Just quickly, what’s the big deal here?  The recent rage in the video production industry over the last two years has been the proliferation of shooting our videos on still cameras.  These newer generation DSLRs had the ability to shoot nice looking 1080p HD video.  Why would we care if we already had cameras that could do that?  Well, because these DSLRs have imaging sensors that are much bigger than many of the video cameras we had been using, and this enables the user to more easily achieve selective focus, shallow depth-of-field shots.  It’s a useful quality of a camera, and can create an image that is in some ways more pleasing.  These cameras are also a fraction of the cost of many of the other video cameras available at the time, and could do double duty as professional stills cameras.  That was all cool!  But there were lots of drawbacks (which, again, those reading here know about, so I won’t go into too much detail), which included a need for separate audio recording, images prone to moire and aliasing, an overly-compressed codec, etc.

AF-100 with Nikon 28mm lens

I bought into these DSLRs (my Canon 7D) in the fall of 2009.  I knew it was a bit of a transitory step towards something specifically designed for video, though, and was only using my Canon for about half of my jobs.  Anyway, I got really excited when the Panasonic was announced because it seemed like the answer to what I was looking for.  I was even more excited when they announced the price (about $5K), which was about half of what initial reports were, so it became almost a no-brainer for my company.

I’ll cut to the chase and get to some of my reactions to this camera, in no really specific order.

-Audio. It’s in the box.  I now can just press record on one device and there’s no syncing in post.  If that’s all this did it’d be worth it for me.  Nuff said!

XLR audio, as you'd expect

-Monitoring. Nice high res LCD that can be tilted every which way.  Shooting from below, no problem.  From above, no problem.  Plus there’s a VF as well.  And SDI and HDMI monitors so I can go to my SmallHD or whatever.  These are all useful features that mean that I can go with what’s in the box and not worry about add-ons if I don’t have to.  A couple caveats, though.  The LCD and VF don’t really match color wise.  The LCD has a distinctly green bias to it.  You notice this especially if you look in the VF or at an external monitor.  That said, the LCD is higher res and easier to judge exposure/focus.  And from what I’ve seen the VF color is pretty accurate, so my tip is to set your white-balance through the VF and the LCD is fine for everything else.  I am still finding my SmallHD to be good, but the image has a bit of a coarseness to it that I can mostly dial out, but it’s not perfect.  Perfect is a tall order though.  I am going to try their new beta firmware and I think they’ll really make this thing shine.  The SmallHD is probably the best of both worlds though (VF vs. LCD) and is certainly great to hand to a director/client.  It also has 1:1 pixel mode (which is sorely lacking on the AF-100 and I’d LOVE to see in a firmware update) so it is the best tool for focusing.

Ins and Outs

LCD and lots of buttons and switches

-Laziness. That’s sort of a weird topic header, but in a way it’s an important feature of this camera, at least compared to the DSLRs, and a comparable feature to say, my EX-1.  It’s not that the camera itself is lazy, but it allows me to be lazy.  Not sloppy, but lazy.  Basically it just works in the way you expect a video camera to work.  A huge part of what I do is shoot interviews, and the look of the big sensor cameras was especially nice for the way I like to shoot interviews, and part of why I was so attracted to the 7D.  But I found that after the setup and the lighting, there was a sense of always needing to be VERY mindful of what was happening technically during the shoot.  I had to make sure that both audio and video recorders were going (although I usually had a sound op who could mind that part).  I had to be mindful of the 12 minute record limit, and never wanted to have to stop a subject mid-answer to press record again.  I had to be very mindful of the focus if the subject was moving much because sometimes these cameras (especially the 5DMk2) yielded depth of field that was TOO shallow (and would require more light than I typically have to stop down the lens).  AND, I (and I know I’m not the only one) had some issues with card errors on the 7D and file corruption.  It only happened to me twice and I never lost anything un-replaceable, but it scared the crap out of me and basically made me cross my fingers whenever shooting.  I learned how to see if it had happened right away, but it made me uneasy.

Anyway, the AF-100 allows me to be lazier because I feel more confident with it as a tool.  I can press record during an interview and know that the sound is getting recorded too.  I can press record and not worry about it stopping in 12 minutes (there is no record limit to speak of).  Focus is certainly still critical but the slightly smaller sensor is a little more forgiving to subtle movements.  AND (and this is a hunch, as I haven’t had it that long) I don’t expect to hear about the widespread clip corruptions like I’ve heard about with the DSLRs.  Basically I can feel more confident using it, and thus be a little more “lazy”.

-The Sensor. The AF-100 has a m4/3 inch sensor.  It’s about half as big as the Canon 5DMk2 sensor and .8x the size of my 7D sensor.  And 2.5x the size of my EX-1 sensor.  It’s plenty big I think.  There was a lot of talk about crop factor and I found that tiresome.  People have been spoiled by full-frame 35mm sized imagers in the 5DMk2, which are also MUCH bigger than motion picture film sensors.  My buddy Matt Jeppsen has a great post on this.  Anyway, I see the crop factor as a bit of a non-issue, as long as your lens collection takes sensor size (and your needs) into consideration.  A great thing about the m4/3 sensor is that almost all still and cinema lenses will cover the sensor, and adapters are readily available for pretty much any lens mount, whether it’s PL, Canon, Nikon, Contax, standard 4/3, etc.  So if you’ve built up a collection of lenses for your DSLR or digital cinema (or film) cameras, chances are they’ll work fine on the AF-100.  With that in mind, my plan was to use my existing lenses (a set of nice older manual Nikon primes, and a set of 3 nice Canon zooms) on this camera.  I have an adapter for the Nikons and it works great.  I have an adapter for my Canons and it works (in such that it does mount on the camera) but because the lenses all have electronically controlled apertures, you cannot change the iris.  So an f2.8 lens is stuck at f2.8.  I knew this would be the case, and a company called Birger Engineering is coming out with an adapter in the next couple months to address this, and then Canon lenses should work much better.  I think most AF-100 owners, with a collection of Canon lenses will find the Birger to be what they need.

