Yesterday Visual Impact came to the Glasgow Science Centre and put on a great show with cameras galore, media students from Cardonald college had a great time looking at all the new kit.

Mike Turner from JVC going over the electronic back focus on the GY-HM850 camcorder AF lens…as its a wee bit tricky I decided to film it to include on my 850 review, coming soon.

Look maw I’m on the telly…a £21,000 4K Panasonic BT-4LH310 Grade One monitor !

I was a great show and a lot of interest from students to broadcast cameramen and women, as usual the Holdan team were on show with various production tools from vision mixers to the 4K Blackmagic camera and that all important 21″ 4K Panasonic monitor working out at £1000 per inch.

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It seems that we don’t have to wait till the 17th of March to find out the price of the new GH4 body only… at £1299 this is £200 better than I was expecting but what about the SDI adapter.

I have been told the SDI adapter with GH4 will come in at £2500 making the adapter £1201 which is £500 more than expected.

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Setting up for tomorrows show at the Science Centre beside BBC Scotland the Visual Impact team hard at work.

JVC’s new sales girl Danny getting her stand ready for tomorrows show.

Hands on with camcorders like the popular Sony PMW-300.

The new broadcast spec Sony PMW-400 will be on show.

The large sensor flavour of 2013, the Canon C300 will also be available to play with. It all starts at 10am at the Glasgow Science Centre and remember you might bump into myself reporting on the show for HD Warrior.

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Extreme Sports Fanatic Launches Kickstarter Campaign for World’s First Helmet-Mounted Video Stabilizer

When extreme sports are your hobby and you want to record and savour every minute of it, shaky cameras and unsteady video recordings can be a constant annoyance. This is especially true for one extreme sports fanatic, who has taken the prototype for the world’s first helmet-mounted video stabilizer to crowdfunding website Kickstarter in order to make his vision a reality.

RockSolid Technologies’ Stubilizer range has been created to put an end to shaky action sports videos, and put the creative control in the hands of the athlete. Whether they are paragliding, mountain biking, snowboarding or indulging in some other adrenaline-boosting activity, thrill-seekers can now record every second of their experience and replay it perfectly, with no shakes or wobbles, to recreate the adventure to a tee.

The Stubilizer range has taken to Kickstarter in order to raise £50,000 that will go towards the development and production of more Stubilizer products; products which will change how extreme sports fans track and record their most high-octane activities. 100% of the money raised from the Kickstarter project will go towards enabling the continued development of the new innovation, as well as fulfilling the multitude of exciting rewards that those who pledge gain access to. Pledging £149 or more will get contributors a RockSolid Stubilizer Solo delivered to their door, for £199 they will get a Stubilizer Duo, and the top reward at £299 will be a Stubilizer Pro, all coming complete with charger and batteries, ready to capture those epic landscapes and thrilling points-of-view.

Stu Smith, Director of RockSolid Technologies says, “This the only product of its kind on the market right now and we are thrilled to be attempting to put it into wider production. As someone who loves extreme sports, I have often been frustrated by the outcome of helmet-mounted videos, especially when I have been taking part in a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Showing the footage to people afterwards never gets much of a response, and it’s hard to relive the feelings you experienced because your view is so shaky and limited! Our Stubilizers have been developed to ensure that all extreme sports lovers come away with dynamic, exciting footage of their most daring feats and stunts, to showcase to their friends and family and to remember the experience forever.”

The Stubilizers are compatible with all GoPro camera models, and are entirely self-contained. There is no in-depth technical knowledge necessary to operate the Stubilizer, users simply assemble and set off on their extreme adventure, knowing it will be safety recorded with perfect imagery and balance.

For more information, and to donate to the RockSolid Kickstarter campaign, visit their donation page:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1496576492/stubilizer-gopro-compatible-active-camera-stabiliz

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That good old CHINON seems to revive a fan of yesteryear. It is reported that CHINON’s brand. The camera  is on sale in mid-March this year, HD video can be taken and still images from the Bellami HD-1 HD video. They have adopted the M42 mount lens C, CS is supported with an adapter.

