As with any OS update, there is bound to be some initial problems with software and driver incompatibility, at least until all vendors have released patches to their products. And as you’ve probably heard, Apple has done away with support for Rosetta – so any applications or plugins that requires PowerPC emulation will no longer run.

The upgrade was effortless, just open the App store and click install… and then wait.

Overall this appears to be a minor update, with a handful of features you may or may not end up using. Most apps can now be resized by dragging from any corner. Hitting Cmd-Shift-F will enter into a Full Screen mode for many apps, moving menu bars and other OS clutter out of the way so that you can concentrate on your work.

Scrolling now works a little differently, and you’ll probably immediately notice that using the scroll wheel on a mouse moves content in the opposite direction, to conform with the new touchpad gesture techniques (although this behaviour can be disabled in the system settings). Scroll bars in some web apps are suddenly behaving rather poorly; I am finding it difficult to click-and-drag a scrollbar within WordPress without using the mouse wheel or touchpad.

Mail, calendar, and address book have been totally revamped, and Airdrop lets you effortlessly share files with other Macs close by without having to setup file sharing.

OS X now mounts, reads, and writes directly to/from Windows NTFS volumes without having to use any 3rd-party drivers. I actually recommend you uninstall any NTFS driver (NTFS-3G, Tuxera, Paragon, etc) before doing the Lion update, or else these now-unnecessary drivers will throw mounting errors upon reboot.

As for photo/video application compatibility, Canon DSLR shooters may notice that the current version of the Canon EOS Utilities (v2.10.1 as of today) no longer runs. This might be a problem if you use a laptop to control your cameras, or to apply custom color profiles, etc.

Bummer. Canon seems to update these applications fairly regularly, so let’s hope a fix is in the works.

Cinema Tools now crashes for me on launch. Not good – although I suspect I simply need to run an update, or reinstall it altogether, since I could not locate other reports of incompatibility. Logic Pro 9.0 also would not start – although it will when updated to 9.1.x. I also understand Adobe Reader is not currently running on Lion, although I do not have this installed, since I usually just use Lion’s built-in Preview to view PDFs.

The new Launchpad feature seems interesting, and seems to be an attempt to make Macs more iPad-like, but it ends up coming across as a Microsoft Vista-like trend towards dumbing down the user interface. The good news is, all of the previous Finder features are still available, and Lion does not completely force you into using the new navigation elements.

I tested most of my other applications without any problems. This includes most Adobe CS5 applications (Photoshop, Lightroom, After Effects, Premiere, Dreamweaver, etc), Final Cut Pro 7, Final Cut Pro X (aka iMovie Pro), Compressor, REDCINE-X, Magic Bullet Looks, MPEG Streamclip, JES Deinterlacer, Oracle OpenOffice 3, Oracle VirtualBox, Rosetta Stone 3 (the language app, not the PowerPC emulator), Final Draft 8, and Tweetdeck.

As for performance, I noticed a slightly improved boot time, with applications performing as expected. Note that there is an initial CPU run-up period for an hour or two after install, while Spotlight re-indexes all of your files and content.

Overall, Lion is a decent minor update. It’s cheap, the installation was smooth and effortless, and it contains a few welcome refinements to the operating system. On the other hand there is a worrisome trend towards the removal of complexity from Apple products in general (i.e. animated touchscreen-inspired interfaces, FCPX), which may ultimately upset many power users and professionals.

Update 08/26/2011: All 2010 Macbook Pro owners should exercise caution when updating to Lion. Many users are reporting a range of serious performance and stability issues related to Lion and NVIDIA graphics drivers, and no known fix is available as of today, other than total laptop replacement. I recommend researching any potential issues with your model before upgrading (I have a 2009 model so I seemed to have lucked out). There are a number of related discussions on the Apple support forums, and other tech sites on the web.

But with a number of large-sensor video cameras now hitting the market (such as the Panasonic AF101, Sony F3, Red Scarlet/Epic, etc), it’s easy to find oneself losing some interest in HDSLR’s. But while our choices in cameras are greatly increasing, our wallets are not necessarily keeping pace. Not all of us are in a place where we can afford to drop $13k on a new camera every year. But in some regards, manufacturers of HDSLRs are either going to have to continue to compete against this new wave of small, hybrid HD video cameras, or they will eventually fade back into still-photography land as video creators move on to bigger and better things.

Rumors of the next-gen HDSLR cameras are beginning to surface, so perhaps it’s time to get excited about DSLR’s again. At the current price-point, it’s hard to imagine these devices becoming obsolete just yet. Canon engineers, I hope you’re reading this. What DSLR’s really need now is just a handful of video-oriented improvements in order to stay competitive, yet not so much that we’re getting completely removed from the current DSLR form-factor and price-point.

Therefore, I present my modest little wishlist for the next-gen 5D Mark III (or similar):

• One balanced audio input (perhaps a TA3 connector), software-switchable between mic and line level, stereo and mono.
• Switchable 16bit/24bit 48kHz audio track recording.
• A physical fader knob somewhere on the outside of the camera, for quickly adjusting audio levels without having to browse through a software menu.
• On-screen audio meter.
• Headphone jack for monitoring audio.
• Improved audio preamp circuitry.
• Additional frame rates to catch up with the rest of the lineup (50/60fps).
• Improvement or elimination of rolling shutter (jello-cam).
• HDMI output remains full-resolution while recording.
• Zebra stripes.

Again, this is not an all-inclusive list, much of it dealing with audio (which is 50% of any project). Of course I would love to see a game-changing new DSLR with 2 XLR inputs, HD-SDI outputs, 3D-Link, and RAW recording at 2k frame sizes for under $2600. If they can pull this off, great! But I’m not expecting that. This is, after all, a stills-camera first and foremost. And there is a valid argument that HDSLRs should remain focused primarily on capturing stills. But if I am going to spend my money on the next generation of camera for use with video, these are my personal criteria.

Otherwise, I might just have to spend my money for something more appropriate for my needs… and leave the good ol’ HDSLRs for capturing timelapses, stills, and B-cam.

Directed by Jennifer Campbell at Whitebowl Productions, Hike is currently making the festival rounds, and is beginning to generate some attention and positive reviews. In December 2010 it was screened at the Valleycon Fargo Fantastic Film Festival in Fargo, ND, and in April will be shown at A Night Of Horror International Film Festival in Sydney, Australia.

Greg Roberts at KillerReviews had this to say:

Hike is another one of those rare short films where a director can show more poise and style than some feature film professionals. Campbell paces the movie well and confidently shoots the wilderness location scenes without trying to rush the story into its climactic turn.

And from The Independent Critic:

In this day and age when it seems like horror films opt for more brutality and less actual fear, a film such as Jennifer Campbell’s Hike is frighteningly refreshing.

Follow the links to read the full reviews. In the case of The Independent Critic, you must click on “Hike” towards the bottom of the page.

This was a fun team to work with, and I look forward to collaborating with them again on future projects.