Blackmagic Cinema Camera vs. Canon C100

Since the Blackmagic Cinema Camera was announced last April at NAB, my interest was thoroughly piqued.  A RAW-shooting 2.5K cinema camera for just under $3000 that could record to any standard SSD and used EF lenses seemed like a dream-come-true.  I was ready to wholeheartedly jump onto the BMCC train!  The more I considered the camera's specs, however, the more difficult I found it to embrace the 2.3X crop factor.  Even the wider Canon EF lenses became medium-telephoto lenses on the BMCC; there were simply very few wide prime options for the BMCC and the wide zooms sacrificed aperture.  With it's smaller sensor, shallow DOF was also an obstacle, now forced to use slower lenses for anything that produced a 35mm-equivalent field of view under around 100mm.  It's not that I use large amounts of wide shots (I do love the 12mm SLR Magic on the GH2, though) or try to use razor-thin DOF shots frequently, but I could not justify buying a camera with these limitations.  When the John Brawley footage, the first shots from a BMCC, was release last summer, I was somewhat unimpressed and decided the BMCC was not for me.

In September Blackmagic shook my opinions, announcing a passive Micro Four Thirds mount.  Coupled with some great-looking footage that was beginning to appear on Vimeo, this changed everything.  With lenses like the SLR Magic 12mm, wide shots with a decently fast prime lens were now possible and f/0.95 lenses such as those from SLR Magic and Voigtlander opened the door to shallower depth of field.  The fact that the mount was passive was a bummer, essentially excluding the use of Panasonic, Olympus, and any others without manual aperture control.  With many great fully manual lenses available for M43 cameras, this was far from being a deal breaker.

After watching months of BMCC videos on Vimeo, seeing the EOSHD review, and being amazed at the results I could get using Lightroom to grade some of the RAW files available online, I preordered the M43 Blackmagic Cinema Camera in December after the company claimed that it was on the verge of resolving production issues.  I expected that maybe I'd get my camera sometime in March.  That date is fast approaching and very few of the EF preorders, which Blackmagic said it would fill first before even producing more M43 cameras, have been filled.  There are still people who have been waiting over eight months for their EF model with no delivery in sight.

Frustrated that I could potentially have a year wait remaining, I browsed some news on other cameras.  With my sights locked on the BMCC, I completely blew off the Canon C100 launch, especially with its MSRP.  As my frustration with the BMCC grew I began to consider the C100 more and now I'm not sure what to do.  The benefits of each, along with some mitigating factors are as follows:

Blackmagic Cinema Camera

• RAW.  This is by far the biggest reason this camera is on my radar.  The colors and dynamic range that can be extracted from these files is absolutely breathtaking.  Nowhere else on the market can one obtain a RAW camera for anywhere near this price.  I could care less about Prores on the BMCC; RAW is the selling point for me.  8-bit 4:2:0 on the C100 is my biggest fear.
• 2.5K.  2.5K resolution is nice, but let's face it, aside from select computer monitors, nothing displays 2.5K natively.  Sure, the extra resolution allows for stabilization or reframing, but I feel that downscaling to 1080p is a necessity to reduce noise and increase sharpness on this camera.  
• Price.  The BMCC plus one SSD is about half the price of the C100.  For me, however, if I decided upon the C100, I would be selling my GH2 along with five M43 lenses, thereby making the prices more comparable.  Further I feel the Metabones Speedbooster, allowing from use of Rokinon Cine Lenses, would be a necessity on the M43 BMCC, adding another $600 to the BMCC package price. 
• Benefits of a small sensor.  Small sensors do indeed have some benefits, despite the crop factor and less shallow DOF.  The light gathering of wide apertures like f/0.95 without being forced into a razor-thin DOF can be nice.  This benefit is somewhat lessened by the fact that the BMCC is far from being a great low-light performer compared to the C100.  Even if you were forced to stop down a bit for increased DOF on a C100, noise may still be comparable.

