I remember the first time that I learned about picture styles. I stumbled across a Vimeo tutorial featuring the Superflat style and how shooting in neutral tones opened up a world of possibilities when color correcting. Often relying on Superflat and Marvel’s Cine during shoots, I was extremely excited to learn about the collaboration between Technicolor and Canon and their resulting Technicolor Cinestyle, which is being heralded as possibly the best “picture style” for use with Canon HD DSLRs. Although designed specifically for the Canon 5DMKII, folks out there have already tested in on the T2i and are sharing their results.

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Currently there’s been a lot of buzz about the plug-in known as Twixtor, that allows you to create super slow motion takes in programs such as Final Cut, After Effects and Premiere. I’ve heard great things about this plug-in but, for some, the price tag of $329 can be a bit high, especially when that money can be allocated to buying lenses, memory cards, etc. I’ve got good news though – if you happen to own the Final Cut Suite, it looks like you just might be in luck.

The folks over at CrumplePop have developed a workflow using Apple Motion’s “Optical Flow” feature to create video that looks as if it has been shot at 1000fps. They use 60fps footage shot on the 60D, but I believe this can be applicable to 60fps footage shot on the T2i as well.
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After hearing about issues with the Automatic Gain Control (AGC) on the T2i when recording in quieter situations, I decided to look into the topic a little deeper.  The first time I noticed the hiss of the AGC was when I was editing ‘A Mind’s Love Affair.’  I came across this video from @akamikeb discussing how to disable AGC using a stereo to mono splitter, 2 mono cables and an MP3 player.

An important note is that the above technique does not work with the Rode VideoMic.  However, after some poking around, I found a solution for VideoMic owners by Dan McComb.

I’ll have to pick up a splitter and two mono cables before I can test this out, but I can’t wait to give it a try with my Azden.

As mentioned in a previous post, I’m about to purchase my first remote timer control so I can practice putting together some neat time lapse videos. I happened to stumble across this little gem that I’ll be putting to use after I shoot my first time lapse:

Adam at Pocket Productions (who goes by the username of, ahem, TheMagicTard) has posted a really helpful video of previewing your time lapses on the camera. This allows you to see how they turned out without having to wait and upload them to your computer first. Special thanks to Adam! Be sure to check out his other T2i videos on his channel.

For all of you Canon Rebel T2i owners (and 5D MK II/7D owners, as well) who happen to be Final Cut Pro users, you know the pain of having to convert video files into something FCP finds more digestible for editing. Before, that would mean using either Compressor, or my preferred program, MPEG Streamclip, to convert those files into Apple ProRes. Depending on how much you filmed that day, this process could take hours, but  would make for a much easier workflow in FCP.

Released in mid-March, Canon now offers the EOS Movie Plugin-E1 which allows both the 5D MK II and the 7D to be recognized natively within FCP.   With the plugin you can now benefit from:

• Use of the Log & Transfer function
• Time Code being added to each clip
• Automatic transcoding of clips from H.264 to many of Apple’s codecs

But wait!  That’s fine and dandy for 5D MK II/7D owners, but what about those with a T2i?!  Luckily for us, The Bui Brothers created an awesome video tutorial to see how to make modification to the plugin to get it to work with the T2i.  Click here to check it out!