Bradford Holt
December 17th, 2009, 10:16 PM
I recently purchased an EX1 and am still getting the hang of it. I'm going to shoot a music video using the Letus Extreme, and I'd like to shoot it at night, but I was unsure of the light limitations, so I shot some test footage last night and during the day to see how it came out. I also did some daytime shots and messed with the shutter speed/angle.
I ran into problems shooting at night. First off, I was using Nikon lenses. I was switching between a 1.4 50mm, a 2.8 105mm, and a 2 28mm. I tried shooting some slow motion. For everything I want, it looks like I'm going to have to make some sacrifices - whether it be shutter speed, slow-mo, gain, DOF - and I want to get some suggestions as to where you think I should make the sacrifice.
Here's the footage I shot. The low end of hte gain was pumped to +9 and sometimes +12 - needless to say it was very noisy. So, I decided to try and work with the noise to make it seem like a style. I desaturated the colors, crushed the blacks, blanched the whites, and even added a sharpening filter. So, does this look just crappy? Or does it look like an intended style?
Here's a link:
http://www.bradfordjamesholt.com/videos/MoshmanMadTestLowRes.mov
If this is just obvious grainy footage, where should I sacrifice?
I'm shooting all handheld, so that compounds things too. All the locations are a bit dicey, and I can't stay there too long. (Or would a steadicam pilot support an ex1+ lens adapter? - I'll research that one later - just a tangential thought)
Shutter speed - I swiched from angle to speed - 1/32 to give me more light. Is that too slow for handheld? Is that contributing to the blurriness that also bothers me?
Lens - I cant' shoot all the way open otherwise I can't maintain focus when walking around.
Gain/profile - what gain levels and/or profile settings do you recommend for shooting at night with an adapter?
Slow motion looks great, but sucks light - do the detriments of increased gain outweigh the awesomeness of slow motion?
Or, maybe I'll just have to shoot during the day. I tried a short shutter angle setting - 22.5, and though you can't see it on the video, I notice some funky swirling and smearing from the vibrating ground glass. In your experts opinion, what shutter angle and speeds do you find the limit when shooting with the letus?
The last couple shots on the thing are just daytime shots - color corrected to give a gloomy feel and the other just uncorrected.
I probably should've partitioned this post into multiple topics....
To recap -
Can I get away with this footage being seen as stylized versus bad video?
If not, what ex1 settings do you recommend with shooting at night when you have a lens adapter AND are shooting handheld?
I think that's it...
Thanks in advance.
I ran into problems shooting at night. First off, I was using Nikon lenses. I was switching between a 1.4 50mm, a 2.8 105mm, and a 2 28mm. I tried shooting some slow motion. For everything I want, it looks like I'm going to have to make some sacrifices - whether it be shutter speed, slow-mo, gain, DOF - and I want to get some suggestions as to where you think I should make the sacrifice.
Here's the footage I shot. The low end of hte gain was pumped to +9 and sometimes +12 - needless to say it was very noisy. So, I decided to try and work with the noise to make it seem like a style. I desaturated the colors, crushed the blacks, blanched the whites, and even added a sharpening filter. So, does this look just crappy? Or does it look like an intended style?
Here's a link:
http://www.bradfordjamesholt.com/videos/MoshmanMadTestLowRes.mov
If this is just obvious grainy footage, where should I sacrifice?
I'm shooting all handheld, so that compounds things too. All the locations are a bit dicey, and I can't stay there too long. (Or would a steadicam pilot support an ex1+ lens adapter? - I'll research that one later - just a tangential thought)
Shutter speed - I swiched from angle to speed - 1/32 to give me more light. Is that too slow for handheld? Is that contributing to the blurriness that also bothers me?
Lens - I cant' shoot all the way open otherwise I can't maintain focus when walking around.
Gain/profile - what gain levels and/or profile settings do you recommend for shooting at night with an adapter?
Slow motion looks great, but sucks light - do the detriments of increased gain outweigh the awesomeness of slow motion?
Or, maybe I'll just have to shoot during the day. I tried a short shutter angle setting - 22.5, and though you can't see it on the video, I notice some funky swirling and smearing from the vibrating ground glass. In your experts opinion, what shutter angle and speeds do you find the limit when shooting with the letus?
The last couple shots on the thing are just daytime shots - color corrected to give a gloomy feel and the other just uncorrected.
I probably should've partitioned this post into multiple topics....
To recap -
Can I get away with this footage being seen as stylized versus bad video?
If not, what ex1 settings do you recommend with shooting at night when you have a lens adapter AND are shooting handheld?
I think that's it...
Thanks in advance.