Are EX-1 Shooters a Dime a Dozen ?

Chadfish said:
David I really like those vids! I assume it's EX1 footage? In thing - the strobing. Is that intentional? That gets distracting pretty quickly. If it's a film effect plugin, I don't think it's necessary. You have a nice diffusion thing going on with the light and the color is cool.

Also What audio setup do you have there> It looks a bit like a Zoom H4, but you have a cable going down the mic stand. It that a stereo mic pointing at the harp? What model?
Click to expand...

hi chad,

EX1 & 5DmkII with a 200L 1.8. your the first one to mention about the strobing/flicker. i could have been happy to have backed off of it a little bit but am ok with where its at well. i appreciate your take on it though and good to hear honest feedback so thank you.

the 5DmkII for the playing part in the field was about 100' away with the 200mm 1.8. the EX1 was at the angle (closer view) about 50-60' away and zoomed in enough to somewhat match the shallow DOF of the 5D.

audio was the zoom H4n...only, nothing else. in the gazeebo shots i did have a lav up inside the harp box (lectrosonics) but it couldnt handle the explosion of sound with the limiters on the units. pure trash so it didnt get used.

a few of the shots i used an 85mm 1.2L on the 5DmkII as well.

we had a very bad wind problem. the little foam cover for the H4n didnt cut it very good. over 50% of the audio had distorted wind issues....trash can bound. i also had a Sennheiser shotgun in a "blimp" with the deadcat but opted out of using it since it looked horrible in the shots. the lady was having a fit when she saw it...i couldnt blame her and agreed. i still used it on the grass shots but it was out of the shot and too far away to be of any use. much of the time the strings just took off ringing since we were getting serious gusts. considering all of the negative elements with the audio i was still happy with what we got. not perfect but its real and honest and i can live with that plus it showed her in a real performance.

thanks
david
www.davidprobst.com
 
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An H4n - cool. You got a nice sound out of it. I saw the XLR cable coming out the back and got confused. I thought it may have been a mic. You may want to check this small furry out. It's at B&H, but they don't have the right photo so here's another link with a shot of it: http://www.dv247.com/microphones/rycote-055320-mini-windjammer-for-the-rode-nt4-microphone--28583

Here's the B&H page: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/277952-REG/Rycote_055320_Mini_Windjammer.html

It's designed for the Rode NT4 stereo mic, but I bet it would fit the H4n. It's no blimp, but that on top of the foam may save you some earaches.

That 5DmkII is turning out to be a nice complement to the EX1 as far as 2nd cameras go. They blended well.

I guess we should stop hijacking this thread! Sorry... Nice to meet you David. Keep up the good work. You play down your skills IMO - because your video stuff looks great. No doubt your still photography skill funded your video quality.

Cheers
 
There should be laws against people getting expensive cameras and thinking that they can shoot like a DP. DP in this case should be renamed "displaced person," someone from the ghetto trying to make some extra money by selling his services to anyone with his stolen camera. Anyway, in the professional world, there's "talent" on both sides of the lense -- some have it, and some don't. *** the talentless fourth Marxx brother -- Carl
 
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When I bought my high definition camera 5 years ago I shot at 30 frames per second and later delivered the footage on Blu-Ray and instantly achieved the coveted Todd AO look which was a famous film format of the 1950's. Now how many of todays so called Directors of Photography would have the guts to shoot a feature length film using the Todd AO format knowing the footage would look great on Blu-Ray but choppy when projected using film?
 
Why would Todd AO look choppy projected but not on blueray?

BluueRay does not do 30fps (Like Todd AO). I think if you are doing a true Todd AO you would have a 70mm film projector running at 30fps. If not, aren't you just projecting digital video at 30fps with an aspect of 2.20:1?
 
For theatrical release in most theatres Todd AO shot at 30 frames per second would have to be converted to 24 frames per second which would produce motion artifacts. For Blu-Ray release the 720p format supports 30 frames per second natively however there is no 1080p format support for 30fps so the footage would have to use progressively segmented frames over 1080i.

Of course most DP's would balk at the concept of trying to recreate the Todd AO look and would say that this is not practical. This is simply not true and for Blu-Ray release the results would look fantastic. The fact of the matter is that most DP's would rather not be bothered with any work flow that does not conform exactly to the prevailing industry standards yet these same DP's slam their more creative competition as being incompetent simply because they are not members of the American Society of Cinematographers.
 
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Me too. HD DVD supported 30P, and it's unfortunate that BD does not. I'd like 30P even better if I shot to an uncompressed, or even NanoFlash type device. I shoot 24P because of BD compatibility mostly, but also observed visibly better image quality, less compression artifacts.
 
BD does not support 30p natively. Two options:

1) Distribute within 720p60 with 2-2 frame repeat.
2) Distribute within 1080i60 as PsF and pray that a player/TV is smart enough to reconstruct 30p back. Better players with HQV or DVDO chips can do that. AFAIK, newer players with less fancy chips can do that too, but you will never be 100% sure.
 
60i is a disappointing option.. with 4:2:0 material, the color loses about half the resolution. Objects with high saturation, red sports cars, fire engines, etc., get all blocky around the edges. I'd rather look at temporal framerate mismatch than jaggies in the color channels. I encoded some 30P footage as 60i and put it on a BD and was shocked at how much worse it looked because of the loss of color subsampling. Went with 30->24P instead.
 
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