I have found that our USA and European readers would prefer “You and your Canon C300″ tutorial video as a download which is now available for £25.

The HD download file is 1.52 GB in size and will play on iTunes or your iPad. If you are interested please send me an email to hdwarrior@me.com and I will send you a PayPal request and a link to the file itself.

I was not aware this kit existed till it arrived this afternoon, it’s a three channel professional audio mixer with three XLR inputs and two XLR outputs.

This mixer from Audio Developments has been designed for a variety of applications. However, its small size (13.5×9.5×4.0cm) and low weight (400gm), lends itself to being mounted on a camera or attached to a belt. It has 3 inputs and two outputs with limiters on microphone inputs and the main outputs. There are two configurations; a one microphone plus two line inputs or three microphone inputs. It is capable of being set and left to process the audio.

MIC INPUTS – One or three electronically balanced type with XLR connector, 48V phantom power, high-pass filter, gain control and mic or line input selection.

LINE INPUT – Instrumentation grade electronically balanced with gain/level control.

ROUTING – Each input is routed to left, right or left and right by two toggle switches.

OUTPUTS – Electronically balanced with XLR type connectors and stereo rotary level control.

Can be unbalanced without loss of level or degradation of quality. A push-button switch selects line or microphone output levels to the XLR connectors. A 3.5mm jack socket carries output signals at microphone level.

LIMITERS – Incorporated in the microphone inputs and the two main outputs. The microphone input limiter is permanently in circuit. A push-button switch introduces the output limiters into circuit and two LEDs indicate the onset of limiting.

LINE-UP OSCILLATOR – 1kHz tone injected into outputs.

MONITORING – Headphone output on 3.5mm jack socket with a push-button switch selecting the direct or return signals. The return signals are brought in on a 3.5mm stereo jack.

METERING – Two LED ladders indicate output level

POWERING – Either external power, via a 4 pin Hirose connector, or a separate PP3 9V battery pack can be used to power the mixer. An LED indicates power present and flashes when the voltage is too low.

HDW : The AD 071 is a very hi-spec British made audio mixer capable of producing high quality sound mixes with toggle switches for line/mic inputs on all three channels, this would be a good mixer for ENG work and would make a hi end mixer for the DSLR market.

Recently I was filming a green screen with the Canon C300 set to 720 50p and 50Mbps, the results on FCP 7 were the best I have seen for a long time. I put this down to the 50Mbps CBR 4:2:2 which is a far cleaner image than 4:2:0. What about that shallow depth of field, how does it affect green screen, I must admit the last time I filmed green screen with a large sensor camera was with the Panasonic AF101 and the results were
less than spectacular.

Looking back at the AF101 I think it suffered in two accounts, lack of resolution (800 lines max) and 4:2:0 shot with AVCHD set to 28Mbps.

Shallow depth of field actually enhances green screen work as it gives a better overall diffusion to the screen itself taking out the odd wrinkle here and there.

Lighting is also critical when it comes to using green screen, six tips for less hassle are as follows…

1. Light the green screen (GS) as evenly as possible using as much diffused light as possible, the last thing you want with GS is hotspots.

2. Use the cameras ZEBRA to check for hotspots.

3. Bring the subject as far forward from the screen to avoid green spill.

4. Expose for the green screen first then adjust the lighting for the presenter, the last thing you want is an under or over exposed background.

5. Make sure you tell the presenter NOT to wear anything green and check how green his/her pupils are, if they are too green use a blue screen instead.

6. Film the presenter straight to camera as the best resolution of your lens is to the centre, move him/her to the left of frame later in post.

Green screen can be tricky to say the least, I have found that sticking to a medium close shot gives you the best results while a wide shot can give varying results from acceptable to unusable. One of the major bonuses of LED lighting is HEAT FREE lighting, I used eight LED lights for this chroma key set-up and the room temperature stayed constant throughout the 2 hour shoot.

CN600 seen above with 3200K filter in place.

Lighting is the key to a good green screen and I now use LED lighting to light my screen and presenter. Most LED lights are about 5200K to 5600K daylight balanced which does not affect the “greenness” of the screen itself though you do need to use at least one LED light at 3200K to give your presenter a nice back light.