This week, though, I took a somewhat different approach than what I had anticipated and bought 2 new lenses, and plan to get rid of a couple of my Canon lenses.  I decided on buying two Olympus 4/3 lenses, the 14-35 f2 and the 35-100 f2.  These are big and somewhat pricey but are highly regarded as some of the sharpest (and definitely the fastest) zoom lenses available.  For most of my work, zoom lenses make a lot more sense than switching prime lenses.  The biggest factor in buying these lenses was that I could get them now, and the Birger may not be readily available for a month or so and I need this setup to work for me in about a week.  The other major factor was the focal length of these particular lenses.  Having mounted my Canon 17-55 and 70-200 on the AF-100 for interviews, I found I was sort of missing something.  With my normal interview setup I found that I really wanted to be between 50 and 75mm, so basically right where I had a gap in my lenses.  Now, I certainly could just adjust the camera a bit, but I found that I didn’t have one lens that really allowed me to get the wider and tighter shots I like to get during an interview.  The 35-100 will solve that.  Plus these lenses, at f2, are VERY bright, so that’s a big plus.  The lenses were delivered yesterday but I haven’t received the appropriate adapter for them yet, so I haven’t had a chance to play with them.

Olympus Zuiko 35-100 and 14-35 zooms

-The Picture. This post is getting pretty long.  Congrats if you made it this far.  I’ll just finish by talking about the image quality.  So far I am quite pleased.  Again, I have not had a huge amount of time with it yet, or shot under lots of different conditions, but what I have seen, I am happy with.  I think shallow depth-of-field junkies should not be disappointed, and I actually prefer that at a given focal length/aperture it’s not TOO shallow, like you might get on a camera like the 5D.  The picture is sharp and reminds me of my EX-1 with shallower depth of field.  I find the skin tones to be quite rich, and the picture overall to be much more colorful.  There are a lot of settings to the picture, and they make a huge difference, and I am still figuring out what works best in what circumstances.  I did find that out of the box, the image is a bit noisy, but there are a few settings (particularly the Matrix/Detail settings) which make the image much cleaner.  I don’t expect ever having to have someone change their wardrobe due to moire, which has happened on a few occasions with the 7D, as Panasonic has done a good job solving that problem on the AF-100. There are some critics who say that the AF-100 lacks some of the nicer highlight rolloff on the Canon DSLRs.  That might be true, but again, there are a lot of settings to adjust for this, as well as the proper tools (like zebras and a waveform monitor) which help to nail exposure.

Hopefully in the coming weeks/months I’ll be posting new projects with this camera, but overall I think it’s a really nice addition to my gear kit.  I also hope that the somewhat clique-ish DSLR community will still be friends with me, as I’ve departed a little bit from being a die-hard DSLR shooter.

This is the third project I’ve done for Rosie’s Place, and this one was shown at a 1500-person fundraising event they had this week, where they raised over $400,000 (which exceeded their expectations by $100,000).  They are certainly an inspiring organization to work with, as they do a lot of good for the impoverished women in the community.  I often joke that my job is not curing cancer, but when I get to work with organizations that are doing work like this, I do feel like I am helping them achieve their goals.  (And actually, I recently did work for a company that IS working to cure cancer, so….)

There were some challenges on this project (as there are on most jobs).  First was the logistics of the schedule.  This all had to come together pretty quickly and our concept sort of came together as we were shooting.  That’s obviously not ideal, but was just the way it was this year.  It made for a few more editing challenges (as poor pre-production planning often does), but we made it work.  The past 2 projects I did for Rosie’s was largely interview based, but we decided to move away from that model this time.  We wanted to do something a little more like a PSA.  We also knew that we wanted to tie into the theme for their event this year, which was “The Power of Words”.  The framework that I used (which you’ll see in the video) sort of came together right before the second shoot and ultimately (I think) helped to hold the piece together, and just involved a last minute trip to Home Depot to get the necessary supplies.  The other big challenge of shooting at Rosie’s is that it is not the most photogenic facility, and also, a lot of the guests do not want to be photographed or filmed.  We are obviously very conscious and respectful of the latter issue, but it often created a shortage of people and activities to shoot.  On that note, shooting the video this year on the Canon 7D, did make things a little less cumbersome and I certainly felt (and looked) less intrusive.  I think that did make some of the women more comfortable, and worked to my advantage for the portrait shots I used at the end, because the women just assumed I was taking their photo.

Shooting with 7D, did allow me to work a little lighter and faster.  We had limited time and space (a lot of the rooms at Rosie’s are VERY small) to light much, so being on a smaller, faster camera worked out well.  We popped in a bounce card, or a small softbox if we needed to, but it was pretty run and gun for the most part.  Audio wise we recorded to a Tascam DR-100 with a Sanken CS-3e shotugn on a boom (for those curious).

The edit was a little more “effecty” than many of the projects I do, but I think it worked out well for this, and (hopefully) didn’t seem overdone.  Like most projects, there are certainly things I wish I had changed or done differently, but that’s always the case.  But the video went over very well at the event and the folks at Rosie’s Place were thrilled, so that’s really all that matters.

So check it out.  Enjoy!

Anyway, I feel like I am still in the “figuring everything out” stage, but here are my first impressions.  The monitor is small, but I think it’s the perfect size.  Bigger than the on-camera LCDs on both the 7D and EX-1, but not too big to mount on camera.  A few people can easily get around this thing to check out what’s what, which was difficult with the 7D (which usually had a Z-finder attached too).  The monitor seems very rugged; you could probably drop it from several feet and it’d be fine.  But don’t try it with mine, please (or take my word that it would survive a fall).  The inputs are all well laid out and the connections feel very solid.  In terms of accessories I got the Canon 5D/7D battery option which works great and allows me to use my existing Canon batteries (it takes 1 or 2), the acrylic screen covers (which I think everyone should get with this) and the HDMI splitter.  This was also a big selling point for me.  I hate the fact that with the 7D, the on-camera LCD shuts off when you plug in a monitor.  If that was not the case, I’d be happy to hand the SmallHD to a client or director and shoot with the on-camera LCD.  But since that is not an option, the splitter (which is small and can be powered off the monitor’s USB port) allows me to feed my larger Dell HDMI monitor that I sometimes use.  And if I am working in the world of HD-SDI, the monitor has a loop through so I can send an SDI signal to another monitor.  Basically it has all the ins and outs you could want.

