Oh dear... how am I going to do this?

O

Oller Visuals

Well-known member
Shooting a low-budget music video (personal project), no money and all in slow-mo, having the slightly "overexposed" look. t2i/550D and that means 720p / 120s and low ISO's. Will convert everything to 10-bit uncompressed and will probably have to push things to the limit to get the look right in post. But 720p or Canon DSLR is even worse than 1080p, so I know it's important to get the look in camera. Not underexposing in 720p is critical or the image falls apart completely.

I pulled up the drapes in my living room to get an idea how much light I would need for exposure. For some reason I haven't bothered checking this out until now...couldn't be that bad, right? t2i is kind of decent after all... but paniced when I looked at the exposure using 720p / 120 shutter...

I'm going to need LIGHT... LOTS of light... or a better camera.

The room is 5x5m (16x16 feet). http://i.imgur.com/0T9isAl.gif
(Hope the image looks right in size, hard to scale for the net on a 4K monitor)

0T9isAl.gif



I don't have all the studio equipment at home for a few more weeks, will of course experiment then but be honest with me. Is this setup even realistic? There is going to be flowing drapes, a bed in the middle of the room and other stuff basicly making it impossible to cram in more lights and also a fire hazard...

Last resort would be selling the t2i and buy a high-iso capable camera (Canon 6D). I've had it before when my economy was better and it does produce an image of good quality in 720p up to 3200 ISO with cinestyle. With t2i I'm stuck with... well... 640 at best (?) Probably not even that if I want an image that can be graded. Argument for "investing" back to 6D is that I hopefully will make some money on this project. But the client work I normally do is low-end and does fine with a t2i. I'm perfectly happy with the t2i, but I'm not sure it will do for this project. Eat the cake and have it, huh?

Could it work? Or would it require more lights? More cheap worklights would be an option, but... there's a big fan blowing drapes, the models hair etc... I don't know... gonna be tense as it is with all these lights in such a small space.

Please make me a little more sane...
 
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For starters, could the real window become not covered up? When you don't have all the luxuries of a larger production, the right time of day is your friend.
 
Yeah, I wouldn't trust any 720p Canon footage, especially with fine patterns like drapes!

There are many options I could recommend, but my new favorite tool for a budget job like this is a Panasonic G6 and an RJ speedbooster clone.

The G6 is about the same price as a rebel, yet it has a 60p mode at full 1080 HD and with an RJ focal reducer (speedbooster clone), I've thrown EOS mount glass on it and gained a stop of light in the process. So an 85mm F/1.4 becomes a 50mm F/1.0 (?!) which is plenty of light to work with at 1/120 shutter, not to mention it actually records full 1080 at 60fps and no moire or aliasing to be worried about.

G6 is about $599 (I found an open box at Adorama for $525), RJ focal reducer in EOS mount (also available in FD, Nikon, etc) is about $130. You'll get a lot more functionality out of that than a 6D or 550D.
 
The light coming in the window should be THE key source. The photos you show as examples are lit that way. If the room is ground level, put the lights outside the the window. Use enough soft bounce inside to fill the shadows, but the bulk of the light should come from outside.
Haven't done it in some years, but I used to stack two 6 lamp mini-brutes shooting through diffusion outside of a window to get this kind of effect. If you use work lights, six of those shooting through a frame covered with heavy tracing paper or set low shooting up into an angled 4x8 sheet of foam core for a large soft bounce should do the trick. Or pick the right time of day and use the sun coming through the window with foam core set low for bounce to fill the shadows a bit. Add tracing paper to the window for diffusion if needed.
 
Agreed, boost the 'sun' outside the real window with more lights - sure, the window area will 'blow out' on video, but that won't matter so long as you pick your camera positions correctly.
 
I would also try to use the sun as the main light source. It's free, you just have to adjust your shooting times to whenever it shines the way you want it (which doesn't necessarily mean shining through the window). Renting or borrowing a better camera wouldn't hurt either (D5300?).
 
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My issue with renting is that the relatively few companies that offer this in my country usually rent older type of DSLR's (like 7D/5dmk2) or mid/high-end video cameras, many I don't have experience with. Renting for example a Red or C300 costs about 200 Euro/day + shipping back & fourth to the company, IMO I can as well sell the t2i then and buy a 6D, the total costs of renting (and the reduced flexibility of shooting anytime I want / when the model finally shows up) doesn't make it a good option for me. Also add time to actually learn the camera system for at least a day before the shoot.

Regarding the window... just realized I can stick some colored film on there to make the daylight match my lights.
 
