators of canonfilmmakers.com.

Filed under: Video

Sound Recording

surkrew — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 16:00:20 +0000

What do you use to record sound when using your DSLR for video? Personally, as I only have the 500D with no audio input, I have to use the Zoom H4n recorder. I have a boom mic as well as Azden’s dual channel wireless mic system. This is more than enough for my use.

Anyways, here’s another good read from my favorite blog, Mr Shane Hurlbut.

Sound Guru
We are so excited to feature our first guest blogger Gene Martin on the HurlBlog. Whenever I am asked about a specialty such as sound, specifically sound with the 5D, I turn to this expert to weigh in with what he feels is the best. Visit Gene’s website to learn more about what he offers at www.audiodepartment.tv.

What I love about Gene is that he is a one man sound mixing machine. He delivers top notch quality audio as the only member of his sound department, so it fits perfectly with our small footprint work-flow. Gene always has a smile and can do attitude that is required to be one of the cowboys with this new technology in the wild, wild West.

Indie Film Sound And The 5D

“Sound is never noticed unless it’s bad. It can make a beautiful film or meaningful documentary painful to watch. So, for the Canon 5D you’ll need to make a small investment to enhance your film’s sound.

The 5D records 16-bit 44.1kHz linear PCM audio and you have no real control of the camera’s input levels. Its AGC (Automatic Gain Control) is ok for general b-roll, but it’s going to amplify any loud unwanted sounds (near by lawn mower/wind). I know there is a firmware hack that changes the settings, but it’s still not the final solution.

First lets avoid spending more money than you need or just buying items that don’t really solve the Canon’s sound issue. The BeachTek DXA-5D and the JuicedLINK CX231 both add XLR inputs, phantom power and gain control, but just plug into the camera’s 3.5mm input leaving you with the same 16-bit 44.1kHz audio.

Double system is the only true solution for the Canon 5D. Treat it like film. Just like the Red One camera, both can record sound, but any sound recorded on the camera should only be used for reference in post. It will add a little more time in post, but the result is well worth the time. The most important step in doing double system is a slate. Whether it be a actual slate, the clap sticks from a slate or even the clap of your hands you just need to ensure the clap is heard by both the onboard camera mic and whatever mic you may be using for your external audio recorder. In post if you look at the audio waveforms of the camera and your external audio recorder you’ll see a spike in the audio when you clapped your slate/hands. Once the two audio clips are lined up via the spike in audio you’re now synced.

Zoom H4n

There are many options for an external audio recorder, but the best solution for the money is the Zoom H4n ($299). The Zoom H4n can record up to 4 tracks simultaneously via 2 onboard microphones and 2 external inputs via XLR or ¼”. It records WAV audio files from 44.1kHZ 16-bit to 96kHZ 24-bit. (Typically we would record at 48kHz 24-bit) The Zoom records on SDHC cards up to 32gb, which would give you 15hr and 25min. It also has phantom power if needed and has a headphone jack for monitoring. If you are using the Zoom’s onboard mic’s for ambient audio recording outdoors you’ll want an additional windscreen. Rycote and Red Head both offer windscreens for the Zoom H4n that will protect you from unwanted wind noise.

Zoom H4n

Tip: If you wanted you can get a y-cable to split the headphone jack and use one side for your headphones and plug the other into the 5D’s 3.5mm input jack. This will make it easy to sync the audio in post, plus if you play back your files from the camera you’ll have your actual audio (reference only) to listen to while viewing back your shots.

G3 wireless

As far as what mic’s you’ll need to capture dialogue there is a very large variety. For the money if you need a wireless system Sennheiser G3 is the way to go. They come in a kit with everything you’ll need to get started. As for a boom kit, you can’t go wrong with Rode. They are very well priced and offer a 10yr warranty on most of their products. The best boom mic for most dialogue situations would be the Rode NTG-2 or the Rode NTG-3. Both are good microphones and will get the job done, but the NTG-3 is more than twice the money.

Rode VideoMic

If in the end you just want an improvement of the 5D’s onboard mic, again go with Rode. They have two different options, the Rode VideoMic and the Rode Stereo VideoMic. Both are battery powered and have a hot shoe mount for easy mounting on the 5D. Again these are best for improving ambient audio recording or just creating a better reference camera audio track for syncing your audio later. The audio is still controlled under the camera’s AGC. If you did NEED to record dialogue this way you would want the Rode VideoMic and would need to be fairly close to the subject speaking in a not too loud environment.”