He should look happier to be on a SmallHD monitor

In terms of image, let’s start with sharpness.  It’s VERY sharp.  I think you could focus from this thing with your eyes closed.  Seriously.  The first shoot I did with this last week was with my EX-1 and the image looked almost 3D.  On the 7D, focusing is now much easier than working off the relatively low-resolution on-camera LCD.  Use this and you have no excuse for out-of-focus images.  The monitor is also very bright with a fair amount of contrast.  This makes for a very punchy image, but the downside is that if you don’t make some adjustments (of which there are many via the menus) you may under-expose some of your images.  Since I am so used to shooting with the EX-1 LCD, I figured if I could get the SmallHD to match that, that’d be a good start (although I’m not positive that creates the most accurate image) and I lowered the brightness, saturation and contrast and tweaked the green gain and got it pretty close.  Are they identical looking, no, but I don’t get too clinical about this stuff.  Adjusting it for the 7D will take a little more work since I can’t see the on-cam LCD at the same time.  I haven’t had a chance to do this yet, but I plan to shoot some footage, ingest it into FCP, and bring it up there, while playing the same clip from the camera on the SmallHD and seeing how close I can get the two images.  I think that should work pretty well, and again, I just want to get in the ballpark here, as I do a fair amount of adjusting in post anyway.  I think with this monitor I’ll be able to white balance more accurately on the 7D (which can sometimes be a pain, even with the Kelvin dial).  The monitor also has many more presets than you could need, so you can set one for each camera you use.  Bonus.

I certainly think this monitor will be more freeing in how I can shoot with the 7D.  Not having a swiveling LCD on the camera is limiting (which the Canon 60D solved) in terms of shooting above or below the camera.  I haven’t actually used the monitor and the 7D on a job yet, but played around with it while visiting my parents this weekend.  I wanted to set the camera up in a small package with no rails or follow focus, so I just put the monitor on a small hotshoe mount on the top of the camera and filmed our dogs playing in the yard.  This setup allowed me to shoot handheld with the camera low to the ground.  In bright light it’s definitely hard to see the screen, but the excellent sun-shade that comes with the monitor could have solved that.  If I was in the shade judging exposure was a little tough but getting focus was quite easy.  I think for extended handheld shoots, I’d probably mount the monitor on an arm onto my shoulder rig, but this setup works in a pinch (unless I needed to shoot people standing up, as it works best with the camera on your chest, which would have you pointing it up at them… I’m short).

There’s a lot more in the menus to play with.  The focus assist seems a little odd but I may not have figured it out.  There’s a built in histogram, 1:1 mode, and a cool picture-in-picture mode if you plug 2 inputs into the monitor.  In short I think this is an excellent investment that I imagine I’ll use with any camera for the next few years.  It’s not entirely necessary with the EX-1 (which has an awesome on-camera LCD), unless needed as a client/director monitor, but will make DSLR work much better.  I also think it’s a better investment than the new breed of EVFs that have been introduced in the last week for DSLRs.  It’s not that much more expensive, does pretty much the same thing, and is way more versatile.  I definitely give this monitor 2 thumbs up.  Way to go SmallHD!  Worth the wait, in my opinion.

Instead of sending out the typical printed birth announcements, Kate and I decided to create a video to send to our friends and family.  I am very pleased with how this turned out (but it’s not too hard when you have an adorable little baby to work with).  Enjoy!

At NAB I had zeroed in on the (similarly configured) Miller systems, but then went to the Manfrotto booth and saw the new 504HD systems. (I owned a 501 system before buying the Sachtler and was unimpressed, and generally thought Manfrotto heads were just so-so.) This new head was very impressive though. Large and beefy. It has really nice adjustments for drag and tilt and counterbalance, which seem like an upgrade over previous models, and reminded me of the Sachtler heads. The 535, and taller 536, carbon legs fit the bill for sticks that could go really tall or really low. So I finally ordered one last week. Oddly B+H had the kit (for $989), but it said 6-10 weeks delivery. Then I saw that they had the sticks and head separately and in-stock so I ordered the two, with a cheaper bag, and the total came to $850. Score. And it was about $600 cheaper than the similar Miller system. (A note on the B+H specs online: It lists the kit as weighing 8lbs. It also lists the head as weighing 6.4lbs and the sticks at 5lbs. That does not add up to 8lbs. I don’t have a scale at home but it weighs about the same as my DV8 with carbon legs.)

So let’s take a look at the system (with a sort of side by side comparison to my Sachtler DV8):

Both sets without extensions (Manfrotto and Sachtler)

Both sets at lowest height (Manfrotto and Sachtler)

Both sets at maximum height (Manfrotto and Sachtler)

As you can see, they unfold to about the same height, but the Manfrotto can go much lower and higher than the Sachtler (according to the specs the minimum height is 16″ and the maximum is 72″).  This totally fulfills my top priorities in a second set of sticks.  If you’ve used the Sachtler Speed Lock leg system, you immediately fall in love with the way that one lock on each leg adjusts both stages of the legs.  The Manfrotto does not do this, so it requires 2 latches per leg.  Not a big deal, as this is the norm on many tripods, but just something to know.

Leg locks on the Manfrotto 535 legs

Let’s move on to the head.  As I mentioned, the drag, tilt and counterbalance adjustment knobs feel top notch.  This really does seem much nicer than the price ($399 for the head), and is certainly comparable to the DV8 (now called the Sachtler FSB-8) head, which retails for almost $1600.  The whole thing feels built like a tank which is important for a piece of gear that could last decades.  I love that it has a light on the level bubble, so you can easily level it in the dark.  I know this has become a more common feature on newer tripod heads, but this is the first one that I’ve owned with that, and it will certainly come in handy.

Tilt Adjustment Knob

Drag Adjustment Knob with Light

The head seems really smooth.  Settings of “0″ on drag and tilt are as close to friction free as you could want, and the heaviest settings will help to produce nice slow tilts and pans on heavier cameras.  The stops and starts are very smooth, and the overall balance is perfect.

The only hitch is for people looking at this system for DSLR video use.  The head is certainly bigger than it needs to be for just a DSLR, although many times people kit out their DSLRs with a lot of accessories and will appreciate the heft of the 504 head.  The majority of the time I am shooting with my Canon 7D, I have it mounted on a sort-of custom rails system.  When I do that, the Manfrotto plate (which is longer than previous plates, I believe) is just short enough to not get in the way of my Zacuto Z-finder.

