Equipment Reviews

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Lensse-DIY-GImbal

When I first started messing around with DIY builds, one of the most difficult projects to try and tackle were the Stabilizers a.k.a. or what most people associate with 'Steadicams' (that's actually a brand name). Piecing together a stage and a set of counterweights was the easiest part, but trying to locate an effective off the shelf 'Gimbal' handle was always the biggest hurdle.

Lensse-DIY-Brass-Gimbal

gim·bal (n.)
A device consisting of two rings mounted on axes at right angles to each other so that an object, such as a ship's compass, will remain suspended in a horizontal plane between them regardless of any motion of its support.

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Here's where Lensse steps in. I think this could be officially the first DSLR equipment company marketing Gimbal handles for DIY stabilizer projects. This is another move for companies to get attention from the DSLR community. IGUS stepped in after finding many of it's Linear Guide Rails were being used as Camera Sliders, and even JuicedLink offers basic accessory brackets also named DIY*. These three new Lensse Gimbals designed for Light cameras to heavier loads, are all machined from Brass sockets. Brass is a metal with lower friction qualities, but still hard enough to last for years. If you're working on a DIY project that requires Gimbals, including Cable Cams, and Helicopter Mounts, check out some of the Lensse gimbals.

Lensse-DIY-GImbal Lensse-DIY-Brass-GimbalLensse-DIY-Big-Brass-GImbal find-price-button Lensse DIY Brass Gimbals for Steadicams

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Most DSLR video guys would never notice this problem, but for photographers, it's something that happens pretty often. If you've been doing long exposures or dark images and have been seeing some stray / hot / or dead pixels, here's a tip to try before sending the camera in. This has been implemented in DSLR cameras for a very very long time and is a way to remap these pixels (hide the bad ones). Is this some type of hack job? Actually, no. Many cameras will do this automatically on start up or shut down, and it's almost impossible for any chip with millions of pixels to be 100% perfect. Here's how you do it.

First remove any lens on the camera and place the body cap. You can actually do this with a lens, but you're more prone to 'light leaks'. Place the DSLR Body cap on and for safe measure, you might want to cover it again with a dark cloth, tshirt, or dark blanket. You basically want to keep any light from leaking into the camera while performing the cleaning.

Go to the Menu > Select Sensor Cleaning > Manual Clean.

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The Mirror flips open, the camera basically should expect every pixel to be completely black, but if it's finding some white or red ones, it should remap them. After about 30 seconds, turn the power off on the camera. Now go out and test out your long exposures or dark imaging to see if those same hot pixels still show up.

Here's another tip. If you plan on buying or selling a DSLR, you can also perform a test against your sensor to see these stray or hot pixels. You can leave a lens on the camera, but just cover it up completely to prevent light leaks or sit in a very very dark room. Set the lens to 'Manual Focus', set ISO to the lowest like 100, shutter speed to say 1/60th, and aperture doesn't really matter. We're not doing long exposure here, because we don't want to confuse a Dead pixel with ISO noise. Next, take a picture. The picture should come out 'mostly' black, but this test will show some stray red or white hot pixels (unless it's already been remapped which is OK). If you're shopping for that camera, and you can't seem to get rid of those stray pixels, consider if they are so bad they would render your work useless. Again, since HD video doesn't actually use all the pixels by the time it's resized down, Video shooters may not notice something like this as easily.

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First off, sorry on this one. This little stabilizer was a tough one to talk about. There's so many different features on this stabilizer, it's mind blowing. I had to totally skip any mention about balancing it and just spent several minutes going over the different parts. If you want to learn about balancing, the BlackBird comes with an instructional DVD as well as a full booklet with lots of pretty pictures. It almost doesn't matter where you start by placing your camera, you'll always have more than enough lateral to compensate and center the camera to balance. Weather has been very spotty here and i've been caught up with other projects to really get something good online about this one.

