Canon EOS 500D vs Nikon D90

With the announcement of the EOS Rebel T1i / 500D, Canon was clearly putting one camera on notice, the Nikon D90. With 15.1 megpixels, higher ISO, and the ability to shoot 1080p video, the Canon clearly looks to have the upper hand over the D90. But a closer looks at the specifications of the cameras reveal the Nikon D90 to still be a fine camera, perhaps even a camera better suited to the more discerning photographer. The Nikon D90 is faster, with better build quality, and features a top-side LCD. On paper the Canon EOS 500D might appear to have an edge in ISO, but real-life results may favor the Nikon D90. The D90’s viewfinder is bigger and brighter than the 500D, and while it may not have the ability to shoot 1080p video, the 500D technically doesn’t either due to the 20 fps (meaning most users may opt to shoot video in 720p mode).

There’s likely another factor though, that will influence most consumers, and that’s the respective pricing of the two cameras. Body only, the Canon EOS 500D is $100 cheaper, and for the same price as the body only Nikon D90, Canon offers a kit with the 18-55mm IS lens. For a camera nearly as good as the D90 and the promise of higher resolution image files, it may be to good to pass up.

To find out more about just how the two cameras compare, we’ve compiled a comparative look of some of the more key specifications below. As you’ll see they’re quite close, but one thing’s clear: Canon has offered a very competitive camera at a compelling price.

Front View

Rear

Sensor

File Sizes/File Formats/Video

Processing/AF Points/AF Modes

Viewfinder/Display

FPS/ISO/Live View

Dimensions/Weight/Price

For a direct image quality comparison of the 2 cameras, head no further than Imaging Resource’s invaluable “Comparometer”. To my eye, the Nikon D90 might have a slight edge at higher ISO due to its ability to maintain detail (Canon smudging more detail in order to surpress noise), though really, both cameras are performing at a level at or beyond what the enthusiast photographer might demand.

Source from:http://www.neutralday.com/canon-eos-rebel-t1i-500d-vs-nikon-d90-prosumer-battle/

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News for Canon : Canon Launches Two New High-End Camcorders — XF105 and XF100

Canon on Tuesday announced the new Canon XF105 and XF100 Professional Camcorders for mobile HD video capture in a compact form factor. Canon’s smallest professional camcorders, the new XF105 and XF100 utilize the same Canon XF Codec featured in the Canon XF305 and XF300, introduced earlier this year. As Canon continues to make video a priority, the new models add to its already substantial line of video recording cameras and camcorders.

The Canon XF Codec is an MPEG-2 4:2:2 50Mbps codec used for exceptional high-definition image quality, full non-linear editing (NLE) systems compatibility and efficient, robust workflow. These camcorders include in-camera features enabling the easy set-up and capture of high-definition 3-D video when two XF105 or XF100 camcorders are paired,as well as Canon’s built-in infrared low-light feature enabling the capture of HD video in complete darkness. Both models record to Compact Flash (CF) cards and feature hot-swappable card slots for maximum performance. Differentiating the two models are industry-standard HD-SDI output and genlock in/SMPTE time code (in/out) terminals available on the Canon XF105. The XF105 and XF100 camcorders are ideal for Electronic News Gathering, documentary and independent filmmaking and event videography.

“Whether used as a companion to the XF305 or XF300, or as a stand-alone camcorder, the XF105 and XF100 are geared for a wide range of applications where high image quality, extreme portability and efficient workflow are of the utmost importance. And with true stereoscopic 3-D production and infrared recording capabilities, they allow users to expand into new markets,” stated Yuichi Ishizuka, executive vice president and general manager, Consumer Imaging Group?This week we will be exhibiting both the Canon XF105 and XF100 at Canon EXPO 2010 in New York and demonstrate the versatile low-cost capabilities.?

