Reviewing the clips I did last Monday, I realized the exposure was not what I remember seeing on the LCD while shooting. After some thinking, I figured it out: I used to set the LCD brightness level to auto. Since I was shooting outside, the ambient light sensor was calibrating the LCD brightness as if it was used in bright conditions while in fact I was looking at the LCD in a dark environment (the Z-finder).
The solution was, of course, to set the LCD brightness manually (first option in the second yellow menu) to a lower level. Pretty obvious tip but I guess (and hope) that I am not the only person who forgot about this!
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…
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.
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
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…
This is something written in the manual, but I have noticed that few people know about it, and even less read the manual. So I thought it would be a good idea to write about it.
When you are in manual focus mode, if you half-press the shutter button, the camera will beep and highlight the squares that are in focus. This is a great way to get a confirmation when you are not sure if you are in focus or not. Of course, it cant be trusted at 100% (else why would we use manual focus in the first place?) but it can be useful.
The best way to use this trick is to activate all autofocus points so when one blinks you know where the focus is in the frame.
