Blackmagic Design announced DaVinci Resolve 8.2 for Microsoft Windows™ public beta is now available for download. DaVinci Resolve for Windows public beta is available in both the full featured DaVinci Resolve 8.2 and free DaVinci Resolve Lite versions. The DaVinci Resolve 8.2 for Windows license is included with the Mac OS X version, so all current Mac OS X customers automatically get a license for the Windows version, and can download it now to use in their facility.

This new DaVinci Resolve for Windows beta will allow customers to use a wide range of hardware for building color correction systems with the advantage of a wider selection of GPU processing options with support for up to 4 GPU’s per system.

Tags: camera, movie, video, davinci, resolve

We’re back from vacation.
We wish you a happy and successful New Year 2012!

Tags: happy, new, year, 2012

From left to right (Panasonic HVX200, Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, Panasonic HDC-TM900)

Amazing results from the small consumer camera Panasonic HDC-TM900.

On my last trip to Romania I had full faith in the new TM900 and shot hundreds of stock footage clips in 1080/50p at 28 Mbits/s. This little camera is great if you have to travel light because you can shoot in high quality anywhere without drawing unnecessary attention. After reviewing my clips on the computer I’ve started to color grade them in DaVinci Resolve Lite and was positively surprised how far I can push the colors without them falling apart too much. I admit before importing the clips into DaVinci I’ve upconverted them through Cineform Neo HD to CF422 to make them editable - that’s an important part of my workflow. The newer version 8.1.1 of DaVinci Lite now includes unlimited CC nodes. With them you can throw in a bunch of PowerWindows, Layer Nodes and Qualifiers to make the picture really pop. Can’t wait to put my hands on a control surface.

These are my TM900 camera „Picture Adjust“ settings:
Sharpness -1 (depending on the scene content -3 or -1)
Colour 0 (don’t be fooled it looks vivid on the LCD)
Exposure -2 (the camera tends to overexpose too much)
WB Adjust 0 (I always do manual white balance)

Tags: camera, panasonic, movie, video, tm900, davinci, resolve

Finally, the code for the Motion Controlled Dolly (based on Arduino and Easydriver) is finished. It has now a super smooth acceleration and deceleration ramp.
A big thank you goes to Brian Schmalz from www.schmalzhaus.com



You can download it here: Arduino Sketch ver.03
The schematics can be found in my old blog post here

Im using a modern hybrid stepper motor from Trinamic that is optimized for micro stepping. I’ve bought it for 29,- EUR from www.reichelt.de. The code works out of the box with this motor: QSH4218-51-049 If you use a completely different motor you might have to change some values in the code. In worst case the motor will stall and you will not get a smooth motion.

Tags: arduino, Easydriver, motion, control, skater, dolly, sketch, code

Inspired by Martin Roberts I’ve built my own version of a portable camera crane using a leg from an old tripod (SLIK 88N) that fits in a small leisure bag. The setup is really quick and easy, done in under one minute. It’s stiff enough to support a camera up to 1200 grams. For the center pivot Im using a swivel caster with ball bearing to get smooth motion. You can get them at any home depot. The cost for the parts were around 30 EUR. (I had already two old tripods sitting around in the garage.) The crane has a range of 1.40m (total length=2.10m). With the tripod fully extended I can go as high as 2.80m and in most situations this will be more than enough.

Tags: crane, jib, portable, camera, diy, homemade

Short Film for Caroline Eibl



Done entirely on a Canon 1D Mark IV + DIY Dolly Slider
Special thanks to Andrei-Wiliam Baumgartner (LiquidCreativity) and Michael Stoian (BlackSheep Visuals).

On Assignment: VINO GRABEN AIR-DEKANTER
Shooting glass objects is not that easy. You have to produce strong lines along the edges of the object and also eliminate distracting reflections.
For this matter I’ve used Bright-Field and Dark-Field Lighting.

Due to some backfocusing of my camera & lens combination I’ve decided to microadjust my AF lenses and searched for a good and fast solution. After trying different focus charts without success, found in various „DIY AF Microadjustment tutorials“ I’ve realized that it can’t work if your cameras CMOS sensor is not exactly parallel to the focus chart. Doing it by hand is nearly impossible to achieve constant results (at least for me).



I found only two commercial products. The Spyder LensCal and the LensAlign PRO. After reading some bad reviews about the Spyder LensCal and setting it up with it’s included bubble wouldn’t be accurate enough I’ve decided to take a look at the more professional LensAlign PRO that works by using the parallax principle. But for $180 I find it highly overpriced.

They now have also the LensAlign MkII for $80 but because I need it within 24 hours before my shoot I searched on and found a „DIY LensAlign Clone tutorial“. Based on that info I’ve built my own DIY LensAlign out of a white Forex Foam PVC sheet from homedepo that can be stored flat folded like the original one. It’s highly accurate and it will do the job. After some work in Illustrator I’ve printed the ruler and the focus chart on labels and fixed it to the parts. The center hole of the chart is covered by a piece of black tape.

For non-DIY’ers get the cheaper LensAlign MkII for $80 it’s really worth it! Take a look at the videos of the LensAlign Pro to see how the unit works: LensAlignPro_HowTo