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In the past months I have written about a number of upcoming exciting technologies, namely the ability to enhance video using high-res stills, a new lens that will allow you to chose the focus in post production and of course an on-line lens cleaning tool.

Video sensors have a lower contrast range than film, meaning how much darkness and highlights they can record. This manifests itself in blown out windows, and noisy shadows.

4 million ND filters

Video sensors also have the tendancy of getting an always increasing pixel count. 4k cameras are already being sold by the thousands, and next year will see 3k video cameras aimed at the mass market and professional cameras exceeding 5k resolutions. At the same time digital cinema maxes out at 4k resolution (with many cinemas opting for the more affordable 2k solution). Technically, it is possible to make 16k cameras. But isn’t that just overkill?

Well, some smart minds have come up with a novel concept. Rather than using the extra – but essentially unneeded – resolution as such, why not use it for something else, more useful. Why not cover every other pixel of the sensor with a tiny ND (neutral density) filter? That way one could extend the contrast ratio of that sensor by several stops. Thus yielding a higher contrast ratio than film.

This is exciting!

Dogs will be a cameraman’s best friends

Robots are also on their way into our lives. One particular type of robot will be of great help for documentary film makers, and other shooters out in the wild. A robotic dog that acts as a mule.

BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.

Ever increasing demand for moving pictures

Pretty much every web site nowadays has some video on it. Soon every company will have a presentation video, and manuals are getting pushed aside for instructional videos. And now, e-ink is taking a first leap into mainstream. Esquire will distribute 100.000 copies of its October magazine with an e-paper cover that includes moving type.

In other words: the demand for quality images increases; at the same time novel tools for their creation are added to our palette.

Exciting times, indeed.

It’s probably been in the cards for a while, but we have ordered our Red One camera. Sometime before the end of the year (fingers crossed), we’ll be able to churn out pictures at such high resolution that they can be used for digital cinema. We’ll be able to use variable frame rates. I’ll be able to chose from many different lenses. We’ll be able to tell our stories better.

Just to give you an idea of the firepower of this camera, look at this picture, showing proportionally the full size of the Red picture, and in comparison that of Standard Television 4:3. It is about 6 times the resolution of even High Definition Television. And it meets or succeeds the specs for digital cinema (Norway is aiming to become the first country in the world to be completely digitized in cinemas.)
But it is not stopping here. Red One is also a very low-noise camera. Here is a 1:1 crop from an image exposed at ISO 2000. Click on the image to see it in full. (Read more about this here.)

This is nothing short of amazing, and will enable us and many other documentary makers to tell stories that simply couldn’t be told before. Brace yourself for a whole new world of clarity.

For comparison, here is the same 1:1 crop at a modes 320 ASA/ISO:

And for further comparison, here’s a framegrab from our current camera, a Sony DSR-570, which is the best DVcam money can buy. Properly exposed. You’ll see noticeably noise in the background. More than the Red even pushed to the extremes.

(Framegrab from our Documentary “Words and Shadows” with the former prime minister of Norway, Mr. Odvar Nordli.)

Here’s an interesting example of what you can do with high-speed filming (though I would have used more fill- and eyelight):

Action Figure slow motion video from Stig Nordas on Vimeo.
I am looking forward to learning, and to push myself to new borders.

Art, just like life, has always been evolving. New tools arrive, adding to the possible ways of expression. Looking at a video that compresses 500 years of painting female portraits into 3 minutes, and knowing that cinematography is a mere 100 years old, I am excited about the future.

Hans pointed me to this awesome tour-de-force of how the web has changed & thereby changed us.

A transcript is available at the author’s site. Be sure to have a look at the Sandbox section. Boy, if I was 20 now, I might seriously consider studying there.

(Back from the sun. Since 100% of you requested that I should post some pictures from the trip, I will naturally oblige. Just not yet )

If you think that the USD 236 to switch to the iPhone is too much, have a look at this iPhone commercial.

