The original version of the video was used by Ann this past summer as part of her address at a science seminar, and is now being featured on the Center’s YouTube Channel.

Center President and Director, Dr. Lee Hartwell, was invited to speak at this year’s Amrita University Convocation. Unfortunately, Dr. Hartwell was not able to make it all the way to India to participate in the event.  Instead, his office approached the CDS Creative Services team and asked if we could film Dr. Hartwell delivering his convocation speech for the graduates here in our studio, and then send the video to India to be shown to the students.

Producing the largest JVH print to date

Friday is the 6th Annual JVH/Epson Digital Print Festival event, hosted at Embassy Suites in Bellevue, WA.  Over 200 photographers will converge on the event, where they will be displaying photographs and sharing their digital creations and ideas.  All items on display will be voted on a peer-to-peer basis, and winners will be awarded a number of prizes, including laptops, printers, and other digital goodies.  Several speakers will be presenting on subjects ranging from color management, printing workflows, and marketing and communications techniques.  Key speaker this year will be Bambi Cantrell, a world renowned wedding and portrait photographer.  She will be sharing her insights and techniques gained over many years of experience.

This year I am entering what will likely be the largest print ever submitted to the event, a 360-degree panaroma measuring 33 ft x 4 ft in size.  For more details on the subject, visit my The Bainbridge Island Review’s article about the project.

And here’s a link to all three videos.

Final Cut Pro Canon 5D MkII Workflow for Mac

1. Copy video files to local disk in a new folder.
2. Open Cinema Tools and go to File >> Batch Conform
3. Select any file in the new folder you created above. (This will access all files in the folder)
4. Conform all files to 29.97 fps.  This will happen instantaneously.
5. Open Final Cut Pro.
6. Create a new project with our “Canon 5D MkII Video” Sequence Settings. Right-click on this link to save this file to your computer. Then, this preset file (‘.fcpre’ extension file) should be copied to the Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Custom Settings/ folder in order for it to appear in your Easy Setup drop-down!

   a. To be sure you have the correct settings, go to File >> Easy Setup: your Format should be “HD” and your Rate should be “29.97”.  Your drop-down should have “Canon 5D MkII Video” selected.

   b. Under File >> Audio/Video Settings: your Sequence Preset should be “Canon 5D MkII Video”, your Capture Preset should be “Generic Capture Preset”, your Device Control Preset should be “Non-controllable Device”, and your Video Playback should be “Digital Cinema Desktop Preview – Main”.  Also, your Audio Playback should be set to “Default”.  Mainly, the key thing here is the Sequence Preset – the rest of these presets won’t affect the final product unless you happen to be capturing additional footage from a camcorder or printing to tape or something like that.

7. Import your 5D files to your browser project bin.
8. Shift-select all of your 5D files in the browser, then scroll over to the Field Dominance column.
9. Ctrl-click any blue-highlighted item in that column and change “Upper” to “None”
10. Commence editing.  To preview effects, transitions, and filters you’ll have to render them as you go, as the codec used for the Canon 5D is not an editing-friendly format for FCP – however this might have been corrected with Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Quicktime X.
11. When you are done editing and ready to export a finished product, go to File >> Export >> “Using Quicktime Conversion…” (NOTE: Don’t use Export >> “Quicktime Movie”) (2^nd NOTE: You could also use Compressor and make a custom export setting which is virtually identical to the aforementioned sequence settings, or use the one we’ve crafted–right click to save this custom setting file to your computer, then copy it to your User/Library/Application Support/Compressor/ folder–but, “Using Quicktime Conversion” is the best way to get a final product that matches the original Canon 5D footage, based on our tests.)
12. In the Save dialog window, under Format, make sure it’s Quicktime Movie, then hit the Options button and make sure the Video and Sound settings in the Quicktime Movie Settings dialog window exactly match your native file settings.  You should uncheck the “Prepare for Internet Streaming” box.

    a. Video Settings – Compression Type: H.264, Frame Rate: Current, Key Frames: Automatic, Frame Reordering: unchecked, Quality: Best, Encoding: Best, Data Rate: Automatic; No Filters; Size – Dimensions: 1920 x 1080 HD, (leave the Preserve Aspect Ratio with… and Deinterlace Source boxes unchecked).

    b. Sound Settings – Format: Linear PCM, Channel: Stereo (L R), Rate: 44.100 kHz; Render Settings – Quality: Best, Linear PCM Settings Sample Size: 16 bits, and make sure only the Little Endian box is checked.

13. Hit OK then Save your movie.