Monthly Archives: February 2015

Perceptiv SHIFT drone upgrade simplifies cinematic tracking shots

One of the most difficult things about shooting video with my Phantom II is tracking shots. I’ve found it’s very difficult to keep the camera focused on an object while the drone moves around it, much less stay focused on an object that is itself moving. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a smart app that would allow you to tell the camera what to focus on, freeing you to do the flying?

Screen Shot 2015-02-28 at 8.29.59 AMStarting this fall, you’ll be able to do that, thanks to well-funded startup called Perceptiv, which has announced a relatively affordable upgrade it to your Phantom or 3DR Iris drone. The pre-order price is $600, which their website says will rise to $800 after the units being shipping.

It’s clear to me that DJI has realized how difficult getting cinematic shots is, by including a dual-operator option on the new Inspire 1. This will allow splitting camera operation and flying into two jobs, and give the camera operator a fighting chance of getting great tracking and parallax shots. But this tool looks even easier.

I’ll look forward to seeing how it works in real life, though. Most of the shots in the demo video are shot against green grass, which mimics green screen, probably the easiest situation for a camera to track. What would happen when you’re trying to track, for example, a specific car on a road full of other cars? I look forward to finding out.

Domke Next Generation bag gets details right

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When I was in college, I had an opportunity to study photojournalism in London for a semester.  I didn’t shop much in those days, but one thing I remember spending a lot of time hunting for was the perfect camera bag. I wanted one that would protect my gear but didn’t scream “expensive cameras here.” In other words, I didn’t want to get mugged. So I bought my first Domke bag, because it resembled a canvas gym bag on the outside – with the guts of a camera bag on the inside.

My fears were justified. One night on the last train home to my N. Portobello Road flat, I took some epic photos of a couple making out in a tube station. I knew they were going to be good. Elated, I rewound the film, slung the camera over my shoulder, and marched to my flat, unaware that someone had noticed the camera and started following me. I opened the door to my flat and walked in without waiting for the door to close.

I never had time to be scared. The first thing I knew, my face was slamming into the wall. Shocked, I turned to see someone dashing out the door. I realized two things instantly: I had my Domke bag over my left shoulder, but I did not have my Nikon over the right.

If I had to be mugged any place in the world, London isn’t a bad choice. The thief’s only weapons were surprise and speed. But in that moment all I could appreciate was the fact that my camera was gone. Then I felt into my pocket and remembered I still had the film.  I flipped open my Domke bag, where I still had everything I needed to continue shooting: a second body, and my glass. And I thought: had I tucked that camera back into the bag where it belonged, I might still have it.

small-bagThe photos I took that night went on to win awards that helped me land my first newspaper job. I carried that Domke bag with me on every assignment for four years, until I literally wore a hole through the side of the canvas.

Domke bags haven’t changed much since then, and for good reason. How do you improve a bag that, by design, isn’t supposed to call attention to itself?

velcroSo I was intrigued and a little worried when I heard that Domke was making a new generation of camera bags. When I got an opportunity to review one called The Chronicle, a large bag posing as an item of military surplus, I jumped on it.

The first thing I noticed as I pulled the bag out of the box is the material. It’s made from the same waxy, waterproof stuff that Aussie cowboy slickers are made from. At a glance the bag still looks pretty unassuming. Which is what I would hope. But details matter. And that is where things get interesting.

quietThe first detail I noticed was the velcro. Some very clever designer has solved a problem that I didn’t even know I had (yet one that has definitely plagued me over the years). You know that ripping sound it makes every time you open a pocket? Any time you’re on a film set with sound rolling, you can forget about opening those pockets. Sound recording and velcro don’t mix.

claspWell, Domke has a solution. You can now fold the velcro back on itself, reversing it to reveal a “quiet” label. In this configuration, the velcro won’t stick, rendering it completely quiet. So clever! All velcro closures on the next-gen bag has this new feature.

topzipper-vThe sturdy metal clips that have always secured the bag’s top flap have a minor improvement. They are slightly more heavy duty than on my old bags, and have a more ergonomic thumb release. In practice I’ve found that these snaps are a bit of a pain, so I often carry my bag with the snaps open, so I can quickly get in and out of the bag. But that leaves the contents less secure. A tradeoff, right? No more. This new bag allows me to have it both ways. A zipper running down the middle of the top flap provides access to the contents of the bag when it is clipped shut. This is a great solution.

side-zip-pocketAnother clever detail: side pockets now have a zipper expansion option. Zipping them open provides twice the space. Closing them makes the bag much more compact. The front pockets have a snap that pops open to achieve a similar expansion, providing extra volume only when needed.

