Hey Charles it went live, the 1DMKV short you flew on

[Mike Germond SOC]

Here's some of my prep for a recent commercial. No need for HD wireless on this one, so my setup appears a bit smaller. I had to add the steel weight to get it to the top of my LE's range. You're right Charles, good inertia on this one.

 

While that is a 70mm-200mm lens, I was very adamant about letting them know what shots wern't appropriate for a Steadicam. I was much more comfortable once we downgraded to the 24mm-70mm lens..

 

My biggest complaint would be the amount of extra cable to manage! Plus those SLR lenses arn't fun to calibrate with the electronic ring and limited markings. It did what they needed it to do. I just hope they don't get in the habit of renting this as their "poor man's RED"

 

[Charles Papert]

Cluster of cables indeed! Mike, you may want to invest in your own mini to RCA breakout cable (inexpensive) so that you can clip off the unnecessary audio RCA's, maybe even shorten it via butt splice.

 

You are a brave man to tackle those continuously spinning lenses--I've steered clear so far as it just seems like a major headache, sticking to old Nikkors or the ZE/ZF's.

[Charles Papert]

Just finished the NYC job with Vincent. Whatever "on the fence" thoughts I had about the 1D are gone now. I saw images tonight come out of that camera that are just insane. We did a succession of beauty shots around the city with a series of talent (it's an opening for a reality show); unlike Nocturne this time traditional lighting was used, albeit at bizarrely low levels to balance to the background. We took two 1x1 Litepanels out on the Brooklyn Bridge walkway; things were popping out of the frame in all directions (in a good way). The orange sodium glow of the traffic below us; the sparkle of the Manhattan skyline; clouds silhouetted against the night sky; overhead streetlights creating sheens on the sidewalk that were barely visible to the eye.

 

While in my mind there will always be a place for controlling the lighting in the background of night exteriors when you have the budget, for those times you don't (more and more often these days), this technology represent a quantum leap. Light the foreground, let the background do its thing.

 

I prepped 5 of the Zeiss ZE lenses (with mechanical stops) with the Preston and they worked beautifully as expected. We also put up a few of the Canon zooms, including the 24-70 that Mike wrote about, as necessary. The method I suggested for calibration was to switch off focus mapping, hit the button and let the motor do its thing, watch until the focus indicator in the housing stopped moving, then manually brake the motor to set an end stop (and repeat for the other end). We then used the reduced scaling feature on the handset to trim out the extra at either end, so that the knob would stop at close focus and infinity. In retrospect I realized that the Bartech would actually work better for this, as you can dial in the calibration manually, saving a step. As a result, the marks with these particular lenses generally weren't dead on, but my AC was able to pull from the 17" Panasonic quite successfully in these instances (he also had the Cinetape with remote readout on the HU3 as an extra guide).

 

This was also the first time I used the Camwave in multi-mode; we had two receivers, one on the director's 7" Marshall in handheld mode, and the other feeding the client 17". If there were dropouts, I never heard about them.

 

The rig got a lot uglier than my prep picture, as we ended up mounting everything onto the back that would allow us to bounce between Steadicam and studio mode without having to rebuild. Thus, the Preston MDR got tacked between the Camwave and the Blackmagic box and everything was powered off p-tap (fed by a PRO to female p-tap cable when on the sled, or an extension p-tap cable to brick while on the dolly). Special thanks to Alec J., who came through with the extra p-tap cables necessary to make this happen at the very last minute.

 

While the mess at the back of the rig was rather unsavory in my mind, the rig flew exquisitely and the bantam weight of it all continues to be a true delight. After shooting for 20 or 30 minutes straight up on the Brooklyn Bridge, I was perfectly happy to walk the rig a few hundred feet, down stairs and over to the pass van. That's not a boast of endurance, it's just an indication of how cool it is to fly a 35 lb rig when you are used to 85 lbs.

 

good times.

