Landing in Montana

The Jobs

This past week was pretty hectic with 2 jobs in 2 states, requiring 6 flights over 6 days.  The crazy thing was that 2 weeks ago I had a clear schedule for this past week with nothing booked.  Then one job came up, and a week later another came up.  I do find that’s often the case; I’ll start a month thinking it looks pretty light, then all of a sudden it will completely fill up.  Destination 1 was to Las Vegas.  Now, I’ll rarely turn down an opportunity to go to Vegas.  To me it’s one of the best (read: dangerous) business destinations.  You’ve got gambling, great food, great shows, and you’re getting paid to be there.  Oh, I guess there was work too, but that didn’t get in the way of fun.  The job was for FanDuel, a UK-based fantasy sports website, that was holding their 2nd annual Fantasy Football Championships.  They wanted to produce a video to highlight the competition and use it to promote FanDuel and their competition for next year.  Now I am HARDLY a football fan, but I don’t think this put me at a disadvantage.  The gig consisted of 2 days of shooting, 1 was interviews with all 11 finalists and then the next day was filming during the competition itself.  We setup interviews in a suite in the Palazzo, and shot 2 cameras (Sony F3 and Canon 7D) with the same setup for each interview.  Fortunately we had a pretty large room to work with (for a hotel room), to setup a nice looking shot.  We very much wanted to give the whole piece an ESPN vibe, and hopefully that will come across in the edit.

F3 Frame Grab

Then second day was more event-style shooting in Lagasse Stadium, the largest sports book in Vegas.  FanDuel had a decent size private room with about 50 people watching the games.  This was probably the first time in my life I spent an entire day around people watching football.  The finalists were playing in a 1-day fantasy tournament, vying for $75K for 1st place (out of a $150K prize pool) so there was definitely a lot on the line.  I still am not sure I totally get the allure of watching football for an entire day, but I like the idea of winning $75K, so it made it exciting to watch the standings shift throughout the day.  The room was pretty dim, so we shot with on-camera Litepanel Micros, and cranked the ISO a fair amount (which is VERY clean on the F3), and basically filmed….people watching tv.  There were some dramatic moments throughout the day, though, and I think in the end we’ll cut this to look like a fun, exciting event.

Getting Vegas scenics at the Bellagio

F3 Frame Grab of people watching Bellagio Fountains

Next up was Missoula, Montana.  This was my first time in Montana, and I knew it would be beautiful.  The job was to shoot a segment for the Today Show about a 29-year old unemployed firefighter, who was recently diagnosed with cancer, and is using IndieGoGo to raise money to cover the costs of his treatment.  I met the producer in Missoula, and we shot for a day and a half, interviewing the man and his sister (who was heading up the fundraising campaign), and filming them in their daily lives.  We even went ice fishing early one morning, which was a first for me.  Missoula was a pretty epic place to film, with gorgeous scenery, and frankly since I spend probably 80% of my time shooting in doors, it was just so nice to be shooting outside (even on a cold, frozen lake).  I think we got some great stuff, and I am excited to see how it comes together.  (It’s slated to air on December 22nd, if you want to check it out).