Do these details matter? Well, with the pockets fully expanded, I was able to fit in a change of clothes on a recent trip to Canada, allowing me to take just one bag. This would not have been possible with my previous Domke bag, which I still own. I like to travel light, so it’s definitely working for me!

theft-codeThe bag also includes a bar-coded ID tag. Ostensibly this is a way for you to be reunited with a lost bag, should some nice honest person find it. But actually it’s a clever way for Tiffen, the parent company of Domke, to get a ton of information about you for their mailing list. The 9 required fields on the signup form (including home address and phone number) includes the text “Email marketing you can trust” below the signup button. So you can trust you’ll be receiving spam from the 8 or 9 companies Tiffen owns if you hit submit.

snapLuckily they’ve provided a low-tech solution: a key-ring snap on the inside of the back flap, where you could attach a name tag. It’s a little hard to find, though. It took me three months of using the bag before I stumbled upon it while examining it closely for this review.

The inside of the back has a nice partitioning system, with several dividers you can lock into place with velcro. You can quickly configure the bag to carry different types of camera and lens combinations. My old bag had a fixed divider, so it wouldn’t have been possible to, for example, reconfigure it to carry an FS700. With this bag, you can.

strapThe signature Domke bag straps are unchanged. I love the simple, unpadded wide strap with it’s shoulder-gripping rubber cord woven into the stitching.

All shoulder straps slip off, though, so it’s not foolproof. I was carrying this bag on my shoulder while juggling two other bags going into the Paris Metro last December, and it slipped off at just the right time to get caught in the turnstile. Those doors don’t open once they’re closed! Luckily a passenger on the other side freed my bag and then kindly handed it over the gate to me.

tagWhich brings me to my conclusion. What I most love about this new Domke bag is that it keeps it’s simple appearances, while adding some welcome features that make it even more pleasurable to use.

 

Cameralends.com aims to do for camera owners what AirBNB did for vacation homes

Screen Shot 2015-02-18 at 10.09.05 AMHave you ever thought about offsetting the cost of your expensive camera gear by renting it out? I have. But I’ve never done it, for two big reasons: I don’t know how to find renters, and I don’t know if I can trust them.

Enter a new service called CameraLends.com. CameraLends is a peer-to-peer lending community for photographers and videographers. Equipment owners post items for rent to other photographers. You can rent gear directly from local photographers, potentially faster and cheaper than through traditional vendors.

That’s nice, but what happens if your equipment gets damaged or stolen? Cameralends will reimburse you the replacement cost of your gear. Problem solved! And, they’ll help you find customers by connecting you to other photographers in your area who are looking to rent equipment. The price: 20 percent of each transaction.

The service gives you full control over how much to charge for each piece of your equipment. You can even set discounted pricing for multi-day rentals, the same as most rental houses do. And you get to set the value amount, which is the amount you’ll be refunded should your gear be damaged.

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So, how does it work in practice? I decided to list one of my most expensive and least-used pieces of equipment, my Dana Dolly.

The signup process was straightforward (though missing a Facebook signup option). Once I created my account, the first item I decided to list was my $1,700 Dana Dolly rental kit, which I purchased a year ago and have used only on a handful of projects. It’s the perfect piece of gear when I need it, but that isn’t very often. So why not rent it out?

To save time, I simply cut and paste the product description from the manufacturer’s website. Paragraph breaks show up correctly on the back end – but not on Seattle Dana Dolly rental published page. This makes it difficult to read descriptions that are longer than a single paragraph. (Update: I’ve been told a fix for this is in the works).

Screen Shot 2015-02-18 at 10.56.16 AMUploading a photo is easy, and adds professional polish to your listing. You can add more than one photo, too.

The site conveniently provides  a drop-down menu listing all of the equipment they think you’re likely to own – but of course, my Dana Dolly wasn’t on the list. Luckily, there is an alternative field for adding a new item. But when I saved it, I discovered it had defaulted to 5D Mark III. Bug! I submitted the problem via email, and someone responded right away both to my message and by posting a bug fix within a few hours.

So far, I haven’t had any bites on my dolly. But it’s been just two days, so time will tell. If it hasn’t rented in a few weeks, I will adjust the pricing. One thing I have noticed immediately, though, is how quickly my rental comes up in search results. If I Google for “seattle dana dolly rental,” my listing already comes up in the top half of results on the first page.

I’m excited by the potential that Cameralends.com has to put some of my seldom used equipment to work, reduce the cost of ownership, and help other filmmakers connect with a great deal on local equipment.