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Mission impossible: Canon 5DMrkII to the rescue!

February 26, 2009 By

You mission, if you accept it, is to make a video clip of an artist friend that could be sent to a major television channel so they could do a segment about his album release. Oh by the way, it must be done (as in put on DVD) tonight!

That was the challenge my friend Jon Davis proposed me last night. To make things even harder I had to visit my parents before so I could only be at my place at 8PM which left us with only a few hours to do everything. Finally, to make things worst, I forgot my lightning gear at my parent place.

This basically left me in this situation:

  • no decent light
  • shoot in my loft (no backdrop or strong light fixtures)
  • needed space to put 3 musicians

The situation was dire, but the 5D really was up to the task! I moved the furniture around, put every single lamp in my condo (plus 2 mores from my neighbor) around the musicians trying to put the emphasis on Jon and I hit “record”. As you can see, the result is quite good for such a ghetto setup!

 

 

 

Remember, the goal of this was not to make a music video for the song. It is just a straight clip from the camera, without editing, to give an overview of Jon performance. The tv crew is probably only going to pick a 5-15 seconds segment which is why it was useless to think about editing ourselves.

It took us about 5 takes, spread over 2 hours (we were missing some mic sound adapters) to get to this result. There were a few complains at first by the low angle of the shot but I think it works well. It was shot with my 50mmf/1.4 @f2 ISO2000 (if I remember right). The sound was recording with two external directional mic setup on a Mac pro. 

I am very surprised by the quality of the image straight from the camera. If I had more time, I would have done some color correction and added a bit of vignetting to put Jon even more in focus. But we were short on time and very limited in resources.

What I would have done differently (with the same gear & situation):

  • increase the distance a bit more between the Jon and the musicians to blur them even more. 
  • keep the setup even simpler: plug the mics directly in the 5D to save time (no sync, no compress-decompress)
  • find a better angle to have an uniform background

The next step is next Sunday when I am going to shoot a few clips of Jon CD launch.

Links:
Jon Davis website (I really have to set him up with a wordpress blog!)

Note

I just realized that the bass is way too strong. Everything sounded perfect on my compute because my sub hoofer is dead. Will have to fix that soon…

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How to have 2 external screen with a macbook!

February 17, 2009 By

My friend Carl Mercier has managed to put have his macbook run with two external monitors! Unfortunately, I do not have the required gear to test how well it works. It seems very convenient if you already have an external monitor and want to keep an eye on an active process, rss feeds, watching a tutorial, etc… 

Not directly 5D related but I am sure some of you will find a use for this.

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Best Sigma and Tamron lenses for 5D

February 8, 2009 By

So you got your 5D MarkII and now you want to save some money on lenses. Great, make sure you read this post about the cost/benefits of doing so first. Here is a short list of the best value lenses.

Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6
If you want to go wide without using a fisheye, this is your only alternative. Very popular for architecture, landscape and street shooters. Be aware that sharpness used to vary a lot in older models so you better get it new.

Tamron AF 28-75mm f/2.8
At a fraction of the cost of the 24-70 from Canon, this lens is a real bargain for such a good performer. Dont let the low price fool you, this lens offers an exceptional value!

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8
A bit wider than the Tamron version. Get this one, the 12-24 and a 70-200 and you have everything covered in a set of 3 lenses for (almost) the price of a single L glass. Not bad!

Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8
A very good alternative to the Canon model for half the price. Everything on this lens is on par with its competitor except focussing speed and size. So it should be more interesting for videographers than photographers.

Sigma 20mm f/1.8
Cheapest wide prime lens you can get! I really see a lot of use for this lens for videophotographer.

Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 Macro
Of all the lenses in this list, this one has to be the biggest underdog. Everyone I know who uses this lens is happy about it. It is a very nice alternative to the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro.

I am sure there are other gems hidden out there. I just reviewed the lenses I have personally played with. If you feel that I missed something, feel free to add it to the comments below!

Andrew Howe suggested the Tamron AF 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di LD VC and I have to agree with him. While not as good as the others in terms of image quality, its wide focal range and small form factor make it the perfect travel/walk about lens.

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Should you buy third party lenses?

February 7, 2009 By

For the budget conscious photographer looking for new lenses, there is a solution: third party manufacturers.

In fact, it surprises me that we don’t hear about them more often. They offer nice products and when you take into account that they cost half the price of the “official” ones, it is worth investigating.

So let’s see what they are all about.

Things you lose when moving away from Canon

Focus speed

The biggest advantage of Canon lenses over third party ones is not as much the image quality as the Ultrasonic motor (USM). As a generalization, we can state that all Sigma and Tamron lenses are slower to focus than their USM powered counterparts.

