a glidetrack shoot – more BTS

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so we shot at a big old tradition-steeped foundry for a long-term corporate documentary film about a “special project” (can’t say anything more about it right now)  … it was the fist shooting day of many (10 or so) we will shoot over a period of time till july / august 2010…

this was the fist time we used the 1m glidetrack quite a lot with our 550D (mostly with Tokina 17mm f/3.5 & Canon 50mm f/1.8) just for the slider-shots.

i have to say even we used just one simple manfrotto tripod, we got (surprisingly) quit a lot of great shots even though the “system” got a lil unstable sometimes.

We used a simple Manfrotto 700RC2 Mini Fluid Video Head  … just to have a simple and light vdeo head on the slider ( don’t expect too much panning & tilting action with this thingy though ) … i tried it with my 701HDV … but it seemed like that this one was to big and heavy for a single tripod setup, so there you go.

next time i definitely will mount a LCD on the legs (with a magic arm or something) … it was kinda difficult do see what was going on in lower shots on the back LCD (certainly

we also shot with a XH-A1 all the Handheld stuff and had one 1,2k HMI around – just to set a keylight in “darker” locations.

at a side note  we certainly could have brought the “big guns”  like more light, a jib, even e “bigger” cam, more accessory gear  like mattbox, follow focus and all that stuff … we even had a nice Sachtler DV6SB, a shoulder support and LCD “standing by” in the car, but we had to move quickly on that location, no real “clean-space”  to “park” all that stuff and it was just a 2 man show… so we decided to “travel light” for this one … and results are as good as we want & need it anyway … in the end it’s not about the gear you are using … it’s what you make with the gear you have and what “story” u are gonna to tell.

so that’s it about that…

Cinec 2010 a lil Best Of

i went to Cinec 2010 had my 550D arround … did not shoot too much with it though … too much great other gear to get hands on! … i did meet one of my twitter buddy @Sascha_Plagge …and had a great time at the show so did he (i guess) see for your self …

a lil written review is comming soon too … stay tuned
you also should watch my lil RED EPIC experience at cinec 2010: vimeo.com/​15112636

the stuff i most liked was / is the Genus DSLR shoulder rig & Mattebox and the new ABC DSLR Light Jib as well as the new lil Marshall 5” LCD and of course the ARRI ALEXA

some more nice links & updates here

RED EPIC @cinec Munich 2010

well today i have a gear only post… well i did use FCP to make this lil clip … so there you go:
it was cinec time in Munich and after i missed IBC this year and i’m not able to go to photokina that was my only chance to see at least a few fancy “toys” in action. but i did not acpect what “happened”.

i pretty much went without any real plan … i knew that there would be a bunch of cool gear to see, so no worries on that side.

so i went straight in for a first “overview-round” … and after about 5 minutes i ran into Ted form RED (you can say by accident) with a RED EPIC in plain sight. well that was nice.

… so i not only shot some random stuff with my 550D  i also had the chance to hold this thing in my hands … pretty awesome…
well it was the small config. like a big DSLR not out yet & i couldn’t (i was not able to) really record something to a CF-Card (wich will be relaced by a SSD Module / slot… but man it was a great feeling …if u ask me it was a nice weight.. not to light not too heavy… soon other people noticed the RED EPIC. i followed “EPIC” and shot some stuff not much cuz i was too curious how this thing worked and stuff … but that is what i “glued” together in FCP last night … with a lil color work done with magic Bullet Looks:

more cinec coverage soon (review & more film clips…) stay tuned!

View on ExposureRoom

550D recording time

i got a question on twitter “how long in live view are you getting per battery” … at first i really had no idea  for sure…

but i did a lil test and here is my answer  (click to read more)

550D vs. XH-A1 footage (Color Grading)

/UPDATED/

a short part out of the latest corporate film we did … i don’t have permission to post the whole film … there is an voice over in the original final version … so music & sound mix is kinda not made for standing alone. i just want to show how (good or bad) 550D footage fits into a XH-A1 production. Color Grading is done with Magic Bullet Looks 550D stuff was shot with the 50mm f/1.8

UPDATE: NOW WITH “NOT GRADED / PURE FOOTAGE” in part 2)

please go to vimeo to see it “full screen”

29mm f/2.8 vs. 50mm f/1.8

UPDATED: now with some random daylight shots as well (indoor / outdoor) !

