With our new camera in hand we wanted to find the right case to transport it. For our day to day shoot we opted for the Cinebags camera daddy. The bag holds comfortably the camera body and 4 lenses and accesories. We considered the Pelican 1660 case, I loved the build quality and protection it offered but we would have needed another case just for lenses. I'm sure we will pickup one of these cases for when we travel.

After looking at all of the cameras at NAB we choose to add the C300 to our inventory of cameras. If you looked at the white sheets for the differnet cameras our initial reaction was that the C300 didn't have the same bang for the buck as the other cameras out there. Would we like a camera that can shoot super slow mo.... Yes. Do we need it.... No. Does it shoot 4K footage?... No. Have we ever been asked to deliver a project in 4K? No.... After sittiing down with the team we realized that this camera was the best match for 95% of the productions we do.

It delivers the images clients have come to love from the Canon 5D without all of the hassles. It's nice to be shooting on a video camera again. The images are amazing and the camera is very intuative.

When we looked at what we can book, it was a natural fit.(It's on it's 5th day of shooting so far).

We are very excited to see what new cameras are going to show up here in Vegas at NAB 2012.

ARRI will showcase its Alexa range of 2K cameras, the Alexa, Alexa Plus, Alexa M, and Alexa Studio, which boasts 14 stops of dynamic range, a base sensitivity of EI 800 and cinematic image quality. Their ergonomics, menu systems and functionality are based on film cameras to provide ease of use for experienced film professionals.

Canon USA will introduce its Cinema EOS Cameras, the Canon EOS C300 and C300PL, designed for digital cinematographers. Available in either EF- or PL-mount configurations, features include a Super 35mm Canon CMOS sensor, Canon DIGIC DV III image processor and 50 Mbps 4:2:2 codec.

Panasonic will showcase the HDC-Z10000, a twin-lenses handheld 2D and 3D camcorder, which is AVCHD 3D/Progressive standard compatible. Also on hand is the AG-3DP1, a 3D integrated twin-lens P2 HD .

Read more...

Over the weekend I had a Davinci Resolve session. The footage brought in was all shot on the Red in 4K. The clips were all green screen that had a lot of spill on the sctor and set. Now the big question. Do you correct pre or post keying? We decided to help the animators out and remove the green spill from the talent and set. With different nodes and tracking we were able to seperate the talent from the background and even had time left over to smooth out the green for the animators. We processed 19 clips in 3 hours.  We outputted 4K ProRes 444 files at the animators request.

The Davinci Resolve steps up again, I'll let you know when the spot hits the airwaives in a couple months.

The client told me after the fact, that he had booked a full day session out in LA to do the color corection. He was able to cancel his trip and session and was very grateful to have this capability in Las Vegas.

FiveSix Productions was asked to live switch for a client at the HIMSS Tradeshow in Las Vegas. The live cut was encoded and distrubited via the clients website.

We were tasked at finding a compact, affordable solution to produce and mix the different content. We decided on the Panasonic switcher which allowed us to mix multiple cameras and digital sources without any problems. We recorded the final mix on an aja Ki Pro Mini and the Atomos Samurai recorder.

The Panasonic has 4 HD-SDI Camera inputs and 1 DVI input for graphic sources. The strength of the unit is its multi view port. It scales all of the sources and put them on 1 monitor so our setup was compact and easy.

Overall this switcher made the show a breeze.