After doing some shopping around, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Sennheiser Evolution Series provides a nice middle ground between the less expensive systems (e.g. Azden) popular among wedding videographers and the more expensive wireless systems used by location sound professionals (e.g. Lectrosonics). I’ve used the Lectrosonics on a number of professional shoots and the performance of their “Digital Hybrid” system is spectacular, but it’s a little more than I have budget for, so the Sennheiser Evolution G3 it will be it.

There are two configurations of the Sennheiser Evolution G3 100 Series to consider for documentary work:

Camera Mount Wireless Microphone System, kit number EW 112P G3-{A/B/G}, estimated price: $600 (US), this kit includes:

• SK100 G3 Bodypack Transmitter
• ME2 Lavalier Mic
• EK100 G3 Portable Receiver
• Cold-shoe adapter for Receiver
• Interconnection cables (1/8″ and XLR) for connecting Receiver to camera
• Excellent, clearly written owners manual

Wireless Microphone ENG Combo, kit number EW 100 ENG G3-{A/B/G}, estimated price: $800 (US), this kit includes all of the items in the Camera Mount Wireless Microphone System, plus:

• SKP100 G3 Plug-In Transmitter

Compared to less expensive VHF wireless systems, a UHF system provides longer range and you’ll experience fewer drop-outs and interference during use. I’ve had really good luck using the Sennheiser Evolution wireless system over the past year, and have been very pleased with its performance both in terms of sound quality and overall robustness and have not run into too many interference issues. Being able to tune the devices to one of 1,680 tunable frequencies makes it easy to find quiet spots in a electromagnetically noisy area like the Boston metropolitan area in which I live.

The EK100 receiver is designed to be attached to a camera via a cold-shoe adapter, it has a 1/8″ unbalanced TRS mini out which can be connection to camcorders with either a 1/8″ or XLR input (Sennheiser provides both 1/8″ or XLR interconnect cables in their kits). The receiver has 4 preset memory locations that can be reassigned to any of the 1,680 available frequencies, within the 42 MHz tuning range. This is handy because you can determine the frequencies least likely to have interference in your area and program these into the four presents, making it easier to pull these out and get them working quickly in documentary situations. The G3 features a new “adaptive diversity” design, it’s not “true diversity” but it does offer slightly better performance compared to the previous G2 series. There are also adjustments for audio level output and a squelch adjustment. It’s critical to set the audio level output to match your camera, otherwise you’ll get some over-modulation, which is sometimes hard to detect in the field unless you’re listening really carefully with good headphones (which you should always be doing, right?).

The system is available in two transmitter configurations: the SK100 body pack transmitter and the SKP100 plug-on transmitter, which attaches to any self-powered metal body microphone with an XLR connector (e.g. Electro-Voice RE50 reporters microphone) to be used wirelessly. The SK100 G3 body-pack transmitter has a 1/8″ locking-mini input for compatible lavalier microphones and it comes with an ME2 omnidirectional lavalier microphone. The transmitters support adjustments for audio input gain, and it’s important to adjust this properly. You want to avoid peaks (there’s an LED peak indicator in addition to an audio level on the LCD) but also not set the levels too low so you’re lost in the noise floor. In terms of functionality, the plug-in transmitter is very similar to the body-pack transmitter.

The EK100 receiver, SK100 G3 body-pack transmitter, and SKP100 G3 plug-in transmitter are each powered by two AA batteries and each sports an LCD display which makes it easy to configure and make adjustments via a logically organized menu system. When not in menu mode the LCD shows you channels and frequency information, battery status, audio level, and signal status. All three devices have metal bodies, which allegedly makes them more robust that cheaper plastic units, but I’ve never dropped any of these devices in order to find out how rugged they really are. I’m not tempted to try.

In the United States, the Evolution G3 is a UHF wireless microphone system available in three frequency ranges, A: 516 – 558MHz, B: 626 – 668MHz, or G: 566 – 608MHz, providing 1680 tunable frequencies and 12 frequency presets. Which range to get? The idea is to find a range that has the largest number of “dead spots” which all depends on your region. Sennheiser has a great calculator on their web site in which you can see all the licensed transmitters in your area in order to determine where the open slots are in the spectrum. You can use this to decide whether A, B, or G frequency ranges are best for you. It’s also handy for setting up presets that are likely to be free and clear, so there’s less fussing around in the field. The B frequency group seems to be the best option for the Boston area based on conversations with some sound people I know.

In some situations I like using the plug-in transmitter with my Electro-Voice RE-50 reporters microphone, I like having the mobility without the wire, therefore the EW 100 ENG G3-B kit is my preference. If you never see yourself using the plug-on transmitter with a hand-held or boom microphone (by the way, it has to be a metal body mic and self powered, since the SKP100 G3 Plug-In Transmitter does not provide phantom power), you can save money and get the EW 122P G3-B kit instead of the EW 100 ENG G3-B kit. Basically you’re paying an additional $200. (US) for the plug-on transmitter.

A future option to consider is upgrading the Sennheiser ME2 to a TRAM-50 (my favorite lavalier, available cabled for the EW transmitters for about $220 (US)). You many also consider adding a Sennheiser ME4 cardioid mic to your kit for use in high-noise environments (but I would not go with this as your only mic due to more critical placement issues).

You will also want to add a Rycote Lavaliere Windjammer (or equivalent) if you’re going to be working outdoors, these are available in white, grey, or black for about $25. (US) each. A windjammer is essential when using a lavalier mic outdoors when there is wind. Here’s an important pointer: use the windjammer over a foam windscreen on the lavalier, since the windjammer needs air space around the mic itself to work properly. I keep several of them in my sound kit at all times.

There is really only one down-side I’ve experienced using the Sennheiser Evolution G2 wireless microphone system (and this goes for the new G3 as well): since the receiver is designed to mount on a camera, it’s really awkward to use in a situation where you have a couple of receivers and a mixer in a shoulder-mounted pouch. The LCD display is simply in the wrong place. I really wish Sennheiser would have placed the LCD display on the top of the device (like the Lectrosonics receivers), but for mounting on a camera, I can see why the designers placed the LCD on top, and given that Sennheiser has brought these units into the marketplace at such an attractive price-point, this is but a minor inconvenience.

In the Boston area you can purchase these kits from Talamas Broadcast Systems, Rule Broadcast Systems, or The Camera Company. Online you can purchase them from B&H Photo-Video.

This post was inspired by Monika Fimpel, thanks for asking the question, and thanks to Bill Shamlian for his insights on wireless systems and frequency selections.

Note: This post was revised on February 22, 2010 to reflect that Rule Broadcast Systems is also a Sennheiser dealer. I also fixed an error in which I specified the EW 122P G3 kit (which includes ME4 microphone (cardioid) mic) instead of the EW 112P G3 kit that I intended to list that comes with the more versatile ME2 (omnidirectional) microphone. While the ME4 is better in high-noise environments, its added directionality and proximity effect make it less versatile for general use. If you’re only going to have one microphone for your wireless system, the ME2 is a more versatile choice, and if you find you need the more directional ME4 in some situations, it (or another cardioid lav) can be purchased separately.

Update:I actually went ahead and purchased two kits, one w/ an additional plug-on transmitter. I’ve been using these since April of 2010 and I’m very pleased with the kit (April 19, 2010).

Over the past couple of years I’ve had a chance to use or take a close look at various LED lighting instruments available in the marketplace. Today you will find lots of inexpensive lights suitable for on-camera use available for anywhere from $50 to $500 from a variety of vendors. And while these little lights are certainly interesting, they are usually not bright enough nor versatile enough for demanding professional users.

