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The Canon 7D seems to have received it's second wind with the new Firmware announcement that will give it full manual audio and a slew of other features. You've probably seen other blogs talking about the Canon 7D Deal that ends today. If not, take a peek at what B&H has to offer. About $200 dollars off regular retail price + Free accessories or instant discounts and rebates on Canon lenses and more. The product page will display a link to choose your free accessory (in product description). Today is the last day if you wanted to see what's available (Click Here).

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find-price-button Canon 7D Sale and Bundle Rebates Discounts

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Opteka just released a new Matte Box called the MBX. Product description states All metal construction, Folding french flags and adjustable side wings; Flattened shade for wide angle lenses, Fits industry standard 15mm supporting rods, Two 360-degree rotating filter trays support 4x5.65" filters, and Swing-away design to provide easy access to lenses.

I'm sure people are hoping to hear good things, as there are not many Matte Boxes out there to come in under the $250 dollar mark. You can find more about the new MBX MatteBox product via Amazon (Click Here).

Opteka MBX MatteBoxOpteka Matte Box MBX
find-price-button Opteka MB-X Professional Matte Box Kit 15mm Rod System

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Received the new Canon 40mm F/2.8 STM pancake lens from B&H today. Wow, I really like it. Sure, it was made with their STM tech for full time auto focus in video mode for the new EOS T4i, but put all that aside, there's just no other options for Canon shooters who want a super low profile lens with auto focus.

Canon-STM-40mm-PanCake-F28 (2 of 8)  Canon-STM-40mm-PanCake-F28 (5 of 8)

I mounted the 40mm to the Canon 5D Mark III Full Frame camera, and you can see how the edges have a slight vignette (darker around edges). I personally like the look of this, and might consider this to be a more stylized lens for full frame cameras. If you want to have even exposure throughout the image, you can always program this lens into Adobe Lightroom's Lens Correction feature. On a T4i or other cropped cameras, you will see less of this vignetting.

Canon-STM-40mm-PanCake-F28 (6 of 8)  Canon-STM-40mm-PanCake-F28 (1 of 8)

It's too bad Canon doesn't have a smaller mirrorless body available (yet). As you can see from the image below, when placed on to the Canon T4i, the camera is about the same width as my Sony NEX-7 + Sigma 30mm (seen on the left). There's another example of how small this 40mm pancake lens looks on a Canon 5D (on the right).

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The 40mm focal length is a good distance for this type of lens, and it was a focal range Canon was missing in their lineup. It's not too close and not too wide. It's lightweight, fast, and low profile to fit into small bags for traveling.

Canon-STM-40mm-PanCake-F28 (3 of 8)  Canon-STM-40mm-PanCake-F28 (4 of 8)

Canon-STM-40mm-PanCake-F28 (7 of 8)  Canon-STM-40mm-PanCake-F28 (8 of 8)

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Rokinon 35mm vs Canon 40mm. Close focal distance, major size difference.

With a max aperture of F/2.8 it's not the fastest lens in Canon's line, but the build quality is great and the price is right at only $199. I highly suggest trying this lens out, and because it takes up minimal space in the bag, there's a good chance you'll want this with you all the time. They were out of stock on initial release, but are currently available via B&H (Click Here).

Canon 40mm STM Pancake
find-price-button Canon 40mm F/2.8 Pancake STM Lens

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Not long ago I quickly showed a new motorized Joystick controlled Pan & Tilt head from ServoCity.com. This was a product they were working on for a little while and I know many of you were already communicating with ServoCity.com about this. At the time I only had a prototype here and they were only a few days away from a final product. So I decided to wait until I received the final unit before mounting it to my Jib and testing everything out. The final product should arrive (maybe this week), but in the meantime they have already listed the unit on their website as the MPT1100-SS Pan & Tilt System and it looks like it includes everything you need to power up and control the head (found here).

