Indeed, 35mm is too wide for close-ups, or mid-close. When on a budget, 50 f/1.8 will do quite well.
C100: I need a New Look for 2017. What's your fave interview lens besides the 70-200?
- Thread starter nedcam
- Start date
Indeed, 35mm is too wide for close-ups, or mid-close. When on a budget, 50 f/1.8 will do quite well.
KarlSutton
Well-known member
I've done a few interviews with them speaking to an inanimate object and I always feel like there is something missing, can't decide if it's all in my head because I know they're not actually talking to someone or if it is something you can actually see.
JPNola
Veteran
The glut of new lenses makes for a buyer's used market. I'm seeing the CN-E 30-105mm already down to $15k used ( with custom hard case and 90 warranty! ). $8k off the retail price new. That is a very tempting price.
I want to know who pays $99k for a new 14.5-45mm Fujinon Premiere other than a rental house?? That's like $3300 per mm of focal length!
I also want to know why the Golden Globes don't have a Best Cinematography Award and haven't since 1963.
Bern Caughey
Veteran
gkantziper
Esteemed Member
Ned, you're a legend in your own mind. Just kidding, of course. Well I am too. Ha! From the nets behind the lens shooting 640x480 of the past to this era of 6K GH5s for $2000. "Just" 32 years for me and I can see the last wrap coming any year now with my sheltered funds that'll see me through the golden years. I just keep telling myself to savor the moments instead of sweating the focus, framing and exposure.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
To me, for many users, 50mm to 100mm focal length range is neither here nor there. Not wide enough for handheld run and gun, moving subject event work and for interviews, can easily be replaced by two inexpensive 1.8 primes (50mm and 85mm 1.8) that are a lot cheaper, smaller and lighter, not sure what you are gaining by building those two ranges into a single zoom, other than I know the Sigma looks nice? I guess if you are noob and don't already have the prerequisite 28, 50, 85 1.8 prime trio, not a bad way to go but the range is too short and limited to be useful outside of interviews for most.
bill totolo
Veteran
Just got some footage back from another interview last year.
Had two HMI's filtered through unbleached mus to bring up exposure levels to match the windows:
Had two HMI's filtered through unbleached mus to bring up exposure levels to match the windows:
I really dig his skin tone. What cam/lens were you using?
JPNola
Veteran
In my expert analysis the qualities strongly indicate the Canon CN-E 30-105mm T2.8 L S telephoto Cinema zoom. :tongue:
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Great looking interview Bill. How did you hold the windows so well? Concrete looks almost blown out but all of the foliage makes it work. What did you light this with?
indiawilds
Veteran
Love this!
Jim Feeley
Veteran
When I worked with the 50-100, the breathing was a drag. But we used it mostly for interviews where the ability to change focal length by a few or a dozen mm (ie- to something other than 50 or 85) to get the framing we wanted was easier than trying to reposition the camera in some tight spaces. It's a tool and not too expensive. But just one tool.
cpreston
Veteran
I own most of the primes and I still tend to use zooms for interviews. It is just a lot quicker and simpler to do a quick focal length change to get the proper framing then try to move the camera, especially if you need to make a change in the middle of the interview. Most of the time, I don't even have a choice on where to put the camera. There just isn't enough space. That being said, I generally rely on the Canon L zooms and only bring out the Sigma f/1.8 zooms when I am in a tiny office. Also, the 18-35 f/1.8 is very useful shooting low light events.
Lots of options to vary look: Vintage lenses are good ones. I sometimes use old Nikkor 55/1.2 w/EF adapter. Old Leica R lenses w/EF adapter are great! Lens Baby has some interesting options. Velvet 56 looks great. You could even try Sweet 35 or Edge 50 or Edge 80 on Composer Pro.
I'll leave the higher budget options aside for now.
I'll leave the higher budget options aside for now.
bill totolo
Veteran
Thanks, all.
As usual, Canon C300 in CLog w/ CN-E 30-105 at F/ 2.8
(1) ARRI M18 + (1) Joker 800 through 6x6 unbleached muslin.
Beadboard on fill side. No ND's on windows.
Just shot John Legend today under very similar circumstances. Used ND 1.2 on windows and made a book light with M18, will share in about a month once embargo is lifted.
