The filmic look of the 7D
 

About 2 weeks ago we shot a short segment for an artist in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The artist lives in a small, cozy, beautiful turn of the century REAL ADOBE house. Skies were overcast that day, with some flurries in the air... We had all our cameras, including the 7D, lots of lights, and other equipment. The lights were hardly used, and the whole day was spent shooting using 99% natural light. The 7D was on a slider, and EX-1 on tripod. When I started editing this short segment, I was amazed about how filmic the 7D looks. Some color grading was done in post, but nothing extreme. Everything was shot at 30p, not 24p. I've always realized how important the lighting aspect is in obtaining a filmic feel, but I never thought that could be so "easily" accomplished just by using the available natural light of some places. Santa Fe and NM in general are magical in this aspect, and I encourage anybody that has a chance to film in this beautiful State to experience that. The EX-1 looked great too, with some tweaking - I used the "cinema" matrix, and gamma "cinema4" with black gamma at -14.
The 7D had a PP with contrast and color all the way down.
Enjoy!

Carlo Zanella
The Santa Fe TV Show

Very nice!!!!!

Well done. This looks great.

Great work Carlo. Did you have moire issues with the fabrics?

Thank you Liam, Alan, & John.

No, I did not have any moire issues with the fabrics. It was my concern indeed, but to my surprise, I could not see any of those problems...I have also checked the segment on a 46" TV (and my dual 24" Dell monitors system, using the original as well as rendered files), and no issues whatsoever...

Carlo Zanella
The Santa Fe TV Show

classy work there Carlo, Like it.

Looks great. What lenses did you use on the 7d and did you use a dolly/glidecam for the panning shots?

Thank you all for your kind comments.
At the moment I use only one lens on the 7D, the Tamron 17-50 non stabilized version. The 7D was on a IndisliderPro almost at all time, with rails and FF. The Ex-1 shots (mostly just up-down tilts and close-ups) were on tripod. Most shots are from the 7D though. Even though it was on a slider all day, you can still do traditional movenments with it, since the 7D sits on a 501 head. When you don't need the sliding motion, you can do regular pan and tilts with it as well. There is only one handheld shot toward the end, when the male model walks through the door (low angle). The shot of his colorful sweather against a blueish bkg was whot with 7D at 1000 ISO. Really surprised about how clean the image was at a such high ISO!

Carlo Zanella
The Santa Fe TV Show

how did you do the time lapse ? And what time period did it take to get the shots ?

half hour ? 15 minutes ?

What was your frame rate ?

Thanks....footage looks great !

Kevin,

The timelapses were done with the EX-1. The duration of the actual filming is very variable: it can easily go from 15 min to one hour or more, depending on what you are doing. The frame rate is always at 30p. The undercranking depends on how "fast" the clouds are moving, if you are doing a close up that will come up faster, or if you are at full wide with high "slow" clouds. You kind of learn to judge it with some practice. My timelapses usually go from one frame/sec to a frame every 3-5-7 seconds, again, according to "sky" conditions and focal length you are using.

Hope this helps.

Carlo Zanella
The Santa Fe TV Show

Very nice! Impressed!