KitPlus | Articles

Finally a compact HD zoom lens!

By Steffan Hewitt, director, PolecamThere are a great number of situations in our industry where the requirement for a small low profile broadcast quality HD camera is needed, whether it be for documentaries, natural history, in car, on board, covert, news, drama, underwater, on a jib arm or small remote head – the list goes on, and expands from th...

Submitted by Steffan Hewitt

Published 01 March 2013

Will Strauss gets a grip!

By Will StraussOf all the many areas of television technology that tv-bay Magazine covers, you might think that camera support is the one that appears, on the surface at least, to move the slowest. Take the tripod for example. Fundamentally, the design hasn’t changed for a hundred years. Or how about the dolly? The wheels and track device that Alfr...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 March 2013

Off Trax interview for TV-Bay

TV-Bay interviews Off Trax partners Crispin Kyle, Jonathan Dennis and Doug Urquhart. Tell me about Off Trax:Off Trax was set up in 1995 to fill a gap in the market as a specialist light grip company offering a unique dry and wet equipment hire service to the television and film industries. We are three partners, Crispin Kyle. Doug Urquhart and myse...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 February 2013

Zoom lenses and minicams

Finding a quality tracking zoom lens for the minicams made for the likes of Toshiba/Iconix/Hitachi/Sony has been an uphill battle. The cameras have been made primarily for the medical imaging market for microscopes and endoscopes but adopted by the broadcast industry as a high end minicam. However lenses were always a problem. Fujinon made the TF r...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2012

Extensive, flawless and enjoyed by millions

Due to the multiple locations of the London Games, coverage was inevitably going to a be a challenge, with locations throughout London and the South; some of them specifically designed and created for the events such as the main Stadium, Velodrome and Aquatics Centre, whilst clever forward thinking meant that existing famous landmarks such as Horse...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2012

Watch out for dead pixels

A dead pixel in a camera imaging sensor can manifest itself in a number of ways. Implying black, 'dead' is not necessarily the correct term for a pixel failure. This is because imager defects include hot pixels, sparkles, noisy or lazy pixels. These problems usually arise during the chip manufacturing process. Defective pixels can appear as unusual...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2012

The Modern Solution - Just Add Carbon!

Problem. Traditionally, getting in and among the action and seeing the true grit, determination and suffering of sporting competitors - be it filming something such as International Ironman competitions with cross terrain transitions from land through to water and back to land - speeds from a sprint, to a swim to a high speed cycle, Formula One pit...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2012

Vegas Baby!

So last month was NAB in Las Vegas, and I got to go!Now I'd never been to the States before. I really didn't know what to expect. Other than not being allowed in bars or casinos as I'm under 21. And trucks on the road, larger meal portions and a favourable exchange rate. Thankfully I'm used to long flights, and after establishing that I could take...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012

NAB 2012 Kit Review used by BroadcastShow

NAB kit review:-So pre-NAB we are all very busy organising interviews with 70 exhibitors over 4 days covering 4 halls and in our case around 28 miles. Late last year we developed an online interview booking system at www.broadcastshow.com which allows exhibitors to book one or more 15 minute slots, enter stand information and questions they may lik...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012

Light weight 3D side-by-side production

Whenever you see a typical publicity picture of a 3D production shoot, it invariably includes a very bulky and expensive-looking mirror rig. This can look daunting for the new initiate coming into 3D production and is not the sort of kit you might not want to risk using outdoors. The mirror rig arrangement allows two (usually large) cameras to be p...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2012

Reaching for 3D

From the opening shot of the Ryder Cup to the Champions League final when Manchester United played Barcelona this year, a stately homes documentary to a Derren Brown magic show, cameraman Chris Taber has been there, filmed it and got the T-shirt. And the reason the camera crane operator has been in demand for so many high-profile jobs? In a word: 3...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Production Profile with Polecam

What brings an innocent young Swede into the competitive high-adrenalin business of television production? In my case, it all began at school. I developed an early fascination for photography and created slide shows that were presented as end-of-semester happenings to my fellow students. Unlike television, you can actually watch a live slide-show a...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

3D Film-making Goes Independent

James Cameron and Sky TV have stolen the stereoscopic 3D limelight. Events such as football cup finals and royal weddings have seemingly been produced with no expense spared in order to show 3DTV at its best. The Ryder Cup, for example, employed an incredible 21 3D Polecam rigs, supplementing the main camera systems. Beyond the world of Hollywood a...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 June 2011

BVE 2011 retrospect

BVE 2011 had much of the buoyancy and buzz of an IBC. The organisers claimed an attendance of over 15,500 visitors and 240 exhibiting companies. Many of the UK-based stalwarts who make the annual pilgrimage to Amsterdam could be seen exploring the show, confirming that BVE is now taken seriously by mainstream broadcasters. It is perhaps over-optimi...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

Mobile Cameraman Extraordinaire

I had wanted to work in television since my teens and, at 20, started as a trainee assistant cameraman at Mersey Television on 'Brookside' in Liverpool and then joining Thorn-EMI Facilities in London. Thorn-EMI put me in charge of a studio used to shoot links for companies like Children's Channel using very bulky early tubed Betacams. Five years la...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011