I have both Carbon Fiber and Aluminum tripods in my arsenal.  I use them pretty much interchangeably in my every day photography use.  Some are lighter so I choose them for travel.  Some are sturdier, so I use them for heavier applications.

But there are features of some tripods that really make them stand out from the pack.  The Vanguard Alta Pro 263AT is one of those unique tripods.  And its not that each of it’s individual feature are not available in other 3-legged competitors, but that all of these features are available in this single tripod for a great price.

The first, most unique feature to point out is it’s innovative Multi-Angle Central Column (MACC).  This feature allows you to move the central column from angles of zero to 130-degrees in multiple vertical and horizontal positions, making things like macro photography and specialty wide-angle shots much easier to create.

In this photo, you can see how the center column can be flipped 180 degrees to suspend the camera completely upside down.  I often shoot many table top items like food, and this feature gives me exactly what I need to get the camera into position.

The center column quickly releases with something that Vanguard calls the Instant Swivel Stop-n-Lock (ISSL) System.  With one simple movement, you can easily and securely reposition the center column while maintaining it’s stability.

The central aluminum alloy column moves from 0 to 130 degrees and can be reversed in the mount, giving you more than full range of motion.  Even with the center column fully extended, the tripod is amazingly stable with my 5D Mark II, battery grip and heavy Canon L glass.

Another feature, which is also common to many other tripods, is the legs that adjust to 25, 50 and 80-degree angles.  Combined with the sturdiness of the patented premium magnesium die-cast canopy and head, you feel comfortable that this tripod can truly support your camera with stability in most any position.  But combined with the flexibility of the center column and the angles it can obtain, this makes the tripod about as versatile as you could ever need.

This tripod ships with a triangular canopy that hangs between the legs and holds your camera or other gear.  It also comes with a carrying bag to tote it around.  There is a spring-loaded, retracting hook at the bottom of the center column for hanging weight or a bag.  The feet have spikes built in that you can retract with the rubber feet, depending on the floor or ground you are on.  And my personal favorite feature over the 284CT is the fact that it has flip locks on the leg extensions instead of the twist locks.

From the Vanguard website, here are the specifications:

Extended height(mm): 1650
Extended height(inch): 65
Folded height(mm): 630
Folded height(inch): 24.75
Weight(kg): 2
Weight(lbs): 4.41
Maximum loading capacity(kg): 7
Maximum loading capacity(lbs): 15.4
Titled Loading Capacity(kg): 5
Titled Loading Capacity(lbs): 11
Number of Leg Sections: 3
Leg Diameter(mm): 26

With a street price under $150.00 and after looking around online, I can see that I am not the only one who loves this tripod. You can read some great reviews (and find about the best price out there) here:

Vanguard Alta Pro 263AT – Tripod

Score Card

You can visit the Vanguard Website at: http://www.vanguardworld.com

Introducing the ikan Multi-K Variable Color Temperature  LED Light.  This is one of the coolest little on-camera lights I have ever seen, and the results are amazing.  Never before have I been able to control the color space appropriately in video… or close-up stills, for that matter.

So, let’s look at the physical details.  The box is around 5.25″ wide by 3.5″ tall, 1.5″ thick and weighs .8lbs with 6 AA batteries in it.  All in all, a relatively light unit.  The Multi-K runs on 6 AA batteries, or can be powered with the included 12v DC transformer and D tap power cable to an input on the rear of the light.  Here you can see the light mounted to the top of my Canon 5D Mark II.  As it is a cold shoe mount, it is not camera dependent and can mount to any camera’s hot shoe or cold shoe mount.

On the front of the light are 144 LED bulbs.  These are not the high-powered CREE style LEDs, but the lower power, softer light LEDs.  The majority of the bulbs are a very cool white light – somewhere over 6500ËšK, but there are a bunch of yellow and red LEDs that are turned on in different patterns and brightnesses to actually warm up the outgoing light.  This technique is both brilliant and unique.  For the first time I have ever seen, you can actually control a forward facing light source from your camera and actually dial in the color in 6 different steps using a button on the back of the light.  The functions are pretty simple.  There is a variable output source knob on the top to dial output level and a button on the back to step through the 6 color temps.

Tungsten light is somewhere around 3200˚K and is a common light color that we run into in a church, in many homes and in many indoor arenas where we often shoot.  Outdoor Sunlight can run 5000˚K to 6500˚K, depending on the sky and clouds.  If you are shooting in either of these situations, and need a bit of source light from your camera, having the right color of light will make a lot of difference in your end video or still product.  With the exception of using a gel over a halogen or incandescent camera light, I am not aware of any other on-camera light source that has the ability to change color temperature.  This light is very unique.

As the light changes colors, there are slight differentiations in the amount of lumens that the light can project.  ikan has provided a chart to show us the difference in the output with the different settings from the light itself.  At certain colors, you will need to take into account the light output levels and adjust settings accordingly.  Overall, ikan claims that the light output is equivalent to a 50W tungsten light bulb.  From our tests, that seems about right.  It won’t overwhelm a scene, but provides a nice kicker of light over all.