Canon C100

• EF Lenses.  For me, the fact that the C100 uses EF lenses (and has a large enough sensor so that they do not instantly become telephoto lenses) is a huge, huge selling point.  I love my 5D Mark III, just not for video.  I hate buying pricey M43 lenses for video, but then cannot shoot stills with them.  It would be wonderful to essentially get two lenses for the price of one.  If I bought an L lens to shoot still on the 5D3, I could still get some use out of it on the C100 and vice versa.  I also feel that M43 glass is overpriced.  The Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 is great, but you're basically paying for the aperture.  Sure, you get some extra light, but the DOF on a crop sensor at f/0.95 is still deeper than smaller apertures on a 50mm lens on a larger sensor camera.  With Voightlander and SLR Magic, the price is all about allowing shallower DOF on a smaller sensor camera.  Although priced like Canon L glass, I just do not believe these lenses are comparable when it comes to overall image, color reproduction, and contrast.  Rokinon Cine Lenses are also great, but essentially require the $600 Metabones Speedbooster just to get the same field of view that they would have on a C100.
• Benefits of a large sensor.  The larger Super 35mm sensor on the C100 yields the benefits of a smaller crop factor, possibility of shallower DOF if desired, and better low light performance.
• Low light performance.  I've seen some stellar and even useable C100 footage even at up to ISO 10,000.  The BMCC isn't horrible in low light by any means, but noise is quite apparent even in well exposed areas at ISO 800.  One of my biggest dislikes about the BMCC image is this noise pattern.  Well exposed skin often has a noisy grain to it.  While some call this "cinematic," I call this distracting and over-justification.  When I watch a great cinematic film on Blu-Ray, it is crystal clear and noise free.  Sure, some noise patterns are more organic and less distracting than others, but no noise is always better in my opinion.
• Two cameras in one.  Just like getting two lenses in one on this camera, it's also more like two diverse cameras in one package.  I'm mostly interested in narrative work and the BMCC as well as the C100 fit this bill, but the C100 also doubles a pretty great "run 'n gun" camera.  It features much better ergonomics, one-shot autofocus to quickly set up a shot, built-in ND filters, and a wide range of ISO settings, all aiding in quickly setting up a shot.  The BMCC requires time and finesse to setup a shot.  This is fine, and preferred, for a narrative film, but for anything live getting setup quickly can mean the difference between getting a great shot and missing it altogether.
• Upgrade options.  This camera also has an upgrade path if the 4:2:0 codec isn't up to snuff.  Throw on an Atomos Ninja 2 and you now have basically the same camera as the $16,000 C300.  The C100 has the same sensor as the C300 and the Ninja allows for 4:2:2 uncompressed Prores via HDMI onto an SSD, closing the gap on the main advantage of the BMCC.

Both cameras undoubtedly are capable of better image quality than a DSLR and are much more robust and stable than a hacked GH2.  Although RAW would give great flexibility in post and allow me to use Lightroom, which I'm much more comfortable with as compared to a video-centric color correction tool, the C100 has more that its share of advantages.  I think I've watched just about every BMCC and C100 video that exists on Vimeo and I think image quality between the cameras is comparable.  The colors of the BMCC are great, but sometimes corrected to be oversaturated and almost too vibrant.  The C100 produces a very clean and sharp image.  I also feel that I've seen a fair share of videos in which the BMCC footage looks like utter crap.  There are myriad examples where the footage is polluted by noise or simply just doesn't not look like something a $3000 camera shot, especially in the hands of the more than capable people lucky enough to own one already.  

What it really comes down to, though, is availability.  Is my BMCC still a year away?  We can discuss and compare specs ad nauseum, but when will most people even get their hands on this thing.  Even if the BMCC shot 5K RAW on a full frame sensor and came with Robert DeNiro to be in your film all for $100, what good are specs and promises if it isn't available and doesn't look to be available for the foreseeable future.  The C100 is available.  I'm growing tired of waiting, especially with absolutely no concrete date (it could be two months, a year, or, who knows, maybe never) and for a camera that is arguably still beta hardware (black spot highlight clipping issue still not corrected in latest firmware, lack of the ability to delete files in camera, etc).  

It's a tough decision and Blackmagic certainly is making it difficult to stay devoted and play the waiting game.

The Best Rule Tweaks for Improving Soccer

I enjoy watching international soccer on TV.  I've been watching men and women's Olympic soccer and I'm already looking forward to the 2014 World Cup.  Soccer does have its exciting moments, but some minor rule tweaks could exponentially increase excitement and likely viewership in non-soccer-centric nations.