Enter the next tier of professional LED lighting in the $500 to $1,000 range. This particular horse race has heated up with the addition of new lights from Sony and Lowel which join Zylight and Litepanels who have been around for a while. Things are sure to get even more interesting as LED price/performance continues to improve and designers incorporate new generations of LED technology into new and updated instrument design.

Based on my experiences shooting run & gun with the LitePanels MiniPlus at the North American International Auto Show last year as well as using it on my previous documentary project, using the Zylight Z90 during a lighting workshop I taught at the Pro Video Show and carrying it with me for several weeks on my current documentary production, messing around with the Sony HVL-LBP at Boston Media Makers, and taking a development prototype of the Lowel Blender out for a spin on a couple of interviews, I’ve come to some conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of each design. Below is a comparison of the four units I’ve has a chance to work with along with my brief editorial on each. What is most appealing about LED lighting is being able to light using batteries as your power source for run & gun shooting with simplified battery management (using the same batteries for camcorder and light via sleds or D-taps) and the ability to dial in the color you need (using one of the more sophisticated designs) without fumbling with gels.

I will be following up this post with detailed reviews of the Zylight Z90 and Lowel Blender, which are the two units that stand out from the pack at this time. Stay tuned.

Manufacturer	Zylight	LitePanels	Sony	Lowel
Model	Z90	MiniPlus	HVL-LBP	Blender
Editorial	My favorite among the four lights. A versatile creative tool with unique special features. Offers a bright source, creative color control, and a smooth, wide, even beam that can be controlled with barn doors. Excellent build quality, state-of-the art color-changing HD-LED technology from Color Kinetics. One downside is the edge of the beam exhibits color fringing. The ability to set to any color (in addition to daylight and tungsten) and save user presets for instant recall make this a versatile performer and creative tool. The key question: is it worth the cost? From my experience it is, especially when you compare it side by side with the other three lights.	A solid performer, but not my favorite, , trails behind other contenders in terms of versatility. The MiniPlus was among the first on-camera LED lights to gain traction in the marketplace, and it helped prove the viability of LED technology in run-and gun shooting scenarios, however, it’s starting to look pretty long in the tooth compared to the Zylight and Blender lights, both of which run circles around the Litepanels in terms of versatility and build quality. Awkward design in terms of how the battery pack attaches to the back of the light, the way gels attach, and the lack of a locking power connector when using outboard power contribute to a lower rating compared to the Blender and Zylight.	My least favorite of these four lights, trails far behind other contenders in terms of versatility. Designed as a companion for Sony camcorder owners that use L-Series batteries. Typical Sony move to make a product that is designed to work only with their proprietary batteries. It’s a limited product in many respects. On the other hand, Sony owners who want "Sony Style" will like how it integrates into their existing Sony camcorder infrastructure. With the introduction of the Blender, there is no compelling reason to purchase the HVL-LBP. Look to the Blender or Zylight for a better LED light with more versatile powering options.	A close-runner up favorite among the four lights. A versatile and cost effective creative tool. The ability to dial in any balance of daylight and tungsten light on the fly makes this a strong contender for a camera light or versatile problem solving light you can always carry with your camera kit. If you don’t need the flexibility of generating the full spectrum of color, this might be the perfect light for you. Good build quality. Soon to be released and worth the wait. A well thought out design that comes directly out of designer Tom Robotham’s experience as a cinematographer. Information supplied is based on use of a prototype unit, features and specifications may vary from the final production units.
Overall rating
Beam quality	Smooth and even beam with gradual fall-off at the edges. Slight color fringing on the edge of a cut.	Daylight models available in spot or flood, tungsten models flood only. Relatively even spread, but not completely	Very spotty, but a diffuser and spot filter is included	Spotty, but comes with interchangeable diffusers that provides a choice of beams. Cracked ice looks nice.
Beam shape	Round and very even.	Rectangular, available in either Flood or Spot models (daylight) or Flood (tungsten). Diffuson gels available to smooth out beam.	Round, built-in condenser filter intensifies beam for spot use, built-in diffuser smooths out the bean.	Slightly rectangular, somewhat irregular. A set of diffuson materials are available to smooth out or break up the beam.
Cutability(how smooth is the edge when you "cut" the light with a barn door or other solid?)	Clean cut, barn doors work very well with this light (you can attach optional Arri 150W Fresnel barn doors via optional 3" Accessory Adapter)	Barn doors (if you fashion them) don’t work well, I would not bother trying to barndoor this light.	The side barn doors are not very effective.	Barn doors (if you fashion them) work somewhat better than the MiniPlus but I would not bother barndooring this light.
Dimmable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Color	Three color modes: 1: white (3200K or 5600K); 2: color (can be set to any color and saturation); 3: gel (adjustable along tungsten-daylight and/or green-magenta dimensions)	Available in either 5600K (flood or spot) or 3200K (flood) models (gels must be attached to change color)	5500K (gels must be attached to change color)	5600K, or 3200K, or a variable mix of the two (via dials)
Mounting options	1/4"-20 thread on top and bottom (a variety of mounting accessories are available)	1/4"-20 thread on bottom (a variety of mounting accessories are available)	Aattaches to cold shoe, 1/4"-20 thread on bottom of shoe	1/4"-20 thread on bottom, production unit will probably come with a 5/8" baby reciever (a variety of mounting accessories are available)
Special features	Can be set to produce any color without gels, easy to match other sources Wireless control: optional Zylink controller can control up to ten units or groups of units Barndoors actually work, easily fited with 3" accessory adapter	Optional remote dimming module	Indicator with remaining battery strength.	Daylight/tungsten color changes without gels, easy to match other sources with a turn of a dial.
Power options	Can accept DC power from an external battery, D-Tap (Anton Bauer Style), or AC adapter. Threaded power connector for secure attachment of ourboard power connector.	Snap-on NiMH battery or power via optional snap-on battery sled that holds two camcorder batteries. Can accept DC power from an external battery, D-Tap (Anton Bauer Style), or AC adapter. Power connector for attachment of outboard power is not threaded.	Designed to work only with Sony’s L-series Lithium-Ion batteries (NP-F770, F970, can’t use NP-F500/300 batteries or third-party batteries) Battery attaches directly to unit or can be stored outboard using the included battery adapter cable.	Can accept DC power from an external battery, D-Tap (Anton Bauer Style), or AC adapter. Threaded power connector for secure attachment of outboard power connector.
Power consumption	30W (2-1/2A @ 12VDC); works with 9-24VDC	8.4W (0.7amps @ 12V); works with 10-30VDC	16W (2.23A @ 7.2 VDC)	13W (1.8A @ 7.2VDC); works with 7.2 to 15VDC
Photometrics(as stated by vendors) See note below on footcandles required for proper exposure. 1 footcandle = 10.76 lux	53fc @ 3.3ft. 13fc @ 6.6ft.	97fc @ 2ft. 24fc @ 4ft. 9.2fc @ 6ft. (flood)	55fc @ 3 ft. 6fc @ 9 ft. (with lens)	45fc @ 3.3ft. (single array) 90fc @ 3.3ft. (both daylight and tungsten arrays)
Lighting accessories	Optional accessory adapter allows you to attach standard 3-inch [76mm] softbox or barn doors (which are actually useful on this instrument)	Holder for gels, other accesories are difficult to mount (but really not needed since barn doors don’t do much with this design)	A diffuser and spot filter is included and attaches to the light.	Slide in diffusers, gels can be slid in along with diffuser if color correction is needed that can’t be handled in the daylight-tungsten dimension.
Size	5.3" x 3.0" x 2.0" [135mm x 76mm x 51mm]	6.83" x 2.30" x 1.18" [173mm x 60mm x 30mm]	4 3/8" x 6" x 5-1/8" [108mm x 129mm x 150mm]	4" x 3" x 3" [102mm x 76mm x 76mm]
Weight(without cables or power source)	16 oz. [454g]	9.6oz [360g]	14.9oz [420g]	14 oz. [397g]
Availability	Now	Now	Now	Fall, 2009 (estimated)
Street price(single unit, without power options)	$985	$640	$540	$650 (includes AC adapter)
Kit prices	Kits range from$1,180 (ENG kit with mounting hardware and battery tap) to $1,550 (with NP battery power option) (add $50 for barn doors, add $475 for Zylink wireless controller)	Kits range from $750 (camera mounting harware and battery sled) to $1,150 (kit with mounting hardware, gels, and snap-on NiMH battery)	$640 with NP-F970 Lithium-Ion battery	$740 for kit with battery sled (Sony or Panasonic or Canon), three front diffusers, handle & stud (estimated)
Product page links	Zylight Z90	LitePanels MiniPlus	Sony HVL-LBP	Lowel Blender

