Images of Harvard University

This semester I took a digital photography class through the Harvard Extension School.  My final project is this video, which consists of three time lapse sequences and 60 still images from around the Harvard campus.  I shot everything using my Canon 60D, and used Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro to edit.

Learning how to photograph star trails

I'm taking a photography course through the Harvard Extension School, and it was quite fitting that star trail photos were suggested for this week's project, since one of my recent photographic goals was to take star trail photos.  I'm a space exploration enthusiast, and star trails have always amazed me.  Living in Boston makes it very hard to take such pictures, due to all the light pollution from the city.  I recently took a trip to central NY, and figured that a weekend in the country would be the perfect time to take star trail photos.

Preparation:  After doing some online research about star trails, I purchased a wired remote for my Canon 60D.  This allowed me to hold the shutter open for longer than 30 seconds, as well as take multiple shorter photos for stacking.  I also purchased a tripod for this shoot.

Conditions:  I had two consecutive evenings (10/8 and 10/9) to take star trail photos.  I knew that the first evening would be full of trial and error photos.  The conditions were near perfect for taking star trails photos.  There weren't any clouds in the sky, there was minimal light pollution from populated areas, and the temperature was in the 60's, so I really didn't run into any condensation on my lens.  Even though I was out in central NY, away from heavily populated areas, light from houses and street lights still washed out sightings of stars right along the horizon.  The timing of the moon phase couldn't have been worse though, since it was nearly a full moon.  There was quite a bit of reflection of light off the moon lighting up the night.  I could almost read a book out there with light reflecting off the moon. 

Positioning:  After the fact, I figured out that it would have been best to drive way out into the country, far away from any houses or street lights.  Instead, for this shoot, I was in the backyard of a house in a populated neighborhood.  That added a bit of light pollution, washing out some star sightings.  I set up my tripod with my back to the moon, to make sure that it wouldn't enter my shot as it moved across the sky.  The moon is way too bright for these types of long exposures.  I made sure to get the north star in my shot, so I would have star trails circling around it.  Not essential, but a cool looking effect.  

First night:  After setting everything up in the backyard, I manually focused using Jupiter, since it was the brightest item in the sky that I could see on my LCD screen.  I zoomed in my LCD screen on Jupiter, and set my focus to infinity.  This wasn't at the very end of the focus ring, since (as I later researched) lens manufactures have a focal point past infinity, to account for slight variations in the lens due to temperature and other conditions.  My first attempt was simply a three minute test shot using bulb mode and wired remote with the following settings:  50mm, 180 sec, f/1.8, ISO 100.  This was unsuccessful, since there was so much light captured by the sensor and it resulted in a pure white image.  I closed my aperture down and proceeded to take my first full length star trails photo using the following settings:  50mm, 2025 sec, f/22, ISO 100:

50mm, 2025 sec, f/22, ISO 100

I was happy to capture some successful star trails, but disappointed in the photo for a few reasons:  not many stars were captured, I didn't have anything in the foreground to provide a point of reference, there was lots of digital noise in the image and I wasn't positioned properly to show the north star.  I didn't capture many stars because I was forced to use a large f stop to properly expose the 34 minute image.  The digital noise was a result of leaving the shutter open for almost 34 straight minutes.  I had read about another method of taking star trail photos called "stacking".  By taking a series of shorter exposure photos, and later stacking them using Photoshop or other programs, you cut down on the digital noise and are able to take shots with a lower f stop, resulting in capturing more stars.  My final shot of the night was taken using the following settings:  18mm, 29 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100 and I took 60 consecutive shots, effectively giving me total of 30 minutes of photos.  These shots were taken 1:30-2am.  Using a setting on the remote, I left one second between each shot to give the camera time to save the 29 second image it just captured.  I then used a program called "Startrails" to stack all 60 images on top of each other, using the lighten blending mode.  This could also be accomplished in Photoshop using layers.  I was very happy with the result:

18mm, 29 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100, 60 consecutive shots

I was able to capture many more stars due to the wider aperture, my digital noise was very low, I now positioned a tree in the frame for some reference, and I positioned the shot to capture the north star.  Other than some slight blurring in the tree (the wind was slightly blowing) and some whisps of clouds on the bottom right, I was very pleased with the result.  Stacking consecutive images definitely seems like the best method of taking star trails photos.  