…oh, and if you just cannot wait for the iPhone, you can buy yourself an almost-look-alike Prada phone. Less features. But hey!

I still have not figured out how youTube makes money, but the founders of Skype are about to launch their own offer.

[The service] has the codename The Venice Project. It will offer “near high-definition”, programmes supported by advertising, with tools for users to personalise their channels or discuss programmes with others.

[...] one person close to Warner Music confirmed it was using the service to create channels for some of its artists, including Paris Hilton

Will be interesting to see what their business model is. Near HD definetely sounds intriguing – but we have to see it first.

more…

What I love about the internet is that sometimes you get ideas that throw you just a bit off your standard way of thinking. Just by surfing around. Over at Geeks are Sexy (you just gotta love that title!), I found this video that I want to share with you. Everybody is talking about the imminent dangers that global warming brings. Prepare for an emotional joy-ride! more…

Over at John Nack’s blog I found an exiting link to a new technology developed by four Swedes, that enables the user to simply draw images into the air. They then become 3d drawings in a computer, which again are fed into a 3D cutter. Instant furniture!
See the video.

I’ve been away to Vienna for the last week, therefore I did not get to write anything.While doing a quick check on what has happened in the Apple world, I was exited to read that Apple has bought SiliconColor, makers of the most advanced colour correction software for the Mac. While Final Cut Pro’s built-in 3 way colour correction filter is very good on primary colour correction, you need a plethora of 3rd party tools to get a decent secondary colour correction done. Apple’s buy points into the direction of an upcoming improvement in the colour correction capabilities in FCP. Now I am very much looking forward to FCP 6.

I´ve been away a couple of days (with no chance to blog), working for a CNBC show. We were filming at a mayor ip telephony company, and I was quite amazed.

First, within just a few years they have managed to get a relatively geeky technology in mainstream use (already over 20% of households now have an internet phone). Then they have totally changed the pricing structure. Before you paid for each minute, now you pay a flat fee. The main incumbent (as in the previous state-run telephone company) has been forced to enter the ip telephone market. Thirdly, now about 50% of all international calls go via internet telephone.

This particular company, Telio, prides itself of good customer service. Well, this is a label that pretty much any company sticks on their hat. But Telio really live this mantra. While in the call centre, I actually witnessed employees laughing, chatting, and generally having a good time.I overheard one conversation, where a customer had not paid a bill and subsequently his outgoing calls had been blocked. Despite the subject matter, the tone of the conversation was surprizingly friendly.

In a recent survec conducted by the state telephony authority, Telio scored best in overall customer satisfaction. A fact the company is very pround of. Good to see for once a company that takes its customers serious.

We also got a view of what the future will bring. While some information was confidential, the two near-future additions will be wireless telephony and video telephony. Wireless telephony means basically, that you can use your WiFi-enabled mobile phone to make your calls over the internet, rather than a mobile network. Not only will the savings be tremedous, the call quality is better (because less compressed). My initial reaction was “so what?”. How often do I make mobile calls while I have access to wireless internet? Well, I learned that about 60% of all mobile calls are made either from home or the office. In other words, more than half the calls made on mobile networks could easilty be done over the internet. I am sure that the network operators hate this idea, but just as the main telephone companies have learned the hard way, it is best to adapt and not fight user-friendly technology.

Seeing the video quality of the next-generation video phones was also an eye-opener. Frame rates of 15-20 fps with 160×400 pixel screens (as you might have seen on “24“), are just around the corner. As a cameraman I wish they would use a bit more energy on getting the lens settings right, but the potential is great. Again, my first reaction was “so what?” – why would I want to use video telephony? But the manager from Telio made a nice example by saying that up until the telephone was developed by Graham Bell, the only way to speak with people was in face-to-face situations. Young children, when on the phone, suppose that the partner on the other end of the line can see all that they can see. It is just natural to be able to see the person you are talking with.

So, it seems that the future will bring more user-friendly, and cheaper, ways of communicating long-distance.