Gadgetory

welcome to top shelf I'm David Pearson on this show we bring you the best in consumer electronics past present and future this week the ancient art of capturing light from kodachrome to Instagram from cinema to selfies and out in the deserts of Nevada the future of it all our senior reporter Brian Bishop investigates the past five years have seen a dramatic shift in the creation and distribution of visual media digitally shot films now regularly win Oscars HD is the baseline standard at home and 4k content isn't is hitting theaters shaping up to be the latest front in the battle for the living room the industry is changing ruin place that's most evident is right here in Las Vegas Nevada this is where the National Association of Broadcasters holds its annual trade show it's a place where the people making tomorrow's tools to meet up with a creative individual that will end up using them this is nab 2013 here on the show floor there's big name companies like red canon and sony as well as a lot of smaller vendors every type of film making equipment imaginable is here there's one constant theme 4k it's here and in a big way sony which has been pushing the industry towards 4k capture and distribution showed off to new prototype cameras for video and taking stills won the collective futuristic DSLR if the other borrowed a lot of design cues from Reds line of products the company also priced its home 4k media player which will be priced at six hundred ninety nine dollars later this year and what if you're hungry for even more resolution red had a clean room on the show floor where was upgrading owners of the red epic to its new 6k dragon sensor have you know the names phantom you know it's all about slow motion and this is the phantom flex 4k camera can shoot a thousand frames per second of 4k footage this here is a prototype it's not working about four weeks ago with a 64 gig capacity there's a number of different capacities you can get you shoot about five seconds of footage what's that like in playback and a thousand frames per second that's three and a half minutes of footage now price on this the bare body itself is gonna be about a hundred thousand dollars but a full kit we got 140 so obviously this professional level gear so you're not gonna be basically buying for yourself and now that you know it's interesting you know this right here is the original phantom flex that has 2,500 frames per second at HD resolution but technology has been evolving so quickly they can make it even smaller which brings us to the mirror now this will basically shoot 1,500 frames per second in HD resolution at a much smaller form factor this runs around fifty thousand dollars all these cameras capture fantastic high frame rate photography and uh and I want one I went all over as technology has advanced it's enabled professional level hardware to get both smaller and more portable cameras can go places they've never been able to go before but making that footage looks smooth and steady presents its own set of challenges we're gonna have three flies we're looking at the movie this has taken the internet by storm the last few weeks the camera stabilization system uses digitally controlled gyroscopes with electronics you can basically figure your digital SLR in here or the lightweight cameras and get some really really smooth shots you wouldn't be able to get otherwise a pretty exciting example pay you can go and get some really creative shots without a huge bunch of the equipment that you don't have to use we are a creative technology company that makes creative tools for creative minds so I mean like NAB couldn't be the more perfect show for us because there's a bunch of geeks that are super creative that's us I mean we are we are the nav crowd so we took our professional grade zenmuse camera stabilization platform and have built it in to the Phantom this crazy high responsibilities very responsive yeah it goes exactly what you tell to go just like that just like that let it touch the ground and then just drop it down nice flying man thanks to people are taking things to another extreme this is the steadicam curve it's a motion stabilization device for your GoPro camera the city cameras the company behind the original big full body rig that uses stabilized cameras for motion tracking shots she's doing their Goodfellas you zoom in the shining this is a small version of it twisting lots of smaller cameras like this go out he'll be find a way to make these shots know a little bit less shaky this looks like it's pretty stable so so now I'm gonna take this out and go different book nice it's not this consumer cameras change in the game we're also seeing traditional consumer electronics tripping up the food chain and opening up some exciting possibilities this is the bond to from Terre des hook up to your camera it can bridge your footage into h.264 video and then puts it out over the Internet there are six USB ports you can just plug in stock sticks from Verizon t-mobile a TMZ and they say they sense it too tired x servers and it reconstitutes it and from there equal footage wherever you want you know on the air on the internet directly and what's really cool about this thing is it takes it used to be you know you need a satellite truck to do these things before and I can do it in this little