[Mike Germond SOC]

Isn't it fun calibrating the lens by that stupid window on top of it? I was using the soon-to-be-mine bartech, so calibrating was very simple despite my distaste for the lens. Actually the 1 positive that comes from those endless spinning lenses is that if you pass your end stop, you can just go to the other end and pass it a little bit to get the motor back in the lenses range. No need to tilt the motor away and re-center the lens and motor.

 

Amazing what it does in pure darkness isn't it? The director from my shoot had his EX-1 on set just to prove to their shop that the 5D was a better choice. There was little to NO DoF with the EX-1 mimicking the same shot as mine (handheld of course). The director hates what the Letus and similar adapters did to the colors the last time we used it, so I fear there is a lot more 5D to come!

 

Charles, I think I need to make a couple short adapters. One for this 1/8th" nonsense, and one for the goofy EX-1 composite output!

[Charles Papert]

Amazing what it does in pure darkness isn't it?

 

Wait until you get to use the 1D--two stops faster than the 5D (i.e. noise profile two stops better).

 

These cameras are not without their problems--there still might be projects I'd rather use an EX on or a myriad of other cameras. It's a lot of bang for the buck, though.

[Sydney Seeber]

These cameras are not without their problems--there still might be projects I'd rather use an EX on or a myriad of other cameras. It's a lot of bang for the buck, though.

oh hell yeah... The DSLR video capabilities are nothing more than an offshoot of the market, pushing things in a new direction. They're not a replacement for any camera I've owned in the past, full sized ENG cameras to small 8mm film cameras. They're in their own world all together. Comparing these things to say, and EX3, just isn't fair... Where one camera lacks in capability, the other excels. For me, it simply means different uses. Another tool in the box, if you will. I'm sure the DSLR capabilities will eventually end up in more video-centric bodies with better codecs, but I think we're going to have to wait until Sony & Co. have bled all the profits they possibly can from the current generation of products. 5 years ago, there was the advent of small HDV cameras, and I really think that changed the game. This new direction has just barely begun

[Charles Papert]

A little 1DMKIV update.

 

I've just finished up a 15 day job with Vincent Laforet and our 7 man crew, a corporate shoot for a large insurance company. We shoot interviews and b-roll on two 1D's, with some occasional 7D stuff, and Vincent also shot stills with his 5D's.

 

My lighting for the interviews was fairly traditional, probably the biggest issue compared to the "old days" is not having a trusty reference monitor. Each camera had an HD-SDI Marshall (we use the Blackmagic boxes to convert HDMI to HD-SDI out of the camera, so we can use multiple monitors as needed) and we had a 20" Marshall as well, plus my Nebtek Solar7 on the Steadicam. Naturally each monitor looked different and I learned to average and interpret amongst them. Exposures were most often set via the camera's meter and occasionally by false color mode on the monitor. The one time I used an incident meter, it read f1.0 to the key and the camera was at f2.5 and it looked perfect. Away went the meter. At some point I plan to do some serious testing but it seems like the 1D is more sensitive at a given ISO than another camera may be, which essentially means that it the ISO settings are underrated--but this might not be true at all ISO's. Like I said, at some point I plan to test these more thoroughly than I had time to on the job.

 

Once you get used to the somewhat bizarre sequence of button presses to navigate around the camera, it does what it's supposed to do. We did a lot of Steadicam for the b-roll portions and it was a continued delight to have such a light rig for these circumstances--I only needed to take one break and that was after six or seven minutes of chasing pre-schoolers around in low mode. Incidentally I've been able to do the fastest-ever swaps to low mode by simply inverting the rig and sliding the gimbal (plus slipping on an F-bracket); with the monitor in a yoke, I don't even have to reposition it as I would on my big rig.

