1st, rough attempt at learning how to shoot video on the Canon 7D. The idea was to shoot on a super hot day, at a location I'd never been to and see what I could string together in a short amount of time. Location is at the Moorooduc Quarry in Melbourne, Australia, as seen in the movie Frog Dreaming, aka The Quest in the US.
Equipment used: 15-85mm kit lens, Marshall V-LCD651ST-HDMI monitor & a stripped down Redrock cinema field kit. Footage shot with a flat picture profile and rush graded with a generic Magic Bullet Looks preset. Music in this video is courtesy of Jerry Goldsmith, from the Sleeping With The Enemy soundtrack.
On the whole, I was pleased with the outcome of the quality of footage for a 1st attempt. Main areas for improvement would be:
* Get some counter balance weights for the Redrock rig. It was seriously front heavy and physically taxing to carry around, hence the shakiness in many of the shots.
* Get a sun shield for the Marshall monitor. Although the monitor was advertised as being super transflective, I found that in the blaring sun, it was still very difficult to see and to achieve proper focus.
* Invest in an ND filter. To keep the aperture wide open and achieve a shallow depth of field in the bright sunlight, I had to crank up the shutter speed super high, which was probably not ideal for shooting 24p.
* Keep the camera out of the sun where possible. Basically the camera was exposed to heat for the entire hour or so I shot at the location. Unfortunately it shut down on 4 or 5 occasions due to temperature problems. One or two clips (not included in this video) suffered from this and looked horribly pixelated, but the rest were fine. The positive is, the camera seems to always start back up again after it shuts down. Moral of the story, keep it out of the sun when you are not using it to let it cool down.
Will post more videos when I get the chance to get out and practice more on the 7D again.