WARNING: I am getting reports that when flying this thing around trees, you have no control of it. It is very easy to lose your camera so I must advise you practice in a field far away from objects like buildings or trees first. Dave and I made this look easy in the video blog and you assume all the risk when flying your camera!

I have been really busy with work in Boston TV and I have neglected my website! I have had a crazy idea for the last few weeks and I finally got out and tried it. I wanted to spread the word and I hope someone out there is able to get even better footy than I using this system!

I needed to get aerial shots for my mountain biking project I am working on. I was amazed at how people are mounting DSLRs inside remote controlled helicopters and getting awesome stuff. I looked into this, but the price is way too much for my budget, plus I would have to learn a lot before even thinking about taking an RC heli for a spin.

I had an inexpensive way to get a GoPro airborne and I finally got a day off to give it a go. I call it “skyfishing”.

The plan was to use Styrofoam as a base and use party balloons filled with helium to suspend the base in the air. I would cut out a small hole that would fit a GoPro camera pointed straight down. Next, I was going to tie the balloons to the base using string. I would use a fishing pole to control the cluster of balloons and also determine the altitude.

I was at Walmart and saw a cheap way to get helium. They sell a kit with 30 balloons and a 9 cubic foot compressed gas tank for $20. I found that this tank is just enough to fill about 30 balloons. These balloons provide just enough lift to get the camera and everything else off the ground.

I tested this theory with my friend, Dave at an athletic field in New Hampshire. The weather was perfect as far at wind goes, there was none! But, there was a low ceiling and the fog meant that viability was going to suffer. I must stress that it is not a good idea to fly this contraption in winds over 4 MPH. I tried to fly in 9 MPH light winds and I almost lost the entire thing!

A few interesting side notes when using helium. The gas leaks out of the balloons over time, so you only have a few hours of lift when using latex balloons. Also, temperature seems to effect the lift of the system. In colder conditions, the gas is not as “powerful”. I found that when using inside in warm temperatures the balloons could bring the camera to the ceiling. When I took the kit outside into 35 degree weather, the cluster could not carry its own weight once the gas inside the balloons chilled out.

Get out and try this, it really works well. I am amazed at how stable the shot cam out, even at very high elevations. Just be sure to ask permission if you plan on flying on private property. Also, watch for trees and powerlines, it is almost impossible to get the GoPro back when it get snagged. I will take no responsibility if your camera ends up in the stratosphere. Good luck and enjoy the video blog!

I am always happy when I get my GoPro back! Big thanks to Dave and his family for their hospitality and help shooting this video blog.

Having trouble playing this video? Try viewing it on Vimeo by clicking here.

I have been working with my new favorite camera system, the Vision Research Phantom HD GOLD. The camera shoots amazingly crisp high speed footage and I am using it to capture mountain bike riders around New England. Nick and I are working on a film that we hope to release sometime next year that will feature a lot of footage shot at over 1000 frames per second in full HD. We are using some sick film lenses like the Angenieux Optimo 17-80mm t2.2 zoom and a full set of Zeiss super speed primes.

The second tease we are releasing features Giant rider Alex Couture. I spend an afternoon with him at a local riding spot near North Conway New Hampshire. I captured a small bit of trail with Alex using the Phantom during golden hour. The music is by “The Whitest Boy Alive” and the track is called “Fireworks”.

This quick Phantom session is just a small portion if the super slow motion we plan to include in the up coming bike film, the “Missing Link“. The film is currently in production.

This video is also available on Vimeo. Click Here to view it.

First of all, I must say I am exhausted. I have not slept for days. Every waking hour I think of shooting something in high speed. All of my attention has been directed at the Vision Research Phantom HD GOLD high speed digital cinema camera. If you read my blog, you are the type who would understand this “sickness”. And if you got your hands on this camera package and the assortment of expensive lenses I had access to this past weekend, you would fight sleep as well.

My good friends at Rule Boston Camera set me up with the Phantom. Rule is a TV/Film rental house located in Boston, Massachusetts. They have an extensive stock of gear and the people who work there are top notch and understand the business. I recently bought a $60,000 Sony F800 CineAlta camera package from them and I had an excellent experience throughout the purchasing process. In fact, Rule even gave me a loaner 17x Fujinon HD broadcast lens for my F800, for free, since my purchased lens was back ordered!

I have been shooting with Fastec Imaging HiSPEC2 720p high speed cameras for the past few weeks. I am working on a New England mountain biking film called “The Missing Link” with fellow downhiller Nick Keating.

