The real OEM BG-E11 battery grip for the Canon 5D Mark III will run about $300 dollars. You can find that on the product page (click here). I'm sure the OEM is the best of the best, but i've managed to purchase several aftermarket grips for my T2i, 60D, 5D Mark II, and Canon 7D.
When I found the price dropping on the aftermarket BG-E11 grips, I decided to get one for the Mark III for around $50 dollars. You can find the grips via eBay (Click Here).
Big Box retailers are currently offering the Canon 5D Mark III Body with a $200 instant rebate bringing the price down to just under $3K. If you were already planning to pick up this camera, there's another deal today for the Canon 5D Mark III (Body Only) available via eBay that brings the price down to about $2800 (found here).
Check out this interesting new pulley / counterweight kit that mounts to Varavon Sliders. The counterweight allows you to position your slider in slanted angles so that you can lift the camera with ease or to keep your camera from crashing down. A plate mounts to the slider carrier, and the counterweight is hung through a wire and pulley system.
Your counterweights are just common water bottles, which means you don't have to travel with heavy weights. Just pick up a few when you arrive at your destination.
The kit is shown to work with a variety of Varavon sliders including the Slidecam Lite or the Slidecam S. Take a closer look and notice the basic screw mount, which I'm guessing could even work with any Cinevate, Konova, or other aftermarket slider as well. The Varavon Slider Counterweight Kit starts under $50 bucks via eBay (click here).
The receiver looks quite beastly, but they state it has a range of 300 meters. The remote can start / stop video via Infrared (required for some Canon cameras) and you can also program up to 4 focus points. Asking price from the cheaper sellers still too expensive starts around $950 dollars but there isn't very many other options at this price point for video wireless follow focus systems. Find the new WFF through the eBay product page (click here).
Demo video of Zolinger's new 18ft. Camera Boom Spider Crane. The Spider Crane lists for an almost $1800 dollar price tag (too rich for most), but there's currently one on auction that looks to have no reserve. Even generic cranes at this length will still run over $800 dollars, so it might be worth watching this $1800 retail priced item to see where it ends up at. Check it out at their eBay store front (click here).
If you haven't already heard the news, Canon has announced that it will release a firmware update to the Canon 5D Mark III that will allow uncompressed HDMI output (article here). Nothing to get too excited about just yet since the release date is expected to be released on April 2013.
Still, even without this feature the camera is amazing and shines especially well in dim lighting. If you've been eyeballing the camera, there's another $400 dollar discount on the Canon 5D Mark III (Body Only) via eBay Daily Deals (Click Here) Canon 5D Mark III (Body Only) Daily Deal
This thing took about 13 days to ship to California, but it's finally here and i'm pretty impressed. This adapter allows you to mount Canon EF lenses to the Sony NEX camera and control all of the aperture settings natively. I haven't tried it yet, but it should communicate with the lens and store EXIF information into your photos as well. As you can see from the video it works pretty flawlessly, responds very quick, and build quality is very nice. To enable IS when taking photos, you would hold the shutter half way down - or that's what I had to do to get it going. During Video Mode, the Image Stabilization is on as soon as you start recording.
I didn't have much time to test everything as i'm getting ready to fly out for PhotoPlus, but I did try to 'wig out' the adapter. When removing the lens while the camera was still powered on, the aperture controls didn't come back. The adapter does not like hot lens swaps. Simply powering the camera down doesn't always help, but removing the entire adapter from the camera body and then starting over always works. There is another Metabones adapter out there that can adapt EF lenses to NEX cameras, but it's about twice the price. I have not had the chance to test this on an FS100 or Sony FS700, but i'm hopeful it should work seamlessly. If you're shooting on the Sony NEX system, you might want to give this guy a try. You can find this Canon EF Lens to Sony NEX adapter via eBay (Click Here).
If you have a tough time getting a follow focus setup on the GH2 with small prime lenses, here's a trick that Vimeo member Johnny Gadget Films uses [thanks John]. He uses silicone wrist bands (sometimes stacked) to increase the diameter of the focus lens.
One essential tool for long Flying Video Stabilizer (Steadicam) type shots is a Vest system with an iso-elastic arm. The vest helps to take the weight of the camera off the arms and distributes the load over to the body. The flexible spring loaded iso-elastic arm keeps the camera level as the operator runs, jumps, or climbs a flight of stairs.
The problem has always been that the price of these vest systems were often out of reach. Here's a new Single ISO Arm Camera Load Vest System on the market that appeared recently. Quality, Style, and build looks much sturdier than the ugly Flycam Vest system (seen here), and this new vest runs just under $370. That's cheaper than a basic Rokinon Cine Lens. You can find the new vest available via eBay (Click Here).
Aftermarket BG-E11 Canon 5D Mark III Battery Grip
