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A more grungy look and feel this week. Techno stripes against a tatty old pegboard background – some bursts of static to hide the looping ‘seam’.
Free to use, you can download the 1024×576-px file here.
I’ll upload the tatty pegboard texture I used in this to my Flickr account.
Here’s another free motion background for you. If you want the original file, you can download it here.
D-SLR DOF and interchangeable lenses, but can it compare to video D-SLRs?
Like most videographers, I felt a very strong pull towards D-SLR cameras with 1080p recording (like the Canon 5D Mk II) as they offer the kind of DOF that would cost a fortune to achieve with a video camera (even if you go for the 35mm lens adapter option). But while they’re a nice option, they come with a bunch of issues that cool my enthusiasm.
I read on DP Review that Panasonic is launching a new video camera based on – wait for it – the Micro Four Thirds image system they co-developed with Olympus for D-SLRs. Hit up the link to find more about the facts and figures, but here are my thoughts on the subject.
First up, I absolutely hate the styling (it’s never really been the broadcast and professional team’s strongpoint), but this goes deeper than simple aesthetics. It looks potentially front-heavy – particularly if you whack a nice zoom lens on the front – and while I can’t see the grip on the other side, my guess is that using this thing for any length of time isn’t going to be a comfortable affair.
It’s also AVCHD – 4.1.1/4.2.0 most likely, otherwise they’d be shouting about the ‘pro’ AVCHD100 standard – and I’m also guessing that over/undercranking won’t be making an apppearance here. That said, it’ll probably have way better filtering than these video D-SLRs do, and dual balanced XLRs will make it a much better option for recording audio alongside your pictures (without the D-SLR drifting I’ve heard about).
Lenses like this one can be picked up pretty cheaply, and the SDHC SDXCrecording media marks a change from the awful P2 card trap that users like myself find themselves in. So I have to admit, I’m pretty curious as to the market and price point for this camera. I reckon (and this is a wild stab in the dark) it’ll hit Australian shores in 2011, and will cost around the $4K mark.
As well as useful free textures, I’ll be adding the occasional motion background that you can download from my Blip.TV channel.
Take a look through the episodes to find the one you’d like to use, and click on the permalink at the bottom of the player – on the right of the page that appears, you’ll be able to download a 1024×576 MP4 file from the ‘Files and links’ section.
Just like the textures I post, these motion backgrounds are all free to use – regardless of whether your project is personal or commercial. No attribution is required – though it would be nice.
This week’s free motion background is a 20-second loop with white ripples flowing across a red (or blue) background.
If it’s not quite what you need, or you’d like to see how it was done, you can download the original After Effects CS3 project file by clicking on the following link.
Download the After Effects CS3 project file (zipped)
From time to time, I’ll be adding textures to my Flickr account – you can download these for free and use them in your own video projects. To get started, I’ve uploaded three textures, 2 concrete and 1 metal, and I’ll add more whenever I have them.
You’ll see latest textures will be shown in the sidebar, or you can see them all by clicking on the Flickr link at the top of this page.
Hope you find them useful!