The Canon XF105 and XF100 Professional Camcorders feature a Genuine Canon 10x HD Zoom lens which provides the mobility and optical performance required by the most demanding professionals. Each model includes a Canon developed and designed native Full HD 1920 x 1080 CMOS image sensor and the new Canon XF Codec for extreme color detail required for accurate chroma-keying, color-grading and compositing for digital filmmaking. For finer transitions in tone and color, 4:2:2 color sampling offers twice the color resolution of HDV and other 4:2:0 formats. And to maximize compatability with existing industry infrastructure, video, audio and metadata are combined in an MXF (Material eXchange Format) File Wrapper, a widely supported open-source format. The Canon XF Codec is currently compatible with leading software programs widely used within the video production and broadcast industries including those available from Adobe, Apple, Avid, and Grass Valley.

To maximize the camcorders’ adaptability across various production environments, Canon has equipped each model with the ability to record at multiple bit rates, resolutions and variable frame rates for slow and fast motion.

CBR = Continuous Bit Rate
VBR = Variable Bit Rate

Additional professional features include variable-interval (for time-lapse) and frame-record for stop-motion animation, and a photo feature for frame-grabs.

Genuine Canon 10x HD Zoom Lens

The Canon XF105 and XF100 Professional Camcorders feature a Genuine Canon 10x HD Zoom lens with a 35mm equivalent zoom range of 30.4mm – 304mm. For professional looking results, both models offer an eight-blade iris which yields natural, smooth background blur with reduced lens diffraction. The lens also features a SuperRange Optical Image Stabilizer (OIS) system featuring Dynamic and Powered IS modes for optimal performance in the greatest variety of situations.

DIGIC DV III Image Processor

The proprietary Canon DIGIC DV III Image Processor and Canon Full HD CMOS Image Sensor render native 1920 x 1080 HD video, capturing natural,lifelike colors with remarkable tonal gradations and detail. The DIGIC DV III Image Processor also powers Canon’s innovative Face Detection Technology, an autofocus option that can significantly reduce the effort required when camera operators work alone, such as in news gathering applications.

Compact, Comfortable Ergonomics and Operation

Weighing less than 3lbs, these models are designed to maximize comfort while shooting and enable fast on-the-go recording with both a top and side grip option. Each camcorder also features a convenient, freely rotating 3.5-inch, 920,000 dot LCD monitor and .24-inch 260,000 electronic viewfinder with approximately 100 percent field of coverage.The LCD monitor provides a display of the camcorders’ built-in waveform monitor to aid in achieving accurate exposure while shooting. Additionally, the LCD can show peaking, edge-monitor-focus and magnify the image, enabling users to confirm critical focus, an essential objective in all HD production.

Affordable 3-D Shooting

Canon offers built-in features to assist with 3-D production, including OIS Lens Shift to aid in optically aligning two XF105 or XF100 camcorders and a Focal length Guide for displaying the zoom position of each camera in relation to each other and calibrating the zoom distance.This adjustment can be done through the menu system while the camcorder is mounted to a rig or tripod. Once aligned, the amount of the angle-of-view change is displayed after zoom adjustment, preventing camera misalignment and simplifying adjustment.

Infrared Shooting

The Canon XF105 and XF100 include an infrared feature enabling the capture of HD video shooting in conditions with little to zero ambient light, which is ideal for Military and Law Enforcement markets,as well as Nature and Wildlife videographers. The XF105 and XF100 also feature an infrared emitter with a diffuser as well as a Green or White color option to shoot pleasing infrared imagery even in complete darkness.

Audio Flexibility

The Canon XF105 and XF100 Professional Camcorders feature dual XLR inputs for external audio sources as well as a built-in stereo microphone. The new camcorders support 16-bit PCM audio at 48 kHz with automatic and manual audio level adjustment.

The XF105 and XF100 will both be available in the first quarter of 2011. Pricing was not announced.

Expend reading:How to convert Canon EOS 550D video to FCP friendly format?

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[Sharing]Best HTC dvd Converter – convert dvd to HTC Evo 4G, HTC Hero and HTC Incredible?

The Pavtube DVD to HTC Converter for Mac helps HTC Androids players to put their DVD collections to HTC Evo 4G,HTC Incredible, HTC Hero, HTC Legend, HTC Touch Pro and more HTC smart phones. This guide is written to help Mac guys that wanna put their DVD to HTC Droid (X) for play back. It focuses on downloading DVD to Mac, converting DVD movie episodes to HTC Droid optimized videos, and synchronizing converted shows to HTC Droid.