Shooting in Missoula

F3 Frame Grab

F3 Frame Grab

F3 Frame Grab

Natural light interview setup

F3 Frame Grab

F3 Frame Grab

What I Brought

The biggest hassle of travel is figuring out what to bring.  I am completely envious of many business travelers who walk on the place with a small roll-on case and that’s ALL THEY NEED.  That would be freeing, but instead I have to go through expensive bag checks, lugging heavy bags throughout the airport.  Frankly, I think I pack on the lighter side compared with many people I know who travel for video production.  I had 5 bags in total, 3 checked and 2 carry-on (Kata HB 207 backpack with the cameras and lenses, etc, and a laptop bag).  My big checked bag is a Kata OC-88 which I can fit lights, stands, and other gear in (and my clothes).  The second was the Pelican 1510, which I usually use as an audio case, but I rearranged the dividers to use it for audio, some lenses, and the KiPro Mini and batteries.  Third, I had a tripod case with a tripod, boom pole and another light stand.  The biggest issue I find is getting my Kata bag to stay under 50lbs.  It’s VERY easy to load it too much, and I’m always rearranging stuff to try to keep it below 50, otherwise they’ll gouge you with additional fees.  I was meeting my assistant Mike in Vegas (he was flying from NYC), so I brought only 2 lights and stands (an Arri 1k w/ Chimera, and an Arri 300) and he brought 2 stands and his 2 Litepanel MicroPros.  This helped in keeping the bags light enough (although my Kata was 52lbs, but they let it slide).  We used all 4 lights in Vegas for the interviews, but in Montana Mike (who wasn’t joining me) and I swapped lights and I took the Litepanels and he took the Arris home with him.  The producer for Today said he wanted to use as much available light as possible, and we ended up not lighting anything.  I think for next year I want to build a small all LED light kit with very small stands especially for flying, because it is hard to keep the weight down.

This trip was also my maiden voyage for my new Sony F3.  I’m not going to go into a lengthy review of this camera (which has been out for a year and reviewed extensively) but I was THRILLED with the results.  I had dialed it in at home, using picture profile settings that I got from Abel Cine Tech, and those worked great.  The camera has a fantastic image and is definitely a step up from my AF100 (which has been a great camera, but the F3 was the one I really wanted last year).  I was using this with the KiPro Mini, which worked great and allows me to deliver ProRes files to NBC, which makes their life easier (and soon will be able to do DNxHD which will be even better).

The new rig

Here’s just a short list of the standout features of this camera for me:

-It works like my EX-1, so the menus and buttons were very familiar.  That’s great.

-I got new lenses for this setup, using Nikon lenses (my Olympus lenses for the AF100 won’t work with the larger setup).  The 17-35 f2.8 and 28-70 f2.8 zooms are pretty compact and have aperture rings (which I really hadn’t realized was such a huge deal).  I pretty much used these 2 lenses the entire time, other than an old 85mm f1.4 that we used for interviews in Vegas.  I think these zooms (while not parafocal) are very good as variable primes for video use.  Very sharp too.

-The KiPro worked great.  I was worried about only having 2 Anton Bauer TrimPac batteries, but I never ran out during the day of shooting.  The whole rig, which is rather heavy, is actually very balanced on the shoulder.  I wasn’t using my DP4 EVF, but even so I could just use the LCD pretty well off the shoulder.

-One of the biggest PIA of the AF100 was no expanded focus on the LCD.  I loved the EX-1 LCD, and the F3 is (I think) the same monitor, with phenomenal peaking and expanded focus.  I always felt the need to use my SmallHD with the AF100 for focus, but that wasn’t an issue with the F3 screen.  This makes the rig much smaller (especially in Vegas, where I was shooting handheld without the KiPro most of the time).

-The low noise at high ISOs is amazing.  I shot a lot during the FanDuel tournament at +12 and +18 (3200/6400) and sure there is some noise, but it’s totally fine and probably looks like +3 or +6 on the EX-1, and was way cleaner than the 7D we were also using.

-The image quality is just amazing.  It’s very sharp and detailed (which I like, although some like a smoother look).  It seems to have a wide latitude and I found it handled the higher end of exposure better than the AF100.  I always found I really had to avoid bright highlights or pushing skin tones too hot, but the F3 seems to handle this much better.  There is definitely more picture control too in the profile settings.  I am not using the sLog update, which many rave about.  Personally it’s not totally ideal for me as I often hand off footage to other production companies and editors who wouldn’t want to deal with sLog footage, and want more of a baked in look.  I know that many poo-poo the notion of shooting this way, but I think it works out quite well for many projects and saves time in the back end without doing heavy grading.  I’ll probably get the update next year, but since I just spent a small fortune this month I figured I’d wait.

So that was my week.  I am writing this from my last flight (of 6) of the week.  I am looking forward to going home and seeing my family before having a shoot in Boston tomorrow and one in NYC this weekend.  Whew.

