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Tips for achieving this style if cinematography


Charlie
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58 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

Pfffst.  The one thing in life to NOT get pretentious about should be beer.  Can't just agree that cheap beer is actually kind of good thing?  Can't we agree that good beer is also kind of a good thing?

Not if you drink several tall Amstel 1870 is a slightly dark 11% abv lagers!!!!

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4 hours ago, kye said:

I recently heard a wedding film-maker explain that they don't use NDs,  and use Aperture priority and just let the camera expose with SS.  I thought about it for a while and I guess with weddings there normally isn't much fast action during the day when SS will be short, and then after dark the SS will be longer anyway so the fast-paced dancing etc at the reception will be more cinematic.  

So weddings is particularly suited to that mode - if you're shooting sports it's not going to work.

I'm contemplating moving to that style of shooting for my personal home and travel videos as having the camera auto-expose from full daylight to full dimly lit interiors would really make shooting that much easier.  The alternative is full manual and having to expose with a variable ND, which is just another thing to think about while shooting.

An awful lot of nonsense is talked about shutter speed & motion cadence which while true with regard to film simply does not apply with regard to digital video. You can live without NDs by raising shutter speed & nobody will notice the difference.

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Wow, letting the camera control shutter? Tell me this is a joke.

If you were at f4 in bright sunlight, you would have to have a shutter around 8000, on an M43 sensor.

With respect, if you cant operate a variable ND and control your focus on the fly, why bother?

 

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Agreed. I see a lot of part time videographers forget about setting shutter speed and it annoys the hell out of me. Motion blur matters, even if it’s not obviously perceptible on occasion.

Secondly, learning how to maintain good exposure is a crucial part of the job. It’s hard at first but it quickly becomes second nature, just learn it. Don’t look for shortcuts. If you move upwards to bigger shoots with cinema cameras you will be exposed (pun unintentional) and there’s no reason to be. 

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5 hours ago, kye said:

I recently heard a wedding film-maker explain that they don't use NDs,  and use Aperture priority and just let the camera expose with SS. 

So weddings is particularly suited to that mode - if you're shooting sports it's not going to work.

To be honest, unless you are in a continuously lit arena with even coverage where you would use Manual exposure, then Aperture Priority (with Auto ISO and defined minimum shutter speed) is actually the best way to shoot sport.

We have to ride the aperture for separation or deeper coverage depending on where/what the action is and then let the camera take care of the shutter speed based on the rules we've set it.

 

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24 minutes ago, Charlie said:

Wow, letting the camera control shutter? Tell me this is a joke.

If you were at f4 in bright sunlight, you would have to have a shutter around 8000, on an M43 sensor.

With respect, if you cant operate a variable ND and control your focus on the fly, why bother?

 

Who said anything about letting the camera control shutter speed?

Variable NDs introduce other undesirable effects like colour casts that are potentially more problematic & noticeable than any reduction in motion blur. 

BTW You do realise that the sensor size has nothing whatsoever to do with exposure, aperture, shutter speed or ISO? So whether it's M43 or FF is irrelevant.

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28 minutes ago, Gregormannschaft said:

learning how to maintain good exposure is a crucial part of the job

Exactamundo... 

Regardless of what people think of my wedding video, the exposure and focus are pretty much on the money.....even though I'm swinging the camera like a lunatic ?...all manual 

Being in control of the gear is half the fun. 

39 minutes ago, nigelbb said:

BTW You do realise that the sensor size has nothing whatsoever to do with exposure, aperture, shutter speed or ISO? So whether it's M43 or FF is irrelevant.

As understand it, and I may be wrong, f4 on m43 is f8 on full frame in terms of light gathering, therefore if you had an m43 and full frame camera, both set to f4 with the same shutter speed, the full frame cam would be brighter, no? 

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53 minutes ago, Charlie said:

As understand it, and I may be wrong, f4 on m43 is f8 on full frame in terms of light gathering, therefore if you had an m43 and full frame camera, both set to f4 with the same shutter speed, the full frame cam would be brighter, no? 

No, it will be the same across all sensor sizes but the noise levels will vary.

Which, in the part of the world that we both currently are, is already currently 1/5000th at f2.8 at ISO100 so we should probably just stop worrying about motion cadence and equivalence and go the beach ;) 

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1 hour ago, Charlie said:

Exactamundo... 

Regardless of what people think of my wedding video, the exposure and focus are pretty much on the money.....even though I'm swinging the camera like a lunatic ?...all manual 

Being in control of the gear is half the fun. 

As understand it, and I may be wrong, f4 on m43 is f8 on full frame in terms of light gathering, therefore if you had an m43 and full frame camera, both set to f4 with the same shutter speed, the full frame cam would be brighter, no? 

