C100: Shooting A Sunset

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
I just returned from shooting a documentary film for a few weeks in Brazil. Unfortunately I am under NDA in regards to the project so cannot really show any of the most interesting shots we captured but here is a little something. I was lucky enough to be able to shoot one of the most beautiful sunsets in the world, a view of "Los Hermanos" at the end of Ipanema Beach in Rio De Janeiro. It's really quite an experience, there were hundreds of people out on this rocky point with us, shooting the sunset on their Smart Phones. It's a very Carnival-like atmosphere, there are vendors selling Caipirinhas, a drink is made with lime, sugar, and Brazil's most common and popular indigenous spirit, Cachaça. There were a few people smoking pot, even though the Rio police were nearby and pot is highly illegal there. Because it was Autumn there this week, the sun descends really rapidly, we went from blown out to sun behind Los Hermanos in less than :20 so exposure was challenging. I was happy that we had armed seciurity for most of our shoot days. I did shoot some Go Pro shots out in the surf of Copacabana beach to get a bather POV but when I was going to take out my Canon 80D on the Zhiyun Crane, a local woman cautioned against me doing so. We didn't have security that day and I erred on the side of caution and bagged those shots. Later in the week in Rio, we did see three police draw guns on two guys on a motorcycle. We were in traffic and fortunately the light turned green as we were only about twenty feet away. As we drove off, the cops gunned down at least one guy on the bike and then jumped on the other guy who was riding with him so it was nice we barely avoided that bit of nastiness. Rio is pretty crazy, we spent a few days in Sao Paulo too and it seemed a bit mellower and much more sophisticated.

On a more upbeat note, the C100 was the perfect choice for this shoot, we did shoot a huge amount of footage and as a pleasant surprise, the producer had hired a data wrangler so I was able to hand off my cards and SSD from my Blade at the end of each shoot day, which beats staying up all night downloading files and cloning drives. I had two outstanding crews, a gaffer, grip, PA, sound mixer and armed security so we were able to shoot in some Favelas as well as huge tourist areas near the harbor, on a ferry from Rio to Niteroi, around Niteroi, at Rio's MAC (Museum of Contemporary Art). We captured some amazing footage in some studio sessions with the musician we were covering as well as interviews with all kinds of prominent Brazilians. The film is coming out by the end of this year, there is a good chance it will get a theatrical run, the producers current film just opened in over 100 theaters nationwide here and it is looking like it will end up on Netflix. An epic shoot, we are not finished but the Brazil shoot is in the can.

Here is my POV of shooting the sunset and a screen cap

C100ShootsSunset.jpgLosHermanosSunset.jpg
 
Here is my POV of shooting the sunset and a screen cap...

Always enjoy your input , great posts from someone working in the mid- high end of the field!
How do you handle focus with the zacuto evf? Is it fast enough to punch in on And check? I had the alphtron on my c100 but sold it due to the camer not outputting the 2x punch in via hdmi. Myc100 evf dream has unfortunately died, I can't justify a graticule for half the cost of the camera..
 
Thanks Barry, appreciate your feedback. This was my first shoot with the Zacuto. I mainly bought it because I thought I might be shooting a lot of handheld footage in Brazil. It turned out that I ended up shooting mostly tripod shots with the C100 and used the Zhiyun Crane with the Canon 80D for most of the recording studio sessions, the walk and talks and for POV running through the Parque Nacional de Tijuca jungle trails. So I only used the Zacuto in the bright sun. We actually had quite a few clouds so on those days, I found it easier to just mount the Blade where you see the Zacuto EVF in the shot above along with the Hoodman RED 5" monitor sunshade. I like EVFs in general but overall, I also like using the 5" Blade screen as I can more easily have the director look over my shoulder to see what I am framing.

The Zacuto EVF Pro is great (this is a demo model I picked up from Zacuto for $400.00 and the punch in works fine) but I dislike that I have to run the HDMI output of the camera into the Blade, then out of the Blade into the EVF. This means I have no rec indicator in the EVF so every time I roll, I have to look back at the Blade to make sure the camera and Blade are rolling, which as you can see in the pic above, I have attached to a 15mm rod at the rear of the camera. To make things more complicated, the sound mixer we shot with wanted me to use time of day TC in free run so at a glance, I couldn't tell if the Blade was rolling because the TC was always rolling, it was hard to see the red outline box in the bright sun. Sometimes you think you hit record and then it turns out, you didn't, I have missed shots this way. Normally I have the TC set to record run so at a glance, it is see the TC numbers on the Blade screen moving, I know I am recording. Weight and balance with this setup are good but it would be a lot more efficient to have a rec indicator in the EVF, but that's not possible since the Blade is recording the HDMI out. It does take some tweaking and adjusting to get the EVF in just the right position so your head is parallel with the camera body. Overall, I like the EVF and don't regret buying it but I will only use it for handhedl shooting. I just bought the Letus Helix Jr. Magnesium but I could not get all of the settings perfect in time for this trip. I am working with Letus next week to get it all fine tuned. If I can make it fly perfectly with the C100, I will have even less need for the EVF and I would rather use the C100 on a gimbal than handheld most of the time.

