Both Nikon and Canon have recently announced new DSLR cameras with the ability to shoot moving images. This is a quite interesting development. These cameras, since they’re for professional photographers, have extremely large CCDs in them so they can easily produce a good HD video. They also use 35mm lenses which give the same depth of field as what would I would achieve with the DOF adapter I’m building. These things can definitely change the playing field a bit in videography. But, it seems their strengths inherently produce many weaknesses. The first is the fact that they are DSLRs. The bodies are ergonomically not made for shooting moving images. The other is their CCDs. From reports that tested the video functions of these cameras, the image capture system is too slow causing weird distortions in the image when moving the camera. However, despite some of their weaknesses, these cameras might perform well for certain jobs, especially if you want that great shallow DOF. It should be interesting to see the improvements in the next generation of these cameras.
Posted by g1powermac under Filming | Comments (0)
It could be true! My production company, GenerationOne, has historical been a one man team. Which, generally, makes what I can film to be quite limited. However, I got a few requests out to some friends of mine to join me to help film “The Geek Sacrifice” and the responses have been quite positive so far. I’ll see for sure tomorrow and later in the week. But if I can just keep one past this short film person to help me, I may just be able to start filming the “This Old Gadget” video podcast I’ve been wanting to film. Vermyndax, if you’re reading this post, this may be just the catalyst I needed to get everything operational…
Posted by g1powermac under Filming | Comments (0)
According to an article by ScienceNews, it seems many scientific studies that paint cancer drugs in a negative light are not published. And, studies sponsored by the drug companies themselves have the worst bias. This, to me, is just plain wrong. The scientific community needs to know how drugs interact and to know how well they work. With not publishing the information, doctors are never given a chance to review the information, and so they happily prescribe medication without knowing the recourses.
This is why I really don’t like taking medication. This is also why I’m a vegan as similar things go on the dietary world. Lobbies from the animal product companies including the dairy and meat industries push the government into saying their products are healthy even though there have been quite a few studies, which are given little attention, that show animal protein is not healthy. Yes, our bodies can suffice living on meat and dairy, but it has been shown that animal protein can promote the growth of cancer and just plain age us faster. The book, written by T. Colin Campbell, called The China Study, demonstrates this clearly. It is what prompted me to go full vegan diet after living a vegeterian diet for the previous year to lose weight. It is truly an eye opening read.
Posted by g1powermac under Health Stuff | Comments (0)
For the debut testing of my 35mm DOF adapter, I’m writing up a short 3 or so minute long film called “The Geek Sacrifice.” In my insanely twisted view of the world, the film will be about an obsessed young geek who has devoted all his time into finding the secret on how to take over the world. He has traveled to all four corners of the world gathering holy technical relics. His lab clothing is adorned with ancient integrated circuit jewelry, and his neck is wrapped in necklaces made from network cables. He now must use the relics to release the secret into the holy golden thumbdrive. Watch him as he sets up the ritual fire and reads from the Geek Bible. Will he succeed? Will he gain world domination? Stay tuned for more…
Posted by g1powermac under Filming | Comments (0)
That’s it really. My whole digestive tract has been messed up today. I hope I can finally get the surgery to remove my gallbladder setup one day. If only I didn’t have the slow heart rate problem, everything would have been done by now.
Posted by g1powermac under Health Stuff | Comments (0)
RED Digital Cinema, the makers of the famous RED One digital camcorder, announced back at this year’s NAB show that they intended to make a camcorder named “Scarlet” with 3k resolution using Red’s new 2/3-inch Mysterium X sensor and shooting from 1-120fps for somewhere around the $3000 mark. However, they just recently announced that the Scarlet is in the process of a major design change so everything is up in the air. But, if they keep these basic specs, it will truly make the best camcorder for the price. It’ll blow away much of the competition, and I’d love to get my hands on one when they release it next year. Of course, I could really use one of them fancy Mac Pros with 8 cores to process that kind of HD video.
Posted by g1powermac under Filming | Comments (0)
Today marks the fourth anniversary of writing my first blog post on my original blog. It’s been a bit of a crazy four years with lots of different things going on. I didn’t even post anything to my blog for these past few years. But hopefully, I’ll be able to now keep this blog updated at least once a day, and finish up recreating the old blog posts which has been a slow process.
Posted by g1powermac under Other | Comments (0)
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m planning on using an old Canon FD lens I have for the 35mm depth of field adapter I’m building. However, I’d like to talk a bit more about these lenses, and how they can be quite useful for DOF adapters. Canon FD lenses were mostly built back in the 1970’s before auto-focus and auto-exposure were really developed. So, pretty much every Canon FD lens allows complete manual control over both focus and exposure. This is really nice as newer style lenses with electronic controls can be an issue as you won’t be able to do much without manual control (the camcorder’s lens will be focused on the ground glass, and you should not be adjusting exposure from the camcorder). The other nice thing about these lenses is the fact that they are old and incompatible with current Canon DSLRs which, in combination, keeps the price low when buying them on eBay. I picked up a really nice 50mm f1.4 lens for about $50 this week. Comparable Canon EF lenses are much, much more expensive.
Now, when following Daniel’s 35mm Adapter tutorial, you will need to change a few things. You will need to get a Canon EF to FD adapter to fit on the end of the cheap extension tube. Look for one without the glass element as you won’t be needing that part. You will also need to change the distance between where the ground glass sits in the tube and the edge of the back of the lens. Canon FD lenses have shorter flange focal distances than their Canon EF relatives. You need to set it back 42mm instead of 44mm. Remember to also account for the EF to FD adapter.
Posted by g1powermac under Filming | Comments (0)
Note to self: Don’t assume your uninterruptible power supply (UPS) battery is always uninterruptible. I was doing some electrical work around the house and needed to shut off a few circuit breakers to determine the proper circuit. I knew I was going to hit the circuit that powered my computer and network equipment, but I figured my high end backup battery would keep it all going for the short few seconds the power was going to be off. Well, it didn’t. It died probably under the large power load of all my equipment. The only good thing to come out of it was it finally gave me the opportunity to switch out routers so I now have my OpenWRT running router with a massive wifi antenna setup as my main router.
Posted by g1powermac under Note To Self | Comments (0)
Today, I found this page of a guy who stuck a large Tesla coil on the roof of his car as a way to prevent car theft. Just take a look at that shot! It’s just awesome. I really should build a Tesla coil myself one day. It would be interesting to shoot a Tesla coil at work. I’d get some interesting footage. I wonder what kind of electromagnetic interfence one of these things would produce as I don’t want to damage my camcorder or anything else for that matter.
Posted by g1powermac under Electronics | Comments (0)