The Fastec cameras I have been using are small metal boxes with a lens attached. Very compact and can take g-forces, so they are perfect for extreme sports coverage. However, the HiSPEC2 camera that I used had to be hooked up to a PC laptop at all times. You can read more about this by clicking here. These cameras are inexpensive to rent and work quite well. Check out the lacrosse commercial I shot mocking the real Paul Rabil Maverick spot shot by NFL Films camera guys on the Phantom HD GOLD. You can see my version here shot with the cheaper alternative Fastec camera.

After spending this past weekend with the Phantom, I was able to draw a few quick conclusions regarding image quality using the cheaper high speeds verses the ridiculously expensive Phantom. The Phantom excels in resolution, speed and stops of latitude between brights and darks. Dust kicked up in bright sunlight by a mountain biker has detail on the Phantom and blows out on the HiSPEC camera. Keep in mind the fact I was using a $60,000 lens with the Phantom and a $50 Nikon prime with the Fastec camera.

The Phantom does not need a laptop in the field. Very little time is needed to “render out” the high speed sequence on the Phantom. The HiSPECs need extra time between takes. The Phantom can be operated like an ENG broadcast television camera. Even off the shoulder! But I was able to shoot with the HiSPEC hand held with the computer as the viewfinder and got good results. One big surprise was the fact that the light sensitivity between the HiSPEC and Phantom was about the same. You need a lot of light to shoot high speed.

All that being said, I would still recommend the HiSPEC cameras to anyone on a budget. If you are shooting a Jaguar commercial use the Phantom. If you want a few sick shots for broadcast TV or the web perhaps the $500/day rental at Fastec Imaging is perfect for your 720p high speed needs.

Now lets talk Phantom HD GOLD and an insane assortment of expensive glass for the rest of this blog. Rule Boston Camera let me take almost anything I wanted, as long as it was not being rented for the weekend! You have a lot of reading to do, as I got a bunch of stuff to say. And the big payoff is the fact you can download a file at the bottom straight off the Phantom camera… 1050 frames per second in 1080p ProRes. Enjoy that!

I grabbed the Zeiss Super Speed prime lenses. This kit included the PL mount 18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm lenses all at f1.2 (or in film talk t1.3). These lenses were super fast, lightweight, had built in follow focus treads and a silky smooth focus barrel and iris ring.

I asked for a telephoto lens and Brian brought out a Nikon Nikkor 200mm t2. Beautiful lens with an aperture blade system that must have consisted of a hundred little blades. I had never seen anything like it. Plus the outer element was huge, allowing for a ton of light to get into the lens and onto the sensor.

I wanted a cine zoom lens. I had used the Angenieux Optimo 25mm-250mm t3.5 for a job with the Boston Celtics a couple years ago. The TV station rented the lens from Rule and I attached it to my Letus Extreme (PL Mount) attached to a Sony EX1. You can read more about that here. I knew Rule had the super sweet 17mm-80mm t2.2, but I figured it would be rented out or off limits. My buddy Mike at Rule, somehow secured it and I was good to go.

The Phantom HD GOLD included a color Sony HDVF-C30W viewfinder. When I bought my F800, I thought about this LCD color viewfinder for use with my new XDCAM. But, I had never used it before and worried that the LCD would not meet up to my picky standards. Plus the C30W costs over $11,000! So I decided to go with what I was use to on my F800, the Sony HDVF-20a black and white CRT version. We use these to cover broadcast sports everyday and they are tack sharp. Plus these high resolution b/w viewfinders cost just over $3,000. Who needs color in a viewfinder if you set up the camera properly in the first place!

I was pleasantly surprised at how sharp and vivid the color C30W was on the Phantom. I never liked the RED ONE LCD version. But the Sony was much better. It was easy to focus, clear to see and there was no trace lag in the LCD image when whipping around. I was very happy with it and had slight buyers remorse with the 20a version I bought.... but wait, I needed another eight grand to upgrade to color?!

The HDVF-C30W had a specially modified connector to plug into the Phantom. This connector stuck out quite a bit and was defiantly a possible point of failure if the camera's weight fell on the connector. In fact, on my first day of using the Phantom, the cable connector was intermittent. I should have found this problem while setting up the camera at Rule, but it worked at the time. During my shooting on location, I had to pull the connector on a slight angle to keep the viewfinder powered.

Another thing to remember is never point the viewfinder into the sun. CRTs can take more heat than LCDs. Just a few seconds of diopter magnified exposure to the sun and the LCD can be destroyed. Point those diopters DOWN!

The guys at Rule asked me if I needed a tripod and I said no. I wanted to use my Vinten Vision 10 AS. This tripod has served me quite well and I am a huge supporter of Vinten. But... this camera system with Optimo lens weighed in at nearly 60 pounds! The Vinten was rated for about 45 pounds. This extra 15 pounds of weight was a bit scary at times and I was unable to get perfect balance because I exceeded the payload rating of my tripod. I still came back with good stuff tho and made sure my assistant, Nick, was always standing next to the camera when mounted to the tripod.