box right here that cost about four thousand dollars you have the sticks obviously but basically if you take a camera on the field shoot something and have it on the internet or anywhere else you want right away with just this little box and a lot of ways we're at the dawn of the golden era technology and creativity are opening up possibilities that were only dreamt up just a few years ago while the gear itself is exciting that's really only one part of the story the real payoff is what directors cinematographers and other creative professionals are doing with this new generation of tools and to reap those benefits you don't need to travel to Las Vegas just open your eyes so nobody's carrying around a fork a cell phone yet yes but shows like nab are a really good indication of where the consumer market will be in a couple years from now what's ten thousand dollars at NAB might be two hundred dollars before you know it and the fujifilm will x100s one of the new cameras we've seen in the verge offices may not be two hundred dollars but it's still a lot of camera for a surprisingly small price here with me to talk about it is the Verge's resident photography expert michael shane and you kind of love this camera right yeah I really do why what was so special about this camera I mean it's pretty yes right from the fact that it's beautiful looks aren't everything now it has a great personality it does see right it's what's on the inside that counts so let's get the the basics out of the way for sure this is it's not a full frame camera right which means it's not a 35-millimeter sensor unlike some of the I RN programs like the sony rx1 which is another compact camera or full DSLRs like the 5d mark two mar 3 nikon d800 etc right uh but this camera i think is quite possibly the best cropped sensor on the planet right now that money can buy I think Fugees doing amazing stuff and a fuji ever starts to make full-frame sensors in a compact camera watch out uh so does that mean am I am I gonna take meaningfully better pictures with this than with any other camera or like so you I'm curious for you particularly because you own a 5d mark two yeah right and you you're a pro you you know like get paid money to take pictures sometimes makes you proud um so but you want this camera you want to spend 13 hundred dollars you buy this I do I don't off my 5d mark two doesn't leave my apartment or the office that often it's sort of a it's a tool it's a workhorse it's gigantic it's Jenna big lens on it you know it weighs a lot yeah uh but this this is tiny this weighs nothing and it's unobtrusive people don't notice this if I'm walking around the city or I'm in the subway and I lift my 5d mark two to take a photo it's like waving a flag that says hello I'm a photographer and I'm about to invade your space please turn away yeah exactly okay but this camera allows me to remain invisible right and it's it you can make it basically silent to right so you can toss these guilty and even doing it's got built-in electronic shutter sounds but they're a little dumb you just leave it silent and it's like it's not even there it's it's a wonderful portable camera and the image quality is fantastic so if I'm just you know regular guy there are a lot of cameras out there for thirteen hundred dollars right across a whole bunch of different they can look different at work differently there even some deals large you get for 13 the first so if I'm somebody who doesn't know much about photos but just wants to take great pictures with a nice camera that doesn't wait you know forty thousand pounds yeah is this is this the one to get not in my opinion okay uh this camera is a phenomenal camera for experienced or professional photographers who are looking for a second body I mean this camera has a physical mechanical aperture ring that clicks it's got a physical dial for exposure compensation a physical dial for your exposures the point is this camera wants to be shot in manual right or at the very least in aperture priority mode and this camera its cousins made by fuji the sony rx1 they kind of they all a little bit idiosyncratic and you have to be the kind of photographer or consumer who's excited to sort of dive in and figure out what kind of relationship you have to have with a camera to make great picture yeah and this is the kind of camera that demands that but if you're just looking to take snapshots of friends at the kids going out trips and you want to take great photos and not really worry so much about making great photos I think you can probably spend less money end up with results you'll be happy with and then take the extra money left over and do something else with it poster then on the flip side of that if I'm if I'm a pro photographer I want something you know people by DSLRs because and they're big because they have all the buttons and all the dial right it's about controlling image quality right and and this you think this has enough of that or at least yeah the right amount of it I absolutely think it does okay like I said at the beginning it's not a full-frame sensor right but that's that's not everything I mean until I played with this camera I was like oh I can't use a camera that doesn't have a full frame sensor bra but once I tried this I was sort of convinced yeah f2 looks a lot different on a full-frame