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On the topic of camera owning love, just want to throw in my bias towards my Sony EX-1. Although the EX-3 is certainly lovelier in terms of shooting with, I haven't felt the need to upgrade my EX-1 for that realm of gigs where producers are looking for shooters with their own camera. And while SxS cards (Sony version of P2) are still mighty expensive, a 16 gig SxS gets you just shy of an hour of footage at 1080 / 24p. Granted for doc work where you may shoot up to four hours a day, I think the good HDV cameras are the way to go. Although the massive chore of capturing tape is something I am very eager to leave behind forever. Th Red is a great system, but as it stands with the Red One, it is much more of a film style of shooting. With that nice big sensor and nice prime lenses, you're probably going to want a good focus puller working on your crew. Also with batteries and drives bolted on, the camera is best suited on a tripod or an elaborate handheld rig that balances the thing with a 2nd AC standing by to hold it. The image the Red gets is very nice, I just wouldn't consider it the right camera for the low/no budget run and gun shoot. Maybe that will change with the new Scarlet system coming out whenever that comes out. Maybes and don't knows. I've also operated on a short with a pair of 5D mark 2s... It was a very frustrating experience because of the now moot point of no manual shooting mode. It would be a much more pleasant experience after the recent firmware update. Still, I would choose to shoot an EX-1 over a 5D for most projects because the camera is much friendlier to the way a motion operator works. But with that full frame sensor and some really fantastic still lenses, I could see doing some very very cool things with the 5D. But whether professional snobbery or producers wanting to stick to the workflows and systems they are comfortable with, I have never seen nor heard anyone looking for a shooter with a 5D outside of student or experimental stuff (in other words, unpaid.) Just want to give my support to a SA cinematography thread, though I'm mostly a griptrician and a gaffer on student shoots. For anyone looking for other online groups, the other forums for the cinematographically inclined I'm aware of are: https://www.reduser.net which does skew technical and Red centric (although I highly recommend the Ask David Mullen anything thread (http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2714) https://www.cinematography.com a good source with some very knowledgeable professionals And I would love to link to Roger Deakins forum which was utterly brilliant and amazing and sadly gone forever.
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Jun 22, 2009 22:32
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pr0digal posted:It would be amazing if they released a firmware update to allow the 5D MKII to shoot in 24P (well 23.98 :p). I know the XH-A1 has an L series lens. But imagine throwing a 50mm 1.2 on a FF camera that could shoot 1080 24P, the bokeh would be goddamn amazing. Of course..shooting at 1.2 could cause some issues if your focus point was off the slightest bit. The Full Frame sensor really isn't necessary to get some seriously shallow DOF. "Let The Right One In" shot by Hoyte van Hoytema was shot on Super 35 (for the photogs reading this, Super 35 is very close to APS-C cropping the top and bottom to a 2.40:1 aspect ratio) on Zeiss Distagons which open to a T1.3. American Cinematographer did an article on it http://www.theasc.com/magazine_dynamic/December2008/LettheRightOneIn/page1.php When the eye is in focus and the end of the eye lash is noticeably out of focus, then I think you have achieved as shallow a depth of field as you want on a person's face. I'm kind of negative on using the 5DMark2 as a motion camera, but that is comparing it with purpose built film and video cameras, most of them costing ten to fifty times what the 5D does. It is a pretty amazing tool available to a whole group of people that didn't really have a powerful HD camera in their hands before. I really like what photographer Clayton Cubitt is doing with it in what he calls long portraits. NWS http://claytoncubitt.tumblr.com/search/long+portrait NWS. Edit: going to change my "might be NWS" on that Clayton Cubitt link to a more emphatic NWS. Carefree Koala fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Jun 23, 2009 |
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Jun 23, 2009 05:40
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pr0digal posted:Not to toot my own horn here, but 24P looks pretty drat cool slowed down. However, the general rule is to "overcrank" when you want to slow down. That is on a film camera, shoot at a higher framerate so that when you play it back at the normal framerate, its all slow (if I am incorrect here, a film goon correct me please) You're right in that over cranking means shooting at a higher frame rate which results in slow motion on playback. Under cranking means shooting at a lower frame per second number resulting in jerky sped up motion (think Silent Era Chaplin and Buster Keaton movies.) Eventually under cranking becomes time lapse. The terms have migrated from film to video regardless of format (they originated in the days when film cameras had to be physically cranked by the operator before motors were integrated to advance the film.) Don't confuse the frame rate you are shooting at with the frame rate you are playing back at. The 24p "film look" versus the 30p "video look" is only associated with the playback speed. And since most of your shots will be at normal speed, that means your shooting frame rate will match your playback frame rate most of the time. A shot filmed at 48fps and played back at 24 will be the same length and have the same apparent slow motion as a 60fps shot played back at 30. The only difference will be that hard to quantify "film vs video look." In fact, with some experimentation with your editor, you can film shoot in 30p and then change it in post (if your project is going to be at 24p at the end of the day) which will give you a smoother slow motion effect than just shooting 24p and using frame bending or other post effects to slow the shot down. Although, as long as you aren't getting ridiculous, Final Cut and Vegas can do a pretty decent job slowing down footage shot at normal 1:1 speed as pr0digal said. Definitely check out Christopher Doyle's work with director Wong Kar Wai. In The Mood for Love and 2046 come to mind for a whole heaping of over cranking for a very dream like lyrical effect. Also, love him or hate him, Michael Bay knows how to use over cranking for action sequences if that is the style you are looking for.
