Solomon is now selling the new NOKTOR lenses in the US. These are new, Japanese, ultra-fast lenses designed for the micro four thirds cameras, like the Panasonic GH1 and GF1. My guess is that they are probably not the sharpest lenses around, however by the moment the camera resizes down to 1080p, and if you actually need lots of shallow DoF, or to be able to see better in the dark, they do their job.

1. PC
I found this DELL model being the best in terms of features and price. I configured it with the basic PC speakers, Intel Pentium dual-core E5400 (2MB L2, 2.7GHz, 800FSB), 64bit Win7 OS, 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz, 21.5″ Dell ST2210 Full HD 1080p Monitor with VGA cable, 500GB SATA Hard Drive 7200RPM. Price: $718.

2. PC Extras
A. You need to buy a few extras here: a cheap GeForce PCIe card that has PureVideo HD support (VP2+). The cheapest you can find that can do some good PureVideo will do (Purevideo CUDA is starting to get very good support for h.264 acceleration from many applications, including Flash). You can find such a card for about $60-$70 in other stores, like Geeks.com.
B. An SDHC reader. Must clearly mention SDHC (plain SD won’t do). Price: $10.

3. Camera
If you’re serious doing some video art, then there’s no better buy than the Canon T2i. Smokes any other camera at that price range. Price: $800.

4. Lenses
Start off with 3 lenses. While it’s true that the more expensive ultra-sharp lenses do offer better quality, starting off with some basic Canon lenses will also be acceptable (don’t go for non-EOS lenses). I’d suggest a somewhat fast prime, a longer prime or zoom lens, and a wide-angle one. Overall, depending on what you’re buying and where, these can cost between $350 and $500.

5. SDHC card
Buy a 16 GB SDHC card, Class 6 (slower Class SD cards might get you buffering/skipping problems). Don’t buy no-name flash cards, you might regret it. Price is at around $100.

6. Tripod
Something like this is good enough. As long as its head is “fluid”, and of somewhat good quality, you’re good to go.

7. Sony Vegas Platinum 9
The most advanced non-pro video editor, with full 24p support. You can also configure Vegas Platinum for full-screen 1:1 size preview on the HD monitor mention above (1:1 size preview helps with editing). Price: $75

8. Cineform NeoSCENE
Unfortunately, you can’t edit the Canon dSLR h.264 footage without transcoding it to a faster codec. This is the fastest “intermediate” HD codec of all. Price: $100 (at Videoguys.com).

[Optional]
Buy an ND filter at 0.6 (4x). It will help you get more shallow depth of field outdoors on a sunny day (when the aperture tends to shrink — think of ND filters as sunglasses for your lens). These usually cost between $50 and $70 at the size that your lenses would require it at.

We have it hooked in our TV via HDMI, but we never turn ON the TV (the AppleTV must be connected to a video cable, otherwise it wont’ start up). We simply use our iPod Touch to control the Apple TV, via the “Remote Control” application, and it works a treat. Only things missing in the Remote Control application is the ability to rate new songs (but ratings already on songs are perfectly usable in smart playlists), and turning the AppleTV OFF (which can still be done blindly using the AppleTV remote control: hit twice the “menu” button, and then long press on the “play” button). A few more gripes remain, but they are not that important really.

Overall, we have found that this is the most enjoyable way to listen to music in our case, and our 85 GB of music. And given that an AppleTV costs a little over $200 these days, and most people in the our area already have either an iPhone or an iPod Touch, it makes it — by far — the best solution for music listening in the digital age.

This is a highly recommended setup.

FCC Disclaimer: Apple is not paying or asking me to write the above. It’s my own personal experience with the setup.

Image quality
Panasonic uses better lenses in most of their HD sub-$300 models, and worse in few others. However, Canon uses 24 mbps bitrate, while Panasonic uses 17 mbps (the format internally is essentially the same, AVCHD-Lite or not). Winner: Canon for footage with more movement, with possibly Panasonic being the winner for static scenes. So it’s a bit of draw here, it highly depends on the model in question.

Low light
Panasonic wins. While the sensor size is the same in the modern crop of P&S cams, Canon has been quite bad in low light lately. That Digic4 chip wasn’t all that it was hyped out to be.

