D.C. on the 7D

[Luis Caffesse]

Just got back from a job in D.C. - kind of felt like I was flying without a net because it was the first solo shoot where I took the 7D and left the HPX170 at home.

These are some of the Broll shots I got - not exactly a well edited montage, just a sample of some of the footage.

7020695

Lenses used:
Nikon 80-200mm f2.8
Sigma 30mm f1.4
Nikon 50mm f1.8

[Stephen Mick]

Nice!

[mhood]

Very nice. How did you get that traveling shot from the car? I don't see IS on any of your lenses yet it was as smooth as a prom queen's thighs. And what were your settings? Thanks!

[Zim]

looks good. Did you use a monopod or tripod?

[mhood]

...and I so enjoy seeing beautiful wide shots with no aliasing or moire (that I noticed at least). Thanks again.

[Luis Caffesse]

Very nice. How did you get that traveling shot from the car?

Camera was setup on a small tripod (I was in the front seat, obviously) -
The shot was a bit bouncy.... but then I cheated and ran it through smoothcam in FCP.
:)

I should upload the raw file so you guys can see... but with a little stabilization I was really happy with the final look.

In the interest of total disclosure - the rack focus on the capitol was also run through smoothcam - shooting with a 200mm on a less than beefy tripod resulted in a little camera shake when I pulled focus.
:)


And what were your settings? Thanks!

I'll check on that and get back to you in a few.

[FatDaddy]

Great job Luis. Nice to see the home town lookin' good.

[ChipG]

Looks great Luis!

FYI I use the flimtools suction cup mounts to shoot through the windshield, the camera "hangs" from the windshield and thus greatly reducing vibration or jitters from a tripod on the floor.

[Rakesh Jacob]

Looks great man!!! Wide architectural details held up really well

[Luis Caffesse]

Great job Luis. Nice to see the home town lookin' good.

I wish I'd had time to meet up with some 'users while I was there.
Unfortunately it was a situation where we started shooting literally as soon as the plane landed, and worked basically until we took off two days later.


Looks great man!!! Wide architectural details held up really well

Yeah - I was also pretty happy with how well the slomo flag shot held up - granted there aren't a lot of hard lines in it, but I didn't see a lot of aliasing in the raw clip. I think I'm going to try to shoot more 60p stuff on the next shoot, just to see what I can get away with.

[Luis Caffesse]

Just checked the camera settings:

Picture Style Standard: 3, -2, -2, 0

Daytime shots were all shot at 160 ISO.
The dusk shots were done at 320 & then 640 ISO

The posted shots were quickly color corrected in FCP using the 3 way color corrector to bring down the blacks and in some cases clean up some white balance issues.

I've noticed that the majority of my shots were slightly overexposed, probably a product of shooting out in bright sun without any sort of loupe on the cam (Zfinder, hoodman, etc) - still getting used to the relationship between the LCD, the exposure meter, and the final footage. Need to do some more testing and try to find the best way to nail the exposure.
I wish we had a live histogram during video mode like you have on the GH1 - that would be really handy.

[NoxNoctus]

One thing thats helped me is flipping over to Live View for a second and pulling up the Live Histogram, and checking my settings. LCD may lie a lil but Histogram tells all :-D

Great shots btw!

[Rakesh Jacob]

Good tip!

[Jean Dantes]

Nice work Luis!! How are you finding the Sigma 30mm f1.4 + 7D combination?

[OPHERBA]

Very nice!
Thanks for sharing.

Johnnie

[Stephen Mick]

Jeez, Dantes! Just buy the freakin' lens already!


:D

Not to speak for the wookie here, but having worked with him on a recent job in Florida, I think he likes the lens quite a bit, as do I. The shots from it have beautiful color and contrast and it's super-sharp. A great lens for the money, no doubt.

[Everts]

so nobody in DC noticed a furry Chewbakka with his 7d ?

Nice footage.

[mcgeedigital]

And you never called.....

:violent5:


Looks good!

[Stephen Mick]

I told him to call you, Matt. You just can't talk sense into a wookie sometimes.

[mcgeedigital]

Tsk Tsk, and I just bought some Okoberfest for such an occasion.

[patssle]

I always heard that the security people in DC are anal about tripods. Not true?

[Luis Caffesse]

And you never called.....
You know - I actually thought twice about posting this stuff bc I figured you were going to give me a hard time, Matt. We seriously had zero free time - this wasn't one of those leisurely Mick shoots.
:)


Nice work Luis!! How are you finding the Sigma 30mm f1.4 + 7D combination?
Stephen pretty much summed up my thoughts on the Sigma.
I think it's a great lens to have if you're looking for a nice 'normal' prime.
The 30mm with the 1.6 crop winds up giving you the equivalent of a 48mm FOV, which comes in handy in a lot of situations. I've been using it for wide/mid shots on interviews, and a lot of of the wide broll shots in the stuff you saw from DC (the street shot from the car for example).

And the fact that it's FAST is really nice - the sweet spot on it seems to be around 2.8 or maybe 3.5... but at 1.4 I still think it holds up really well as far as sharpness and contrast go.

I had a few older manual nikons with me, and the Sigma definitely delivered a much better image than any of those.

If you don't have something else already in that focal range, I think the Sigma is definitely a great bang for the buck.

[Luis Caffesse]

I always heard that the security people in DC are anal about tripods. Not true?

We had a permit to shoot on the national mall on friday - so we had our bases covered.
We shot an interview, and a bit of that broll on Friday. But we did go back on Saturday and shoot some additional broll.
That said, not one person stopped us - and there were plenty of photographers out there with tripods.

Now, I'm not sure if we didn't get hassled because they were being lax on the security - or because we were shooting with the 7D and everyone thought we were shooting photos.
:)

That's actually part of the reason why I decided to go with the 7D on this gig, instead of the HPX/Letus combo.
Well, that and I didn't want to travel with all that gear if I didn't have to.

[Stephen Mick]

You know - I actually thought twice about posting this stuff bc I figured you were going to give me a hard time, Matt. We seriously had zero free time - this wasn't one of those leisurely Mick shoots.


Guess I'll have to punish you a bit harder on the next shoot we do, wookie.

[Luis Caffesse]

Guess I'll have to punish you a bit harder on the next shoot we do, wookie.

I think the meatloaf I had in Miami did that job for you already.
:zombie_smiley:

[ChipG]

so nobody in DC noticed a furry Chewbakka with his 7d ?

Nice footage.

I hear the secret service loves Star Wars.

[sblfilms]

Looks like something straight of a beltway political thriller :) Nice work Luis.

[chris f]

These shots just got me re-excited about the 7D. I was really high on the cam, and then read about it's shortcomings and kind of cooled off, but now I'm back in the excited camp.

[Ian-T]

Yeah I know what you mean. To me they looked like shots from an actual film. There were some very very small camera shakes but they still look like $milion dollar shots.

[Luis Caffesse]

There were some very very small camera shakes but they still look like $milion dollar shots.

I should take a picture of the tripod I was using.
:)

Just FYI - I think most of the shakes were due to either the tripod itself, my focus pulling skills on a 200mm lens, or the incredibly strong winds we had on Saturday afternoon.

I'm pretty sure a proper set of sticks/head and a follow focus on the long lens shots would have avoided a lot of those problems.