Thursday, February 09, 2017

Random Visual Thoughts. Reviewing a disorganized vision. Fun with chaos theory curation.
































































Useful feature in Sony A7Rii and RX10iii, for videographers.

Belinda, looking at slides. 1980.

I never thought much about file sizes and HD video. My office computer, running Final Cut Pro X seems to handle 4K video without breaking a sweat. This being the case I never looked at one of the options in the Sony camera menu that allows one to record both a big, husky 4K video file and also makes a simultaneous, much smaller MP4 file. I enabled this feature before I shot my first interview yesterday because I had the idea that I would be able to send along a bunch of the smaller files to the client for review. The setting, and the duplicate files didn't have any deleterious effect on the camera performance, and the additional files aren't big enough to take up too much space, so, what the heck?

I came to realize the value of the duplicate files when I downloaded the two days of shooting into my 2011 vintage, MacPro laptop. It's got 8 gigs of memory, and a small Intel HD Graphics 3000 card with 512mb on board. No! It can't run 4K video without a very slow, three to four second per visual frame, screen refresh. It's like watching a slow slide show while listening to a continuous audio track. 

I searched and found the much, much smaller, 1080p MP4 files and clicked on one. It plays just fine. No big hit on systems resources. So, the 4K content is safely backed up but I also have duplicate content I can play, without penalty, for my clients. It's a pretty nice deal. It's like making your own "all purpose" proxy files in camera. In fact, that's exactly what it is.

The more I work with the cameras the more fluid I'm getting with both handheld camera movement and decent, on tripod, panning technique. 

We worked outside for about an hour and a half today. The RX10iii took it all in stride. With my GoreTex lined Ahnu hiking shoes, my Merino wool socks and my long underwear, along with my toasty Sherpa hat and amazing gloves, I stayed perfectly warm and was amazed to see Canadians in down outwear shivering and stamping their feet to stay warm. 

I'm heading out to meet a new friend for dinner but wanted to share this largely overlooked feature for other Sony videographers. I'm happy when I realize that a feature is not worthless...it's just sitting there on the camera waiting for me to get smarter...

A short report from the Toronto area.


I had a good flight from Austin all the way through to Toronto on Delta Airlines. Right on time every step of the way. The baggage handlers seem to have done only minimal damage to the gear. There is one set screw on my fluid tripod head that is bent but the device is still fully usable. The Amazon Basics backpack was perfect for the camera  carry on task and easily held everything I wanted to toss into it. It was even able to fit under the seat in front of me, if necessary.

When I hit the Toronto area the weather service had just announced a "freezing rain" warning. Liquid rain coming down in sub-freezing temperatures. Man, do they do a great job treating the roads! Even as a Texan with little to no experience navigating weather I was able to travel all the way to Burlington, CA. with no issues --- pretty cool.

Yesterday I spent at my client's HQ. I got a good tour of the labs, the warehouse, the training areas, etc. Unlike my more paranoid tech clients these folks were happy to hand me a badge that allowed me all facility access and then the let me do my work unencumbered. (Yes, I have worked in some facilities where non-employees are so supervised that they are escorted to the restrooms when nature calls....

I spent most of the morning and a good part of the afternoon shooting an assortment of video clips that I'll use to flesh out the stories that our interview subjects tell. At Ben's suggestion I've covered ten times more content than I think I'll need in the edits and have tight, medium and wide shots of almost everything.

For this kind of work; a mix of video clips and stills, I used the RX10iii exclusively. Someone asked me to list an important thing I learned from Alexander White's book about the RX10iii and I would immediately say that it was being able to set the focus to toggle between continuous and manual by assigning this the the center button in the four way array on the back of the camera. I set the AF to center focus and place the square over the subject. Once the camera hits focus I push the button and lock focus via manual focus mode. I have a constant indicator as to whether I am in AF or MF mode because in the AF mode the focus peaking indicators appear in the finder. Wonderful.

I am using the RX10 in 1080p for these "b-roll" shots instead of 4K because they will be ancillary to the interviews and will be on screen for seconds at a time. I would go ahead and shoot them in 4K but that limits me to the basic level of image stabilization while staying in 1080p gets me the choice of active stabilization and intelligent active stabilization. These settings make the camera very hand holdable; even at fairly long focal lengths.

The camera is amazing in this kind of work.

The other operational step I'm trying to be very consistent with is the use of a small, Lastolite white balance disk for custom white balancing as I move from area to area. One large room is used for discerning color analysis and it's almost perfect daylight while other areas use various lesser florescent tubes that can range from 3100 to 4300 with various hue shifts. The camera doesn't allow me to set a custom white balance in video mode so I switch to manual mode, do my CWB and move back to movie mode. One extra step but quickly done and well worth it.