-

So, I decided to put my money where my mouth is, get together a bunch of lenses, and see what all the hype was about.  I had been talking with my buddy Chris Loughran about doing this, and he definitely wanted to hop aboard and work on this.  He had more experience with higher end lenses than I did and was pretty sure I’d see a big difference across the range of lenses we were going to test.  Previously, I had never really shot with any cinema lenses, and only worked with video specific lenses (Canon and Fujinon zooms) and then still lenses (with 35mm adapters, DSLRs, and then large-sensor video cameras).  I was certainly aware of the mechanical advantages of the cinema-specific lenses, but was more interested in the differences we could SEE in the shots.

I thought that this would be a good opportunity to get together some Boston-area shooters, so I invited a bunch of guys over to partake in some food, beers, and lens testing.

Frame grab from Rick Macomber

The Test

(Disclaimer #1: Food and beer prevailed at this get-together.  If you are looking for a really thorough, highly scientific test, you will not find it here.  We were able to make some conclusions, but for the most part, we were just hanging out and having a good time.)

Chris and I had 2 or 3 setups we wanted to do and run each lens through the same “scene”.  But (see above), due to too much frivolity we only got through one setup before we decided to call it a day.  Our setup involved 2 “actors” and went from a medium-wide to a close-up shot.  Our somewhat uninspired lighting, was fairly flat, but allowed us to see more detail in the scene.  We ran the scene through with each of the 9 lenses a couple times (mostly re-doing if focus was ever botched).

Frame grab from Rick Macomber

The Lenses

We had a wide-array of lenses ranging in price from $450 to about $18k.  With the exception of one lens, all were either 35mm focal length primes, or zooms set to 35mm.  Here was our lineup from most expensive to least expensive.

-Cooke s4 35mm f2.0 (I believe retail is about $18,000)

-Zeiss Super Speed 35mm f1.3 (not in production anymore, I think they are available used for about $5-7k)

-Zeiss CP2 35mm f2.1 ($3900)

-Olympus 14-35 f2.0 ($2299)

-Nikon 17-35 f2.8 ($1699)

-Canon 17-55 f2.8 ($1099)

-Nikon AIS 35mm f1.4 (approx $899, but this was a de-clicked version, which would cost more)

-Sigma 30mm f1.4 ($489)

-Tamron 17-50 f2.8 ($459)

With the exception of the Sigma, Tamron and Canon lenses, all other lenses could be aperture adjusted on the lens (or in the camera).  We mounted the EOS mount lenses to a 7D to set aperture on each.  We did this test at f4 on each lens (as that seemed the most appropriate for this scene), but in comparing the waveforms on each lens, found we needed to open to about 3.5/3.8 on the EOS lenses to get the same exposure.

Frame grab from Rick Macomber

The Camera

We used my Panasonic AF-100 to test all of these lenses.

(Disclaimer #2: Okay, I am aware that this camera has a much smaller sensor than the Super35 or FF35 image that most of these lenses can cover.  I am aware that because of this I am using more of the sweet spot of each lens and am not able to assess the edge sharpness between each of these lenses.  Yes, I know that.  But this is the camera that Chris and I use day in and day out, and so we wanted to see the results on what we knew and what we used.  Might things have looked different on an F3 or Alexa.  Absolutely.  I am aware of that.)

Everything was run to a KiPro Mini (awesome little device) recording ProRes from the SDI jack on the AF100.  We used a Hot Rod PL adapter for our 3 PL lenses, and Lumix, Novoflex and Fotodiox adapters for the other lenses.  Camera was set as follows (for all you AF-100 users):

Detail/V-Detail: -3

Chroma: -2

Master Ped: -2

Gamma: Low

Knee: Low

Matrix: Norm2

I don’t tend to shoot super-flat, and a somewhat more baked-in look is better for 90% of my work.  Since I didn’t want to color correct any of this (to retain the original quality) I set it this way.  I think a little more contrast could be added to this though for final output.

The Results

So here’s the video I put together which shows how these lenses stood up.  Again, not the most thorough or scientific thing in the world but whatever.

(Disclaimer #4: Obviously viewing this on Vimeo, or even the downloadable version is not the BEST way to see the results.  We all know this.  Blah blah blah.)