Rail-mounted 7D with Z-finder and Manfrotto Plate

But, if you plan to mount the DSLR directly to the tripod, then the plate extends off of the back and I cannot fully attach my Z-finder as it hits the plate.

7D mounted directly to 504HD head

I have a hunch that you could use a shorter Manfrotto plate on this head, which would remedy this problem but I don’t have one here to try.  If you are looking for a tripod head/system to ONLY use for a DSLR, this may be overkill, but I would rather have a head that is over-rated, because I assume that the next generation of cameras will be larger, more like my EX-1.  The legs, though, are great, so you could certainly pair it with a smaller 75mm ball head if you like.  I tend to find, though, that the smaller heads lack a lot of the adjustments, and are generally not as smooth as the bigger heads.  Overall, it is not the lightest tripod you can find, but it is by far the heaviest I have used, and it does feel super sturdy.

So that’s the system, in a nutshell.  I look forward to taking it into battle next week as my shooting schedule ramps up again.

Sony EX-1 and 504HD head

]]> http://benjamineckstein.com/2010/08/a-nice-set-of-legs/feed/ 2 http://benjamineckstein.com/2010/07/my-most-used-camera/ http://benjamineckstein.com/2010/07/my-most-used-camera/#comments Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:00:20 +0000 Benjamin http://benjamineckstein.com/?p=653 “The best camera is the one that’s with you.”

I believe that expression was coined by photographer Chase Jarvis.  At least, he has a book with that title, which features photos taken with a mobile device and discusses the idea of creating art without getting hung up on the technical things like resolution, dynamic range, lens selection, etc.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love gear, tech, and obsessing over all of that stuff.  I like to be near the forefront of technology and find that I often get more creative when I have great tools in my hands.  That said, I have been finding more and more that I am creating images I am really proud of with the camera I ALWAYS have with me, my iPhone.  Now I don’t have the brand spanking new iPhone 4, or even the 3Gs, but just the lowly 3G with it’s 2-megapixel camera.  But for a camera that I can also talk on the phone with, it’s pretty damn good.  And quite freeing to know that I can whip it out at almost any point and take an interesting photo.  (In fact, I’d say the upgraded camera is the only feature of the new iPhone that really entices me, but I am going to wait it out a bit, as I am becoming more intrigued by some of the Droid phones, and moving back to Verizon has its advantages.)

I don’t market myself as a photographer, but I have loved taking pictures for years.  When I invested in my Canon 7D last year (for it’s video capabilities), I got reacquainted with having a great stills camera and all that offered.  But I don’t always have my Canon with me, and even sometimes when I do, I’d rather shoot with my iPhone.  Largely because of the amazing photo apps that I have on my phone, and more importantly the ability to share my “art” almost immediately through sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.  I can take a “better” picture on my Canon, but I find that I share those pictures less, because by the time I’ve loaded them into Lightroom and edited them, I just don’t feel like putting them online.  I think it’s partly that they no longer seem timely or relevant.  And I LOVE the fact that the immediacy that I have with iPhone uploads is allowing me to create a gallery of sorts of my work.  Certainly these are not all frameable, sellable prints, but they show a point of view.  And they get seen.  Prior to sites like Twitter or Facebook, it was much harder to get a large audience to view your work.

So here is a collection of some of my favorite iPhone shots.  A lot have been processed with some of my favorite photo apps including Shake-It, TiltShiftGen, and the AMAZING Plastic Bullet (which I cannot get enough of).

I will leave you all with a link to a really cool video of photographer Lee Morris using an iPhone 3Gs for a fashion shoot.  This sort of ties in to what I am writing about here and it is an interesting experiment with a very impressive output.

http://gizmodo.com/5580276/professional-fashion-shootwith-an-iphone-3gs

All the info can be seen on Planet5D.com.

At 7pm Friday night, my buddy Keith texted me: “Sci-fi”.  I responded: “Ick”.  He wrote back: “I’m sorta thinking ick also”.

I was about to embark on my sixth effort in a 48 Hour Film Project and Keith had pulled Sci-fi as our genre.  I didn’t really want to make a Sci-fi film.  Neither did he.  We had the opportunity to throw it back and go for the “wild card” genre, but that could have been worse. As I continued driving to the studio that was going to be our home base for the weekend, I thought that maybe we could make it work and do something cool.  So I wrote back (yes I was driving, but I wrote back at a stoplight) that maybe it could work.  At this point, Micah, the director of our team who was with Keith, had started to generate some good Sci-fi ideas, so we figured we could make it work.  I just had a couple rules that I wanted us to apply: no spaceships, no pointy ears, and no tin foil.

For the uninformed, the 48 Hour Film Project is a filmmaking contest in 76 cities around the world, where you have 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a 4-7 minute film.  They give you a genre, character, line of dialogue and prop that you must include in your film.  I always find it to be a good exercise in producing something quickly and my past films have ranged from decent to quite good (you can read here about the film I did last year).  I like to use the opportunity as a chance to shoot something different than what I normally do day to day and this year was no exception.  In fact, this was the first time in doing the 48 HFP that any of our pre-production ideas actually got incorporated into the film.  In years past, any time we’ve come up with story lines or production ideas ahead of time, they were thrown aside after getting our genre and required elements.  But this year after location scouting in the week leading up to the film we came up with some shots and ideas for the visual palette that actually worked in the film.

I think the key to success in the 48 is to think small.  Small crew, small cast, small story, etc.  We had a core team of just a few members who helped work on the concept and story Friday night and then let the writer and director go off and storyboard and script the whole thing.  We planned for something with just one main cast member and minimal dialogue.  I see so many teams get bogged down in dialogue-heavy films and on such a tight time-frame, and often with casts with questionable acting abilities, that can be a disaster in the making.  On Saturday we came together and with the help of a handful of additional crew members shot the bulk of our film in one apartment (loaned to us by our art director/photographer Liz Linder).  The biggest challenge initially was building our main set piece.  Keith and Micah went to Home Depot early that morning and came back with a car full of tubes and paint and plants and such to create our character’s growing station.