Let me take a second to talk about the weight of this beast. I found it impossible and down right stupid to try to carry the Phantom by its handle with the heavy Optimo attached to the PL mount. I HAD to use two hands at all times. One hand on the bottom rods and the other on the top handle. This made carrying batteries and a tripod difficult, so strapping them to my back was the only answer when working solo. The waterfall footage in the video blog was shot by me alone at Profile Falls in New Hampshire. Not a long hike, but still a hike.

The Phantom is a power hungry camera system. It pulls nearly 75 watts of power. I tried to power it with my Anton Bauer charger and it did not have enough juice. I could have used Anton Bauer high current batteries, but I did not have them with me.

The camera did come with an a/c power supply, but I could not hike a generator with me into the mountains.

Rule sent me out with six car-like lead acid batteries. These bricks weighted in over ten pounds each and they had four pin XLR connectors on them. They were designed to power older film cameras. Each battery had two sides of power, so once one side died, I move over to the other side. I got about 30-40 minutes on each side. The biggest problem was the fact they had no gauge on them. I had no idea if the camera would die during a RAM to CineMag data transfer. When the battery died, you lose the buffer in the camera. If the buffer did not make it to the CineMag storage in time, you lost the take forever! Happened 5 times over the weekend and I cursed so loud the fifth time it occurred, birds few out of the trees above me to get away.

That leads me to storage. CineMags are the solid state devices that snap onto contacts on the top of the Phantom. These mags are filled with high speed transfer memory and I had two 256GB and one 128GB CineMag.

Let me explain how this camera records something in high speed. First of all, I have the camera set up to buffer the footage and take the clip post trigger. This means that when the Phantom is recording 1050 FPS at 1080p, I have a looping buffer of 4.1 seconds utilizing the internal RAM memory. This has nothing to do with the CineMag. The RAM is internal and built into the camera.

For example, I hit record filling the buffer, a mountain biker rips past me and just as he leaves the frame, I have my AC, Nick, push the remote trigger button. The recording loop stops and you get 4.1 seconds of time prior to the trigger. Get it? The data lives on the internal RAM memory. You do not want to lose power now or the RAM will be lost! Gotta get that footy over to the Mag.

Next, I look inside the viewfinder and set in and out points in the clip. I take only what I want because the 4.1 second is like 3 minutes of video at the 1050 frame rate. Finally, I save the clip to the CineMag. This happens so fast that it only takes seconds. The transfer rate of this memory and CineMag is crazy. Now the clip is on both the RAM and the CineMag. Once you set the camera back to record, the RAM clears out and you repeat the process for the next high speed event.

I need to mention here that one of the 256GB CineMags was not loading at times when snapped into place on the Phantom. I got a "Mag ERROR". I figured out the issue, dirty contacts. I used a cloth to wipe the large array of tiny metal pins and metal contacts on the mag and got the thing to scan and load.

All high speed cameras need cooling systems because the sensor heats up. The Phantom HD GOLD has an exhaust fan in the back that speeds up when the temperature rises. The camera also has a sick looking copper heat sink on both sides of the camera. Be careful with these, they can bend easily like the fine fins on the back of an air conditioner.

Since the camera and sensor heats up, you must black balance before every shot (or very often) to keep the black levels correct. They tend to get grainy and move towards purple when left alone. It is easy and fast to preform a black balance. Just cap the lens and execute it. The white balance seemed to hold well over time and even with battery changes.

The sensor in the Phantom is big. Not sure the dimensions, if you find them post a comment at bottom of page. A lot of amazing stuff has been shot with the Phantom sensor. Shark Week on Discovery Channel, Air Shark, BBC Planet Earth and LIFE, to name a few. Even Hollywood films are using this technology.

Looking for buttons? There are only two of them on the entire camera. Plus a knob that you can also push in to execute a command. You can adjust frame rates, ISO, resolution, trigger points, black/white balance, in and out clip points and a few other necessary procedures. You can defiantly control a lot using the simple four page menu inside the viewfinder, but to really get the camera dialed in, you hook it up to a PC laptop via gigabit ethernet. But like I said before, when in the field, you do not need to tether a computer to this high speed camera.

The workflow of this camera is tricky and I cannot really explain it in great detail on this blog because I do not totally understand it. But, I will tell you what I do know and how I am getting the footage into Final Cut Pro. Phantom does not offer free software like RED does for viewing RAW clips or accessing camera controls. Rule was unable to give me the Phantom programs for me to install on my own laptop, so they gave me a rental Mac Book Pro running Windows XP.

