5 THINGS I WANT FOR MY DSLR: AN ONGOING REPORT

With the introduction of a variety of DSLR cameras that support HD video, many companies have been on the fast track to get you the coolest, craziest, and cheapest accessories from your filmmaking needs. There are camera support rigs, dollies, adapters, viewfinders and countless other “additions” for productions of any type.

But as filmmakers, what do we want to see with our DSLRs? What have we been craving to see happen that would take our stories to the next level? Well, we have compiled a list of the top things filmmakers have been interested in:

1) The Panavision Lens Mount - We know it’s out there, but how does it work? How can we benefit?
2) XLR Inputs - Syncing audio can be a pain in the ass… What’s out there to help?
3) DSLR 3-D - Is it possible to shoot 3-D with DSLRs? Two of them together? We’ll find out for you.
4) Anamorphic Converter - Hollywood is doing it, why can’t we? Believe it, it is possible…
5) Underwater Housing - We’ll find the best one for your next James Cameron impersonation.

Join us for the next couple weeks as we investigate, probe, search, and ponder about how we can achieve these things and more to get us going on the DSLR revolution! Check back here and tell all your friends!

SUPER OFFICIAL 7D - WHAT DOES THIS REALLY MEAN?

If you’re reading all the camera blogs, then you know what we’ve already known for the last couple of weeks.

-There is a camera called the 7D
- It’s gonna blow our minds (biblically)
- I made a diagram of what it means

CONTINUE READING HERE - see the price, the specs, and what others are saying

CANON 5D MK II VS. THE RED SCARLET

Ok, so we all know how amazing The RED One camera is, and the massive crater is has left in the filmmaking industry. When it was introduced a few years back, it dominated the market and blew the sides off the Hollywood studio system.

Then, in the last year, the filmmaking industry was changed again! An amazing influx of DSLR still cameras with video capability left filmmakers awe struck and astounded at the amazing quality, the leader of which was the one and only Canon 5D Mark II.

Now, as we steadily cruise to the year 2010, we are at the dawn of “high quality, low cost” cameras that will, in my opinion, leave a permanent ripple in the industry from here on out. The most notable of those cameras? Why of course the Canon 7D and the much anticipated RED Scarlet.

We have discovered recently a curious comparison between the Canon 5D and a prototype RED Scarlet that leads us to believe that even the “untouchable” RED company has been shakin’ in their boots about this DSLR revolution.

See the comparison pics here!

THE RUMOR MILL: CANON 7D - MAGICAL NEW FEATURE?

Let’s talk about specs baby… There’s a rumor going around that on September 1st/2nd, we’ll be hearing about a new super sexy Canon DSLR…

I got the specs you’ve been sweating over, and I’ve translated them into regular everyday language for people (…like me) who read “new Autofocus” and immediately think Greg Kinnear is making a Zombie Movie about Bob Crane.

Also… there’s a new magical feature I’m sure you will find utterly mindblowing…

Check the SPECS here… and enter a world of new possibilities

HOT ROD CAMERAS’ PL MOUNT FOR THE GH1

I stumbled upon this a few weeks ago, and after seeing it in use, I think we’re going to see a lot more filmmakers using the GH1 as their go to camera. The PL mount allows you attach traditional film lenses to the GH1, such as Zeiss DigiPrimes, Panavision lenses, or those that come with the RED. As a bonus, I found this amazing camera comparison video that pits the Panasonic GH1, Canon 5D Mark II, and The RED against each other.  Check it out below!

Red One, Canon 5D Mk II, and Panasonic Lumix GH1 Footage Comparison from Birns and Sawyer on Vimeo.

To read up more on this video, as well as the PL mount, visit Hot Rod Cameras.

4TH OF JULY 5×5

So over fourth of July we captured a ton of footage on the Canon 5d with our awesome Redrock Mount. Check out the footage.

MSITOIRTAP - 5×5 (5d Mark II) from John de Menil on Vimeo.

5dm2 WorkFlow - Workaround for H.264 Conversions

So my friend Anton over at Deliberate Industries is also working on his very own Canon 5Dm2 Feature. He just sent me an IM about his concern with converting the h.264 footage from the Canon 5Dm2 to Apple Pro-Res. The problem that most/everyone has is that you’re file size balloons, and if you’re an indie filmmaker like ourselves, you don’t want to dish out cash on more hard drives.

Here’s a workaround I’ve been reading about. I haven’t used it myself, but supposedly it’s popular. Check it out!

OUR CANON 5D MARK 2 Method on Searching for Sonny

THE PASSWORD IS: basbas

So lots of people have been asking questions about how we did each thing. Here’s our full method. I’m sure there are TONS of typos. We tried to write it out so that anyone could understand.

We came to the camera with many hesitations. You read online how it’s a Pandora’s box. On one hand you get this great picture quality, on the other hand you have to figure out how to control aperture and light sensitivity. Canon made a great camera, but it seems like the video was an afterthought. In the end we found that the work arounds are totally worth it.

