Chris Lambert

Here's hoping other manufacturers follow suit about time something like this started to happen. So how long till we get a Android OS budget camera... www.semedia.co.uk UK video production for the corporate sector

Does anyone have any idea of how much the components of the BMCC are capable of? I hope we may one day see the compressed raw, new pro res scaling, audio improvements, delete clips options, but how much of this is feasible with the hardware and is it all possible at once. Personally I would kill for a histogram, false colour, waveform or anything other than zebra too help me know what my exposure is without having too connect to something via thunderbolt. Off the shelf Thunderbolt to HDMI adapters working would also be a close second on the list.

Hi everyone Was hoping for some advice I'm shooting a live event this weekend where I will be positioned on a little stage to film a catwalk having done the show last year I was infuriated by bouncing from people sitting on the stand, stills photographers moving etc. As the flooring is not even and bounces. Does anyone have any tips to help alleviate this? I was thinking of going to a local DIY store and purchasing a big thick block of wood to place the tripod on top of but if anyone had any equally practical ideas short of screaming my head of at people moving inconsideratly it would be a big help. Chris

Hi all I've recently been running into a few issues with my Libec Ls38 I've been filming for a few years now having upgraded quite quickly from the LS TH920? (i think) a few years prior due to the lack of weight it could handle which is a shame as I miss it to be honest. I'm now beginning to have some serious issues with my LS38 it was always coming loose anyway from the time i bought it when doing tilts from low to high (always at the low end) but now the head is reguarly coming loose and gradually moving off balance during pans!? Does anyone know how this could have occured? A month or so ago I packaged the ball and head seperatley from one another and the only thing I can think of is that perhaps the bubble wrap i wrapped the head in may have removed some form of lubrication which has gradually been erroding at the ball head and might explain the slipping now? Is there any long shot I could do to counteract this? or is this ballhead basically dead now should this be the case? Even if it is the case as it's not something I've heard/ run into before. Any help/ thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Chris

Thanks Chris I believe the Bouy is plastic/rubber I'm not too worried about retrieving anything apart from the GoPro at the end of it all

Hi all Does anyone have any suggestion with mounting GoPro's underwater? I am working on a docu next week and the director wants to mount go pro's to the underside of Bouy's with a bait trap below with the aim of hopefully getting footage of sharks. Any suggestions on going about this? I was thinking of removing the bouys drying them out, and then attaching the adhesive mounts to the underside and perhaps rig up some kind of cable tie backup should something happen. My main concern is how does the adhesive hold up to water, and more specifically salt water? Also considering our targets are attracted to electrical signals is there any likelyhood of them munching on the gear, i know it's plastic contained but Sharks are extremely sensitive to electrical signals We will be using the flat lenses for improved sharpness also.

Howdy folks Recently realised the G3's I've purchased last yr were all set to Ch.38 rather than 70, now obviously no one's payed me a visit until now but I don't much fancy breaking the law if I can avoid it, however after sitting down for a few min and reading the manual I can't figure out how to change it, i've played around with the frequency but the bandwith isn't even breaking out of the 600's... Could some kind person out there please give me an idiots guide to resolving this. ps. Ofcom if you are reading this don't put me in the slammer with the big burly men. Thanks in advance Chris

Sorry Phil maybe I wasn't clear I already stopped the lens down beyond 5.6 and zoomed throughout the range and the issue is still there

Hello Firstly I don't shoot too often with this lense generally I use Nikon manuals but haven't coughed up for the anything wider than 24mm at present. I was using the 18-55 stock lens today and was wondering if anyone else has seen or experience this when zooming to the long end of the lens I am experiencing a weird iris issue even on apertures slower that the long end of the lens 5.6 it seems to ramp up and down throughout the range with a noticeable shift in light. Is this normal iso and shutter were not set too auto or anything like that. tried both the switches on the lens IS and Auto focus but I am still getting the issue as well as hearing the opening and closing of the iris. Is this normal?