How about a couple of shiney boards placed outside the window pushing the sunlight in. That will be far more than two 500 watt open face lights.
 
Oller Visuals said:
...I can as well sell the t2i then and buy a 6D...
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You're not going to gain much with a 6D really. You're going to have the same issues with slomo and moire. If you want to stick with Canon, the C100 would be the first camera that could do this using the 50i/60i footage to create slomo 24p.
Unfortunately what you want to do is not well suited to the camera you have. I hate to say that as I do like Canons, but you'll either have to adjust the concept or the gear.
 
Andrius Simutis said:
You're not going to gain much with a 6D really. You're going to have the same issues with slomo and moire. If you want to stick with Canon, the C100 would be the first camera that could do this using the 50i/60i footage to create slomo 24p.
Unfortunately what you want to do is not well suited to the camera you have. I hate to say that as I do like Canons, but you'll either have to adjust the concept or the gear.
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Hence why I suggested the G6- cheap camera that does great 60P. Look at my title on the left... I'm the moderator for the Canon DSLR video section and even I wouldn't recommend a Canon for this anymore!
 
M. Gilden said:
Hence why I suggested the G6- cheap camera that does great 60P. Look at my title on the left... I'm the moderator for the Canon DSLR video section and even I wouldn't recommend a Canon for this anymore!
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Yep. The Canon DSLRs are still great, but just not great for everything. But like all choices in life there are pros and cons.
Back to the topic…can you borrow a camera from someone? If it's truly no budget then you'll probably have to call in favors.
 
If you light it with high contrast, you can give the illusion of sharpness and detail.I recently did a shoot with the 5d2 was worried the image wasn't up to par anymore, of course I was way wrong. It turned out nice, however I shot it with high contrast light, set, wardrobe, and added post sharpening. I think if you do a test, try what I'm suggesting and see if it's useable. Or get a G6, which is an amazing camera. I love mine.
 
M. Gilden said:
Hence why I suggested the G6- cheap camera that does great 60P. Look at my title on the left... I'm the moderator for the Canon DSLR video section and even I wouldn't recommend a Canon for this anymore!
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Yes I looked this up a bit, had a GH3 before and still have the adapters. The Panny G6 is very cheap in Sweden right now. Think I'm going with this. Also didn't know about the speedboster clone, gonna check that out.

Probably going with the kit lens, only 50 bucks more. Steal.

edit: Same company also having a GH2 "deal" for 300 usd more than the GH3. lol.
 
I think the g6 has a better image than the gh3, it's the same sensor as in the gh2. It's stunning with the Samyang 16mm, I think the combo is as close to perfect as you can get with a cheap camera+lens combo. Also Canon FD's look great on the g6, and they can be had cheaply if you shop around. If you search youtube under g6 there's lots of great examples.
 
Here's mine with the "cheap" speedbooster. In photos, the edge sharpness can be noticed, but not so much in videos.

Samuel's Nikon suggestions are nice and plentiful (as in, easily found locally) as well. But you won't be able to adapt your EOS lenses to that, and you'll miss some of the goodies the G6 offers like in-body focus peaking. But an excellent shooter with great DR for the budget, for sure!
 
I use a Nikon 7100 for DSLR video, but I rented a 5300 as a slowmo cam last weekend. Lensrentals.com, easy and cheap.

Here's some footage from the shoot, not graded, just threw some clips on a timeline since people were excited. At 1080, the 60p looks great. And that's, what, a $600 body?

 
Geez, shot some stocks with t2i today to finish up a corp work. Did it used to be that soft?! Omg... it's my damn 4K monitor, that's what it is...

But G6 it is. My old GH3 footage graded pretty badly though, some stubborn noise in dark areas... will have some time to experiment.
 
Oller Visuals said:
Geez, shot some stocks with t2i today to finish up a corp work. Did it used to be that soft?! Omg... it's my damn 4K monitor, that's what it is...

But G6 it is. My old GH3 footage graded pretty badly though, some stubborn noise in dark areas... will have some time to experiment.
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Yes, the t2i was always that soft. Amazing that we were so impressed with it back in the day, isn't it?

Anyway- the G6 footage has color similar to the GH3. The GH4 and GX7 have better sensors with more DR and likely easier to grade, but then we're already talking about more expensive cameras. The G6 is still a cheap body, don't expect it to grade better than the GH3.

I'll tell you, though, shooting with natural profile and saturation / contrast dialed all the way down is flatter than any GH camera I've used yet (I haven't used a GH4). So maybe you'll have better luck grading this time?
 
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