The CineMags hold files with the .cine extension. They are RAW Phantom files. I have never dealt with these files and do not plan on to at this point for my project. I have no way of editing them and cannot get the software easily. So I found a work around that will work with my mountain biking film and for the content in this video blog.

I take the HDSDI out of the back of the Phantom and feed it into an AJA KiPRO portable recording device. The KiPRO takes the 1080i HDSDI signal from the camera and transcodes it realtime to Apple ProRes 422 HQ. The KiPro has a built in hard drive where the files are stored. The biggest problem with doing this is the fact the camera only plays out a clip or MAG at a time! So I have to sit next to the camera and KiPro and manually play out each clip. Keep in mind I filled all three CineMags! This took forever and to make matters worse, I ran out of time and did this grueling work at 4am. I was hallucinating from lack of sleep and accidentally deleted part of my video blog on my SR11 camera at 5am. Story for another time...

I know I'm not editing with the master RAW .cine files, but the footage still looks amazing and the Apple ProRes 422 HQ codec is high bit rate. For the time being, the .cine files will sit on a hard drive at Rule for my future children to try to sort out and edit them!

In the video blog at the top of this page, I tried my best to show you how this camera works. I shot the demo in such a way that it would answer my own questions had I stumbled upon the video before I met Phantom. If you have further questions, please post them at the bottom of this page and I will try to answer them.

Also, be sure to download the high speed waterfall footage in 720p XDCAM HD 1080i for smooth playback. I am also including an Apple ProRes 422 HQ file straight off the camera. The picture of the green leaves above is a grab from the 1080p 1050 FPS footage I shot with the Phantom. This was the very first thing I ever shot using this camera system. Not very exciting, but great color and DOF. Plus, I cant post the best stuff til the film is done!

Here are a few behind the scenes videos shot on a blackberry on the slope style course at Highland Mountain Bike Park during the filming for “Missing Link”. Big thank you to my AC, Nick Keating, for using his BlackBerry to record these. Wish we could have used his 5dmk2 more, but we were both focused on carrying car batteries!

And here are a few screen grabs from the mountain biking footage shot at Attitash Mountain and Highland Bike Park. The film should be done next summer!

Big thanks to the guys at Rule Boston Camera, Mike Sutton, John Rule, Dave Kudrowitz, for giving me this chance to test out amazing gear. Also thank you Nick Keating (taking behind the scenes pictures and video) and Dave Hand for your help on location this weekend.

I am having a lot of fun up in New Hampshire testing out a high speed camera. The camera is not very easy to shoot with, no viewfinder, very shallow depth of field and requires a lot of light. Plus, you must have a laptop connected to it at all times! But I love a good challenge so I am going to shoot a few things for my website.

My friend, Matt, at Fastec Imaging, is letting me play with one of the high speed cube cameras that were used on the Discovery television show “Time Warp“. I am not here to sell these cameras, just to share my first impressions shooting in the world of high frame rates. Also, everything looks so damn awesome in super slow motion!

I will be using the camera to shoot a short downhill mountain biking film this weekend. I will be working with a few talented riders knifing berms, dusting the track, ripping down rocky terrain and jumping full suspension mountain bikes. I have shot MTB films before, but never like this with hi speed capture. I am so stoked to have the opportunity to use this Fastec Imaging camera this weekend shooting a sport I love.

It will be tricky dragging a laptop computer up the hill and trying to figure out how to power all this stuff in the field, but that is what this test day was for! Thanks to Eric Kessler at Kessler Crane for the carbon fiber sticks and the battery system.

My buddy Dave, lives in New Hampshire and he is a big fan of lacrosse. He played in college and now his son Dylan is into the sport. I figured that capturing a single high speed lacrosse move from a few different angles would make for a nice test. I needed to see how shallow the DOF would be in different lighting conditions. I also wanted to make sure that my power system for the camera (using a battery and inverter) would provide enough juice for a full day on the mountain. Then, later in post, I needed to understand how to edit the content.

Dave and I started late in the afternoon talking about the four shots in the “lacrosse shot” sequence. We were running low on daylight! The shots we decided on were: a wide shot of Dave, tight shot of Dave, shot looking into the goal (over Dave’s shoulder) and a shot from behind the net (ball fired at camera). It took only one or two takes to get the first three shots. The final shot was tricky because it required a skill shot with great accuracy for Dave to hit a certain spot in the net. I setup on sticks behind the goal and made sure the lacrosse ball could not actually hit the cameras. I also made the crazy attempt to “rip” focus to follow the ball from the stick strings to the net strings. Very difficult to pull off in .25 seconds, but we got it after about 15 shots!