How much light do we need? All these photometric specifications are great, but in order to make sense of them, we need to know how much light we need for a decent exposure with our particular camera. You can determine this for your camera using a light meter and a white card as a 95 IRE reference or an 18% grey card as a 50 IRE refenence. Based on my own testing, you need about 40 footcandles for an exposure at f/2.8 without gain using a Panasonic HPX170 camcorder. (Note: if your light meter does not provide direct reading of lux or footcandles, you can convert it’s reading to foot candles using the technique described here). This is based on doing a conservative flat-disk light meter reading and setting the exposure so a white card is at 90 IRE (not at 100, you always want a little bit of headroom in the highlights). It’s easy to do these kinds of tests using the Zebra in most video cameras or the spot meter in some of the Pansonic cameras. Of course, if you’re willing to crank the gain, you will need far less footcandles for a good exposure, at the cost of added video noise.

What about cost of LED lighting? One of the issues that constantly comes up in discussons of LED lighting for video production, is it worth the cost? Certainly you can put 40fc on a subject using a 60W soft white household bulb (or a close to daylight GE Reveal bulb) in a white reflector fixture several feet away. This would cost a hell of a lot less than the equivalent LED light. So LED lighting is not about cost. It’s about versatility, control, smaller footprint, and lower power consumption. A professional on-camera LED light is going to use half to one fourth the power of a comparable incandescent lamp, thus providing longer running times when working off a battery. It’s a tradeoff between versatility, form-factor, cool operation, and consumption. In the middle of the mix you will also find flourescent fixtures that have their own unique set of advantages. Another thing to consider is only purchase what you need to use today, as LED production increases and new designs are introduced, you can expect the brightness to go up and the cost to drop over time, since LED technology follows the semiconductor technology curve and increasing demand for LED technology is driving down costs and driving innovation.

Putting the light output, cost, and size in perspective. So how does the output of these LED lights compare to other lights you are using? A Kino Flo Diva-Lite 200 provides daylight or tungsten light with an intensity of 120fc at 3.3′ or 32fc at 6.6′. A tungsten Rifa eX55 (with an EHC 500W bulb) provides a respectable 72fc at 5′ so it provides more than enough light for interviews. This is why a Rifa or Diva lights makes such a good key in a compact inteview kit, you can place either of them at a comfortable distance away from a subject and have plenty of light for a good solid exposure. And because the Diva is fluorescent, it runs cool, however, the Rifa is more compact due to the use of a small tungsten lamp and collapsible umbrella. The Diva is about the same price as the LED lights listed here, the Rifa is somewhat less. On the other hand, these more traditional key lights are much larger, heavier, and they require access to mains power, and they do not fit into your camera bag the way a Z90 or Blender does.

Each technology provides different affordances. Each technology has it’s strengths and weaknesses. When I want the quality of crisp sunlight, I’d use an incandescent Arri Fresnel, when I want something small and versatile for run & gun shooting, I’d use an LED light like the Z90 or Blender, when I want gorgeous soft light, I’d use something along the lines of a Lowel Rifa light or Kino-Flo Diva-Lite, of course, when the subject, location, and my favorite gaffer (mother nature) are all cooperative and in alignment, there’s nothing more beautiful than using skylight though a window as the key light. And in this situation, a little LED light can add that perfect twinkle in someone’s eyes. So an LED light in your camera bag can be there to help solve problems on the spot, with mininal fuss. A versatile LED light like th Z90 or Blender is a lights you will want to have in your bag of tricks in order to pull out when there’s no time to light and to carry with you when there is no space to carry lighting gear.

Did you find anything inaccurate in this comparison chart? Is there something I should include that’s not here? Please contact me and I’ll probably correct it. The information in this table is as accurate as I could determine at the time of writing. Some of the information was provided by vendors rather than determined empirically. The opinions in this table are my own and do not necessarily resemble reality. Your mileage may vary.

You can order replacement pads from Sony, but I did not like the idea of replacing the pads with the same pads that I knew would again fall apart and in addition, I was never crazy about their plastic feel. Over the years I’ve noticed that other folks have replaced the original Sony pads with velour pads made by Beyerdynamic (model number 942704) which fit the Sony MDR-7506 and V6 (it’s predecessor) headphones perfectly. So I decided to give them a try.

I ordered them from B&H for $19.95 a pair and they turned out to be good purchase. They have breathed new life into the headphones and they are much more comfortable to wear. I found it was a little tricky getting these pads onto the headphones, but with a little stretching of the pad and the use of a credit card to helped guide the plastic ring around the groove in each of the headphone’s metal shells, I completed the installation. The pads come with plastic adapters for other headphones, those can go straight into the recycling since you will not need then for attaching the pads onto the Sony MDR-7506 and V6 and headphones. It’s been about six months or so since I purchased the pads and I’m very happy with them, the headphones are very comfortable to wear, even for long periods of time. These velour pads transform these excellent headphones into most excellent headphones. Good headphones are an important investment. In this disposable world we live in, it’s nice to be able to refresh an old standard.

In an earlier post, I sung the praises of the Sony MDR-7506 headphones.

Kodak Zi9 is small enough to take with you everywhere you go, it’s simple enough you can hand it to anyone to shoot, and it’s cheap enough you don’t have to worry if it gets lost, stolen, or suffers damage when used in a risky situation. And the 720p image quality (encoded as H.264) is pretty good given the price. As the quality of camera sensors goes up, and the price of camera sensors and flash memory goes down, expect to see small cameras get better and better. They could soon rival the traditional camcorder, the only issue is over time how much are the camera manufacturers willing to cannibalize their traditional camcorder market. It’s a fun little camera, I hope to get a chance to do more shooting with it.

Click to play

This test was not about how pretty the video can look, it’s about how does the camera do in a common documentary situation. Here are the basic specs on the Kodak Zi9 camera:

Camera Type: Point and Shoot Camcorder
Resolution/Sensor Size/Type: 1.6 megapixels 1/4.5″ CMOS
Lens: 4.1mm – F/2.8 (fixed focus) with 2x optical zoom
Minimum Focus: 27.6″ (macro focus: 2″)
Display: 2.4″ TFT active matrix LCD (no viewfinder, no flip-over display)
Video Format: 16×9 H.264 (MOV, AAC, LC) 720p @ 30fps or 60fps
White Balance/Exposure: Automatic
Sound In: Built-in Microphone (mono)
Sound Out: Built-in speaker (mono) and audio on composite video output
Computer Interface: USB 2.0
Video Output: Composite video and Component video
Digital Still Features: also shoots digital stills in JPEG format and has a built-in flash w/ close-up and normal modes, and red-eye reduction
Internal Storage: 30 MB Flash Memory (built-in, specs do say 128M, however, only 30 can be used for image storage)
Storage Slot: SD Memory Card, Kodak recommends use of SDHC High-Speed Card
Additional Features: YouTube capture mode
Power: Uses 2 AA NiMH rechargeable batteries (included along with a charger) or 2 AA Alkaline batteries (nice not to have to deal with a built-in LiIon battery like some other devices)
Accessories: carrying pouch, cables, manual
Warranty: one year
Weight: 3.8 oz.

