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If at NAB 2022, we saw Virtual Production technologies emerge, this year it is clear that Virtual Production is where the industry is going. But it turns out that you need more than an LED wall to create a believable setup.
This Image Based Lighting system from Videdndum Production Solutions provides just that. A way to add a more realistic light to any virtual production. And the nice thing? Once it’s set up, you don’t need to program it at all.
“ARRI has agreed to a settlement with Rotolight”, a joint statement between the two companies begins. In September 2021, ARRI began legal proceedings towards Rotolight, amongst others, disputing the validity of their lighting effect patents. The challenge came in view of what ARRI called “myriad prior art”. Basically, it’s been around for years, so what’s Rotolight done that’s actually new and patentable? They argued that it was “not new, but rather state of the art”.
They argued that the patents should never have been issued in the first place. That the company’s “advances” were nothing more than building upon known technical solutions that had been “well established in the market for many years”. Well, ARRI and Rotolight seem to have figured things out because they’ve reached a settlement, and the patents still stand.
The world is officially divided into two types of people: those who like pineapple on pizza, and those who are vehemently against it. Like the Valencians who sent death threats to the chef Jamie Oliver for putting chorizo in his paella, surely an Italian brand like Manfrotto would not support pineapple on pizza? In the interests of culinary world peace, DIYP spoke to Manfrotto’s parent company Videndum Media Solutions to find out, along with other more photography-related things.
You may not be familiar with the name Videndum, but for sure you know the brands Manfrotto, Lowepro, Joby, Gitzo and Savage Paper. Videndum Media Solutions is the name behind all of these ‘household’ photography names, and more. In fact, you could completely kit out a photography or video studio using products that are only produced by the Videndum umbrella. That is actually the company’s over-arching philosophy, explains Videndum’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Carr. He tells DIYP about how Videndum has positioned itself to help content creators at every step along the journey.
New Zealand based camera slider and timelapse gear company, Syrp has announced that it’s rebranding itself to Syrp Lab and that its products will be also rebranded and brought into the fold of the new Manfrotto Move ecosystem. This isn’t the first name that’s been rebranded under the Manfrotto banner recently with “Lastolite by Manfrotto”, and simply “Lastolite” before that, also bring brought under the Manfrotto name.
According to the announcement, Syrp Lab is essentially going to be come an R&D facility working on “the next generation of tools for creators” covering a range of brands across the Vitec Imaging Solutions collective. They’re also turning to education, teaching users of Vitec products how to use them and create the best content they can.
Yet another company has come under the wing of The Vitec Group. The company has now acquired Savage, the leading backdrop brand in the industry, and the two companies will merge by the end of this month.
Lastolite by Manfrotto (since 2016), previously known as Lastolite when it was acquired by Vitec in 2011 is rebranding again. This time, it’s dropped the Lastolite branding completely and will now become part of the Manfrotto brand. The company says that the rebrand is “in response to industry and consumer behaviour changes over recent years as still and moving images continues to converge”.
The Lastolite by Manfrotto section of the Manfrotto website has already been modified to reflect the change, pointing users to the newly branded products. Although, for a while, they say that you may still receive products with Lastolite by Manfrotto branding.
Vitec Group, the company behind Manfrotto, Lowepro, Joby, Lastolite, Gitzo, Vinten, Syrp and many other big names in the photo and video industry has today announced that they’ve acquired LED lighting manufacturer, Quasar Science. They say the business will become part of Vitec’s “Production Solutions Division” alongside Litepanels.
Quasar Science products have typically been used in large scale film and TV productions, although the last few years they’ve started creeping into lower end productions, regularly popping up in the background of YouTube videos as part of the set illumination.
One of the major obstacles with vlogging is sound. Isolating the sound and having it record at high quality is a big deal. I strongly feel that we are far more inclined to stop watching something with bad audio than we are if the visuals are bad. We can put up with flickering pictures or low quality, low-resolution images for a lot longer than we can put up with bad audio. It seems Joby has done something to address this.
Superior quality on-camera vlogging microphone. That’s the tagline from the Joby website, and at just 80 grams, that’s quite a punchy statement. As of yesterday, February 29th, the Joby Wavo is available for £69.95 or $/€79.95. It’s designed specifically with vloggers in mind. Wavo is compact, portable and is constructed of some fairly decent materials.
The Litepanels Gemini 2×1 announced in 2017 received a very warm reception on its release. Those who have purchased and use them absolutely love them. But sometimes you need something a little smaller, so Litepanels announced the Gemini 1×1 earlier this year. We heard that Litepanels were going to be at IBC 2019, so we decided to swing by the stand to find out more about them and what they can do.
OConnor is a name that’s been held in high regard in Hollywood for years for their fluid video tripod heads. In fact, their inventor, Chadwell O’Connor won Academy Awards for them in 1975 and 1992. Now part of the Vitec group, OConnor has been able to combine their heads with Flowtech legs into a single package. The OConnor 1040 Flowtech. It costs $10,260, and we had to see it for ourselves. So, while we were at IBC 2019, we did. And oh boy, is it a nice tripod.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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