Month: April 2012

Affordable Stuido Gear From Impact

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The fine folks at B&H Photo were kind enough to send me some of their studio gear from the house brand Impact.  I’ve written a little review about each individual piece and this post is designed to be the index. If the prices of studio support equipment usually makes you wince then you should definitely take a look at the Impact brand.  Please do take a look at the reviews as there are some caveats with some products but over all I’ve been pretty impressed.

Impact Super Collapsible Background 8×16′

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Not everyone has the luxury of a proper dedicated studio space so what do you do when you need to set up a quick backdrop for a shoot ?  The answer could be to use a pop up backdrop similar to the reflectors that most of us have probably used, only MUCH bigger!  Impact makes what they call an 8×16′ background which is actually an 8×8 popup square with an 8×16′ fabric extension sewn onto it to use as your ‘infinite’ background. When you are done your shoot, the whole thing folds flat into a bag for easy storage in

Impact Multiboom Lightstand & Reflector Holder

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There’s a reason that this Impact product has a long name, it’s designed to do a lot of stuff! To begin with, it looks like a light stand and of course, you can use it in this way but, to be honest, its strengths are in other areas and there are better light stands.  The spigot on the top seemed to be an odd sizing when I tested it with my Einstein strobe, there was a lot of play in it and the metal was very soft and easily damaged with the screw clamp.  More so than other stands that

Impact Air Cushioned Heavy Duty Light Stand 13′ (4m)

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The first thing of note about the Impact 13′ light stand is that it’s actually not that heavy.  Heavy-duty yes, but not that heavy.  Sounds odd right?  Well, all I can say is that when compared to some of my small light stands it’s a comparable weight BUT it extends to a much larger height!  I was so happy to see this that I immediately threw it in a bag and flew off to a photo competition taking place in Austria.  Weight is important when you are trying to fit all your gear within the requisite baggage limits but I

Impact XL Digital Light Shed Review

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If you ever shoot a lot of still life or product photos then chances are you have looked at buying some sort of light tent or shed before.  They offer a quick solution for softening you strobes or continuous lights and they tend to pack down small enough that storage is no issue.  I was sent the Impact XL Digital Light Shed to take a look at and I’ve used similar products in the past to shoot images for product reviews or small products for catalogs. This particular Light Shed has a lot of options and accessories to get you

One Day 32GB Memory Card Sale

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B&H has a killer one day sale on today with Sandisk 32GB cards.  You can save up to $100 !  The 32GB Extreme Pro CF card is only $138, I’m definitely grabbing a couple myself to go with my 5D Mark 3.      

Think Tank Set To Launch First 4-Wheeled Camera Bag – The Airport 4-Sight

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This morning Think Tank have announced a new first of its kind camera bag.  The 4-Sight features 4 wheels on the base similar to many current carry on luggage bags, designed to make it even easier to get your gear through the airport.  The bag will begin shipping in May for a cost of $299 and readers of my site can as always receive a free gift when shopping through my links to Think Tank products.  The 4-Sight appears to be somewhat similar in size to the Airport Airstream which is my current roller bag of choice and will hold

Hands On With RED & 3ality Technica’s Meizler Module For Epic And Scarlet

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The new Meizler module was teased a month or so back on RED’s website but at NAB the nearly finished product was on display.  At the RED booth it wasn’t possible to get up close to it but outside at the 3ality Technica booth they had one just sitting there all wired up and ready to play with.  It seems that not many people knew this and I only stumbled upon it in my final hours at the show. So what’s this module all about then ?  Essentially it’s aim is to streamline your camera rig and remove a number

RED’s New Products At NAB

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RED announced a barrage of new products at NAB last week, including the details of the much anticipated Dragon sensor upgrade.  For $6000, Epic owners will be able to upgrade their current sensors to a 6k sensor which will also offer improvements in dynamic range.

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of mount options out there now with Nikon and Leica having been added to the lineup.  I was able to briefly try out one of the first Leica mounts with a Noctilux 50mm lens one evening, it is quite bizarre to have such a small lens on such a big camera but to have the option at all is pretty neat.  Feature application is pretty limited due to the inability to add any kind of follow focus though but for hand held travel shooting it would be a lot of fun.

The Pro IO module is ‘shipping soon’ for $3750.  These are all the Is and Os on this one side, these are no more on the other side.  It’s quite bulky really and you’ll need to add a module adapter to it to allow you to put it onto the camera body as well as you can see in the next picture.

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Sony Demo 8K Stitched Video Of Soccer Match

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Ok this was one of the coolest things that I saw at NAB last week.  Sony demoed a setup with 2 of their F65 4K cameras shooting a soccer match and outputting a stitched 8K wide image which could be used in HD production.  Very cool stuff.  Check it out on ProVideo Coalition.

Post-NAB DSLR Gear Wrap Up

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I’ve just got back from Las Vegas where I spent a few days hanging out with some friends and checking out all the latest HDSLR and video production gear.  NAB brings in around 100,000 people from all around the world and all the major players in the production industry show up to show off their latest and greatest hardware and software.  Over on ProPhoto Coalition I’ve written up a run down of some of my favorite DSLR related gear that I found at the show.  It’s almost impossible to see everything though, and only a tiny proportion relates to DSLRs

Canon Brings 4K To The Cinema EOS Lineup With 2 New Cameras – C500 and EOS-1D C + Lenses

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In the week proceeding the 2012 NAB show in Las Vegas, Canon have unveiled two brand new Cinema EOS cameras that take their new line right into the world of 4k video capture.  The C500 will build on the platform that the C300 launched on back in November 2011 but offer RAW 4k recording via 3G HD-SDI output and up to 120fps at 10 bit and 60fps at 12 bit. Back then I interviewed one of the technical developers from Canon and it was immediately obvious that this was just the beginning for them.  I don’t think that anyone would