Converting DVD to HTC Droid compatible formats on Mac:
Software you’ll need: Pavtube DVD to HTC Converter for Mac

You may download and install the DVD to HTC Converter for Mac (Intel processor oriented, for PowerPC version please go to product page) and try it out. The trial gives you full access of the features,but creates video with a Pavtube logo on the screen. Now please refer to the below how to convert DVD to HTC Droid:

Detailed steps of converting DVD to HTC android phones
Step 1: Import DVD movie to the Mac DVD movie to HTC Converter.
Launch Pavtube DVD to HTC Converter for Mac, when it starts up, a dialogue box pops to ask whether you’d like to select Order or Trial. Click on “Trial” button. Insert your DVD to Mac or MacBook, click “DVD Folder” to load DVD movie from disc, folder and ISO image file, “IFO” to load DVD from ISO files. Preview the DVD as you like by clicking the “Preview” button.

Step 2. Select movie chapters and specify audio tracks and subtitles for them.
The titles in a DVD movie are all checked by default when you loaded them, if you just wanna rip and convert DVD movies to HTC with Main Title, you can right click on the main title to “Uncheck All” firstly, and then tick off the “Main Title” only.

Click on the Audio box and select an audio track with desired language. Set subtitles in the same way. There’s also an “Only show force subtitle” option, which enables you to see subtitle only when actors are speaking a different language. For instance, if you specify English (your mother tongue) as your subtitle, and tick off “Force Subtitle” option, then when actors are speaking English, no subtitles will show up, but when they are talking with each other in French, the English subtitle will appear accompanying with the French.

Step 3: Select an output format for converting DVD to HTC Droids videos on Mac
To convert DVD to HTC Droids, you need select the proper format specialized for HTC smart phones. Just click the drop down list of “Format”, and then tap on “Android” and choose an output format for your HTC Android. The Pavtube DVD to HTC Converter offers customized formats for HTC Android phones: HTC Droid Incredible MPEG-4 Video (*.mp4), HTC Supersonic Evo 4G MPEG-4 Video (*.mp4), HTC Hero MPEG-4 Video (*.mp4), HTC Legend MPEG-4 Video (*.mp4), and HTC Touch Pro MPEG-4 Video (*.mp4). These formats are specialized for both HTC Android phones, which guarantee fluent and perfect video playback.

Step 4: Click “Convert” button to start converting DVD to HTC Droid videos on Mac.
Now click “Convert” button and wait. The popup window will present you all the info such as conversion progress, conversion state, elapsed and estimated conversion time, and generated and estimated conversion file size. Once finished, you can get the output files via clicking on “Open” button effortlessly.

Tricks of using Pavtube DVD to HTC Converter for Mac.
A. Let your Mac shut down automatically. You do not need to be there waiting all the time till it completes. The Mac DVD to HTC Converter allows you to set auto shutdown. You may set auto shut down before conversion starts by entering “Option” window and check the box of “Shut down the computer after conversion”.

B. Cut down the file size (shorten converting time). Clicking on “Settings” and select a smaller video bit rate if you want to reduce the file size. It will still look fine on screen of HTC phones. Keep in mind that smaller bit rate value leads to a smaller output file size and lower video quality. To maintain better quality, just set video bit rate up.

Transfer DVD movie to HTC Droid for playback.
Finally, you got to transfer the converted DVD to HTC Droid. Details of transferring video to HTC Droid memory card (by the official site of HTC): To transfer files from your computer to your phone’s storage card, you need to set the phone’s storage card as a USB drive. Connect the phone to the computer using the USB cable, and then choose Disk drive from the on-screen menu that appears. The storage card is now mounted as a USB drive. Drag and drop the desired files to your PC to back them up. Then you can play them freely on HTC smart phone.

Afterwards you can play the shows freely on HTC Droid. Wish the guide helps!

