Nick Hughes

I've been doing some product videos for guitar pedals recently and have been having some trouble finding a good way to get a top-down shot from above the pedals. I've been rigging together a boom arm with a grip head at the end, holding a baby pin with a 1/4" thread, onto which I mount my GX7. It works okay, but it's really tough to make fine adjustments to the angle, especially since I'm booming it high up with a 135mm on a tight frame of the pedal. I'm going to try and set up the shot next time to the camera is lower down with a wider lens, but I'd still love to find a good way to possibly mount a lightweight tripod head in a sturdy fashion. I'm open to all kinds of ideas, my end goal is just that I'm able to easily adjust the camera and that the stand can be out of frame. What do you guys think?

Just keep in mind that pans, tilts and punch ins from a 4k file don't have the same feel that you get from physically moving a camera. The perspective isn't changing and so the subtle visual cues that our brains pick up on with real perspective changes aren't there. The capability is still extremely useful, but shouldn't be treated as a replacement for an actual second angle, movement, etc.

You could color correct this pretty easily with a circular mask and a wide feather. It's very subtle as is (in this shot at least)- pulling out the slightest amount of blue should do the trick. Obviously, this isn't a permanent solution, but it'll work if you need these shots.

Panasonic stabilization is notoriously bad for video (though some lenses may perform better than others). I can't speak on Nikon VR, but if it's anything like Canon's IS, then it should definitely be helpful. I use the 24-105 and 70-200 with IS on fairly frequently and am usually happy with the performance, though the 70-200 can sometimes get weird, jerking movements. I don't like going full-handheld with those lenses, but shoulder rig is fine. Shooting at 200mm takes some practice, but it can be done. BTW, if you end up getting a GH4 or other mirrorless system, you can adapt your current lenses with a Metabones Speedbooster or smart adapter - I believe that some of the Nikon adapters allow the use of VR, but I'm not 100%.

Can't wait to see if this stands up against the rest of the art line, price-wise and quality-wise. The canon 24 has been a favorite of mine to rent, but I'd buy this one right away if everything checks out.

​Thanks, I'll take any awards I can get. By the way, 'conflate' means to combine or fuse, not 'confuse,' so don't use that word to mean something it doesn't. Just kidding, I don't really care if people use words incorrectly from time to time.

Nah but really, that post wasn't directed at you, except for the part that was directed at you (and that question still stands). It was all moreso towards the general people who look down with disgust upon wedding shooters. I know a few. And I want to kick them in the groin. 

(and for the record, I don't call myself a wedding cinematographer)

Why the hate for people who shoot weddings? As if you can't be an artist and also make money (a lot, in fact) with a not-necessarily-as-artistic job that just so happens to sharpen your skills as a shooter. Shooting weddings has allowed me to quit my shitty, irrelevant part-time day jobs and focus way more on my art since I can make the same amount of money in 1/5 of the time. So yeah, shooting a wedding might not stimulate my creative side quite as much as, say, an abstract non-narrative documentary, but at least I'm getting some damn good shoulder rig and glidecam practice during those 8-10 hours. Does that strip me of the title of cinematographer or artist? Or do those terms only apply when I'm actually working on an 'actual' film?

mtheory - you mentioned working on a commercial as an accepted use of the word 'cinematographer.' Where's the cinema in that? Sure, I'll admit that there's definitely more creative leeway, but you're still just selling something. A wedding and a commercial can both be infused with some strong creativity. They can just as easily be flat and boring, like the days when 'wedding video' meant shooting to VHS with lots of slow zooms and awful dissolves on every cut. By the way, if you can figure out a way to think creatively during a boring wedding, then you're probably going to fare well when you actually have some interesting content on your plate.

