Renae. At one time the world's greatest photo
assistant and manager.
We're on schedule to shoot three set-ups tomorrow morning. The temperature promises to be about five or six degrees cooler, overall, tomorrow and our first set-up is early; a 7:45 call time for the talent. We'll work the first shoot in the full shade of the big theater building and we've got ample space on the big plaza to move all over, without restriction. Then we move on to several more urban locations but all are within about a two mile radius and they are in the "laid back" neighborhoods south of the river in Austin.
I worked with the Panasonic S1 today, along with the 24-105mm Lumix lens, and I have to say two things that stuck out to me. First, the dual image stabilization is as advertised. I'm not the most accomplished hand holder when it comes to camera shake but this combo made me look like the rock of Gibraltar. We rehearsed and did several camera moves where I had to handhold and walk backwards as our actor walked towards me. It was a ten or twelve foot move and our choregrapher, Jen, spotted me from the back, putting her hands on my back to guide me so I didn't run into anything or miss the pace. The camera nailed focus throughout. I used it in the focus tracking mode with the face detection feature enabled.
Secondly, we tested out the Like Rec 709 profile today because it compresses the highlights and works hard to prevent them from blowing out. It worked incredibly well.
We were a almost backlit by the sun but a lot of the shot was in the shallow shade cast by the 3D "ATX" sign we were using as a background. An assistant was directing bounced light from a silver reflector into the shot and when we did our first check on the Atomos monitor we could see detail (by a thread) in the sky and good, open shadows where we needed them. We also shot some V-Log but as I'm a newbie at color grading from Log files I wanted to hedge my bets with the Rec. 709 just to be safe. I'm glad I did since it's already looking nice on the studio monitor and only needs modest tweaks. And man... that profile clung to highlight detail like a Sony fan to his brand...
It didn't hurt that we were able to shoot 10 bit and 4:2:2 so that if we do need to exaggerate the shadow curve we'll have extra data to play with.
Tomorrow one of my friends is lending me a Ronin S gimbal to play with. I've never worked directly with a gimbal but I've learned that a Lumix G9 with firmware 2.0 is supposed to be a killer gimbal camera. Not too heavy, full on 4k, 10 bit, 4:2:2 and the best AF of the entire Lumix family. We'll see if I can learn a few new tricks and then use them on some of the upcoming parts of this month long shooting experience.
But I did lay down some important ground rules: All shoots must be schedule around my swim schedule. Some things are sacred.
It's supposed to cool down a little this week. I've been valiantly and doggedly trying to keep our lawn and our wonderful trees alive and happy. A drop in temperature would make my job as lead gardener just a bit easier.
Rave reviews and a new booking from the bio-tech client of two weeks ago. A bit of studio testing before heading out on location is just the ticket. Or maybe they just liked hanging out with my son.
Hope you are staying cool, safe and happy.
6 comments:
Since Brexit, the steadiness of the rock of Gibraltar is compromised.
A fourth of the way through the article, when you're describing the tracking shot, and I'm thinking "oh, Kirk needs a gimbal." Then shortly after you mentioned that you're going to borrow a friend's Ronin. Perfect!
The dual-axis stabilization of Panasonic and Olympus, the Hybersmooth on a GoPro, Fuji's effective lens-based system... stabilization today approaches magic. But there is a limit to the amplitude of movement it can dampen. This is where the gimbals come in. We bought a budget priced (I think we got it on sale for all of $400) Zhiyun a couple of years ago for a short film my teen daughter was shooting. It was a wonderfully enabling technology. She was able to get what seemed otherwise unreachable (on our budget) tracking shots.
Once you understand the limits, it is possible to get convincing traditional, and some decidedly non-traditional, moves with a gimbal. I'll be surprised if you aren't at least a little intrigued with the Ronin when you try it.
Is Rec 709 a mode within which you record internal to the camera? Or a set of standards / conversion applied in editing? Ignorance abounds.
Rec 709 is the color space used by most televisions for playback and web-based publishing. Recording in Rec 709 bakes in the look similar to capturing a JPEG in stills photography and ready for publishing with little or no color correction. Vlog is more like a raw format that does require post-processing and conversion to Rec 709 for publishing. One of the benefits of recording in LOG is greater dynamic range.
I've been using the Weebill S with my Fuji X-T3's and it's amazing what difference it makes to the footage. It opens up so many possibilities to on-site recording where movement of the talent or the camera operator are required. Camera and lens based stabilization is nice, but does not (yet) provide the latitude or stability of a powered gimbal. Be careful, Kirk. You might be slipping into another gear acquisition scenario. If so, I encourage you to look at the Weebill S. I compared it to the Ronin and found it better suited my needs. I also appreciate that it is smaller and easier to stow away. Very easy set-up as well. Anyway, appreciate your sharing of experiences. Always a good read!
Experimented with V-Log today. I used a Ninja Flame recorder/monitor which allows for inputing Panasonic V-Log and then using a LUT to emulate Rec709 leaving the underlying file in V-Log (flat as a pancake and as desaturated as a faded Ektachrome slide....). I brought the flat file into Final Cut Pro and set the highlight and shadow points using the waveform monitor. Then added saturation and looked at various ways to move the mid-point slider. Lots of control. With a viewing LUT on the monitor it's pretty straightforward at least to nail the exposure. I'm spending more time tomorrow on that. Gerald Undone has some good tutorials on Log files on YouTube. I'm almost ready to give up the training wheels and go with V-Log for stuff.
Sigma fp with new firmware gives an "off" setting for color, even in the All-I, .mov files. It's similarly flat and lower saturation. It's pretty malleable for editing but the Atomos V will also record the Sigma fp raw to Pro Res which is great because it eliminates a step for me. More on that as I learn it.
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