How much of a problem is this? It depends. If you are mostly shooting static subject or you are in a controlled environment, you couldn’t care less. On the other hand anything related to sport or wildlife photography requires instant focusing.

In either case, if you are planning to use the lens mostly for cinephotography, it should not be an issue since you will use the manual focus anyway.In this case, just make sure the focusing ring rotation is smooth and fluid.

Internal focusing/zooming

This is one of these things that you don’t notice until it is gone. Basically, it prevent the front of the lens to rotate or moves when you zoom or focus. While this might not seem like a big issue, it is quite important when you are using grad filters. It is a small annoyance when taking pictures, but a big deal when shooting movies. So according to your need you might want to watch this carefully. 

Built quality

Canon might charge a premium for its lenses but at least a small part of it is spent toward better quality material. While a plastic enclosure might not have an effect on the quality of the picture, it has a better resistance to shock and scratches. Also, from personal experience I can say that I have never seen a broken metal lens while I have seen countless plastic ones which had a defect of some sort.

While most high end third party lenses have a very good built quality, it is just not as good as the one from Canon. I am thinking here about weather sealing (water and dust). But then again, unless you are planning to drop your lens on the ground, it should not be that much of an issue!

Image quality

Yes, it is true, generally speaking third party lens image quality is lower than the Canon equivalent model. How much lower? It depends. In some case there is not much differences and for others, it is drastic. This is why I created a list of premium third party lens (coming very soon!). While the lenses on this list might not have all the bling and coolness of their Canon counter part, they have identical (or better!) image quality which make them great buys.

If you are going to use the lens for video, lens sharpness is not as important since the resolution of the video is far from the maximum glass resolving power. You should be more interested in how color are rendered, vignetting and contrast. 

Things you gain when moving away from Canon

Better warranty

Only god knows why, but Tamron warranty is much better than the one provided by Canon. Typical Tamron warranty lasts 6 years for the pro line, Canon: 1 year, enough said. Having some issues right now with my 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens, I can tell you how much I wished I had a longer coverage!

More money in your pocket

3rd party lenses are cheap, how cheap? Most of the time you can get an equivalent lens for about 50% of the Canon version. For the photographer on a budget (who isn’t?) this is incredible, especially if the lens fit the required task. Some would say going third party allow you to save half of your money, I prefer to say that it allows you to have twice as many lenses!

Broader choice of lenses

Since Canon does not cover every focal length, there are some interesting focal gaps that have been exploited by third party manufacturers. The most popular of these being the Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6, this lens might not have the best image quality, still it is the only zoom in that EFL range! Using these lenses increase your creativity potential.

Final verdict

Be careful, there are a lot of sub quality third party lenses available. If you are interested to go that route, you need to make sure that you buy the ones that compare favorably to their Canon counterparts. This is even truer for Canon 5D MRkii users since lens defects are magnified when used with a full frame camera.

Fortunately for our readers, I have already compiled a list of best “best” third party lenses which should be published very soon. Stay tuned and prepare your credit card!

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Filed Under: Photo, Review, Video Tagged With: , ,

Going to NY, what to bring, where to go?

January 27, 2009 By

Next weekend, I am on my third trip to Manathan. While I have seen the city a few times before, this is the first time I will go there with a single goal: taking pictures. I had non photographer friends with me in my previous visits which created some tension every time I asked for a “quick stop” to take a picture. They were very patient but after my sixth stop in 200 meters in Soho I noticed some frustration in their eyes…

That is why this time I am going with 2 other photographer friends so we can progress in the city at “photographer speed” without anyone complaining!

The question is: what should I bring?

Since I am expecting us to walk the whole day, I want to stay as light as possible while keeping some flexibility. Of course, my trusty tripod will be in my bag and while I could enjoy my girlfriend tripod lighter weight, I want to shoot videos so a fluid head is a must.

Now the big question: which lenses to bring? While the 70-200mm f/4 L IS is an obvious choice, I am torn between the 24-70mm f/2.8L and the 17-40mm f/4L. The first choice gives a larger zoom range but it lacks the super wide angle that is so convenient in architecture photography. One of my favorite picture from NY is the one below, made (you guess it) at 17mm. Can you guess one which street conner I was?

Look up!

That is why I am probably going to leave the 24-70 at home. As an added bonus, the 17-40 is much lighter too!

Regarding accessories, since they dont take much room or weight I try to always carry them with me where ever I go. You just never know when a ND filter might prove useful! As a safety measure, I always carry a spare pair of sox and a small flash light. You never know when they can be handy!