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Jun 23, 2009 17:49
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dorkasaurus_rex posted:http://vimeo.com/4378163?pg=embed&sec= speaking of the 5dmkII, here's one of the nicer pieces of video I've seen shot on it yet I don't want to dwell to much on the 5DMk2 in this thread, but I think this video highlights most of my criticisms of the camera and a good scenario where it shouldn't be used. Don't take this as a slam against what is a fun video, but a critique of the camera techniques inherent in the 5D and what they are baking into the images. Shallow depth of field is not your friend. Most of these shots are of a very deep crowd of people shot from within the crowd. That feeling of being there is directly at odds with having a shallow depth of field which isolates the object of focus from everything else in frame. Artistically, I think this would benefit more from a deep focus where the viewer can choose what they are looking at, let their gaze roam around the ever present crowd. This criticism is compounded massively because the depth of field is too shallow to hold. Things are popping in and out of focus, very annoying, very distracting. There is a very real problem of eye fatigue in your viewer. Watching on a windowed vimeo screen might be okay, but full screen it and really get in close to watch it. If the video is filling your field of view, your own eyes are going to start fighting against the changing focus. Projected on a theater size big screen, this is going to cause a great deal of physical discomfort in your viewers. The effect on editing: Perhaps this was a stylistic choice, the quick cutting to different people and different shots, but I am also willing to bet that having a handheld camera, and that focus going all over the place is going to really hamstring you in post to where you HAVE TO edit with quick cuts because your shots can only contain a few seconds of usable footage before some bad jiggle or focus renders it totally unusable. Once the flashes start popping in the big fight, the rolling shutter artifacts are just a nightmare. I would guess the camera went to a 1/30th frame rate, which means it is going to catch almost every one of those flashes and garble it into a light blob over half the frame. Also, a limitation of most still lenses is breathing. It isn't too too bad in these, but it is enough to further strain the viewer's eyes along with the wildly racking focus. (breathing is when a lens slightly zooms in or out while focusing, mostly immaterial in still and a big big issue in motion with focus racks.) I don't want to seem too harsh, but I really think this obsession with shallow depth of field is bordering on gimmicky. There needs to be a reason for it. Film history is riddled with great movies that went to enormous lengths to get deep focus (Citizen Kane.) As a cinematographer, even just a student or just playing around, don't approach it with the mindset of "I want shallow depth of field because that is what real movies have" but ask "what do I want to achieve visually, what feelings and impressions do I want to impart on the audience and how will my selected depth of field achieve that?"
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Jun 23, 2009 20:39
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"pr0diga"l posted:one of the things that I think should be stressed with 5D MKII shooting is: you need a tripod, hands down. If you want to do any sort of shooting with the 5D MKII (or really any camera) you really need a tripod. I think it can be more generalized to, shooting with a shallow depth of field really necessitates a tripod, not just the 5D. Think about shooting with a very shallow dof on a still camera where you end up with a lot of missed focus shots. In motion, you can’t just cut out the offending missed focus moments, you have to hold that extremely precise distance between the camera and the subject or your AC needs to be spot on pulling focus. A tripod is going to eliminate one of those variables making it much easier to achieve. I’m trying to think of some other notable depth of field movies. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly comes to mind, which had a large number of shots done on a Lensbaby, shot by Janusz Kaminski (has shot all of Spielberg's movies since Schindler’s List I believe.) Almost all of Kurosawa’s movies have a very deep depth of field. They aren’t really jarring or noticeable, but many times this shooting style was a tremendous burden on the production and the actors (requiring massive hot lights blasting to shoot at a high f-stop.) The Dark Knight has an often distractingly shallow depth of field, especially if you watch it on an IMAX screen. This was probably less of an artistic choice than a technical hurdle. It was shot on anamorphic 35 and Hasselblad medium format lenses, both formats requiring longer focal lengths to maintain a field of view you would otherwise get on a shorter lens. Personally, I found it distracting when an establishing wide shot of the Chicago Skyline in IMAX from a helicopter, some really beautiful razor sharp high res city landscape images, would then slam into a very shallow depth of field character shot. (http://www.ascmag.com/magazine_dynamic/July2008/TheDarkKnight/page1.php) Rogetz posted:Also, Cinematography.com has a list of 40 or so recommended books found here: http://astore.amazon.com/cinematographyco?node=1&page=3 For a very basic lighting introduction, I highly recommend Matter of Light & Depth by Ross Lowel. In fact, the Lowel.edu page has all sorts of good beginner stuff. http://www.lowel.com/edu/ Edit: I totally forgot to mention Visions of Light which is a must watch documentary for anyone interested in cinematography. Carefree Koala fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jun 23, 2009 |
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Jun 23, 2009 22:44
