You're working with DSLR footage all day long and you want to have a little time off. Or maybe just need some cool new gadgets. Check out our sister site, Editors Store. Offering everything from Apple t-shirts and gear to NeatReceipts mobile scanners to Flip video conversion software. Head on over and take a peek at Editors Blog.

As a follow-up to his great 5D Mark II training disc, Philip Bloom has a new training video for Canon's 7D. And we're selling it. :) As an added bonus this video is now available as a direct download. So you get all of that great content with no waiting. Check it out over at Call Box:

http://www.callboxlive.com/products/canon-7d

Our new camera. It’s a digital SLR. It shoots full 1080 HD 24p and 60p and it is currently rocking my world. the stuff this camera does in low light (as seen in the end of the film) with no lights and little color correction is amazing. We strung together some tests from a few days of walking around my neighborhood in LA. here’s a look. Welcome to the future. 

Canon 7D Test Shoot from Houseblend Media on Vimeo.

I'm amazed by the cinematic qualities of this high definition footage from Frontline's documentary Obama's War. The color, the depth, the texture, it all screams film to me. Except it's just a Canon 5D Mark II rigged by Danfung Dennis.

Abel Cine Tech offers up a great look at audio gear to go with your DSLR:

One thing is for sure, if you're shooting with the new crop of HDSLR cameras—Canon 5D Mark II,Canon 7D or the Panasonic Lumix GH1—you’ll need to put some serious thought into your audio workflow. While each of these cameras is capable of producing remarkable images with their large sensors and interchangeable lens systems, they are all pretty awful in the audio department.

Why?

Well, each camera does have built in audio capabilities, including a built in mic and a jack to plug in external microphones, but none of them give the user any real manual control over what’s being recorded. There are no meters, no trim knobs and no XLR inputs to use professional shotgun and lavalier microphones. Most importantly, all of the cameras use Automatic Gain Control (AGC) when recording, and it can’t be disabled. This is the real monkey in the wrench.

AGC works on the equality system. If Joe is talking to camera and suddenly an itty-bitty cricket makes a loud sound in the background, the AGC will kick in. It will increase the mic’s gain and try to make the cricket as loud as Joe. As you can imagine, the results can be disastrous. The audio levels will be all over the place, and unwanted noise can be introduced into the recording. It’s the equivalent of an audio roller coaster ride. Not good.

So, in order to combat these inherent HDSLR audio issues there are a number of current solutions that can be used to ensure that you’re getting the best audio on your HDSLR projects.

For the rest of this post, visit Abel Cine here.

They also have used it for studio sketches like the one above for “Bladivan”. If you live in US or can hide your IP you can view it here.

Alex said he was impressed, he gave some feedback to Canon to what he would like to see improved which is great. He does an awesome job above and we can’t wait to see the other stuff he has done with it including the new title sequence. We are going to see more and more stuff shot on these cameras for broadcast as their abilities are discovered. Yes they have shortcomings but the image quality out of them as we know is terrific. Phil has yet to shoot any broadcast with the 7d but have shot 3 broadcast TV commercials on the 5d and the results have been awesome. As reported first on:

http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/09/29/saturday-night-live-use-canon-7d-and-5d/

Philip Bloom, whose DSLR cinematography already graces this blog takes on the eternal question:

5d or 7d? That is the question… HOW many emails have I had asking me this? Oh and I will be referring to the 5dmkII as the 5d throughout this article as you all know what I am talking about! I have had the 5d since late April/ Early May and I have had the pre-production model of the 7d for about 3 weeks now. Which one do I prefer? That is one tough question.

For Phil's findings and some serious soul-searching follow the link below:

http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/09/23/5dmkii-or-the-7d/

A very quick look as I only had the cam for 2 days. Took it out for real shoots and found it as good as the 5D2 mostly. Low light takes a hit due to APS-C especially at high ISO levels beyond 3200. Will do a comparison against the 5D2 in the future if time permits.

Canon 7D Quick Review from Sean Seah on Vimeo.

This revelation comes hot on the heels of recent news that Nikon D3 production has been discontinued, much to the dismay of many people who had been saving their pennies to buy the camera pre-Christmas. The D3s will be a full-frame, full 1080p HD video-capable DSLR that promises to be an exceptional tool in the kit bag of a newly emerging and already sizeable hybrid breed of photographer-videographer to rival Canon's EOS 5D Mark II.

Now if this does come to pass, let's hope Nikon is lowering the price from the original D3 which was about $4,999 new.  

For a bit more detail, visit the original post at:

http://www.cameratalk.com.au/2009/09/18/nikons-new-d3s-14fps-and-hd-video/

Great news for shooters who want higher image quality than the H.264 and Motion JPEG used by DSLR cameras of today: 

The company behind Photoshop has developed a technology for still cameras called DNG, short for Digital Negative, and is trying to standardize it to encourage broader adoption. CinemaDNG takes the technology and applies it to video 

For higher-end cameras such as dSLRs, DNG records the raw data from the image sensor with no in-camera processing. That means there are no compression artifacts, no sharpening or contrast filters applied, no camera assumptions made about lighting conditions such as shady or sunny, and no discarding of richer 12-, 14-, or even 16-bit data in the conversion to 8-bit JPEG. The drawback to this flexibility and quality is that images require processing before they can be viewed.

CinemaDNG is comparable, according to the Adobe Labs description, including Adobe's hope to provide an alternative to proprietary RAW formats. 

For more details, visit this link:

http://asia.cnet.com/crave/2009/09/11/adobe-announces-cinemadng-format-for-video/