1. Too often a player has the ball in the penalty area and a defender simply boots the ball out of bounds.  This maneuver is akin to clearing the puck over the boards from the defensive zone in hockey (which would result in a two-minute delay of game penalty).  It's far too easy to take the heat out of a hot kitchen.  A throw-in for the opposing team just isn't that big a detriment to the defenders.  I propose that if a defender kicks a ball out of bounds from the penalty area the opposing team should always get a corner kick, even if it goes out on the sidelines halfway down the field.

2. Defenders often get away with murder in the penalty area.  Refs seem to be very hesitant to award a penalty kick.  Just the other day in the France vs. Japan women's semifinal match a Japanese defender essentially arm tackled a French player with the ball in the penalty area and nothing was called.  Refs need to be ready to enforce the rules that are in place strictly.

3. Offsides rules should be less strict.  A horizontal line should be drawn across the field and offsides should only be called if the offending pass crosses this line (similar to the blue line in hockey).  It's kind of frustrating to see a player with the ball deep in the opponent's zone or even in the penalty area and still see offsides be called.  The current rule basically prevents breakaways, which would likely be a sure goal, but I think that would part of the game and force the teams to play tight defense.

4. Soccer is already a tough game to put points on the board and the fact that a team with the lead can easily pass the ball up the field and backwards makes it quite easy to defend a lead.  Like in basketball, a team should not be able to pass the ball back across mid-field after they have crossed into the opponent's half of the field.  This would make the field much smaller for them to pass the ball around and try to delay.  Violating this rule would give the opponents a free kick from mid-field.

Overall, I think these rule changes would not fundamentally change the game of soccer and would act only as minor tweaks to rid soccer of maneuvers that take away from the excitement of the game.

Canon 5D Mark III and Nikon D800

The newest crop of cameras from Canon and Nikon has really made choosing a new full-frame DSLR quite interesting.  When first announced it looked like the 5D Mark III would be a slam dunk for Canon while the D800, with its whopping 36 megapixels, would only appeal to a niche market.  With 50% more, and hence smaller, pixels the D800 looked as though it would have poor low light performance.  Canon chose to essentially forgo an increase in pixel count and promises two stops better low light performance versus the 5D Mark II.  To me, this means not only increasing the top end of the native ISO range from 6400 to 25600, but also that ISO 1600 on a 5DIII should have about the same amount of noise as ISO 400 on a 5DII, for example.  With this in mind in addition to the vastly improved autofocus system and high bit rate ALL-I video recording with reduced moiré the Canon 5D Mark III is the clear champion...on paper.

Surprisingly for two primarily still cameras, video samples were really the first thing to come out of them for analysis on the web.  Discussing which camera has the best video capabilities is moot since, in my opinion they both flat out suck.  OK, so they're not that bad, but neither raises the bar for DSLR video and neither comes close to a hacked Panasonic GH2, the reigning king of DSLR video.  Both cameras yield quite soft video and just do not capture the detail that a GH2 can.  When I first saw Intra (ALL-I) video on the GH2, I was wowed.  I expected similar things from the 5DIII ALL-I mode, but I am quite disappointed after seeing samples.  The D800 features clean HDMI output (only 1080i60 for some reason), but after seeing some HDMI versus internal recording comparisons for it, I feel it does very little to increase the quality.  If I had to choose I would say the D800, despite some moiré issues, has a slight edge over the 5DIII in the video department, with both only minority improving upon the performance of a 5D Mark II.  Unless having video and still capabilities in one camera is a must, I would forget about either camera's video mode, choose based solely on still capabilities, and pick up a GH2 with a couple decent lenses all for less than the cost of another high end lens for the 5D3 or D800.

