KitPlus | Articles

Gamut errors: Who cares?

Gamut errors are the most common video signal problems. This is because colour television or cinematography depends on being able to represent every pixel on the screen in terms of red, green and blue. We want to deliver perfect RGB signals representing all the possible colours in our pictures. Virtually all display technologies use RGB primary col...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012

Canon C300 Review

Canon's highly anticipated C300 camera is their first offering to the 'digital cinema' market. The camera was released amid a meticulously planned marketing campaign, which created a hype not seen since the Red One camera's introduction in 2006. Canon have since taken the camera on a global roadshow showcasing to all potential suitors, of which the...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2012

Ultra-slow motion in live broadcast

What is ultra-slow motion?Slow motion has been around since the beginnings of cinematography and broadcasting, but ultra-slow motion for broadcast is quite a recent development. It’s only been possible since the advent of super high-speed video cameras, which were initially developed for scientific use. Slow motion can be produced with conventional...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

NFTS, the future of digital visionaries

The Confession, a film from The National Film and Television School (NFTS), has recently been nominated for an Academy Award, in the Live Action Short Film category - the second nomination for an NFTS graduation film in this category in the last five years. The success of the film comes days after more than 40 NFTS graduates worked on nominated fil...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Eye to Eye at the Wildscreen International Film Festival

Founded in 1982, the Wildscreen International Film Festival is claimed to be the world's largest event of its kind. It attracts several hundred delegates from more than 30 countries, all of whom (if they register early enough) get their contact details listed in the festival directory. The festival is staged every two years in Bristol and revolves...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Redefining Mobile, High Definition Recording With Cinedec...

IBC 2010 saw the official European launch of Cinedeck EXTREME v2.0, an ultra-portable cinema grade integrated High Definition monitoring, recording and playback device that has already won numerous awards and accolades since making its first public appearance at this year’s NAB Convention in Las Vegas. Cinedeck EXTREME v2.0 incorporates a number of...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

tv-bay IBC2010 double takes

Tv-bay Double Takes..!Acquisition For-A VFC-7000 Camera HD Variable Frame Rate CameraASA1800 Sensitivity, Native 720x1280 resolution with inbuilt up-convert to 1920x1080 and will output at 50 or 59.94 frame rates. 120 - 700 Frames per second recording speed. Two HD-SDI outputs enabling live and recordings to be viewed simultaneously. Standard onboa...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

DFX filter software

Tiffen has been manufacturing photographic filters and lens accessories for consumer and professional imaging for over 70 years. Now the company has developed Tiffen DFX, software that offers a range of filters for use with digital images. We believe this makes DFX unique; benefiting from a deep understanding of what glass filters actually do as we...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2009

3D Movie Making: Stereoscopic Digital Cinema from Script...

Having indulged for several years in stereo photography of the hand-held cross-your-eyes variety, I was interested to watch the broadcast industry respond to the availability of increasingly affordable flat-panel 3D displays. A critical point in the price threshold has finally been crossed: fast-refresh-rate 22 inch 3D computer monitors using circu...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2009

Filters for HD Cinematography

The availability of low-cost HD camcorders with film-style tools, like 24 frame-per-second imaging and quality lenses, has put filmmaking capability in the hands of many. To achieve a film-style look, a director of photography can add a compliment of optical filters. Such filters can not only make color and other corrections to the image as it is s...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 April 2009

Camera rigs and lighting

The biggest single story at IBC this year, apart from the usual company-eats-company rumours, was the continuing progress of stereoscopy or '3D' as it is currently undersold. A stereoscopic snapshot may well be 3D (displaying length, width and height) but a stereoscopic movie is in fact 4D as it includes a timeline. John Logie Baird set the stereos...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

New developments in mobile HD production

When widescreen HDTV was first demonstrated back in the 1980s, the pictures were great but the size and price of the kit left much to be desired. Two decades on, broadcast-quality 1080i/720p HD cameras and recorders have reached levels of compactness and affordability that would have seemed impossible in those early days. When I designed the origin...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

New editing essentials

I like to think of myself as a bit of a pioneer at the frontier of the new age of HD Digital Cinematography. Investigating the best of the new technology available to our industry and evaluating its possible impact. I ‘d like to explain the impact of some of the particular examples of this today starting with:-XDCam EX Tapeless HD Camcorders. One w...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008