Canon’s PowerShot SX-20 IS – review

There’s a lot of buzz about HD video on DSLR’s. What this misses is that HD video is also possible on most every digital still camera made today, with fewer and fewer exceptions.

When Canon upgraded their venerable PowerShot S-series, they did it in an odd way, the US got the CCD based SX10 which could not shoot HD video, but the rest of the world received the CMOS-based SX1, which could shoot 1080p30 HD video with stereo audio built in.

After several months, Canon brought the SX1 to the US. But those wishing to avoid the CMOS distortions I easily demonstrated in my earlier review were still left out in the cold, despite cameras lower in Canon’s lineup offering CCD-based HD video. Finally, Canon brought the SX20 to market which adds HD video and more megapixels to the camera. Is it a winner? My hands-on will find out.

Consumer Digital Still HD video shoutout.

If you can get a consumer camera that shoots HD for just a couple hundred bucks, why not load up on the cameras and get multiple angles of an event for next to no cost. Plus, you can move them around easily, perch them in unusual places and you don’t need a half-dozen video camera operators. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Well, the reality is that the rolling shutter CMOS image distortion in video cameras is just as prevalent in digital still cameras. You can easily see it when you bounce the camera up and down lightly, or pan the camera side to side. Things that you naturally do when you are recording video with the camera in your hands instead of on a tripod. These motions distort the image from what really exists in reality. Camera flashes are partially bad- partially illuminating multiple frames. When you play that back, it looks completely unnatural.

To quantify these CMOS distortions, I secured two brand new digital still cameras that shoot HD video and pitted them side by side in some critical tests and the results clearly demonstrate the difference between CMOS and CCD when it comes to capturing video that faithfully represents what happened.

DSLR Video – it’s a tool. Not the holy grail.

While the industry may be all atwitter about using Digital SLR cameras for video to get that shallow depth of field (DoF) you get with motion picture cameras and prime film lenses, the truth is, very shallow DoF and beautiful bokeh will not save a crappy story, bad writing, misguided direction or bad acting.

It is as if suddenly, a single piece of technical gear will magically make a movie be so much better. It’s the latest “got to have it” piece of tech. In reality, the camera can only make it look better; and certainly not sound better.
Moreover, if the camera op isn’t well versed in all the serious caveats these DSLRs have, it will look far worse than if you just shot your movie with a prosumer camera and spent all that extra money and time on script rewrites or a great director.

The Foundry offers fix for CMOS “Rolling Shutter”

After seeing their corrected footage, I have to say, wow.

Not only does it seem to properly recognize the distortion and correct it, it lets you calibrate it for specific cameras, and it doesn’t correct the whole image, just what moves- so an object moving in the frame (like the bus) is fixed while the street poles are left alone (which a “global adjustment” would distort.)

Hey camera manufacturers… there’s code that solves the problem.
Now you can fix it in the camera and save us the headache of having to process all our footage after the fact.

Very convincing video demo after the break.

NAB Marketing 102. Spaghetti

The urban myth is – you find out if spaghetti is done by taking  a piece and throwing it at the wall to see if it sticks.

However, one of the tips we shot for Healthy Flavors‘ “Mythbusters” show, explains this to be false, but it hasn’t stopped companies from trying the same tactic: when you don’t know what to make, make all kinds of things, throw it at the market, and see what sticks.

Is this a good idea?

HD Everywhere?

Well, the 2009 Photo Marketing Association’s annual conference is March 3-5 and it’s expected that most everyone who hasn’t already announced a still camera capable of HD video recording— will at the event. This is not to say that video camcorders are not needed any more. I have already shot video with these new “HD-capable” still cameras… and let me tell all the video camcorders out there: your jobs are secure.

The other shoe to drop recently is the first cell phone to tout HD video recording capability. Personally, I am hoping for about 5 MP of quality pictures, but HD video? I doubt it. The proof will be in the pudding when these things actually ship and the video makes its way onto the web for everyone to critically assess.

Either way, the main problem these devices have, aside from the complete lack of control of “camera” functions while shooting, is video that is plagued with problems…

Sony PMW-EX1 CMOS FAILS Strobe Test.

FreshDV shot some interesting footage with the Sony PMW-EX1 and video of a police car with numerous strobes firing clearly demonstrated that Sony’s new flagship SxS camcorder, despite being knighted with the CineAlta badge, clearly has problems with capturing partial-second instances of time.

There is going to be trouble in Teaneck…

Red Rolling CMOS Shutter Redux, again.

One of the easiest ways to f— with video is to use flashes and strobes while shooting.

With CCDs, you’ll likely end up with one field of interlaced video completely blown out and the other “half” of the image is normally exposed. Apparently, with CMOS imagers, including the soon to be replaced first 100 RED cameras, strobes and flashes can look like this, where only part of the frame is illuminated. Odd, isn’t it.

The video on the Fini Films Site has lots of strobes popping, and most are captured properly, but a good portion- more than you would expect- aren’t.

Via FreshDV

Red rolling shutter redux

There’s been a bit of discussion about the image distortion caused by the scanning (rolling) shutter used by CMOS chips which are starting to proliferate in the prosumer and professional video camera world. The key problem, as I have mentioned previously, is that the scanning imaging device is no longer sending the image solely to scanning displays- i.e. tube televisions. Today’s displays include plasma, LCD, DLP, OLED, etc. Most are progressive, but some include circuitry to display the image as if it were a scanning device.

Confused yet?

Mike Curtis, of HD For Indies, is very heavy into RED usage and promotion on his web site. RED is the video camera that I will agree is changing, or will change, the hardware business in the video industry. I checked in with Mike about the “rolling shutter” issue…

Rolling shutter? – Pick the right tool for the job.

At DVXuser, there’s a detailed article called Sensor Artifacts and CMOS Rolling Shutter by Barry Green. He discusses, and does a very good job at showing a phenomenon whereby the image captured by a camcorder’s imaging chip is not gathered all at once (what I’ll call “progressive” like a frame of film behind a shutter) but may end up being collected across the chip like a farmer collecting corn from his field. This can create footage that has unique problems. He says:

While CMOS and CCD sensors do the same basic job (gathering light and turning it into a video image), they go about it in different ways, and the differences can have very significant impact on your footage… CMOS sensors (equipped with “rolling shutters”) can exhibit skew, wobble, and partial exposure; CCD sensors are immune to those effects. And a CMOS sensor with a “global shutter” would also be immune to them, but since no current CMOS camcorders are equipped with global shutters, a camcorder buyer needs to be aware of what the implications of a rolling shutter would be.

As I read through his article, I thought back to using tube video cameras.