Everything fits nicely in my Lowepro Slingshot 200 with some room left maybe for a 50mm f1.4 for some nice night video, or a lunch! 

Where to go?

Now that the bag is full, we have to plan our phototrip. Having already been in Manathan, we can dodge the most obvious tourist traps (Empire State, I am pointing at you) and explore “new” places. 

I think it is important, before going to a shoot, to have already planned a few shots so you dont wander around without a goal. After talking to my friend, it was established that we wanted a high level view of the city that could be printed on a 4×6 (feet) canvas. I know this scream “Empire State building” again but since we cant bring a tripod there we are going to go to the next best thing: the Rockefeller building.  Rumors say that tripods are welcomed there, will confirm once I am back!

The second objective is to get some good pictures inside the Grand Central station. Then again, nothing that should be too hard to do, unless there are some anti terrorist zealots who think that camera are dangerous…

I would also like to take an original picture of the Flatiron building. It has been shot so many times, finding a new interesting angle/composition is going to be a challenge!

Finally, there is the Brooklyn bridge. Same thing as the Flatiron: going to try to be original, wish me luck!

So four objectives in two days, I dont see how our plan can fail! And everything else is just going to be a bonus. If some of you have suggestions, please post them in the comments.

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Which lens should I buy?

January 24, 2009 By

We read this question at least once a week in any photography forum. While there are a lot of possible answers, the first question should be “What do I want to shoot?”. It is only once you know what is the kind of subject that interests you that you can pick up the perfect lens.

So to help you clarify your thoughts on the subject I made a list of the most useful lens, grouped by categories of subject/style. Note: most of these lenses are on the expensive side since they are specialized lenses mostly targeted at pro.

General

If the only thing you want to do is walk around and take pictures, flexibility is key so you definitely need a zoom lens. While some people would argue that the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L is the perfect walking lens, I find it a bit too short and I rather recommend the excellent Canon 24-105L f/4 IS. Indoor or outside, this lens has the reach and width to get great shots.

Suggestions

Portrait

Generally speaking, portraits look best when the background is blurry. While the 50 mm f/1.8 might do a nice job, its short focal range means that you have to be close to the subject which could distract them. This is why lenses such as the 85mm f/1.8 (or 85mm f1.2L) or 135mm f/2L are preferred. While a lot of people suggest a zoom (24-70 or 70-200), I personally think it is better to have a fixed focal length in a controlled environment since since the image quality is better, the lenses cheaper and you can always zoom with your feet.

Suggestions

Wildlife

While the full frame sensor of the 5D might not be suited for wildlife photography because of its shorter reach compared to cropped sensors, its video mode might interest people who want to film the behaviors of animals. Depending of the kind of animal you are expecting to encounter, you can pick either the 300Lf4IS or the 400mm f/5.6L. While the 300mm is good for anything bigger than a dog or not easily scared, the 400mm is the minimum required reach for small birds. Both of these lenses have incredible image quality and focusing speed.

Suggestions

Architecture

When you shoot a building, it is rare that you have a lot of room in front of you to position yourself, generally the farther you can go is on the other side of the street. That is why wide angles are popular among architecture photographers. While the first lens that come to mind for such a task is the 17-40mm f/4L or the more expensive 16-35mm f/2.8L, if you are really into architecture, you have to take a look at the tilt-shift lens, such as the TS-E 24mm f/3.5L or the TS-E 45mm f/2.8. Tilt-shift lenses allow you to do more than just correct the perspective, by shifting the lens you can create a mosaic of pictures that you can later on combine for a perfect panorama. This is why even at 45mm, you can take pictures of buildings right in front of you.

Suggestion

Landscape

When people think about landscape, the first thing that comes to their mind is wide-angle. Well, they are right. Lenses such as the 16-35mm f/2.8L and 17-40mm f/4L are classical landscape lenses. But limiting yourself to a wide angle would be a terrible mistake! Every serious landscape photographer carries in his bad a… 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS lens too! Surprised? You should not be. having a long focal length is the only way to create a perspective compressing effect that looks so cool when shooting mountains, or to take a sunset pictures with the sun taking half of the frame.

Suggestions

Macro

The line up of macro lenses is not that impressive, only 3 models are available from Canon for the 5D. The 100mm f/2.8 Macro having the most flexibility. While the 180mm f3.5L Macro is incredible to shoot bugs, it has limited uses outside of the macro world. An interesting alternative to macro lenses, if you are shooting still life, is to use a TS-E 90mm f/2.8tilt-shift lens. While the macro effect might not there, this is the preferred lens of food and gem photographers since you can tilt the plane of focus to have the whole picture in focus.

