You Can Get Arrested For That Sort Of Thing

I have always admired Christopher Columbus, Vasco De Gama, and Magellan, and hoped to emulate them. In an effort to discover a new trade route to India, I drove to Canning Vale the other day and made an experiment along the way.

I'd seen a number of cars with action cameras bolted to their dashboards, and a few with them looking out the rear window. One bicycle rider that used to visit the shop had an action camera mounted on a witches hat at the back of his bike*. It seems to be the coming trend, and I have always been on the cutting edge of technology**.

I don't own an action camera. Not surprising - I rarely display any action worthy of photographing. But the curiosity is still there so decided to adapt a camera I do own to the role. I tried to rig up my Fujifilm X-100 on a cradle looking out the front window. I say tried, as I discovered in garage experiments that while you can mount it in the cradle and mount the cradle easily at the windscreen, you cannot turn on the camera or trigger it without a vast mechanical and cable apparatus.  You might be able to reach to the bottom of the windscreen on an old VW beetle or a Ford Model A, but a Suzuki Swift has a deeply raked screen and it is all too far away.

Plan B was simple. After setting the camera to 800 ISO and AWB, I turned the focus to S-AF and the aperture and shutter speed to A. Then the drive control was pout on the video mode and I was set. I drove at the normal freeway speed while holding the camera up so that it looked out the windscreen. At no time did I take my eyes off the road or my right hand off the wheel, and I made sure that the section of freeway I selected had no Leeming Blunder Buses or Tray Top Tradies to make it dangerous. I did get passed by the Mandurah-bound train, but only just.

Result was replayed on the home computer and I discovered a number of facts:

Fujifilm cameras make excellent video cameras. Clear, sharp, well-exposed scenes.

Sound is pointless. You get it but as there is nothing but engine and wind noise there is no message to hear.

The camera is steady if you hold it yourself. Attaching it to the structure of the car may be fashionable, but you'll get a far more stable image if you just hold it by hand. Or rather, if your assistant holds it so. You don't even need complex rigs or counterweights - just keep it off your eyeballs and hold it horizontal. The files played back are hypnotising but unless you are looking for evidence, hardly bear repeating.

Did I find India? I found butter chicken, vindaloo, and basmati rice. Close enough for me.

* And the witch was none too pleased, I can tell you.
**And I have the scars to prove it.

Atomic Special Deals From Atomos Right Now

If you have been looking with awe and envy at the video recorders and screens from Atomos - the Shogun and Ninja range of accessories - and wanting to make them part of your video rig...well you have done a smart thing waiting until now - but now you need to act.

The distributors of the Atomos products have come up with special package deals that run all the way through December 2015 and on until the 31st of January 2016. Here's what you can get:

1. Buy a full accessory version of the Atomos Shogun 4K recorder or the Atomos Ninja Assassin and you get a free Power Station Photo Bundle - thats a number of accessory cables and a ATOMPWS001 plus two ATOMBAT003. We're talking two batteries and the power station to get them working.

2. Buy a full accessory version of the Ninja Blade and get a Spyder Calibrator for free - the code for this is ATOMCAL001.

No need any more to be restricted by the sensor or screen capabilities of the camera when the Atomos products can see and show more - and shoot more too - the advertisements speak of not being restricted to short runs of time.

Here is a good vantage point to look at Atomos products:

www.atomos.com/

But remember - if you are going to use these fabulous products to tell a video story better...you have to have a video story to tell in the first place.

Shoulder Mounts - For Cameras Or Parrots?

Arrrrr. Pieces Of Eight. Polly want a focus puller...

The advent of the DSLR that took good video led to a real flowering of the arts - the arts of the industrial designers, the computer-controlled milling machine operators and the professional gear salesmen.

The designers looked at the types of support that had developed in the motion picture industry ( when cameras were pushed about on wheels by unionised labour...) and tried to make the small products look and work like the big ones. In some cases they adopted amazing configurations - like the camera support that plugged into a socket at the front of your pants. Others were reminiscent of something that the army would use to fire anti-tank missiles. One looked like a broken steering wheel and several looked like they were made up of Meccano parts.

