I recently picked up a GoPro HD Naked camera specifically for a vacation in Cozumel. We had scuba dives scheduled, and I wanted a simple point and shoot option to capture video and stills with a minimum of mess and annoyance. Sure, I’d have loved to rent a full housing for a 5DMK2…but that’s relatively bulky, and I wasn’t looking for perfect quality; I wanted simplicity on this trip. After all, who wants to work on a vacation?

From that standpoint, the GoPro really fit the bill. It’s a simple little camera, with very few controls and not even an LCD for framing. You just point it blindly, trusting that it’s ultra-wide fixed-focus f2.8 lens will get the shot. And along the way, can capture some really pretty stuff. It’s actually a little bit freeing to not be able to see the LCD…you just “spray and pray,” and the results can be surprising. And did I mention it’s cheap? The HD Hero Naked is only $260.

Underwater, the current stock GoPro housing has a bit of an issue. It is waterproof to beyond normal scuba depths, but there is a problem with soft edges in the video frame. Apparently this stems from the curved-lens housing design. It is my understanding that GoPro is aware of the issue and is officially working on an updated housing for divers.

Knowing this in advance, I picked up an Eye of Mine flat-port housing, which is basically a DIY mod of the stock GoPro housing. The Eye of Mine housing will vignette a touch in the stills mode, but the GoPro’s slightly cropped 1080p mode doesn’t have any issues with vignetting. This modded housing looks a bit ugly, but performed perfectly for me at depths up to 85ft.

Battery life on the camera is excellent. The small rechargeable battery is good for upwards of an hour of on-and-off shooting. I was able to get two full dives out of the camera, with plenty of battery to spare. I recorded to an el-cheapo 16GB Transcend media card.

The size of the camera is both a pro and a con. On the pro side, you can just stuff it in a pocket on your BCD and just pull it out when you wish. But that svelte size also means that the footage can be shaky as there is very little inertia and it’s difficult to grasp well with two hands. Thankfully, the wide lens hides some of these small camera indiscretions. You could easily attach handgrips or even headmount the camera to help avoid handheld shakes. I’m sure Zacuto or someone else as prolific will release full rigs for these cameras at some point. GoPro also has a number of mounting options, though they tend to market towards extreme sports shooters.

I shot quite a bit of video from our dives, and will be doing some CC and editing on that footage for a later post, but for now here are some stills snapped with the relatively low-res 5MP GoPro stills mode. Some of these have had minor retouching. Click through for larger versions, and enjoy!

Full disclosure: FreshDV is now a GoPro affiliate (because we think they make cool gear), you can shop via our link here: Official GoPro® Store.

Disney is selling the Miramax arm and titles to Filmyard Holdings, LLC. It’s a $660 million dollar sale, and it appears that Disney plans to invest that money into blockbusters.

The Gothamist has a short post about an indie film actor playing out a convenience store hold-up scene for a low-budget film, who nearly was shot by police. Apparently a passerby saw the fictional hold-up and notified authorities. When they arrived, they saw no cameras and lighting gear, and the actor pointing a (prop) gun at the man behind the counter. Fortunately they showed restraint and an officer disarmed the actor (oddly it seems that the actor was not complying with orders to drop the “weapon”). Chalk one up for police officers making the right call in a tense situation.

So there you have it. Big cameras and lights save lives, people. They can make your film look better too.

Remember two years ago? In February 2008 it was the rumor of Apple shopping Pro Apps around. It was a huge deal…and nothing came of it. The latest unsubstantiated rumor (which could not be timed any better for Avid and Adobe), comes courtesy of AppleInsider; they are suggesting that Apple is reworking Pro Apps with a consumer focus. Final Cut Pro professionals are understandably worked up.

But if you’ll take a few minutes and go read this excellent rebuttal by Philip Hodgetts, you’ll likely come away with a much different perspective on where Apple is taking the Pro Apps suite. Please check out Philip’s article, and let’s save the angst until AppleInsider or someone else can dig up some evidence, or at least a more logical and compelling argument to support their claims.

Update: Apple has responded to the AppleInsider article.

“Final Cut Pro is the first choice for professional video editors, and we’ve never been more excited about its future,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans told CNET. “The next version of Final Cut is going to be awesome, and our pro customers are going to love it.”

Frank Jonen has written an Open Letter to Adobe, in response to their passive-aggressive advert buy calling out Apple for not embracing openness (but really, Flash). Here’s a few telling snippets.

“I was an active Flash designer / developer starting in art school from 2001 to well into 2005 before I realized the damage my work is doing to clients. This was when SEO practices started to really become legit. I realized two things back then. Search engines are important, it’s how people find you and find you again. And second I realized I can’t justify a client’s site to be at the mercy of a single software company’s plug-in. It really is a ridiculous idea come to think of it. A company never truly owns their site. There is always something extra needed in addition to a browser.”