Cameras were C300 MKII's. My first time with the new firmware. Tried Clog III/Cinema Gamut/Production Camera Matrix. It's like a whole new camera. Love the firmware update.
Tomorrow, Jason Bourne...
rob norton
Veteran
I'm interested to see the results. I've never used 1.2 ND on windows, only ever .6/.9
bill totolo
Veteran
Had to slow down the building in b/g that was blowing up. Looks normal, will share when embargo is lifted.
nedcam
Well-known member
I'm procrastinating by threading here...It's 11:30AM for God's sake and I've got to shake the client tree for some work!! Oh well.
I think we need to divide up this forum between the LA/NYC guys and what Apple used to call: "The Rest of Us." On the coasts video is part of a real industry and the budgets are much higher, especially if you're working for the studios and networks or their PR arm. If you coastal guys can afford CN-E 30-105s, Cabrios and plan to buy the Canon 18-80 (without charging extra for it, as was the topic of another thread), wow, you're dealing with budget levels we can't get here. Chicago's mother's milk is corporate videos, which is another name for marketing, and they run lean and it's a buyer's market for them in terms of choosing shooters. So perhaps we should color code or something who is on the coasts? SF, Seattle & DC rates are also high rolling, as the election showed, their economies are hot. Different worlds in terms of rates...
Anyways...I researched the Sigma 18-35 and it seems nice but limiting. I think my issue is that once I am locked into the 70-200 composition and someone starts talking with their hands, I'm stuck, can't zoom out far enough during the interviewer's question. I think I want to buy a 50 and an 85, which I sold with my AF100 but they were Zeiss. My question is, since I'd like to stay in the Canon line, which 50 & 85 Canons are you using and happy with?
Yesterday a NYC producer came in with his two BMCs, he hired me to do the b-roll because he is self taught and knows enough about camera tech to do beautiful talking heads, but can't do run around b-roll doc shooting like me. I was fascinated with how wide his main shot was and he showed me that he needs the real estate for text. So I may incorporate that look the next shoot when I know I'm in charge of post and the environment is not too messy, but I only do the post perhaps 25% of the time. Although I have the blahs about my interviews looking the same, due to always defaulting to my favorite lens, after all, talking heads is about the easiest thing I can do to make money besides a cancellation fee, right? I've even developed a technique to read the news on my phone with know one knowing. Here's my thoughts to what posters said while I was busy:
JOHN FOUNDAS: You like the Sigma 50-100, could you please email me where I can see examples of it? That may kill two birds with one stone and allow me to quickly zoom out when someone starts emoting with their hands.
CPRESTON: Pitched the 4x4s, sorry. I used to have a cool case with slots to hold them. When this inter webby thing first got started, I was in the cat bird seat and travelled the world for about 3 or 4 years (before competition heated up) because every resort, vacation destination and cruise ship line desperately needed a home page video, so I had to get good at using grads (graduated filters) to make the sky and/or water pop. I knew the basics from having to shoot the Chicago skyline and lake constantly, but oceans were a different beast, combined with pola to make the clouds pop. But now? Any chimpanzee can enhance the water, sky and clouds in post, right? So why go through the Ebay hassle of selling 30 filters. Whatever happened to the Chroziel company?
ROB NORTON: That pic of me on the front of the 1997 cameramen's magazine I was about 44, I had started as a film AC at 23. It was an interesting photo because it was shot in Prague by a well known pro photog named Alan Teller who is a gallery owner. His wife's mother was a child in the Czechoslovakian town of Lidice (Google it) when the Nazis came in and massacred most, but if a Christian orphan baby had blond hair and blue eyes, it was given to an SS couple to adopt. Fast forward 45 years and the secret Gestapo files became available and lots of adults found out they were not who they thought they were. Alan self funded the feature length doc. Very fascinating content! Also, we had free run of Auschwitz for two days without a guide, but I digress...