I did my first interview yesterday. It was of the CEO. He was great. I had some noisy audio but I tracked down which bad cable was causing it and replaced it. Then I just had to contend with the HVAC cycling on an off for the whole building, as well as the occasional, loud door closure off in the distance. This was definitely a location that begged me to shoot "room tone" for later...

At the end of a long day of work the CEO invited me out for a great dinner at one of his favorite restaurants where we shared stories about photography and business. It was a wonderful way to end the first day of shooting.

I am typing this over breakfast at 6 am and I need to finish up and get back to checking batteries and packing up to go over to Client HQ for our first in a series of "product user" interviews. That, and a lot more of those texture shots  we use for cutaways, etc.  This is a fun project. I only hope the blizzard doesn't slow us down. You can make ice cubes here without even owning a refrigerator....

But I guess all you people who live in the north know this...

P.S. The thermal underwear really works! And my new, thick and furry gloves. And my monster good hat. And my Polartech scarf. And.....  All bundled up for the outdoor shots we'll be doing this afternoon. Projected temp? 12-15 degrees (f). All good. KT

Tim Hortons' Donuts? Discuss!

Monday, February 06, 2017

Camera Learning. Epiphany after being smug.

I thought I could intuit everything I needed to know about the RX10iii and I used about half of that camera's potential right up until I read Alexander White's book about that camera model. The book laid bare to me how little I really knew about fine-tuning the camera and shaping it to fit my shooting preferences.

I always espoused the idea of making a cursory run through the owner's manual and then just settling in for some extended use with the camera. And that's just what I did but instead of taking time in each use cycle to get to know another feature or working pathway I found myself using the camera pretty much the same way I've used almost every camera I've owned since the Nikon F5.

Why do I date my usage tendencies back to the F5? Well, that's when I felt confident enough with auto focus to capitulate and use it as my default instead of working (as I had) in manual focus.

And how did I use almost every camera? I set the mode dials to either manual or aperture priority, set the auto focus to S-AF with the center focusing sensor selected, pointed the camera and pushed the button. While that's a bit of a simplification I'll admit to being a late adopter of setting custom function buttons and setting up menu shortcuts. In fact, I'll admit that my primitive approach to camera customization is probably what led me to (prematurely) abandon my Olympus cameras. In retrospect, the EM-5.2 is really a very able video camera and a very advanced all purpose camera. You just have to invest the time and effort to really learn it. When I look at the handheld video that my friend, James, and I shot a year back I get a bit nostalgic for that almost magical image stabilization....

The issue, for me, is that in the days of un-digital cameras the controls were all pretty much the same. Mentally interchangeable. You could easily pick up a Nikon, a Canon or a Leica camera and understand everything you would ever need to know to shoot those cameras. One of the benefits to that kind of uniform control interface is that one could mix cameras with reckless abandon and never face the reality of forgetting where, in a crowded sub-menu, was the control that you were desperate to find.

I could easily go from a mechanical Hasselblad to a Pentax LX without missing a beat. Likewise, the steps for using my Linhof 4x5 camera were the same (with the exception of pulling a dark slide) as my Canonet. When we used our cameras over and over again the only thing we were getting used to was how the camera felt in our grasp. Sure, the lenses weren't interchangeable between brands but that never seemed to matter if the acquisition and use of a different brand body came with such a truncated learning curve.

I carried that poly-brand camera ethos with me for far too long in the new, menu-driven camera age. I resisted doing the deep dive into menus and features that would have made my work with some cameras more rewarding. Instead, I collected bits and pieces and tried to apply my general approach to all of them instead of focusing on one brand, one menu style, one interface.

Now I have exactly six cameras (not counting older film cameras that languish about the studio). All of them come from one maker. All of them were created and had menus installed from the current generation of that company's products. What this means for me is that I can shift from camera to camera and body to body without the frisson of having to remember different ideas about menus and control identification. This makes for a much more fluid use of the cameras in tandem.

But it was really just hunkering down and reading White's book that made me chide myself for my shallow embrace of so many previous systems. On recent projects my deeper understand of how to more finely control focus with the RX cameras and how to implement the right look across all the cameras in one project have made a big difference in my final products. A uniformity of look, engendered by a uniform selection of picture profiles, white balances and overall looks makes video easier to edit and makes mixing cameras in still photography productions much, much easier.

