If you’re going to invest in anything, invest in fast glass. High quality prime lenses will out live their owner. Though this statement is somewhat cliche I can attest to it. I’ve had the pleasure of shooting with a beautiful, full set of match barrel Zeiss cine primes which were etched with their country of origin, West Germany. Continue reading
I’m fortunate to have a friend like Evan Miller. Thanks to Evan and his father, I got my first taste of an NLE before the 8th grade. The NLE was Final Cut Pro, it was glorious and I was hooked. When we weren’t getting lost in the hills of Northern California on our mountain bikes, we were shooting and editing some sort of video. Evan now works in Sports Broadcasting in the Bay Area, everything from the Santa Cruz Warriors to the last World Series in San Francisco. I don’t make it back home to the bay area often and he hasn’t been to San Diego in sometime, but we will always have NAB. Continue reading
Sony has been taking Canon’s lunch money for sometime with the A7S being the hottest camera in the $2000-$4000 price range. With filmmakers like Philip Bloom praising it’s low light sensitivity and dynamic range, the A7S is the camera to beat. Canon, the father of the DSLR video revolution has been keeping quiet with whispers of a new 5D popping up in the blogosphere every couple of weeks. Continue reading
If you’re just starting to build a Micro Four Thirds kit for video go buy the Lumix 12-35mm f/2.8. This lens is constantly on back-order from B&H for a reason. With an extremely useful equivalent focal length of 24mm to 70mm, a fixed aperture and image stabilization built-in this is the Micro Four Thirds video workhorse. I’ve shot hours of commercial and documentary video with the 12-35mm and it is my m43 desert island lens. Now that we’ve got that out-of-the-way lets talk Voigtländer 42.5mm f/0.95, the lens equivalent to Jamón ibérico. Continue reading
Thanks to the iPhone I now know the diets of my friends. Oatmeal with blueberries in the morning, that new ramen place for lunch and a home chef’s sad attempt at sous-vide cooking. Instagram has made food photographers of us all, but not all photographers are created equal. Continue reading
Just like Apple democratized Non-linear editing with the release of Final Cut Pro, Blackmagic brought professional grade color correction to the masses with DaVinci Resolve. It still blows my mind that the lite version is free. Continue reading
I have no shame in admitting that I love to attend trade shows. After the free beers and bags (Yamaha always has the nicest bags FYI) finding little gems in the deepest corners of the conference is at the top of my list. Continue reading
The AJA Ki Pro is an impressive external recorder, but will their new CION camera be able to carve a place for itself in the ever-expanding landscape of digital production cameras? Since the announcement at NAB 2014 the AJA CION has been on many people’s radars and rightfully so. Continue reading
In a small dark corner of the 2014 Cine Expo, I stumbled across the Kowa booth. Three small Micro Four Thirds camera bodies with an equally small sales rep standing behind them greeted me. Kowa better known for spotting scopes and binoculars has stepped into the Micro Four Thirds arena with the introduction of three new prime lenses. Continue reading