In any case, here's a quick look and a few first time samples. There's no denying the resemblance of the design to other stabilizers on the market, but of the ones I've used (and i've used quite a few), none of them has as many different options or features as this. One thing I mention most on this blog about stabilizers, is that I find stabilizers work best when they are 'loaded up' to their max weight. This stabilizer has even been specifically designed to balance both super light and heavier cameras by adding in the Gimbal extension. Dropping the Gimbal allows the stabilizer to become extremely 'less bottom heavy', thus able to support light weight cameras. The unique 'adjustable friction gimbal' also adds to that same purpose. It's well designed, fairly priced against it's competitors, but definitely the most fully featured of the bunch all similar to this design. You might also want to check out the other video demo in this article: http://cheesycam.com/dslr-video-stabilizer-blackbird/.

You can find more information about the BlackBird Stabilizer at their website: https://www.camotionllc.com/

The BlackBird stabilizer can also be found at B&H below
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find-price-button BlackBird Camera Stabilizer by Camera Motion Research

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Vimeo member MIchel takes a chance on that odd flex DSLR rig that's been on just about everywhere lately. If you can get over the light blue and black Mortal Kombat theme, the rig converts into a few different positions to provide stable shots, and the one he has setup as a double shoulder support looks pretty functional. Setting it up in that fashion would definitely reduce the amount of camera roll. As mentioned in the video the 1/4 x 20 threaded ends could allow use of counter balance weights. When this was first brought to my attention the prices were pretty low. Not sure if demand is driving prices, but it seems to have inflated quite a bit. [Thanks MIchel]


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find-price-button Flexible DSLR Rig Shoulder Support

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Sure there's a ton of posts on this blog all about cheap gear, but it's been hard for me to show them in use. (Sorry guys, if you only knew what I do outside of this blog.) But i'm trying harder to do better, and you probably noticed that i've been working more closely with some friends to show more of how these things work out and samples of what can be achieved. Here's another piece put together by the guys to showcase how adding small lights can set the mood or tone in a scene. This small little sample piece is called 'The Boss'.

A single 500 LED Video Light Panel was set for the rim light behind 'The Boss', a Z96 was taped into a cheap reflector to throw the cliche downward spotlight, and a few Z96's were adding rim lights to the victim. Why not use all the latest LED panels that I just purchased? Well that's a different set of lights for about twice the budget. These will work just fine for someone looking to get into basic LED Video Lights. There will be another video piece shot with the new 900 LED panels that I have pretty soon, hang tight. For now, I thought it would be a good way to show that these lights are still great products including the little Z96 LED lights. The 1000 LED Video Light was used outdoors to add light through small windows on the garage, and then mainly for the scene in the end to purposely cast shadows.

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find-price-button 500 LED video light panel

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find-price-button Z96 Dimmable LED Video Lights

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find-price-button 1000 LED dimmable Video Light Panel

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Yeah I know, almost 10 months later and here I am with only the 'second' post for this 1650 watt Fluorescent Lighting kit. Why did it take so long? Well, they pretty much fell off the map after I posted about them in this old article http://cheesycam.com/1650-watt-6-bank-photo-video-lighting/. There were some smaller units available, but the 6 bank had some production issues I guess. So there was no use to posting any more information on what I thought would be a discontinued item. I'm not going to get into the specs on these, since you can find it back in the original article, but basically each Flo Tube is about 55 watts. They use a reliable italian brand bulb (here we are 10 months later) that to this day still haven't failed me - not one.