Recently friends have asked me if I've tried the new Fuji XT-2 or the X-Pro-2 and I have to tell them I haven't spent much time with the cameras. I have a friend who has offered several times to loan me his Leica SL and lens to test out. I paused momentarily on the Amazon.com page for the new Sigma SD Quattro H, before quickly moving on to find more Sony batteries. But the momentary truth is that I seem to have lost my taste for constant camera change, no matter how big the promise, because I know understand the depth of commitment to a system that real mastery takes.

In good conscience, and in attentive service to my clients, I can't ignore the potential of the cameras I have and how they can bring better results to the mix, if only I use them correctly and fully. That means I finally understand the benefit of a deep system dive.

I keep mentioning the RX10iii because it's a camera like the proverbial onion; it has layers after layers for you to peel back. Using it in raw for stills or in the 4K mode for video is a constant revelation. The better I know the camera the better I use the camera and the more it rewards me.

I am more amazed now than when I bought it that its 4K video is so pristine. In a head to head test with my $3200 A7Rii and my recent tests with a PXW-Z-150 video camera I can see no real difference in the files between the two one inch Sony cameras and the singular category in which the A7Rii is demonstrably better is in lower noise at higher ISO settings.

Before the hours I've spent with the Alexander White book I was using about $750 dollar's worth of my RX10's potential and now I feel like we're really just starting to get our money's worth our of it. But, mea culpa. This is what I get for being a "know-it-all" and believing my own press...

In the digital age the real mastery of a camera has to go so much deeper....

Shooting across two disciplines. A few thoughts about using Sony cameras to bridge the gap.

Ben uses a Sony rx10 iii and an Aputure LightStorm 1/2 to harvest "texture" shots.

A commercial photography changes we are doing more and more video projects and also projects that call for a mixture of both video programming and good photographs from the same engagement. On our previous project for one of our healthcare clients Ben and I wore multiple hats. For scenes with our main subject I did the important, direct to the camera, shots with a Sony a6300 while Ben shot different angles and different magnifications with a Sony RX10 iii. We used his shots in the final edit when we wanted to cut away and keep from hanging on one view for too long. 

Throughout the project we also shot still images. The Sony RX10iii allows me to shoot 1080p video and, while rolling video, hit the shutter button to capture full res, Jpeg photographs (at the highest image quality setting) at the same time. There were no glitches or breaks in the video and, as long as my shutter button pushing was gentle there was not discernible camera movement. This is a very powerful tool. There are times between video takes when we talk to the subject and prep them for a different question. This is also a good time to grab still frames.  

There is also an automatic setting that I've been experimenting with after reading Alexander White's wonderful book on the RX10iii. It allows you to set the camera so that it automatically shoots frames when the A.I. in the camera determines that a shot with people is good. So, in the video we just finished I had some longer lens shots that featured a woman in a wheel chair, and her friend, walking and rolling up a long, curved sidewalk, toward camera. Following them with the camera while adjusting focal length and making sure they were in sharp focus took all my attention. With the automatic setting engaged I can relegate the timing and the shooting of the stills to the camera and not have to think about yet another production detail. Since the stills use the same color settings, exposure and white balance as the video everything works well. 

It's still early times for this sort of automation and you may have to intercede to get the shots you want when you want them but it's a much more powerful way to capture concurrent stills than trying to "grab" them from 4K footage. Capturing from 4K with most other camera brands gives one an 8 megapixel file while the capture during video with the Sony gives me a full 17 megapixel image (cropped from the 20 meg image by the 16:9 video crop). 

At the end of the shooting process our clients get a video time line with all the good footage distilled into a H.264 file along with a folder full of high res still images that are ready for immediate use in social marketing, on websites and even for print. 

This week I'm shooting in Canada and I'm planning on making much greater use of the ability to create still frames while shooting video. If the camera can effectively take over the actual shooting task for me then so much the better. 

I need to do a bit of research and see if this feature is also available on the A7Rii as it will be my main "interview" camera. 

The only restriction I've come across when using the automatic still shot feature is that it cannot be used in conjunction with 4K shooting or shooting a 120 fps (for slow motion). I can live with that.

Shooting double is so efficient, both for me and the client. When I work with Ben and we use RX cameras we greatly increase the amount of content we are able to capture for our projects. We both set our cameras to the same profiles, make custom white balances from the same targets and have the same exposure aim points via zebras. This makes editing a lot more effective because everything we shoot cuts together very well. The added bonus, with "auto shot" enabled is that we'll both be generating still images simultaneously. 

It's not a catchall though, we still need to stop from time to time and set up and shoot important still shots. The nice thing is that we already know our settings are nailed because we've just seen the results on an HD monitor. Most times were just shooting vertical and horizontal of the same set up but with the talent holding a pose or pausing their action. It sounds daunting at first but with a little practice it becomes second nature. Double shooting adds value for our clients. They like that. It keeps our wheels of industry turning...