Ok, so maybe you don't actually have a disdain for those who film weddings (though I know plenty of people who do), maybe it's just the term 'wedding cinematographer.' But is it really so offensive for someone to use such words to market themselves to brides who probably don't know the first thing about video? They don't care that a wedding video is not technically 'cinema.' They want to know that you understand how important their wedding is and that you can capture it in an immensely beautiful and artistic way (at least to them). If someone calling themself a wedding cinematogropher helps them get hired, then so be it. If they happen to also be a crappy videographer, then so be it. I'm more worried about the over-saturation of the market than the degradation of the word 'cinema.' And honestly, the word has already been degraded in my mind by douchey film school kids who can't frame a shot but love to spew pseudo-philosophical garbage about 'pure cinema.' Nothing against film school, but man, I can't stand some of the people who come out with no experience, thinking they've already 'made it.' 

So there's my rant. I hope I'm not missing the point.

Just looked at the samples, and damn, those images are sharp.  Totally usable when cropped at 100%. I didn't downscale, not have I ever worked with images from the D4s, so I can't really comment on how they compare. 

​Can you elaborate? I haven't worked with CinemaDNG, but may be soon so it would be nice to know how to approach it from the start.

​And Sony. 60p in a sub-$1000 camera has been available for years now. 

​In a completely unscientific way, I can see how it makes sense. More resolution helps make a more pleasing, more defined softness. Even though the lens might not technically resolve at 50mpx, photons still pass through the lens at those small levels, so capturing more of them seems like it would offer an advantage. I guess.

I don't think it's likely, but I also certainly wasn't expecting the A7ii to be released a year after the original.

​That list is in descending order of 'verifiability.'

E-M5ii specs seem well established at this point (but still not official yet).

5DIV is a mix of speculation and wishful thinking.

A7s II will likely come, but they've got to release the a7r II first, so we'll see if Sony actually releases three "A7" cameras within a year. There are certainly no specs yet available regarding internal 4K with IBIS.

Regardless of whether is matches the quality of A6000 or D5300, it will no doubt cost at least $300-400 more than those cameras.

Means they might have big plans for the E-M1ii?

Keep in mind that Deakins (or any other Hollywood director) very likely does not think about s35 in terms of it's crop factor vs full frame. Full frame is not a cinema standard- this is where I think a lot of people get tripped up. To him, s35 is a 1x crop and if he happens to use a 5D on a shoot, he probably thinks of that as a .7x crop! 

While the above is true, you may be able to get some interesting ultra-macro effects by just holding the lens (carefully) in front of your camera. You'll get super super shallow DOF and tons of light leaks that will make it unusable for any kind of client work, but those lenses aren't exactly the kind you'd use for that kind of work anyways.

Segmenting the 5D line could potentially work in our favor. The 5Ds and 5Dr will make photogs very happy, meaning there's the potential for Canon to make us happy (again) without the photogs feeling abandoned. Not sure whether this is likely or not (I'm going to lean towards not), but it could happen. Either way I'm looking forward to getting a used 5Dii for dirt cheap in the near future. 

A strong counter argument to ETTR is that it can yield wildly different looking clips, which becomes a problem when you have a complex shoot with a lot of footage. You have to then go back and wrangle all the clips into a cohesive look when grading, often starting from scratch with each new clip. Inexperienced colorist may have trouble matching everything up. It can be difficult for the colorist to determine how the footage 'should' look when everything looks different. 

If you shoot your footage the way you want it to look, you can avoid these issues. You can also shoot with a combination of these philosophies. Overexposure by a consistent amount will yield more continuity among all of your footage, though you may not be exposing completely to the right in each clip.

That slo-mo looks niiiice.

​That would be nice. Andrew, any reason for thinking that? 

​I'm not so sure about that. Just about every time I see someone ask 'what should I get as my first video camera,' there is often an overwhelming amount of T3i suggestions. That doesn't happen so much on this site, but elsewhere it seems to be the norm.

​None, not even far-fetched unconfirmed rumors as far as I know. 

​ML RAW on the 6D is not great compared to the 5D and 7D- it records to SD cards as opposed to CF which allow you to write more data to the cards. If you installed the AA filter, it would probably rank slightly less than the 5DIII (no ml). Nice camera that produces a great image when it's not throwing around horrible aliasing all over the place.

Right. Should be an obvious thing, but I guess I was hoping the the stabilization would somehow help for handheld.