The Fastec Imaging camera did not have a model number, I will find out what it is later. I really don’t care, it looks like it was pieced together from spare parts! I only care what the little silver box can do. Also, I do not know the price of this system. Remember, I am just playing with this thing! Check out the Fastec Imaging website for more information.

I used all Nikon old lenses. The same lenses I used on the RED ONE and with my EX! and Letus Ultimate. They worked very well and the focal length matched up too.

Surprisingly, I really like this camera and the workflow. It was missing some important things, however. I must use the laptop for my viewfinder, I knew that going in. But the camera and the software (made by a third party) worked perfectly. Nothing crashed the entire test day. I was able to watch the 718 FPS footy before rendering to an uncompressed .AVI file in real time. The render time was less than thirty second when I chose to keep a shot. When editing, I just dragged the AVI files into Final Cut Pro and rendered them on the timeline as ProRes 422. Not a big deal.

Why 718 frames per second? Because that is the fastest frame rate this camera can shoot in 720p. It does shoot higher than 718 FPS, but the resolution drops off. I do not plan to test that out this weekend.

Check out this 720p downloadable .AVI file of the WD 40 fireball. Don’t try this at home!
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

A bit more info on the camera:

This camera body is all controlled by the laptop. White balance, Frame rate, record trigger, and shutter. The camera has built in RAM memory for the many frame capture. I do not know the buffer size, only that it runs about 13 seconds in a loop. You pull this 13 second “high speed event” data off the solid state internal memory to render it down to an AVI in the computer. Only PCs, no support for mac that I know of.

It does not shoot 2k or 3k or even 1080p. But 720p is enough for me. Remember, I work in broadcast tv. We deal with 720p content all the time. If the price is right to purchase a high speed camera at the 720p level, I think it would sell well. I wish I had the option to shoot up to 2000 FPS for special occasions tho. And maybe make the thing with a viewfinder!?

Fastec Imaging may have a refined version of this camera coming out in the future. I am going to try to blog about it if it becomes available. I don’t know about you, but I am sick of waiting for the RED SCARLET.

This video is also available on Vimeo. Click Here to view it.

I met a bunch of people whom I had only known using social media like Twitter or my website. I was happy to place the @twitterID with a face. Many great individuals around the world and I found this NAB to be very valuable to build up relationships with people in the trade.

I still have one day left to chat tripods and television (Wednesday), so if you are in Vegas, please swing by the Vinten booth in the Central Hall for a quick hello. If you are interested in a new tripod, I would love to demonstrate the perfect balance feature on the Vision series pan head.

I edited a real rough video blog of my experience around the NAB event and tried to highlight equipment that I was interested in learning more about. I used my Sony SR11 with the Sony V1 wireless lav mic system. You will notice that I lost the mic clip early on, so I had to get creative attaching the thing! I will shoot Wednesday as well speaking with the Letus guys and a few other companies making excellent equipment for television and filmmakers. Special thanks to my buddy TJ for his help the first day.

Video blog sponsored by Vinten.

Philip Bloom is not in this video because he became very ill whilst in Vegas. Hope you feel better Mr. Bloom!

The 2010 NHL Winter Classic is finally over. Time to thaw out. Strike was just under three hours, not that bad.

The Bruins beat the Flyers in overtime at Fenway Park today 2-1. Not the best hockey, but a storybook ending for the Bruins and all the hockey fans that packed the ballpark.

I had a great day shooting for the CBC (Canada). The weather was perfect, just below freezing. My camera was a Sony HDC-1500 with a great viewfinder and nice 21x lens. I had a nice little spot on the right side at ice level with a clean piece of glass and a chair to sit on. My utilities worked hard and helped to manage my cable when I was asked to move around to get different shots. I followed the Bruins off and on the ice and shot interviews ice side. The video guys and truck engineers were very helpful and worked hard to make my job easier!

One problem I had was a frozen cap on a SMPTE fiber cable. I unplugged my camera and ran to grab a shot of the Dropkick Murphy’s on stage, but my stage cable was useless. I had a separate cable run for the performance because the set was far away from the rink. I could not get the protective metal cap off the thing to save my life. Quick thinking and with the help of two utilities, I was able to get my ice cable (game position) run out and just managed to reach the stage as the band turned toward me. This adaptation only delayed me about two minutes…live television can be stressful when an issue like this pops up.

I then shot the Canadian and US national anthem as James Taylor delivered a great rendition. If you watched the game in Canada, you saw my neck breaking tilting twist as I tracked the bomber jet as it ripped through the Boston sky as James left the stage.

During the game, I got a few replays and the director liked to cut in the low camera, so I was very busy.