A cheaper alternative is to use extension tubes. While I have never been able to take a good macro shot with these without using a tripod, they offer the best bang for the buck and are easy to carry around.

Suggestions

Sport

It is hard for me to advice in this category without knowing which sport you want to shoot. The general line of thought is that you need wide aperture and a zoom unless you have complete control over your position relative to the subject. In this regard, the 70-200mm f/2.8L is a great chose for most activities. Dont mind the IS. In sport the action is going on so fast that IS would never help you to stop it down.

Suggestions

Wedding

Wedding photography equipment is pretty standardize: 24-70mm f/2.8L and 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. These are the two lenses you will ever need. But if you are interested in weeding photography, you probably already know that.

Suggestions

Conclusion

I hope this article helped you to organize your thoughts about the subject. If I missed an obvious pick, please leave your suggestion in the comments.

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Filed Under: Photo, The Basics, Video Tagged With: , , ,

Add a soundtrack to your video for free

January 21, 2009 By

If you want to add some music to your clip, go take a look at ccMixter. All songs/remix are available under the creative common attribution-noncommercial  license which means they are free if:

  • you are not making a commercial use of the song
  • you identify the source. 

Before using these sound clips, read the license and make sure you are making the right choice for your project.

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Filed Under: On the web, Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Flickering issue with the Canon 100mm2.8 Macro

January 19, 2009 By

The problem

I was doing some test recording with my macro, for a small test project I had in mind, when I noticed the image flickering when I was focusing in and out. At first I thought it was just my eye but the issue was still there when I looked at the video playback.

 

 

 

Not everyone seems to have this issue (but  I am not the only one), which make the clip unusable. 

The Solution

While asking around I was suggested (by Matthew Bennett from the Cinema5D forum) to twist the lens a little bit (like if you were going to remove it) to disconnect the exposure contact and tada! It works. I was so caught in the problem that I forgot the most obvious solution. Here is a video of the “proof”, now I just need to redo all my initial takes…

 

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Cross process Aperture Preset

January 18, 2009 By

DISCLAIMER: these parameters were not discovered by me, I found them somewhere on the net and never wrote the URL. I will update the post if I ever find the URL again and give due credits.

Here is a quick tip on how to achieve a cross process look in Aperture without buying an expensive plugin (I am looking at your Silver Fx!).

What is cross processing? Because a picture is worth a thousand word, here are the before and after images.

 

switch_station_21

Neat hein?

The result is very easy to achieve in Aperture. To do so, in the Level panel,

  • select the Red channel and set the 3 values (B,G,W) to : 0,21, 0,53 and 0,92
  • select the Green channel and set the 3 values (B,G,W) to : 0, 0,42 and 1
  • select the Blue channel and set the 3 values (B,G,W) to : 0, 0,44 and 0,94

You can then save this as a preset for later use by clicking on the little gear on the top right of the panel and clicking on save.

Now, just dont over use this technique because it can grow old very quickly, like over cooked HDR… Oh and it tends to destroy skin color too so be careful!

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Beginner DSLR Cinemaphotography kit

January 17, 2009 By

This post is the first of 3 describing and linking to gear used by cinemaphotographer to make their videos. In this first post, we are going to review the gear available to beginners aka low budget movie makers. The second article will review the gear available to enthusiast while the last one will target those with professional goals. These classifications are not as much related to the budget as the level of dedication of the user. We have divided the gear in three sections: Camera,  lens and accessories, Software and Computer Hardware. When possible, we have given two alternatives for each piece of gear: a low cost and a higher cost version. The low cost version might be something that could be sold or traded for an upgrade while the higher cost one is good enough to even satisfy a pro.

Camera, lens and accessories

Body

Right now, when people are talking about cinemaphotography,  there are thinking about one of these two alternatives: the Nikon D90 or the Canon 5DMarkII. Unless you are totally new to photography, you probably already have a few lenses from one of these two brands so the choice has already been made for you (unless you are ready to switch allegiance). While we can hardly call the Canon 5DMarkII a beginner or low budget camera, since it is the only Canon alternative, we have to put it here.

Suggestions:

Lenses

At this stage, you only need two lenses and you probably even own them: a Nifty 50 and a wide to medium angle lens. By Nifty 50 we regroup all the 50mm lenses with aperture of f1.4 or f1.8. On Nikon this lenses give you an EFL of 75mm that might be too long for indoor shooting so you might want to move directly to a normal prime lens, such as the 35mmf/1.8 for a few more bucks.

Note: The Canon 50mmf1.8 should not be considered for filming since it does not have a focus ring.

Note2: We did some comparison between the Canon 50f1.4 and the Zeiss Planar 1.7. The Zeiss compares favorably to the Canon for film making and should be considered as a cheaper alternative as outlined in our review.