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Best Motorola Droid(x) converter — Convert DVD to Motorola Droid phones

Pavtube DVD to  Motorola converter is specially developed  for Motorola smart phone users to convert DVD to Motorola Droid X, convert DVD to  Motorola Droid, convert DVD to Motorola Droid 2,  or convert DVD to many other popular Motorola phones, like Motorola BACKFLIP, Motorola CLIQ XT and more. The DVD to Motorola Droid converter is good at removing CSS and region code protection from commercial  DVDs, which makes it possible to watch DVD movies on your Motorola phones  whenever and wherever. The following guide provides a solution on how to convert DVD to  Motorola Droid X, Motorola Droid, and Motorola Droid 2 and other Motorola phones like Motorola BACKFLIP, Motorola CLIQ XT by using the DVD to Motorola Droid converter, if you are looking for such a solution, just feel free to have a look at it.

Step  1: Free download DVD to Motorola  converter, install and  launch it.
Once launch the DVD to Motorola  phones converter, you can click “DVD Rom”,”DVD Folder” or “IFO/ISO” icon  to load your source DVD files.

Step  2: Select output format for your Motorola Android phones
Click on the pull down menu of  ”Format” and then hit “Android” option, afterwards, all the format presets  designed for Android phones will show up as below, like Motorola  Droid X, HTC  Evo 4G, HTC Droid Incredible, Nexus  One, Samsung Fascinate, etc. To convert DVD to Motorola Droid X, convert DVD to Motorola Droid, or  convert DVD to Motorola Droid 2, “Motorola Droid (X) MPEG-4 Video (*.mp4)” is  your appropriate choice.

If there are no format presets for your Motorola smart  phones, like Motorola BACKFLIP and Motorola  CLIQ XT, you can then do as below after clicking the drop-down list of  ”Format”:
Firstly tap on “Common Video” option, and then choose “MPEG-4 Movie  (*.mp4)” as output format for your Motorola phones.

Step  3: Adjust audio and video parameters
To convert DVD to Motorola Droid X,convert DVD to Motorola Droid,or convert DVD to Motorola Droid 2 by using Pavtuve DVD Ripper for Motorola,you can click “Settings” button to adjust audio and video parameters like codec name,aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate and audio channel in the  following popup window to customize the output file quality.

Step 4: Convert DVD to Motorola Droid X/Droid/Droid 2
Click the big button  ”Convert” to start converting DVD to Motorola  Droid X/Droid/Droid 2 by using Pavtube DVD to Motorola converter.The DVD to Motorola Droid converter adopts multi-thread encoding technology and advanced  audio and video in sync technology, which guarantee a much faster conversion  speed and audio/video in sync output quality. Once the conversion is completed,  you can click “Open” button to get the converted files for your Motorola phones  with ease. Have fun.

Learn more:How  to rip Blu-ray and DVDs for playback on Motorola XT720?

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Pavtube Nexus One phone converter :Put video and music to Nexus One phone

The Nexus One is the first phone using Android 2.1, making the Google Nexus One phone a strong competitor against Apple iPhone 4  and the HTC Droid Incredible. The screen is an outpour of 16.7 million colors  and the display is 800 x 480-pixel, good enough for you to browse photos and  watch videos. A good news for movie lovers   is that the Google Nexus One supports  video playback duration of up to 7 hours, and music up to 20 hours. Well, I know that’s not our topic   but… it is somewhat related to our concern: putting video and   music to Nexus One phone.

In order to  put videos and music to Google Nexus One for  playback, you need to make sure that the video (or audio) format is supported  by the   Nexus One. Let’s take a look at acceptable code by Nexus One:
Video codec: H.263, MPEG-4 SP, H.264 AVC
Audio codec: AAC LC/LTP, HE-AACv1 (AAC+), HE-AACv2 (enhanced  AAC+), AMR-NB, AMR-WB 9, MP3, MIDI SMF, Ogg  Vorbis, WAV
If your source video or audio file is encoded by above  mentioned  codec, please move on to the next step. Otherwise you need to convert the video or audio to supported format for Nexus One before putting video  to Nexus One.