Zoom while recording
Only one model from Canon, the SX210 IS, supports optical zooming while recording. However, as I have explained in the past many times, if you’re doing artistic and not random family videos, then you should not be zooming while recording. It’s a home-video tell-tale sign. Anyways, this goes to Panasonic.

Color Controls
Canon wins hands down. They offer sharpness, contrast, saturation, skin color, and even individual R, G, B manipulation, which can help you get the film look right out of the box! Shooting “flat” also has extreme value when color grading. Panasonic’s color controls pale in comparison. And even their most “flat” mode is not flat enough. It’s high-jacked on saturation and contrast like a 50-year old hooker.

Exposure and lock
Both Panny and Canon have exposure compensation support, but Canon goes one step beyond, by letting you lock exposure. Without locking, your video will look like amateur home video. It’s the No1 feature I personally look into a camera. Without this feature, there’s no sale for me. Even if you give me such a camera for free I wouldn’t touch it.

Manual Focus and lock
Some Canon cams, like the SX200/SX210 IS, have the ability to precisely control the focus (rather than just “macro”, “normal”, “infinity”). For these cams, Canon wins, for the rest, it’s a draw I guess.

Now, if you count the wins and the draws, the two manufacturers almost even out. However, except the zooming while recording (which is a feature that as a filmmaker I couldn’t care less about), Panasonic didn’t win anything with a big lead. Canon on the other hand gets ahead with its color controls and exposure locking (which as I explained is the No1 feature for me). So for the kinds of videos I shoot, and the kinds of videos I encourage people to shoot, Canon has a clear advantage, even if they don’t do everything right. It’s all about what kinds of videos you shoot, so different features have different weight. And I can only speak for the kinds of videos I do.

Now, if you just want to shoot the cat tormenting your dog, or your grandmother putting her teeth back, then a $70 Kodak Zi6 will do the job too. No reason to spend more in that case.

The next step for both manufacturers would be to offer selectable 23.976, 25.00, and 29.97 fps. Full manual control is almost impossible in video mode in these digicams (various hardware constraints), but frame rate selection is not. An adapter hook for a filter thread wouldn’t be a bad idea either, so this way we could somewhat control the outdoors high shutter speeds by using ND filters.

For $800, you will be able to get a great camera to shoot your masterpiece. You have no excuse anymore to not shoot a short movie, or a music video to help out your local rock bands.

The T2i supports all the frame rates that the 7D does, at similar bitrates. It has full manual control, and an audio jack. No new video-focused abilities are present in the cam compared to the 7D, however, it’s a camera that’s half the price. The still picture side of it is not as powerful as the 7D, but when it comes to video, it’s up to par with it (sample). It’s also a smaller/lighter camera than than the 7D, using SDHC instead of CF.

Add in the mix a large-aperture prime, a wide-angle, and a zoom lens, and you’ll be in business. My [photographer] husband would suggest instead three prime lenses: one wide, one normal, one long (a good combo is 24-35-50mm). You should be able to buy the camera and three lenses of your choice for $1500 overall, which is a great price if you think that a high-end Canon AVCHD camcorder, or the 7D body alone, costs as much. Honestly, I think the Scarlet is in a bit more market trouble right now — even if it’s a much better camera. “Good enough” is what sells more actually. I see plain camcorders to also be in real trouble now. Except wedding photographers and travelers, the camcorder market will down-size significantly in the next few years.

Canon also announced their new digicam line today, which actually let me down. Their SX200 IS replacement digicam, the SX210 IS, is now 14 MP — at the same sensor size. The SX200 IS has low light problems, so stuffing more pixels in it will make things even worse. They added “zooming while recording” and a “stereo mic” as new abilities for the movie mode. Personally, I find these useless as a filmmaker. Actors only have one mouth, and zooming while recording is as cheesy as 70’s B-movies were. I would have preferred to see a 10 MP sensor instead, and the ability to also record at 24 fps in addition to 30 fps. That would have been more useful to the kinds of video I shoot (i.e. not random family videos).

So as far as P&S HD video digicams go, the SD780 IS remains the best bang for the buck for $180. Except of manual focus, it still has all the video features that the SX-series have.

FCC Disclaimer: The above are my very own personal & truthful opinions. Not paid or endorsed by Canon.

