7D for Interviews

roxics

roxics

Veteran
How do you think the 7D would work for interviews? I do a lot of corporate talking heads work at my job. I currently shoot this stuff on an XH-A1. Many times I shoot in front of a small green screen. Sometimes just an office-like setting. Every once in a while I'm shooting B-Roll of a location. But we do have a couple location TV commercial shoots coming up. Nothing to complicated. Generally along the same lines as our corporate talking heads stuff.

I guess my question is, would it be worth it to add the 7D to my arsenal?

Is there any benefits / drawbacks to shooting green screen footage with the 7D compared to the XH-A1?

How would I sell my boss on it when we already have a perfectly good camera?
 
For green screen footage you would not want to have to much a shallow DOF.
If its alll in focus the better. so the xha1 wins there

Seeing Im my own boss I go about it his way .
Man enters room :
Roxics :
Bossman, we got a 2 thousand dollar camera that can produce the same image as 20.000 dollar camera. and by dollars I mean US ....laughter hahaha....and its got slowmo that can be used on two different continents USA and Canada .

Bossman :
Ok Roxics get threee.

Than slowly but gently point him to philips bloom vimeo page.
 
I am trying to convince my boss of the same thing. I do a lot of interviews and a background blur would be very nice to look at instead of the dental offices just being the distraction. Even with all the footage to prove it and price tag they still think "they" know what's best for our footage quality. I'm pretty miffed that they can't see the light here. I have done some nice things for them with the 5D to try and sell them on the 7D...well I guess they get to continue on in the dark ages because I won't use my equipment for them anymore.
 
Remember guys that if you close the iris that your videos will have more depth of field. The DOF is the result of the iris. Most of these guys on line, like the 2 inch DOF thing. When I rented a Canon 5D MK2 I set my iris for f7, instead of f1.4. At f1.4 you have super shallow DOF, at f7-f11 you have a lot more in focus. So I think you could easily use this for interviews, just be ready to stop down.

I mean when (I do photography too) we do portraits we like to have f4/f5 but I won't shoot a group shot in anything less than f7 because the people on the back row will be out of focus.
 
I've shot many interviews, and being on an HVX with no lens adapter, my background is usually pretty crisp. Most of these interviews end up being in a conference room/office/etc. The DOF from a 5d/7d would be just dandy for me. External audio recorder syncing is no big deal. There is a thread somewhere with some great stills from 5d interviews... if I can find it I'll post the link.

Also, for green screen work, I'd look into the color space of both– as for the DOF– I would think if you have your subject in sharp focus, all of them from tip of nose to back of shoulder, having a blurred background with smooth the color and make it more even, thus making a key easier to achieve? I've never done it with 5d footage so I'd defer to someone who has.
 
Yeah I always thought the rule of thumb with green screens was to get the screen as out of focus as possible for a more consistent color.
 
I reciently did a corporate video for a medical council here in Atlanta. We shot on a 5dMII with a Fostex field recorder for audio. Every location was tiny and cramped, usually around 10'x12' rooms so I was restricted to the wide end of the lens. When I shoot for 2/3" or 1/2" or 1/3" or what have you i try to back the camera up and zoom in to get that separation but for this project I would have been boned, everything would have been in focus at the wide end of the lens. So, its great for corporate interviews in that respect.

Also, if you're doing green screen stuff you'd want the background to be out of focus to help hide any wrinkles in the fabric. It also blurs inconsistency in exposure giving you a somewhat more uniform green or blue. Soft lighting on the screen helps to hide wrinkles and give a more uniform wash of light as well.

Heres a couple, for most all of the interiors the camera was backed up as far into a corner of the room as possible and the subject was placed as close to camera as possible to give me the most depth from the tiny rooms.

collier.jpg

milby.jpg

lando.jpg

tikia.jpg

palmettobdukesinterview.jpg
 
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Hi Giallogreg: Really nice work. Thank you very much for posting these frame grabs.

Questions:

To help put these images in context, can you tell us what sort of f-stop & ISO settings you used to shoot these?

What was the typical distance the subjects were from from the lens, and what focal length(s) were used?

Do you use filters on the lens (diffusion, etc.)? For these interiors, did you use an ND on the lens?

I'm also curious what the key light source was, e.g.: tungsten, HMI, flo, etc.

Thanks again!
 
Thanks Giallogreg,
Those are great examples. Even more so because my next project is actually a local TV commercial for a doctors office. I should definitely show these to my project manager in hopes they can help me sell the boss on the 7D.


octopi_films said:
...well I guess they get to continue on in the dark ages because I won't use my equipment for them anymore.
Click to expand...

Yeah man you don't want you use your own stuff. I learned that as well. For a time I was bringing in my own manfrotto tripod to use with the camera. When I asked the boss if we could get a better tripod with a fluid head to replace the cheap plastic tripod he bought at best buy, he said "I thought we already had one." To which I had to reply "no, that was mine, but I sold it because I needed the money."
 
Peter J. DeCrescenzo said:
To help put these images in context, can you tell us what sort of f-stop & ISO settings you used to shoot these?
Click to expand...
F-Stop was around 2.8-4 for interiors except the second one and last one which was last one were around 8 and 5.6 respectively. ISO400 for everything.

Peter J. DeCrescenzo said:
What was the typical distance the subjects were from from the lens, and what focal length(s) were used?
Click to expand...
Subject was around 4-6ft from lens, focal lengths were between 24 for medium closeups and 50 for extreme closeups.

Peter J. DeCrescenzo said:
Do you use filters on the lens (diffusion, etc.)? For these interiors, did you use an ND on the lens?
Click to expand...
No filters except for the 2nd one. I used a polarizer initially on accident but then I noticed that when I rotated the ring it actually controlled background highlight exposure by about 1 stop. It was a cloudless day and we were in the shade bouncing light up on his face and everything in the background was in direct sunlight so I presume that the pola reduced all the specularities on the leaves, grass and water.

Peter J. DeCrescenzo said:
I'm also curious what the key light source was, e.g.: tungsten, HMI, flo, etc.
Click to expand...

Key for everything was a Small Chimera w/ 40 degree grid and coollights 200w fluorescent daylight bulb except the first one which used a 500w tungsten bulb. Fill for 1st one was a chinese lantern w/ 150 tungsten over the lens (a 650 was bounced off the ceiling for BG exposure), fill for 3&4 was a 650w fresnel w/ full CTB bouncing off a wall next to camera.

5 was 99% available light. We shot in a room with windows for walls essentially, they had those awesome vertical blinds. A chimera w/ fluo was used for fill. The light streaking the sofa in the bg was created by simply turning the blades on the window next to it which bounced sunlight right there.

The exterior I placed the subject in the shade next to a patch of sun and bounced light onto his face. I placed a small 12"x12" silver mattboard on a stand bouncing an edge light on him.
 
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