Here is a short video clip of the light from the front and then illuminating the inside of a piano.  Although it is not terribly obvious from the brightness of the video, I flip through all of the color settings in this video while looking at the front of the light and the light cast while on the camera.  It may appear subtle here, but the right color of light makes all the difference in the world.

I also used the light when shooting some Macro shots. I found that indoors, this was very helpful under tungsten lighting when the ambient light tends to be too strong.  Simply warm the light color up and the richness comes out.  And being small and battery powered, it is easy to move this light around to where it is needed in the shot.

ikan states that the light will run for approximately 90 minutes of consistent use on a set of new batteries.  If you are shooting short takes, turning them off and on, you can get several hours of use from 6 AA cells.

ikan Multi-K
Variable Color Temperature LED Light

SRP: $499.00

Specifications:

• Operating Volts: 12v – 18v
• Dimension: L 4.9″ x W 4.3″ x H 1.6″
• Weight (lbs): .8 with batteries
• Bulb Type: LED
• Color Temperature: 2800k – 6500k
• Shipping Weight: 2

Features:

• Variable Color Temperatures
• Uses 6 AA Batteries
• Lux equivalent to 50W Tungston
• Weighs less than a pound
• 144 LED Bulbs in red, white and yellow

If you are looking for a variable color light, there just aren’t many options out there. This ikan Multi-K is certainly a great early entry into the arena.

ikan Lighting website: http://www.ikancorp.com/

Purchase now from B&H Photo

There are many cool features to talk about here.  Let’s look at them one at a time. The first and most obvious of new features is the display on the front of the drive.  This is called the “Smart display custom e-label”, and it is a very cool new feature.  Those who are familiar with the newest line of My Book Elite 1TB, 1.5TB & 2TB and My Book Studio 1TB, 1.5TB & 2TB recently introduced for the desktop will be familiar with this new feature.  It allows you to both label the drive with a 12 character description and to monitor the status of the drive, including available space and security status… even when the drive is unplugged!  And this label lasts for up to 6 months without plugging the drive in.  The next time you plug it in, it recharges itself for up to another 6 months.  With the price of drives these days, I find that I often store client projects on a drive on a shelf for 6 months, a year, sometimes more.  With the e-label system, it is easy to see which projects you are storing.  And the WD SmartWare software that is included makes changing the label (among other things) really simple.

The next feature to discuss is interface/connectivity.  This drive is the Mac drive for a couple of reasons… most importantly being the connection options.  This drive has the option of both USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 connections directly on the drive, and Firewire 400 adapter to connect to machines without Firewire 800 connections.  This gives you just about every possible connection you could need to get to your data.  The included cables are short (15″ or less), but that is all that is needed to connect to your MacBook.

Security is the next great feature, and it ties right into the software that comes with the drive.  The WD SmartWare software mounts to the desktop the first time you connect to the drive.  Setup is easy through this very well designed application.  You can set up the drive, the label, the security and even backup options through this software.  Once you assign a password to the drive, the password is required every time you plug the drive into a Mac.  This is a great option and makes you feel good knowing that if someone acquires your drive, they will not be able to get to your data.

This screen shows the settings options for the drive.  As you can see, you simply type the label in, choose a normal or inverted display, and save the label settings.  From here, you can choose other options to set up including sleep timer, diagnostics, virtual CD and other options.  The software is clean and easy to understand.

The WD SmartWare software has built in backup software.  It analyzes your drives(s) and allows you to select which folders you wish to back up and restore.  The design is very graphical and seems very easy to grasp and understand.  With the limited time we have had this drive, there has not been the time needed to dig into the use of this application.  But we do intend to look more at it at a future date.

The next feature to talk about is performance.  We wanted to get a feel of just how fast this drive is for backup and use.  We did some basic speed tests around the FireWire 800 and USB connectors, and we compared it to another commercial, portable USB drive that we commonly use.  It was a simple test where we drug a folder full of 450 different 20 to 40MB RAW photos to the drives and tested the performance.  This folder was 11GB in size, and should represent a typical copy that photographers would go through in backing up their data.  The results were good and about as we would expect.

The testing was not “milspec” or overly thorough, but very real world.  We took this new WD My Passport 640GB drive and tested both of it’s connectors and then tested a year old 120GB external drive that has served us very well over the past year.  This is about as real world as we can get in this amount of time.  Yea, yea, not a fair comparison to an older drive, etc., but the numbers are still true and comparable.  And beyond these numbers, I think we are chasing too small of details.

The WD My Passport Studio drive is small, but large in storage.  It is versatile and comes with great software.  It has features offered on no other drives available today (e-label).  It comes with a 3 year warranty backed by one of the largest and most reputable drive manufacturers on the market today.  What else could you want in a drive to trust your valuable photos and video?

Available March 1st, 2010 at retail stores like Best Buy, and click the links here to see reviews of this product and purchase the 320GB, 500GB or 640GB My Passport Studio.

Score Card (scale of 1 to 5)

You can visit Western Digital’s website here.