Where do I start with this?

Flash? No. How the hell is this supposed to take over netbook market? Without Flash it is a no-go. I can eat the bullshit that the iPhone can’t do Flash for this or the other reason, but not having it on the iPad is a major mistake. Even if Apple adds it eventually, the damage is done for this product’s prospects in the minds of consumers.

Keyboard? Not only this keyboard requires both your hands, but it requires your lap too. How’s that any better than a freaking netbook? Instead of implementing a RESIZABLE split-keyboard, and have the full screen keyboard only as an option for when you sit on a couch, they go with the full screen keyboard by default. This is a MAJOR mistake. The large bezel and screen makes it IMPOSSIBLE for people with small hands to type when in vertical mode either — our fingers are not long enough to reach the middle of the screen. This is where the *resizable* split-keyboard would be a LIFE SAVER. [Update 1: Gizmodo on the terrible input method. Fully agreed with them.]

No multi-tasking? What the hell? Again, how’s that any more useful than a netbook? Just because it looks nicer and has a nicer interface doesn’t mean that it’s essentially more useful than a netbook. Again, Apple puts form over function as a priority, but I have the feeling that this time that strategy won’t be so kind to them. People wanted something better than the iPhone, not just an enlarged version of it. Daily Finance wrote it best (thanks goes to Dominique for the link).

And then, just like Andreas wrote, no camera for video chat? Sure, I get it. AT&T wouldn’t want to overload their towers, and I respect that. But Apple could easily have implemented an iChat or VoIP SIP version (or having Skype do it) that would only use WiFi. You can lock down that shit in application level. But, nooooo….

The last part is that with AT&T’s 250 MBs per month for $15. I’m sorry, but 250 MBs are not enough for a netbook-killer device. For $15 bucks per month, that should have been at least 1 GB of data. The last time I checked, just Engadget’s front page is 1.3 MBs usually. Even by doing light web browsing, the 250 MB per month will be eaten up within a week by a modern internet-er. Easily.

Finally, Gizmodo also has a nice list of 9 things that suck on the iPad. Thanks for the link @AsAPeople. [Update 2: Not to mention the lack of a microSDHC (or SDHC) slot. Sure, the iPhone has the excuse of being a small device and not having extra space for a slot, but the iPad doesn't have the luxury to lie to us about it. Selling the cheap version of the iPad with just 16 GB of storage, with no expansion option, is a slap in the face of the modern consumer.]

Jeez. What a freaking over-hyped piece of shit of a product this is. Sure, I still expect the iPad to make its R&D money back, but this is not the next “iPhone”, not by a long shot. This is not the next big thing. Not with this implementation anyway. It’s half-baked at the points where it counts. My main concern though is that this product is not half-baked because Apple didn’t have the time to work on these points, but because these were their design decisions. And this shows a possible problem at Apple right now. It’s very possible that they’re suffering from the Microsoft/IBM syndrome: that one of the dinosaur.

Update 3: Thanks to Guy for the video link!

Enthusiasts usually want the latest and greatest. They often go and buy expensive camcorders, dSLRs, or even 35mm adapters for them, only to never use them again after the novelty wears thin (and I’ve been guilty of it too). Or, more often than not, they use them, but they never fully use the equipment on its best of its ability. I know people who bought an HV20, and yet they always shoot in “auto” mode. They don’t take advantage of all the other features and settings the camera has to offer.

As some of you know, I’m a fan of the Canon SX200 IS, a $300 digicam that shoots 720/30p, and has more video manual controls than any other P&S digicam (read my review about SX200 IS’ video mode here). Around the same time the SX200 IS was announced, Canon also announced the SD780 IS. The SD780 IS has almost the same manual controls the SX200 IS has: exposure compensation & locking, contrast/saturation/sharpness control, manual white balance, macro/infinite focus modes, and focus lock. The only thing that’s missing compared to the SX200 IS is that it doesn’t have a manual focus mode, and that its lens is smaller, therefore letting less light hitting the sensor (so it’s noisier). But it’s $200, compared to the SX200 IS’ $300, so it’s acceptable.

