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PXW-Z450 demo footage after NAB

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    Other: PXW-Z450 demo footage after NAB

    I was working for Sony again this year at NAB and one of the cameras that I was assigned to demonstrate was the new PXW-Z450. What makes this camera unique is that it is the industry's first traditional 2/3", shoulder-mount, ENG (Electronic News Gathering) camcorder. The camera features a standard B4 lens mount, 4 channels of audio, T/C in and out, several XAVC-I 10-bit codecs, and it captures 4K UHD at up to 60 frames per second. At the conclusion of NAB Sony asked me if I wanted to take the camera with me to do some "real" shooting out in the field. I was already in the middle of a four week road trip shooting nature/wildlife stock footage with my PMW-F55, so I jumped at the chance to test drive the Z450. There are many things about the F55 (such as the 16-bit RAW recorder and S-LOG) that are missing on the Z450, but the prospect of going back to a 2/3" ENG lens was too hard to resist. The folks at Fujinon were kind enough to lend me one of their excellent HA19x7.4 BERD-S6 lenses for the trip. Technically Fujinon classifies this as an "HD" lens but I thought it performed very well on the 4K Sony camcorder.

    So this video is a 4 minute demo reel of the footage I shot over the course of the trip. I shot about 8 hours of raw footage and have culled it down to about two hours of footage (550 shots) that I think is worthy as submission for stock footage. I visited Red Rocks Conservation Area; Valley of Fire State Park; Zion National Park; Bryce Canyon National Park; Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge; Grand Teton National Park; Yellowstone; Niagara Falls; and few other stops along the way. I only had a day or two to spend in each location so I just had to accept whatever weather, wildlife, etc. I was given . . . and then move on.

    I think the camera and lens performed very well and it was a nice change of pace to be working again with a 19x ENG-style lens. Since I work alone it was great not to have to swap lenses all the time -- as I do with my F55 -- and the huge focal length range of the Fujinon lens allowed me to get everything from extreme close-ups to wide shots effortlessly.

    Camera: Sony PXW-Z450
    Lens: Fujinon 19x7.4 BERD-S6
    Tripod: O'Connor 1030D
    Codec: 4K XAVC-I @ 60 fps -- converted to 29.97 in post.
    Gamma: Hypergamma
    Graded with DaVinci Resolve 12.5
    Edited with Adobe Premiere CC

    Doug Jensen, Sony camcorder instructor
    HOW TO MAKE MONEY SHOOTING STOCK
    http://www.dougjensen.com/

    #2
    Video doesn't show up, could you add direct link?

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      #3
      You sure have an eye for the beauty around us Doug.

      Comment


        #4
        Thanks for sharing. Love the shot of the Buffalo coming up the slope towards the end. Great stuff!

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          #5
          Thanks for the kind comments guys. It was a lot of fun to shoot and grade but now comes the drudgery of uploading and keywording the 500+ shots I got on the trip. :-(
          Doug Jensen, Sony camcorder instructor
          HOW TO MAKE MONEY SHOOTING STOCK
          http://www.dougjensen.com/

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            #6
            Doug, that is freakin AWESOME! In addition to your obvious skills, you must be in great physical shape. I used a Sony 2/3' betacam with that O'Connor head. That is a beast to tote through the boonies. I assume you work solo and so your own schlepping.

            It would be great if you could do a two or three day school on camera technique.

            JoJo.....head groupie

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              #7
              The key when shooting is to carry the gear about as far as you can stand . . . stop and shoot something . . . and then repeat as many times as necessary until you are ready to turn back. Plus, you gotta plan your locations so a lot of walking or hiking is not needed. I would say that in the video above, the average distance between the camera and my van was less than 25' and only a couple of shots farther than 100 yards. Niagara Falls was actually the toughest location of them all. You won't find me hiking two miles and then spending five days sitting in a blind waiting for a squirrel to come and eat a nut. That is the difference between a true top-level nature cameraman and someone like myself who is just a casual shooter as opportunities present themselves. Funny thing is, when I was in Yellowstone last month I encountered a crew of six Japanese guys plus a ranger who were shooting 8K for NHK. Their camera and tripod was smaller than mine.

              I was at Ken Burns' offices in New Hampshire a few yeas ago to shoot an interview with him while they were in the middle of working on his "National Parks" PBS series. And we were talking about the logistics of shooting in the parks. He was laughing because he said originally they would park their truck and hike miles off into the wilderness to get thier shots. But as the production progressed they started to realize that a lot of the best vantage points were right from roadside pullouts and parking lots. I remember him saying that "the guys that laid out those roads knew how to take advantage of the best vantage points". I could not agree more.
              Last edited by Doug Jensen; 06-20-2017, 12:06 PM.
              Doug Jensen, Sony camcorder instructor
              HOW TO MAKE MONEY SHOOTING STOCK
              http://www.dougjensen.com/

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                #8
                Z450 - will get S-LOG and HLG

                Well, a fantastic camera just got better. I got confirmation from Sony a few days ago that the Z450 will get a firmware update later this year to add HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) and S-LOG3 capabilities. So, if you want to keep your post-workflow simple and not be bothered with grading — then shoot with a normal Hypergamma Scene File, as I have done in the video above. But if you want to push the boundaries of performance even further, then you’ll be happy that S-LOG and HLG are coming to the Z450 soon.
                Doug Jensen, Sony camcorder instructor
                HOW TO MAKE MONEY SHOOTING STOCK
                http://www.dougjensen.com/

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                  #9
                  Good to know and thanks for the update Doug.

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                    #10
                    I miss 2/3".
                    KPSR, Inc.
                    FS7s

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                      #11
                      As a long form doc shooter for many years, the transitions, first from S16 to video, then from 2/3 to s35 cameras were all very painful.
                      If this camera had come out a few years earlier, It would have saved me a lot of agony !!

                      =mark=

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                        #12
                        I completely agree. If this camera had been available in 2013 I would have transitioned from my F800 in to a Z450 and probably never would have gotten an F55. But now I have gone too far down that path to go back now.
                        Doug Jensen, Sony camcorder instructor
                        HOW TO MAKE MONEY SHOOTING STOCK
                        http://www.dougjensen.com/

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                          #13
                          Nice footage!

                          Originally posted by Doug Jensen View Post
                          But as the production progressed they started to realize that a lot of the best vantage points were right from roadside pullouts and parking lots. I remember him saying that "the guys that laid out those roads knew how to take advantage of the best vantage points". I could not agree more.
                          That is so true. I wasted lots of time searching for birds in the dunes here, only to find them near the parkings.
                          Peter Bosman

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                            #14
                            I shot all of the footage in this video last Friday morning in less than three hours -- and never more than about 10 feet (3 meters) from the bumper of my van. You're not going to find me hiking 10 miles into the wetlands or sitting in a blind for three days. :-)

                            Doug Jensen, Sony camcorder instructor
                            HOW TO MAKE MONEY SHOOTING STOCK
                            http://www.dougjensen.com/

                            Comment


                              #15
                              The images really pop. Looks fantastic. I like the tracking shots especially. Thanks for sharing this.

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