Crumpler is a company that has become known for trendy and cool bags for many different markets.  Crumpler has also been known for quality of build and durability.  Late last year, Crumpler introduced the latest in its Million Dollar Home line called the ‘8 Million Dollar Home’ to give a fashionable alternative to the typical, usually black, technical looking camera bag.

At $170 retail, this bag is not strictly just a camera bag, but fashionably carrying your camera gear is a task it seems to do quite well.  As I first received this bag, I spent much time looking at it, flipping it around, studying the stitching, the internals, the straps.

What I realized first that this is a quality built product.  I don’t care how rough you are on your gear bags, the 8 Million Dollar Home from Crumpler will stand up to your daily use as well or better than any bag I have ever used.  The shoulder strap is well padded.  The material is thick and durable.  This bag is built to last.

Next I tried to figure out the functionality of the bag.  Camera bags tend to come in all sizes and shapes these days from backpacks to fanny packs, from rollers to shoulders.  Most all of them are black and pretty typical looking.  No matter where you go, you walk in announcing that you are carrying a bag full of camera gear.  Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but not everyone wants to announce “photographer” with every entrance to a room.  This is the next area that this bag is very well designed.  It simply does not look like a camera bag.  It looks more like a trendy saddle bag.

The model I have is gray on the outside and a bright, neon green on the inside, trimmed with red accents.  The inside has a series of compartments that are fully configurable and there are plenty of extra dividers to allow you to make more than enough small compartments for your needs.  With velcro on the ends of the soft divider panels, locking them into place is easy.  I was able to get a 70-200mm and 2 other lenses in, plus my camera body with a lens on it, a flash, meter and lots of small accessories.  For me, this was plenty of room to load what I needed for a weekend casual trip or a light business shoot on the road.  And the bad was solid and protected enough to make me comfortable that my gear was safe.

One of the most unique features of the bag is the silent closure option. The 8 Million Dollar Home is secured on two corners by two large pieces of Velcro underneath the top of the large messenger flap that encloses your equipment.  An interesting, thoughtful twist is that you can choose to un-tuck a cover, place it over the Velcro, and close the flap with two clasp enclosures allowing for a silent opening and closing without the rip and tear commotion caused by the large, Velcro fasteners. A nice option when you need to get to your gear without disturbing those around you.

Inside, the bright green padded compartments can be configured in a seemingly infinite number of ways to accommodate a variety of gear.  You can even completely empty the inside of dividers and make it one large, open bag, if desired. There are also two large mesh compartments inside the flap and front compartment of the bag, one secured by a zipper and the other with a Velcro strap. There are also a couple of loops on the outside  on either side to perhaps secure a small tripod.

Overall, the bag looks cool, is quite light, and well padded. It will fit a reasonable amount of equipment.  It is fashionable and kind of fun to configure.  It is not everyone’s answer to the “everything-bag”, but is not intended to be.  I personally cannot think of a more comfortable way to tote my gear around for an afternoon of shooting.

The Crumpler 8 Million Dollar home can be found for $170.00 on Amazon.com.

Interested in seeing more of Crumpler’s products… here is a link to All of Crumpler’s products on Amazon.

Product Review Scorecard

Crumpler Website: http://www.crumplerbags.com

If you look at the movie industry, rail systems have become the standard way to mount all of the gear wrapped around a digital camera system (in this case, I believe this was a Red system).  Notice the young lady carrying a massive display of equipment on her shoulder.  If you look closely, you will see that there is a person supporting her around the waist as she is walking on rough terrain, and there is a person to her right who is actually running the follow focus and focusing the camera while she walks.  All of this gear looks like something out of a Sci-Fi movie.. and actually, it is (District 9).  In this article, we will talk about building a rail system similar to this to wrap around a DSLR.

When using a DSLR for high definition video, there are several other things you need to make the recording as clean as possible.  You need:

1) Stability – the ability to fluidly move your camera around

2) Focus – DSLRs do not have auto focus like camcorders do.  Focusing a lens is much more clunky and harder to handle

3) Light Control – sometimes a lens hood just isn’t enough control over the light on the lens

4) Microphone – the internal microphone is not nearly the quality needed for a professional video

5) Live View – the small, internal display is not big enough to use when manually focusing and framing a scene

6) Lighting – in darker situations, a light is often needed to illuminate your subject

7) Lens Modifiers – there are lens modifiers that do not attach to a lens and need to be fixed in-line with the camera lens, like a depth of field modifier

Now, imagine being able to take care of all of these needs at the same time.  To do this, you need a frame around your camera with which you can attach all of these components.  With a good rail system, you get:

1) Stability – a shoulder mount and frame you can hold with both hands

2) Focus – a follow focus knob and gearing with which you can easily mark your focus points and smoothly focus the lens

3) Light Control – a matte box with french flag and adjustable side flags and removable filter holders

4) Microphone – a frame allows you to mount a microphone either on the hot shoe or on the frame itself

5) Live View – an external monitor can be mounted above or to the side of the camera for optimal viewing, instead of just the small, built in screen on the camera

6) Lighting – a lighting solution can be mounted above the camera and will move with the camera

7) Lens Modifiers – with a rail system, a lens modifier can be mounted in-line with the camera lens in a rigid and secure installation

To accomplish all of this, we need to start with a rail system.  And to my surprise, there are quite a few out there to choose from.  But with a DSLR, there are special needs to handle the height and weight of the camera and all of its size requirements.  This means that not every rail system will work with your particular camera.  Rail systems designed for DSLRs are a little more height adjustable to allow for the height of the lens off the bottom mount of the camera.  The more flexible systems allow for a battery grip or XLR audio box under the body too.