My point is that these cams shoot good-enough video for the kinds of videos most people shoot. There is no reason to buy a camcorder, or even a dSLR if you’re not really serious about video. While a few more options would be nice (e.g. additional 24p frame rate, shutter speed support), even without these features, these digicams can offer amazing quality for the price. All it requires is to know how to shoot properly.

I wish people stop buying these terrible digi-recorders instead. They buy a Flip HD or the Kodak Z-series, while these Canon cams are actually much better for the same price: they have optical zoom, they’re smaller, they shoot still pictures too, they have optical stabilization, better lenses, higher bitrate codec, some exposure control, and other settings. Apparently, they also have a better microphone than any digirecorder, or Panasonic/Kodak P&S digicam too. In fact, the Sony and Panasonic digicams announced today at CES still don’t offer all the Canon video features, and Sony seems to be playing with our nerves for using just 6 mbps bitrate for their 720/30p video capture! Consider Canon’s 24 mbps.

I found this useful add-on for the SD780 IS that allows you to attach an ND filter and sunhood. For $50 you can get all three. The ND filter would help bring down the shutter speed, that’s normally too high on these cams, and the sunhood would help to not get CCD light artifacts.

So, while I already own an SX200 IS, I’m thinking of buying an SD780 IS to shoot a music video for a local band. Sure, I own an HV20 and a 5D MkII too. But I want to use the SD780 IS as part of “a project”. A project that details how to shoot properly, and what you can do with these small cams, in order to get an acceptable result out of them. I just want to prove to many people that you don’t need the best tool to create something that’s viewable. It’s not the camera that matters, it’s how you use it. From the moment you have the minimum acceptable tool in your hands, then all it takes is talent, not hardware. This proof of concept idea will end up costing me over $200 (I will probably buy some extra batteries too), but if I can convince one consumer, and one rock band to go that route instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars in equipment they don’t really need, it might actually worth it.

What has both surprised me and saddened me deeply is that after relentlessly searching for “artistic” or “atmospheric”, let’s say, videos on Youtube and Vimeo that were shot with either the SX200 IS or the SD780 IS, I found almost nothing! Except my own SX200 IS videos on Vimeo and this video, I found nothing else similar around. Every person who bought these cams (and they’re a lot of them) seem to be busy shooting their cats instead — handheld. They could do so much more! Same goes for most of the people who actually bought camcorders that don’t use in their fullest.

Such a waste.

1. True 24p. No need anymore for pulldown removal. Yay!
2. Touch & Track. You just click on the huge 3.5″ touchscreen LCD, and the system will automatically track the object while you move with the camera. Particularly useful if you’re using a steadycam for music videos or short movies.

The rest of the new features are just fluff for clueless consumers, or nasty software hacks (e.g. the claimed “better low-light support” that this camera now has, while it’s the same sensor/glass as the previous model).

However, the HF-S21 is still missing the point. No full manual control, no real focus ring, and no bigger sensor at around 1/2.0″ (to combat the dreadful low-light performance this sensor/lens combo has on that model). And no 720/60p either (the hardware can do it).

What’s important to remember here is that the Canon 7D is eating away the high-end consumer and much of the prosumer market. The 7D has the best performance/price ratio for what it gives you. And that includes good low light, a selection of lenses with focus rings, 720/60p for good slow-mo, and of course, full manual control. Any serious amateur filmmaker would root for the 7D instead of any of the AVCHD Canon cams.

In other words, the 7D has up’ed the bar. For the engineers at the consumer department at Canon to keep their jobs they MUST have offered the equivalent of a high-end consumer camcorder in the face of the HF-S21. They don’t have the luxury anymore to do incremental updates as they do every year. The high-end consumer model has to be _serious_. They needed a new HV20-style AVCHD camera feature-wise. When the HV20 came out in 2007, it changed the landscape. That’s the kind of product (in spirit of course, not in features) that Canon’s consumer department needed TODAY.

Oh, well, here’s one more year waiting for that Canon department to get off its ass. If I hadn’t already bought the 5D (for reasons I explained in a previous blog post), I would still be with the HV20 and not upgrade until Canon got it right.

For the vertical mode the device might just have the right size to type with both thumbs without having to break the virtual keyboard in two. However, the “right size” can never be as good as adjusting the size of the virtual keyboard, since all people are different.