I was distracted all night by the thoughts that other camera guys where capturing the action in 3D and at very high frames rates. I was only shooting 1080i HDTV!

The 3ality Digital folks where shooting for NHL Network with a single over/under (pictured above) rig from four different locations. They positioned a O’Connor film tripod at the right back corner at ice level, at the blue line right side, at the bench for player shots, and right near the crowd. They also had a second 3D camera at the high first baseball position. Not sure if they had a third 3D setup somewhere else, I was too busy with my own stuff.

As I shot the action at 30 frames per second, just a few feet away from me the NHL Network was also capturing the game at very high frames rates. They were using this super sick Phantom HD GOLD camera with a Angenieux Optimo 21x 24mm-290mm f2.8 film zoom lens. The operator had a follow focus and a servo zoom demand mounted to a rear pan handle. The viewfinder was a Sony color hi res. They were using a drive mounted on the top of the camera body to capture the data. The entire thing was powered by Anton Bauer lunch box brick batteries.

NHL Network also had a RED ONE on the other side of the rink. The footage from these cameras will be used in high-end projects like commercials and promos for the NHL. But this is also just an experiment and I look forward to working with the NHL as they begin to implement this exciting digital technology into the sport of hockey. Real nice people over at the NHL Network.

Patrick and I wandered out onto the ice at the end of the game. I pulled out my Panasonic Lumix camera and shot a quick video while standing on the Fenway Park ice with my broadcast camera on my shoulder. Wish I had brought my skates!

Sorry this blog was rushed, I can’t stop to take pictures when other people are working for me! This was a wild sports broadcast.

You can read more about the set day for this production and a video blog I shot early in the process by clicking here.

You can watch a behind the scenes video blog about the Sony HDC-3300 HD Super Motion camera that I had the honor of operating for three years by clicking here. The camera was sent back to the rental house because of the $20,000/month rental fee!

I am currently using a Sony HDC-930 that shoots at 30 frames per second for the New England Sports Network to track a hockey puck. I shoot off the shoulder behind the glass at ice level and I am using the super sweet Canon HJ21x-7.6 digital drive zoom lens. Take a look at a Bruins goal I shot tonight at the very end of my 21x lens “backside”. We need more frames!

The camera has just a bit of shutter, 1/100 and I am able to see the action because of the best electronic black and white CRT multi-scan HD viewfinder ever made for a hand held camera, the Sony HDVF-20A. But I had all this shooting supermo and I really miss it.

I will be working the Fenway Park Winter Classic the next two days and I will shoot a quick video blog during setup tomorrow. I will also take a ton of pictures to show you the amount of television equipment that is being used to cover the historic event. I will be operating a hand held camera field/ice level for CBC (Canada). I don’t think it will be a high speed camera, but I do not know for sure yet.

The weather will be very interesting. If it rains on game day (this Friday), the game might be postponed until Saturday. But we are suppose to get some snow on Saturday. It will be fun!

Stay tuned to my Twitter account @tomguilmette for more information right from Fenway Park as I cover the event. I will chat all about sports broadcast television.

Dave is compiling a bunch of podcast interviews with people working in the photography business. Now, I guess with the purchase of my new Canon 5Dmk2 digital SLR, I could be called a “photographer”! But I assure you, I am not an expert.

I spoke to Dave a few weeks ago as I was setting up broadcast TV cameras at Boston University to cover a college basketball game for ESPN. During my lunch break, I called Dave on my Blackberry and we had a great discussion about DSLRs and their effects on both the stills and video/film community. We also spoke about how my life has changed since I first turned on the Canon 5dmk2 and shot video with it.

If you want to watch the “Sleep Alive” music video shot with the Canon 5dmk2 camera in available light, click here. For my first attempt at a short film shot with just the light from a single oil lamp, click here. Finally, I hiked the Canon 5Dmk2 into the wild and shot waterfalls. Click here to watch the footage.

Please visit LensFlare35 for more great interviews.

First of all, they guys at VholdR let me borrow the 720p version ContourHD camera. I liked it so much, I paid $330 at BH Video to buy the 1080p upgraded version. I am not being paid by VholdR to write this blog. I am doing it to help you decide if this camera is right for you. I need to get my hands on the GoPro next.

Please look at these other blogs about the ContourHD cameras if you are new to my site:

ContourHD 720p Road and Trail Test
ContourHD 720p Indoor/Outdoor Test
ContourHD 1080p – A Day in Television

I took a few minutes today to drive around with both the ContourHD 720p (model 1200) and ContourHD 1080p (model 1300) point-of-view cameras mounted to my car. I chose a car as my mount because I had to lug around my Mac Book Pro running the software to configure the 1080p camera to record at the five different formats/frame rates. There is just a “hi” and “lo” switch on the back. You must dial in the switch to the specific settings using special software.

