Canon 60D HD tests!

We are looking at some incredible footage that we shot tonight with our new Canon 60D  and 50MM 1.4 lens - our jaws are dropping!  We can't wait to get some clips online - INCREDIBLE!

UPDATE:  Check out our youtube channel, we have a few clips online now showing the 60D's footage - especially the "Buried In Blue" clip - and the flymusicman's facebook page has tons of stills from the rocking 60D as well.  Enjoy!

Our hero from this blog, the GoPro helped us out by grabbing this still of the screen of our Autodesk Flame Premium - where we are laying some text to be used in our upcoming projects and promotional bumper stickers.  I figure when we start making lunchboxes with the logo, then we will have succeeded.  We are "giving it away" to local musicians to generate buzz and a following for all we do here at the plant.

The GoPro has been holding its own at various shoots for the flymusicman blog where we had up to six cameras one night for Chris Fox and Mojo Monde's January 21st performance at Lucy's.

We are having the time of our lives as we try all sorts of insane things with our cameras and have started doing sneak previews of our results - in the form of raw footage and selected stills - in person at the venues where they were captured.  We and have a few clips in progress - including one for Chris and the band.  Stay tuned - we can hardly wait to show you what we have been rocking out to at the plant! 

Flatter lens for the GoPro!

We are gonna be back at AbleCine later  this week to play with their steadicam as we wait for ours to arrive.  I will post some footage that we shoot at the store as we play around - it should be pretty incredible - shooting at the store that is -- but I am not so sure it will be so steady, we still have to get our training.

But more to the point of this post, our latest addition to the GoPro just arrived - a GoPro Flat lens by BlurFX which will work underwater as well.  I might attach it to the skeleton case - which is more audio friendly than the air tight under water case - as I love to have the audio from the GoPro NOT get muffled for run and gun shooting and as a backup audio track when shooting local live music events for FlyMusicMan.  We usually prefer getting separate audio from a digitial audio recorder and sync it up later as we edit but its nice to have the standalone clips have good audio too - so if you have a lens that has to mount to a case, I am choosing audio over submergibility.  This lens allows you to use standard filters as well.  COOL.  

So this little puppy will definitely give me more creative options out of the GoPro.  And since we are insisting on using 24 fps the GoPro is forced to shoot at 48fps, wide angle only and a resolution of 1280 x 960.  So tempted to switch to 30 fps to get full 1920 x 1080 but I would rather buy a better camera instead of giving up on my beloved 23.976 fps.

I have even considered shooting in PAL, which the GoPro will do 1920 x 1080 at 25 fps and let the internet figure it out.  But then I would be stuck with PAL masters.  (I am in the USA)  Or one could convert the PAL to 24 fps by slowing the framerate by one fps and slowing down the audio by that amount - but you see what I mean, just buy a better camera that shoots the pro format.  Sort of like hating ice cubes in your beer and all you need to do is buy a bigger refrigerator - just do it, beer is life and so is 23.98.

And to that, I have some breaking news about out next camera - it is gonna be great.  STAY TUNED.  A new camera already?  We haven't even started talking about the VIXIA yet.

So this is big.

FLYfx and our quest to "give back" after a great year has yielded some incredible magic.   We started a parallel blog, The Fly Music Man - flymusicman.blogspot.com as you know and after a few nights out shooting we decided to go completely bananas and purchase a Steadicam Pilot from AbleCine in NYC, our new favorite hang out.  Here's a fun little clip showing the basic idea and amazing Steadicam technology. 

We will now be FLYing cameras as well as fx at FLYfx.  We also upped the anti again on our camera collection with the purchase of a Canon 60D.

THERE'S A GOPRO FACEBOOK PAGE - obviously.

Here's the link.  I am sure you already knew this.  So much to talk about, stayed tuned, it's gonna be amazing!

Another youtube find - bird steals GoPro... LOL!

Had to share this.  Apparently a seagull picked up this dude's camera and flew away with it to try and eat it on the top of a nearby wall.  Again, the rugged little GoPro held up just fine.  LOL!!!

I love the sound of the bird breathing, reminds me of my heavy breathing when running with a camera.

How waterproof is the GoPro housing?

So just how "waterproof" is the underwater housing that comes with GoPro?  This YouTube clip says it all.  This dude lost his GoPro and had it returned to him 2.5 months later.  Not only did the camera stay dry, the SD card was completely dry, and the footage was retrieved.  Incredible.