Although the D800 was announced first, 5DIII's are making their ways to consumers first and thus have allowed for more in-depth reviews.  So far the 5DIII has received stellar reviews with regard to still photography.  It's new 61-point autofocus, the same found on the flagship 1DX, has been praised as being extremely quick and accurate, even in very low light.  Its low light capabilities have been lauded, though in one ISO comparison test from cameralabs.com versus the 5D Mark II, I do not see two stops of improvement, albeit a comparison of JPEGs instead of RAW.  There is maybe one stop of improvement at best.  I realize it is just one test, but at ISO 3200 the 5DIII is less noisy than the 5DII at 3200, but 5DIII is definitely more noisy at ISO 6400 than the 5DII at 3200.  At 12800, the 5DIII is much, much more noisy than the 5DII at 3200.  From this test I would give the 5DIII as about 2/3 of a stop better than the 5DII.  The addition of two stops at the top of the native ISO range also seems pointless to me.  Shooting in such low light is more of a novelty and I doubt many people want to buy a $3500 camera to get results that look like they were shot on an iPhone (very low light or not).  When scaled down, it appears that noise begins to become apparent at around ISO 3200.  I would much like to see this same comparison with images captured in RAW.  All in all, the 5D Mark III real advantages over the 5D Mark II are just improved autofocus and about a stop of low light performance.

With these improvements on the already impressive 5D Mark II, it seemed as though the D800 had its work cut out for it.  The majority of the Nikon community had been bemoaning the vast increase in pixels since rumors pegged the D800 at 36 MP.  It seemed that loss of low light sensitivity in order to gain more massive file sizes (around 50 MB RAW files) and increased detail that would be lost at most normal viewing/print sizes.  Not many reviews of the D800 have surfaced yet, but the sensor test by DxOMark has rated the D800's as the best sensor they have ever tested.  It's color reproduction rivals medium format studio cameras, it has the best dynamic range of any sensor tested, and ranks third in low light performance only slightly behind the new flagship D4 and the D3s, and almost one stop better than the 5D Mark II.

I'm very excited to see some head to head 5DIII versus D800 comparisons.  Based on the DxOMark test it seems like the D800 could be the dark horse here.  Unless the 5DIII blows the D800 out of the water in low light performance (which I doubt) the D800 may actually produce cleaner images at the same ISO considering there is extra leeway in downscaling the image to mask noise due to the difference in pixel count.  If the autofocus can compete with Canon and with its slight edge in the video department the D800 may end up being the clear champion, with a price tag $500 below that of the 5D Mark III.

Nikon J1 First Impressions

I've been using the Nikon J1 for about a week and I must say that most reviews are truly incorrect.  The problem is that reviewers seem to be judging the Nikon J1 not on what it is, but on what they expect it to be.  The Nikon J1 is essentially a point and shoot with interchangeable lenses.  Reviewers seem to think it should be a D4 in a point and shoot body.  OK, maybe it's not quite that extreme, but that's the gist of it.

The J1 is capable of great pictures if used correctly.  The automatic settings aren't very good.  The camera loves using high ISO's and fast shutter speeds, even if unnecessary, when set to auto.  I've found that when shooting stills or scenes without fast motion, manual shutter speeds and lower ISO's produce better overall image quality while maintaining proper exposure.  If using automatic ISO, I recommend using the setting that limits the highest ISO to 400 or 800.

Nikon's J1 is fun to use, handles like a DSLR, and produces sharp images that definitely surpass images from a point and shoot.  The DSLR-like zoom ring trumps the annoying zoom buttons or switches on traditional point and shoots.  My only complaint is the lack of a dial to select aperture priority, shutter priority, etc. and a dedicated button for ISO and white balance.  It is quite tedious to go into the menu to find and change all of these settings.  If your looking for a small camera, I recommend this camera.  If size isn't an issue, then obviously go with a GH2 or a Canon or Nikon DSLR.

Some Camera Talk

DLSR's

The DSLR world is abuzz with recent product announcements like the Canon 1DX and Nikon D4 as well as rumored prospective camera announcements such as the D800 and 5D Mark II replacement.  Right now it's difficult to say which of the four will really lead the pack of next-generation DSLRS.  

For the non-professional photo enthusiast, the biggest difference with Canon and Nikon's flagships is price and size.  They cost twice as much, weigh over 50% more, and are larger than the D800 and 5D.  Aside from price, I feel the size and weight really detracts from the usefulness of this camera.  Sure, in a studio or maybe at a wedding this wouldn't make a difference, but I doubt I'd want to lug one of these behemoths around on vacation.  