Second night:  Now that I had one successful star trail photo using the stacking method, I wanted to try taking more shots (to get longer trails) and increase the ISO (to capture more stars.)  I used these settings for my second shot:  18mm, 29 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 and I took 239 consecutive shots, capturing almost two hours of star trails.  After stacking the images, I noticed the problem of airplane trails all over my photos:

18mm, 29 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200, 239 consecutive shots

Compared to the previous night, I took these photos much earlier: 9-11pm.  This resulted in many more airplanes flying through my frame.  To be exact, 70 of the 239 photos had airplane trails in them, and some of the planes took three photos (a minute and a half) to get through my frame.  I tried simply removing the 70 frames from my stacked photo, but as you can see, that just resulted in broken star trails and a horrible Morse code effect:

70 (out of 240) photos removed due to airplane trails

I finally went through the tedious process of cleaning out only the airplane trails from each of the 70 affected photos using the clone stamp tool in Photoshop.  It took a couple of hours, but eventually I had a great star trails photo:

Airplane trails edited out of 70 photos using Photoshop

My favorite part of this photo is a shooting star that I captured.  If you find the highest point of the left tree, and move up the image you can see the shooting star as a small diagonal trail.  It was easy to tell that shooting star apart from the airplane trails, since it started and stopped over only an inch of my image, rather than travel through the entire image.

Conclusions:  After trying a shot simply leaving the shutter open for 30 minutes, and trying the method of stacking consecutive shorter exposure shots, I would highly recommend the stacking method.  There was much less digital noise and I was able to capture many more stars due to the wider aperture.  I also liked the look of increasing the ISO to 200 for my second evening's shot.  The increased sensor sensitivity allowed me to capture more stars and also gave the sky a slightly bluer look to it, rather than dark black.  In the future I look forward to taking more star trails photos.  I hope to try taking four hours worth of shots and try something a bit more exciting in the foreground, like a building.

Boston Final Cut Pro User Group meeting recap: 7/21/11

The EP Levine store and location of this month's BOSFCPUG meeting

Last night's Boston Final Cut Pro User Group meeting was an enjoyable evening of guest speakers, product demos, and on a 95 degree day, robust air conditioning.  The event was held at EP Levine in Waltham.  EP Levine is a camera store with many goodies for still photographers and those that shoot video with DSLRs.  The also have a nice studio space, where the BOSFCPUG event was held.  My coworkers, Kevin and Geoff, enjoyed digging through the cases of used lenses.  Geoff couldn't pull the trigger on a tilt shift lens he was eyeing, but Kevin ended up making a purchase.  As he mentioned, EP Levine's prices were comparable to what he found online for the same lens, and he has the piece of mind of buying from a local retailer.

One piece of news jumped out at me:  Daniel Berube mentioned that the Boston SuperMeet is tentatively scheduled for October 20th, but the date may change to accommodate the schedule of a "special guest."  Who could it be?  Maybe Larry Jordan, or Kevin Smith (who was bumped from the Vegas SuperMeet), or maybe Apple executives begging us to stick with FCP X.  We shall see.  Last year's Boston SuperMeet was a very fun evening, as was this year's SuperMeet at NAB.

As usual, Daniel Berube worked very hard to put together another action packed evening for all of us.  The evening's speakers started with Jay Ignaszewski from AJA, then Charles Roberts from Fitchburg State University, followed by Gary Oberbrunner from GenArts, and Steve Martin wrapped up the speaking portion of the event.  The evening ended with a screening of DSLR shorts, and a raffle.  Unfortunately, my coworkers and I needed to duck out after Steve Martin's talk, so I have no details about the screening or raffle for you. 

