Bruce Dorn's blog

Uncle Canon has finally released the much-anticipated 5D Mark III and she's a beauty...

Yes, I have had this camera in my hot little hands and its very, very nice. They gave us a proper little 3.5mm headphone jack (at last!) so the audio features of the Mark III are greatly improved. I'll let you read more in the official press release but I'm very pleased with this logical evolution of the Canon 5D line. And don't worry, the 5D Mark II is gonna stick around for the foreseeable future too.

View all 5D Mark III Products from iDC Photo Video

Our friend Danfung Dennis is an incredible HDSLR photojournalist/filmmaker and now an Academy Award Nominee in the Best Documentary Feature category! Danfung knocked ‘em out at Sundance with the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize and the World Cinema Cinematography Award for his documentary "Hell and Back Again" and should do great at the Academy Awards as well. And all with nothing more than a Canon 5D Mark II, a few well-chosen lenses, a Glidecam HD2000, and some custom-built accessories from iDC. We were there to help Danfung in the early days and are very proud of our association with this brilliant young filmmaker...

Back in 2009, Danfung was an embedded journalist with the 8th Marines' Echo Company when President Obama ordered a 21,000 troupe surge in Afghanistan. During a brief return to the States, Danfung contacted iDC to get some help with his cobbled-together Canon 5D shooting rig. At that time we were already offering our original iDC Run & Gun rig but Danfung had some special needs and was simply inquiring if we could make a couple of mods to his home-brewed support system. I took one quick look at his fragile DIY rig - and a long look at his amazing film trailer - and immediately decided to make a special effort to him help out with a complete rethink of what "Run & Gun" truly means.

When you shoot as much video footage as we do, you definitely need to consider continuous light sources for both still and video. Strobes and Speedlites are great for still work, but motion capture requires continuous light. Bright, full spectrum continuous light can be created with either incandescent or fluorescent lamps. Both work great when placed behind a well-designed softbox with a sheer layer of diffusion like a wonderfully translucent grid-cloth material...

I received my nifty little Steadicam Smoothee just before the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While I didn’t have much time to do anything terribly involved I did manage to get out and shoot a couple of short samples. Check ‘em out! Although they make a really cool little adapter for the iPhone, both of these were captured with a GoPro Hero. The suggested retail for the Smoothee is $179.99 but I’ve encountered a street price of $149.99 on www.bhphotovideo.com.

I’ve already posted information about how to join me this spring for an EOS Destination Workshop in beautiful Sedona, Arizona, but there are another couple of opportunities that I failed to mention. My Bad! In September, I’ll take my show on the road for two one-day workshops in equally spectacular Jackson Hole Wyoming. I like to pop into Jackson right when the aspen trees are changing color and I always make a point of hiring some great looking cowboys or cowgirls to pepper into the landscape... 

Here’s some recently edited video I captured while teaching and directing our on-camera talent during a multi-day workshop I hosted in the same general area.

Canon USA has long reserved the inside back cover of New York City’s Photo District News magazine for an ongoing advertorial series they call “Inside: The Story Behind the Shot”. Canon has used this page to showcase my beauty work several times in the past but this edition is kinda special to me. The featured image was 100% the product of lighting gear that I have designed and, in many cases, built myself. Read the text in the attached advertorial to learn more! But most importantly, does the purple clash with my glasses? Be honest...