The next major difference between these cameras, all of which have a full frame sensor, is sensor megapixel count.  The 1DX sports 18.1 megapixels compared to 16.2 on the D4.  The D800 is rumored to boast over 30 megapixels while the 5D replacement is said to capture around 20 megapixels.  This brings up the issue of better low light capabilities of the lower megapixel cameras (and hence larger pixels) versus the better ability to create large prints with more pixels.  The issue becomes even more convoluted when one considers that when a 30-megapixel image is resized down to 16 or 18 megapixels, the noise would be much less apparent than in the original size.  

Right now, it looks like only real world performance will tell the truth regarding these four cameras.  Perhaps the high megapixel D800 and 5D3 will hold their own against their higher-priced brethren or maybe the flagships will show off image quality that truly makes them worth the extra money.

These cameras will all sport a HD movie mode as well and all will most likely trump the 5D Mark II in quality, but I feel this point is moot in that I do not believe any of the 4 will top the quality of a hacked Panasonic GH2.  With a GH3 on the horizon I doubt anything from Canon or Nikon will become the new king of DSLR video, especially with the GH2 performing relatively closely to Canon's $16,000 C300.

As a finally note, I'm still putting my weight behind the theory that the next 5D will be called the 5DX.  This would clearly put it in the same family as the 1DX (which it should be).  Further adding credence to this, is the fact that Canon's newest Digic 5 G-series Powershot is named the G1X.  I think the X is going to denote high-performance, Digic 5 cameras.  

Nikon 1 Series

The new Nikon V1 and J1, part of Nikons new mirrorless, interchangeable lens "1 series," have been getting horrible reviews despite selling quite well.  The problem is that they are too often being compared to cameras in a different class.  The point of the V1/J1 is ultra-portability, with decent image quality and the freedom to change the lens.  These cameras should be regarded as point-and-shoots with DSLR-like usability rather than DSLR-like image quality.

Too often the 1 series is compared to the cheaper and similarly sized Sony NEX3.  While the NEX may provide better image quality, the standard 18-55mm zoom lens (the full frame equivalent of 27-82.5mm) is  almost 2.5 inches long whereas the standard 10-30mm zoom lens (the full frame equivalent of 27-81mm) is only 1.7 inches long and weighs about half as much.  For the length of the NEX lens you could put a 30-110mm zoom on the V1 or J1 (27-300 in full frame terms).  Even just considering the standard zoom lenses plus camera thickness, we're talking about 3.8 inches for the NEX versus 2.9 inches for the Nikon.  An inch may not sound like much, but to put things in perspective, a Panasonic GH2 with a 14-42mm kit lens is about the same depth as a NEX3 with an 18-55 lens.  Also the 5D Mark II with a 50mm prime is just one inch deeper than the NEX.  Yes, an inch does make a difference here.  

Let's face it, no one is really going to use either the NEX3 or V1/J1 to create large prints.  Most stuff is going on Facebook or Flickr.  On Flickr, both cameras look quite similar in low light.  These cameras simply aren't for pixel-peepers.  For it's size, I think the 1 series is a worthy contender.  

SSD

After replacing my stock MacBook Pro hard drive with an SATA 6Gbps SSD drive all I can say is, "Wow!"  This simple, 15-minute upgrade was a huge leap forward in system performance, bigger even than last year's jump from a dual-core Core 2 to quad-core i7 MacBook Pro.  Almost all of my applications launch instantly upon clicking.  Flipping though large number of RAW images in Aperture used to be painfully tedious, but is now smooth.  Even skipping to a new spot in a large HD Quicktime movie is instant.  I think I've finally unlocked the full potential of this quad-core beast of a laptop!

SLR Magic 12 mm ƒ/1.6 Mini Review

I recently received the SLR Magic Hyperprime 12 mm ƒ/1.6 lens.  It is a micro four-thirds lens, which I'll be using on my Panasonic GH2.  This endeavor, I feel, is the first serious lens produced by SLR Magic (also formerly known as Noktor).  The Hyperprime 50 mm ƒ/0.95 met very mixed reviews and claims that it is just a cheap security cam lens converted to micro four thirds.  The Hyperprime 12 mm is the real deal!

Upon unboxing the lens, the first thing I noticed was the extremely high build quality.  The lens is all metal and has some weight to it despite being relatively small.  The aperture and focus ring are smooth and feel great.  This lens honestly makes even a Canon L lens feel cheap by comparison.