I wanted to get about one minute of video in all the formats/frame rates that these two cameras can record onto the microSD cards.

The ContourHD 720p camera is able to record in two different flavors: SD (848×480 @60FPS) and in HD (1280×720 @30FPS)

The ContourHD 1080p camera can record in five. Full HD (1920×1080 @30FPS), TALL HD (1280×960 @30FPS), CONTOUR HD (1280×720 @30FPS), ACTION HD (1280×720 @60FPS), and FAST SD (848×480 @60FPS).

I have included the original untouched files directly off the ContourHD 720p and 1080p camera’s microSD chip below for you to download and test out. They vary in size from 40MB to 225MB so a fast internet connection is a must!

I am testing out these cameras in full because I will be using them on a shoot in Florida this week and I do not want any surprises. I plan on just shooting 1080p and 720p HD @30FPS using the supplied 2GB cards and my new 16GB card. I will have my computer with me at all times!

I have found that the audio on the newer 1300 model camera is much better when it comes to heavy wind. I am still having trouble with a slight hiss and audio “interference” noise when using the camera in a quite room. If you turn the speakers up, you will hear it. VholdR told me that this was a problem on earlier models, but I found it on the new 1300 model as well.

I also found that the factory default (and not user adjustable) color and contrast setting on the 720p camera looked pretty good, even at the lower resolution when compared to the 1080p version. The 1080p version was smoother and packed with resolution, but the picture was almost too flat. The newer model 1300 does allow you to adjust the picture setting using the free “Easy Edit” software, but I have not yet deviated from the factory set default settings.

I found the 1080p camera to be much more noisy (grainy) as far as the video goes in the low light of my edit suite. The 720p version seemed to be cleaner. The cameras also did not really match color temp wise. You will see this much better in the XDCAM EX 1080p video blog edit download at the bottom of this page.

I have changed the audio gain setting in the 1080p camera from default 33 to 42 and found that it seems to work well at that level. I also changed the “bit rate” setting from “default” to “max”. This has changed the bit rate on the 1080p 30FPS footage from about 1MB/sec to about 1.7MB/sec (according to Final Cut Pro). I will be using this resolution and frame rate most of the time and I want the bit rate as high as possible for less video compression.

A problem I ran into was trying to get the “ACTION HD” 60FPS footy into 30 FPS but running at slow motion. I searched the VholdR website for help on how to use Compressor, QuickTime, or another piece of software to achieve this. I could not figure it out. Final Cut Pro would not let me bring the 60FPS file into my project.

So, I need your help. Please download all the files below, but specifically the file titled, “ACTION HD”. It was shot 720p @60 frames per second. Let me know if you figure out a way to bring the file into Final Cut Pro as a 30p files running slow motion.

The guys at VholdR just emailed me the bit rate setting for the formats on the ContourHD 1080p.

Here are the bit rates but note they can vary drastically from frame to frame because it will try to conserve space if there is little or no activity to encode (e.g. static frames with little variance in colors will be lower bitrates even if the setting is Max).

Please download these original H.264 .mov files taken directly off the ContourHD memory cards and uploaded to the server. Have fun with them and see how they work with your NLE.

RAW FILE DOWNLOADS

ContourHD 720p (model 1200)
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

ContourHD 1080p (model 1300)
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

More Downloads:
1080p @30FPS (XDCAM EX) version of demo video posted at top of this blog. yikes…611.4MB!
Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Well, I just bought a new bit of gear. The $329.99 ContourHD 1080p wearable full-on HD wearable point of view camera. I got it at BH Photo & Video a few days ago with free shipping! The Twenty20 company that makes this camera did not send me a demo unit. They sent me a 720p camera a month ago that I need to return to them. I plan on making money with the 1080p camera and this review is for my website, not for Twenty20.

I decided that the only way I was going to be able to experiment with the new model 1300 wearable HD camera was to just strap it to my head and go to work.

So I did… I must say that with the two batteries and 4GB of memory, I only captured “key moments” during my day. I did not just let the camera record all day long! This would not have been possible for me.

It may seem like I am playing around with this new camera and just acting like a tv geek, but I am not. Well, at least the playing around part. The best way to find out the limitations of gear (that you plan on using in the future on paid gigs) is to just go out and shoot with it!

Before you press play on the 11 minute 30 second edited version of my entire day embedded below, please read the rest of the blog.

Yesterday, I was hired to shoot the University of Connecticut vs. Holy Cross women’s basketball game at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. I would be operating the hand held camera under the left basket (camera 3) for the standard definition broadcast on Connecticut Public Television (CPTV).