Steve Garfield spoke about the debates on television last week, Dave Winer opened up a chat that Steve participated in, 30-40 people chatting during the debates, they will be doing it again, Steve really liked it, check out Scripting News (Dave Winer’s blog) for info on joining the IRC chat. Chatzilla works if you don’t want to do IRC the old fashioned way. Steve will be at SXSW this week blogging, shooting video etc. so keep an eye out for that.

Steve also mentioned that the Independent Film Festival of Boston (which takes place on April 23-29, 2008) wants Boston media makers involved with the festival this year. They will be attending the April meeting to talk about that.

John Herman is launching Gravityland tomorrow, has been working on it for six months, first two episodes debut tomorrow. They will be posting episodes once a week and blogging five days a week.

Philip Kliger (unclephilms on YouTube) had a camera attached to his head and was shooting video of the meeting, which he’ll use in some way. He showed us the camera/recorder he was using, the Archos 404 Pocket Digital Media Player and Camcorder that has an internal 30GB disk for long recording times (limited to battery life, which is under two hours while recording). It can play a variety of video formats and records MPEG-4 (AVI 640×480 at 30 or 25 fps). It appears to work only with it’s own proprietary camera. Too bad it can’t record from any video camera. In addition to his YouTube presence, Phil is an actor working on Gravityland, does the Uncle Phil Music Show as well as Tune Buggy, kid-friendly rock music.

Alecia Orsini is a filmmaker (Combustible Russ), artist, and is currently working with the Miele Law Group which represents artists, entertainers, and inventors. They do a lot of free consulting, they share a lot of information with media makers, it’s good to say, “I know a lawyer” whenever you have to negotiate contracts with other parties. She started working with then when she was swamped in paperwork, they helped demystify the legal process.

Scott Lebeda is also working with the Miele Law Group, he does research for them, he’s a filmmaker, does graphic design work, and starting up a multimedia site for film, art, etc.

Also mentioned in the group was the Citizen Media Law Project and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.

Yours truly talked about the upcoming 18th Annual Pro Video Show taking place at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts on Friday and Saturday, March 7-8, 2008. Read my blog post about the show for a description of the three seminars I’m doing at the show.

Brian Alves produces The DV Show, a weekly podcast dedicated to answering questions related to digital video. The DV Show has been running since March 2005 and has become a respected resource on the we. They will be streaming some of the free sessions from the 18th Annual Pro Video Show, very cool.

Jessica Burko does design and arts marketing for other artists, she encourages us to sign up for her mailing list, it’s one email a month with info on shows and art events. She’s also involved with Boston Hand Made, a gathering of colleagues who create a variety of handcrafted art and every spring they do an artisan fair in Jamaica Plain.

Steve Sherlock has a number of projects underway, including sherku, his form of haiku. As Dorothy Parker once wrote, “brevity is the soul of lingerie.” So here goes an attempt to write a haiku about the meeting (19 syllables):

media makers meet
each first sunday to share
knowledge, ideas, and cheer.

Joe Cascio is a software engineer who is currently working on SociaLogic, an experimental system devoted to research and development in social networking that among other things can help us manage our online social network memberships and identities, he’s also working on a better SPAM filter, a new email protocol, all sorts of cool stuff. This summer he’ll be sponsoring the Social Media BBQ (look for it on upcoming) at his house in CT. Some locals who are bummed they can’t attend SXSW this year have started up their own virtual experience, NONE (North by Northeast). Joe is also involved with two blogs, Start Rocket and Media Disruption

Reiko Beach of TRB Design talked about Stixy, an online bulletin board (which they call Stixyboards) that allow you to create tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes, and bookmarks organized in whatever way makes sense to you. You can share Stixyboards with friends, family, and colleagues. Are there other tools out there she should look at? Some folks suggested JotSpot (Google recently acquired them), Big Tent, and Remember the Milk. Another thing that works well for simple collaboration is Google Docs. Tom Beach mentioned they are looking for someone to help them put together a customized WordPress template for their new site.

Rick Burns working on a site called 9neighbors designed to feature locally created on a neighborhood level, they are currently covering the Boston area (including Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, and Brookline). You can add your feed and they will filter it. It’s a new way of surfacing content that has local relevance. Check out their site, they are currently looking for feedback as they refine what they are doing.

Rachel Happe is a technology analyst at IDC who leads research on the digital business economy, and she blogs at The Social Organization.

Ted McEnroe is an Executive Producer with New England Cable News. He’s looking around to see where broadcast television is going, he just moved over to work on the NECN web site, recently relaunched as a video-driven web site, and he hopes to take it beyond where it is now, do more aggregating of media from across New England as a whole, he’s thinking about the best way to bring in community voices from around the region.

Dale Cruse is a website developer who does Drinks Are On Me, a popular wine blog and he’s also the weekly drinks columnist for Bostonist (a blog covering news, events, bars, and restaurants in Boston).

Pam Rosenthal is a social media consultant helping companies use online communities to engage in meaningful conversations with their customers. She’s interested in connecting with folks who do video as she may need to develop content in the future along the lines of customer testimonials and training videos.

Mike Walsh is working on putting together another Barcamp at MIT or a similar venue soon, possibly in April.

Rekha Murthy is an interaction designer, radio producer, and graduate of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, check out her blog, Punctuated Equilibrium. Her research at MIT focused on street media in urban spaces, urban annotation practices, and more with a focus on Central Square in Cambridge, and this may evolve into a book, she’s open to people’s experiences and ideas in terms of book agents and self-publishing options.

Adam Weiss suggests we check out the Museum of Science exhibit on baseball coming in June put together with the Baseball hall of fame, in addition to his work at the Museum of Science, Adam does Boston Behind the Scenes, an excellent podcast. He’s is looking for new adventures in new media and podcasting if you have any ideas for him.

Nate Aune is working on Jazkarta an open source videos sharing application, your own branded YouTube, your own logo, commenting, rating, tagging, etc. Check out an example at plone.tv. He’s also working on BostonJazz.net, a site to showcase Jazz Music in Boston.

Matt Searles continues to work on Asymmetric Biz Cult, a fascinating podcast that mixes philosophy, art, business, new media, and provides unique perspectives on what is most commonly called convergence. Who else has managed to include Michel Foucault, Carl Jung, and Jack Welch in the same podcast?

And on that note, I’ll remind you that the next meeting will be on April 6, 2008. Boston media makers gathers once a month on the first Sunday of every month at Sweet Finnish Cafe in Jamaica Plain. We go around the table and people talks about what they are up, ask questions, announce events, and more. In addition, there’s plenty of mingling before and after the meeting.

It was another inspiring, interesting, and entertaining meeting of the Boston Media Makers , which has become carved in stone in my calendar for the first Sunday of every month. We meet at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain with founder and master of ceremonies Steve Garfield. This month Steve used Mogulus studio to stream today’s meeting. It’s a little TV studio on the mac, allows you to stream live, add lower thirds, on the broadcast site you can take comments, it’s all early software, it crashed a couple of times, but it certainly points to where web-based streaming is headed. We went around the room doing updates and show-and-tell.

I mentioned that on Art Film Talk (my audio podcast) I recently posted an interview with Marshall Herskovitz on the topic of Quarterlife, a “television-style” episodic on the web that’s been generating lots of buzz in both industry and new media circles.