Jay Ignaszewski started the evening with information about AJA's products interacting with Final Cut Pro X.  There was a good deal of concern from the other BOSFCPUG members about external monitoring and exporting out to tape.  This AJA document does a much better job than I can do of summing up what Jay talked about.

The next speaker was Charles Roberts, a faculty member at Fitchburg State University that teaches video production.  I found Charles to be a very engaging speaker, with lots of enthusiasm for teaching.  One comment that stuck with me is something that he stresses to his students:  don't lose out on jobs because you only know one piece of NLE software, or because you're fiercely loyal to using only one NLE.  Expand your knowledge so you're ready to step into any job and use any piece of video production software that they throw at you.  As he said, there's many ways to get the same job done, and most times you don't get to choose what tools you have to use.  The meat of Charles' talk focused on using FCP 7 to inject DSLR footage, send it to Avid Media Composer for edit, send it to Apple Color (with the help of an EDL) for grading, then complete the roundtrip back into FCP 7 for final export.  I personally couldn't imagine me having the need to do this, but it was interesting to see the process.  All in all, I hope to hear more from Charles at future BOSFCPUG meetings.

Next up was Gary Oberbrunner from GenArts demoing their Sapphire Edge effects package.  GenArts is located right down the road from me in Cambridge, MA.  They make some very impressive effects packages used by major film and video productions.  Gary focused on the Sapphire Edge plug-in package, which, as he described, is 15 transitions and 4 filters.  Even though that seems kind of limited, each transition and filter has numerous presets and settings that can be changed, giving you hundreds of pre-built looks.  I was very impressed with the effects Gary showed us.  Gary focused on using these Sapphire Edge plug-ins in FCP 7, because, as he showed us, they're still working out the kinks of integrating these plug-ins into FCP X.  He showed us how FCP X unexpectedly quits when some of the plug-ins are used, so it's still very much in the beta testing stage.  The Sapphire Edge package is $299 and includes a one year subscription to their FX Central website.

A crummy cell phone pic of Steve Martin presenting to all of us

The final speaker of the evening was the keynote speaker, Steve Martin.  Steve is an Apple Certified trainer, founder of Ripple Training, and was one of the first to get their hands on FCP X.  In addition to speaking this evening, he is also teaching an eight hour FCP X workshop on 7/22.  Sorry to say, if you're reading this recap, it's too late...you missed it.  Since my employer doesn't have plans to switch to FCP X anytime soon, I opted to not attend the workshop.  Steve is an excellent trainer, so I'm sure that those attending the workshop are finding it valuable.  I was first introduced to Steve when I took Post Production World classes at the NAB Show this year.  I didn't take a full course from Steve, but he did pop into a couple of the classes I took to contribute.  He really knows his stuff and knows how to teach it, so if you have the chance to catch a talk or class from Steve, don't miss it.  I would love to see him back at a BOSFCPUG meeting very soon.

Steve's talk focused on common myths surrounding FCP X, but really just turned into a very helpful collection of tips and tricks to get us acclimated to the new interface and features.  Since I have yet to install and use FCP X, this was a nice way for me to get motivated to start using it.  I'll summarize some of the key points that stood out to me, but keep your eye on the BOSFCPUG webpage, since Daniel arranged to have Steve's entire talk recorded.  I'm sure they're editing the video and will post it ASAP.