And as of the writing of this article, there are a few video-capable DSLRs on the market, but many more are coming.  I am basing the article completely around my Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

The rail system we chose to work with for this article is the IndiSYSTEM from Studio4 Productions out of Waterloo, Iowa.  This is a U.S. manufactured rail system that is constantly changing and evolving to meet the needs of modern DSLRs as well as camcorders on the market today.  Tim Ovel, the owner, is a really personable and knowledgeable guy, and a lot of fun to talk with.  Throughout the build of this system, Tim was helpful in piecing the needed items and attachments together to make the rig just how we wanted it.

This article will be the first in a series that goes more in-depth into building and outfitting a rail system.  For this particular article, we are going to focus on the rail system itself.

However, we have other components that will be completing this rig in the next articles in the series.  We have a 5.6″ High Def HDMI battery powered portable monitor from Ikan, an LCD light panel from Ikan and a stereo mic and accessories from Rodes.  Delkin provided us with a Pop-Up Shade for the 5D Mark II, which helped with the outdoor light.  These accessories will help to complete the setup for a full production camera.

Now, let’s take a look at the system we have built here.  The first thing you need to understand is that this setup is completely reconfigurable.  Before even the first photograph was taken of the rig, I probably went through a dozen different configurations.  With the complete flexibility of the indiSYSTEM, you can pretty much make the rig fit exactly what you want it to.

The components:

There are several pieces that make up the rail system.  Combined in any arrangement, these parts make up a rail system.

The rails.

The rails themselves are the basis of a rail system.  They are a platform on which all of the components are attached.  Typically, the base is made up of 2 rails made up of a strong material like metal or carbon fiber.  Many of the rails out there are 15mm in diameter.  They can be almost any length, although the common lengths are anywhere from 10″ to 24″.  The indiRAILSpro system is based on carbon fiber rails, which are both light and very sturdy and strong.

The camera block

The camera mount, sometimes called the camera block, is where you mount your camera.  This is kind of the hub of the rig.  In the indiRAILSpro system, this block has a mounting plate that locks down to the rails themselves to the block and is the basis of holding them in place.  The block is drilled and tapped with mount holes with which to mount quick release bases and plates to attach your camera or to mount the entire block to a tripod.

The shoulder mount

The shoulder mount is not always a necessary piece of a rail system, but it is a very common requirement for many people.  The shoulder mount allows you to balance and carry your camera, rig and accessories on your shoulder while smoothly operating it.   The shoulder mount for the indiRAILSpro is easily adjustable and can be angled to allow the rear end of the rig to be higher or lower as best suits your needs.  The newest shoulder mount was just designed before this article’s release and is a cool new take on their last shoulder mount.  It is light weight and very flexible in layout.  It not only adjusts the distance of the rig from your shoulder, but it also angles to allow just the right angle for comfort.  After all, our shoulders to slant at an angle and your shoulder mount should accommodate that.

The Front handles

Handles on the front end of the rails are how you control it when it is shoulder mounted.  If you don’t intend to carry your rig on your shoulder, then you probably want to tripod mount it, and handles wouldn’t be important to you.  The handles need to be adjustable and flexible as people’s arm lengths are different.  This was another nice feature of the indiRAILSpro system as length, angle and separation could all be adjusted easily.

The Matte box

A matte box has many functions. It allows you to control the top and side light that hits the camera lens.  It can allow you to easily insert filters in front of the lens too.  A matte box can also shape the image aspect by blackening the top and bottom of your image to form a wider aspect letterbox effect.  On top of all of that, it makes your rig look cool and professional.  There are lots of reasons to want a matte box on your rail system.

The follow focus

This is not a “must have” accessory, and it is not terribly important to people using a rail setup with their average camcorders as auto-focus works well in that arena with that gear.  But with today’s DSLRs and video, auto-focus is not there yet.  Plus, there are many reasons to manually control your focus when doing cinematography.  A follow focus system will give you complete manual control over your camera’s focus.

Other Components

As you build out your rig, you will find lots of other  accessories you want to add to make your videography easier and more effective.  Once we built out all we needed with the indiSYSTEM, we started to add some other electronics to complete the system.  Here is what we found most effective to add.

A Matte box for the camera’s viewing screen – Delkin Pop-Up Shade for the Canon 5D Mark II

This little attachment is an inexpensive way to get a bit of light control over the screen of the 5D Mark II (or most any other popular DSLR) when shooting in outdoor lighting.  It takes only seconds to install, and looks good on the camera.  If the positioning of the rail system is right and you can focus your eye on this screen comfortably while moving your camera around, a pop-up shade like this really can make a difference.  And at $25, it really is an affordable addition to any DSLR.