My show and tell this month was my Tram-50 Lavalier Microphone and its many accessories, including Rycote’s Lavalier Windjammer designed to reduce wind noise on Lavs worn on the outside of clothing. The Tram-50 delivers smooth, rich sound and was the first piece of audio gear I bought. Three video cameras have come and gone in the time I’ve owned the Tram. Good sound equipment is a worthwhile investment from which you will reap dividends for many years. If the Tram breaks your microphone budget, a good source of affordable, good quality, small microphones is Giant Squid Audio Lab.

I’ll be participating in the Web Video Summit coming up on December 10-11, 2007 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, on the Lights, Cameras, Sound: How to Get Great Results panel (1:00pm-1:50pm on Monday) where we’ll be discuss stratagies, tactics, and techniques for better video and sound that will not break your production budget. I offered a free conference pass to the first person who asked for it and Steve Albanese was the lucky winner. Congratulations Steve!

Len Edgerly showed us iYule on his iPhone, a 30-minute Yule Log video available for iPod, iPhone, and more. A holiday fireplace experience with crackling sounds for those on the go. Len is intersted in hearing about interesting uses of the web, video, and social media by artists. Some suggestions came up including a recent Wall Street Journal article about a visual artist using YouTube and Exit Art, an interdisciplinary laboratory for contemporary culture that explores the rich diversity of voices that continually shape art and ideas. Len has been documenting how artists and art organizations are using the web. Check out his podcast and video blog.

Bryan Person made a plug for Len’s podcast, saying “he’s a great storyteller.” Bryan is organizing monthly social media breakfasts that meets every 5-6 weeks in town or somewhere outside, network and talk, kind of on his radar are seesmic and utterz , how are these working for you? The next breakfast, Social Media Breakfast 4 will take place on Monday, December 17, 2007, from 8 to 10am at The Wine Cellar at the Mooo Restaurant in Downtown Boston.

Nate Aune from Jazkarta is building community media portals using open source software offering organizations a way to aggregate multimedia content including screencasts, he’s also recording bands, interested in promoting local boston based bands. They are building sites running on Amazon EC2, offering a scalable media cloud for your application.

Martin Freeth from Windfall Digital is a media producer from London who works on science videos, they are doing Choose Your Character, a museum exhibit project in genetics, visitors pick a card, and move through changes to your character, you learn through walking in the shoes of another person. They are also doing an IPTV story on genetics. He used to work in the BBC and set up BBC online and he dragged himself kicking and screaming into new media. Windfall Digital develops media for all platforms. He showed a wonderful one minute film titled “The Conundrum” from a series of short pieces were designed as instertitials between TV shows but now are perfect for the web. He often comes to the states where lots of good science work is being done. This is the third time Boston Media Makers has had a visitor from London.

Mark Hanser has a new web site, The Mark Hanser Show, different from his current sute, he’s getting into vlogging, exploring these woderful tools, coming to Boston Media Makers and Podcamp and learning to apply these tools as an artist and as an educator. Matt is doing the editing.

Rafael Lanfranco is working with John Coyne on Nuovomedia laboratory’s New Americans Web Site project for immigrants in the US, they are producing media for hispanic-americans, initial focus on Peru, with content on things like how to become an american citizen, how to manage personal finances, encourage them to create their own media, build this template and move to other hispanic groups, working on alpha site right now, should be live within the next week or so. In spanish. Their model public service, advertising and sponsor support. John Coyne and Rafael Lanfranco are building MixItUp, a database to bridge between talent and companies that need the takent by building list of peolle and groups of people interested in working on interesting projects with Nuovomedia.com. They also have a group on Facebook.

Bill Wendel, The Real Estate Cafe, is working on a Real Estate Unconference and has bought an Ice cream truck he’s turning into a mobile podcasting / mapping studio for use at events like real-estate open houses. Sounds really cool.

Zach Braker, Quiver and Quill, is looking to interview people on his blog. He’s working with a business partner who interviews people on management, they are interested in the intersection of life online and life offline.

Jack Hodgson has been doing uncontrolled airspace , a weekly podcast on general aviation, the podcast is literally hangar flying. It’s a very good podcast. He’s also working on Voxci , an alpha prototype that add spoken word to the web, literally word of mouth for the web. Bryan said that bookmarks become richer when there’s an audio description to go with them. Anyone can sugn up and play with it. The main thing Jack is asking for is feedback to help them improve the site.

Tom and Reiko Beach, TRB Design, need in setting up WordPress MU. They want to support multiple gymnastic coach’s blogs. It was suggested checking out WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, the book includes help on every aspect of installing and using WordPress and insights from bloggers who use WordPress. Steve suggests that the easiest way to learn about videoblogging is to click on the “Learn About Videoblogging” on his web site. For people just getting started, Bryan suggested the Flip camera, a.k.a. the soccer mom cam, a low cost alternative for shooting video. If your looking for a miniDV camcorder, David LaMorte and I sugggested the Canon Elura 100 becuase it’s an inexpesnive, small, easy-to-use camcorder that has an external mic input. Using an external microphone is critical for getting good sound. Len’s been happy with the Sanyo Xacti HD2, a tiny 720p camera with an external mic input. If you’re using one of the tiny digital cameras without an expternal mic input, you can always do “double system sound” (recording audio and video separately and synch them up in the editing), for example, Len suggested the Edirol R-09 and I suggested the MicroTrack II. The Samson Zoom H2 and Samson Zoom H4 are also popular choices for small digital recorders.

John Herman in the short
film The Future

John Herman has a show coming up on Thursday, he’ll be doing short-form improv with Gameboyz at the Cantab Lounge in Central Square. Also, starting on December 28 he has a new show starting, producing one man show based on the atoms in the void podcast with Sean Hurley. They have compressed 29 eposides down to a story, performed in character. Catch the show at The Player’s Ring in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, it’s a small venue, so order your tickets now. John also started production last week on Gravityland, an 18 episode web show.

Bob Sherriff is an independent producer (without a web site) in the Boston area who has started to immerse one toe into the social media area, getting into corporate videoblogs, an area in which he would like to find someone to work with clients, determine capabilities, help them publish, help them put a lot of different things into their video blogs, get into different areas, right now he’s social media light, wants to become social media hevy, develop corporate blogs for mass publication, he thinks it’s an area that is growing. Most companies still just want to get their message out, they don’t understand the two-way nature of videoblogging, but other companies get it. It will be their competitive advantage.

Some book suggestions that came up in the discussion today include: The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler, The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott, The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls & David Weinberger, The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom.

Matt Searles is ediring Mark’s new video blog and he does Asymmetric Biz Cult (a.k.a. ABC), a fascinating podcast tagged, “a new philosophy of art, mind and business.” Matt’s been doing collaborations with Mark thinking business and new media from an artsists perspective, in his words, “a rich tapestry.”

As I cleaned up these notes I listened to ABC Episode 12 Out in Left Field in which Matt talks about how his new Zoom H4 recorder which allows him now to record in the field, he’s no longer limited to recording in the studio, so this will allow him to try some new things. The episode explores what is ABC about? In a nutshell the business of media in the social media space. Around 09:46 and 13:20 you’ll hear “intros” he recorded to help express what ABC is all about. Engaging in the world through both new and traditional forms of art. At 18:00 the Matt goes into who are you? What is your personality? What is your unique approach? How do you market somethign that is so unique that there are no established channels of distribution? This is a big question for Matt. At 22:00 he goes into “modes of being” and suggests that social media is reconfiguring society. Around 25:00 he goes into organizating principles, evolution of the language, the categories that we use to put things in, something to do with idea of custom in the Heidegger sense. Trippy, interesting stuff.

