Apologies for the recent radio silence!  Following the week at NAB I have been on the road from San Francisco, to New York, to Chicago, to Boston, and finally back again.  

That being said, I didn’t want to let NAB 2012 pass without mentioning a few of the products I saw there this year that stood out.  In the list below you will find some new cameras and lenses.  Expect a follow up post in 48 hours or so that will cover support accessories we saw at NAB.  I have tried to highlight items that caught my eye and  bring new features to the table in both the HDSLR market as well as the cine market.

		Black Magic Cinema Camera	B&H	Mfr. Site
	The Black Magic Cinema Camera was acquiring quite a bit of buzz on the show room floor at NAB this year.  The camera has a 2.5K sensor and shoots a 2.5K RAW image, or a 1080p image in ProRes or DNxHD.  The camera also has a huge built in LCD touchscreen on the back and is compatible with either EF or ZE lenses.   And the cost? $3000 US.  Which is an excellent price point for the ability to acquire a RAW image and considering that Davinci Resolve and UltraScope software (about $1,600 of software) are included for free with the camera.  I look forward to seeing this camera in action and what images it produces.

		Zeiss CZ.2 70-200mm		Mfr. Site
	Like the CP.2’s this lens has interchangeable mounts, from PL to EF, and is intended to be a Zoom companion to the compact prime set.  It is encased with cinema style lens gearings and hard stops so that it works like a cinema lens lens.  Unlike its photographic counterpart (the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8), this lens opens to a T/2.9 – which is pretty much identical (T stop measures tend to be more accurate than f-stop FYI.)  This lens is available sometime in Q4 of this year.

		Zeiss CP.2 Super Speeds		Mfr. Site
	In addition to showing off its new zoom lens, the CP.2 line also added three new super sped lenses to its lineup.  The lenses open to an aperture of T1.5, which give you almost two more stops of light from the T/2.1 apertures on the original CP.2 lenses.  The super speeds will be available in focal lengths of 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm.   These are extremely exciting lenses as you now can shoot in very low light with what is still one of the highest quality yet affordable cine lenses in the market… Ultra Primes and Master Primes have been around for awhile but are significantly more expensive (and of course perform at the highest level – that you probably don’t need unless you are projecting on a 30+ foot screen.)

		Zeiss CP.2 additions: 15mm and 135mm	B&H B&H	Mfr. Site
	The CP.2 line also has expanded its range of focal lengths, adding a 15mm T/2.9 and a 135mm T/2.1.  At T/2.9 – the 15mm is much faster than the 18mm T/3.6.  It is also impressive that the 135 maintains the common aperture of T/2.1 that most of the CP.2’s share in common.  It is great to get an even wider range of focal lengths in this already great set of lenses.  The CP.2 lenses continue to be a smart long term investment given that they can be used on both PL and EF cameras.     If and when you move to the more expensive cine lenses (that sell in the $8K-20K per lens range!) you can still use the CP lenses on your B camera.

		Zeiss Anamorphic Lenses		Mfr. Site
	Zeiss had its prototype anamorphic lenses on display at NAB.  The particular lens they were showing was a 50mm T/1.3.  However no focal lengths or apertures have been set for the entire range of lenses.  The only thing that is certain is that these lenses will have a 2:1 squeeze and be priced significantly higher than the Zeiss CP.2’s, between $20k and $30k per lens.  This puts these lenses in league with Zeiss and other high level cinema lenses.    I sure can’t wait to play with these!!!

		Schneider Cine-Xenar III Lenses (18, 25, 35, 50, 75, 95)		Mfr. Site
	I was fortunate enough to get to try the II series of these lenses last year and was extremely impressed with the optic quality, but was disappointed by the fact that the lenses did not maintain a constant volume when focused.  The front element of the lens telescoped, increasing the length of the lens depending no the focus distance, which made these lenses incredibly difficult to use with a  matte box.  However, Schneider has re-engineered the lenses to hold constant volume while focusing and has added an 18mm to the original 25, 35, 50, 75, and 95mm.  These lenses are all manufactured to be the same size, so that switching lenses is easy and requires no changing of position for your follow focus or any other accessories for that matter.  Looking forward to getting my hands on these as well.   The new lenses are also smaller and lighter than the previous generation – very similar to the Cookes in size.   These are supposed to live right in the middle of the Zeiss CP.2 and Cooke series in terms of contrast.

In the studio we have been working exclusively with Adobe Premiere for a year now, and haven’t looked back. The ability to natively edit video formats and dynamically link between different applications has made our workflow much smoother as we shoot a variety of different formats, from the H.264 to R3D codec. Last week, Adobe announced CS6. We have been fortunate enough to play with betas of Premiere and After Effects for CS6 for the past couple months, and in the above video – Jon Carr outlines some of our favorite features of  the new Premiere Pro and After Effects. CS6 Production Premium applications also includes After Effects, Audition, Bridge, Encore, Flash Professional, Illustrator, Media Encoder, Photoshop Professional, and two new applications: Prelude and Speedgrade.