This was my trusty Chinon Super 8mm sound camera a name that was sold in Dixon’s before they went bust. I don’t know what to make of this video/cine camera, interesting to see if it makes its way over to the UK. This wee camera could turn out to be a whole lot of fun and priced at about £500.

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Tomorrow I will put the IceLight through its paces until then you can view this interesting demo video…

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

JVC are sending me the first GY-HM850 on Friday to review over this weekend. I knew this was happening but not so soon so a major bonus for all my readers to compare the HM850 and my very own HM650.

The major update to this camera is the full HD chipset giving 1080 50p and recording at 50Mbps (XHQ H.264).

This camcorder will be £6,240 incl vat (CVP) when it comes out at the end of March.

If you have any questions or want me to go over anything in particular send me an email before Friday to hdwarrior@me.com

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This handheld camcorder is rather special in the way it has been conceived, in the words of Panasonic,s Rob Tarrant “It has the DNA of a shoulder mount packaged into a handheld format”.

Lets start with a list of priorities for an all-round pro spec camcorder…

1. 50Mbps or better

2. Affordable media

3. Decent lens range better than 14x

4. XLR inputs

5. 10bit 422

6. Dual record ?

7. Broadcast quality

8. Wi-Fi

9. Decent LCD/viewfinder

Having the AVC-ULTRA codec surpasses the 50Mbps needed for broadcast work not only that you can record at 1080 50p Long GOP 25 which is equivalent to 50Mbps on a low cost SDHC card.

Here is the important point… NO other manufacturer using 10bit 422 allows you to record onto SDHC card at 50Mbps and that’s the clincher. Finally we are now able to use low cost media, very useful for archive, at broadcast quality.

Lens…I have had various interchangeable lens camcorders and can’t remember changing the lens in all but one, having a 28 to 616mm (22x) lens is as good as you need for most filming plus the ability to use the lens on full manual mode.

Dual record (DR)…is a must in every new professional camcorder in fact if it has not got DR it affects sales. The Panasonic goes one stage better some DR camcorders will not continue to record if any of the cards fail during recording thats not something I knew about which is rather alarming.

Even more alarming is I have just tested this on a dual record camcorder taking out card 2. Card one still stays in REC mode but when you stop the recording you get INVALID beside slot 1. On further investigation card 1 will no longer format or play back …it’s only when you re-format the card in a DSLR that the card becomes usable again.

The PX270 will have the ability to loose one of two cards and keep recording, that is coming in a future FREE firmware update and is known as BACKGROUND RECORD, this is indeed a game changer and very much welcomed by camera operators.

Rob Tarrant of Panasonic told me that to further insure no loss of information it is advisable to have at least one micro P2 card when using the dual record mode.

The PX270 is equipped with network functions and an optional wireless module will be available for tablet and smartphone linking. You can also record two individual codecs onto two cards, one for HD the other for proxy.

The menu system has come direct from the shoulder mounts making it a lot more slick and just as easy to use.

Price of the PX270 will be £5,573 incl vat and a 64G micro P2 card will cost £305 incl vat.

I will be getting a Panasonic PX270 at the end of March for review and I am looking forward to putting it through its paces.

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My Lumix 42.5mm f1.2 lens arrived on Saturday morning and what a cracking lens it is…this will make a fantastic portrait lens and a superb interview lens with the GH3/4. All pictures below are using the 42.5mm f1.2 Leica lens on a GH3.

This is my sisters one year old dog called Sonny…shot at f2 on the GH3

Charlotte was shot at f4 on the Panasonic GH3 with a LEDGO 160 Bi Colour camera top light with soft box.

Candy was shot at f1.2 allowing the cracking backlight diffused colours.

The plant was shot at f2 on a GH3

Flori is also at f1.2 on a GH3

Sophie was shot at f1.2 on the GH3

This pic was shot with the GM1 using the 12-35mm f2.8 “X” Lumix lens.

The Lumix Leica 42.5mm f1.2 lens is one of the sharpest f1.2 lenses on the market, certainly sharper at f1.2 than the Canon 50mm f1.2

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Here is my report at BVE 2014…enjoy

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd