New Sony NEX-FS100 -- Panasonic AF100 Killer?

We're getting our first look at the "entry-level" large sensor interchangeable lens camcorder from Sony, the NEX-FS100 -- and it looks good. It seems to have almost everything that DSLR form-factor hybrid shooters have been asking for in a camcorder -- big 35mm sensor, interchangeable lenses, in-camera undercranking and overcranking, uncompressed 4:2:2 HDMI out, dual XLR inputs, headphone out. And, according to early reports, the U.S. list price ($5850) will be competitive with the AF-100 ($4995). But, we are also told, it lacks a couple of basics that the AF100 does have -- a built-in ND filter and HD-SDI out (why, Sony, why?). It will be interesting to see side-by-side comparisons of the two cameras when the FS100 hits the street. For now, I'll rent the AF100 if I need the camcorder form-factor, and use the lenses from my GH2!

Update: According to this hands-on review from Nigel Cooper of DV User (UK), the Panasonic AF101 beats the new Sony FS100 for ergonomics and build quality -- while the FS100 edges the Panasonic slightly in image quality. We will have to see what other reviewers and shooters say as more people gain experience with the camera.

In the meantime, enjoy these promo videos from Sony:

And here are a few early links with more info:

Hands-on from Videomaker (US)

Product page from Sony (US)

Product page from Sony (UK)

Blog posting from crews.tv (NZ)

In the meantime, if you're disappointed by the new Sony and you need HD-SDI and a built-in ND filter, you can get the AF100 for $4795 here.

Video *not* shot with new Sony Super 35mm NXCAM

According to this blog post over at cinescopophilia, this is a video performance by the artist who will be featured in the first Sony "FS-100" Super 35 demo video. Shot with Canon DSLRs, not the FS-100 itself, but it's a nice song:

The post also features Den Lennie's BTS pics from the upcoming NXCAM Super 35 demo video and a few tantalizing glimpses of the new camera.

From the looks of the BTS pics taken during the low-light parts of the shoot here and here (lit with a 150W Dedolight), I agree with Philip Johnston over at HD Warrior, who said recently of the F3 (same sensor):

"You could produce a drama in street lighting and tell the Gaffer to take a night off"

If, after seeing these pics, you want your own Dedolight to go with the big sensor on your soon-to-be-purchased Sony FS-100 Super 35 NXCAM, you can find one for $372.50 at Adorama.

Sorry Panasonic, but Sony had me at the word "35mm".

I thought that the next step up from my GH2 would be the AF100. Looks like I might have been wrong, my next step up may very well be a Sony. Time to start looking for a Micro 4/3 to E Mount adapter?

Gratitude and a Prayer for Japan

A blog like this owes its existence to the Japanese innovators, engineers, marketers and countless others who create the technology that we enjoy so much. I am personally grateful to the Japanese people for the hard work and indomitable spirit that both rebuilt their country after 1945 and brought us the high-quality products that have enriched all our lives. Our cars are better either because we're driving a Japanese car or because our American (or German or Korean) car manufacturer had to compete with Toyota and Nissan. Our hybrid still/video cameras may have been made in China, but they were designed in Japan.

So I pray for healing and safety for the survivors of the recent earthquake -- and I pray that the spirit and courage that the Japanese people showed in the last part of the 20th century lives on in the 21st.

JayCut - Free Video Editor for Google Chrome OS

I know I'm a minority within a minority, but sometimes I miss Windows MovieMaker -- a free, no-frills non-linear editor (NLE) for when all I want to do is trim and splice a few clips, add a few dissolves and a soundtrack and publish to YouTube.

It's not because I haven't tried a real NLE. I bought Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10 for the old Windows machine, but I am not that excited about learning it -- and find myself transcoding the .mts files from my GH2 to .wmv so I can use MovieMaker.

Okay, so why the title of this post? It's because Google gave me a free Google Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop a couple of months ago as part of a pilot program. This isn't a computer blog, so I won't bore you with the details, but a few thousand folks are test driving Google's new OS to see how it fares in the real world. So far, so good -- but I couldn't find a video editing app for it -- until now.

After running across this tutorial from NixiePixel on the free kdenlive video editor for Linux, I discovered that there were several free and relatively simple NLEs for Linux -- but only one for Chrome -- something called JayCut. Just signed up for it tonight and uploaded an .mp4 video that I had downloaded, but could not play on the Cr-48 -- and, wonder of wonders, it played back just fine in the preview window! It's late, so I didn't drag it into the timeline or try to add another clip. Perhaps tomorrow. But if I can get this to work, it will mean one more thing that I can do for free in Google Chrome OS -- and one more step towards doorstop status for the old Windows dinosaur.

UPDATE 3/8/11: Sadly, I could not get JayCut to read .mts files from the Panasonic GH2. Back to Windows (for file conversions, at least).

No-solder external battery solution for GH-2

One of the few downsides of the otherwise amazing Panasonic GH2 hybrid camera is the limited life of the factory battery. At 1200mAh, it stores less energy than the battery in the camera it replaces, the GH1. To make matters worse, Panasonic decided not to include an AC power adapter with the GH2 -- an accessory that was standard with the GH1. And spare batteries have been hard to get, since battery production is just now starting to catch up with demand.

As a result, some GH2 users have complained of being a little power-starved, especially those traveling in remote places or pros who use the camera for day-long event shooting.

It's not surprising, then, that people have started to come up with their own solutions (like Phil Hover's GH2 Custom Battery Solution). Phil, of Soar Productions, has put together a battery pack with about 50Ah of storage (!) for the GH2 using a lithium polymer battery pack from the RC vehicle world. This thing stores so much energy that the limit on video shot time becomes the size of your SD card!

Sadly for those (like me) who are not very handy with a soldering iron, Phil's idea requires a soldered connection between the battery pack and the DC Power Plug and Cable that connects to the GH2's DMW-DCC8 DC Coupler ($14.95 from Adorama). So I needed another solution.

Fortunately, my personal solution was already in my laptop bag. I've been using an old lithium-ion Duracell Powersource Mobile 100 for a couple of years to power laptops and cell phones on the road. Why not use it to provide mobile AC power to the GH2 through the DCC8? At 4Ah, it wasn't going to provide the marathon power of the li-poly, but it was the equivalent of 3+ of the GH2's battery packs -- plenty for a day long shoot and much more than I need. So, following Phil's example, I bought a third party Universal AC/DC Adapter for Digital Cameras ($25 from Amazon), switched it to the 8.4V setting, and plugged it into the DCC8:

Then I replaced the GH2's battery with the DCC8:

...and then plugged it into the little Duracell. It worked! No soldering required!

Since the Duracell is now out of production, if I were doing this from scratch, I'd get the Black & Decker 20W watt Power-to-Go AC Power Supply ($45 from Amazon).

So, for a total of about $90, you can have the equivalent of 3 GH2 batteries -- and shoot all day without battery changes. Not bad.

Or, if you happen to have one of the old Black & Decker VPX power tools, you can convert its battery output from DC to AC for about $16 with a VPX inverter. If you don't have VPX power tools, the standalone battery pack and charger are only about $50. So, you can buy the external equivalent of a GH2 battery for $66 -- and it's available now (as long as supplies last - the VPX has been discontinued).

This really makes GH2 power a non-issue. And with external batteries, you can swap out packs without taking the camera off the tripod. More power to the people!

Using the Zoom H1 recorder as an external mic for the GH2

24 bit, 96kHz sound was once the sole province of professional sound recordists. Today, anyone with $99 and a Zoom H1 recorder can record high quality sound for motion pictures or broadcast. These new recorders are also small -- small enough to consider using them as "dual-purposed" recorder/microphones for the new high-def hybrid still/video cameras.

Several people have asked me questions about this -- how to set the Zoom's mic input levels, for example, so I've put together a little how-to to show how my setup works. I hope you find it useful.

Welcome to the Revolution

Until now, it cost many thousands of dollars to get "film like" quality on the screen. When I was in film school 30+ years ago, "budget" indie narratives and docs were shot on 16mm cameras that cost $1000s (which was real money in the '70s). Renting a 35mm Arri BL or Panaflex was out of the question for the ordinary person. Clean sound? Forget it, unless you could afford a Nagra and a good sound person. Lights? Lenses? The story was the same. Unless you wanted to go into the film or TV businesses (and most likely starve), there was no way to tell motion picture stories to large numbers of people without mortgaging your house. I'm not going to go into the whole boring history of how it happened, but many people are now realizing that today, they can put high definition, shallow depth of field images and clean 24-bit sound out to millions of people for less than one month's rent.

So -- millions of people can now tell their stories with high-def video. So what? Some will say that this just means increasing the resolution of the hours of unwatchable garbage already on the screen.

But, many others believe that it also the dawn of a revolutionary new era in which millions of new voices with something worthwhile to say are empowered to tell stories that the world would otherwise not have heard.

I choose to believe the latter -- and the purpose of this blog is to share ideas on how new technology can help to make that revolution happen.

With apologies to Gil-Scott Heron -- this revolution will be televised.