A Larger external display – Ikan V5600 High Definition 5.6″ Monitor

Let’s face it… the small display on the back of the 5D II may be O.K. for checking out your still photos, but it is really too small for monitoring live video while on the move.  When you are moving around with a rig this large on your shoulder, you want to really be able to see exactly what is getting recorded.  Ikan has a series of monitors that are compatible with the HDMI output from the 5D II and many other cameras and camcorders on the market.  With the help of the Ikan mounting arm, the V5600 display took our rails system to a whole new level.  I will go further in depth to this display and it’s features in a future review, but we really loved the light weight, the long life battery pack and the ease of mounting it to the system.

Ikan also makes an 8″ HDMI monitor for those who want a larger display.  It is not as high of a resolution as the V5600, but then the HDMI live video output from the 5D Mark II is only 480P, so most of that video res is wasted anyway.  We will do a more in-depth review of this screen in a future article.  You can see this dispay here:

Ikan V8000HDe 8″ TFT LCD Monitor with DV Battery Plate, 16:9 and 4:3 Switchable Aspect Ratios

Video Light

On-camera lighting is another nice thing to have to accent your shot… especially if doing live interviews.  With a rail system, you have more real estate to mount a larger light and battery pack on top of the rail system above the camera.  The ikan iLED 150 is a slick solution to put portable lighting on top of your rail system.  With 144 LED lights and adjustable brightness, the iLED 150 gives you a nice, controlled lighting solution that runs for hours on a single charge.  We will be doing a specific light review on this product in the near future.

External Microphone – Rode Stereo VideoMic plus the Dead Kitten

There are many ways you can go with audio with your 5D II (or 7D or any other DSLR).  One way would be to add an XLR adapter such as those from Beachtek.  These would allow you to hook up XLR microphones either to the rig or wireless or off a boom.  But there is another, much easier way to add a mic.  As the Canon 5D II and many other HD recording devices have mini-phono jacks as their only source of recording.  For this, a cold shoe mounted microphone with a mini-phono jack is often the ideal solution.  We used a Rode Stereo Videomic with a wind filter called a “DeadKitten”.  This unit attaches right to the hot shoe on the camera and plugs into the mini-phono input.  It is a powered mic, using a 9v battery, and it has some really nice features.  It is a stereo “shotgun” style site mic with X/Y configuration, which enables it to capture the true ambiance of the recording space.  This mic is said to be the world’s best selling stereo shotgun mic.  I will be doing a full review of this and several other Rodes mics in the coming weeks, but for now, you read some great reviews here:

Rode Microphones Stereo VideoMic On-Camera Microphone

Putting It All Together:

So, I have to say, putting this all together was the best part.  If you are like me and you like to tinker with things, this is a tinkerers dream. The system came in pieces and components ready to assemble.  I was a bit intimidated at first, but quickly dug into the project.  There were dozens of pieces to put together, but all was done with either thumb screws or allen wrenches that were included.

First – the rails.

I started with the rails… two 12″ long carbon fiber rods that are the backbone of the IndiRAILS system.  There are “blocks” that attach to the top and bottom of these rails and clamp down to hold the rails in place.  All it takes is 1 set of blocks and your rails are steady and firm.

Second – the camera block

The first block to mount is the camera block.  This is where the camera mounts and is kind of the core of the rig.  The IndyRAILSpro camera block is adjustable vertically, so the Canon 5D with a battery grip can still be adjusted to a good height to work with the rest of the attachments.

Inside the camera block I have mounted the “C” shaped mounting bracket and carrying handle.  This is also a pretty recent addition to the product line-up (one that I think I had a little influence in creating) and is an important addition to the rig.  This handle not only allows me to mount my microphone and other gear above the camera, but it is a firm handle to help carry a rather awkward shaped rig around.

Third – the Matte Box

Next, I attached the indiMATTEpro matte box.  It also mounted with a block on the front, which added further stabilization to the rails.  The height of the matte box can be adjusted to match up properly with the lens height on the camera.  The side and top flags are easily adjustable and can be tightened into position.  The height is also adjustable so you can easily align the opening and masking height with the particular camera setup you have.

Fourth – front handles

To give me something to hold onto, I next mounted the front handles to the rails.  These mounted to the rails with a block just like the Matte box mounts.  The handles are pretty flexible with good adjust-ability, and they lock down real tight when in position.  In a future article, I plan to mount a remote control for the camera to one of the handles to allow start and stop recording while on the move, as your hands tend to be pretty tied up while carrying all of this gear on your shoulder.

Fifth – shoulder mount

From here, I put on the shoulder mount.  This latest design of the shoulder assembly is pretty nice.  It is lighter weight than the last model and is more flexible in that you can easily switch which side of the rig you put it on and the length of the mount, as well as the angle from the rig and the angle to the shoulder.