Filed under: Cinematic, Video

Media Management

surkrew — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 16:00:56 +0000

When dealing with file-based system (SDHC cards, CF cards etc), how do you manage your files when offloading them onto your hard disks? Here’s something that I’ve read from Hurlbut Visuals Blog.

Media Management For DSLRs
We are so excited to feature guest blogger Mike McCarthy on the HurlBlog. Whenever I am asked about the post production work flow and technology, I always consult with Mike about what he feels is the best. Visit Mike’s website to learn detailed post information and workflow at hd4pc.com.

Mike is that he has been at the forefront of designing the Canon 5D work flow since the camera was created. He understands the camera platform inside and out, how it writes its media and is a genius in post production process. Mike takes the time to get out there and do the research by blogging or reading about technical data. He constantly educates himself about the medium and always has a can do attitude with a smile. It is an honor to have his brain trust on our blog because Mike’s IQ is about 180.

Media Management for DSLR’s

“I am Mike McCarthy, the Director of Technology at Bandito Brothers. I have been working with Bandito Brothers since the company started in 2006, and have been involved with projects using almost any format imaginable. (Film, SR, HDCam, XD, EX, P2, Red, Si2K, and DSLR among others) I work with many different hardware and software companies through their beta and development programs, to find the best solutions to the work flow problems presented by new formats and tools. I also document many of the solutions I come across on my own website hd4pc.com, and do occasional consulting work for companies that are trying to adapt their existing work flow to new tools and formats.

At Bandito Brothers, we have been working with Shane over the past year or so, to really push the Canon DSLR work flow to the limits. This is in regards to both visual quality and organizational efficiency, factors which are both critical to being able to scale the Canon DSLR video work flow up to larger projects. Hopefully the things we have learned from this process, and presented here, will be of benefit to others who are sure to find themselves in similar situations.

A large part of my job over the past year has been to develop a solid work flow for handling Canon DSLR footage, from shooting through to final delivery. This work flow has evolved dramatically over the last year, as new projects had different needs, and new tools have been developed. While media management is a subject that has been touched on by previous articles on this site, this one is going to focus on certain steps you can take to process and sort your media as you shoot, that can greatly simplify your post process. We have developed this work flow while supporting many different Canon DSLR shoots, from commercials to feature films to documentaries. Most of these tips can be applied to any project and will improve your editing experience regardless of whether you are cutting in Avid,Final Cut or Premiere.

Backing up your Footage:
The first step in that process is to make multiple backups of every card before it gets wiped and re-used. Due to the possibility of drive failure, I make sure that every clip is backed up on at least two drives before releasing the card to use again. Usually this will be a copy from my Express Card CF Reader onto my laptop HD, and onto an external drive. If I have power available, this will be an eSATA drive for best performance, but frequently it is a bus powered USB drive sitting on the palmrest as I work in the seat of my car, or where ever else we happen to be shooting. Once the footage is on two separate drives, I rename the folder on the card. This causes the camera to acknowledge that there is data on the card, but shows nothing in the playback window. That way the camera assistants know that the footage is backed up, and also that they need to format the card before they begin using it again.

As long as the footage is duplicated on two drives, I feel safe, until the end of the day, when I make up four copies at night and send them different places. Once I have the footage safely on a Raid5 array the office, I wipe all but one of the backup drives and return them to the field. The copy on the Raid becomes my master copy, that I use for for all the remaining steps detailed below.

Sorting your Footage:
Good media management is clearly important for any tapeless workflow, especially with DSLRs, and that goes far beyond just making backups. Naming conventions play a large role in organization, since having all of your footage named MVI_####.MOV is not ideal, especially if you are shooting with multiple cameras. Eventually you are likely to have overlapping numbering, leading to duplicate filenames. I deal with this by sorting all footage by camera as it is shot and backed up. This is a much simpler process if all of the cameras are shooting in totally different ranges of numbers. The cameras can be forced to start numbering the files where ever you want, and once you have the footage sorted and logged, it is a good idea to rename each file using a convention that makes it easier to sort through and organize them. I have a very specific breakdown of how I would recommend doing that posted on my site here. www.hd4pc.com/techblog/2010/03/28/managing-footage/

Logging your Footage:
Keeping a log of your footage and file names is important, not just for sorting through the content, but because it allows you to retrace your steps if necessary, and it can also assist in automating certain steps in the work flow, for example the file renaming process. Once you have a folder full of properly sorted and renamed MOV files, (and a few backup copies as well) you are ready to begin the real post work. I will give an overview of the post production options and recommended work flows in another post coming shortly.”