I was recently sent one of these new CN-600SA LED lights to test, one of the new generation LED lights using moulded plastic and has a far smaller footprint than previous metal constructed LED lights.

I love the “V” lock mount that now comes standard on most LED lights allowing cable free lighting a God send for anyone using lights in public places. LED lights are a must for wedding videographers who use lights to film the speeches as long as you also use “shot bags” to weigh down the lighting stands.

The CN600 LED light costs £300 new and the UV160 “V”lock DSM battery both from H Preston Media.

How much are you willing to pay for a limited edition digital camera, Leica has combined with luxury fashion house Hermès to create the M9-P Edition Hermès. The camera is coated in ocre-colored calfskin leather and features a matching shoulder strap. The camera also features a redesigned, smoother top-plate and control points, designed by the automotive designer, Walter de’Silva, previously responsible for the M9 Titanium. Only 300 of the cameras will be made. A yet more exclusive series of 100 ‘Edition Hermès – Série Limitée Jean-Louis Dumas’ kits will also be sold, in honor of the former president of Hermès. These kits will include a 28mm f/2, 50mm f/0.95 and 90mm f/2 lens, and a exclusive Hermès camera bag. The limited editions will cost $25,000 and $50,000 respectively.

I personally think with a global recession it’s maybe not the right time for Leica to introduce such an exclusive, expensive product and lets be honest are you even at £25,000 for the camera willing to hang such an obvious limited edition expensive camera round your neck !

You can save a few bob by buying the Leica M9-P (body only) which is the same camera for a mere $6,720

As you can guess news is a bit thin on the ground at the moment but this picture tickled me when I saw it, a full frame grab from a Sony F65 posted by Alister Chapman over at XDCAM-USER.

The detail in the picture is truly stunning and all I can add is God help any actress with a bad skin condition when being filmed with this camera !

The F65 is a top-end motion picture camera. It features a true step-change in sensor technology, using a 20 Mega pixel 8K CMOS sensor. The F65 runs up to 120Fps, creates HD/2K or genuine 4K resolution images with a huge colour gamut, outstanding dynamic range, and high sensitivity.

The dockable SR-R4 SRMemory unit records 16bit linear SRRAW directly on to an SRMemory card at up to 5 Gbps. This can be developed with industry-standard NLEs from companies such as Adobe, Avid, Apple, Film light, Quantel, Sony and many others. For maximum operational flexibility, the SR-R4 can also support SStP (same as HDCAM SR) recording which can be used natively on the same NLEs.

Apple have sneaked two additions to FCPX with the latest update version 10.0.4 and I was unaware of it till I accidentally inserted a Canon C300 CF card into my MacPro and FCPX was minimised. The card was out of my Canon C300 and I was shocked when the thumbnails of the previous shoot suddenly came up on screen…FCPX to my understanding did not accept MXF files.

To prove a point I inserted a further CF card out of the Canon XF100 filmed at 50 Mbps, 720 50p and once again as you can see…thumbnails and the ability to import into FCPX.

The plot thickens as this only works on my MacPro and not my 27″ iMac, both have the same Canon V3 plugin and both have V10.0.4 FCPX update.

After further investigation I also decided to re visit 1080 50p and inserted footage shot with my FS100, NX70 and my Sony A77 DSLR, all 3 cameras footage is now recognised…fantastic.

The downside to all this positive information is that I still find FCPX unreliable as it has on occasions crashed and NOT come back to the same part of the edit as is supposed to happen, its still far to buggy for my liking but what I have seen recently gives me great hope that FCPX will mature gracefully and you can’t fault the phenomenal amount of 3rd party plugins being produced for FCPX.

Ripple have just brought out a fantastic plugin called “Callouts” for $49 and was a God send for my updated C300 DVD. That is why I have not been blogging as much recently this is a major update and is taking a lot of my time.