I too talked myself out of the Graticle. My thinking was that it is too expensive for the C100 and my next camera, I hope, will be a Canon EOS camera with a real, C700 style EVF. That may be a pipe dream but I really hope that Canon foresakes the vertical form factor and moves the next batch of cameras to a more C700 box, lens and real EVF form factor, they need to. The form factor of most of the EOS C cameras seems like a leftover DSLR form factor to me, it is tiresome. What most of us want is the same form factor as the C700, a box with a lens and EVF where it should be.
 
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Appreciate your detailed response puredrifting, Some great takeaways in there. The record indicator checking is a fail for me, too easy to get focused on levels, the talent or lunch and miss the shot.I have a ninja 2 which I could try in place of the evf but it's not sharp enough for critical focus like the blade... totally agree th form factor needs to be abandoned , enough to make me move to Sony. I'm still trying to find a gimble solution I like for c100, hope the Letus works for you
 
Barry1908 said:
Appreciate your detailed response puredrifting, Some great takeaways in there. The record indicator checking is a fail for me, too easy to get focused on levels, the talent or lunch and miss the shot.I have a ninja 2 which I could try in place of the evf but it's not sharp enough for critical focus like the blade... totally agree th form factor needs to be abandoned , enough to make me move to Sony. I'm still trying to find a gimble solution I like for c100, hope the Letus works for you
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For me, it's just a hassle, not a deal breaker. The Blade screen is much better but in bright daylight, even with a hood, it's hard to see if you are in sharp focus, that's where the EVF comes in.

I played with the Letus Helix Jr. I bought a few weeks ago for about four days. Between Slavik B and the settings he was working on with a Letus Tech specifically for the configuration that he and I are working with, we got it about 90% of the way there but we could not get rid of the microjitters. I shot some walk and talk tests and the give away that reveals the microjitters is to hold a steady shot in a room and check the corners of the frame for the alignment and steadinness of the corners. Still needs some tuning in Simple BGC. I was still getting a frequent jittering, almost as if the strength of the motors was cycling. Simple BGC and the Letus App together are intimidating for anyone who is not a programmer/engineer. IMHO, the interface and having to do so much intricate fine tuning is the only thing holding the Letus Helix Jr. back from total market domination over the Ronin M and Movi 5. I told Letus they need to aspire to Zhiyun Crane level of ease of use. You mount the camera, balance it and just go use it, it works. The Letus Jr. is the exact opposite experience, I have days of work into trying to get it to work perfectly and it is still not there.

The Helix Jr. design is superior but the user interface and the out of the box experience is frustrating for C100 users, although it works great for most DSLR/M43/Mirrorless users from what I am told. The gimbal is rated at 7lbs capacity so the C100 is well under the weight limit of the new encoded motors especially but the C100 is a heck of lot taller and heavier than the typical DSLR or mirrorless camera. Hopefully working with Letus, i can tune it to perfection. It's so close, but I need to do more tuning, I may have to fly up to Portland to work with them in person to get it perfect. Once I do, Slavik and I can share settings for anyone else who wants to use the C100 on the Letus Helix Jr. I want to use it with the Manfrotto 394 QR plate, the Canon 10-18 STM IS 4.5-5.6 lens, large battery, dual SD cards and a Polsen SMS-45a Stereo mic atop the C100. We are also using the Zacuto Grip Relocator to control iris, record, WB, etc. I want to also use the Canon 24mm 2.8 and the 50mm 1.8 STM lenses, both of which are lighter than the 10-18. It's not going to work with bigger, heavier lenses but that's okay, covering everything from 10mm to 50mm would satisfy 80% of users.
 
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QUOTE:
"I told Letus they need to aspire to Zhiyun Crane level of ease of use. You mount the camera, balance it and just go use it, it works. The Letus Jr. is the exact opposite experience, I have days of work into trying to get it to work perfectly and it is still not there. "
//

Ive been playing around with the Osmo but it falls apart pretty quick in post and low light . You're selling me on the Zhiyun Crane and my 70D, leave the C100 for the main shots i think.
 
Barry1908 said:
QUOTE:
"I told Letus they need to aspire to Zhiyun Crane level of ease of use. You mount the camera, balance it and just go use it, it works. The Letus Jr. is the exact opposite experience, I have days of work into trying to get it to work perfectly and it is still not there. "
//

Ive been playing around with the Osmo but it falls apart pretty quick in post and low light . You're selling me on the Zhiyun Crane and my 70D, leave the C100 for the main shots i think.
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I had an Osmo before the Crane. The pluses were the image looked great in bright sunlight and the size and weight were easy to deal with. But for interiors, the Osmo image did fall apart. It is a Sony imager too and the colors are very Sony-like. I also did not like tying up my smartphone to use it and the thing was a battery hog, I had to buy five extra batteries to use the thing long enough for a typical shoot. Personally, I am somewhat happy with the 80D on the Crane. It all depends on your needs and your clients needs. My next acquisition with be the Fujifilm XT-2 as it is 4K and a much sharper image than the 80D with beautiful colors and the XT-2s film emulation modes, to me, look beautiful. I have never been one to want the sharpest image for the sake of sharpness, to me, those images typically look less filmic and more video like but I have been impressed with a friends XT-2. The only thing holding me back is having to invest thousands into new lenses, while I already own ten EOS lenses. The 80D functions very well on the Crane, but of course, is limited to 1080p images. As long as our clients are happy with 1080 images, I will continue to use the 80D. It cuts fairly well with the C100 images. But flying the C100 on the Helix Jr. will also be useful as the C100 image is, of course, superior to the 80D by quite a lot. It all just depends on how you want to use it and what your clients are willing to accept and pay for.
 