Well, i got an old Pentacon 29mm f/2.8 M42 mount … quit a nice lense … i think. So i did a lil test to compare it with / to my beloved Canon 50mm f/1.8 …well look for yourself :

BTW 1080p version downloadable on the vimeo side

The footage is looking nice… even the 50mm has more of a style to it (“more” sallow DOF). The focus barrel of the 29mm is longer and more detailed but harder to turn/pull ,so i have to get used to it. The 50mm focus is too imprecise though… but better for a rough stylish rack focus.

Of course its harder to find / see focus on the Display due to the wider angle of view, so objects are further away (look for example the letters on that XH-A1 lens i shot … well i did use the 10x focus zoom thingy.

Sharpness is quite good with/on both lenses as well as bokeh (for that price range)

In the end … it’s a matter of what you have / want to shoot … it alway is … so you pick your lens for that …

I will shoot something in daylight and outdoor as well … so stay tuned…

And yes i didn’t do my best job with focus pulling … i know … better use a Follow Focus next time … but beauty was not the goal here … just a quick test

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update
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the some random photos shot with the pentacon 29mm f/2.8 (550D RAW mode) … in /on max infinity focus it dent to get a bit soft around edges …

oh and the lenses shot each other : (oh and yeah it’s the wrong WB … but i liked that look with / on that glass background … so there you go )

BTS of a 550D & XH-A1 viral shooting

I uploaded some BTS-Photos from our latest viral spot  shooting …

it took place in / on a rather big stage / theater in our city.

We used all sorts of gear including 550D and two XH-A1 to capture  as most as possible during a take. …more  info’s soon.

have a look!

my 550D Settings

Well there are some other post’s out there … this is nothing new … at least if you are not a 550D newbie

The most important settings (beside shutter speed >>> 180 degree rule) is picture style … it’s crucial to flatten your image so you have some “space” in post to style your look after shooting.

There are two  kind of flat-settings-flawors known and recommendable: one by Philip Bloom and another by Vincent Laforet … well i tried both … and in my workflow / opinion Philip’s got the most usable as his is the most flatten style.
Vincent’s setting is a bit too contrasty especially in low light and indoor situations (in my opinion)  … anyway both settings are workable.

So anyway i got asked several times now to “share” my 550D settings…

so here you go:

here you can see my “550D screens” of my “must set” settings:

that is how my “live view” screen looks like with my 50mm 1.8 (w/ Fader ND)
for PAL LAND 25fps shuttter is set to 1/50th – ISO 100-400 are quite OK … more than ISO 1600 not recommendable

BTW sometimes ISO is called ASA that is the “same” thing as it was called back in the Film days … (rating of  film stock sensitivity)

make sure you set your style to “Neutral” instead of “Standard”
… that will be a difference

you should check if “exposure” is set to “manual”
… BTW: if i don’t need any sound i deactivate it

Some say “highlight tone priority” can help in certain situations … some others say it leads to a “more” noisy picture
well i didn’t use that mode at all yet. so i don’t like more “encroachments” than necessary  so i leave it alone (disabled)

Anyway, you should check Philip Bloom’s tutorial DVD’s for 5D & 7D … as he has some more great information about DSLR shooting & post as well as ProLost by Stu Maschwitz
and a really great Workshop at creativelive.com by Vincent Laforet about HDDSLR Cinema

This was shot with this settings and graded with Magic Bullet Looks:

550D & XH-A1 sneak peek

this is just a quick test to show you guys the “out of the cam” look and “zoom-range” of both cams … and what you can do in post with CC (Magic Bullet Looks /FCP)

on the 550D i used my cheap 28-90mm EF lens.
filming position is almost the same … xh-a1 was standing 2-3 meters closer to the terminal but in the end it is the fabulous 20x Zoom lens on the xh-a1 what made this shot possible.

to see more BTS from that shooting: go here

first real 550D shooting

Well i “just” got back from a one week shooting for a new corporate film project. My new “toy” just came in the right (last) minute to test this thing in a real shooting / work scenario.