The Tech Stuff

We shot the whole film on the Canon 7D (with the exception of some of the stills in the film that Liz shot on her Nikon D700).  I hadn’t been using the camera too much for my day to day work so I was excited to use it for the 48, and I think it helped create the look we were going for.  I wanted to shoot with prime lenses as much as possible (as they do tend to be sharper than my zooms) and I succeeded in doing that for probably 7% of the film (mostly my Sigma 30 1.4 and a Nikon 60mm macro).  For some of the shooting we were able to solve the annoying monitoring issue by tethering the camera to a Macbook Pro running the Canon EOS Remote Shooting software.  This allowed Micah to see the image on that screen and did not shut off the LCD that I was using on the camera.  The display on the laptop was not 100% smooth and there were times we did not get it to run at all, but I think this is a viable dual monitoring solution (until I get my SmallHD monitor with HDMI splitter).

We shot very little of the film with sync sound, which made our lives much easier while shooting.  Really only 2 short scenes had sync sound, and even the one scene with dialogue was done as ADR.  Our production sound op, Colin Gallagher, recorded a lot of foley sounds on set and our composer and sound designer Jason Jordan and Jeremy Creamer created the soundscape in post.  While it made things easier on set, it was definitely more time intensive in post.  I think we could have made our lives a little easier by recording a little more location sync sound, but we also ended up with a super clean sound in the end which I think sounds great.

We did minimal lighting, and relied a lot on natural light and practicals.  In the grow station, gaffer/animator Will Cavanagh came up with the idea to tape bare KinoFlo bulbs to the bottom of the glass table.  This worked out very well and made the whole table look like a giant lightbox.  In the kitchen we had a large window which we put a big piece of diffusion over and that was all we needed.  I really am blown away more and more by what these cameras deliver with minimal light, even shooting at low ISOs, we were able to achieve a clean and dramatic look without much additional light.  I got a chance to use my Kessler Pocket Dolly quite a bit.  These “slider” type dollies are very cool and require little time to setup and I think can add quite a bit to certain shots.  I definitely did not want to overdo it though as I’ve seen lots of films on line where every shot is a dolly left or a dolly right; it get’s quite redundant.

The Film

One of the highlights of the weekend was having Will send us his awesome visual effects.  He is a 20 year old genius, in my opinion, and we’ve been joking that Steve Jobs has already hired him (because of this film) to design the next iPad.  What he did blew us away and brought the film to a whole new level.  While editing went pretty smoothly it was sort of a race to the finish.  Even though we had picture lock by around 2pm on Sunday, Jason and Jeremy had a lot to do to get the whole score and sound design together (because they couldn’t do a lot prior to getting the final picture), and we didn’t receive the final mix until around 5:30pm.  We had watched the film many times, but virtually silent so we were nervous and excited to download the final mix and see the finished film with sound.  At this point we had no time for feedback, but what they sent us rocked, so we were thrilled.  There was a lesson for us though, as this was the first time we were not editing in the same place as the composing team and that was a struggle, especially on a film like this.  (We had opted to edit at Liz’s studio, close to her apartment where we were filming, but in hindsight we should have based our editing out of Jason’s studio.)

When it was all finished we realized that some elements of the story were pretty subtle, but I think it still works, and I think this is is the best 48 Hour film I’ve worked on.

So here it is.  Enjoy!

(Photo Credits: Liz Linder Photography)

Click here to view the embedded video.

I put together a little selection of shots from my first project with the Canon 7D. This shoot was for a web series called “The Romeo Files” for the non-profit Our Spirit.  All footage was shot 1080/24p and the primary lens was the Canon 17-55 2.8 and a few were shot with the Canon 70-200 2.8. You can read more about the shoot here.

All-In Film

This definitely had to be the highlight of the whole trip for me.  This event was about two months in the making and I was excited and nervous to see it all come together.  I put the event together with two Twitter friends (now real life friends too!) Rob Imbs and Justin Carlson.  We didn’t meet in person until this trip and it was so great to meet them, and I could not have pulled off the event without them.  We had some awesome headliners at the show including Rodney Charters, Shane Hurlbut, Vincent Laforet and Kevin Shahinian.  Philip Bloom was the first to sign on but got very sick and sadly could not attend.  In addition we had close to 150 people play in the event.  Some I knew through Twitter, and it was awesome to meet everyone in person.  We held the event at the Hard Rock Poker Lounge which is probably the most beautiful poker room in Vegas.  Very swanky.  I found the whole event to be somewhat chaotic for me, in terms of getting everyone in, dealing with prizes and such, but from what I could tell everyone had an awesome time and we look forward to doing it next year.  I certainly did not play my best game of poker as my head was in another place, but I was seated with some good people and we had a lot of fun.  In addition we gave away about $18,000 in prizes, generously donated by over a dozen sponsors, and (the biggest highlight) we raised $7500 for the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund.  This was much more than I expected and I couldn’t be more thrilled.  I saw lots of people taking video and pictures at the event and I hope to see and post some of them as they appear online.  But thank you everyone who helped make the event a success.

Before the cards started flying

Rodney Charters and Vincent Laforet

The winning hand

All-In Film winner Tom Eberts

Meetups

The general theme of NAB for most people was making connections and meeting people, and this was one of the biggest highlights.  I started using Twitter about a year ago, and there were probably 50 people that I “know” on Twitter who were attending NAB.  Several of them I have gotten to know pretty well online.  So having the opportunity to meet up in person was phenomenal.  It’s definitely funny to go up to people or have people approach you and start chatting like you’ve known each other for years.  People asked about my wife’s pregnancy and other stuff that I share online, which I think is pretty cool.  I imagine that pre-Twitter (or other social media) the NAB Show would have been quite different in terms of meeting people.  It sort of makes it easier to connect when you already know quite a few of the names and details about the people.  On my last night there 7 of us went out to a great dinner at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grille and had an amazing meal (the coffee rubbed filet mignon was like a religious experience).  I already can’t wait to see you all again next year, but am glad we have formats like Twitter to keep in touch.

The Show

Oh yeah, there was the show as well.  The NAB Show is beyond huge.  I walked into one of the several rooms on the first day and it was cameras and gear as far as the eye can see.  Truly a techno-geeks heaven.  It took me 2 days just to see what I wanted to see and I still didn’t see everything.  By the end, everything was kind of a blur of cameras and toys and such.  The two biggest themes at the show were 3-D and DSLR video.  I really didn’t care that much about 3-D (as I have discussed here) but there were some interesting demos and setups.  I think 3-D is here to stay so I am sure I will be shooting it soon enough for some projects, but I really hate those darn glasses, and while certain shots are quite cool I find it still a little blurry and not nearly as sharp as 2-D.  I am not sure if that is my vision or the technology, but I would take some good 2-D most of the time over 3-D.