Dave LaMorte is in graduate school and produces Teaching For The Future, a podcast for teachers about implementing technology education and media literacy.

Andrea Mercado is the blog co-manager of PLA Blog, the official blog of the Public Library Association She’s also the Reference and Techie Librarian at Reading Public Library in Massachusetts and author of the LibraryTechtonics blog. PLA Blog is the first blog sponsored by a library organization. She’s preparing a presentation on social media tools and came to the meeting to be inspired. She suggested checking out the Second Life Library System.

Steve Albanese, Tutorial Depot, is offering tutorials on the web available for a range of media devices. Content is geared to music technology, but he’s looking to branch out into other areas. The offer video podcast, some free and others paid. He’s also been doing a video show every Friday at 5pm called Friday Brew with friends, right now more of a fun thing, though it might go into a regular podcast at some point. He’s using the Adobe Flex player.

Well, that’s it for this month, whew. Lots of notes. First photo courtesy of Steve Garfield. Photo of John Herman courtesy of John Herman from the short film, The Future

A while back I wrote about Using SATA drives with a MacBook Pro, and I also compared MacBook Pro external drive performance using SATA, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800. Today at the Boston Media Makers meeting I discussed my solution for cheap backup and archiving: bare SATA drives, this is attractive when you consider that Seagate 500 GB SATA drives are now down to $120 and come with a 5 year warranty. Other backup and archiving options like DVD-R or Blu-Ray disks takes a long time to burn and LTO3 tape systems are expensive. Hard drives offer a fast and cheap solution (but with the caveats I mention later).

There are lots of external SATA enclosures available from Granite Digital and other fine vendors, but my topic of discussion in the meeting today was my approach for connecting drives in the raw without an enclosure, if you’ve got lots of media files to archive, the enclosures start to pile up, why pay for an enclosures and power supplies for each drive? I like to use hard drive mechanisms as removable disks for backups and archiving.

Here’s what I use for backing up and archiving with my Mac Book Pro (I also have a SATA interface card in my Power Macintosh G5 for use with both internal and external SATA drives which I discuss in my Media storage expansion options for the Power Mac G5 post):

• SATA Interface Card: as I discuss in Using SATA drives with a MacBook Pro
• Power Supply: FLY36-5-12 AC to DC PSU 4-Pin Power Suppy (available from CoolerExpress for $8.50)
• Power Connector Adapter: since most new drives now come with a slimline power connector, you’ll need to get a 4-Pin PC power to SATA Power Converter Cable ($6 or so, I got mine from Micro Center in Cambridge).
• Data cable: eSATA Type “I” to Internal SATA Type “L” Cable, easily found from a variety of suppliers for anywhere from $6 to $10. Depending on which cable you purchase, it might be a tight fit with the power connector, I had to trim mine with an sharp knife so the two connectors would fit properly side-by-side.

For video editing I do use a couple of drive enclosures, it’s my archive and backup disks I keep in the raw. When I’m done with a project I remove the disk from the enclosure and pop in a new one for the next project. I’ve got a a bunch of Western Digital drives right now but I like Seagate’s reputation and longer warranty, so I’m probably going to purchase Seagate drives next time I buy them. So the cost of your first drive is the cost of the interface and power supply (and possibly a drive enclosure) but the beauty of this solution is now additional drives are $120 bare or $150 with a SATA enclosure, and you get to choose the drive mechanism.

I always thought it was crazy to buy drives from manufacturers who repackage drives and give you a warranty of one or two years, when there are drives that come with longer warranties! So the benefits of this DIY approach is not just saving some money, it’s also using drives with longer warranties. THe 5 years is an eternity for hard drives, within 5 years I hope there’s a better archiving solution available. But for now, byte for byte, hard drives are much faster and cheaper than tape backup, though as electromechanical devices, they do fail, so make sure you’ve got two backups of anything that’s important.

One important caveat when working with “bare drives” is that you should handle them carefully, the drives have exposed circuit board you should avoid touching. I suggest handling them by the sides and avoid shocks and static (ground yourself first by touching the surface your going to put the drive down onto or your picking it up from. Don’t walk around with the drive in your hand on a cool dry day. Take it out of the static protection bag it came it while grounded to the table surface and place it on the surface you are going to operate it on (which should be non-conductive) . Make sure to disconnect it before you move it. Drives can handle normal handling and movement and even mild bumps as long as they are not spinning and actively reading or writing. Also, be careful when connecting and disconnecting from the drives, the internal SATA connectors are not as robust as FireWire or USB connectors. When you are done with the drive make sure to properly unmount the drive from the desktop and store it in the anti-static bag or packaging that it came in. One more thing: you may need to restart the Mac for it to mount it, so don’t be alarmed if the drive does not appear on the desktop right away.

This allows me to do fast incremental and full backups of my work and to practice the rule of threes: critical data should always be kept in three different storage devices, and one of then should be off site. For a video project, I’ve got 1. the original videotape, 2. the working copy, and 3. a backup archive. For stuff shot with P2 cards, that means I need to create an equivalent of the tape archive, so that’s another drive or so. This approach is not for everyone, but if you’re into the DIY aesthetic, you’re going to have fun with this. It’s really important to make sure you have multiple copies of critical media, as hard drives, I can’t stress this enough, will fail at some point. It make take hours, days, weeks, or years, but at some point, they will fail. Data recovery services are very expensive (can run thousands of dollars) in the event of a drive failure, and they are not always successful. At $120 per 500 GB, it’s never been more affordable to protect your data and make backup copies of your media on bare hard drives.

OK, so the big question is, what’s the tiny Canon TX1 like as a video camera? To answer the question, I made a short video this weekend. I’m not much for testing with charts and side by side comparisons these days, image quality is only part of the camera equation, so instead I do some shooting and from the results, I ask the question, is the image quality reasonable given all the other aspects of the camera that come into play when making the decision of what camera to purchase or use, for example, handling, form-factor, weight, cost, features, image processing, media formats, lens, ease-of use, etc.?

If you go to the movie page on blip.tv, under the “Play video in alternate format:” pop-up, you’ll have access to the following formats: 1. Large iPod Video (1:52, 21.2MB, 640 x 360 H.264, Stereo, default QuickTime Pro Export settings), 2. AppleTV Video (1:52, 50.3MB, 960 x 540, H.264, Stereo, default QuickTime Pro Export settings), 3. Flash version (transcoded by blip.tv, not sure of the exact settings, audio is 64 kbit/sec mono). I’ve also posted to Flickr a set of frame grabs from the original Motion JPEG frames so you can see the quality of the image prior to compression for web delivery.

Click To Play

All the video and audio was left “as is” with the TX1, no color correction or post-production processing on the audio or video, the only thing I did was import the video clips into Final Cut Pro and edit them on a DVCPRO HD timeline. Some horizontal resolution is lost going into the DVCPRO HD format, however, it’s pretty minor.

This test was designed to show the camera in real-world conditions, not in the best light, so there’s some shooting under relatively low light conditions. Most of the shots exhibit the noise that comes part and parcel with shooting in situations with less than optimum lighting.

Since the conversion to iPod movies and Flash for web viewing (which is what’s available on the blip.tv page) adds additional artifacts to the original image, and since the conversion from the Motion JPEG original to DVCPRO HD for editing also adds some additional artifacts, I’ve posted a series of frame grabs from the original video files so you can see the quality of the original Motion JPEG frames.

Video that is noisy does not compress as well as video that is clean to start with, so starting with an HDV or H.264 original would yield better compressed video than the Motion JPEG implementation in the TX1. In most shooting situations you’re going to see lots of noise in the image with this camera unless you’re shooting outdoors during the day.