______
A Media Manager Has Your Back

In the world of HDSLR technology, media management is a very important position. Every Elite Team member has held this position at some point during the untitled Navy Seal Movie to gain an understanding of HD image capture in a small footprint work-flow system and they all have jumped in head first!

The unique skill set that my Elite Team brings is that they all have a film background and are comfortable with certain rituals that accompany being a motion picture film loader and 2nd assistant cameraman. These include: managing the truck; keeping track of the gear and specialty pieces of equipment; creating an inventory and log; assessing how many magazines you have to load and color coding it according to the stock; labeling the magazines with the date, job, film stock and amount loaded on the magazine itself; and writing a camera report with the same information.

The system we designed for the untitled Navy Seal Movie is a mixture of the traditional film loader combined with the DIT job in the digital world. On our movie, Mike McCarthy who is a brilliant post production guy at Bandito Brothers with an IQ that I swear is above 180, set up our media manager work-flow system. The Media Manager station is very simple and compact. Sticking with the small footprint approach we employ a Mac Book Pro Laptop, a 24” HD Cinema Display monitor, and 4 External 500GB hard drives.

We shoot 10 to 15 minutes on a 8GB card. I like using the 8GB cards the best because the counter on the top of the camera kicks in depending on jpeg settings at approximately 15 minutes of media recorded. This is a great gauge. Once the counter starts to come off of 999 we re-load the card. Just like a 1000 foot magazine on a film camera.

There are three important reasons to do it this way:

1. We can get that to the media manager and he can check the focus on his big monitor. We all know how critical the focus is with these cameras.
2. The cards tend to heat up and when that happens the noise factor goes up. So keeping a fresh card in there is very good way to keep the image as clean as possible.
3. It promotes a steady pace of backing up cards, so if for any reason something happened to the camera or the card you are not losing a whole day worth of footage.

In our work-flow system, the 8GB card from the 5D camera goes to the media manager. He downloads the media into the computer and simultaneously sends it to the 4 external hard drives. After the download is complete, he checks for focus and exposure and labels each set-up for the assistant editor with as much detail and description as possible. Then, he formats each card before sending it back to the cameras in the field. When the cards go back to the field to be reused, the camera assistant knows to double check that each card is coming back empty.

Next, one hard drive is shipped to the editor to start logging the footage; one is a back up if the original one gets lost in shipping. A third is for the director to view on his laptop. The last one is a “cloned master “of what we sent to the editor, which is held in post. This system has been successful in delivering the entire equivalent of 1.8 million feet of film safely into the edit room.

___
And here’s another good read: Managing Footage in Tapeless Workflows.

Filed under: Video

Zoom or Prime?

surkrew — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:00:11 +0000

Here is the story of my switch from zooms to primes and my findings so far.

I have a Nikon kit too that I share with Julie but this feature is about my Canon portrait kit shown above. A year ago I was still shooting weddings with Julie and I used just 3 zooms. A 16-35mm f/2.8L mk11, 24-70mm f/2.8L and the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. those 3 lenses covered every focal length and I shot them at f/4. Now that I’m shooting both portraits and art, I decided it was time for a change.

Zooms are great when you are covering an event and unable to move around at will. Or when you are shooting groups inside and need to accommodate a latecomer when your back is against the wall. I also love the speed that tiny adjustments to framing can be made with a zoom lens and the near instant capability to get a tighter shot when the moment dictates.

Now that my work is more considered I have the time to look at the scene, design my image and select the lens needed for the job. I create the moments too so I know when they are coming.

What focal lengths to choose
I’m not concerned about ‘holes’ in my focal length range because I can move around to get the framing I want. I now choose a lens for it’s perspective. There are compromises with this approach but I’d rather have 3 or 4 primes than 6 or 7. With this in mind I set about coming up with my fab 4. I was always told to choose lenses that double in focal length with each change ie 24mm, 50mm, 100mm, and 200mm. I wanted to start wider than 24mm and finish wider than 200mm too. I ended up with 21mm, 35mm, 50mm and 100mm. Here’s the story why.

As you can see in the picture above, my complete kit could probably fit in a childs lunch box. I feel liberated now that I have sold my three bulky, heavy zooms. Keeping them was not an option because every now and then I’d be reverting back to my old convenient ways. When I change my kit, that’s it. I need to totally immerse myself in the new kit in order to get to know it inside out.

I’m not a newcomer to primes. From 2005-2008 I exclusively used a Hasselblad H1 with a Phase One P25 digital back and primes. I had 35mm, 80mm, 110mm and 210mm lenses. I eventually sold the 80mm and 110mm and replaced them with a 100mm f/2.2 lens.