Hi all I was tasked with producing a promo video for BVE North this year in Manchester whilst there Shane Meadows, director of This is England, Dead Man Shoes and many other classics was speaking about his use of Sony cameras and his career in general and I thought it maybe of use to the people on this forum. I shot this myself with the aim of using a few key phrases in the promo so the camera does drift about slightly (though not much) as I look for wides, etc. but the content maybe of use to people.

Hi all Apologies first of all about posting here but I updated my t20/550d to magic lantern this eve with the aim of using the recording splitter on it for a wedding tomorrow (550d is the safety cam) unfortunatly the option appears to be missing from the trashcan menu I'm in a bit of a rush sorting all this out as I only learnt about the feature at the sameish time of learning my work details for the next few days so havent had time to properly reseatch both. but on the v1.09 550d that I have installed the firmware on v.1.0.9-ml-2010d i cannot see the option in the menus only what is under audio, video, shoot, brack, focus and debug. i believe it should be under shoot but only interval time: intervalometer, lcd remoteshot and trap focus exist as options. If anyone could tell me briefly what I am missing it would be a massive help, or better yet link me to whatever is missing. sorry to flood these boards again with my 550d problems for the 2nd time this month but i lack the time to organise and test to my usual standards right now. Chris

I haven't no, but seeing as how i've only used non windows vista systems since then i haven't encountered this problem once! in several weeks of filming, just wish i could recover those damaged files.

have managed to do it once copying 3 full sd cards onto vista, the clips still played in camera. looks like I will always have to check the files all play on comp before any formats in future. sucks for the clips that are lost though as even though it was only a C camera having to explain to a client why those files dont work is not going to be a fun experience

It was a card reader on a Dell Vostro running Win Vista... (i know.) basically my win7 netbook died several weeks ago and im using it as a workaround while i debate what to purchase next. The card reader was an internal one and has never been a problem for anything else including my EX3 file transfers, it seems to work ok transferring like this on windows xp desktop which makes me think it could be vista

I have managed to replicate it too a point I basically shot on a series of cards and copied and pasted them to a folder on my Windows Vista machine... I didnt do anything crazy like cut off during recording etc just do my best to use the camera as much as possible in continuous bursts and one of the clips showed as corrupt. This has led me to believe it could be Vista doing this, my win7 netbook died 2 weeks outside of warranty a few weeks ago and was using it as a legit workaround until i could afford better seems to be most likely answer thhus far as clips still worked in camera. And when i decided the test was complete and sent the files to the recycle bin only to promptly change my mind only the .mov files were copied back not any jpegs I took to put some more strain on the card. The comp then promptly blue screened and the jpegs were never seen again... Moral of this story buy a mac, and if you cant afford one. steal a mac.

i copied the contents back to a card and only one of the clips is showing but that was also the one which was playing in the PC. video repair tool v1.61 seems to have some success with the first sequential tracks and then all the info it salvages it gives the same footage too otherwise i'd happily cough up the £100 it costs for the future awaiting to hear what they think as obviously some of it is recoverable. downside is I have another this saturday so really need to get my ahead around this asap

Hi Phil Thanks for the reply I bought the cards off of Amazon one of their trusted resellers £30 each and one of the cards that played up was bought directly from them I believe but that was just a crappy transcend which i try to steer well clear off but stupidly thought on this occasion I'd be ok

Hello All I recently purchased a Canon 550d (t2i I believe in the states) basically the first shoot I was using this on has ended in disaster the 550d was the safety cam on a wedding I was filming, I shot two cards and filled the pair. All seemed fine until upon looking at the footage back on the PC a few days later I realised that all except the first 2-3 clips on each card were corrupt with both quicktime and vlc player refusing to play them. What could have caused this? I was using Sandisk Extreme 30mbps class 10 cards as well as a Transcend class 10 card but the problem seems to have occurred on both. Now what I am wondering as an Sony EX3 user is if I had a moment of stupidity and ejected one of the cards mid shooting or me ficking the off switch on the camera once the screen had gone dark had triggered this I have tried replicating this but so far have not had any success though I was trying to replicate it on one of the Sandisk Extreme Pro Cards (45mbps) which makes me think that card speed could be the issue though I thought the 550d wrote at about 3-4mbps so the 30 of the card should leave plenty of room as the EX3 hasn't struggled with those cards. Could workflow in post be the issue as with the EX3 we would use XDCAM clip browser to copy the contents should I be using Canon or similar software to do this? On the day I just copied the contents of the folder to the HDD assuming as the files are all contained in one file this wouldnt loose any metadata. I have had some success with Video Repair tool (demo version) but this seems for the later clips on the card to turn them into one identical file, though other ones appear salvageable but obviously knowing you have a 3 in 8 chance of a clip working is not exactly great. Luckily this was a three camera shoot so all should be saved ok, but i'd obviously rather replicate and learn before i next run into anything similar otherwise seems a nice little camera for the price but can't believe I have run into so many problems on something this basic! Shooting format was 1920x1080 25p no photos were taken on the card

