REDs for the rest of us? The $1995 Blackmagic Cinema Camera and $995 Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera are interchangeable-lens, single-sensor cameras with raw recording capability, capturing wide-dynamic-range, log-encoded images to…
REDs for the rest of us? The $1995 Blackmagic Cinema Camera and $995 Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera are interchangeable-lens, single-sensor cameras with raw recording capability, capturing wide-dynamic-range, log-encoded images to…
Being detail oriented is a great thing. Obsessing over the wrong detail costs a production in both time, money and storytelling. Years ago I shot a scene where a character…
Ever since my days working in film I’ve tried to find some way to equate my sense of brightness to real world exposure. I learned to do this well with…
One of the greatest things about the Sony F55 is that I can shoot S-Log2 inexpensively. One of the worst things about it is that I can’t see what I’m…
In my last article I wrote about lighting a dramatic library scene using only two lights. Here’s how I lit a rich, dreamy bar scene using the same two lights.…
Sometimes the best shoots are the ones where you just have to make do. A recent music video threw me a challenge: do the best you can with two lights.…
There are 28 things an assistant is supposed to do to this camera before every take. In practice there are really about ten that absolutely need to be done every single time, but miss one and you’ve killed a shot… or maybe a series of shots on the same roll of film. In spite of this some of the greatest movies in history were shot on the Bell & Howell 2709 by cinematographers and their crews who knew the camera’s limitations and worked within them… and every once in a while found ways to push themselves a little further. In this sense the FS700 is equally capable: if you know what it can do and use it for what it’s good for, you’ll make some amazing images. The trick is know where you can’t cut corners.
When choosing a tripod the range of models available is confusing and baffling. There are so many different tripod weights, payloads and heights to choose from, so it can be difficult. Also while there is such a thing as a good all round tripod (as we shall se in a bit) there is also no such thing as one tripod that will be perfect for every shoot. The most important thing to consider when choosing a tripod is the payload that it will need to carry. This is the total weight of the camera, lens, batteries as well as any support equipment like rods and rails or monitors attached to the camera. Don’t underestimate how heavy this lot can get. You will want a tripod that can comfortably carry the payload you have, you never want to be right on the upper limit.
Proper exposure in HD is not always easy. Meter readings don’t always match what the camera sees. Zebras tell us where highlights are clipped but that’s about it. False color gives us broad stroke references… but the most useful tool overall is the waveform monitor. The problem is that there are two kinds: both are extremely useful, but for completely different things.