We went to all different kind of locations and situations: daylight, lowlight, indoor, outdoor … you name it … only thing we didn’t shoot this time was any kind of interview or something …

Just big or small machines and people around them, landscapes, buildings … stuff like that.

Fist of all i have to admit i did not have any kind of DSLR rig, so that was a “big” problem in some situations … but a sachtler Video 20, a Manfrotto monopod and even a “magic arm” did it in the meantime … but “handheld-kinda”stuff was almost impossible to shoot without getting a rather shaky picture …

Anyway… the 550D was not our main cam, we used the XH-A1 most of the time.

550D just became our “atmospheric” DOF-film-like tool … for our beauty-shots, so to say.

I used the canon 50mm 1.8 most of the time, cuz all the photo zoom lenses had quit a problem with the “adjustable” aperture turing “zooming”. i did get some kind of short flicker. i don’t know if that kind of problem comes with all HD-DSLR’s or just with the 550D ?!.

right now i’m rushing through all the footage we shot on XH-A1 and 550D … after that i can say more about the usefulness for this project …

I will post some “examples” soon … even if i know i wont get full permission to post all the footage we shot.

here is our “gear-list” and some BTS snap-shots … to be continued

One word about the SD cards and Batteries …

Well, Batteries are empty quite fast … two of them are a must have … better of with 3 … if you can charge them at  / over night (if not, better get more) … charging take a few hours but that is ok.

About the SD cards: You cant’ have enough of them. If you are shooting a lot for B-Cam  2 or 3x 16 GB is ok … even class 4 is working good in normal situations… can’t say anything about 32GB SDHC-Cards … didn’t get one yet …

About my Data-Backup routine: Every night i took my SD-Cards and transferred the data to my external 250GB Hard-drive (on a MacBook) i made new folders for every day (named with the date) even sub folders called card one, two and so on  … i did a quick check on the footage, compared number of files in the  folder and folder-sizes and formated the SD-Card within the Cam. Thats it pretty much.

UPDATE:

Right now i’m in post (FCP) with this … first things first … i transcoded all footage with MPEG Streamclip to 1920×1080 ProResLT (HDV and h.264 footage).  Everything will end up in a HDTV1080i timeline … (yes interlaced – better for slowmo and stuff) … i will generate a “progressive” version in the end so the 550D footage will not “generate” any trouble (i hope) … right now i just can say: 550D footage looks really awesome … i will have to face some “smoothcam” work and even some “overexposed” trouble … but my goal is to make a beautiful film (literally) so a blown out sallow depth of field will help with that anyway

… stay tuned for more background info during my render times …

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GEAR LIST:

Canon XH-A1 (2x battery)

550D (2x battery, 2x 16 GB SDHC class 6 and 4, 1x 8GB SDHC, 1 ND 4 filter,

lenses: Canon 50mm 1.8, Canon EF-S 18-55mm 3.5 – 5.6 (kit lens), canon zoom EF 28-90mm 4-5.6

Sachtler Video 20 tripod

manfrotto Monopod

steady bag

6m jib (astro crane)

Zoom H4

Rode NTG1 & NTG3 (boom & stuff)

2x Arri 1.2 k HMI

3x 650W tungsten Kobold set

and more suff (Manfrotto 035 Super-Clamp & Magic Arm … things like that)

…
MacBook Intel Dual 1,83 GHz

ScanDisk ImageMate Multi-Card USB – SD-Card reader

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update: some shots like a “teaser” for the color grade of the final corporate film

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some 550D screen grabs:

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BTS snap-shots:

XH-A1, 550D and some “lousy” coffee it the field

550D on a Manfrotto Magic Arm fixed with a Manfrotto 035 Super-Clamp on a simple microphone tripod

the ASTRO Crane Jib

2x 1.2k ARRI outdoors at night (evening)

550D with ND4 Filter
all about ND’s & Stuff on/at Nino’s Blog -
“…DEPTH OF FIELD and ND filters”
http://ninofilm.net/blog/2010/03/29/depth_of_field/

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some more  BTS-Snapshots … shot with 550D, 50mm 1.8 & 18-55 mm:

more to come …