Sixth – follow focus

The next item to add was the indiFOCUSpro.  This is probably the coolest addition to the rail system.  The issue with the 5D II and video is auto-focus… or the lack thereof.  And truthfully, you really don’t always want auto focus.  Selective focusing is much more dramatic and engrossing in your video production. The issue is that grabbing the lens to focus shakes the camera and is inaccurate.  The indiFOCUSpro comes with a large hand grip dial to allow you to focus more naturally.  It has a gearbox that drives gears to turn the lens.  It also has gear teethed rings to mount on the outside of your lens. With the 6 simple adjustment points, it is easy to clamp the ring down on your lens.  It doesn’t have to be tight, and the alan screw tips are rounded as to not mark the lens.  But I went down to the local hardware store and spend $0.86 on some thread protectors and cut them down to fit on the threads.  This made me more comfortable tightening the screws down on my expensive lenses. You can see these (orange and red) in the photo to the right.

Once aligned and adjusted, the follow focus is a great tool for focusing the lens.  It also has a white back plate where you can mark your focus points with a grease pencil (included with the indiFOCUSpro).

At this point the rail system is ready to take out and use.  All of the gear mentioned above has been mounted to the rails and the camera installed.  Here are a few finished shots.

Cost

If you have looked into these rail systems before, then you know how pricey they can get.  We studied the Redrock Micro system and Zacuto gear.  We were amazed at how fast you can spend $2.5k, $3k, $4k and more.  What really excited us about the indiSYSTEM from Studio4 Productions is how reasonable the pricing is for their solution.  The complete indiSYSTEM setup I have shown in this article (not including additional electronics or camera – mic, screen, light, 5d, lens) was just a little over $1,200 at the time of writing this.  For those of us trying to break into video production, many cannot afford $3k or more to outfit our gear to get started in video.  This is something to truly consider when looking for a rail system.

There is a lot more reviewing to do here, as we need to show this rig in action.  But for now, it took me long enough to get all of this gear together.  I wanted to get a basic overview review of the indiSYSTEM components done so we could start to familiarize ourselves with using a rail system.

Stay tuned to see this rail system in operation and for reviews of the individual components.

Here are the websites for the manufacturers of products in this article:

• indiSYSTEM (Studio 4 productions)
• ikan
• R0DE Microphones
• Delkin

SpyderCUBE by Datacolor

Once in a while a product comes along that is so clever, so right, it is just a “must have” product.  While at PMA, I stumbled on such a product.  The SpyderCUBE by Datacolor is one of those products.  Nothing it does is really new, but it does everything right, in a small package, with more features than most any competitive product on the market.  For me personally, this gadget has single-handedly obsoleted my gray cards, ExpoDisc and most all other white balance devices I have seen.

Overview

First, this is an ABS plastic/resin cube with a tripod mount on the bottom stem and a metallic ball on the top.  By putting this object in a photo you shoot, you get a whole slew of exposure, white balance, specular highlight, black level, absolute black, neutral gray and white readings in light from multiple directions, all in one place from a single tool.

Features

It’s not a complexly built product, but it is a lot more sophisticated than a piece of gray cardboard that gets bent up in the pouch of your camera bag.  Each and every feature and surface of the device has a specific purpose.  If you use Aperture or Lightroom, taking advantage of this tool is quick and easy.

Specifications

Usage

I have used this product in a couple of tests so far with my Canon 5D Mark II, and the results are both amazing and as expected.  At the beginning of my shoot, I put this SpyderCUBE (attached to a flexible tripod) on a flat surface somewhere in the shoot.  I take an initial shot with it in the photo.  Once I get into Lightroom, I use the eyedropper to set my white balance setting for the room, and then apply that setting across the rest of the photos that I shot in that scene.

Another possibility is to use the cube in a photo to set the on-camera custom white balance.  If you get the cube to take up a a good bit of the image, the camera can set white balance right from it.

Results

Original Auto White Balance Canon 5DII

So, here are some tests that I did to see how well this works.  Follow along with me.

First, I grabbed my Canon 5D Mark II with a 16-35MM F2.8L lens and set white balance to auto white balance (AWB), walked out my back door, sat the SpyderCUBE with a mini-tripod onto a crate of travertine on my back patio.  There is some white Styrofoam and fairly white stone there in the shot, so I figured it would get a pretty decent white balance with the auto setting on my camera.  As you can see, the photo isn’t too bad for color (click it to enlarge).  The camera calculated the white balance at 4500ºK.

Lightroom's eyedropper tool

I then brought the image into Adobe LightRoom to do a little light balance work there.  In the develop mode of lightroom, there is a small eyedropper you can select and use to point to a neutral gray on the image.  This is what the SpyderCUBE is all about… giving you that perfect neutral gray in both direct light and indirect light.  You can see from the image to the right that the Lightroom eyedropper gives a pattern of pixel colors around where you are about to click, as well as the RGB value of the pixel you are hovering over.

Lightroom Corrected - 5000ºK

Once you click the mouse, Lightroom immediately re-calculates the white balance for the scene and changes the white balance setting to the new calculation.  In this case, that setting is 500ºK warmer, or 5000ºK.  If I had just shot a whole series of photos in this scene, I would now apply the new white balance setting to all of the images in the series to get the color correct on all of them.  This one step alone can save many of us from manually tweaking the color settings in our images, but shooting outdoors is not typically a hard situation to white balance.

