Conan on a roll

Marie showed me two videos the other day from Conan’s new show on TBS.

The first is Triumph at Occupy Wall Street:

And the other is Louis C.K., who was there to promote [his new web-streaming comedy concert][louisck web] commenting on social media

Both were from the same episode.

[louisck web]: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/louis-c-k-plans-online-broadcast-of-comedy-concert/ “Louis C. K. Plans Online Broadcast of Comedy Concert—Art Beats @ New York Times”

dSLR video recommendations

Recently, some friends asked me what dSLR to purchase if they want to make movies with it. They aren’t experts at doing SLR photography.

Currently, if you are a beginner photographer and want a dSLR with video capability, the one I suggest is the Nikon D3100, ($700, Amazon, DPReview) which I have already written about earlier.

Nikon calls movie taking “D-movie.” It is currently the cheapest dSLR that can do video mode. It’s only one of three dSLRs that can do autofocus while taking video mode. This strikes me as the best balance between learning and using an entry level dSLR and being to take film-like movies. I’ll recommend some others below, but first I’d like to talk about the why and what of SLR movie-making (with the caveat that I’m a photographer, not a filmographer).Continue reading about dSLR movie-making after the jump

Nikon D3100

Last month, a friend asked me purchasing advice on a Nikon D5000. I told him, “Don’t. Nikon will be introducing a new D3000 replacement before Photokina.”

Today, Nikon has officially announced the Nikon D3100 entry level dSLR camera.

353_25472_D3100_front

If you recall the big spreadsheet in my complete guide to purchasing an entry dSLR camera (etc), the big specification upgrades are: 14 megapixel, 1080p video and continuous AF.

Two other overlooked features of the D3100 are the improved ergonomics: the shooting mode is now chosen with a dial, and a lever now activates the movie mode. Both are going to be very welcome (for reasons I explained in my guide above).

Continue reading About the D3100 after the jump

How (I purchased a kit) dSLR [The entry kit dSLR Part 5]

(Article continued from part 4)

The big C and the Big N

The Nikon D3000 ($450 from Adorama, B&H, Amazon)
The Canon EOS Rebel XS (1000D) ($500 from Adorama, B&H, Amazon)
The Nikon D5000 ($690 from Adorama, B&H Amazon)
The Canon EOS Rebel T1i (500D) ($770 from Adorama, B&H, Amazon)
The Canon EOS Rebel T2i (550D) ($900 from Adorama, Amazon)

Canon kits

The Canon 1000D and Canon 500D
Nikon D5000 and Nikon D3000

The Nikon D5000 and Nikon D3000

Even though I’ve tried to encourage you to buy a Pentax, Sony, or Olympus, I know most of you are going to be going to buy a CaNikon anyway. *sigh*

First off, debating between Canon and Nikon is like getting into a Mac vs. PC flame war. And like modern day Macs and Windows PCs they share more in common with each other than differences. Let’s disclose our biases up front: I’m a Nikon guy. If you’re going to buy Canon the only redeeming thing about me is that I’ve probably sold as many Canon cameras to friends as Nikons.
Continue reading about About entry level Canons and Nikons and what camera I purchased after the jump

Unsupported RAW workflow in Apple Aperture revisited

Now that Aperture 3 is out, I need to update one area of my previous article.

No, Aperture 3 doesn’t support the Olympus E-P1/E-P2/E-PL1 or Panasonic GF-1 RAWs (yet).

There is a workaround, however, for doing sorting, selecting, and metadata in Aperture 3.

  1. Select un-viewable RAWs in Apple Aperture 3’s thumbnail view
  2. Cmd-click to get a contextual menu and choose “Set JPEG as Master.”
    Aperture 3: Setting JPEG as Master

    Mouse over the image to see what happens after “Set JPEG as Master.”
  3. Do work to create a select, rate images, and the like.
  4. Catapult workflow with some adjustments. You’ll now need to be in 32-bit mode on Apple Aperture 3 to use it.
    Aperture 3 in 32-bit mode

    How to open Aperture 3 in 32-bit mode (always).

    Trying to return to “Set RAW as Master’ and then Catapulting yields and “Editing Error” as the backdoor used by Catapult is now closed. 🙁

    Editing Error in Aperture 3

    Therefore, you must export masters manually to the drop folder, generate RAWs, and then Catapult. If you do so, you can’t reimport the sidecar xmps, currently.

Here is some proof:

_2050608

The House
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-P2, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 50mm f1.1
1/8sec5, ISO200, 50mm (100mm)

Image processed from ACR in Aperture. Try as you might, you can’t recover clipped highlights.

(BTW, the images were uploaded with the new built in Flickr support, so we’ll see how good sync is—it appears to be uni-directional. For instance, I just found out movies aren’t supported in Flickr sync, so videos are synced back as stills.)

Mushroom rice with grilled prawns looks like it’s alive
The House, North Beach, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-P1, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
00:15, 1280×1070, 30fps

FOX needs a senior PHP front-end developer

Hmm, it’s been a while since I posted some PHP jobs. (You know this is getting inconvenient. I think I need to just write a job tool for php.net.) Received this rec from a friend filling a position for FOX Interactive Media to work on the American Idol site. They can work in San Francisco, Los Angeles or even Seattle.

(Also, if you are the one flash/actionscript developer out there, contact Diana for positions at FOX sports, etc.)

Contact Diana Schwartz 310.590.4570 or dschwartz at this site.

[Senior Front End Web Developer job description after the jump]Continue reading

APS-C videocameras

Caitlin talks about a particular dream of hers: high-definition APS-C sensor videocameras in two articles: here and here, including the much-awaited mention of Sony’s new CMOS sensor.

I’ll go even a step further. I think that such a manufacturer should standardized on a modified Nikon F, Canon EF-S, or Olympus 4/3 (if 4/3″ instead of APS-C) mount. This way, out of the box, a whole set of lenses will work with such a camera and they can still make gobs of money on their own custom “kit” lenses that allow zoom control (and other features cinematographers need but film camera lenses don’t have).Continue reading more about large sensor video cameras after the jump