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find-price-button ServoCity Pan & Tilt System MPT1100-SS

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What happened to cheap Variable ND filters? So I recently picked up the Sigma 30mm lens for the Sony NEX-7 camera and it's been the only lens on the camera since. Today I decided I needed a Variable ND filter and did some online shopping. For cheap, normally the Nature ND filter (seen here on eBay) was pretty good, but today it's going for around $50 bucks. Even the purplish color casting Polaroid Variable ND filter on Amazon is now being listed for more than $35 dollars (seen here)..

Now the option for a cheap Variable ND Filter for under $13.00 dollars is the Slim Variable Fader ND version from Fotga. The listing on the product details claim to use high quality glass from Japan that avoids color shift when changing densities. I doubt it's that good, but I can correct a little color cast through a WB shift or in post. I know Fotga has some decent products, but so far there's no talk about these Variable ND Filters. Not many options now for cheap Variable ND filters, so to find out if it's any good, I went ahead and ordered a 46mm.

Fotga Variable ND Filter
find-price-button Fotga Slim Variable ND Filters

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Home for the day, so I decided to see if I had the skills to fly the Skyler MiniCam Video Camera Stabilizer while riding a Gyro-Stabilized Motorized UniCycle called the SoloWheel (found here on eBay).

Skyler-MiniCam  Solo Wheel Steadicam Segway Self Balancing Gryo Stabilized

Just in case something disastrous were to happen, I felt comfortable trying this test out with Canon's latest EOS T4i (not the 5D Mark III) and was a good excuse to see how the Auto Focus would work with the Sigma 20mm F/1.8.

Canon T4i VariAngle LCD  simga-20mm

Besides not being a very skilled SoloWheel rider, the breeze against the Vari-Angle LCD threw the little Skyler off balance. So it wasn't a truly successful test, but at least I didn't eat pavement...

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We had a brief look at the Focus One Pro at NAB 2012, but there were some slight changes since then. For those who have been following the product, here's an inside look from YouTube member lkwan78 as he shares his thoughts on the latest Follow Focus from Edelkrone [Thanks Luke]. For reference, the other Follow Focus systems mentioned in this video are from a company called TrusMT (seen here) and the new Gini iFocus (seen here).

The new Focus One Pro FF runs for about $290 bucks and can be found at the Edelkrone website (Click Here).

Edelkron Focus One Pro Follow Focus Review
find-price-button Edelkrone Focus One Pro Follow Focus

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Portable camera sliders are great, but they can't replace very long tracked dolly movements. Here's a recent DIY Seated Video Track Dolly project from Vimeo member TLA Productions. If you're planning on tackling one of these projects, here's a video with some tips to make your platform more stable, and some considerations about working on uneven surfaces.

I've actually built one of these before, and the most critical part is assembling a good wheel set. The wheels really have to be drilled perfectly to sit on the track exactly the same. Not an easy thing to do when you have a 16 wheels. If you drill just a few millimeters off, you'll notice it once you're going down the track.

For DIY projects, you'll most likely be using off the shelf pipes instead of professionally laid out tracks. For this, the swiveling design wheel set is the best because it can move and correct for misaligned tracks or imperfect alignment of your wheel mounts. A good set of swivel assemblies can also be used on curved tracks. Keep in mind you'll have to dish out more for a decent set of wheels and high quality bearings. There's a few good looking assemblies on eBay (Click Here).

Swivel Dolly Track Wheel Caster Set AssembliesDIY Wheel Dolly Track Swivel Set
find-price-button DIY Track Dolly Swivel Wheel Assemblies

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If you were just about to purchase a Canon 60D, you can knock off another $100 dollars off current retail price (Body Only) new with USA Warranty. I was early to test out the Canon T4i, but the Canon 60D is still a far better camera in many many ways. With this discount on today's eBay Daily Deal, the 60D comes in cheaper than the Rebel T4i. Check it out (Click Here)

Canon 60D
find-price-button Canon EOS 60D Body USA Warranty New

If you're not quite ready to go that route, there's also about a $100 dollar discount on the Canon T3i Kit with Lens USA Warranty - New (Click Here)

Canon T3i Discount Deal
find-price-button Canon EOS Rebel T3i - Daily Deal