Cinematography
DSLR Links | Fresh Today!
19/March/10 04:25 PM
A Meetup group for (LA
based) DSLR fans!
http://www.meetup.com/SouthlandDSLR/
Finally, the EOS MOVIE Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro. Use it to transfer your footage from Canon DSLRs.
http://tiny.cc/XFfll (select Mac OS)
Canon late Monday posted its promised 2.0.3 firmware for the EOS 5D Mark II. The upgrade is tailored to videographers and lets them record at 1080p24 to match traditional movie theater frame rates. The 1080p30 mode has also been tuned to 29.97 frames per second to stay in sync with NTSC-based TV, and it's now possible to shoot in aperture or shutter priority modes to achieve shallow depth of field or high speed without full manual control.
http://tinyurl.com/479wb6 (updated to V 2.0.4 for stability)
Ron Howard. Canon 7D.
http://blog.planet5d.com/2010/03/ron-howard-using-canon-hybrid-dslrs/
http://www.meetup.com/SouthlandDSLR/
Finally, the EOS MOVIE Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro. Use it to transfer your footage from Canon DSLRs.
http://tiny.cc/XFfll (select Mac OS)
Canon late Monday posted its promised 2.0.3 firmware for the EOS 5D Mark II. The upgrade is tailored to videographers and lets them record at 1080p24 to match traditional movie theater frame rates. The 1080p30 mode has also been tuned to 29.97 frames per second to stay in sync with NTSC-based TV, and it's now possible to shoot in aperture or shutter priority modes to achieve shallow depth of field or high speed without full manual control.
http://tinyurl.com/479wb6 (updated to V 2.0.4 for stability)
Ron Howard. Canon 7D.
http://blog.planet5d.com/2010/03/ron-howard-using-canon-hybrid-dslrs/
Comments
DSLR | Toy or Tool?
16/March/10 02:31 PM
Recently I helped line
produce a shoot that wanted to use the Canon 7D DSLR
camera. There was a considerable amount of debate
between the DP, AC, and editor (closely followed by
the director) as to whether the post workflow for
this camera was stable enough to quickly finish the
scenes that were being shot. Of particular concern
was the issue of audio sync, as several interested
parties had heard that the 7D was problematic in this
regard. Of course I was interested; workflows + new
toys + post paradigm shifts = must know!
To be frank, even though I follow the post flow thru each step of prep/production/actual post, and have devoted considerable time to digital acquisition, I hadn’t yet studied these new hybrid photo and (HD) video system cameras. And I had some doubts. Most of these SLR cameras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-lens_reflex_camera) use an H264 codec to write their HD media files. H264 is fine for viewing from your DVR or for online videos, but as an acquisition format? Also, whereas an SLR’s physical setup is great for capturing stills with, would it work for capturing video (I could picture a DP with his eyes stuck close to an LCD screen or viewfinder while the small camera is tracking and an AC tries to pull focus)? And, of course, workflow. Already, it was clear that to shoot professional video, one would have to record separate sound, and sync each take manually. The audio inputs/mics are fairly useless on the DSLRs, other than to record scratch track against which to check sync (roughly). How about after the shoot; how difficult would it be to get stable footage into AVID or FCP? And no recorded timecode.....grrr.
So, the shoot. DP went with the 7D and ended up pretty happy with it. The AC brought some accessories and we rented a few more from Moviola. Redrock rails, shoulder mount, matte box and filters, couple of external monitors, extra batteries, and plenty of flash storage. Of course some Canon primes and other lenses--these are probably 65% of the reason to use a DSLR vs. another film/vid camera. It looked vaguely like this.
The camera kind of hides. Seems to work fine, though it did feel that at times the camera team was scrunched around the rig/DSLR.
We should have backed up the media as we captured it, but we didn’t. We were lucky.
Raw output? H264 vid on a Macbook Pro looked fantastic.
Part 2: Workflow.
To be frank, even though I follow the post flow thru each step of prep/production/actual post, and have devoted considerable time to digital acquisition, I hadn’t yet studied these new hybrid photo and (HD) video system cameras. And I had some doubts. Most of these SLR cameras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-lens_reflex_camera) use an H264 codec to write their HD media files. H264 is fine for viewing from your DVR or for online videos, but as an acquisition format? Also, whereas an SLR’s physical setup is great for capturing stills with, would it work for capturing video (I could picture a DP with his eyes stuck close to an LCD screen or viewfinder while the small camera is tracking and an AC tries to pull focus)? And, of course, workflow. Already, it was clear that to shoot professional video, one would have to record separate sound, and sync each take manually. The audio inputs/mics are fairly useless on the DSLRs, other than to record scratch track against which to check sync (roughly). How about after the shoot; how difficult would it be to get stable footage into AVID or FCP? And no recorded timecode.....grrr.
So, the shoot. DP went with the 7D and ended up pretty happy with it. The AC brought some accessories and we rented a few more from Moviola. Redrock rails, shoulder mount, matte box and filters, couple of external monitors, extra batteries, and plenty of flash storage. Of course some Canon primes and other lenses--these are probably 65% of the reason to use a DSLR vs. another film/vid camera. It looked vaguely like this.
The camera kind of hides. Seems to work fine, though it did feel that at times the camera team was scrunched around the rig/DSLR.
We should have backed up the media as we captured it, but we didn’t. We were lucky.
Raw output? H264 vid on a Macbook Pro looked fantastic.
Part 2: Workflow.