Hi all Like many of you I am currently weighing up the pro's and con's of various uncompressed recorders for a upcoming documentary which needs to be broadcast friendly. A lot of the information I keep coming across online mentions that the EX1/3 uncompressed doesn't look too dissimilar from compressed because of the high noise floor. This begs the question if it is incredibly difficult to spot the difference side by side, massive amounts of CC will not be required and no screen is planned. Will it be possible to cheat the bittrate in post production eg. a Video Mixdown in avid at MXF 10bit. Of course I would rather shoot to be safe but if there will be no discern able difference and the broadcasters would never broadcast at 100mbps anyway then perhaps cheating is the best option? I mean the Atomos Samurai has a release date of late summer I believe and the Hyperdeck Shuttle will be amazing in a year or two when SSD's are actually affordable. Any thoughts?

Hi all I'm presently looking into getting a DOF adaptor (likely the SG Blade) I have seen the IR issue pop up a few times on recent projects and will be working on a documentary in the coming weeks which I would love to use blade on. My question is am I better off buying a IR filter for each lense £/$! or just a 77mm IR on the EX3 stock lense which the adaptor will have to pass all the light through anyway. Will this lead to any other issues with the image? Completly unrelated issue but I'll throw this out there anyway I recently upgraded from 1.04 to the latest firmware because of a issue I was experiencing where split clips would form on cards even if there was only one in the camera at the time! I could correct this in Clipbrowser but only if I exported the cards to another folder/format eg mxf. Has anyone run into this before? Also post update the 2nd time I turned on the camera a batt error occured this has not occured since (only used the camera twice though) should I be alarmed by these? Google hasn't returned any results vaguely useful. Thanks

Ok so Im aware I will likely sound like the worlds biggest dumb ass, but whereabouts should the brightness and for that matter contrast and sharpness dials be set to on the back of the EX3 LCD? There doesnt appear to be any information anywhere as to their correct position which I assume is half way between for the brightness. I have had several shoots come back with brightness levels that were disapointing to say the least so this is a major concern. I hope that not to many people are slapping their faces and groaning right now.

Hello I have followed the various guides as best as I can see on importing the footage into Avid but have noticed that the images in the XDCAM software appear noticeably sharper, more colourful and just superior in every way to the very same clip that has been imported into Avid Media composer as a MXF for NLEs(N) file (is there where I am going wrong) Seeing as the MXF files I understand are the original source material and no re encoding has taken place could someone please explain why the quality seems to very different? Any help would be much appreciated as googling and many trials and errors is frustrating to say the least! Thanks Chris

I was refering to the SLR lenses and the adapters that can be bought. As some SLR's have the iris contorl on the camera itself rather than the lense I was wondering how this would affect their functionality with the camera, or do some SLR lenses feature an iris ring? I know and have seen little on the 35mm adapaters that are available for the camera. I was talking in general about the fuji lenses, whether they were the best alternative to the above. Cheers

Hello all I was just wondering what people preferences over EF or Nikon lenses with this camera were? Is it better sticking with the stock? Forcing out the extra money on a Fuji wide lense? Is aperture control a problem with many of these lenses and ultimately is it worth it for either of the adapters? I'm looking to get a wider lense than the stock that came with the camera but money is a problem at the moment.

Hi David That's exactly what I meant, seems bizare that Sony would omit a feature which feels as though it should be there by intuition.