My wife and I took the dogs up to the park today. I took the T2i and a monopod and my lenses. Here are my thoughts after actually shooting with it in a run ‘n gun capacity with no support (except the monopod), no filters, no follow focus and no audio:

1. Focus – This will be impossible in a run ‘n gun capacity without viewfinder amplification (I ordered the Z-Finder)
2. Exposure – This will work without a histogram if you a) use the built-in light meter by b) practicing.
3. Support – You will not get a steady shot without some sort of support, I thought my monopod was awesome, not to mention cheap. I would like a single handle though.
4. Focus 2 – Trying to keep steady and focus will not happen if you don’t have some sort of follow focus assembly (still looking- traditional FF’s are just way to big and appendage-y for what I need.
5. Exposure 2 – Forget trying to do anything faster than F/2.8 if you’re a one-man band and moving- you simply WILL not be able to focus well- MAYBE F/2 but that’s pushing it. Static interviews will probably be okay though.

What I have noticed is that anything out of the HDLSR also has a hybrid “look” and by that I mean, it’s not quite your typical DV look but it has a crispness that lends itself to almost looking fake. The following shots are simply colored in First Light by adjusting lift, exposure, saturation, and contrast. I wanted to make the mailbox stuff look a little vintage but wanted to see how colorful I could make this piece in it’s “crispness.”

FYI: My T2i settings are pretty simple- I pulled every setting down to it’s maximum decrease

I am VERY pleased with what I can do with this H.264 stuff after I transcode to Cineform. VERY pleased. The results I get just frankly, blow me away and I’ve worked with about every codec out there now. I’m VERY happy and struggle to really find that I need anything more than this.

I have a whole bunch of real gear coming and a couple real gigs. In a change from what I usually do, I’m going to look at a workflow where I edit in Avid “offline” then do my final online in Premiere and After Effects. Avid just blows Premiere away in terms of easy use, and responsive editing.

Tags: avid, cineform, downtime, hdslr, tech, tools, video

I haven’t had much of a chance to use yet. I haven’t shot on an HDSLR yet. In any fashion. Until this T2i. No 5D, no 7D, no Nikon, nothing. But I’m getting ready to film my first “official” gig, and I am going out this weekend with a friend to do some shooting of various kinds. My conclusion after *farting* around with it? I’m not sure if I’m going back to a “real” video camera anytime soon. I LOVE this thing. Here’s why:

1. Organic- there’s just something natural about shooting with this form factor. I was a bit concerned at first, but now have found it’s addicting. I’m drawn to it, it’s fresh, it feels natural, organic, down to earth and it just plain makes me feel good.

2. Easy – It’s light, it’s free, it’s low profile. I stuck in on a $30 monopod and just threw it around as you’ll see in the below clip.

3. Historically Accurate – if you’re into this sort of thing. Motion picture came from moving stills right? So this is the next evolution- not an engineer version of it. Why do new tapeless format cameras still have the same size of their tape counterparts? This probably plays into point number 1. (from a presentation by Shane Hurlbut).

4. ROI – yeah, we’ve all read Barry’s report on aliasing and all heard all about rolling shutter and you know what? It’s a legitimate issue but we don’t care. As Matt Jeppsen quoted on Twitter the other day: We’re willing to overlook it because 90% of the time we want to lick the screen. And it’s $800, double the sensor size and double the bit rate of my $6K Sony. The DOF is better, quality is better, medium is cheaper, lenses are not cheaper but easier to attain and I can swap ‘em out whenever I want.

5. Low Profile- For the indie doc guy? Easier to look like a tourist and with the amount of places I’ve been kicked out of because my camera is too “professional”- my Rebel won’t draw that kind of attention. Besides, who uses a Rebel in a professional capacity? *no comment*

6. Cost Effectiveness – For the non-profit crew? Cheap, high-quality web video.

*EDIT* 7. SDHC – I don’t have to pack around an FW800 cable and my 300x CF card reader. I can slip in a paper thin card into my E34 slot on my MBP.

So there you go. I’m hooked. I love it. Every bit of it. It’s addicting, makes me feel good, looks amazing, and most of all, it’s freakin’ cheap as hell. Get a T2i, record some video and have some fun.

…I don’t even have filters or a follow focus or proper rig yet…sheesh.

Tags: downtime, hdslr, Production, tech, tools, video

So to prove my point that doing a capture hardware scale to 720 or just dumping your uncompressed HDMI capture source from your T2i/7D into a 720 timeline works, check it:

You now have yourself an $800 uncompressed 720 video madhouse. You may disagree, but I think that’s pretty sweet.

Tags: hdslr, tech, tools, video, workflow