Mixed lighting indoors + AWB

A scenario that is really hard for most cameras to auto white balance is a mixture of indoor light sources, including halogen, tungsten, fluorescent and ambient light from windows.  I am sure that many of you have had this situation where you shoot an indoor scene with AWB set and what you get is an orange cast image that is just completely wrong as your camera’s auto white balance just cannot figure out the lighting.  So, I have set up that exact situation with the modeling lights from my strobes through soft boxes and halogen overhead lights, plus mid-day sunlight coming in through the windows.  This shot is a mess!  And it is so typical of using the AWB setting on so many cameras when shooting indoors.

Camera AWB reading

Looking at the settings in Lightroom, this image was read as a color temperture of 4050ºK.  The multiple light sources have thrown the camera for a loop.  But again, with the eyedropper and selecting the neutral gray, and this time you can see a much more dramatic change over the last example.

Corrected White Balance

The corrected image now has a color space of 2750ºK, which is 1300ºK different than the original calculations by the camera.  And look how obvious that difference is! As a matter of fact, I could not find a single situation where the color wasn’t ever so slightly off from my camera using the AWB setting.  That alone tells me that this SpyderCUBE needs to travel everywhere my camera travels.

Histogram as shot

This brings up another interesting tip with Lightroom and using the Histogram in the upper right corner.  Let’s take a look at the Histogram for this image (right).  Notice the triangles at the upper left and right of this image?  They actually serve a purpose.  They can tell you if your image has absolute blacks and whites in the range of the image.  Notice how both triangles are gray – the same color a the background of the Histogram?

No blue shows here

If you click on the triangle, it will highlight.  If you look at your image, it will now show blue wherever absolute black appears in the photo.  In this case, there really isn’t any absolute black to notice.  Even the hole in the bottom of the SpyderCUBE is not showing any blue.  But we can fix this.

Sliding the Histogram

Next, we roll our mouse pointer over the lower portion of the Histogram, and click.  A <|> symbol appears and we can now drag the histogram for the lower light portion of the image and move the black point.  As we slowly move it left, you will see the triangle turn blue just as the first pixels of absolute black appear on the screen.  Move it a touch more and it turns white.  When the triangle is gray, none of the image is at absolute black.  When it turns blue, the image is perfectly set with the darkest color in the photo at absolute black.  As you drag further and it turns white you are now clipping some of the darker colors in the image to black.  This is a powerful tool and tells us a lot about the luminance range of our image.

White point clipping

The upper end of the histogram serves the same purpose with the white point of the image.  When I click it, the specular highlight of the SpiderCUBE’s chrome ball reflects the brightest light source in the image and pixels begin to appear in red where the white point of the image begins to clip.  By adjusting this area of the histogram, we can fine tune the white point of the image and control the clipping at the brightest point we wish. You can also click both of the triangles and see the white and black clipping points in red and blue at the same time.

AWB shot for in camera WB

One last test was to see if I could set the camera’s custom white balance from just shooting the SpyderCUBE.  Using the same lighting setup as the studio shots above, I put the SpyderCUBE about 6″ away from my lens and shot it with AWB.  As you can see, the same white point issues.  This shot came out at around 4150ºK, which is pretty far off.  I then went into the menu on the camera and told it to set a custom white balance using this photo as a reference.  This was an interesting test as I made sure that there were other colors visible in the photo.

In-camera custom white balance

The camera re-set the white balance to 2900ºK.  I changed exposure slightly, took the SpyderCUBE out of the shot and re-took the photo with the new white balance setting, and as you can see… a huge improvement!  Once again, the SpyderCUBE has done its job.  even with all kinds of strange light combinations, it has saved the day and set the white balance properly.  From now on, this little baby goes wherever my camera goes.

The SpyderCUBE is available at B&H and Amazon for $59 as of the writing of this review.  Although it is a bit more than you will pay for a white balance card, and a little bulkier, there are some distinct advantages to having the extra features of this product… like specular highlight and absolute black.

The SpyderCUBE and a series of demonstration videos videos can be found at the Datacolor website.

Product Review Scorecard

*PHD Cameras – Acronym for “Push Here, Dummy”, meaning the world of simple point and click digital cameras.

Author: Maurice Naragon
Digital Creations
Website Development and Marketing
Professional Photography in Orange County, CA

I upgraded from a EOS 30D. Much like the 30D, the 40D has a solid feel with its rubberized coating around the magnesium chassis. It feels great in the hands and is a pleasure to hold. I loved the feel of my 30D, and the 40D is very similar.

The first and most obvious difference is the 3″ screen. It really is a pleasure to have such a large, bright display. The angle of view is better than the 20D by far, as it retains both color and brightness much better at an angle. This is by far the best “chimping” display I have ever had on a camera, with the exception of the iPhone. And the larger size lets others “chimp” from a little further back, giving you some needed space.