We used the Rhode Island based COX Communications “Mercury” remote television truck. This truck carries four Ikegami HL-387 hard cameras with large 55-66x lenses. The truck uses Vinten Vector 70 and 750 panheads. For handheld cameras, the Mercury rolls with four Ikegami HL-59 digital UNIcams. The truck is all standard definition, but CPTV brought along a Sony HDW-750 high definition HDCAM from the station and I was asked to shoot scenics of Worcester with it. We down-converted though the camera using SDI to get the pictures into the truck for the broadcast.

This was going to be a pretty easy, laid-back four camera basketball game and I figured this would be a great stress-free environment to walk around with a camera mounted to my head. And actually keep it running while I worked the game!

The camera is small, but not covert! People could see the camera hanging off my head. They asked me what I was doing and why. I just told them that it was a new Bluetooth hands-free cell phone device. These people all know me quite well and by now, nothing surprises them. They kept talking about Star Trek and Borg for some reason.

I already posted a review about the 720p version of this camera. You can read that here. I liked the ContourHD a lot and think $300 is a great price for the unit. The 720p ContourHD was used on Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” with Mike Rowe. Mike wore the camera on his head as he cleaned windows on a skyscraper in Honolulu. The video from the sub $300 camera looked good cut together with the Panny Varicam footage!

I still need more time with this upgraded 1080p camera for further experimentation. But here are my first impressions using the new model ‘1300′:

The size of the 1080p version is exactly the same as the 720p version. Lens, mounts, battery, 2GB microSD slot, USB 2.0 connection, dual red lasers and Hi-lo switch are basically the same as the 720p version. The only difference is “1080p” printed on the side of the camera in white. This camera costs $50 more.

This camera does have more recording options. They are listed below:

ContourHD1080p has five video settings instead of two:
Full HD – 1080p (1920×1080) at 30fps
Tall HD – 960p (1280×960) at 30fps
Action HD – 720p (1280×720) at 60fps
Contour HD – 720p (1280×720) at 30fps
Fast SD – WVGA (848×480) at 60fps

You can configure Contrast, Exposure, Metering, and Microphone Gain for the ContourHD1080p from within the Easy Edit software. I did not use the software for the video I shot yesterday. I just unboxed the camera, charged the battery via USB and ran out the door.

I found that the video looked good and the auto exposure, contrast and metering factory default settings were fine for a $330 1080p camera.

I was not happy with the audio. I found it to be very noisy and it really only picked up my voice clearly using the build in mic while the camera was mounted to my head. But was this camera really made with audio in mind? It is a point of view camera after all and most POV cameras do not even have audio.

Just before I typed this blog, I opened the ContourHD free “Easy Edit Software” on my Mac to see the camera’s settings. I was greeted with a message that said the clock and date on the camera was incorrect. The program automatically updated the date/time file time stamp with a click of my mouse to match my computer’s date/time. That was nice.

I then went into “tools” and clicked “configure camera”. The below window popped up:

The software lets you set the video resolution for the “hi” and “lo” switch located on the back of the camera. It is possible to shoot 720p at 60 frames per second! I will be testing that feature out on a future blog.

In case you were wondering, you can set the camera bit rate to “high” and “max”. This differs with resolution setting, but I shot at 1080p 1920×1080 30fps using the “default” bit rate setting and my files were at 1.0MB/sec. Not certain if this is the maximum bit rate. I will have to test out “max” setting in a future blog.

This pop-up window also allows you to adjust the mic gain. I had the camera set at “33″ for the above video and I was not happy with the results. The sound was low and I had to boost it quite a bit in Final Cut Pro when I was editing. I plan on testing the sound at “50″ the next time I use this camera as a “Life Documenting Point of View Camera”.

I then clicked the “Lighting” tab at the top of the window in the Easy Edit software. I did not adjust these settings, but you can get an idea how much you can configure this tiny and inexpensive 1080p video camera.

I will run tests on these parameters in a future blog. Right now, I am happy with the results and will leave the camera at the default factory settings.

This camera captures .mov files to a microSD card. I have not used anything other than a 2GB card so far and I have found that the card fills up after about half an hour of footage at full hd. The battery lasted about 3 hrs non-stop.

I will post actual h.264 .mov raw files with ACC audio straight out of this camera in a future blog so that you can download see the difference between full hd, tall hd, action hd, contour hd and fast sd. You will be able to play with raw files that were shot at the higher 60 frames per second.

I also plan on getting a hold of the GoPro HERO full HD POV camera for side by side testing. UPDATE: Dave Aldrich shot a great little audio test with the GoPro HERO camera. Check it out on Vimeo by clicking here.

I just need a little snow so that I can take this thing skiing!