So there you have it.  A $5k camera hooked up to a wide-range of lenses.  As we were shooting I kept looking at the monitor and thinking that I was hardly seeing any difference at all.  In editing, the differences became more clear, but I found it hard to even be able to SAY what made one lens better than the others.  I think Chris and I both agreed that the Cooke looked the best (and maybe we were skewed by the price tag), but it had a richness and detail without appearing overly sharp.  I also really liked the look of the Zeiss Super Speed, which probably looked the most different to me than any of the other lenses.  It’s a much older lens and I often hear people talk about the look of “vintage” lenses, and I sort of get that now.  It looked soft and warm and looked really nice on the skin.  It also appeared to bring out the most shadow detail of all the lenses.  Maybe I’m just not that picky, but I didn’t think any of these looked bad, and for most projects (especially web-based ones) I doubt any of these would hinder the end results.

That said, a lot of what you’re buying in the higher end (especially cinema-specific lenses) is a mechanical advantage.  They feel better made, they have long focus throws with smooth focus and aperture rings, are color matched across their set (which is a big deal), etc.  Chris, who was pulling focus on all these shots, actually thought the Cooke, which had the largest focus throw of the bunch, was almost harder to use, because the shot required more than 2 full rotations of the follow focus.  The Tamron and Canon and the shortest throw and he ended up just eye-balling it, but nailed it pretty easily.  The Super Speed’s throw was somewhere in the middle which worked out well.

So this post is getting really long so I’ll stop.  But before I end I leave you with 2 fun BTS videos that were put together by Rick Macomber and Michael Murie.  Nowadays it seems you can’t do anything without a BTS, but I appreciate you guys doing this, and it makes us seem act marginally more prepared than we actually were.

Thanks to all who participated: Chris Loughran, Keith Wasserman, Brandon Vincent, Rick Macomber, Michael Murie, Ben Pender-Cudlip, and Matt Stapleton.  And thanks to Rule Boston Camera for giving us a deal on the rental on some of these lenses.

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.

It seems that nowadays, though, that cost of entry into the professional field of video has plummeted to an all time-low.  The 2-year old “HDSLR Revolution” has spawned an amazing number of new video makers into the industry, snatching up these highly affordable cameras and going out and creating content and landing jobs.  Our inexpensive cameras are being used by the big boys, and we are seeing prime-time tv shows, commercials, and movies being shot on cameras that you can buy at WalMart.  Suddenly it doesn’t take deep pockets, bank loans or strong business plans to buy your way into the industry.

Is this good?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

A little backstory:

When I entered this industry about ten years ago the cost of entry was just starting to take a substantial drop.  The “DV Revolution” had begun with the advent of cameras like the Sony VX-1000 and the Canon XL-1 in the late ’90s,  people could create high-end looking videos at a fraction of the cost then it had been just a few years earlier.  Those cameras which ran in the price range of 3500-5000 were being picked up by people as an alternative to the Betacam and DigiBeta cameras that cost tens of thousands of dollars.  Were they equal?  Not really.  But that’s not what I want to talk about.  So I entered the field during the age when MiniDV and DVCam were very acceptable formats.  My first camera I owned was the JVC-DV500.  I loved it.  Shoulder mount, 1/2″ chip, interchangeable lens.  Cost about $5K.  I used it for about 4 years and made a lot of videos with it.  During that time (while working on staff at a production company) I was acquiring a lot of my own gear.  A light kit here, a nicer tripod there, etc.  It was a piece-meal approach, but it was fine, and when I went freelance I had the necessary equipment I needed to get started on my own.  Had I entered the industry when the necessary camera to produce professional products cost $30-60K, then I might not have afforded to work (and go freelance) in the manner in which I did.  And I’d like to think that I bring something good to the table, that myself and the people I work with benefit from.

So now I’ve noticed two sides to the current argument.  There are the seasoned professionals who have invested time and money into their craft, and they are concerned or complain that the market is becoming over-saturated with content producers who have run out and picked up these cheap cameras, then called themselves pros.  These experienced pros are feeling threatened by this scenario.  On the flip side, we have lots of new entrants in the field who are displaying massive amounts of talent and success.  They might have previously been financially unable to enter into the video field, but now because of these cheaper tools, they are given that opportunity.  As someone who falls (to a certain extent) into both of these parties, I can see both sides to this argument.  I have certainly been inspired by the more and more great work that I am seeing produced, but also see a lot of bad stuff being made, which makes me feel confident in my place in the market.  The bottom line, though, is that with a huge number of content producers, everyone needs to be trying their hardest to make the best stuff they can make.