The next real obvious change is the menu system. Those who have used the new Canon Mark IIIs will see that the 40D uses the same new menu structure. It takes a little getting used to, but it is definitely better organized than the 20D/30D menus. I personally think the icons across the top of the menu could be done a little nicer (they are too simple), but the structure is truly better. With a little more experience, I should be able to fly through the settings.

You can’t help but notice the new, built in sensor cleaner on this camera as an animated message displays to the screen every time you turn the camera on and off telling you it is cleaning your machine. It gives me a warm feeling all over. Like most, I hate dirty sensors and am very hopeful this will keep my sensor and picture clean.

Eddie Perlas, a friend of mine who is a photographer for the San Diego Chargers, among other sporting subjects, shoots the new 1D Mark III. After playing with my 40D for a little, he was quite convinced that the 40D was the next camera to put in his arsenal. He kept pointing out how similar the 40D was to the EOS 1D Mark III… the screen size, the menus, new features like Highlight Tone Priority, the Auto Focus button in the top right and all of the customizable features.

Interestingly enough, he explained the Highlight Tone Priority feature and how it helps recover lots of details in what would otherwise be blown out white areas on a photo (like white shirts in sunlight) and I turned that feature on. That led to a new problem: later that night we were shooting the Tall Ships coming into Dana Point Harbor and we couldn’t get the ISO to go below 200 without going to the new “Auto” setting. It was really frustrating. When I got home, I looked it up and found that when you turn on Highlight Tone Priority in the 40D, ISO 200 is the lowest you can go. Good to know.

So, the main differences we found between the EOS 1D Mark III ($4,000) and the EOS 40D ($1,300) were:

a) 10fps on the 1D Mark III vs 6.5fps on the 40D
b) No built-in flash on the Mark III
c) Shutter sounds a lot different (and quieter) on the 40D
d) The Mark III has 2 media card slots – CF and SD

Now, there are a few more differences than those above, but these were the only major ones we really noticed on first use. Over all, the 6.5fps vs. 10fps isn’t a huge difference except in very specific situations. The built-in flash and quieter shutter are a nice advantage on the 40D. Overall, the EOS 1D Mark III is only a slight improvement over the 40D for certain users. The 40D is really going to cut into Canon’s perceived Mark III market.

Like the 1D Mark III, the 40D has the Live View feature. Live View flips the mirror out of the way and lets you view through the lens on the 3″ screen. It takes a few steps to set up, and I am truly not that impressed with this feature. The first reason is that there is no auto focus when you use it. You have to manually focus, which to me defeats some of the purpose of using this feature to stand back and get a nice visual on the scene. You end up putting your face right up to the screen to make sure you are manually focusing properly and it takes a lot of time. For landscapes and still life and studio shots… maybe it would be nice. But the second issues is that this function supposedly heats the sensor, and heat is the enemy to good, low-noise/artifact photos and sensor life. I admit it is cool to show off, but not a real convenient feature as implemented.

So, as nobody had any EOS 40D bodies in stock on intro day, I decided to buy the EOS 40D kit from BestBuy ($1,499) as they got 2 in on the first day. I really didn’t need a new lens, but the kit was only $200 more than the body alone. After opening the kit, I was surprised by the quality of the included lens. It is an EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens, and for $200 more, give me a break! I cannot believe this lens costs only $200 more. It may not be the fastest lens, but the IS is said to give you back at least a stop due to good stabilization. I played around for a bit and was pleasantly surprised by the results. It’s a very universal range lens for everyday, outdoor shooting (I say this as I like faster glass for indoor shooting). And looking at how close the glass is to the front of this lens, a lens hood would have been nice to add to the box.

By the way, my BG-E2 vertical grip works just great on the 40D. The only differences between it and the new BG-EN2 grip are that that it has a rubber seal around the battery door and it has an Auto Focus button on the corner like the 40D and Mark III bodies do. However, I am really waiting for the WTF-E3/E3A wireless grip as the ability to send photos to a laptop or a USB drive is a feature I have wanted for years.

As for complaints, I have a couple… the first being that new out of the box there was a spec of dirt in the viewfinder and I will have to send it to Canon service to get this removed. Fortunately, Canon service is about 3 miles from me. Second, the camera actually crashed on me. As I was writing this article, <1 week after purchase, 1.0.3 firmware installed, I powered the camera on and it wouldn’t shoot or display anything on the screen. I could not get a menu or view an image. I turned it off and on, and I replaced the CF card. I finally had to remove the battery and re-insert it to reset the camera. I hope not to see this issue again, especially not at a shoot.

The one last thing I am truly waiting for is by far the hardest to live without… RAW support for applications like Adobe LightRoom. I know it’s coming, but it’s just so hard to wait when RAW is such a part of your daily workflow.

Overall, I am happy with my upgrade from the EOS 30D to the EOS 40D. The resolution and screen size made it worth the purchase price. I truly believe that this is the best current camera on the market in this price range. I am sure I will get my use out of it.

For fun, here are a few photos I have taken in the first week with my new 40D.

Maurice Naragon
Digital Creations
Website Development and Marketing
Professional Photography in Orange County, CA