Death of the DSLR. Is the future RED?
Today RED Digital Cinema Cameras issued a press release about their much talked about and hyped up Scarlet camera system. Looks like they’re giving the DSLR market a whirl as well. Aside from taking HD video, The scarlet’s “brain” unit as they are called, also takes quality stills. The “brain” of the unit is essentially an interchangeable sensor module, you can literally switch out between a feeble 4.9 megapixel to hefty 65 megapixel, even switch to a 261 megapixel panoramic back. Sounds sweet and dandy but, In my research it seems like people are on one side of the line or the other. On one hand you have the people who would give their first born just to get on the 1-2 year waiting list to throw down loads of cash-ola for this “revolutionary” product, on the other side you see people who are a bit more cautious to accept this DSLR “killer” as it has been called. Personally, I am not buying into this so soon.
Generally with all new product releases you have a very detailed tech spec sheet such as, ISO speeds, shutter speeds, flash sync, frames per second, you know, useful information. Not the case with the RED cameras, yes they do have some specs, but just enough to get your mouth watering, and if you have the budget why not, right?? But for those of us generally interested in this piece of equipment that threatens to render DSLR’s obsolete in one fail swoop, we’d like to see more information. Not raving applause from starry eyed gear fiends with cash to blow. I talked to a couple videographers about the red camera to get their perspective, They did generally agree that these are good quality video cameras, but from whats been said, that it beats 35mm film cameras and high end Sony cameras hands down with minimal evidence to back it up is a bit curious. A few movie clips here and test reels there was not enough to convince these seasoned videographers to make the switch.
As a photographer this makes me all too suspicious that people would put such blind faith in this case to a new DSLR that has yet to see the light of day. Yes, it is a cool feature to switch out sensors, you can even use Canon, Nikon, and RED lenses on the same body and bells and whistles to add out the wahzoo. Lots of flash and pizzaz around this one, but no meat on the bone, so to speak. Basically if this thing is going to put millions of neurotic control freak photographers out of biz we better have a good reason to run for the hills, instead of telling us the boogey man is real, does that make sense? Either way it will be interesting to see how RED cameras pan out in the long run. Hmm maybe it should come with these free pair of shades, I’d be sold!( Jim Jannard is both the CEO of Oakley sunglasses and RED Cinema. )
Revarie from Vincent Laforet
Revarie is a short film by NYC photographer Vincent Laforet. What makes this film Unique is that it was filmed entirely with Canon’s new EOS 5D Mark II. Which up until recently had just been a DSLR. Now they have added the capabilities of 1080p HD video to its feature list. I think we’ll be seeing more of this crossover of mediums. Which is pretty exciting to think of what is next to come. Who knows any of us photographers could be a closet videographer and we just don’t know it yet! Check out the video on Vincent’s site here.
Carlin Sundell travels back in time, Brings back photos as proof!
Well not exactly, had to give the National Enquirer headline a shot. Carlin Sundell works as a freelance photographer here at StudioNemo and is a good friend of ours. He recently attended a workshop on wet collodion plate photography. Wet collodion plate photography was developed by Frederik Archer in the mid 19th century. The image is exposed on to a glass or tin plate covered in collodion, a viscous liquid, made by dissolving nitrated cotton in a mixture of alcohol and ether and then light sensitive salts are applied to the plate, exposed, to create the photo. You literally need a entire chemistry kit in the field and work quickly in an ether rich environment to develop the plate. At some point a gas lantern is involved in the process… Chances for “KA-BLEWY” go way up! I suppose that’s half the fun, eh? Well fortunately Carlin returned not looking like THIS, and brought us back some amazing photos. Gives you an appreciation photography’s early years in today’s mind-numbing point and shoot world.
Click ahead to see some shots of Carlin in action! (more…)
Booyah! Canon announces the new EOS 5D MarkII.
Finally! Canon announced the upcoming release of their new EOS 5D Mark II. After seeing what Nikon has been throwing down on the market ( D3 & D90). I was stewing with anger, due to the lack of response from Canon. But alas good things come to those who wait! Read on to check out all the glorious specs!
Now that’s growth
One of our many radical clients, Skull Candy received a well earned write up in this months Inc. magazine! They are number 31 of the 500 fastest growing private companies this year! Skull Candy’s bread and butter is audio head phones, but their market definitely focuses on the action sports world, and they sponsor a number of pro riders. Participating in our clients success weather large or small is always what we are after. Congrats Skull Candy!