What I have seen a little bit online, though, which has bothered me is a sense of entitlement by members of the “HDSLR Revolution” to cheap, professional gear.  They have entered the field at a time (and grown accustomed to) creating content with gear that they can buy and pay off very quickly.  And now, as I see the manufacturers starting to introduce newer cameras (based on the strengths of DSLRs) but geared towards the video-pros, a lot of the newbies to market are annoyed that these new tools are more expensive.  And we’re not even talking about super expensive stuff (relatively speaking).  We’re talking about cameras (like the new Panasonic AF-100) which will run about $5k, and should be the answer to a lot of the faults of the DSLR cameras, with a lot of their strengths.  In the scheme of things this is still a pretty small price tag for a camera of this caliber, and people should feel lucky that the days of needing to spend tens of thousands of dollars (on a camera) to have a shot at “making it” in this industry are well behind us.  But I think these people need to also realize that the camera you can buy at WalMart was not going to continue to become the de facto professional tool.

What do you think; does it help or hurt the industry that we have this low cost of entry now?

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/expansion/ http://benjamineckstein.com/2010/07/expansion/#comments Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:49:01 +0000 Benjamin http://benjamineckstein.com/?p=684 So this week I added a new piece of gear to my arsenal.  Unfortunately this piece of gear won’t make me much money, but it will get me from point A to point B.  I bought a new car, a minivan, in fact.  As anyone in production knows, having a good sized production vehicle can be essential.  Even though our cameras and a lot of other gear have gotten smaller, there is still a ton to take on shoots.  My previous (now second) car was a Mazda 3 wagon.  A great, fun, zippy little car.  I could pack A LOT of stuff in it.  I used to joke that this car could JUST barely fit whatever was needed. But it was often very, very tight.  If a producer asked me to rent a big dolly or jib for a shoot, I cringed as I knew it would be a tight fit.  On a recent shoot in Connecticut, where we rented a Porta-Jib, my assistant could barely fit in the passenger seat, and had to ride with bags at his feet and in his lap.  Not ideal.

I didn’t get the new car just for work, though.  As I’ve written about before, my wife and I are having our first child (any day now), and we needed to have a second car.  Since I travel a good amount for work, I didn’t want to leave her and the baby at home without a car.  It took me a while to warm up to getting a minivan, but it really is the most practical car out there.  A lot of the compact SUVs aren’t that much bigger than my Mazda and I liked having a third row of seats.  Plus, I know several people in production with minivans and they could fit so much gear in it, that I knew it was they way to go.  Really, the only thing that disappointed us when we began our search, was that currently, there are no hybrid SUVs.  When I bought my Mazda 6 years ago, I assumed my next car would be a hybrid.  Well that will have to wait, I guess.  When we began looking at the options, the only 2 minivans that seemed to be in the running were the Honda Odyssey and the Toyota Sienna.  As far as minivans go, these were the “coolest”.  And on closer inspection, the new 2011 Toyota Sienna, really took the cake.  (Thanks, in part, to their excellent marketing campaign including this great video.)

So on Wednesday, we picked up the new addition to our family.  The thing is pretty massive.  We really could probably move into it and sell our house.  I am excited to take it on a shoot and have lots of room to spare.  I also will not hesitate to rent or bring bigger production gear on shoots.  In fact, I can probably seat 4 or 5, plus the amount of gear I bring on a normal shoot, which is something I could never do with the Mazda.  I am thinking of building some sort of shelving system in the back with compartments for stands, light cases, camera bags, etc., for even better storage of the gear.  The dual sliding doors makes loading stuff in a cinch, and the way the rear seats fold flat into the floor is awesome.  Surprisingly the car, as a whole, feels more like a luxury vehicle than a family car.  Basically, I am sold on the concept of the minivan now.