Panasonic's 3-D setup

DSLRs were reigning supreme and almost every booth featured some sort of accessory for the DSLR filmmaker.  Having started shooting with the Canon 7D late last year, I am excited to see the growth of this market and think that companies like Canon will have to (and have begun to) start addressing some of the weaknesses of the cameras when it comes to filmmaking.  I watched some presentations by Laforet, Hurlbut and Bruce Dorn at the Canon booth where they showed the creme de la creme of what these cameras can do.  I drooled over the new Zeiss Compact Primes specifically designed for Canon DSLRs.  These slick lenses will have a price tag out of the range of what I am looking to spend now, but I know my local rental houses will carry these, which will be great for certain projects.

Prototype Zeiss zoom for Canon DSLRs

Having the chance to get hands on with virtually every manufacturer’s gear was great for helping to make informed purchasing decisions.  I really want a new field monitor for both my EX-1 and 7D and checked out Marshall, Ikan and SmallHD.  I ultimately decided on the new SmallHD DP-SLR.  Great image, lots of features and includes HDMI and HD-SDI.  I also wanted to check out a second tripod.  Something smaller than my Sachtler DV8 which could also go lower and higher.  I found a good Manfrotto combo that fit the bill.  I spent some time looking at the new Litepanels offerings.  Seriously considering adding one their 1×1 panels to my kit.  Very cool product.  They have some more expensive lights that will compete with bigger HMI lights and run quite cool in temperature.  I just think the whole LED lighting technology is quite amazing and look forward to the day of never having to overheat my set or talent with hot lights.

My buddy Bill Parker checking out a Litepanel Ring Lite

Fujinon/RED setup. Lots of pretty girls posing at the show.

Joseph Stunzi working the crowded Zacuto booth

A disheveled self-portrait

Vegas

I love Vegas.  It is great for about 48 hours until the ringing of the slot machines starts to get to you.  I wanted to go around and do some shooting on the strip and in nearby Red Rock Canyon but really didn’t get a chance.  It was fun to hang out with new friends though at the poker and blackjack tables and some of the cool bars and restaurants and talk shop.  I am definitely planning to return to NAB next year and will hopefully be running the 2nd Annual All-In Film!

Photo by Keegan Hobson

Photo by Brian Matiash

Now it’s time to geek out:

Certainly the highlight of this weekend shoot was meeting some other photographers as well as getting to use some AWESOME equipment.  Due to Jack’s popularity among the social media crowd (and his reputation as a photographer) he got several companies to donate gear for us to test out during the shoot.  Westcott Lighting sent us 4 TD5 Daylight softboxes for us to use.  Jack opted for these constant light sources (instead of the normal strobes) to aid in the video I was shooting so that we didn’t have flashes going on constantly.  These are great lights; they run cool (which was great for the models as we surrounded them pretty closely with the fixtures), and have a nice, soft output.  We did discover that the lower light output (compared with strobes) meant shooting at a slower shutter speed for stills, so Jack was stuck shooting on a tripod, but he liked the quality of light and found it much easier to get instant feedback on the way the light was falling (which is much harder to see as you adjust a strobe).  I may get one of these to compliment my Kino Flo as another daylight lamp, as it’s cheaper and more compact than the Kino.

The biggest drool factor came from the generous donation of lenses by Lens Pro To Go, a local company that rents and ships lenses and cameras all around the country.  The sent us some VERY nice Canon lenses including a 35 1.4, a second 24-105 (as Jack and I both like using this lens), and the MONSTER 200mm 2.0.  This behemoth of a lens has about a $5K price tag and is as beautiful as it is expensive.  The other photographers their made good use of this lens, and I strapped it on my 7D and Zacuto shoulder rig for a few minutes, but mostly as a joke.  It was a heavy, awkward setup and with the 7D’s cropped sensor this becomes the 35mm equivalent of a 320mm lens, so not entirely made for handheld, but shockingly with the image stabilization and the Zacuto shoulder support I was able to rip off some usable, stable shots.  But this only stayed on my camera for a few minutes.  On the second day, Paul, the owner of Lens Pro showed up with some more lenses (including some for the one of the few Nikon shooters there) and the new Canon 1DMk4.  I only tried it for a few minutes and didn’t have an opportunity to shoot any video with it, but it felt solid and very pro!  Between what Lens Pro gave us and Jack’s already HUGE collection of lenses, I was in heaven and probably used a dozen lenses over the course of the weekend (mostly for fun)!

Big Bertha... Photo by Chris Conti

Photo by Keegan Hobson

Photo by Chris Conti

Aside from the gear, it was great to get to meet and work with several other local photographers.  It’s funny how buying into these DSLRs as a video guy has gotten me thrown into the world of photographers, but I really love it (and have 2 more shoots doing motion stock footage with 2 photographers in NYC next week).  We are certainly more alike than different in our professions.  So without further ado, I want to shout out specifically to Chris Conti, Brian Matiash, and Keegan Hobson.  They are all very talented and all in about the same position as each other, just starting out professionally in the industry, and very passionate about their work.  It was quickly apparent that we all had different skill sets and we spent a lot of the weekend sharing tips and techniques.  I enjoyed being the lone motion photographer there and sharing that aspect of the business with everyone.  I also want to thank Jack’s friends and Cape photographers Michael Skeggs and Glen Bacci for their assistance.  It was equally as inspiring to watch Jack, a 30-year veteran in the business, who seems to have just as much drive as we do.

Photo by Brian Matiash

Photo by Brian Matiash

Photo by Brian Matiash

It was a great weekend, that felt more like a collaborative workshop than a job, and I know that we’ll all work together again soon.  I really encourage you all to check out all of these photographers websites (and their takes on this shoot in their blogs) and see what they are up to.  And check back as I post the outcome of this shoot in a few weeks.  I will leave you with some frame grabs from video I was shooting with the 7D.  Enjoy!