Suggestions:

The second lens has to be a zoom playing in the 20-50+mm effective focal length (EFL). There are many alternatives for these at various quality levels and price point. The zoom might not have the nice aperture of the prime, but it will allow you to play with the field of view and give you more flexibility when composing your frame. This lens will stay with you for as long as you are going to shoot which is why it is a good idea to invest in quality glass. But if you are low on money, you can pick a used popular model that you could later sale at almost no lost.

While IS (image stabilization) is definitely a big plus, if  you are planing to spend most of your time shooting from a tripod your money would be better spent in a higher quality lens. On the other hand, if you are thinking about going hand held from time to time, the IS really pays off as displayed in this video comparison of the effect of IS at 70mm and 200mm EFL.

Suggestions:

Filters

Dont jump right away to the next section! Filters are a critical part of the cinemaphotographer arsenal. If you don’t understand why, go take a look at this video from Bruce. At this stage, a circular polarizing filter and a square ND2 filter are more than enough. If you plan to shoot in bright sunlight, you can go with a stronger ND filter. While Bruce suggest to get the big 4×6 filters, I think it is more reasonable to start with the smaller ones and stay away from “made from real glass” filters. They are just too expensive. That is why I like the ones made by Cokin, they are much cheaper and still good quality. Make sure you pick the size that fits with your lenses!

Suggestions:

Tripod

Finally, get yourself a tripod.  As with anything related to photography, tripods and heads can get VERY expensive very quickly.  Dont under estimate the effect a good tripod has on image quality. Pick a cheap heavy one and you will never bring it with you, take something made out of plastic and it will die after two weekends. A tripods is probably the pieces of gear that is going to last you the longest and should be seen as an investment, so get something that will last!

There are many good tripods on the market and probably anything you pay over 150$ will give you good results. There are a few things that can make a tripod stands out of the crowd like: having a weight hook, vibration reduction, removable central column, horizontal central column positioning, etc. Personally, I use the Bogen / Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 3-Section Carbon Fiber Tripod Legs (Black) . I love it and I see myself using this thing for a few more years.

Head

While ball heads are great for photography, when filming you are better off with a head that offers some friction to ensure smooth panning. In my mind, nothing beats the Bogen / Manfrotto 501HDV Fluid Video Head in term of quality per dollars. It is the equivalent of the 50mmf/1.8 of the head world.

Software

Since I don’t really know what exists on the PC side, I will just pretend there is nothing and let some PC reader contact me for the specifics. Or simply buy a Mac. Seriously, the Mac has some unique software that make the whole editing experience so much better (and cheaper, seriously!). As a Mac user, you most probably already have all you need to start editing your shots: iLife. While the newest version that is about to come out has some incredible features, even iLife 08 is enough for the needs of a beginner.

Computer hardware and storage

External HD and backing up

Video editing requires your system to have a secondary hard drive to store your assets/projects. Well, you are not “required to” but if you mix you clips data with the OS partition you you will experience some serious slow down. So lets just say that you have to bite the bullet (again) and get a secondary internal HD. I prefer internal HD because they are the cheapest fastest solution you can get. Do not backup anything on this drive, it is solely a scratch disk / asset vault.

Now lets talk about backup. If you value any of your work, you need to back it up. Unfortunately for us, video takes a lot of HD space so backing up on disk media is out of the question. We could go with another internal drive but I prefer to have an external enclosure for backup so I can bring it at my parents house when I am out for a long period of time.  You can go with the classical HD enclosure or pay a little (ok, big) extra to get a Drobo. While the Drobo is not perfect, contrary to what their marketing department is trying to make you believe, it offers some very interesting features for its price point. Before buying one,  make sure you read my post about its limitation (coming soon).

Finally, dont forget that a backup is only a backup if its replicating data  living somewhere else. As soon as your data lives on only a single drive you are exposed to losing everything!

Suggestions:

Monitor

Lets not go into any excesses here, your current monitor is probably going to be just fine. If you really want a secondary screen accept only a 24″ since it is the minimum size to display 1080p at native resolution. (Well, my 23″ ACD does too but it is out of production)

System

I guess you already have a computer, but in case you are thinking about switching, this one is easy: any recent Apple system (exception: Mac mini) will play with iMovie, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro just fine. So just pick the one you want, my suggestions going of course with the bigger models. Also, note that the Mac Books dont have a FW port anymore. Also, make sure to upgrade the RAM to at least 2 gigs, 4 being much better.

Conclusion

After having spent (already) a small fortune, you are now equipped to produce your first movie. You already have all you need, the next levels only add more bells and whistles.

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