• FCP X and DSLR footage:  Steve showed us the process of transcoding DSLR footage to ProRes in the background as you work.  The "create optimized media" check box in the import window is your friend, if this is what you're looking to do.
• Turn a stereo audio clip into two mono tracks:  control click on the stereo audio track and select "break apart clip items" to split into two mono tracks
• Steve showed us FCP X's ability to edit sub frame audio
• As goofy as the labeling is, Steve's demo of the "Ken Burns" button looks like a painless way to pan and zoom still images.  Just a more user friendly method than doing it with keyframes.
• Steve showed us that when you paste effects in FCP X ("paste attributes" in FCP 7), you can't pick and choose which effects/attributes you do and don't want to paste.  That was a nice feature of older FCP versions that has been eliminated from FCP X.  You now just have to paste all the copied effects and turn off those you don't want in the inspector window.
• During the Q&A portion of the evening, someone asked Steve about preserving Photoshop layers when you import into FCP X.  Unfortunately, the answer is that it won't do it.   You can do it in Motion, just not directly in FCP X.
• Someone asked Steve about FCP X's multicam editing support, and he confirmed that even though it doesn't currently have that feature, it's something that Apple will integrate into a future update.  No word on when, though.  This is one of many reasons why we can't currently use FCP X for our projects.
• Steve ended his talk by presenting the idea of using the AirDisplay app on your iPad to wirelessly create a second monitor with your iPad.  He said that there's a very slight, but hardly noticeable bit of lag on the iPad.

Since Steve's livelihood relies on people wanting to be trained on Apple software, he made sure to throw a few "don't give up on Final Cut" promos in his talk.  I don't think anyone denies the fact that FCP X has a bunch of great new or redesigned features.  It's just lacking features in some really key areas, and video professionals can't wait around for future updates to address those issues.  With Avid and Adobe offering discounts on Media Composer and Premiere, it'll be very interesting to see how all of this plays out.

As I mentioned, we weren't able to stick around for the screening and raffle at the end of the evening.  All in all, it was another informative and motivating BOSFCPUG meeting.  As usual, I look forward to next month's meeting!

Boston Final Cut Pro User Group meeting recap: 6/14/11

View of Boston harbor from this month's BOSFCPUG meeting on the 33rd floor

Another Boston Final Cut Pro User Group meeting is in the books, and as usual, it was an enjoyable evening.  This month's meeting took place at the University of Massachusetts Club in Boston's financial district.  I think Daniel Berube had to schedule this month's meeting a week early since he'll be in the U.K. next week for the London SuperMeet.  Unfortunately, there wasn't any news about a Final Cut Pro X release, since there wasn't an announcement made at Apple's June 6th WWDC.  This month's meeting featured Ken LaRue discussing Autodesk Smoke for Mac 2012, the always entertaining Bob Russo talking about Avid's Media Composer 5.5, , and Jay Ignaszewski talking about AJA's tapeless workflow solutions.  As usual, the evening concluded with the Big Dig Raffle, which featured an AJA KiPro Mini.

I was especially interested in Bob's Media Composer presentation, since I use Premiere and Final Cut, and haven't had much exposure to Media Composer.  I was also looking forward to hearing from Jay, since I enjoy keeping up with tapeless workflow solutions.

Ken LaRue talking Autodesk Smoke

Ken LaRue started off the evening with an Autodesk Smoke demo.  Ken is a great speaker, and ran a very nice demo.  I have never used this program before, but this is the second demo I've seen of it.  Ken kept pushing the fact that we all use multiple programs to get the job done (Final Cut, Photoshop, After Effects, etc.) and Smoke combines the power of those programs into one package.  Smoke really provides some powerful tools for editing, motion graphics, 3D effects, titling, keying, color correction, motion tracking and Photoshop type painting tools.  Here are some of the highlights from Ken's demo, along with some opinions from me:

