T2i A few questions before the big shoot tomorrow!

[rye-man]

if using the grid just set the shot up well before shooting. if ur moving just judge it by eye

 

[dcorwin]

Well, yeah that's what one would have to do if there's no grid. But actually I have a screen protector on so I drew 4:3 lines on it.

 

[jonE5]

yeah kit lens is garbage. I wouldnt use it or any non-constant aperture lens for any sort of film work if i can help it.

Plenty of good constant aperture primes and zooms out there for even under $100 if your on a budget.

 

[rye-man]

yeah kit lens is garbage.

i just got the canon 50mm f/1.8 for when im doing filming. the kit lenses suck cuz u cant actually focus right. the 50mm works as a movie prime

 

[Kholi]

So I did the shoot last night. Here's some observations.

I stuck with the stock 18-55, keeping it at 18 the whole time. I also have the 55mm f1.8 that's mentioned in this thread. Lesson one is all the testing you do before a shoot isn't anything like when you're at the location doing the real thing! In my at-home tests I had daylight seeping in throw my windows, little things like that, that made the 18mm lens and my settings look good.

Now here I am in a smallish office room with no windows. I turned on my lights and the camera, had the actors in the frame and went "ut-oh, that's really dark!". I had to really bring the lights in close to properly light...

Shooting:
This is minor but wanted to double-check. It seems you can't display the grid lines while shooting? Is this right?

Basically with my lights and setup and tests I'm leaning toward shooting with these settings. Please beg to differ if I'm missing something (final output will be 4:3 NTSC):
1080 30p, shutter 60, ISO 100, F around 4, or 2.8 if I go with one of the lenses I haven't bought. Highlight tone priority ON seems like a good idea. 18% greycard as custom white balance.


-Dave

ISO 100 and 2.8~4 Splits? Indoors?

You must be using 20Ks or something

and not having an external monitor I had to hope I was getting usable footage via the little 3" viewfinder screen. I still made my shots from the storyboard with this setup, but after getting my footage I switched to the 55mm prime to do some safety retakes. Wow! Such a difference! But for wide or even medium shots I had to open the office door and shoot from a different room because of the closeness of the lens.

Even though it was 2am when I got back I just had to watch the footage. So I offloaded it and played it back on my big HD TV. Bottom line I LOVE THIS CAMERA! I breathed a huge sigh of relief, every shot setup was totally usable. It looks beautiful!

So the recap, at least in this situation and with my setup and my style of shooting, a lens that opens up to f1.8 is really ideal. And having an external monitor on the set would have been great to catch little things like a lavaliere wire poking out on the actor, or being able to check the actors' eyelines to make sure the shots will mesh. But the footage you can get out of this little cheap camera is pretty stunning! In my career of shooting I've gone from the first round of Sony miniDVs, then to the Sony HDVs, then switched to the Canon XH-A1, then more recently I jumped onto the DSLR wagon with the Nikon D90 and now this t2i. I had the D90 for about a week and besides the wobbles and crawl, the whole motion JPEG compression I just found unusable, so I was pretty scared to be doing a commercial production with the untried (by me) t2i. But it rocks!

-Dave

But, this makes me realize that no matter how much advice people are given, they just kind of need to be IN a situation to really learn. I was the same way, only after so many times of going "Hey! You were right!" I just listen now. For the most part, anyway. >=P

Post some footage.

 

[draven4]

That was the huge point I was trying to make. A prime is really better than a kit and you absolutely need that f1.8 stop. I remember the first time I threw a 50mm 1.8 (my first prime) and I immediately saw the difference. THe other people were telling you just to use the kit and I was like cringing in my seat hoping you'd listen to my advice. I guess you now know from the experience. Thanks for sharing you learnings.