You are wrong. There are three basic controls for exposure on a  camera - shutter speed, aperture & sensitivity of film or sensor which are all independent of the type of camera or sensor size. If the exposure meter says the correct exposure is 1/100 at F/4 at ISO 100 then these are the settings for any camera. It doesn't matter what the sensor size or focal length is.

Maybe you should stop swinging your camera around for a bit & read up on the technical side? 

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2 hours ago, Charlie said:

 

As understand it, and I may be wrong, f4 on m43 is f8 on full frame in terms of light gathering, therefore if you had an m43 and full frame camera, both set to f4 with the same shutter speed, the full frame cam would be brighter, no? 

 

No. Easiest way to explain it: If this were the case, in the film days they would've needed a different hand held light meter for 35mm, 120, 4x5, etc. ? F4 is the same light gathering in 8x10 or super 16 which have radically different FOV/DOF with the same lens measurement.

 

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1 minute ago, TwoScoops said:

 

No. If this were the case, in the film days they would've needed a different hand held light meter for 35mm, 120, 4x5, etc. ? F4 is the same light gathering in 8x10 or super 16.

 

Interesting, I stand corrected. 

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8 hours ago, nigelbb said:

You can live without NDs by raising shutter speed & nobody will notice the difference.

Good to know!  Thanks for the useful information.  Hey guys, nobody will notice!   I can get rid of my ND's now.  Better sell them on ebay quick before word gets out about this one new trick to expose video on your camera.  You won't believe what happened next...  [draws a red circle with a red arrow pointing at it]

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Funny thing, newer generations use whatever shutter speed and do not care!

I know a few TV shows here that have no ND filters in their cameras, nor their drones. They just don't care.

People have started laughing at me when I am taking my ND filters out, or using a tripod. Am I too old school?!

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3 hours ago, Kisaha said:

Funny thing, newer generations use whatever shutter speed and do not care!

I know a few TV shows here that have no ND filters in their cameras, nor their drones. They just don't care.

People have started laughing at me when I am taking my ND filters out, or using a tripod. Am I too old school?!

I know that subtlety and nuance isn't very welcome on the internet, but I shall persevere and say it probably depends.

The important thing is knowing what you're trying to achieve and using the right equipment and settings to achieve that goal.

If you're in bright sunlight and using a fast aperture and you want the aesthetic that the 180degree rule supplies then NDs are required.  If any of those aren't the case then they may not be needed.  Same with a tripod - if you want a shot with zero motion or a very controlled motion (a tilt or a pan) and you're not shooting slow-motion and you don't want to stabilise in post, then yeah, a tripod is a must, otherwise if any of those aren't true then it may not be required.

An example to illustrate the above.  The other day I was shooting my kids football game.  I was using my Canon 700D, ML RAW, and my 55-250 lens.  The 55-250 at 250 with the ML crop mode is 1200mm F5.6.  I wasn't using a tripod or ND filters, however, this is an example of when that did not matter because: the IS in the lens combined with my seated position meant I could get a motionless shot, and F5.6 combined with the cloud cover gave me roughly a 1/100 - 1/150 shutter speed which gives a slightly choppy feel which is appropriate for the kind of 'fast and rough' style of video I would make in this instance.

Start at the end and work backwards.  

The lowest level of anything is blindly following the rules, the highest is knowing why the rules exist, what happens when you break them, and then chasing your end goal via whatever works.

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i will explain better know as i could on english:

i think the best way to get a cinematographic piece is thinking what you want to tell on your video, what you want to narrate, and then think about your resources to achieve that.

there is where the shutter, exposure, color grading, compositing shot(or framing), the editing, speed, music, sound and use it to create the atmosphere and the narrative you wanna

create.

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On 6/26/2018 at 11:55 PM, Charlie said:

I can do the Hallmark style, that's easy - put everything in slow mo, add zhiyun crane, blend with Ed Sheeran, sprinkle in the odd drone shot because hey, it's like totally cool...season with microwave LUT cus...dem colus dough innit...........?

Heard back from the couple today...

"CHARLIE!!

WOW! We absolutely love the video! THANK YOU SO MUCH! It was so wonderful having you there to capture everything. THANK YOU SO MUCH! It really does capture the happiness of the day and everyone's crazy personalities! WOWOWOW!

Truly can't thank you enough! We'd love to be a reference for you if you need!

THANK YOU!"

The wedding couple would have been happy with any video of their wedding even if technically it was total shit. It wasn’t total shit as it was mostly well exposed & in focus. However it would have been even better without the crazy excessive random movement.

Someone else pointed out the storytelling through movement in the fashion video. In your case it mostly looks like movement just for the sake of movement. This was often unsettling & uncomfortable which would be a great to utilise for some narrative drama but is wrong for a wedding

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