Comments on: Romeo Files – First 7D Experiences

By: Jürgen Sommer

Jürgen Sommer — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:51:35 +0000

Hey all, interessting to read. I´m from Sachtler Germany, responsible for prodcut development. Always looking for input to improve and adapt our heads and tripods to your needs. Let me know if you have have frustrations with our current head range if they aren´t fullfilling your requests while shooting with with DSLR cameras. Looking forward to get your feedback either on twitter (Sachtler) or via my e-mail adress: juergen.sommer@vitecgroup.com. Sachtler is a Viteg Group brand.Thanks for your feedback, all the best!

By: Romeo Files – Second Shoot…with video! « Benjamin Eckstein

Romeo Files – Second Shoot…with video! « Benjamin Eckstein — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:36:50 +0000

[...] Romeo Files – First 7D Experiences [...]

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:20:32 +0000

Hey Adam, thanks for reading. Congrats on the 7D. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do. Monitoring is definitely a weakness. I think I will need to work out a system of HDMI switching with a small on-camera solution for myself and run a second feed to a director’s monitor. With the Z-finder I can actually get away with just the LCD, but the fact that it shuts off if I plug in a monitor for a director is definitely no good. I think the Z-finder is great. I have not tried the other solutions but it seems to be the best made. I think this is one Zacuto item not to pass up. I love the new RRM follow focus. I think it is vastly improved over their first one and for the price it is fantastic. An Arri or Chrosziel will be the best but are probably 3 to 4 times the price and I am not sure what you’ll get for that. My baseplate is sort of custom. I have the Zacuto universal baseplate but it is too long for this camera. It physically works but I can’t get my eye on the z-finder when the camera is at the front of the plate. So I had an old Cinevate rails block which I can put my Sachtler tripod plate. I then had a spacer machined and drilled a Manfrotto tripod plate (I think the 3417) so I could fit it to the spacer and rails block. That gets it all to the right height for the mattebox and follow focus. It actually works perfectly.

By: Adam J. Richman

Adam J. Richman — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:15:22 +0000

Hey Ben, I’ll be getting my 7D tomorrow and have a lot of projects like the one you described coming up, so thanks for sharing your experiences with the camera. From the research I’ve been doing the monitoring of the camera is definitely an issue. What are your plans for a future solution? Also, what baseplate are you using there? Is it the RRM one? What do you think of RedRock’s gear? I was looking at it and I wasn’t too impressed with build quality, etc. I was looking more towards an Arri FF1… thoughts? Would you say your Z-Finder was worth the price? Thanks for your thoughts, all the best!

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:10:03 +0000

Dave, no prob for the shout out. You did an awesome job. It's great to have a pro like you onboard. Rob, yeah, I know what you mean. I wasn't trying to sound cheeky, and I think we did get a lot of help for our budget. I just meant compared with some other shoots I have worked on with 2 to 3 times the cast and crew, when it sometimes seems that people spend more time sitting around than actually doing something. Ryan, thanks for reading. You'll really enjoy the camera. As far as lighting, I used 2 units in the kitchen. A kino with 3 daylight and 1 tungsten bulb for fill on the faces, and a 1k open face light with 1/2 CTB (I think) that I was bouncing off the angled ceiling to raise the overall light level. I used natural light from the windows and it was a very overcast and rainy day, so I was sort of going for the daylight interior but lit by tungsten lights look. I think I was at ISO 640 in the kitchen. In the barn I used a pair of china ball lanterns with 500 watt fixtures and a 1K open face, and in one shot a Zylight Z90 as a backlight. I think I was also at 640 there. The shots with the bike we had the barn door open and I was at ISO 320 there. For bright exteriors I definitely think NDs are essential so that you can open up more if you'd like. As far as max ISO I would probably say 640 would be the highest I'd want for a daylight scene and 1250 for nighttime. I shot some cool test stuff at up to 3200 and it's noisy, and could work for some things and you can pretty much see in the dark, but for most things that I am lighting and I want a clean image I would try to stick with 640. I am also going by what I read people say that 160, 320, 640 and 1250 were the cleanest ISOs, so that is what I am using. Not 100% sure if that is accurate. I did find, unfortunately, that on my unit I got some vertical banding with High Tone Priority ON so I leave it OFF. A bummer, but oh well.

By: Ryan Mitchell

Ryan Mitchell — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:35:27 +0000

Great write-up – and great looking grabs! I’m really excited about the 7D and I’m really enjoying
shooting with it – and grabbing it as I walk out the door to go anywhere. Knowing I have a really
capable camera in a portable package is awesome…

One question I’d have for you is the amount of light you used for your interior shots with the 7D.
Was your lighting set up relatively sparse, or did you have to flood the room with light to keep
your aperture closed enough to give you the DOF you wanted, plus ISO low enough to keep the
image clean? With the 7D I’m finding that without ND it’s easy to have too much light, but when
you start closing down the aperture you might need more than you’d think.

Also, did you have an upper-limit for the ISO that you tried to not move beyond, and if so, what
was that?

By: Rob Imbs

Rob Imbs — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:58:42 +0000

Nice post, I like how you said it was a “slimmed down crew”, yet you had a producer, DP, makeup, assisstant camera and sound person

By: Manahan

Manahan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:27:24 +0000

Thanks for the shout out!

- D