• At first glance, the Smoke GUI is very cluttered and utilitarian.  Ken stressed that as you use the program, you start to get more comfortable with the layout.  Looking at it for the first time, you just see a screen cluttered with many buttons in no apparent logical order.  Ken was using what looked to be a Wacom tablet and pen to navigate.
• Smoke offers very impressive tracking tools.  Ken showed us some tracking demos, and Smoke handled multiple tracking points very quickly.
• There's lots of rendering to be done after you apply all of Smoke's various tools.  Ken rendered everything, rather than show it in real time unrendered playback.  He was using a nice Mac Pro with a powerful Nvidia graphics card (I forget what model he mentioned), so the renders were pretty fast.
• Obviously, Smoke integrates well with other Autodesk programs like 3D Studio Max and Maya.  Ken was importing 3D objects created in 3D Studio Max and had the ability to manipulate them in Smoke.
• Smoke has node based aspects to it as you start to apply the available tools, so that node window can get very cluttered and hard to read.  Ken flew around the node window very quickly, so I'm sure it's something that comes with using the program.
• The retail price for Smoke is $15,000, so their target market isn't the low end video production pro.  Their demo video featured many high end post production houses using Smoke for feature films and national commercials. 

Bob Russo discussing Avid Media Composer 5.5

The next speaker was Bob Russo talking about Avid Media Composer 5.5.  The last time I heard Bob speak was at the November 2010 BOSFCPUG meeting at WGBH.  I have never used any of Avid's products, so I was interested in getting an introduction to MC 5.5.  Here are some highlights from Bob's talk, along with my opinions.  Remember, I'm new to MC 5.5, so you might think "duh, they've had that for years" to some of my observations:

• MC 5.5 now supports the AJA IO Express to capture footage.  To end a debate I had with a couple coworkers over a few beers one night, Bob pronounced it "A.J.A." (the letters), not "Ahh-Jaa" (phonetically).
• Bob started with a demo of combining multiple formats and varying frame rates on the same timeline.
• Bob continued on to show us a multicam edit.  The process and interface looked very similar to multicam edits in Final Cut and Premiere.
• ScriptSync is Avid's tool for linking your media to a text file containing your script.  Bob had footage shot for a very cheesy small budget film, along with the script.  ScriptSync was able to process the text in the script and sync it with the same text spoken in the footage.
• Bob's next demo showed us how to manipulate clips in the timeline using the tools we're familiar with in FCP and Premiere:  ripple, roll, etc.  Bob also showed us that it's easy to simply click on a transition in the timeline to adjust duration.
• Bob threw in a little sales pitch for some control surfaces that will integrate well with MC 5.5.  Avid purchased Euphonix a year ago, so those were the control surfaces featured.
• PhraseFind is a feature in MC 5.5 that will scan the audio in your media and catalog it to make a searchable database.  It phonetically catalogs the dialogue, so Bob mentioned that you also need to think and type phonetically when you're searching.  I imagine it has the same issues as text to speech conversion, but just in reverse.

(L to R) Bob, Ken and Jay Ignaszewski from AJA

The last speaker of the evening was Jay Ignaszewski from AJA.  Here are the highlights from Jay's presentation:

• Talking about the Ki Pro, Jay said "right now it's just ProRes".  Does that mean that AJA is working on offering multiple codecs, like the Cinedeck Extreme that can record to ProRes, Avid's DNxHD and Cineform?  Or it means nothing and I'm digging too much into his comment.
• Only a few compact flash card manufacturers are approved by AJA for use in the Ki Pro Mini.  Obviously they've had issues with cheap cards not being able to keep up with the bandwidth required to capture ProRes 422 HQ (which is 220 Mbps).
• It's easiest to connect the Ki Pro Mini to a laptop via ethernet and make settings adjustments with the software interface.  The screen on the unit looks pretty small.

As is customary at BOSFCPUG meetings, the evening concluded with the Big Dig Raffle.  Daniel had the usual assortment of Focal Press books, FCP plug-in packages, Adobe Production Premium CS5.5, and an AJA Ki Pro Mini.  I've been unlucky for the past few BOSFCPUG raffles, as well as the huge raffle at the NAB Vegas SuperMeet, but tonight my luck turned around.  I won this little beauty:

Big Dig Raffle prize winner!

Now, I fully appreciate the fact that I was a winner this time, but even Daniel essentially admitted that this was a re-gifter.  I haven't tried it out yet, but I can't imagine this is a rig that Zucuto will be selling anytime soon.  I especially like how it has no brand name.  This generic baby is straight out of a Lillian Vernon catalog!  The best part is the creepy mustache that the model on the box is sporting:

Creepy

I was thinking of asking the winner of the Ki Pro Mini to trade with me, but he left before I could hunt him down.

Next month's Boston Final Cut Pro User Group meeting will focus on the newly released (hopefully on Tuesday) FCP X and will feature Steve Martin (the FCP trainer, not the comedian).  Steve is a great trainer and I look forward to seeing him.  My coworker, Kevin McGowan, took a couple Post Production World classes taught by Steve this year at NAB and really enjoyed them.

I'm a big fan of the BOSFCPUG, so if you live in the Boston area, keep an eye on their website for news about the July meeting.  I hope to see you there!

Boston Final Cut Pro User Group meeting recap: 5/25/11

My coworker, Kevin, and I attended the Boston Final Cut Pro Users Group meeting on May 25th, so I figured I would post a quick recap for all of you.  The venue was Rule Boston Camera Rental, and as usual, Daniel Berube put together a fun and informative event.  The featured speakers were Philip Hodgetts speaking about the new Final Cut Pro X and Yan Shvalb speaking about some new features in Adobe After Effects CS5.5.  The evening ended with a few screenings of shorts made with DSLR cameras, and of course, a nice little raffle.

Crummy cell phone pic of Philip Hodgetts presenting at the 5/25 BOSFCPUG meeting

Philip Hodgetts was invited to talk about the new features in FCP X, but since Apple's released no new news since the SuperMeet at NAB in April, Philip made it very clear that he would be talking about features talked about at SuperMeet, educated guesses he has, and complete speculation.  He mentioned that he doesn't have a copy of the program to show, and even if he did, he would be bound by non-disclosure agreements from Apple.  Since I was lucky enough to attend SuperMeet in Vegas, and I've read many articles and blog posts about FCP X, I really thought he would just be rehashing news that I already knew, but that turned out to not be the case.  Philip's really examined all the FCP X news out there with a fine tooth comb, even going so far as transcribing the SuperMeet presentation and reviewing high def footage shot at SuperMeet to really explore every screenshot.  Philip's not only a video production pro, but he also is a software programmer, so he really likes speculating on the new programming architecture of FCP X.

Again, much of this is simply educated guesses from Philip, but here's a quick list of his points that I found interesting:

• FCP X will work on any Intel based Mac.  He heard from a beta tester that he was having good luck using it on a Mac Book Air.
• As you can see in this screenshot, there's an AJA KiPro listed using the H.264 codec, rather than the ProRes codec it actually records to.  I'm sure it was just a mock up screenshot released by Apple and was a simple typo, but still funny.
• Even though many people are calling it iMovie Pro, FCP X doesn't share any code with iMovie.  iMovie is QuickTime based, and FCP X isn't.
• FCP X is very metadata heavy.  It relies on source (camera created) metadata, as well as derived (user created or auto created by FCP features like face detection) metadata.  As you can see on his blog, Philip is very into metadata.
• You will be able to disable the footage auto correction features at ingest (audio correction, color correction, etc.)
• Rolling shutter correction will be included in the program
• Using keywording features in FCP X is essentially like creating a subclip.  You will be able to tag a portion of your footage, creating a searchable subclip.
• In the motion options for a clip, there's actually a button labeled "Ken Burns effect", to add zoom and pan motion to stills.  I guess that phrase is now a generally used term, like Kleenex.
• Philip thinks FCP X will be easier to use than previous versions of FCP, unfortunately resulting in less work for his friends that are FCP trainers.
• He heard (from an informed source) that there's still a way to create fixed audio tracks, so you can have set tracks for V.O, music, SFX, etc.  Handy for those that have to output to something like ProTools for a final mix.
• Changing the speed of a clip will be much easier than in previous versions of FCP.  No more clumsy speed changing graph.
• Philip did mention that some of his software programs that he's created will become obsolute because of new features in FCP X.
• He believes that the new program will incorporate gesture support via an external touch pad.

Crummy cell phone pic of Yan Shvalb presenting at the 5/25 BOSFCPUG meeting

The second presenter of the evening was Yan Shvalb, telling us about some new features in Adobe After Effects CS5.5.  He started by showing us a great wedding video that he created for a couple that had a destination wedding in the Bahamas.  He shot the video using Canon 5D Mark II DSLR cameras.  It was a very nice looking piece.  Yan used a close up shot of the wedding rings on a twig to show us all AE's new Warp Stabilizer effect.  I won't rehash all the features on here, but I will say that it's very impressive.  Yan even used it to stabilize some shaky iPhone footage, and used the effect's rolling shutter correction to fix some iPhone jello.

Yan also showed us the new Camera Lens Blur effect in AE CS5.5.  Rather than simply blurring your image like other blur effects, Camera Lens Blur will create a more realistic looking blur, as if it was created by an out of focus camera lens.  Lights in your image will be blurred simulating the iris blades in a lens.  Yan also used a ramp matte to control the location of the Camera Lens Blur effect, and give his image some great, simulated depth of field.  You can animate that to give the effect of pulling focus.  Yan is a very creative and knowledgable guy, and I look forward to hearing him speak again in the future.

The next portion of the evening was three screenings of shorts shot using DSLR cameras.  The first screening was a trailer for The Visualmakers, which is a short film being produced and directed by Paul Antico.  This short film will look at the creative video professionals that have embraced DSLR cameras to shoot video.  It features interviews with many creative video pros, including Philip Bloom and Vincent Laforet, and was shot during the 2011 NAB convention in Vegas.  I look forward to seeing this film, which has a target release in July and will be free on Paul's Vimeo page. 

The next short was edited by Colin (sorry, didn't get his last name) and was a new video from The Super Secret Project.  This comedy group produces some pretty funny videos that go viral, and they're based out of Boston.  This screening was a Law & Order based music video that was very funny.  Keep an eye on their YouTube page for it.

The final screening was a pretty moving short from Rick Macomber titled One Day on Earth 10-10-10 Salem.  It was a great piece about a homeless man in Salem, Mass, that's dealing with overcoming alcoholism.  Rick shot it using his Canon T2i.

The evening ended as BOSFCPUG meetings usually do, with a nice raffle.  Unfortunately, I went home empty handed.  The large prizes were a copy of DiVinci Resolve, and a copy of Adobe Production Premium CS5.5.

Daniel mentioned that future BOSFCPUG meetings will feature Adobe and Avid presentations, and the July meeting will be dedicated to FCP X, which will have (hopefully) been released in June.  If you live in the Boston area and you're involved with video production, you should really attend the BOSFCPUG meetings.  Don't let the name scare you, there's plenty of Avid and Adobe users there too.  It's always an informative and inspiring evening.

Adobe offeres "full" trial version of Premiere Pro CS5.5 in May

The news of Adobe offering a fully functional trial version of Premiere Pro CS5.5 in May is a great marketing ploy, since there's another company releasing some other editing program doohickey in June.  Plus, this will free us from all the "how come I can't edit my AVCHD footage with the CS5 trial version?" posts on the Creative Cow Premiere forum.  On second thought, those were the questions I actually knew the answer to!  Oh well.

NAB 2011: Exhibit floor

Even though my main objective at the NAB show was to take the Post Production World classes, I still managed to spend a decent amount of time wandering the massive exhibit halls.  This was my first trip to the NAB Show, but I had heard stories about the size of the show floor.  I won't even try to recap all the booths we visited and all the gear we played with, but here's some highlights from the week.