RUN & GUN: I'm with you, which is why I want out soon. For everyone who throws everything in for free, meaning the same rate as you solo with one camera, congratulations! You've ruined the business over the last ten years to "gain marketshare". As a black bear waddling into town for more free treats, you've accustomed the clients to pit each of us against one another for ever lower prices. The bear expects more and more. At least here in Chicago. I'm somewhat guilty myself in that I include the Osmo, (but I actually have FUN using it), I direct for free, which is probably why so many hire me, I do the stills, I even do make up. But gear should not be thrown in at the same price as no gear. And that's where the expression, "Does your price include a drone?" comes from. So year after year I see the rates go down, down, down (except for the sound men, which I can't figure out why). The coastal elites may be immune to such market forces however?
BILL TOTOLO: What size vehicle do you use, or are you hiring a grip truck?
ERIC: You wrote: "I'm not an amazing and empathetic people person." Me neither, but I'm a great faker! I'm too much a blunt Midwesterner with no filter. My forays into directing actors were always abysmal failures because that crowd can smell a phony a mile away. I have watched great directors at work in person, including Robert Altman (someday ask me how I got fired from that feature film). However, for my own survival in post I have to make sure during interviews that the answers we are getting in an interview is what I need to edit coherently, and I can't leave that up to the Director of Marketing or any other inexperienced person from the client side. I hate when they say, "Ned, we're just going to have a conversation with them and I'm sure you'll be able to make something of it in the editing." Well, no, I can't, I don't have a magic wand sir. There is a great secret that only the smart, most experienced clients know: If the cameraperson is also going to do the editing, he or she will be much more careful! I know that's true with me, how about you?
KARL SUTTON: Me too, I have made smiley faces on Post It notes and placed them on a stand for the interviewee to look at, but only on a corporate type gig. I tend to do a lot of emotional, fund raising docs where they need an empathetic face to look at, so there needs to be a humanoid in a chair. I would feel guilty if they started crying to a Post It note! I do have a full size teleprompter and have had mine or the interviewer's face on the mirror for direct eye contact, ala Errol Morris style (who by the way didn't invent that technique).
RUN & GUN: You wrote: "the unmanned cam is almost always the wide shot". I'm the opposite. I use the best background for my main shot, so the side angle would most likely be aiming at the ugly area of the room, so I stay tight. But as my DP honor demands, if they have gotten me at minimum wage, I will do only one camera, unless it's a non-profit I feel sorry for. I really, really, really hate feeling as I am being taken advantage of rate wise, and that is now why I feel a corrosive disenchantment with the shooter biz, having experienced the very profitable Golden Years of Shooting, so I'm groping for a financial way out. (Do I even want to drop $600-$800 on a new lens?)
DRESS: There was a comment about dress. I film kids a lot, often in schools where they are at little desks, and pets (I shoot for Animal Planet), so I have wrestling knee pads in my kit. Not only do they protect my 63 year old knees from more pain but if I am wearing decent biz casual slacks they protect them from wearing out. So when I am not rolling I push them down to my ankles, I often work all day with them on and that causes people to stare, but those people seldom have to kneel on gravel, right? I highly recommend you all keep wrestling knee pads in your kit. See below.
So that sums up stuff. BTW, I am off ND gels after a lengthy rehab and now only carry Rosco Scrim in a PVC tube, to bring down hot windows. Since I am often solo or a 2 or 3 person crew, the likelihood that the others know how to smoothly roll it on a window after accurate measuring and cutting, without bubbles, is zero 100% of the time. This scrim is great except at certain angles it may cause moire, actually looks like mosquito netting. Try it. It's also reusable. Many office buildings you'll notice have the same width of windows, so it's infinitely reusable. Here in the middle of Fly Over Country, away from the coasts, clients scoff at being billed for expendables, so reusable is a good thing. But protect it in a 5" PVC tube:
http://www.stagelightingstore.com/Rosco-Cinegel-3421-Black-Scrim-48-x-25-Roll
You can tell by the length of my posts if I'm busy or slow! Got to do some marketing now. Losing estimates left and right.
See ya,
Ned
P.S. About choosing which density of gel to use for hot windows, in beautiful California much of the year the sky is unclouded all day. Here in the Midwest, there's almost always some clouds, so the exterior can change in one second about 3 or 4 stops, so I have to take that into consideration if I even want a window in the bg, but Rosco Scrim splits the difference in the middle at 2 stops. Try it!