 

Where this camera really shines is in low light settings that would have been historically unusable without additional lighting. Within our b-roll shoots we encountered a few environments that would have needed a certain amount of boosting or balancing; almost as a proof of concept we went after these simply with available light and often got astonishing results. The age old wisdom of cinematography is to examine the natural light in a given environment first and then make decisions on what is needed to augment from there; here you can simply capture that natural light, which is often a thrilling revelation. In some instances we were able to capture images that looked like a high-end commercial within minutes of walking into a room. A couple of battery powered Lightpanels were with us in case something needed a little help but often we went without. Amazing.

 

Interestingly, it was under the most controlled of circumstances that these cameras fell short. I lit the interviews as I would for any other camera, and overall the results were quite pleasing, but occasionally we would experience bizarre skin tones, and the tendency towards moire and aliasing meant that certain rather benign clothing materials would start buzzing on us. Mostly we were able to help this by forcing the focus away from the problematic texture, but I would regularly dial up a hairlight only to see nasty crawling in the hair, particularly salt-and-pepper, so I'd have to dial back down until the moire disappeared. Occasionally it even showed up on eyebrows! Disconcerting. While the camera does have a few options for adjusting white balance and tweaking the color matrix, they are cumbersome to use and you don't get to see the live image while in the menus. To do a standard white balance, you have to take a still image of a white or gray source, then go through a menu to enable that as a reference to set the white balance--much slower than the traditional video camera single button push.

 

Despite all of the workarounds, we were able to gather some beautiful footage in an efficient manner and the job was a complete success. Obviously this is an evolutionary step and we will eventually see similarly capable cameras with a more appropriate form factor, better codec and less quirks, but for now the incredible sensitivity of the 1D coupled with the relatively affordable pricetag is a tough one to beat for specific applications.

[Niall Chadwick]

Lots of great information there, Charles.

 

I look forward to using a 1D at some point in the future.

 

Flew a 5D myself this weekend on my pilot for a shoot. Found it to be very good indeed, my first experience with the new lines of Digital SLRs

 

Only issue I had was the SD monitor on the pilot, my DP found it hard to confirm sharp focus on it, for obvious reasons. Will make sure we have an external HD monitor next time.

 

Good to see you continuing to set the bar high, gives me something to aim for :)

 

Regards

 

Niall

[Steve Fracol SOC]

Great job Charles! Once again you have forced me to realize that this is coming faster than I realized with that format. Amazing images indeed.

 

Fracol

[Ed Moore]

The one time I used an incident meter, it read f1.0 to the key and the camera was at f2.5 and it looked perfect. Away went the meter. At some point I plan to do some serious testing but it seems like the 1D is more sensitive at a given ISO than another camera may be, which essentially means that it the ISO settings are underrated--but this might not be true at all ISO's.

 

Charles - saw the pictures from this shoot and thought you were doing a great job. I can't help but think with all the other pro gear being used it would have been a fraction of the budget to be using RED bodies instead and lose all the moire and DR issues, but there's no denying this camera is flavour of the month and you have to know to work from it.

 

My own experience (as a DOP) has been buying a 5D for stills and swearing never to use it for video; and three days later pulling it out on a car launch film for Honda and shooting the whole thing on it instead of the "grown up" camera. I've since done a couple of music videos, bunch of corporates and I have five days of drama on it next week. Producers calling me about bookings are now almost all asking about the 5D and whether it's suitable for their project.

 

Personally I feel the benefits of this camera for a given image quality are size and cost, so for me as soon as they've been built out with massive and pricey amounts of Zacuto gear, manual lenses, Prestons etc they rapidly start to make little sense. The joy of using the 5D on the Honda gig was being able to get really nice car interiors without needing a buck or other "camera-friendly" pre production vehicle to work with.

 

That said, if the use of the camera isn't an option, the Zacuto stuff + Preston etc method is probably the only way to keep sane...