It sort of bums me out that what is now the most expensive piece of gear in my “kit” won’t really make me any money, but I guess that is how it goes with automobiles.  Now my only fear is that I am going to get asked by my friends now to help them transport lots of their stuff.

So in the vein of the “unboxing” videos that are popular online (where people shoot themselves opening up new products), we decided to shoot a funny little video ourselves.  Enjoy!

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!

So I went over, armed with my trusty Visa card, to buy my very own 7D.  This was really the first time I had even touched one (other than this past weekend when I nearly accosted a photographer at an event I was at who had one around her neck), and it felt very robust.  Much heavier (in a good way) than I expected; it felt very pro.  Unfortunately the lens I had ordered online was not expected to arrive until the end of the week, and I couldn’t stand the idea of going home without a lens (since I was buying the camera body only), so I looked through the selection at Newtonville, as there were a couple other lenses I had planned to purchase.  They had me try a fantastic wide-angle zoom, the Tokina 11-16mm 2.8.  It looked great, felt great, but I had not planned to buy that one (yet).  I was looking for a “normal” range prime lens and was deciding between the Canon 28mm 1.8 or the Sigma 30mm 1.4.  Well they did not have the Canon in stock.  I had read mostly favorable reviews about the Sigma and the Canon is a much older design, so I opted to go with what they had, so I could play at home.  So I left Newtonville with new camera, lens and a few spare batteries in tow, and a significantly lighter wallet.

Now here is what kills me…first is that I had purchased some Compact Flash cards with the lens I had ordered online, so I have nothing to shoot on until they arrive, and second is that I have three projects that I need to finish editing over the next week and have literally zero time to go out and shoot.  The camera spent all day sitting on my desk just staring at me, asking to be used.  I have certainly turned it on a bunch and put it into video mode and walked around the house, framing up nice shots of my dog, or my wife Kate cooking dinner, or my coffee cup on my desk.  And the stuff looks great, but I can’t even press record because I have no CF cards yet.  Sigh.

But soon, I will have what I need and my current projects will be done, and I can go out and use it, and then start putting it to work.  It is already very clear that this camera shines in low light compared with my beloved EX-1 (which for an HD video camera is quite sensitive in low light), and it has a very nice shallow depth of field due to the much larger sensor.  Will it become my “A” camera?  Probably not.  My EX-1 is certainly more versatile for many situations, and there are some drawbacks to shooting video with a DSLR like the 7D, but it has a very nice, filmic look that I think will work well for scripted or stylized shoots.  I am definitely going to take it to Blogs with Balls next week in Las Vegas, along with 2 EX-1s and put it to use.

Can you tell I am excited?

This week’s session entitled “The Art of Stabilization” was on the latest image stabilization devices by Steadicam and Sachtler, and was being led by Mike Sutton, a Boston area Steadicam operator who now works at Rule.  There was a serious drool factor when I walked in.  They had a Sony EX-1 on a Steadicam Pilot, a Panasonic HDX900 rigged out on Mike’s own Steadicam Flyer, and a very SEXY Panasonic GH1 DSLR (fitted with a PL-mount Cooke Cinema lens) on a Sachtler Artemis Rig.  I spent the minutes before the workshop started checking out the setups and resisting the urge to whip out my credit card.  Mike did a great job of going through the evolution of these devices, how they work, and what tools you need to use them in the business.

For those that don’t know, these devices (typically all referred to as Steadicams, which were the original manufacturer) allow for very smooth camera movements with the camera mounted on a gimbal that attaches to the operator by an iso-elastic arm.  The camera op can walk, run, climb stairs, etc. creating smooth camera moves that would be nearly impossible with a camera dolly or shooting handheld.  When done correctly the results are VERY nice, and really up the production values.  You can see one half of the 13-minute single take Steadicam shot from the 1998 movie “Snake Eyes” here.  It’s not a fabulous movie, but this is a technically amazing open to the movie.