Shots were made using auto white balance, 720p 30fps mode, auto focus (face tracking turned off).

I’ve been shooting with a Canon S100 Digital Elph since 2000, and after seven years the camera was looking very long in the tooth, with dead pixels and starting to fall apart, it was time for an equally tiny replacement. For serious still shooting I’ve got a Canon 10D w/ an EF 24mm-70mm f/2.8 lens, and for video, a Sony HVR-A1U HDV camcorder, and even though the images from both of these puppies are spectacular, I don’t always want to deal with the weight and bulk of these cameras. I like having a small digital camera I can take with me wherever I go, that I can wear on my belt and forget it’s there. But I also would like to shoot short movie segments, so I’ve been waiting for something with at least 1280 x 720 (720p) video capability in the Digital Elph form factor. Finally Canon introduced the TX1 that fits the bill, so after years waiting and considering, yet not purchasing, many alternatives, I settled on the TX1.

In a subsequent post I’ll Post and discuss some of the movie clips I I’ve shot with the camera, as far as stills go, check out the May 6, 2007 Boston Media Makers Meeting Photo Set I recently posted to Flickr, all of these images in the set were shot with the TX1. I’m not going to go over the features and specifications of this camera in great detail, that information is readily available in Digital Photography Review’s review of the camera. In this post I’m going to focus on my qualitative experience of the camera and summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the camera.

The camera is small and easy to handle after a short aclimation period. The LCD viewfinder is bright and crisp, and shows grid lines to make it east to keep your photos aligned nicely.

I was pleased with the overall quality of the still images I shot under good lighting conditions or using flash. Photos taken with the flash were sometimes over-exposed, and I got the occational red-eye (even through red-eye reduction was set on) more often than I expected. When you shoot without Flash, if you set the ISO on auto or to 800 and above, the images are really noisy, as you would expect. I still prefer to use my Canon 10D w/ 24-70mm f/2.8 lens for hand-hend phtography in low-light, often with a monopod, not only are the high ISO results better, but the auto focus is much better. It’s not fair to compare a $1,500 D-SLR and a little $500 point and shoot, but someday I hope it is. Some of the TX1 photos in the above set were shot with a monopod to offset the effect of camera shake so I could shoot at a lower ISO rating.

The camera uses a 7.1 megapixel CCD imager with a 6.5-65mm f/3.5-5.6 (35mm equivalent 39–390mm) 10x optical zoom lens, but that’s the price you pay for such a tiny lens. My gripe is that the wide is not as wide as I would have liked, I do lots of close-in shooting. The OIS (optical image stabilization) worked reasonably, and Canon claims the camera uses their Digic III image processor. The camera is capable of shooting in very low light if you don’t mind lonts of noise in the image, with an ISO rating of up to 1600.

Video quality is reasonable for such a tiny camera, however, even though video can be recorded at a resolution as high as 1280 x 720 at 30fps, it’s not anywhere near as good as video shot with an HDV (MPEG-2) or AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264) camcorder. The TX1 uses Motion-JPEG, an older format with a much higher bit rate for the quality compared to H.264 or MPEG-2. The only real advantage of Motion-JPEG is low processor overhead, and in such a tiny camera, it’s an issue. I suspect, over time, we’ll see the move towards using better codecs in this form factor. The 1280 x 720 movies look much better when reduced to half-size 640 x 360, but I’ve not been shooting the smaller size movies because starting with the larger image gives you some flexibility in terms of zooming if you need it.

My greatest disappointment with the camera is that even though I found the face-detect auto focus worked reasonably well, the problem for me is that the camera does not offer an easy way to quickly switch between face-detect auto focus and standard auto focus. Sometimes the face-detect auto focus works well, but when it’s not working, you want to be able to turn it off in an instant, and turn it back on when you think it’s going to work well and then back off when the situation changes, and so on and so forth. Instead the mode switch has to be done by going into the menu. The camera offers one assignable button and this switching should be assignable to that button, but it is not. Although the camera automatically switches to AF mode when it can’t detect a face, the problem is when it detects the wrong face or you want something other than a face focused upon. The 9-point auto-focus is only available in single shot mode, in continuous mode it’s based on a center point. There is also no maunal focus. This would be nice, but I don’t exect it in a camera like this.

In a nutshell, the strengths of this camera lie in the small form-factor, and ability to shoot both stills and video, the use of high capacity and high performance SD memory cards, and reasonably good image stabalization.

Weaknesses include the widest lens setting is not very wide, there is no quick on/off face-recognition auto-focus button (you can’t quickly turn it on and off), long shutter lag, lack of manual focus, and very noisy low-light results.

Great camera if you want something small and need both stills and video. I suspect as memory prices continue to drop and tiny embedded processors get faster and faster, we’re going to see a growing number of hybrid camera/camcorders on the market, I think the TX1 is just the beginning of a whole new wave of tiny HD cameras.

I listen and watch podcasts on my video iPod as I commute to and from work. Sometimes I want to watch or listen to podcasts on my home stereo system in the living room. My wife would like to listen to her iPod on the stereo too. As far as audio goes, it’s easy to simply hook up a cable, and the same goes for video, but it leads to a gnarly mess of wires.

Santa provided a more elegant solution this holiday season, delivering us a DLO HomeDock Deluxe.

While I have mixed feelings about this gadget, it provides an acceptable solution to the problem of integrating a video iPod into a home stereo system and television. It comes with RCA line outs for the audio and both composite and S-Video connectors for the video.

You can navigate the iPods menus on the television, and it will display the song information while the music plays. It also has a screen-saver. However, apparently there’s a firmware problem (or intentional limitation) with the video iPods so the HomeDock can’t display the menu when it’s in video mode, so when you’re watching videos you have to use the iPod for navigation. This, and the low-build quality of the device is what leads me to the mixed feelings, however, right now there’s really no better solution to the problem. Someone is sure to come out with a better solution. Time will tell, for now, this is what I’m using to listen to the iPod and watch some video podcasts in the living room. It’s kind of a low-budget alternative to AppleTV if you’ve already got a video iPod, but no where near as elegant.

Summary of basic features: Easily navigate and select music on your home television; Control the iPod with an included remote control; charges the iPod while it’s sitting in the doc; and an adjustable back-rest for the iPod allows you to adjust the doc for an iPod nano (1st or 2nd generation), the iPod mini, 4G iPods with click wheels, the iPod Color, and of course, video iPods.

Today at MacWorld expo Apple introduced the iPhone. I am rarely inspired to write about any product introduction, but I think this one is as paradigm shifting as the original Macintosh, QuickTime, and the iPod. And this device presents many new creative opportunities for media makers. No longer will getting good video to a smart phone be a hassle like it is now with so many formats. Just publish your video as an iTunes compatble video podcast and that’s that. I was expecting Apple to introduce a 16:9 video iPod and a separate iPhone, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the iPhone (in the best Apple design tradition) combines a phone, widescreen iPod, e-mail, and web browsing in one small elegant Internet connected device. Like earlier major milestones in Apple history this new device introduces a whole new platform and a reinvention of an entire product category. Unlike the ill-fated interface of the Newton (remember those?) the new iPhone user interface seems well suited to the form factor of the device.

Rather than introduce a device that tries to do it all (again, I’m thinking of the ill-fated Newton concept), iPhone seems to focus on doing a few things very well. The interface is the most interesting aspect of the device, replacing the many tiny keyboard buttons found in SmartPhones with a multi-touch display that alllows you to control iPhone with your fingers. And for filmmakers, this device provides the best viewing experience of any of the small devices with the combination of being Internet connected (in other words, you can simply create an iTunes compatible video Podcast, no other special trickery or format coversions are needed to to get video onto the device. One very disappointing thing is tha Apple chose to go exclusively with Cingular in the US. Given the fact that it’s a GSM phone, it should be simple to work with any carrier with a SIM card change. Why another walled garden? We need an open device that allows us to choose our carrier for mobile phone service. Every perfect product has to have at least one annoying flaw and this is one of them.