I was not happy with the 1st draft of my new C300 DVD so I gave it to my good friend and broadcast cameraman John who I knew would not miss the wall if it was not up to scratch. John had a good look at it and came back with some of his own thoughts which have now been implemented into version 2 of the DVD.

One of his ideas was to describe the various parts of the camera and what they do which on reflection has been a good exercise, this is where the very timely appearance of Ripples Callouts became a God send.

Motion 5 is good at producing graphics and is used extensively throughout the DVD but can be time consuming if you want to achieve simple animations like Callouts. My workflow was as follows…Edit the sequence with my VO on the FCP-7 timeline, export a QT to one of the SATA drives, import the sequence into FCPX and place the Callouts over the appropriate buttons then exporting back out of FCPX into FCP7.

One reason I can’t switch to FCPX is that I use a Matrox MX02 MAX and it won’t run both FCPs as it uses different firmware for 7 and 10. I still am not convinced that FCPX is the way forward and have Premiere Pro CS6 on order…time will tell.

Please note for those of you who have already purchased the 1st draft of my C300 DVD the new version will be sent to you as soon as it is ready…possibly tomorrow at no extra cost.

Today I went to Hampden Park Football ground to photograph a demonstration by Glasgow Rangers fans against Scottish football’s ruling body the SFA. The SFA have decided rightly or wrongly to impose a hefty fine on Rangers FC and a years ban from buying any new players. Rangers are going through a very rough time and are in administration so the fine and ban from the SFA went down like the coastguard firing a torpedo into the Titanic after she hit the ice berg !

My friend Neil from Scottish TV with one of the older DVC-PRO camcorders.

It’s always fun to turn the camera on the press themselves…they don’t like it.

This young lady was using a Sony HVR-V1E another camcorder thats seen better days though she was using one of the new Sachtler ACE tripods.

Sky had their usual Panasonic P2 camcorder.

This was my favourite picture a lovely lurcher with a “Rangers Fans Fighting Fund” scarf.

This will probably be the lead photograph in all the Scottish newspapers. The Canon 600D coped very well and with three lenses from my C300 bag, the 11-16 F2.8 Tokina, 17-55 f2.8 IS Canon lens and the 70-200 f4 IS Canon L glass.

H Preston Media are giving away a free “You and your Canon C300 DVD” (Worth £20) with every new Canon C300 starting from Monday the 2nd of May 2012.

The main teaching part of the DVD runs 48 minutes with a further 2 minutes of cock up’s covering…

CF cards and compatible speeds

Filming a Web Commercial at the Football Nation in Edinburgh with the new hybrid Glidetrack slider

Custom Picture showing you how to set up a custom picture with filmed examples

Low Light filming at 12dBs of gain

Short Drama in a disused railway tunnel

Cleaning the C300 sensor and the LockCircle body cap

Overview of the C300 hand grip with a tutorial to assigning the function facility to button 7

Lenses, showing you my bag of lenses from the 11-16mm f2.8 Tokina to the Canon 70-200 f4 IS “L” zoom

Filming a corporate shoot in an ice cream factory

Using the iPad 3 prompter and filming green/blue screen

WFT-E6 Wi Fi dongle and the iPad 3

Plus lots of hints and tips throughout the DVD

John Preston “We are glad to be offering the DVD with all our new C300 orders, Phil’s done a great job as usual, this will be an invaluable resource for anyone buying the Canon C300, we are getting a lot more stock this month and are also offering 12 month interest free credit.”

Not owning a Canon 5DMk111 its impossible to comment on the “light leak” problem but having just spoken to Canon UK the understanding is that if you have a 5DMk111 with the serial numbers mentioned below Canon UK will repair the fault under warranty. NOTE : The updated firmware V 1.1.2 does not address this problem. (Note. Yesterday I had an email from Canon UK telling me that the new firmware addresses the light leak problem, sorry to all who read this genuine mistake).

FAQ: EOS 5D Mark III – Quality Issue Announcement

Issue

Concerning the EOS 5D Mark III digital SLR camera, when the LCD panel illuminates in extremely dark environments, the displayed exposure value may change. Canon has decided on our service policy to address this phenomenon, so we would like to inform you of the details as described below.