 

Interested to hear your experience with rating the camera which has been very similar to mine; I got burned a couple of times lighting paler skin tones to a stop open from key - literally burned; overexposed skin tones on this camera, by as little as 1/3 stop, look hideous to me, immediately taking on all that nasty plasticky effect. I've been tending to underexpose with the 5D by 2/3 to a full stop from where I would usually, to good effect. I've found the LCD on the back of the camera can hideously betray you in this respect as well, even with the brightness set manually to the best of your ability. Shame because whilst clearly it's not going to win any prizes it would be useful if the one guide built into the actual camera was moderately accurate!

 

Ed

[Sydney Seeber]

as soon as they've been built out with massive and pricey amounts of Zacuto gear, manual lenses, Prestons etc they rapidly start to make little sense.

yes, that.

 

I've found the LCD on the back of the camera can hideously betray you in this respect as well, even with the brightness set manually to the best of your ability. Shame because whilst clearly it's not going to win any prizes it would be useful if the one guide built into the actual camera was moderately accurate!

 

Ed

The new 5D firmware update released very recently sort of addresses that. You can now use the histogram in Live View mode, but not during recording. It's not 100% accurate, but should help a lot

[Sam Morgan Moore]

I dont get why you guys are using canon lenses

 

manual nikon or ziess have stops

 

if you are in the money ziess is probably prefered because I imagine the adapters on the nikon could flex under focus motor torque

 

Also until the onscreen histo comes about (5d2 fimware upgrade)

 

to meter press the shutter button and take a picture - you get a great RGB histo to look at

 

for quick and dirty WB the temp wheel is adjusted with no digging in the menus

 

On lighting I think diffuse is the king - I find it virtualy impossible with ARR1 800 heads - looks like cheap TV - I have a daylight flouro

 

IMO a window with fill from that flouro is ideal

 

Of course the location for interview maybe chosen by a director who is not across getting the best from theses yet

 

I would imagine wierd skin colour is clipping of one channel - while it is fine for example to blow windows clipping the channel on a subject is death for the color

 

 

S

Edited March 6, 2010 by Sam Morgan Moore

[Sydney Seeber]

I dont get why you guys are using canon lenses

 

S

why not? the settings are easily controlled through the buttons. yeah the Zeiss lenses are really nice, but there's not that many of them, and since all still lenses I've used have click-stops on aperture, you can't change the setting while you're recording. I've got a ton of Nikon lenses, and when the aperture and whatnot on these Canons was on full auto, there was a good reason to use the Nikon lenses on the Canon... Now, not so much. Is there another advantage to the Nikons and Zeiss?

[Sam Morgan Moore]

I dont get why you guys are using canon lenses

 

S

why not? the settings are easily controlled through the buttons. yeah the Zeiss lenses are really nice, but there's not that many of them, and since all still lenses I've used have click-stops on aperture, you can't change the setting while you're recording. I've got a ton of Nikon lenses, and when the aperture and whatnot on these Canons was on full auto, there was a good reason to use the Nikon lenses on the Canon... Now, not so much. Is there another advantage to the Nikons and Zeiss?

 

yeah- they have stops on the focus and generally a more positive feel

 

I think wide canons barrel distrot more too

 

not a lot of people know this but the nikkor 28 PC manual has a clickless aperture too -pretty skinny though

 

S

[Sydney Seeber]

they have stops on the focus and generally a more positive feel

 

I think wide canons barrel distort more too

 

 

I think you're referring to the stops at each end of the focal range? If that's the case, it's a bit of a crap shoot as to whether they have that option or not. The majority of my Nikon lenses do not, I've got everything from 14mm through 800. As far as preferences, everyone's going to have their own favorites. Personally, I prefer to use the lenses that were designed for the camera, that's why I use the Canon lenses on the Canon camera... If Nikon comes out with a usable video DSLR, then I'll probably only use the Nikon lenses on that... I think Red and some other companies have stuff lined up that will beat them to the punch though, making it a bit of a moot point, as one will be able to order the lens mount of their choice for the camera, giving full automatic control of the lens.