The kit was wonderful until it developed a focussing fault. Hasselblad charged me £500 to repair the fault but it was still there. They blamed Phase One and Phase one blamed Hasselblad. It was the camera that was at fault and I got fed up with the bickering and sold the kit in separate components on Ebay.

Wide angle – Choices
I wanted to change my 16-35 for a prime because it wasn’t great optically and I found 16mm too much of a temptation to use and I nearly always regretted having used it when looking back at my work. I looked at the options and decided that the Zeiss 21mm was likely to be my No1 choice of wide angle. If Canon made a fabulous L series 20mm I’d have chosen that. To be sure of a smooth transition to prime I decided to tape up my zoom lens at 21mm using electricians tape and a few thousand frames later I knew 21mm was for me.

There is some general belief that prime lenses are somewhat better than zooms. I don’t find that argument to be true all the time but with the 21mm v 16-35mm it certainly was. The Zeiss prime is in another league. At f/2.8 it is pin sharp, contrasty and doesn’t suffer from chromatic aberration. The only lens I know that is as good or perhaps even better is my Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 zoom. The Nikon wide zoom is absolutely amazing.

35mm – A no brainer
I’ve always loved the 35mm focal length for environmental portraits. It pulls in the background so readily without resorting to a wide angle look. The Canon 35mm f/1.4 L gets reasonable press so I decided to buy one from Warehouse Express. At first glance the pictures it takes exhibit all the qualities I expect of an L series lens. It suffers from chromatic aberration at f/1.4 – f/2 but is perfect by f/2.8. I need to shoot some portraits with it now to really get to know what it can deliver.

In testing I found that an in camera micro adjustment of +5 is needed for my 35mm lens to achieve pin sharp AF at f/2.8 over the 1m – 5m range.

50mm – The big decision
I need a 50mm lens too and this proved more difficult to pin down. There are many choices with three from Canon, one from Sigma and one from Zeiss. I ruled out the Zeiss optic because I want AF. The Sigma reviews were mixed and even the good reviewers had to have their lenses recalibrated. I’ve never had much success with Sigma lenses in the past so I didn’t repeat my previous blunders. That left Canon with the 50mm f/1.8, the 50mm f/1.4, and the 50mm f/1.2L.

The 1.8 is very light, cheaply made and performed quite well from f/2.8 and above. It was only let down by it’s build quality. The f/1.4 might well be the best of the bunch. I’ve tried the f/1.4 a couple of times when I’ve been fortunate enough to be leant one by one of my workshop delegates. But I had a dilemma, if I bought an f/1.4 I’d always be wondering how much better the f/1.2 is. So I bought a perfect, hardly used f/1.2 on Ebay to find out. If I want to swap it for an f/1.4 in the future I can simply Ebay my f/1.2 and get the same that I paid for it.

50mm f/1.2 first findings
It’s big and I don’t know why. The front element is much smaller than the lens barrel. It’s heavy and I don’t know why. My 100mm lens is much bigger and yet seems lighter. It’s very expensive and I don’t know why. You get a lot more ‘L’ glass and IS for your money in the new 100mm macro. I thought the secret that justifys the price tag must be the image quality.

I ran some tests… Well, I think this lens should be called an f/2 because at f2 the image quality is sparkling and worthy of the ‘L’ notation. When you open the lens up to f/1.8, f/1.4 and f/1.2 all that happens is the centre of the image gets brighter. The edges don’t change at all leaving heavy vignetting. The centre of the image suffers chromatic aberration too at these wide apertures with obvious purple fringing in contrasty areas. Hmm

I will not be shooting portraits at f/1.2 because the depth of field is so shallow that it looks like a Photoshop effect to blur the image. It is certainly not a natural or a pleasing look. There are some shooters that will love it I’m sure but I’m certainly not one of them. I’m going to shoot at f/2.8 with this lens and really get to know it’s characteristics. It should be amazing at that aperture and I can’t wait to give it a go.

In testing I found that an in camera micro adjustment of +10 is needed for my copy of the 50mm lens to achieve pin sharp AF at f/2.8 over the 1m – 5m range.

After I’ve got to know the f/1.2 for a while I’ll probably buy a 50mm f/1.4 on Ebay and compare the two. I’ll then keep the best and sell the other;)

100mm Macro f/2.8L IS
Wow! This lens rocks. It is pin sharp wide open right across the frame. The IS is amazing letting me shoot at 1/15th second hand held. And I love getting in there to shoot tight close ups. This lens out performs the rest and any zoom I’ve ever used at f/2.8 including the new mk2 70-200. I’ve used the 100mm for two months now and it is fabulous.

