Adam Wilt is a software developer, engineering consultant, and freelance film & video tech. He's had small jobs on big productions (PA, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", Dir. Robert Wise), big jobs on small productions (DP, "Maelstrom", Dir. Rob Nilsson), and has worked camera, sound, vfx, and editing gigs on shorts, PSAs, docs, music vids, and indie features. He started his website on the DV format, adamwilt.com/DV.html, about the same time Chris Hurd created the XL1 Watchdog, and participated in DVInfo.net's 2006 "Texas Shootout." He has written for DV Magazine and ProVideoCoalition.com, taught courses at DV Expo, and given presentations at NAB, IBC, and Cine Gear Expo. When he's not doing contract engineering or working on apps like www.adamwilt.com/cinemeter, he's probably exploring new cameras, just because cameras are fun.
I’ve had a few days to play around with a set of four prototype Veydra MFT Cine Lenses: the 16mm, 25mm, 35mm, and 50mm. I’ve put up my initial impressions on PVC. [Update 8:05pm CST 17 Dec 2014: the Kickstarter deal is over (199 backers, 5.4x the funding goal), but the normal price of $4900 for a five-lens set is still pretty good,…
As noted in my GH4 review earlier this year, first-run GH4s suffered from an “audio buzz” problem, most noticeable with a third-party mike plugged in. This problem affected early shipments of the camera running version 1.0 firmware; later shipments with firmware version 1.1 or later pre-installed have been factory-updated to fix the problem. Panasonic offers an in-warranty fix for first-run…
On Tuesday night, a Kickstarter project showed up in my Twitter feed: Veydra Micro 4/3 Cinema Lenses. Veydra lenses (12mm, 16mm, 25mm, 35mm, and 50mm; micro 4/3‘s counterparts to 18mm-85mm primes on Super35mm sensors) will all feature Resolution that exceeds 4K Cinema 0.8 module focus and iris gears Consistent front 80mm outside diameter & 77mm filter threading Similar lengths and…
My exploration of the PXW-FS7 large-sensor shoulder-mount camera continues. If you haven’t already seen ‘em, my First Look and Part 2 articles provide background information for what I’ll discuss. Moving the Grip In my First Look article, I said I wanted to move the grip farther forward, and bring it in laterally more towards the camera’s centerline. Sony helped out with…
My explorations of the prototype PXW-FS7 “Vérité” continued this week with the receipt of two E-mount lenses and the XDCA-FS7 extension unit. Getting a Grip In Part 1 I whined about not being able to actuate all the controls on the SmartGrip, especially the zoom rocker. Sony’s Juan Martinez asked, “have you tried rotating the grip so your middle and…
[Updated 18:40 PDT 12 Sept 2014: frame grabs and photos.] As I post this, Sony is announcing the PXW-FS7 “Vérité” at IBC 2014 in Amsterdam. The FS7 is a large-single-sensor camera designed for handheld and shoulder-mounted use. Sony’s Senior Product Manager Juan Martinez sent me 122 slides of “Initial Product Information” (posted at provideocoalition.com), which should give you a good…
[Updated September 2016: Lumu is no longer supported on Android. Apparently the audio-jack interface on Android is too inconsistent to allow the Lumu to function well across the wide variety of devices.] Lumu is a $149 incident-light metering attachment for iOS and Android devices [updated 2016: Android is no longer supported], developed in Slovenia as a Kickstarter project (the Lumu Labs folks…
Shameless commercial message: my latest iOS app for camerapeople, Cine Meter II, has just been released for sale by the App Store: Cine Meter II turns your iPhone®, iPod touch®, or iPad® into a shutter-priority reflected light meter, an RGB waveform monitor, and a false-color picture monitor. Cine Meter II works on any iDevice with a camera running iOS 5.1.1 or higher. It expands the original…
Now that I’ve had the GH4 for a while (initial review here), I’ve been able to explore it more detail, and use it on a couple of gigs. I’ve taken a closer look at the dynamic range and the various gamma options, shot timelapse (and encountered some, erm, interesting workflow issues), and gotten a bit more experience with audio and with HDMI…
[Updates 22 July 2014: Audio Buzz fix; 14 June 2014: dynamic range is 11+ stops; details to come in a follow-up report. 17 May 2014: added another video link; clarified dynamic range estimates (~7 stops ungraded, ~10 stops if you stretch the shadows).] Panasonic’s DMC-GH4 is a $1700 (street price) hybrid stills/motion EVIL camera – Electronic Viewfinder, Interchangeable Lens – with…