Premiere Pro has some cool new features – the most noticeable of which is the new default "two up" workspace, which places the source monitor and program monitor side by side at the top of the screen.  Both monitors have also been given a sleek, new look, with panel bars that can easily be reconfigured. You will also notice that the Audio Mixer has undergone a redesign – acquiring some features from Adobe Audition. It is also now easier to browse and reorganize your media with resizable 16:9 thumbnails in the project window. Users will also notice notice an improvement to the shortcut keys and the customizable shortcut sets.

Sequences have also seen some improvements. You can edit blazingly fast in 5K (which was possible in CS5.5, but the feature has improved speed here) due to native support for RED’s .R3D files. There is also native support for ARRIRAW and Canon XF MPEG-2. You can also now use CS5.5’s Warp Stabilizer plugin directly within your Premiere timeline.  This is a fantastic tool and it is now easier to access without having to roundtrip your project through After Effects to stabilize footage. Warp Stabilizer, as you may know, also allows you to smooth out shaky shots. Users will find that a new sequence now updates to match clip settings, and effects are easier to apply with adjustment layers.

For a full breakdown of the PRemiere CS6 features – check out the Press Release.

The above video details the Marshall V-LCD56MD 5.6 inch monitor, which we recently took out with us on a shoot.  I have been waiting for this monitor for a long time..  The form factor is perfect for an on board monitor, but it includes a lot of the features that before now were typically only found on larger monitors.

The monitor is set up to receive an HDMI in, and can also loop the signal, but also includes a modular input/output.  The compatible modules include an HDMI-SDI transcoder, and a 3G-SDI loop through.  The monitor which we used on our shoot had the 3G-SDI loop through module – which I prefer when I am shooting with the EPIC, so I can loop out the signal via SDI.  However, the inclusion of the HDMI input is also helpful, as we were also able to configure this monitor so that it was received an HDMI input from the EPIC, while the SDI was supplying a feed to the EVF.  This worked well for allowing me to operate via the EVF while an AC pulled focus via the onboard monitor.

Of course, the 1280×800 LCD monitor also works well for single-user operating.  It supports 720p resolution, which is a nice resolution to operate and pull focus with.  However, it also supports the reception of a 1080p signal through both its HDMI and modular 3G-SDI inputs, so there is the inclusion of an improved pixel-to-pixel feature which blows the image up to show its native resolution.  To show Full HD it will punch into the image, and smaller resolution it will center them in the middle of the screen.  The default view scales everything down to 720p.  However, there are also other scaling options that allow you to further adjust the image.  An Input crop setting allows you to crop in to any portion of the image based on a customizable crop area that is user adjusted with the knobs no the front of the monitor.  There are also aspect ratio crops for 4:30, 16:9, and full screen, as well as a custom aspect ratio crop that you can adjust using the knobs and is graphically represented by a scale.  

An expanded marker function allows the user to set markers at the following aspect ratios (4:3, 13:9, 14:9, 16:9, 1.85:1, 2.35:1, 2.39:1), as well as show from 80% to 95% broadcast safe areas.  Again, there is a customizable marker that can be user defined using the knob on the front of the monitor.  Additionally the user can set line width, color, and transparency.  

There are also multiple features to assist you on obtaining a well-exposed/sharp images.  For exposure – there is the False color feature, which we have seen on prior models of Marshall monitors.  It displays IRE based on a gradient scale of colors, from fuchsia (<0 IRE) to red (>101 IRE).  This is great for seeing where you’re blacks and whites are clipping and there is a loss of information.    Also to assist with exposure, there is a Clip function that displays over/under exposed areas with a Zebra filter.  The user can definite the upper and lower ranges of this Threshold.  An inverted setting, will flip it so that what is exposed between the lower and upper threshold shows a Zebra pattern.  The coolest inclusion for exposure assist though is the inlayed waveform monitor.  To assist with focus there is the inclusion of a peaking filter that reacts to defined edges of color through R-G-B-W adjustable lines and variable thickness feature.

The battery module on the back can be customized with a variety of different modules to accept different battery types.  However, as you will see in the video above, I prefer to power the monitor off the same battery as I power my camera using a D-tap from the Anton Bauer mount to a DC input on the monitor.  This keeps the monitor light, and the weight of the battery centered with the mass of your camera, rather than with the monitor – throwing your rig off balance.  Additional features for this monitor include two-channel audio metering, and a headphone output.  

On the whole, I have to say that I am also extremely impressed by the menus on this monitor.  They are sharp, well-laid out, and incredibly easy to navigate.  Furthermore the customizability of each feature set really lets you set up this monitor specific to the needs of your project and/or operating style – which is exactly what you want out of an onboard monitor.  You can check this monitor out at NAB, along with a number of other monitors that Marshall has recently released (and that can also be found on the Gear Page).