I think we need to divide up this forum between the LA/NYC guys and what Apple used to call: "The Rest of Us." On the coasts video is part of a real industry and the budgets are much higher, especially if you're working for the studios and networks or their PR arm. If you coastal guys can afford CN-E 30-105s, Cabrios and plan to buy the Canon 18-80 (without charging extra for it, as was the topic of another thread), wow, you're dealing with budget levels we can't get here. Chicago's mother's milk is corporate videos, which is another name for marketing, and they run lean and it's a buyer's market for them in terms of choosing shooters. So perhaps we should color code or something who is on the coasts? SF, Seattle & DC rates are also high rolling, as the election showed, their economies are hot. Different worlds in terms of rates...
Anyways...I researched the Sigma 18-35 and it seems nice but limiting. I think my issue is that once I am locked into the 70-200 composition and someone starts talking with their hands, I'm stuck, can't zoom out far enough during the interviewer's question. I think I want to buy a 50 and an 85, which I sold with my AF100 but they were Zeiss. My question is, since I'd like to stay in the Canon line, which 50 & 85 Canons are you using and happy with?
Yesterday a NYC producer came in with his two BMCs, he hired me to do the b-roll because he is self taught and knows enough about camera tech to do beautiful talking heads, but can't do run around b-roll doc shooting like me. I was fascinated with how wide his main shot was and he showed me that he needs the real estate for text. So I may incorporate that look the next shoot when I know I'm in charge of post and the environment is not too messy, but I only do the post perhaps 25% of the time. Although I have the blahs about my interviews looking the same, due to always defaulting to my favorite lens, after all, talking heads is about the easiest thing I can do to make money besides a cancellation fee, right? I've even developed a technique to read the news on my phone with know one knowing. Here's my thoughts to what posters said while I was busy:
JOHN FOUNDAS: You like the Sigma 50-100, could you please email me where I can see examples of it? That may kill two birds with one stone and allow me to quickly zoom out when someone starts emoting with their hands.
CPRESTON: Pitched the 4x4s, sorry. I used to have a cool case with slots to hold them. When this inter webby thing first got started, I was in the cat bird seat and travelled the world for about 3 or 4 years (before competition heated up) because every resort, vacation destination and cruise ship line desperately needed a home page video, so I had to get good at using grads (graduated filters) to make the sky and/or water pop. I knew the basics from having to shoot the Chicago skyline and lake constantly, but oceans were a different beast, combined with pola to make the clouds pop. But now? Any chimpanzee can enhance the water, sky and clouds in post, right? So why go through the Ebay hassle of selling 30 filters. Whatever happened to the Chroziel company?
ROB NORTON: That pic of me on the front of the 1997 cameramen's magazine I was about 44, I had started as a film AC at 23. It was an interesting photo because it was shot in Prague by a well known pro photog named Alan Teller who is a gallery owner. His wife's mother was a child in the Czechoslovakian town of Lidice (Google it) when the Nazis came in and massacred most, but if a Christian orphan baby had blond hair and blue eyes, it was given to an SS couple to adopt. Fast forward 45 years and the secret Gestapo files became available and lots of adults found out they were not who they thought they were. Alan self funded the feature length doc. Very fascinating content! Also, we had free run of Auschwitz for two days without a guide, but I digress...
RUN & GUN: I'm with you, which is why I want out soon. For everyone who throws everything in for free, meaning the same rate as you solo with one camera, congratulations! You've ruined the business over the last ten years to "gain marketshare". As a black bear waddling into town for more free treats, you've accustomed the clients to pit each of us against one another for ever lower prices. The bear expects more and more. At least here in Chicago. I'm somewhat guilty myself in that I include the Osmo, (but I actually have FUN using it), I direct for free, which is probably why so many hire me, I do the stills, I even do make up. But gear should not be thrown in at the same price as no gear. And that's where the expression, "Does your price include a drone?" comes from. So year after year I see the rates go down, down, down (except for the sound men, which I can't figure out why). The coastal elites may be immune to such market forces however?
BILL TOTOLO: What size vehicle do you use, or are you hiring a grip truck?