“Maybe if you focused more on evolution instead of hanging on to past investments your stock value might actually recover. Betting the house on Flash brought nothing but harm on Adobe’s value, it’s time to let old traits go, and maybe the people who came with it as well.”

Good stuff from a web developer’s point of view. And on a less serious note, here’s one blogger’s answer to the Adobe ad.

Canon recently celebrated shipment of a major milestone; 40-million SLR cameras sold since 1987. 20 million of those were since 2003, and in the last two years and four months they’ve shipped 10 million cameras. That is a staggering number of units.

Given that the first video-equipped DSLR didn’t ship until about 16 months ago, I wonder how many of those were for video use? This bit of news gives a little perspective on the real size of their market, and Canon’s ability to deliver quality product on a large scale.

Jerome Stern has written a nice long blog post with his thoughts on Netflix as a Network, and what that means for the service in the future. If you are a Netflix user, or are just interested in how alternative distribution models are shaking up the status quo, you’ll probably appreciate this post.

“Netflix is a network, and, dammit, it’s time it started behaving like one. Here’s what I want: I want a Netflix channel available through my Instant Queue, dedicated to highlighting the releases I may not have heard about. I want interviews on that channel with filmmakers who have signed distribution deals with Netflix. I want to know some of the upcoming Watch Instantly releases to look out for. I want movie clubs integrated into the Netflix site, working the same way as a book club: you sign up to watch The Hidden Fortress, for instance, and then you chat about it with a hundred other people who are also participating in the club.”

It’s a good post, check it out.

(Jerome also penned a few kind comments about FreshDV’s NAB 2010 coverage in his What I Missed at NAB post. We appreciate the encouraging feedback, thanks Jerome!)

Everything you need to know about making purty pitchers with the RED One camera. No words. Just watch.

Via @wingrove

This week in Las Vegas, Kevin Shahinian will be screening his ambitious Indian wedding film City of Lakes. You can see the trailer for this production below. The screenings will be held at the Palms Brenden Theater at 4321 W. Flamingo Road, with showings at 5:30pm & 6:30pm. Seating is limited, and they are passing out tickets on Monday the 12th at the Canon Booth and Wednesday the 14th at the Cinevate Booth.

“CITY OF LAKES” The Official Trailer from PACIFIC PICTURES on Vimeo.

Pacific Pictures has posted their City of Lakes wedding film, a half-hour visual extravaganza that offers an interesting twist from the normal wedding video…a scripted story built into the live event coverage. Wedding filmmaker Kevin Shahinian describes the project:

“First, it would become an unprecedented attempt to combine a fully scripted, produced film with a real, live wedding (central to the plot) into one, seamless film. Second, the live wedding and production would be shot entirely on-location in Udaipur, India over a period of nine days. Third, the skeleton crew I would commission would be made up solely of live event filmmakers from across North America, who would shoot the live wedding events and production simultaneously & exclusively on DSLRs, the Canon 5D MarkII and Canon 7D.”

You can watch City of Lakes at the Pacific Pictures website.

Phil Bloom kicked off the normal April 1 shenanigans with his Canon DSLR RAW Video announcement. 5K uncompressed?!? No aliasing? Yes, truly a game changer. Now if I can just find this firmware he says is downloadable somewhere on the Celine Dion forum….

Crave also got into the April 1 action with this story about a man from the future captured at the Large Hadron Collider. Actually pretty clever. Reads like an Onion story…

Not to be left out, Starbucks announced they are now offering even larger sizes. Yay…now you can get burnt-tasting coffee in buckets!

And of course Google has to join the pranksters…they claim they are changing the company name to Topeka. Snore. It’s not even photochopped well.

With the exception of the links in this post, I promise we at FreshDV won’t pull any pranks today. Enjoy the rest of your April Fool’s Day!

On Monday April 12th at 8pm, right after NAB Expo day one, there will be a filmmakers poker meetup at the Hard Rock Casino Poker Lounge. Headliners will include Philip Bloom, Rodney Charters, Shane Hurlbut, Vincent Laforet, and Kevin Shahinian.

Buy-in is $60, and makes you eligible for a boatload of cool prizes and gear (some really sweet stuff on the list). For a look at what they are giving away, and how to sign up, check out the details here.

You already know this, but it’s worth repeating. Good gear often makes tasks simpler and easier to accomplish high-quality results. But even the weakest of tools in the hands of an artist can deliver stunning results. Case in point…in the following video clip, an artist hand paints a Bushmaster ACR weapon using Microsoft Paint. Once again, artistry and ingenuity trumps “pro-level” tools.

Coldplay’s video for the track “Strawberry Swing” is one of the most innovative uses of stop motion I’ve ever seen. They collaborated with the creative group Shynola to reinvent the genre, using perspective and live elements in new ways, and the results are simply stunning.

The post title says it all. Canon was handing out 70-200mm lens lookalike coffee mugs at the Vancouver games, and I want one so bad I can taste it.