Big ↬ to Joe from Hunter Productions for this tip!

If you have a problem with audio dropouts while editing MultiCam in FCPx (see my earlier blog post), you can solve that problem by turning off all “Audio Enhancements” in your multicam clip.

Watch the quick video below to see the steps to take:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The worst thing about shooting video with a DSLR is the physical form factor of the camera. So I’m not quite sure why THIS is a good idea.

I’m sure it’ll make pretty images, but I think it’s time to move away from the DSLR shape and think about the ergonomics of video when creating a new video camera.

On the plus side, this should work with many of the existing DSLR accessories. On the negative side, most of those accessories exist because shooting video with a stills camera, quite frankly, sucks.

We shall see when the camera is released in October!

We don’t do a to of still photography at Groovy, but I have been a hobbyist since I shot for the yearbook in high school (Go Centurions!) with my father’s borrowd Canon DSLR.  For as long as I’ve had autofocus, I’ve often used the trick of focusing on the subject using the center AF then recomposing the shot.

Turns out, in the modern parlance of the Interwebs, I’m doing it wrong.

In most modern SLR cameras, the autofocus sensor located at the center of the frame is generally designed to be more sensitive and more accurate than most or all of the camera’s other AF sensors. In low-light situations, it is possible for the center AF sensor to be the only one that will reliably lock on to the subject and achieve focus lock. This has given rise to the technique of center point focus-recompose, which involves placing the center AF sensor on the portion of the subject that needs to be the most clearly focused, and activating autofocus. Once focus has been achieved, then the camera is reoriented until the desired framing is achieved, and then the shutter is released. There’s just one problem with this idea: it is 100% guaranteed to cause focus to be behind the intended center of focus.

Wha? How? Huh?

Read the entire article to understand the nuances, but in short – simple geometry means that when you focus and then rotate the camera even a few degrees, you’ve now changed the distance from your lens plane to the focal point.  When shooting with extremely shallow depth of field, this can mean the difference between a beautiful shot and a useless pile of pixels.

Not much more to say except

1. It makes so much sense that my brain hurts for not thinking of it before.
2. Full frame sensors are awesome, but awfully tricky to use right.

ᔥ Reddit user csbphoto in response to this question.

FedEx was our friend today.

If I’m not mistaken, this completes our Stage 2 order!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think most people know that I’m slowly becoming a fan of FCPx, and if Apple will continue to commit to adding critical features and squashing bugs, it won’t be long before I’m ready to flip the entire facility to FCPx.

But I’m not there yet – mainly because of the bugs.  Oh. Em. Effing. Gee.  THE BUGS.

Using FCPX 10.0.3, I came across a bug today that is subtle but annoying – having to do with multicam editing (which otherwise is really slick).  It appears that when you follow the normal multicam workflow, even if you tell FCPx to Enable Video Only Switching, when you cut between the multicam angles, you get a very brief gap in the audio.  In most situations, this gap might not even be noticeable – and I thought at first that my mind was playing tricks on me.  But after a bunch of testing (and by “testing” I mean “listening to the clip through headphones with my eyes closed”), I’ve confirmed that the audio gaps are real.

Take a listen to the video below and tell me what you hear!

Here’s a quick peek at what FCPx looks like:

So? What do you think?  Real bug or PBKAC?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The crew working hard, fighting the weather, and still managing to tell great stories!