ERIC: You wrote: "I'm not an amazing and empathetic people person." Me neither, but I'm a great faker! I'm too much a blunt Midwesterner with no filter. My forays into directing actors were always abysmal failures because that crowd can smell a phony a mile away. I have watched great directors at work in person, including Robert Altman (someday ask me how I got fired from that feature film). However, for my own survival in post I have to make sure during interviews that the answers we are getting in an interview is what I need to edit coherently, and I can't leave that up to the Director of Marketing or any other inexperienced person from the client side. I hate when they say, "Ned, we're just going to have a conversation with them and I'm sure you'll be able to make something of it in the editing." Well, no, I can't, I don't have a magic wand sir. There is a great secret that only the smart, most experienced clients know: If the cameraperson is also going to do the editing, he or she will be much more careful! I know that's true with me, how about you?
KARL SUTTON: Me too, I have made smiley faces on Post It notes and placed them on a stand for the interviewee to look at, but only on a corporate type gig. I tend to do a lot of emotional, fund raising docs where they need an empathetic face to look at, so there needs to be a humanoid in a chair. I would feel guilty if they started crying to a Post It note! I do have a full size teleprompter and have had mine or the interviewer's face on the mirror for direct eye contact, ala Errol Morris style (who by the way didn't invent that technique).
RUN & GUN: You wrote: "the unmanned cam is almost always the wide shot". I'm the opposite. I use the best background for my main shot, so the side angle would most likely be aiming at the ugly area of the room, so I stay tight. But as my DP honor demands, if they have gotten me at minimum wage, I will do only one camera, unless it's a non-profit I feel sorry for. I really, really, really hate feeling as I am being taken advantage of rate wise, and that is now why I feel a corrosive disenchantment with the shooter biz, having experienced the very profitable Golden Years of Shooting, so I'm groping for a financial way out. (Do I even want to drop $600-$800 on a new lens?)
DRESS: There was a comment about dress. I film kids a lot, often in schools where they are at little desks, and pets (I shoot for Animal Planet), so I have wrestling knee pads in my kit. Not only do they protect my 63 year old knees from more pain but if I am wearing decent biz casual slacks they protect them from wearing out. So when I am not rolling I push them down to my ankles, I often work all day with them on and that causes people to stare, but those people seldom have to kneel on gravel, right? I highly recommend you all keep wrestling knee pads in your kit. See below.
So that sums up stuff. BTW, I am off ND gels after a lengthy rehab and now only carry Rosco Scrim in a PVC tube, to bring down hot windows. Since I am often solo or a 2 or 3 person crew, the likelihood that the others know how to smoothly roll it on a window after accurate measuring and cutting, without bubbles, is zero 100% of the time. This scrim is great except at certain angles it may cause moire, actually looks like mosquito netting. Try it. It's also reusable. Many office buildings you'll notice have the same width of windows, so it's infinitely reusable. Here in the middle of Fly Over Country, away from the coasts, clients scoff at being billed for expendables, so reusable is a good thing. But protect it in a 5" PVC tube:
http://www.stagelightingstore.com/Rosco-Cinegel-3421-Black-Scrim-48-x-25-Roll
You can tell by the length of my posts if I'm busy or slow! Got to do some marketing now. Losing estimates left and right.
See ya,
Ned
P.S. About choosing which density of gel to use for hot windows, in beautiful California much of the year the sky is unclouded all day. Here in the Midwest, there's almost always some clouds, so the exterior can change in one second about 3 or 4 stops, so I have to take that into consideration if I even want a window in the bg, but Rosco Scrim splits the difference in the middle at 2 stops. Try it!
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Eric Coughlin
Veteran
Whenever I'm producing and editing the piece, I always insist on me writing the interview questions and not the client (but from there I'll typically have one of their people asking the interview questions I wrote). I do sometimes ask for their input (aside from various questions I'll ask the client to get a feel for their message, organization, etc., which helps me to guide the story and interview questions) and if they have ideas for questions it can help me, as long as they don't insist I use questions they wrote which I don't think will be beneficial to the edit and will thus only add to the interview filming time.
When I'm not producing and editing the piece, and the producer is say, inexperienced, and makes mistakes such as asking yes or no questions, accepting answers that are too short to use in an edit, etc., sometimes I wonder whether I should make suggestions on how to properly interview someone, or if I should just sit back and let them do their job.
combatentropy
Veteran
I don't know, but 90% of interviewers make me either cringe or want to scream at the TV.