First to control aperture, we got a nikon adapter to put nikon lenses on the camera. This way, the camera can’t communicate with the lens, you have a fully controllable aperture, (which wasn’t the case with the test we did before the shoot http://vimeo.com/3711284) With the canon lens that came with our camera rental (we used lensrentals.com), the lens was fully automatic in LIVE MODE. This is a huge problem with many 5dm2 video users. If you can’t control the aperture, then you can’t control depth of field. The big thing everyone is looking for is that softness in the foreground and the background. That has always been the big differential between video and cinema. A few years back, 35mm adapters came out and changed everything. Finally an indie filmmaker could get that depth of field and use nice 35mm glass. So the big workaround with this problem is to use nikon lenses on the canon camera via a nikon adapeter. I bought one off ebay for $80.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fotodiox-Nikon-Lens-Canon-EOS-Mount-Adapter-Pro-Series_W0QQitemZ220383167613QQcmdZViewItem

The next big workaround was the light sensitivity. For every shot, you want the the lowest ligh sensitivity so you’ll have the least amount of graininess and noise. The problem with shooting with the Canon 5d is that this is also automatic. The camera choices for you. The work around here is the exposure lock. It’s a button on the camera with an asterik. If you push this button, the exposure will lock. So we’d lock the exposure after we got our desired ISO (light sensitivity), then start recording with the camera, and lastly play with the aperture to get the desired look.

There was so much play with pointing the camera at lighter objects and darker objects. For the last shot in the teaser, you see the silohuettes. For this shot, we pointed the camera at the sky, locked the exposure, started recording, and then play with the aperture. In most of the other shots, we’d point the camera at the brightest object, then lock, shoot, and play with the stops. We almost always went one stop down after we’d lock the exposure. The beautiful thing about this camera is how it shoots blacks. The blacks are deeper, truer, fuller, than most any other camera I’ve shot on.

The next big challenge was to have a way to control the focus. We used a doorway dolly, because we wanted to do a ton of push ins and pull outs. But when shooting with a 50mm lens at a low f-stop, you need someone to constantly change the focus while the camera was moving. It was totally out of the question to have the camera operator/DP do it because we also needed someone to tilt. An actually hand pulling and racking the focus wouldn’t work because it would look to shaky, or crappy, or just plain bad.

Here was our workaround. The camera we usually use is the Panasonic HVX200 with a RedRock 35mm adapter. http://www.redrockmicro.com/lensadapter/index.html

We need the rod system seen in this photo to place a follow focus.

With the follow focus, the focus on the lens is controlled by gears. The gears are connected to a whip, and an assistant cameraman holds the whip which he would turn to get the desired focus. So we attached the rod system built for the HVX200 to the 5d. We had to change all the settings because the camera was too tall on the rod system. He had to add spacers to lift the follow focus up higher. Once we mounted the follow focus, we realized our rods were way too long. Since it was designed for the HVX200, which is a much longer camera, the rods i think were 15 inches. We needed them to be 5 inches. So I went to the furniture store where my girlfriend works because the owner had a steel cutter. He cut the rods and we used that on the camera (they were still a little long though.) You actually don’t need to do this. RedRock sells a DSLR rod system. http://www.redrockmicro.com/redrock_dslr.html

We just didn’t have the cash to buy that. So we DIYed it.

Next we put the camera on a doorway dolly we rented. http://hdgear.tv/details.php?catagory=Support&cat_num=20&sku=200210

We mounted the camera with the rod system onto a bogen tripod which retailed for about $800, and then stabilized it with sandbags. Another big thing about the camera is that it’ll show any little jiggle or movement. So we just had to rehearse every dolly pull and push over and over again. We were definitely worried about the “jelly effect.” This is one of the biggest problems with the DSLRs that shoot video. You can read all about it on prolost.com When the camera moves, quickly, you sometimes get this jelly effect where everything in the frame looks… welly jelly like. It caused by the rolling shutter in the camera (I don’t full understand it.) If you watch the teaser you can see it at the 26 second mark when the focus is pushed to the girl in the mirror.

Thankfully it didn’t show up on the dolly pushes. I think it only shows up when there is very very quick movement. Sometimes the camera would drop frames in the shot… We watched out for that and had to refilm shots. I think we did about ten takes for every shot. The full teaser has about 40 shots. We filmed it last weekend over three days. (March 19th, 20th, 21st.)

On the import for editing we converted all the footage to Apple Pro Res 422 HQ because editing with the native 5d format (h.264) doesn’t work so well. It’s too jittery and freezes alot.

After the edit was done. We did the coloring in Apple Color. Here was our coloring method

We mostly crushed the blacks, brought the shadows to a blueish hue, the highlights to a yellowish hue in the primary in.
Then we went to our secondaries and tried to preserve the skin tones with a saturation curve (sometimes a hue) and then play around some more with the other colors. I got my method from this post at prolost
http://prolost.com/blog/2008/3/23/save-our-skins.html

The I did the titling in After Effect. And then I uploaded to Vimeo. The vimeo version is in 24p beacsue vimeo converts everything to that framerate. The Canon 5d shoots in 30p. You can watch the 30p version on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ilOZldwH1Y

But i think all these methods and workarounds with the camera will be obsolete pretty soon. The Panasonic GH1 should hopefully fix it all… I think that’s what we’ll shoot the feature on.

here’s a flickr album with more pics from the shoot! http://www.flickr.com/photos/36854133@N05/sets/72157616088194214/

thanks so much for all your interest and support. We’re gonna make the best movie we can!

Full trailer comes out April 15th

- andrew disney

FORT WORTH FILMMAKER - CALL TO ARMS

Texas + Film = Innovation
Calling all Fort Worth Filmmakers to pick up your camera and start a revolution.

Fort Worth Filmmakers - CALL TO ARMS!!! (Canon 5d mark II) from John de Menil on Vimeo.