Detailed  guide of putting videos and music from PC to Nexus One:

1. Use the USB cable that came with your Nexus One to connect the phone to your PC, and you’ll receive a notification that the USB is connected.

2. Open the Notifications panel and touch USB connected.Then touch Turn on USB storage in the screen that opens to confirm that you want to put files. The Nexus One  phone is connected as USB storage, and the screen will indicate that USB storage is in use and   you receive a notification.

3. The SD card of Nexus One is mounted as a drive on your computer.You can now copy videos from PC to the SD card. During this   time, you can’t  access the SD card from your Nexus One or share your  phone’s data connection with your computer via USB.

4. When the videos are copied to the SD card of Nexus One, you can disconnect your phone from PC. First unmount the SD card on your PC, then open the Notifications panel and touch Turn  off USB storage.

Create   Nexus One videos from  movies, TV recordings, HD shootings, DVD videos, Flashes, etc:

What if the video formats are not supported by Nexus One? Is  there anyway to make Nexus One play movies, TV shows, Flashes and general videos  that are not encoded in accepted codec? Surely there is. In the   following guide  I will show you a way enjoying videos of AVI, MOV, TiVo, FLV, MKV on Nexus One.The tool I use is Pavtube Video Converter.   You may access a trial  version of Video to Nexus One Converter and try it out.

Step 1. Load Videos to the Video to Nexus One Converter.
Install Video to Nexus One Converter and run the  application. The interface is intuitive and easy to operate. Click on “Add”  button to   import source videos, or drag and drop videos to the program. This Video to Nexus One Converter is able to convert various video formats, such   as TiVo,  AVI, MP4, WMV, MPG, MKV, FLV, VOB, F4V, FLV, etc. To convert   commercial DVDs to Nexus One, or rip blu-ray movie to Nexus One, you   can have a try with Blu-Ray to Nexus One Converter.

Step 2. Select Nexus One as output format.
Click on the “Format” bar and there are various output formats for you to choose from. As we’re converting videos to Nexus One, you  may   follow “Android”->; “Google Nexus One MPEG-4 (*.mp4) format. This format gives video of 480*320, which looks fine on Nexus One. If you’d like to create  Nexus One video of better quality, click on “Settings” and set File Size to 800*480, and bit rate to 1500/2000/2500.

Step 3. Start converting videos to Nexus One optimized video format.
Now click “Convert” button to start converting videos to customized Nexus One video. Wait till the conversion finished. Luckily the Video to Nexus One Converter is of high conversion speed and  usually you do not  have to wait long.

Step 4. Put videos to Nexus One.
After conversion completed, the video clips are ready to  put Nexus One for playback. Refer to above how to put videos to Nexus One.
Extract music from video for playback with Nexus One?Convert video to Nexus One audio?

It is very simple to extract sound track from videos. You  can convert every video that loaded to the converter to Nexus One music.Simply  select desired audio format in Step 2 (see the above guide). For example, you may follow “Common Video”-> “MP3 – MPEG Layer 3 Audio (*.mp3) or “AAC- Advanced Audio Coding (*.aac).

What if I just need partial of the track, not a full length? Well, here you are advised to use the Trim function in the Editor of   Video to  Nexus One Converter. Select the item you want to trim, click “Edit” button, then switch to “Trim” tab to set start and end time. Always trim the video  before setting output format.

The picture above reveals that I cut the video length from 55 secs down to 30 secs. I then back to the main interface of Video to Nexus One Converter, set output format as MP3, and click “Convert”. Few seconds later, I get an MP3 file of 30 secs.

The Nexus One Converter- convert Nexus One  shootings to Youtube, FaceBook, etc

With the Google Nexus One, up to thirty minutes of video can be shot in a 720 x 480-pixel resolution, surely you can watch the videos on the smart phone, but when you feel like posting your shootings to Youtube,FaceBook, Viemo, etc, this powerful Pavtube Nexus One Converter also helps you to customize Nexus One shootings (H.263 or MPEG-4 encoded videos) to Youtube,FaceBook with proper formats, size,and duration. But maybe I would leave it in another guide, since that’s not today’s topic.

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