"Hawaii Goes Fishing" with the Sony EX1

Here's the work I've been doing with the Sony EX1.

This particular trip was up in Alaska. We don't normally do many trips outside the state but in this case it was to one of the two fishing lodges that are run by people who were born and raised in Hawaii.

Naoki, Wayne and Jo Ann with Richard at Shelter Lodge

For those who have asked about equipment being used in production, here's a list of what I used to produce this:

Sony EX1 with VCL-EXO877 wide angle adapter. The Cine 4 gamma setting is used throughout. Preset white balance of 5500k. Detail setting is "off". Gain is at zero (I avoid using -3 as I read it reduces dynamic range).

Exposure is set to keep detail in the brightest clouds. The only time IRE goes to 100 is if there's a light source in the picture, such as the sun or reflections off the water. White areas are 80 IRE. Skin tones never go beyond 70.

Audio Technica 4051a on-camera mic with Lightwave mount and wind fur.

Two Audio Technica UVW-1800 Wireless systems with Audio Technica 899C lav mics, fitted with Mary Sensui fleece wind covers (my wife sewed them for me). That gives me four independent audio sources which are recorded onto a . . .

. . . Edirol R44 4-track recorder. This is mounted in a small Pelican case with the AT wireless receivers. It's a compact, weatherproof multitrack recorder system with four wireless diversity antennas mounted on a short mast. It's powered with an A123 Systems battery pack which I built. Runs 4 hours. I might make a dual/parallel battery pack to avoid frequent battery changes.

The recorder is constantly running. The EX1 didn't have a pre-record cache, and getting the sound of the initial strike, and the excited reaction is an important part of this, as you'll see.

This also means there are six channels of audio if you count the built-in mic on the EX1.

The wild sound tracks and camera footage are matched up with SequenceLiner. Both the camera and Edirol recorder have time-of-day timecode, and SequenceLiner does a nice job of matching the takes. I still have to fine-tune the sync but it's not all that hard.

Now that I have some experience with this setup, I'll have a guest give me an occasional "slate" to make the post production sync process a little easier.

Edited with Final Cut Pro. Color correction and grading done with Color. Audio mixdown with Soundtrack Pro. Mixdown with the envelopes in each track can be tedious. But being able to silence unused tracks, while emphasizing the important ones, helps a great deal with the storytelling.

Cindy's standup is shot against green screen with Primatte doing the compositing in After Effects. The lighting isn't a good match. Soft overcast is actually harder to match than hard sunlight.

Enjoy!

[Tim Polster]

Originally Posted by Dean Sensui

That's a very high quality production. You took great advantage of the scenery and handled the exposure as I would: maintain highlight detail.

Hey Dean, Thanks for sharing. As mentioned, great camera work.

Does your grip get tired handholding the EX-1 for a whole show? It is kind of heavy.

I have sort of a counterpoint to maintaining highlight detail.

By no means am I a fan of blown out highlights, but I also feel it is important to get as bright as possible skin exposure of your subjects, especially when there is no lighting to create a ratio.

The reason I say this is is that these newer HD cameras like the EX-1 or HPX-500 really can have a strong knee which allows for greater exposure for skin tones while retaining the highs. This has been one of the best attributes of upgrading to HD production in my opinion.

I know you are aware of this as you are very knowledgeable as shown in your past posts, but I thought your video could have benfitted from a little more exposure for the subjects' faces. The scenery sort of overpowered them from a subject point of view.

Although, often video exposed for television looks a bit under when displayed on the web, so that might be at play here as well.

Just my impression, hope it is taken in the same constructive spirit which it was given!

[Dean Sensui]

Tim...

Thanks for the critique. Always good to hear another point of view.

After a while I got a bit accustomed to the EX1's weight. I get it off my shoulder when I can as a matter of pacing for the day. In 2007 I had surgery which pretty much sliced all the way through all of my back muscles, but I'm able to function despite that -- the surgeon did a great job of putting it back where it belongs. Most of it :-)

I do a lot with curve-type controls in post. Sometimes it's not possible to get optimal exposure on faces. In this type of show it's a balance between people and their surroundings. My guiding principle is to get as much dynamic range as possible into the image. I'll darken and lighten selected areas.

Sometimes it's not practical to track a face that's in shadow, so that becomes a casualty of the situation. Most folks wear baseball caps, and the sun will put that into shadow. There's no chance for a reflector and on-camera lights aren't powerful enough to provide enough illumination. But despite those situations, the EX1 does a remarkable job of maintaining shadow detail.

I've had situations where someone wearing a baseball cap and sitting under a bimini top is back-lighted by sunlight off the water. Yet you can still see the person's face! It's taken me a while to truly trust the camera's capabilities. Fortunately I'm the editor and post-production colorist. So I know what can be squeezed out of what might seem like a hopeless situation.

And then, sometimes it IS a hopeless situation!

Aloha,

[Tim Polster]

I agree, this EX-1 is quite a tool. Amazing what you can get out of this $6,000 camera.

Your show has been going for a while. Are you the creator?

If you are it must be rewarding for you to see it be successful.

[Dean Sensui]

Hi Tim...

The show has been on since 2004, but it traces its lineage to the 1960s. I've been putting the show together virtually solo since the beginning of 2008.

I wear a lot of hats. Although I have two people helping with some of the editing, I do all of the shooting (aside from an occasional clip from outside sources and the multi-cam shoots). I also write the scripts, do all the post-production and the website.

Our host, Cindy, is actually a broadcast journalist. I'm hoping to have her produce some of the stories. Would be nice to collaborate at that level, where she's more than just on-camera talent.

This show is something I sort of inherited by attrition. I do take it seriously, but I hope I don't take myself too seriously. This seems to be a nice combination of outdoor activity, geeky tech stuff and art. And as I told someone, you have to like fishing, camping and -- most of all -- people.

Aloha,

[Tim Polster]

Best of luck!