Chase Jarvis gets first dibs on Nikon D90! Luckyyyy!
Chase Jarvis is one lucky son of a B! Nikon teamed up with his crew and gave them all D90’s weeks before the official press release debuting the camera came out, check out the specs here and peep the movie to see all the fun things this camera can do!
Go Boom by Plain T
When i hear the word boombox, i immediately think of the scene in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing where Radio Raheem’s ghetto blaster runs out of batteries, and he has to go to the corner store to buy “20 D batteries”. Canadian photographer Lyle Owerko is so moved by this electronic icon he decided to make it the subject of a portrait-like study of the influence of the boombox. His visual time line of the boombox captures the transformation of a stereo into what Lyle describes as a form of portable entertainment and expression.
Studio Nemo is proud to introduce… Our new Phase One digital back!
Recently here at Studio Nemo, we were having trouble with our 5 year old Imacon Ixpress, nothing severe, just time consuming hiccups that bogged down shoot time, not good for us or our clients. So after a few months of research and meeting with some digi back companies, we ended up going with the Phase One P45. Although the P45 is not 100% perfect I’d say the pros definitely outweigh the cons, the only cons being the software interface is not the most user friendly. The best part about the P45 is its portability compared to the Imacon. With the P45, you can slap in a Compact Flash card and shoot away. Unlike the Imacon where your lugging around and plugged into a power pack/hard drive you wear over your shoulder. Not to mention the resolution of the P45 sports 39 megapixels to Imacons 16! We did some test shots to see how they compare, check em out after the jump! (And yes, I did the cheesiest photoshop job on purpose! Kinda going for a Back To The Future pt.2 (above) and part 3(below) heh.)
LYNDA.COM can show you how to use your latest softwear
Did you ever sleep in class? I used to in college and I walked out of there with a 4.0 GPA. I learned that my “visual” brain worked at lighting speed, while my “audible” brain, or reading brain, wasn’t as quick to learn. I’ll try to clarify, when I would put my head down in the classroom, shut my eyes and truly listen to the lesson the teacher was giving, I would make up stories in my head to support the lesson. While my eyes were closed, I wasn’t distracted by the pretty girl from Buffalo or see my buddies in the court yard skateboarding. The brain was busy learning. The traditional sense of learning is to read a thick book. The same story telling goes on in the brain while reading and I understand the pleasure surrounding reading. However, my visual brain would “hog” the eye time and be on the scan for any composition, color, texture surrounding the essence of creating stills. While my head lay on the desk, I learned that I need to learn in a visual way as opposed the the traditional audible/ book way.
Mentors have shown me the ropes along the way. Nothing beats a professional showing you how it is done. Today, we have tools like videos, to help the visual learners of the world. One of these guides to higher learning is a website named Lynda. The video tutorials walk you thru the tools in a simple logical way. I went thru the Lightroom tutorial and it helped.
Here is the blurb on LYNDA:
The lynda.com Online Training Library and CD-ROM titles include such subjects as Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Office, digital photography, Web design, digital video, and many others. lynda.com’s all-star team of trainers and teachers provides comprehensive and unbiased movie-based training to an international membership of tens of thousands of subscribers. Considering the speed at which technology evolves, the Online Training Library is a great solution for keeping your skills current. Library subscriptions begin as low as $25 a month, with no long-term commitment required.. For more information and to view free demo movies on all courses in the library, visit www.lynda.com.
Aiptek PocketCinema - a lazer pointer on steroids
The idea of sharing photos with friends and presenting to clients on the fly hasn’t been easy. An instant slideshow that fits in your pocket.
Aiptek is showcasing its PocketCinema V10 mini projector at Computex 2008.
Aiptek’s PocketCinema V10, is a pocket-size media player projector equipped with 3M’s revolutionary miniature projection technology, which can project a 50-inch image. The display content can come from a cell phone, iPod, Wii or other video capable device via the 3-in-1 AV jack. The device can also playback videos and photos from the 1GB internal memory or the SD/MMC/MS Pro card. The V10 supports JPEG, ASF, AVI and MPEG-4 formats and features a stereo speaker and built-in battery.
I’ll bet that battery last all of 5 minutes