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SwedeRacer posted:I think ASC had an article in the magazine about two/three months ago covering a feature shot on the 5DMKII. It looked gorgeous, but the moral of the story was that even though it wasn't a professional cinematographer who shot the movie it was still a photographer with a great eye. The camera isn't a short cut to greatness - you still need to know what you're doing. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. http://www.vincentlaforet.com/ It was a short called Reverie, made by Vincent Laforet right before the 5DMk2 came out. Laforet's forte I would say is arial photography of Manhattan. I think the short, as far as the cinematography, really doesn't add anything that a slideshow of still photographs set to music wouldn't do. But it does look drat snazzy. He's got a behind the scenes video somewhere which is really worth checking out (notice that even on a Canon 14mm 2.8, there is no handheld.) SwedeRacer posted:I have an Ex-1, its pretty good, though the backfocus on it doesn't work right if you use the onboard ND, so everythings out of focus. Its a pain in the rear end, but still worlds better then the HVX. Mine back focuses to such a small degree that I fortunately don't have to bother with it. I probably wouldn't be brave enough to try it, but there is this possible solution to the problem: http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/ex1_misfocusing_explained/ Magic Hate Ball posted:Ah, so it's pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. That's it. I also second china balls. Big time expensive movie lights can be more powerful or make it easier to control spill, but the quality of light from a six dollar china ball from Pier One is as good a quality of light as you are going to get for people's faces. And to paraphrase Roger Deakins, 80% of feature lighting is lighting for portraits. I also agree that really learning cinematography is not something that can be done through books well at all. Being on set watching a good cinematographer, and when it's appropriate talking to them about where and why they are putting the lights and shadows where they are is invaluable. And then balance that with your own shooting where you are faced with your own situations and have to come up with your own solutions.
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Jun 24, 2009 21:34
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Steadiman posted:First time I've spotted this thread, great idea and I'll try to contribute as much as I can. I'm currently DP-ing my second big feature and we're shooting it all on the RED, just got back from 10 days location work in Spain. We're on a grueling schedule but I'll do my best to add to the thread on any topic from motivated camera movement to gear specific (and Steadicam, ofcourse). If anyone has any RED specific questions I feel I'm pretty qualified to answer those too. Glad to see you here, Steadiman. That thread you had in GBS a while back of various on set anecdotes was one of the most entertaining things I've ever read on the forums. Good to hear you're finding some steady work as a DP. How much of a chance did you get to play around with anamorphics on the Red? I've heard of some some cursory testing done by people at rental houses, but I haven't had a chance to talk to anyone who did more than throw on a few lenses and shoot some charts. And someday the world deserves an all Steadicam/Segway movie. It just needs the right script, of course.
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Jun 27, 2009 02:25
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Rogetz posted:I'm going to be shooting something soon that's just one scene, and it takes place in a single room. I want to start the setup on a tripod, but switch to handheld as the story progresses. Are there any hard and fast rules concerning this? Aside from cutting on action, what can I do to make sure the transition goes unnoticed? Going from tripod to handheld within a scene is typically not done, as there is a big difference in the way a handheld shot feels, even a very steady handheld shot, as opposed to the very solid grounded look on a tripod. That said, there isn't any reason not to if you think the mounting tension of the scene justifies it. I'd strongly recommend working the timing of the shot transitions out with the director / maybe editor beforehand. Don't try to hide the transition from tripod to handheld, but actually use it to accentuate dramatic beats. You may still want to cover things to give the editor options, but use the fact that those transitions are going to stand out to your advantage. The only rule-ish thing I can think of is when shooting handheld is don't deliberately shake the camera. It usually looks fake, and if the audience is more focussed on the camera wobbling too much, then it will take them out of the moment. An exception I can think of is in the behind the scenes of shooting the pilot for lost, they talk about how they deliberately shook the camera during the plane crash sequences (that was a loaded film camera, probably weighting 30 or 40 pounds.) Another exception is in Fight Club during Brad Pitt's short monologue, "You are not your job..." where they also added film perforations shaking into the frame in post. What I'm getting at is only deliberately shake the camera if you really want the image to move around like the world is ending, otherwise try and handhold as still and smooth as possible and know that plenty of camera shake is going to be there from your breathing and movement. So if you want there to be a looser, "more handheld" feel at the end of the scene, instead of shaking the camera, I'd recommend you add a bit of movement, slowly circle the actors while handholding or something like that.
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Sep 3, 2009 23:48
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