Run and gun test..tonight

Shooter

Shooter

Veteran
So..I am going to see how shooting from the hip goes with the AF102..tonight.

Shooting live perfomance (as part of a music vid) in a bar. No A.C just me.

What I have done.is a degree of planning such as....

Checked the venue...quickly pointed some par cans..added a frezzie backlight...created a cluster of xmas tree lights on the back cloth.

Also...I have stripped the camera down from production mode to bare camera...fitted Nikkor 17-35 f2.8. , thrown a Nikkor 105mm and a Toy lens in the back pack with a spare battery. No head and legs...out of the hands.

I have punched in a few settings to a scene file...set up the audio and connections...set ISO 400, 1600 and 3200 on the Gain switch.

So maybe this simple quick prep goes a little further than "run and gun" but I will see how it goes.

Dont think I will be fighting with or compromised by my equipment.
 
I did a similar shoot in January at a Jayhawks concert in NYC. I used a pl mount adapter and some old Schneider primes, mostly a 50 and 75 mm . I did not have any control over lighting which got a to be a bit dicey but I managed to handle it. I had the camera set up for 200, 400 & 800 iso and that covered the spread I needed.
I have to say it was fun doing a run and gun with these old primes and oddly liberating in a way to be limited to just a few focal lengths.
 
As a fan of the AF100 and The Jayhawks, I'd love to see that footage. Any chance of that? (I still listen to Hollywood Town Hall once a month)
 
Footage belongs to my Client--- Rounder records so I don't think I can share.

And that's my 500th post, I'm going out drinking!
 
Shoot went very well.

Musician was on stage in a bar setting with her audience. I had pointed a few of the lights ( 3 x par cans) and added a 650w Arri back light but essentially it was "stage lighting in a bar". No level control via dimmers...so we go with what we get.

I had a heap of xmas tree lights on the BG cloth. Point source lights and their ambience (surprising output) was effective extra back lighting. Nice.

For the performance I was there to shoot...I went with a Nikkor 105mm f2.5. My 17-35 was not giving me what I wanted.
I was after a "look" where the b.g lights sparkled/glowed like fireflies (DOF). The studio part of the shoot has a theme, f.x and will be a controlled shoot (production mode)

For this part...I hand held the camera in stripped out run n gun mode ( ie bare camera and lens). I have removed the strap of mine.

I rarely ever shoot anything either hand held or from sticks at "lazy C.O.H". (Comfortable Operating Height - eye height from the ground).
That means hand held I have either my fingers under the camera when stooped and bent down (low angles) or thumbs under the camera for high angles. AF102 was comfortable in the hand and so light... but wow....finding the Record On/Off button was not always where I expected it. Kept hitting User 3 button! Both buttons feel the same!

Viewfinder. Worked only off the LCD monitor. I just can not rate the AF102 EVF at all. It a big dissapointment to me but I have been spoilt by the RED viewfinder which is fabulous.

Dream time: It would be awesome if the button labels on this camera were backlit ( like a cellphone). Shooting in the dark is a litttle challenging and my lack of 100% familiarity of their location did not help me. I usually have an A.C.

Exposing. I got a feel for exposure from the waveform and then just forgot about it. Worked off the image and the "eye-ometer". This part of the fim can be a little edgy.

Because I was playing a game with the twinkly back lights and the DOF and some out of focus imagery...I was changing my stop a bit. To do this I was flicking around on the ISO/Gain switch with the 3 ISOs I had pre assigned to it especially for this shoot. Quick flick of the switch and a quick crank of the aperture ring. Easy ..works as one would expect it to.

It seriously crossed my mind that I would not have been able to achieve that without a manual lens aperture ring and driving an ISO wheel while checking a WFM in these run and gun particular circumstances. (flick, click.. 2 seconds.)

I thought the camera worked very well run and gun. I do think that the right choice of variable prime for it will make it excel. (Choose carefully)

Finally... I had a colleague shooting additional footage on a Canon 5D. with a Nikkor 50mm f2 mounted. Surprising how similar the respective images were in the respective viewfinders (lcd). I had adjusted a few scene settings on the AF102 but not with a single minded intent to match the cameras. One thing is the Canon has considerable more sensitivity judging on the ISO he used compared to myself. The Af sensitivity is no problem at all.

Havent checked the rushes in the NLE yet. Too busy finishing stuff but will get to it next week. Maybe some grabs.
 
So was the 17-35 a good lens choice for what you were doing? I had a similar shoot recently and I used a 28-85 Kiron OM mount and that seemed to be the right zoom for my gig.
 
Brian@202020 said:
So was the 17-35 a good lens choice for what you were doing? I had a similar shoot recently and I used a 28-85 Kiron OM mount and that seemed to be the right zoom for my gig.
Click to expand...

The 17-35 lens was not giving me the "look" and control that I required from the shot I had in mind.

Thats the beauty of a camera with interchangeable lenses. Change the lens to make your eye happy.
 
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