Packed and ready. Flying out in the morning. 


Sunday, February 05, 2017

Packing for an out of town shoot is like a negotiation with myself, the airline and my rental car....

Photograph from "The Great Society" at Zach Theatre. 

I thought packing for photography shoots was painful but packing for video and photography shoots mixed together is....well....more painful. One issue is with the way I use LED light when doing lighting designs for video (and stills now...) I use diffusion on frames to modify the light from the fixtures. I like this because I can control the character of the light by moving the light closer or further away from the diffusion, and I can add more control by moving the diffusion closer or further to the subject. But! It requires two light stands instead of the one light stand I could get away with if I was using something self-contained, like a soft box. 

As I delve deeper and deeper into the practice of recording sound on location I'm learning that different sonic environments require different microphones. A room with carpeting and lots of padded furniture and drapes is a location in which shotgun microphones can be used with good results, but a room that big and bright and echo-y might not be as good a match. In that situation a shorter, slightly less narrow pick-up pattern microphone might actually be a better choice.  And in areas of utter audio chaos we'd probably want to default to a lavaliere microphone. That means we're bringing all three kinds. 

Since the shotguns and hypercardioid microphones sound better to my ear in most situations that's what we'll mostly end up using the shotgun microphone on a boom. Since I'm working with a skeleton crew (or by myself for a few interviews) I won't have the luxury of a dedicated sound person so that means I'll be putting the shotgun microphone on a boom pole and attaching that boom pole to a light stand. Another stand goes on the packing list...

I'm pretty adept at using two lights for most situations but I'd never travel out of the studio without a few back up lights so that means we're packing an extra copy of our main light and tossing it the new "mini" LED light as a "last resort" back-up. 

I packed a smaller tripod last week but I spend a lot of time with my cameras on a tripod and it kept bugging me that I would not have my preferred tool on site so I pulled the smaller tripod out and replaced it with my big, happy, comforting tripod; the one with the leveling ball and the super smooth pan-ability. 

On my interviews I know I want to set up a stationary "b" camera to shoot my interview subject from a  difference viewpoint so I've packed a table top tripod for a second camera. 

While the main mission of my upcoming assignment is to get good video we'll also need to capture good supporting still images for complementary collateral and campaigns. That means camera and lens inventory is going to be a bit different. On my last shoot I depended mostly on the Sony a6300 and Sony rx10iii and both of them were good, solid choices for video. But I've spoiled this client over the last year by delivering mostly photograph files that originated as uncompressed 42 megapixel raw files from the Sony a7Rii, which is a wonderful and expressive still photography tool. It calls for a slightly different selection of lenses to work the way I like. That adds to the packing. 

In the end I've settled on three checked bags and one carry-on. One checked bag (a Tenba Tri-Pack) holds the big tripod, a few light stands and a couple of Manfrotto grip heads (one for the boom arm stand and one for the Chimera diffusion frame). The next bag holds the lighting and audio gear, along with audio cables. It's a wheeled (and very sturdy) Tenba air case. The third bag is the catch all. It's got the clothes I'll need, along with an extra pair of shoes, and also holds the diffusion frame and silk, a pop-up reflector, some clamps, the portable monitor (in protective case) and a set of Sennheiser lav microphones (in a tiny Pelican case). 

I can strap the tripod case to the Tenba air case in a pinch and then I'm just shepherding two cases with wheels and wearing a back pack. 

The backpack holds the cameras, lenses, memory cards, (way too many) batteries for the cameras, as well as batteries for the monitor. It also contains the script/shot list/meeting notes/contact info and, in a  nod to past practices..... a Sekonic incident light meter. 

In the best of all possible worlds I'd be traveling with a 1990's style entourage and would bring cases and cases of gear to play with. But I wouldn't want most of the people to hang around my sets all day and I certainly couldn't afford to pay them all out of the budgets most clients have these days. 

No, I think the stuff I've settled on will be just right. Anything else I need I can buy or rent on site. 

Packing really does seem like a negotiation. You quickly get to the point where, if you want to add something to the mix you absolutely have to dump something out that you've already packed. 

The nature of the beast.

Friday, February 03, 2017

Lighting with HMIs.


I loved using K5600's smaller HMI lights. They sent them to me to test. There is something about continuous light that makes me happier about photographs; portraits especially.

This is my friend, Fadya. I love photographing her because she is so interesting to talk to. We can sit for hours with a few cups of tea and converse and intermittently photograph. What a wonderful way to spend the better part of an evening.