[Robbie Carman]

I’ve never had much luck with computer based time-lapse. I think you’ll have better luck with a dedicated intervalometer. And then ingest the stills and then process in AE, FCP, QuickTime, Premiere Pro or similar. With that said the only software based solution I’ve ever had luck with is Canon’s own software that comes with the camera.

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

[Robbie Carman]

My take is to take the middle ground especially if you’ll also be using teh camera for photos as well.

I’ve had great success with the 32GB Transcend Compact Flash cards. True they’re only 133x they are UDMA and I’ve never had the buffer warning or had any sort of problems. Those cards are only a 100bucks! Thats the good.

The bad with those cards is that 1. they don’t transfer fast which sucks when you’re in the field making archives. 2. If you’re looking to get bang for the buck out of them and double for photos they’re not great for burst modes.

I agree with Lance the 45-60MB/sec cards at the moment seem to be the sweet spot – plenty (actually way more then enough) for shooting video, great for still burst mode and fast transfers

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

[Robbie Carman]

[Joel Mielle] ” is it still better to shoot in 24P or would be best to shoot it (25 Pal) frames, as that’s what DVDs play at?”

Well thats not what all DVDs play at! But i get the meaning of your question. If you intend only to distribute on DVD and the Pal world is your target 25p is a perfectly acceptable solution. Just keep in mind that the 23.976-25 is common, so if you’d like to get a slightly more filmic look or have any intention of doing anything with the film other then dvd distribution that might be the way to go

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

[Robbie Carman]

check out the Foundry’s rolling shutter plugin for After Effects – it does amazing things

https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/pkg_overview.aspx?ui=47C4AB50-4636-4326-87D1-FB380B2119EF

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

[Robbie Carman]

Lance is right renting lenses to try them out is key. You wouldn’t buy a car with out a test drive would you?

I think you should consider first before deciding on a particular lens what you need to cover (focal length) and the lighting conditions you’ll be working in. These two issues will mainly determine the glass you choose. In addition you’ll need consider things like zoom vs prime (gotta love primes I’m biased!). Personally I like to have four conditions met in my kit. Keep in mind good glass is forever. If you get a nice L lens it really doesn’t loose value and will last you a long time.

My criteria:

1. Fast and Wide
2. Portraiture i.e. med telephoto as fast as possible
3. Long i.e. telephoto
4. Speciality (macro, lens baby, fish eye etc)

I know you said you’re only going to buy one lens but its difficult to cover all situations with one lens. As you grow your kit here are some nice alternatives (by no means a complete list) that I’d strongly consider that are on the cheaper side

Canon 28mm 1.8
Canon 50mm f1.4 or f1.8 (i.e. the nifty 50)
Canon 85mm f1.4
Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro (doubles as a portrait lens. The 2.8L Macro which I own is one of the best lenses I’ve ever seen optically but much more expensive)
Canon EF-S 17-55 f2.8 IS (straight up one of the sharpest lenses out there this thing is amazing. Just not full frame, should be an L)
Canon 70-200mm f4 or the even better 70-200mm f4 IS
Canon 70-300mm f4-5.6

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

[Robbie Carman]

[Rafael Amador] “PhotoJPEG is one of the best codec in the market. Is a production codec, not a distribution codec like the H264, and, for sure, better than H264 for any picture that will be processed. “

sorry I had photos on the mind that day. Its motion jpeg not photo jpeg.

But I will have to disagree with you about jpeg either photo or motion in general. H. 264 is NOT just a distribution codec. Canon cameras use this codec, and other MPEG 4 variants like HDCAM SR, AVCHD and others are out there and produce superior results to any other jpeg based codec as well as other codec standards like DVCPRO HD. Are you really saying that motion or photo jpeg codecs produce better results than mpeg 4 variants like h.264? You should really do some testing and you’ll find that this is not true on many levels.

I recently was a participant in a study analyzing macro blocking, chroma subsampling, noise, and luma shift in broadcast formats and for sure MPEG 4 variants where head and shoulders above motion jpeg and even MPEG 2 based codecs although not as good as ProRes, Cineform and other lightly or uncompressed codecs. Motion JPEG is an aging standard. While supported by most editorial systems its only main advantage is an extremely low data rate for smaller files. Its not a great codec for overall image fidelity.

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

[Robbie Carman]

Yeah I was going to ask what Jeffery did. What ISO where you shooting? Contrary to popualr belief with Canon cameras all ISOs are not created equal. Some lower ISOs are actually noisier the higher ISOs for video.

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

[Robbie Carman]

more often than a histogram you’ll find a waveform (with either luma and or RGB parade options) a waveform is similar to a histogram in the information it shows you but has the added benefit of mimicking the picture from left to right. The tonal range is mapped from top (white) to black (bottom).

Additionally, if a RGB parade is not available you can use a vectroscope that many monitors have to measure hue and saturation in the clip

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

[Robbie Carman]

Yep! The Blackmagic HDMI to SDI is a good bet and a little cheaper then the AJA one

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

[Robbie Carman]

[Ayodele Banjo] “i was watching VICENT LAFORET’s reverie movie that was shot on the Canon 5D. How do u think pulled the aerial footage in that with such minimal camera shake?”

Big time Gyroscopic stabilization. All of Vince’s toys are all over his blog. I’m still wondering what this one is

https://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2009/12/14/meet-alpha-and-beta-aka-cool-prototype-toyz/

Remote Follow Focus? Or 16 Million other things

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion