102 Year-Old Lens on Canon 5D MkII

"Timur Civan is a director of photography for movies, and a photographer. He’s also a tinkerer, and he got his hands on an old Wollensak 35mm F5.0 Cine-Velostigmat, a hand cranked movie-camera lens from 1908. You see it above, wedded to his Canon 5D MkII. But where did it come from? ... "

Rethink books?

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

Canon love.

Dragon Stop Motion

In preparation for upgrading our animation program, I've spent time exploring Dragon Stop Motion software. Currently, we've been using iStop Motion from Boinx with SD camcorders. In an effort to match the output quality of our animation program to our other classes, we're moving to HD. While iStop Motion is a simple software with a clean interface (one-button-capture/live preview) it's HD offerings were zero and iStop Motion Pro 2 is not much better. iStop has a preference for HDV camcorders and has very little support for other camera systems, specifically no Live View from video capabale SLRs. Live view is one of the most important features during the actual animation process.

I had first encountered Dragon Stop Motion during our Spring 09 semester and decided to give it a try. Everything from the interface options to the camera control was outstanding. Its Cinematography Window allows the user to control shutter speed, aperature and ISO directly from the computer (requires a DSLR). Using one of our Canon EOS Rebel T2i's I made a few short test clips and really got to experience a lot of what the software had to offer. The image below was captured through the Rebel using the test shot feature in the Cinematography Window:

 Click on above the image for an expanded view at 5184×3456

Dragon Stop Motion allows for Live Preview by locking the mirror of a video capable DSLR. With clever/intuitive features, a logical file organization system and updated camera support, Dragon surpasses my expectations. I'll continue to experiment with the software, but the love affair has begun - a romance if you will.

KINO FLO PRACTICALS! CFLS!

 This is great. Head on on over to John Fauer's, Film and Digital Times.

HTML5

Holy cool stuff, Batman! If you haven't heard of HTML5 or it's amazing capabilities yet, please do yourself a favor check check out this video. It's a nice introduction and explanation of HTML5 that even non-programmers will appreciate. If you use the web (what's up, everyone on Earth?) get excited!

Introduction to HTML 5 from Brad Neuberg on Vimeo.

3D Printing

For the written word: "3-D Printing Spurs A Manufacturing Revolution"