So far the pictures from the lens are great as well.  They are acceptably sharp even at ƒ/1.6 (with some expected corner softness) and color, saturation, and contrast look good.  There is some lens flare, but it seems it has been fixed somewhat since early reviews of test units.  In some situations the purple flare is evident, although small, even when stopping down all the way to ƒ/11.  I've been shooting almost solely with this lens over the past couple weeks when using my GH2 and I'm pretty impressed with image quality.  Under decent lighting conditions some shots look almost as if they came from a higher end DSLR.  It is great to have a wide angle lens for the GH2 that destroys the kit lens in quality.

For video the lens performs quite well also.  The image quality is similar to, but perhaps not quite as good, as the Panasonic 20mm ƒ/1.7.  Manual focus adds some time to getting a great shot setup, but it works well especially with the ability to zoom in on the rear LCD screen on the GH2.

Overally, this lens is a must in any micro four-thirds kit.  The only viable alternative is the Olympus 12mm ƒ/2.0; it costs about 50% more and may have marginally better image quality at the cost of 2/3 of an ƒ-stop with respect to aperture.  I highly recommend the SLR Magic Hyperprime 12mm and only wish there was a Canon EF mount version as well.

The State of DSLR Video

The world of DSLR (and mirrorless camera) video has some new players emerging but for the average user with a budget are they really anything to get excited about?  For the last several years the only real heavyweights have been Canon with the 5D, 7D, and T2i series Rebels and Panasonic with the GH2 and GH1.  The hacked GH2 was by far the leader of the pack, producing results that under certain conditions can compete with cinema cameras ten or more times its price.  How do new, far more expensive offerings from Canon and RED stack up and is this price difference worth it for the average independent film maker.

Last week Canon announced the C300, a $20K cinema camera in a DSLR-like form factor that has a 4K sensor but only outputs 1080p.  While Canon billed this as a historic announcement, I find the camera to be somewhat underwhelming.  It supposedly has great dynamic range and can shoot at up to ISO 20,000, but I'm not that impressed by the couple of video samples that have been shown off.  In Vincent Laforet's Mobius, there is quite a bit of noise apparent even in some well-lit out door scenes and, maybe it's just poor compression, but there is noticable banding (like at 5:54) and very bad noise and macro blocking around the 6:52 mark.  It is also safe to assume that this video used lenses that cost as much or more than the camera and had a hefty post-production budget.  If this is the best the C300 is capable of, I've seen some better amateur footage come out of a GH2 using the Driftwood hack, a sub-$1,000 lens, and amateur post-production.  Yes, I'm sure in many instances the C300 could beat the pants off of a GH2 when it comes to dynamic range or color grading potential (with its 4:2:2 codec), but the advantages are small for over a twenty-fold price increase.

The new RED Scarlet-X (another camera in the $20K range once you configure it to be useable) was also announced last week.  I've yet to see any footage from this camera, but it does boast some impressive specs like 4K output, RAW, and high frame rates.  Like the C300, I'm sure this camera could put the GH2 to shame with respect to dynamic range, color gradability, and post production potential.  Again though, are these benefits worth such a drastic price increase?  In one head to head test on Vimeo, a GH2 with a  conservative hack applied even bested a $50,000 RED Epic with respect to video detail.  Plus, lets not even get into the fact that post production of 4K footage would likely require some hefty upgrades to one's computer.

Overall, I'm not trying to argue that professionals should ditch their C300's or RED cameras in favor of a consumer grade camera;  I'm saying that a vast majority of amateurs, independent filmmakers,  or hobbyists will find much better results than are achievable with a GH2. Viewing hacked GH2 footage on a big screen TV in 1080p is stunning.  I'm still wowed that such a cheap little camera can back such a huge punch.

Canon 1D X

The 1DX, Canon's new flagship DSLR, boasts some great upgrades in the stills department.  With two Digic 5 processors for image processing, a Digic 4 processor dedicated solely to autofocus and exposure, and a newly designed 18 MP sensor, the new camera will allow for lower noise, faster focus times, and 12 FPS RAW shooting.  These new features are surely invaluable to the professional photographer.