Before I settled on the 100mm I tried out a 135mm L lens but I kept getting camera shake even at 1/500th I seemed to struggle to get crisp pictures. The IS on the 100mm is a game changer. I thought about the 85mm too but I dislike the unnatural blur effect of the 85mm wide open, it is way too heavy and it lacks IS.

I’m not yet convinced to pay over £100 for the dedicated tripod bracket for my 100mm lens because it gets mixed reviews and is exorbitantly priced. The copies from China on Ebay are only £20 but are of questionable quality. No doubt the copies will get better and the Canon units will drop in price when they become more readily available.

My zooms are all sold now and my first all prime shoot is Tuesday. You will be able to follow my progress with my prime lenses on this blog.

Taken from here.

Filed under: Cinematic, Equipment, Photography

How online photos reveal more than you know

surkrew — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 16:00:50 +0000

WEB PRIVACY: HOW ONLINE PHOTOS REVEAL MORE THAN YOU KNOW

Robert Vamosi, PC World US

The geotagging data contained in many mobile phone images can let strangers know exactly where you are and what you’ve been up to.

Digital cameras and cameraphones mean you can snap those special moments to your hearts content, preview the shot and erase and re-take if necessary.

The technology gets even better thanks to the help of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, which let you share those special moments with your friends, family and followers around the world.

However, its worth stopping and thinking about the fact that when you post the picture on a social network, millions of web users across the globe can discover the exact location you were in when you captured the shot.

EXIF data and Geotagging

Exchangeable Image File format (EXIF) specification adds metadata to common JPG and TIFF image files. Along with a thumbnail image of the photo, EXIF data stores details about aperture, shutter speed, focal length, metering mode, and ISO settings, some of which can help a printer do a better job of colour-matching the final printed image. There’s also room for other information, such as the camera’s make, model, and registration number, and in some cases, location data.

Geotagging is the process of storing latitude and longitude data inside an image’s EXIF data. This information maps the image with a photographer’s specific geographic location, which mapping services such as Google Earth can then chart.

Many newer digital cameras and mobile phone cameras have built-in GPS receivers. The geotagging features in these newer devices are integrated and seamless. With the explosion of smartphones today, Jackson is seeing about three percent of all photos posted on Twitter contain location data, and that figure is growing.

In his New HOPE security conference presentation, Jackson detailed how he found personal details about a man in a photo. Using accompanying geotagging data, Jackson located the man’s house on Google Earth. Then he found a name associated with the house where the photo was taken, leading him to a Facebook account that yielded a birth date, marriage status, and friends. A second username listed on the Facebook page led to a second Twitter account, and so forth. The point here is that once you start pulling on the thread of information contained in a geotagged image, a single photo can reveal a whole trove of personal data.

Some people say they don’t mind sharing their real-time location data with total strangers. But others dislike the idea that strangers can know where they are at any given time. Fortunately, smartphones and cameras let you turn off the photo geotagging feature.

Summarised from :http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=3239522

Filed under: Uncategorized

Doa Mu

surkrew — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 16:00:38 +0000

“Bila ALLAH makbulkan doamu, maka DIA menyayangimu, bila DIA lambat makbulkan doamu, maka DIA ingin mengujimu, bila DIA tidak makbulkan doamu, maka DIA merancang sesuatu yang terbaik untukmu. Oleh itu, sentiasalah bersangka baik pada ALLAH dalam apa jua keadaan…kerana kasih sayang ALLAH itu mendahului kemurkaanNya” Wallahua’lam.

Filed under: Life Lesson

Documentary Scenes

surkrew — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 16:00:38 +0000

A breakdown analysis for documentary scenes.

How many scenes does a documentary have?

Filed under: Cinematic, Video

What are your priorities

surkrew — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:00:42 +0000

Ever wonder what would happen if we treated our Quran like we treat our cell phone?

What if we carried it around wherever we went?

What if we flipped through it several time a day?

What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?

What if we used it to receive messages from the text?

What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?

What if we gave it to Kids as gifts?

What if we used it when we travelled?

What if we used it in case of emergency?

This is something to make you go….hmm…where is my Quran?

Oh, and one more thing.

Unlike our cell phone, we don’t have to worry about our Quran being
Disconnected because Allah already paid the bill.

Makes you stop and think ‘where are my priorities? And no dropped calls!

Filed under: life, Life Lesson Tagged: lessons, life, quran