I am entering my fourth year of being freelance and am more excited than ever.  Last year, which started out a little slow, and gave me a lot of concerns given the economic “crisis”, turned out to be a great year.  I continued working for some old clients, and picked up a bunch of new ones.  I got to work on a couple different documentary projects, shot a few music videos, and short films.  I traveled a fair amount, taking over 25 flights, and god knows how many miles in a car.  I started using some new technology, shooting video on DSLRs, while still embracing more conventional video tech.  I embraced social media as a business tool and started using Twitter, through which I have made a lot of new friends and contacts, and even landed a couple jobs.  I started my new website (thanks to Rob Baker) and started blogging.  Professionally (and personally) it was a rewarding year.

I hope to continue this trend in 2010.  I am hoping to make some more time for some personal projects, and also cultivate new partnerships with writers and directors.  I would like to expand my work into some other avenues, maybe doing more commercials and tv projects, and further develop the documentary work that I have enjoyed so much.  I hope to collaborate as much as possible and really push each project to be the best it can be.

I want to thank all the clients, colleagues, friends and family that have supported me in my professional ventures.  I feel really blessed to have a job that I am so passionate about and working on projects that help to promote, raise awareness, entertain, or inspire.  Happy New Year!

As I understand it, traditionally photographers who shoot stock photos or footage do it on their own and then try to sell it to a stock company (like Image Source, Getty, Corbis, or the hundreds of others out there).  I have sold some footage in the past to a stock company in this way.  Rarely does a stock company contract the photographer with a particular assignment as was the case here, but I believe since this cross-media product that Image Source is offering is so new, that is how they have obtained these stills and footage.

The Shoot:

The shoot consisted of two days shooting models around Chatham, MA (on Cape Cod).  I was the DP of the motion footage and Jack Hollingsworth was in charge of the stills and directing/producing the whole shoot.  Jack has been working for years in the stock photo market, so I really looked to his experience and eye throughout the whole production.  (By the way, Jack is an AMAZING photographer who has shot all over the world.  Watching him work was pretty inspiring, and his shots were really impressive.)  We were producing content for two themes.  The first day was “Friends” and the second day was “Couples”.

For the first day we had 4 women and we shot them hanging out, talking, walking, taking pictures, etc.  Now, I have to say, shooting this stuff felt a little silly at times.  I think the types of action that traditionally work for a still photograph can look a little cheesy as motion, but I also know (as did the client) that this is the type of stuff that sells in their collections.  We shot on a couple of beaches near Chatham and were very fortunate to have unseasonably warm weather for December in New England.  We had bright sun, which we had to diffuse quite a bit with a 4×4 diffusion frame so that we didn’t have overly contrasty shadows and squinty models.  We also went into the charming downtown area to shoot the women shopping, drinking coffee, etc.  The second beach we went to was at sunset and we shot until there was no more light, but I felt we got the best stuff there.  The setting sun created an amazing warm glow, and the dunes were an awesome backdrop for shooting.

The second day we had two sets of baby boomer couples.  The forecast called for rain all day, so Jack and I discussed what we could do inside.  We came up with a few setups in his very nice Cape-style home that we could do, but it was challenging as the lighting requirements for motion and for stills is quite different.  We lucked out again, as we ended up getting decent weather during the morning.  It was overcast, but at least we didn’t have to deal with hard shadows.  We took our couples to a nearby bike path and then a pond to shoot some different “scenes”.  By lunchtime the rain had started so we went to a local nursery to shoot the couples buying holiday plants.  The nursery was great because it was essentially like shooting in a giant softbox with frosted white windows surrounding us from all sides.

The Camera:

Image Source had previously used the RED One for all their motion stock in the cross-media collections.  This is obviously a great camera, but they were curious about the new Canon DSLRS to see if they could shoot faster and cheaper with a high enough quality for their collections.  While I had my 7D along, it was mostly used for behind-the-scenes shots and I used Jack’s 5DMk2.  Image Source knew a little less about the 7D, so they wanted to try first with the full-frame, higher megapixel 5D (although I think the quality would have been almost indistinguishable).  I was in camera heaven as Jack owns almost every Canon L-series (their highest end) lens in existence.  I spent the day before the shoot just trying them all out on my 7D and was in love.  During the shoot I actually only used 2 lenses, the Canon 24-70 2.8 and the 70-200 2.8 IS (which I used probably 75% of the time).  I definitely felt like I was able to shoot pretty quickly with the setup.  I had previously written about the limitations of these cameras, and the biggest was monitoring as the client just had to watch on playback and couldn’t use an external monitor, but we got by pretty well.  The client agreed that we were able to get a lot more shot than with the MUCH bigger RED package.

When playing back the footage on an HD monitor back at the studio, the client seemed very happy with how the footage looked, and we’ll see if it flies with the tech people at Image Source.  To my eye, the biggest issue with these DSLRs is the aliasing and moire pattern that can happen on some textures, but I think since most stock content is for web-use, some of the weaknesses are easily overlooked.

All in all, I really enjoyed working with Jack and Lisa (the client) and Brad Nielson (Jack’s assistant, and Photoshop-guru), and all the other folks who helped on the shoot.  It was really nice to work on just creating great, high-end looking images, and not have to worry about sound or acting or all the other things that I often have to think of.  I found that very refreshing.

I put together a few clips from the shoot so you can see how the Canon did.  All-in-all I am quite happy with the image, but you can be the judge.  Enjoy!

Our biggest challenge technically was the audio.  The farm we were shooting on was right next to a fairly busy road, and we had A LOT of street noise.  I pretty much knew this from scouting the location, but when it came to shooting time, it seemed worse.  I think in the end it will be fine, but it was definitely a pain, as we would try to do pickup lines in between road noise.  This doesn’t make for a great situation for the actors to really get INTO their scene or the director to necessarily know if he got a good take performance wise.  In this case, the location was so great visually, and since the production needed a donated location we were probably limited to this farm anyways, but it just reiterates the point to ALWAYS THINK OF AUDIO.  First and foremost, really.  Again, Dave Manahan did an excellent job, though, and I think we have plenty to work with and even if there is background street noise, the dialogue is clear.