Regarding gimbals, I have a Ronin and vest support for the C100 and I have to tune it regularly, but it is basically just a matter of reducing motor strength until the motors stop vibrating. I used the Osmo for quick shots, but it never matched the C100 very well and always made me wince a bit when I saw the footage intercut with the C100. I picked up the Crane so that I could replace the Osmo with the XC10. I wasn't expecting it to work all that well, but the Crane is surprisingly forgiving. The XC10 isn't even balanced correctly and the Crane doesn't vibrate or make any noise at all. The motors don't fail. I have great control and stability on the telephoto end. I'm not sure what the engineers did to make the Crane work, but I am more impressed with the Crane than I thought I would be considering the price.
 
<Quote>The pluses were the image looked great in bright sunlight and the size and weight were easy to deal with. But for interiors, the Osmo image did fall apart.>

Yes I cant really justify it being only of use 50% of the time... though it is good for exteriors and my next shoot is all exteriors so after that i might trade up.
Im from an ENG background and Im used to splitting audio high and low from one mic. Do you think I could use the monitor output for a redundantc lower input feed?

mic.jpg
 
Barry1908 said:
<Quote>The pluses were the image looked great in bright sunlight and the size and weight were easy to deal with. But for interiors, the Osmo image did fall apart.>

Yes I cant really justify it being only of use 50% of the time... though it is good for exteriors and my next shoot is all exteriors so after that i might trade up.
Im from an ENG background and Im used to splitting audio high and low from one mic. Do you think I could use the monitor output for a redundantc lower input feed?

View attachment 122789
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Never tried that. Personally, I would just put one of these on talent and be happy, just make sure there is no clothes rustling or rubbing. All that matters with what you propose is impedance matching and level matching. You could try it?

Tascam DR10L.jpg
 
Ill try it and let you know...
Ive engaged the limiter on track 2 of the c100 and that usually saves me from any clipping. That Tascam looks handy for a backup for other work I do coming out of a desk at a conference etc
 
Purdrifting, sounds like a great adventure! From the security aspect I'm inclined to avoid visiting down there and stick to Thailand where I can walk around all day with a c100 in hand and not worry about getting killed.

I'm very anxious to hear how your communication with Letus goes. After having set up my Letus to Slavik's excellent idea only to find the Zacuto grip extender doesn't work or really never did, I think I attached the grip control handle back on in perhaps the wrong place and it's been fighting with me ever since. It worked very good right out of the box on the C100 MKI. It may work just as well with the C100 mkii once I get the handle thing figured out, and back on in the right place. I really loved playing around with the Letus and look forward to more. Yea, you are right they need to make this thing work right out of the box without all the settings. One can go nuts trying to figure it all out.

Conserving your signature statement, and somewhat off topic...... I just bought the 70-200 f2.8 USM II and I'm still watching reviews and reading the specs on that thing everyday and it's right in front of me on the coffee table. That's when you know you 've lost your mind and are addicted to gear...... ha! The good news is I'm no longer needing another lens. I've shot tons of stuff on the 70-200 f4 IS including photos and as good as the f4 is, the f2.8 II is so much better. Not to compare sharpness which I think is noticeably sharper, the contrast and colors just pop out, it's really a revelation of sorts! But I digress.
 
Good to hear Michael. I am now the proud owner of not only two of the Zacuto Grip Relocators (Mine stopped working just before I started this documentary so Zacuto has it in for repair right now), but I also bought the Wooden Camera Grip Relocator as well. I like everything about it better than the Zacuto unit but the cable on it was bigger, stiffer and heavier and was throwing the balance off on the Helix Jr. so I had to also buy another Zacuto unit to use with the Helix Jr. The Zacuto works better with the Helix as the cable is not as stiff and it doesn't interfere with balancing the Helix. For for handheld shooting, I like the Wooden Grip Relocator teamed with a Wooden 15mm to dual Arri Rosette mount. I bought two of the Tilta 6.5" arms and an Arri Rosette grip for the left handle. The Wooden with the Tilta extension is superior to the Zacuto Grip Relocator as the arms on the Zacuto tend to loosen and wear out while the teeth on the Wooden Arri Rosette keep anything from loosening up.

As as soon as Zacuto repairs and returns my grip relocator, I will sell this new one off. Ughh, gear, gear, always the gear. Congrats on your new lens. I tend to agree, nothing wrong with the 70-200 F4 IS lens but the 70-200 2.8 IS II is better, as it should be for almost twice the money.
 
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