The machinists did their part magnificently - turning dense aluminium castings or plates into real works of art. This was a business that may have owed more to the ability to program a computer than to turn the wheels of a lathe, but the beauty of the results could not be denied. Sometimes it became so complex - large and heavy - as to defy sense or to fulfil the basic function.

As far as the sales pitch went - well, the thing was simple. Show pictures of fit young people wearing sleeveless padded outdoor vests and feed caps set backwards on their heads. Make sure they were lean and stubbly - even the girls. Pose them with these improbable camera racks in the midst of a DEA raid or on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Suggest hard-hitting, razor edge iconic up-and-coming superstars set to burst onto the world like a comet...courtesy of the aluminium castings and tubes - and take the money.

But take the money fast because the next edition of " Stubbly Dude With A Camera Magazine " is due out on the stand in two weeks and the next fashionable accessory will likely be different...

The Pan And Tilt That Doesn't - Manfrotto Video Monopod

Manfrotto does some pretty marvellous thinking when it comes to the design of their products. As our regular readers will know they have been making heavy-duty camera and lighting stands, accessories, and all sorts of studio stuff for decades. They are always thinking out something else that can be done with cast aluminium or magnesium. Their really big pro stuff has a lot of steel in it - when it falls on you you stay underneath it...

Okay, the subject today is one of their products that does a wonderful job but fools the unwary ( customer and staff...) by the shape of it.

The pan and tilt video head you see is sitting on the top of a video monopod. It looks for all the world like the similar Manfrotto heads that top video tripods - and has been sold as such. But the blessed thing does not swivel. Not a good feature for video work. It nods up and down, but what do you do when your subject makes a break for it left or right?

Relax. The design of the monopod has a ball in a socket on the small three-footed base. It is not intended to support the rig when you let loose of it - there is too much weight up on top to balance well. But it allows you and the camera to swivel smoothly up to 360º to follow your subject. You're holding firmly onto the gear and round you go.

Stop when you get dizzy.

The Small Big Screen For the Big Small Cameras - 501

The video people who use DSLR and mirror-less cameras get to play with all the cool toys. The cameras themselves can be set up to record motion picture footage in incredible detail these days - so much so that it can surpass the capabilities of the LCD screen that is fitted to the camera. More detail, bigger picture.

Videographers need to see what is happening as it happens. They frequently fit external monitor screens to their rigs - not just for the look of the thing but for the review capability that it gives them.

Now the Small HD corporation has produced the 501 model - very well made with a multitude of connections that let the signal in, or out again, and display it with 1920 x 1080 and perfect broadcast colour ( 100% Rec.709 )

It will produce HD waveform and scopes.

It's not plastic trouble construction - the case is hefty aluminium with, as you can see, connection bays for Canon LP-E6 batteries and three different mounting points - all 1/4" threaded sockets in metal.

Professional quality without being the size of a monolith.

Røde Talk - You Listen - People Watch

Making a video? Making it on your DSLR, mirrorless, or cine camera? Thinking to have someone out there in the middle distance do some talking? Would you like to hear what they have to say?

So would your audience. Trying to get to get clear speech recorded from the camera position with an in-built microphone can be impossible. Even using a shotgun microphone with all the housings, mufflers, and booms can still result in bad sound - the wind and background noises can conquer all your efforts. You either have to have the actors hold up signs with their lines printed on them or hire Marcel Marceau...

The answer is a small microphone attached to the actor and some way to transmit this back to the camera wirelessly. Røde have now introduced their equipment for this - the Rødelink Filmaker wireless microphone/transmitter/receiver set.

The pack shot is included above to show you the basic boxes for the set - there is an omnidirectional lavalier microphone and a number of connecting cables in the carton as well, but it seemed a pity to unpack it when it was such a cute parcel.

The range of the transmitter/receiver combo is 100 metres and it throws the signal with a series II 2.4 GHz digital transmission. The signal is encrypted as it goes so only you share the info with yourself. If you need to adjust the gain control there is a three-level system.

At last - a neat, clean, Australian sound linkage. No mimes need apply...