"Morten the photographer": dvx/SGPro rev.2

Smettli

Smettli

Well-known member
Hey guys.
My friend who is studying photography in Australia is back home in Norway on vacation and asked
if I could make him a little intro-piece for his photography website.
The intro is only supposed to be about 30 seconds and without sound, but since I love to edit, I made a longer version with sound to post here :)
Shot with 28mm and 55mm lenses, edited in premiere and CC with magic bullet.

45mb, 2:30min, h.264.

Right-click, save as..
http://www.rimeligok.no/anders/Morten-foto.mov


Morten-foto.jpg
 
Man, I am always impressed with your work. I am getting the sgpro soon and hope my work comes out half this nice. I am always impressed with your music choices. They always seem to compliment the imagery very well. As if you shot with that song in mind.

My only critique is I felt the shots of the girl in the backseat were a little too dark. It seems like you wanted her in the shadows, but there are times that you can hardly make her out.

Great job, hope to see more from you soon!
 
Thanks for your comment. You are right about the shot in the end with the girl, I didnt want people to really see her face, because the whole thing is kind of focused on my friend Morten. But I really liked the lights in the tunnel and thought it would be a nice contrast as an end compared to the other blue-ish footage. Though I see now that I have to color correct the tunnel shots, because the red is killing the resolution! :)

Thanks again.
 
Impressive as always! Do you try to mantain a certain f-stop to get that sharp focus on your subject?
Jgastelb
 
Great work smettli, loving your stuff. Your footage is making me want an SG pro real bad. Colour correction looks superb as well, has a great overall look to it.

Great choice of music as well, I haven't heard that version of colorblind before though, who is the artist?

once again thanks for sharing and keep up the great work!

daniel
 
Looks awesome - I'm hoping I can achieve the same kind of sharpness on my SGPro (I'm in on the August shipment). I know you're at a slight advantage already since you're shooting PAL, but the lenses and your calibration of them with the adapter must play a big role too (at least, I hope so!).

If you wouldn't mind, could you tell us a little more about your set up? What specific lenses, their type (MF or AF, etc), and their f-stop range, etc. Do you shoot the lenses wide open (it certainly looks like it in some of the shots) and do you leave the DVX lens open as well, or stop down to pick up more sharpness there? Any other tips or tricks you have for getting the same kind of performance (do you tweak the DVX scene file settings at all?) would be highly appreciated...

Before August I need to start putting together a set of primes - right now I have a few Nikon zooms (I don't plan on using them except maybe for daytime exteriors, they're much too slow otherwise) and a 50mm f/1.4 prime that is definitely going on the SGPro first thing. Do you find the Pentax lenses are inherently sharper than others you've tried?

Sorry for all the questions, it's just that all your footage has been a major selling point in me picking up the adapter. I think this latest clip is my favorite, because it shows how well the SGPro can handle daylight exteriors and it's really wonderful the way it rolls off the highlights. More than anything else, that was the thing that put me off some of the other adapter footage I saw (that, and the overall softness of the images).
 
Great work Smettli! Very clean. What software do you use to compress such high quality h264-file? I have always had problems with maintaining the gamma with h264 :( It would be great to hear about your compression settings.
 
Hey guys, Lot of replies here, gonna try to seperate the answers :)

jgastelb: I always try to stay at f-stop 2.0 and up, I rarely shoot at wide open, because the lens is not as sharp then.

danielwalding: The artist who did the cover is called: "Between The Buried And Me" and it is from the "The Anatomy Of" album. I seem to remember the song(though a diferent version) in the film "Cruel Intentions", is this correct?

Oedipax: I use the following lenses: A pentax-k 55mm f. 1.2-22 , and a Pentax-m 28mm f 2.8-22. Both fully manual lenses.
Only one shot (the one where he closes his eyes) is shot at f.1.2(wide open) when using the 55mm, I usually prefer to shoot at 2.8 or 4. Though when I use my 28mm I tend to shoot at 2.8 (wide open) to get the focus as shallow as possible, but I do knock that one down to 3.5-4 as well. When I'm shooting, I shoot after my 35mm lenses, which means I first set the desired f-stop, and then I ajdust the dvx's iris after that for correct exposure, so the dvx's iris varies constantly for each shot I make. THough I do believe that stopping the dvx's iris a bit sharpens the picture, so I try not to shoot the with the dvx's iris open up all the way. I don't tweak the scene file in any special way. I shoot at scene file F6, with gamma: "normal", matrix: "norm1", master ped: "- 6", skin detail: "thin", Detail level: "- 4", and the rest is set to "0". So there are no magic tricks, finding the right light plays the big part in general.
I'm sorry, but I don not have any experience with either nikons nor canon FD lenses. I use the pentax because I have been using an old 35mm pentax-mx camera a long time for still photography and was always fan of the pictures it produced and just kinda stuck with it. And for digital photography I use Canon EOS lenses, so I just dont have any experience with the ones you mentioned. But from what I have seen from other users, I'm sure Nikons are just as good, if not better.

tatsuo: As mentioned above: "Asahi smc Pentax-m 28mm f 2.8"., and a "Porst Pentax-k 55mm f 1.2."

badlaa: I also had gamma problems(too light) before when I exported h.264 files, but now as I got the new quicktime pro version(7.1.6.) it seems to have resovled the issue. My precedure of outputting a h.264 file is: First I export my clip as a DV-avi file from premiere, I then open my quicktime player and import the dv-avi file into quicktime player. THen I choose "export" (in quicktime player) and choose the setttings: Quality: "High(75)", resolution: "576x432", and set Sound to "ACC, 128kbps", and then just export the file.

Thanks for you comments, guys!

-cheers!
 
great! i like your music choice and those flashes with button sounds also compliments this video. As everyone said, another great vid from ya :), i noticed that you shoot everything 4:3, is that how it stays, or you do crop your video later? the MB was a bit too much in same shots though, like too dark and contrasted, IMHO :P
Finally, i`m also wondering about your compress settings and programme used, i know you already told me how you do it, but i just don`t get such good results with mov, don`t know why :( Thanks!!!
 
Hehe, the quicktime is being a *****, ey? :)
If shooting a short or something I would crop the image later on, but when I'm shooting to post here on this forum I rather keep it 4:3 so people can see the edge to edge sharpness. I see what you mean with MB, it's very..what can I call it..,"extreme".
 
yes, quicktime ain`t my pal anymore, i actually like windows media, really small sizes + I can`t see any dramatic quality loss...hhmm.
Anyways, yep, MB is a bit "extreme", lol. Hey Smettli, do you this for living(shooting videos i mean)?
 
Not yet, I've only done one paying job. But I just got an assignment together with a friend I worked together the last time. The job is to make a commercial and some information videos about a new school which is opening now, the first 3-year education program which will be required from now on if you are going to work for proper security copmanies. It's a pretty big job, and pays well. So I'm pretty psyched about that, especially since they hired us based on what they had seen us do with the plain dvx. We will probably surprise them quality wise with the Sgpro :)
 
i bet, 35 adapters do take DVX in a new category, i`ll be honest, i really look forward to the Letus35FE as i can`t afford Sgpro right now, DOF really makes a big difference :)
 
well, let`s see - Letus35FE is 700$, the Sgpro - 455 GBP, which is - 902$ (ish) and + there`s shipping :(, Letus is 700$ + shipping is included, well not to Latvia i guess :(, anyways, as I said the Sgpro looks like a better adapter, but i just can`t afford it now.
Oh and did I mention Letus35FE flips the image for you!!!! :)
 
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