I attended the InfoComm show a couple of years ago, so coming into NAB this year I knew the importance of putting together an exhibit hall plan before I stepped in the Las Vegas Convention Center.  I had my list of exhibitors I needed to see, had my floor map all circled and marked up, yet stepped on the floor as was totally overwhelmed by the size of this show.  I spent the first half of day one wandering aimlessly in the south hall, but I was still able to hit many of the booths on my list.  Plus, the upside to just wandering is that you discover some of the smaller booths that you would never think to put on your list.

Image:  if you're agoraphobic, NAB isn't the show for you

My "best demo" of the show goes to Don Ballance at the TriCaster booth.  Not only is the TriCaster a very cool portable production studio, but Don did a great job demoing the system.  I swear that man talked for four straight days.

Image:  Don Ballance giving a TriCaster demo

The Adobe booth was a close second, with a large demo theater and a packed schedule of popular instructors.  I was able to catch Richard Harrington teaching some of the new Production Premium CS5.5 features.  He's a great trainer.  I was also able to watch an Adobe demo/class taught by another one of my favorites:  Jason Levine.

Image:  Richard Harrington demoing at the Adobe booth theater

My "craziest booth" award would have to go to the RED camera people.  They had a tattoo parlor there with people getting tattooed all week, all while shooting it on multiple RED cameras.  I guess that's their way of setting themselves apart from all the other traditional camera companies.

Image:  the live tattoo parlor at the RED booth

Sticking with the camera theme, I had lots of fun over in the ARRI booth playing with a fully loaded Alexa.

Image:  Most likely the only time I'll get my hands on the ARRI Alexa

The award for "sexiest product" has to go to the Grass Valley Kayenne video switcher.  I guess I'm a sucker for buttons and pretty colors.

Image:  flashy Grass Valley Kayenne switcher

My "camera that I most want to play with" award goes to the Phantom v641 high speed camera.  2,560 FPS at 1080!  I could easily make my own home version of Mythbusters with that toy.

Image:  Phantom v461 high speed camera

I was glad to see a few companies jumping on the Thunderbolt bandwagon.  Promise Technology has some nice looking four and six drive RAIDs coming out this summer that use a Thunderbolt connection, as does G-Technology.

Image:  Thunderbolt is coming to G-Technology drives

My coworker and I were keeping an eye open for any camera mounted recording devices.  We really liked the AJA Ki Pro and Ki Pro Mini.  SDI and HDMI inputs, balanced audio inputs and records to Apple ProRes ...works for our workflow.  On the higher end of things is the impressive Cinedeck Extreme.  With a nice built-in preview monitor, it will record to ProRes, Avid DNxHD or CineForm.  Too much for what we're looking for, but fun to play with.

Image:  Cinedeck Extreme

Since we work closely with the IT department, who handles storage, encoding and streaming of the lecture video we acquire, we also visited many booths peddling ingest, encoding, shared storage, and streaming services.  Two companies that caught our eye were building4media and Edit Share.

Image:  Edit Share's shared storage solutions

Since we work for a university that has hundreds of classrooms, we also were interested in remote camera control for installed cameras.  We spent a good deal of time at the Telemetrics booth getting a feel for their camera control units and pan/tilt heads that might integrate with our existing Crestron control systems.

Image:  Telemetrics RCP control panel

We spent most of our time in the south hall, where post production and distribution & delivery were housed.  The central hall (video acquisition & production) was also a popular spot to find us.  We really didn't spend much time in the north hall (management & systems), since we really deal with the video acquisition and post end of things.  We ended up making the most of our show floor time, almost closing the place down on Thursday afternoon.

All in all, the exhibit floor was exhausting, but it was great checking out all the new gear and services.  Looking at the increased attendance this year (92,708 people, up 4,600 compared to last year), I would say the video production industry is a pretty healthy one right now.