sensor than it does on this camera but the image quality is great it feels great in the hand it's beautiful to look at from in mind really it's beautiful I mean that's totally subjective it looks like a camera from Lebanon five years yeah I mean it's sort of a throwback to the old like a compact camera but the great thing about this I mean it's a fixed it's one lens it's fixed but it's 35 millimeters and artistically speaking that introduces certain restrictions that I think are really good having only 35 millimeter field of you to work with changes the way you see scenes it changes the way you make photos and I think uh restrictions like that make you a better photographer well yes so that's we actually had this debate in the middle of talking about this camera before where you were saying you know what my theory is basically put the best equipment possible in somebody's hands and they'll probably take great pictures right like if I handed you if I handed my grandma a 5d mark to put it on auto she'd probably take great pictures uh but your theory is that you know there's a lot more to taking pictures than just the camera and and that applies to both you know taking great pictures with a 5d mark two and with like a you know terrible 200 point and shoot that hopefully no that's not just my opinion it's certainly not like a revolutionary new idea how sweet like tweets my mom this I like I take great pictures of my moms like man you must have a really great camera like no mom just took good picture what you need to do is go get one of those disposables from like Target or you know one of those and then take amazing pictures with that so this is what I don't think can be done and this is what we sent you out to do with ross miller who I'm pretty sure is like the worst photographer that has ever existed on planet Earth as harsh okay I can't comment and basically what I wanted to see is does the camera make the man what does the man make the camera Ansel Adams said that a good photograph is knowing where to stand you can take the most perfectly awful pictures with the best of cameras and you can take good pictures with just about any camera you can find on the street so we went out and bought the Canon sx260 right now the vessel and camera on amazon com and we're gonna give you a few tips to show you how to take drastically better images even with a point and shoot like most things in photography composition can be pretty subjective but there are a few basic ideas that will be helpful when you're getting started always try to be aware of the geometry in your photo especially horizons keep your horizon relatively straight as a starting point you really should have a good reason for tilting your camera also be mindful of the so-called rule of thirds the center of the frame is generally a zone of despair and disappointment zooming can help you achieve a soft blurry background with a point and shoot but if your subject isn't at we far away from you just use your feet zooming also makes it harder to keep a steady shot so if you don't have a tripod become a tripod walls railings trees that crazy position from yoga last night do whatever you have to to steady your hand then there's the light when you press the shutter button halfway the camera measures the light in the scene and choose it to settings for the photo this is called metering but you can force the camera to meter different parts of a scene just by pointing it somewhere other than your subjects do what you can to put light sources behind you including and especially the Sun if you want a bit more control leave the plush prison of auto mode behind and try aperture priority the aperture is the size of the opening through which light enters the lens and it also affects your depth of field at a basic level depth of field is what determines how blurry or sharp your background is if auto mode wants f8 for example but that results in a shutter speed that's too slow switch to aperture priority mode and open up your aperture to a lower number you'll have a faster shutter speed that might be better suited to your needs ok so let's talk about flash as a general rule just just turn it off except for the darkest of circumstances most cameras today will do all right without the retina burning assault weapon that the manufacturer decided you couldn't live without seriously is this how you want to remember your night it's like a PSA for bad decisions don't be afraid to move or to ask your subject to move look for lamps candles street lights LED keychains road flares pretty much any light source around you will be better than the flash on your point-and-shoot camera alright it's time to let loose a little bit take everything I just said and forget about it then jump into the point and shoots menu system and try manual mode with wild abandon experimentation and failure are how photographers grow assuming you have a patient subject you'd be surprised what some simple adjustments can get you that's it for our show thanks so much for watching thanks to bryan bishop for being here and thanks to michael shane and especially thanks to ross miller who i promises are much better photographer than he lets on for lots more on all this especially our full review the fujifilm x100s be sure and check out the verge calm thank you again so much for watching