I got an opportunity on this shoot to work with some new gear.  The 7D was still great to work with.  In my previous post I went through the pros and cons based on the first shoot and I think most of those still hold true.  One major difference between this camera and a “proper” video camera becomes apparent when working in daylight.  Every video camera I work with has built-in ND (Neutral Density) filters to help control the light entering the lens, but photo cameras do not.  This is not really an issue usually for photographers, since they can adjust the shutter speed in order to keep the aperture where they want it.  When shooting video though, you typically want the shutter speed in a certain place all the time (typically 1/48 of a second when shooting 24fps) as the change in shutter speed effects they way motion is rendered.  So when shooting in bright light or day exteriors you typically want to incorporate ND filters so that you do not have to stop down the lens aperture a ton.  I have a few square 4×4 NDs that I can use with my mattebox, but what I just bought and used on this shoot was the very cool Fader ND.  This screw-on round filter adjusts the amount of ND (from 2 to 8 stops) as you spin it.  I don’t know exactly how it works, although I assume it has some type of opposing polarizing filters, but it worked and it was great.  I could set up my shot and if I wanted to be at say F4, and there was too much light I could just turn the Fader ND until I achieved proper exposure.  Too little light and I could turn the filter the other way or take it off.  This saved a ton of time over swapping out square filters and was much more tunable.  I think this type of filter is a MUST BUY ITEM for video DSLR shooters who plan to shoot outdoors.

I also got to use my rented 70-200 f2.8 Canon lens.  This lens costs about $1300 and I may buy something in this zoom range but renting for $30 for the weekend (from Calumet Boston) might be the way to go if I don’t often call for this length.  It’s an impressive looking lens to say the least and adds a bunch of weight to the camera.  I only used it a few times so really did not get to put it through it’s paces but I did use it for what ended up being one of the harder shots to do.  It’s a shot that seems simple, but getting focus proved to be a challenge.  I wanted to do a shot of two of the actors walking together down a path.  I knew I wanted this to be a long lens, shallow focus shot and the shot needed to last about 25-30 seconds to cover some voice-over.  I had the aperture at f4 and was almost at 200mm.  My fabulous assistant camera Will Cavanagh set about 6 or 7 focus points on the follow focus to correspond to the actors’ position on the path.  It took us about 7 or 8 takes and I think 3 times we had to redo our focus marks to get the shot right as it was a challenge to time the focus pull perfectly.  It’s the kind of shot you see on TV or movies all the time and looks rather easy, but I assure you, it is not.

So I thought I would put together a little video of some shots for people interested in seeing how this little camera works for filmmaking.  I am not using the recorded audio here, but just some of the video with music.

I am heading into a busy week working for 4 days on Cape Cod shooting stock footage with photographer Jack Hollingsworth on the 7D and Canon 5DMk2.  A different type of project for me and I am looking forward to it, and will definitely blog about the experience.

Here is the video.  Enjoy!

We had a pretty slimmed down crew yesterday with just a director, DP (me), producer, assistant camera/gaffer, sound, and three PAs.  With our three cast members and our makeup person the entire film had 12 people on set which seemed to be just the right number.  Everybody seemed to have something to do and I rarely felt like we needed another hand.  (This size crew is sort of the norm for me on these types of projects and I often wonder what the purpose is of the seemingly bloated sets of much bigger productions.)

This was also the first real shoot I was doing with my 7D.  I’ve had it for about a month and spent a lot of time testing it out, but this was the first time it was on the front lines.  The verdict?  I think it’s great.  It’s not perfect, but no camera I’ve used is.

Here’s what I really liked about it:

-The size is great.  Even with rails, mattebox, and follow focus (my new RedRock follow focus arrived the day before the shoot, and it was pretty essential) the whole package is small and light.  If I wasn’t using this I would have used the EX-1 with the Letus Extreme which is so much bigger.  That certainly would have worked for this shoot but I just liked not having to lug around such a big rig.

-Filmmakers are picking up these DSLR video cameras because of the depth-of-field control, and I loved having that.  I was not going for ridiculous, razor thin DOF on this shoot, but I certainly had more control than I do with the EX-1 alone.  And I did not miss the finicky-ness of the Letus adapter which I would have used to get a shallower DOF.  I think the image is cleaner and I don’t need to worry about separate focusing elements, edge sharpness or ground glass patterning.

-This was a case where I loved that recording quality sound on the camera was not really even an option.  I had a great sound guy in Dave Manahan, and he recorded sound separately on his recorder.  I never had to be connected to him, which made things much easier.  Obviously if the camera had better sound options that WOULD be better, but I liked not even having to worry about it.

-I used one lens all day, the Canon 17-55 2.8.  I have always used primes with the Letus (and I have a Nikon/Canon adapter so I can use them) but this lens was all I needed for the interiors we were shooting.  I rented a Canon 70-200 2.8 for some of the exterior shots, but we didn’t get to use it today.

-The pictures look great.  Steve and Robert (the director and writer/producer) came over today and we went through it all.  It’s pretty amazing that these pictures are coming out of a camera that costs only $1700.

Here’s what I didn’t like so much:

-Monitoring is a pain.  I have a small component HD monitor and a larger HDMI/SDI monitor for the director/client that I use, but on this camera when you plug in one of the video outputs (HDMI or composite) you lose the picture on the built in LCD.  That means that I would have to view the monitor too, which logistically for this shoot was not going to work.  I needed to have my eyes on the camera, so while we tried that setup for the first shot, we just stuck with the camera alone, and the director would watch the LCD with me.  I have a Zacuto Z-finder which is great for helping to set my focus marks, but I did not use it too much so Steve could see the LCD too.  It worked fine, but it’s not ideal for every shoot and I am looking into some different monitoring options so I can send HDMI to a small on-camera monitor and my larger director’s monitor.

-Another note on monitoring: I am used to my EX-1 where I what I see on that LCD is pretty darn close to what I see when editing.  That is not entirely the case with the LCD on the Canon or even the through the HDMI output.  Fortunately a lot of my tests with the camera have helped me to get more confident with what I am seeing on the screen.

-While the picture is great, especially at this price-point there are some limitations to the codec.  Most of which will not be noticed by 99% of the viewers but there are some things that a user needs to know are triggers.  Plus I think the images from the camera need a little more tweaking in post.  While I sometimes grade the EX-1 footage to give it a different look, many times the footage straight from the camera is perfect on its own.

But all in all I was very happy with the cast, the crew, and shooting with a newer camera.  Here are some frame grabs from what we shot yesterday.  Enjoy!