On the video side of things, however, I'm not impressed.  With all this processing power under the hood, it is obvious that Canon is crippling the camera's maximum abilities, limiting it to a maximum of 30 FPS for 1080p (the same as the Rebels, which have only 1 Digic 4 processor).  The new hardware will surely allow for a reduction in noise and more detailed footage due to pixel binning rather than line skipping, but where are the features that truly show of the power of this beast of a camera?  There are point and shoot cameras that can do 1080p60 and the iPhone 4S (a phone!) can even pump out 1080p30.  Undoubtedly the 1D X could do 1080p60 (and probably higher frame rates as well), 3-4K video, or possibly even RAW (if it can shoot 18MP RAW stills at 12 FPS, why not 2MP at 24 FPS?).  The reason is obviously that Canon does not want to cannibalize its professional video sales.  The 1D line and 5D are already great video cameras and improving too much on them could push it ahead of dedicated video cameras for the same or lower price while also giving the user the bonus of a flagship still camera.

Based on the video sample on Canon's Japanese website, I'm not overly impressed, although the video looks to be somewhat compressed and is shot at very high ISO's.  From that brief glimpse it doesn't look like it surpasses the quality of a hacked Panasonic GH2 running Driftwood's 176 Mbit GOP1 patch.  When comparing footage from a $6800 camera which undoubtedly used top of the line lenses and underwent massive amounts of post-production (and perhaps noise reduction?) there should be an astounding difference versus the unedited footage from a $800 camera with a $300 lens.  Maybe my opinion will change when I see more, but for now I'm not overly impressed.

The announcement of the 1D X also sheds some light on when we may see a 5D replacement (I'm betting it's named the 5D X rather than the 5D Mark III).  With the 1D X not available until March, it's unlikely that the next 5D would be announced before then.  Even if the 1D X ships on time and the new 5D is announced promptly afterward, it probably wouldn't be available until at least mid-summer and would likely be difficult to get until around this time next year.  That's probably the best case scenario.  Even if Nikon gets a D800 out the door early, I can't see Canon announcing a new 5D before the 1D X ships.  That's kind of sad news, especially since if that's all the video capabilities a new 5D would offer it will have stiff competition from other cameras a year from now.  I guess we wait.

HTC Thunderbolt Review

Last month I was quite excited to get the HTC Thunderbolt, one of the first 4G phones from Verizon and my first Android phone.  There's a lot to like about Android and the Thunderbolt, but unfortunately far too much to not like.

The Good

• Screen Size:  It's nice having a large 4.3" screen on you all the time.  It's a nice sweet spot between a normal phone and a tablet.
• Customization:  Android allows for much more customization than iOS and allows for widgets.
• 4G:  4G is blazing fast when it works properly.  I got about 12 Mbps down according to the Speed Test app.
• Apps:  Most major apps are available on Android.
• Speed:  Overall the phone is quick and responsive.

The Bad

• Battery life:  Saying the Thunderbolt has poor battery life is the understatement of the decade.  I can get 8-10 hours on a single charge.  Doesn't sound so bad, right?  It only lasts that long, however, with 4G, Bluetooth, WiFi, and GPS disable, screen brightness turned to the lowest setting.  That's not all; even with these settings battery life is still less than 8-10 hours unless background data synching by apps and widgets is turned off or kept at a minimum and you are in an area with a strong cell signal.  Even worse still, I must use my phone as little as possible during this time to hit the 10 hour mark.  Yesterday I made it just over 10 hours with the above settings.  I made two short phone calls, checked my email a couple times, and did absolutely no web browsing.
• Screen:  While the screen size is nice either the resolution of the screen or resolution independence of Android is terrible.  Most pictures in the Facebook app or in the web browser look very pixelated (even the same ones that are clear and crisp on an iPhone or computer screen).  Further, the screen is impossible to see outdoors in moderate sunlight, especially if the brightness is turned down to save battery life.
• Apps:  Although many big name apps are available, Android lacks in the number of other apps, especially those related to new movies and TV shows and has nowhere near the quality of games as compared to iOS.  
• 4G:  4G is fast, but sucks battery juice extremely fast.  I've also found that in some areas it doesn't seem to work well.  I was in DC for a couple days and at times I could barely load a webpage or get my Google map graphics to load on 4G.
• Sound quality:  The voice call sound quality is quite bad.  

Some things about Android were great, but I'm switching back to the iPhone ASAP.