Now, I do not NEED a Steadicam type device, and traditionally people would specialize in Steadicam because 10-15 years ago the cost of entry to own a rig was $25-$50K for a full-size camera.  But now the cameras are smaller and the rigs are much, much cheaper.  In fact, the available Steadicams for an EX-1 sized camera (or a DSLR like the 7D) are between $2500-$4000.  That’s a big jump from ten years back, and you really don’t sacrifice much (if anything) in the quality of the setup.  So this got me to thinking of all the times I COULD use one.  Certainly great for work on shorts, features, music videos, etc.  But how about the corporate and documentary work which is really my bread and butter?  I guess I could see breaking out a Steadicam rig for a walk-and-talk interview or b-roll.  But it’d just be another tool to deal with, which few of my clients are asking me for at this point, and using these rigs often involves an extra camera assistant.  Not to mention the fact that there are several great Steadicam ops in the Boston area (a couple of whom I have worked with in the past), and for times that I NEED some Steadicam work, it’s probably better and more cost effective to hire them.

That was the rationale I used to (try to) convince myself I don’t need one of these rigs, but we’ll see. Rule Broadcast said if they get enough interest they could probably arrange one of the Steadicam Training Programs at their facility, so maybe I’d try it out at least…

It’s great for me to go to these events because it really is important to stay on top of what new tools are out there.  I encourage anyone in the business who lives in the Boston area to attend Rule’s Learning Lab series.

My friend was working as production manager for documentary filmmaker Alla Kovgan on a film they were shooting this week in New London, CT.  They brought in a DP from Armenia (Mko Malkhasyan) who Alla had worked with previously on her STUNNING dance-film Nora, which they shot in Africa.  I am a huge techno-dweeb, especially when it comes to cameras, and they were shooting on the RED One, a new-ish camera that I had only worked with for a tiny bit before but am planning to use on an upcoming project, so I volunteered to go down and help out on the shoot for a day and learn a bit about working with the camera.

The RED One came out about two years ago, but was very hard to get your hands on until about a year ago.  It shoots in a very high resolution called 4K, which is more than five times the resolution of my EX-1 (or the Canon 7D), and also shoots RAW images, meaning that you have an immense amount of control over the image after it is shot.  While this is certainly true with more “conventional” formats, that you can tweak your footage to give it a different look, there is more control in doing so with RAW images without adding unwanted artifacts or noise to the image.  Basically it is an ideal format for filmmaking.  The RED also allows you to use cinema lenses, which are typically the best quality lenses available.  For this production they had rented an Angenieux Optimo 24-290 zoom lens.  The thing was HUGE, longer than the camera itself, weighed about 25 pounds, and has a price tag of (I believe) close to $100K.

I drooled over the camera for several minutes, but then it was time to get to work, and it was great to do so with these very thoughtful filmmakers.  There was a decent sized crew, maybe 18 people, and the talent was about 25 middle school students.  We were shooting them on the boardwalk of Ocean Beach playing games like “telephone”, “ring around the rosey” and “red light, green light”.  (I have to confess I don’t know exactly what the film is about.  I know it was commissioned by Connecticut College’s art department in relation to a performance piece they were doing.)  It was quickly apparent that Alla is a VERY detail-oriented director, and she seemed to have every shot clearly mapped out ahead of time.  She did an excellent job of managing all the kids, some of whom got a little unruly at times after doing several takes of a shot.

I was delighted to see that the camera itself function, more or less, like other cameras.  Since it is basically a big computer, it is a little more menu-driven (instead of having a lot of external switches for normal controls) than some cameras, but I have grown fairly accustomed to that.  I do not think you’d need an IT-degree to figure it out, as long as you are aware of most camera terminology.  There was one problem at the beginning of the day regarding getting audio from an on-camera microphone (which they just wanted as a reference track, as they had the audio recorded separately by the sound guy).  I looked at it with Mko (whose thick Armenian accent was a little hard to understand), and when we still couldn’t figure it out, I got out my iphone and got on the RED User Forum, a great online community of questions and answers regarding the RED camera.  I found there was a little bug with the current firmware but doing a sequence of menu changes resolved it.  (Definitely a smart phone and forums like REDuser or DVinfo can be life savers when on a set!)  The images from the camera looked stunning, and certainly Mko and Alla’s very particular framing, lighting, and direction played a huge part in that as well.  The entire rig is big, and certainly the lens factored in. This made me realize that lens selection will play a large part in putting together a package for my upcoming project, which may require more handheld work.