Single 6 Bank Panel

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find-price-button 1650 Watt 6 Bank Fluorescent Photo Video Light Panels

Now I use mine quite a bit in the studio, but they have some weight and fragility to them. The panels are solid metal and heavy plastic construction, it's the bulbs that could be more fragile. Not my favorite lights to travel with, but definitely one of my favorite lights to use. The light is very broad and very soft. No need for softboxes or light diffusion for these, they come out pretty flat, cover a large area, with no hot spots. Very little heat makes them great for still photography next to subjects even though they are continuous lights. Dimming is done through a series of switches that turn off a few bulbs at a time. So why consider these over LED panels? Well for starters, you could walk away with 2 of these 1650 watt 6 Bank panels + light stands for about the same price as a 'single' 1200 LED panel. These panels provide a wider area of coverage and several times more light output. So now that they are back online and available, I thought it would be good to show a quality of light sample that a single 1650 watt panel puts out. In this video the guys set it up to shoot through an indoor window in this Chess playing scene.

Double 6 Bank Light Panel Available on Amazon:

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find-price-button 1650 Watt 6 Bank Fluorescent Photo Video Light Panels

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The video above shows off a brief overview of LensBaby's interchangeable optics system such as their 'Composer' and 'Tilt Transformer'. The LensBaby optic swap system allows you to switch to different lenses with slightly different tilt-shift like effects from pinhole, zoneplate, dreamy, soft focus, vintage, fisheye, and more. Although it produced fun and creativity, I personally was not a fan of having to swap out Aperture discs. They do offer adapters that will allow you to mount manual Nikon lenses but only for MFT (Micro Four Thirds) systems and Sony NEX cameras. Well, I have to admit they've come a long way from where they originally started years ago and have just recently introduced a new 35mm Optic Lens with 12 blade adjustable Aperture and will work with Canon EF mounts. Now we're talking!

The new 'Sweet 35' optic is definitely something i'd rock just to get out and get creative. Besides the smooth bokeh you'll get from a 12 blade aperture, it has a minimum focusing distance of just over 3" inches. From F/2.5 - F/22 dialed in on the optic you can get select focus or most in focus, along with that trademark Lensbaby blur. On Full Frame Cameras, there could be a slight vignetting, but that just adds more to the popular artistic throw back look people are going for. More about Lensbaby's Optic Swap system can be found here: https://lensbaby.com/optics.php

The new Lensbaby Sweet 35 optic available for pre-order here (don't forget you'll also need the additional adapter).

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find-price-button Lensbaby Sweet 35 Selective Focus Optic w/ 12 Blade Aperture

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I've been pointed out to this TrusMT company for quite some time. I didn't bother attempting to decipher the language on the main website and just believed they were just retailers for Letus equipment. Turns out I was wrong, and they are stamping TrusMT brand logos over what 'looks like' a Letus Aluminum Hawk VF, and DSLR cage, and Shoulder Rigs. I don't think it's up to the same standards or build quality. I stand corrected as it's not a retailer selling the Letus Brand, and for the first time they've shown up on eBay with a low sticker price into the DSLR market. My guess is they won't be online for long because of the design resemblance, but we'll have to keep an eye out to see where this goes. They've actually been selling around the UK for some time under that brand, but maybe not this 'other' line of mocks. Can't go wrong with the Letus stuff, which can all be found here: https://LetusDSLR.com

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find-price-button TrusMT DSLR ViewFinder, Cages, Shoulder Rigs, Follow Focus

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iPad Tilt ShiftiPad Tilt Shift

TiltShift Generator for iPad makes for interesting photos. Several different image editing options and blur control make this one cool little application, not to mention several thousands of dollars cheaper than a Lens.

Features (from iTunes)
- The original iPhone version was ranked second in the Photo Manipulation app category of the Best App Ever Awards. Judges included expert journalists from Wired, IGN, ArsTechnica and many more - these guys know what they're talking about!

- Twitter and email sharing - show the world your creations.
- Comprehensive in-app tutorial.
- Support for a range of image resolutions.
- Radial and linear blur masks.
- Blur strength control.
- Saturation, contrast and brightness controls.
- Vignetting (corner shadowing).
- In-app developer contact - we listen to our customers.

Available Here:

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visit-button TiltShift Generator for iPad - Fake DSLR