People may object to the weight, price, choice of single carrier, and all of the usual critiques (sounds very similar to what people were saying when the iPod was introduced). And there’s lots of concern over the screen and lack of keys. These are all valid critiques. But the thing to consider, this device, like the initial iPod, represents a whole new product category. It will evolve. And like the iPod that started off as Mac only, I’m sure iPhone will extend it’s reach to other carriers. As long as Apple is accountable to shareholder, they will have to build the largest market they can and that means talking with multiple carriers. But in the Apple tradition, they will do it all in good time and on their own terms. This device may not be perfect, but it’s an order of magnitude more elegant and functional than anything dreamed of by Nokia or Microsoft to date. And this announcement was the perfect antidote to the Bill Gates Keynote at CES.

Here are the basic features:

• works with either a PC or Mac
• 2 megapixel camera with a photo application that syncs with PC or Mac
• quad-band GSM phone
• EDGE, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi wireless technologies
• Safari-based web browser
• 3.5-inch widescreen (320 x 480 @ 160 dpi) video iPod with finger based interface
• Cover Flow provides an interesting way to browse your music library by iTunes album cover artwork
• email client which retrieves your email from POP3 or IMAP services with inline display of images, Yahoo! Mail will offer “push” IMAP email service to iPhone users
• fully multi-tasking Mac OS X operating system allows you to work on the device while email downloads in the background
• built-in sensors (accelerometer, proximity sensor and ambient light) automatically detects orientation of the device and changes the contents of the display accordingly, I guess it might not work properly in space. The proximity sensor detects when you lift the device to your ear and turns off the display to save power and prevent inadvertent touches. Screen brightness is adjusted to match surroundings.

Apple ciaims that iPhone will be available in the US in June of 2007, in Europe in late 2007, and Asia in 2008, in a 4GB model will list for $499 (US) and an 8GB model for $599 (US). iPhone will be sold in the US through Apple’s retail and online stores, and through Cingular’s retail and online stores. Several iPhone accessories will be available in June, including a new compact Bluetooth headset from Apple.

Temple Bar, Dublin


Spinnin’



Four Chairs



Lipstick



After Dinner



River

Several years ago I decided I wanted a digital camera, but nothing on the market at the time met my minimum requirements: (1) $500 or less price point, (2) small form factor about the same size as my current camera (I had a Canon Film Elph and was perfectly happy shooting film and scanning the images), (3) minimum of 2.1 Megapixels, and (4) simple and elegant.

I’ve been using the S100 for a year now and I’m very pleased with it. No regrets. My two Canon AE-1s, many FD lenses, and Mamiya C330 are feeling neglected and getting a tad jealous. Film is still the medium of choice for critical applications, but 98% of my photography is casual snapshots and artistic exploration. Digital is just fine for these uses. I can take S100 everywhere I go and it’s a joy to shoot with. I’ve yet to see another camera in its price category that surpasses it in overall price/performance except for its successor, the S110.

I’m still considering what to replace my two Canon AE-1s and collection of Canon FD lenses with, but I’ve not settled on anything. The Mamiya will be the last to go, because it will take a little longer for digital to kill off medium format. “Rumors of film’s death are still greatly exaggerated,” to borrow a phrase, but with developments in digital imaging moving at a rapid pace, who knows when it will be time to replace my 35mm system, but I suspect an eBay auction is just around the corner.

The new S110 keeps all of the basic S100 features and adds improved image processing performance and the ability to capture short movie clips. The clips can be played back in the camera (without audio). If uploaded to a PC or connected to a TV via the A/V cable, you’ll get sound and picture. This is a delightful feature and is reminiscent of the joy of shooting with a Pixelvision camera.

Camera settings allow you to choose the image size and quality: 640×480 Fine (moderate JPEG compression); 1600×1200 Fine; 1600×1200 Super Fine (less severe JPEG compression). Exposure compensation and white balance settings are provided. The optics are a 5.4mm – 10.8mm F/2.8-4.0 zoom, which is the equivalent of a 35-70mm zoom on a 35mm camera. There’s also a digital zoom, but I would avoid it. Images can be previewed on the LCD display or with the real-image optical viewfinder with zoom. The camera has a light-assisted autofocus system that kicks in when the normal contrast focusing system is unable to focus due to low light conditions. If needed it projects light in the center of the field of view in order to determine the focus. This allows the camera to focus in complete darkness.

This excellent focus system is also a source of a problem. This camera seems to take more than its share of flash pictures with people’s eyes closed. Since the system uses white light to project the pattern, the flash of light appears so bright in dark settings that subjects often blink just in time for the actual exposure. I’ve snapped more flash pictures of people’s eyes closed that I care to think about, however, there is a workaround: you can depress the shutter button half way, this triggers the auto focus light, wait a second for people to blink, then take the flash photo. You can also lock the focus at infinity or switch to macro for close-ups, the actual closest focus distance varies depending on the focal length.

The camera is elegant. It holds it’s own against classic beauties of form and function like the Minox 35mm and Minox spy cameras. The design is not only skin deep: the function of its controls is very well thought out. For example, sliding the zoom switch while in Play Mode displays the thumbnail index where you can quickly search through the stored images. When a picture is displayed on the LCD screen you can slide the zoom switch to see as portion of the photo magnified and scroll through the image to see more details. The designers really thought through the usability of this product. Another example is the ability to rotate photos in the camera so both vertical and horizontal shots are displayed properly during playback. Once you become familiar with it’s controls, things become second nature quickly as you internalize the logic of it’s design.

My favorite feature of the camera is the night flash mode, this gives you the ability to shoot a flash photo while keeping the shutter open for a longer than normal exposure time. This was designed to allow backgrounds to come out better exposed when shooting with flash at night. I use it along with shaking the camera for taking all those blurry photos in my photo albums. This camera (like all snapshot cameras) is at it’s best when you’re not taking ordinary full-frontal flash photos.

The S-110 comes with one rechargeable lithium battery and a rapid charger. If you buy this camera you will immediately find you need buy a second battery. It is extremely hard to estimate battery life in terms of solid numbers, but I can tell you I use the second battery all of the time. You can extend battery life by not using the LCD display and refrain from flash photos, but I’d rather carry an extra battery at all times. This way when you are shooting lots of photos one battery can be in the camera and the second on the charger.

The Image Browser software supplied by Canon for the Macintosh is pretty nice ( I can’t say anything about the Windows offering). The Image Browser allows you to organize all of your photos. The actual photos and folders are just files and folders in the finder, but the image browser provides a nice interface for reviewing photos, putting on slide shows, and launching your favorite image editing application, all from one interface. The camera is also supplied with a photo stitching application for combining multiple images into one large photos, the results are acceptable, but I prefer to do this in Photoshop.

Check out my gallery of S100 photos (index in the margin, disclosure: most have been post-processed in Photoshop) and I think you will agree that the S100 and S110 are impressive performers, especially among digital cameras in this price category. Combined with Photoshop the creative potential of this little camera is astonishing: a small imaging device that fits in the palm of your hand backup up by a complete photo laboratory on your desktop. Photography has never been so much fun. No more waiting for film to be developed. No more long hours dodging and burning prints. I held out a long time to go digital, and I’m glad I waited. For me, the S100 with it’s small form-factor was the catalyst that has changed the way I shoot photographs.