I am also looking forward to the arrival of my Canon 7D, as the images I have seen online from this camera, while different, are also quite cinematic.  I don’t really expect a camera that is 1/10th the cost as the RED to be equal, but in the end (especially on a smaller screen, like online), the differences might be smaller than expected.  I guess it is good that we have all these options.  It’s a fun time to be a camera-geek!

JVC DV500

When I went freelance in 2007 I made a decision not to buy another camera for awhile.  I owned a lot of other gear, like an Arri lighting kit, Sachtler tripod, full audio-package…basically all the gear I would typically take on normal shoots, minus the camera.  I looked at what was out on the market then and was not overly impressed with any one camera, plus I was getting hired by my old employer fairly frequently and would shoot with their Z1Us, so I didn’t want to buy a camera and not get paid to use it.  In fact, I found it quite frequent in the 6 months of being freelance that I was hired to shoot for production companies with their own gear, whether it was full size HD cameras for a reality show, or Canon or Sony HDV cameras for a corporate shoot.  Plus, there are some really fabulous rental houses in Boston (Rule Broadcast is my first go-to place, with very large inventory and great staff) so renting was a breeze when I had shoots for my own clients.

In the fall of 2007, I was hired to shoot all the field stories and b-roll for a show called “What’s the Alternative” that was being produced out of National Boston.  This was a studio-based talk show about alternative health and medicine, but many of the episodes had field stories that we shot on location.  The studio portion of the show was being shot on Canon XLH1s, and the producers wanted all the field stories shot on the same camera, so I rented for the first shoot.  Then I realized that I had at least fifteen shoot days booked for this job, so buying a camera for this job was a no-brainer.  Especially because Canon had just released the XH-A1, which had the same imaging chip as it’s big brother (the XLH1), but cost about half as much (around $3500), and I would have easily spent more than that on rentals for this job.  So I bought my first camera as a freelancer, and fortunately it was, in my opinion, one of the best HDV cameras available at the time (and possibly still).

Cano XLH1

A few months later, Sony introduced the XDCAM EX-1.  This was also around the time that I started trolling around on DVInfo, an online forum for sharing ideas, tips, and questions on cameras and other gear (highly geeky stuff).  Early adopters of this new Sony camera were posting videos they shot and it was pretty clear this was a game changing camera.  I had rented the full size XDCAM HD camera a few times earlier that year and also saw the benefits of a tapeless format.  So even though I had just purchased my Canon a few months prior, I broke my usual rule of buying gear when their is a specific need or when I see it making me more money, I spent the most I had spent on a single equipment purchase and bought the EX-1.  As it turns out, I was right and this WAS a game-changer.  Not to sound like a Sony ad, but the camera was so fun to use that it made me a better shooter, and clients definitely were wowed by the quality that I was getting out of it.  I also found that through some local people I met through DVinfo, and some of the folks at Rule who knew I was pretty on top of the camera and its workflow, I was actually getting work because of owning (and understanding) a specific piece of gear.

Sony EX-1 (with Letus Extreme adapter)

I still love my Sony and use it for most shoots, but am always looking at what else is out there.  I have been keeping my eye on a new trend this year towards DSLR video, which is professional digital still cameras that shoot video.  There are several models out there that are able to shoot HD video with outstanding clarity and color, and I have just been blown away by the videos I have seen coming from these relatively inexpensive cameras.  I feel that I have waited through some of the growing pains with a few of the earlier models, and Canon has just released a new model, the 7D, which I am going to buy when it becomes available at the end of this month.  Again, maybe I am breaking my purchasing rule a little bit, but I think this camera offers a different look and a different set of functionality that will help expand my toolkit.  Plus it is a relatively small investment and I think there is going to be a trend towards people certain productions asking for these cameras, so being an earlier adopter should pay off.

Canon 7D

I will continue to keep my eye on what’s new and look for opportunities to work with the new technology, and (hopefully) purchase when it makes financial sense and helps to create a better looking product for my clients.