"The 23rd Doorway" - XL2 frame grabs!

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Shot with the XL2 and mini35 digital lens adapter a couple of days ago, I've managed to post some still frames from the shoot.

www.starcentral.ca/23doorway.htm

Questions, comments or spare change welcome.

[Devin Doyle]

Dennis, looks like you have some great footage in the can. I myself am hocking my GL1 kit for an XL2 this Winter. I can honestly say from your stills that I'm certain I've made the best decision. I'm interested in seeing the finished product.

The mini-35 does wonders to DV, however it does seem to have softened up the image significantly. After working with the P+S adapter do you agree? It looks as if you added some white diffusion in a couple of scenes, so I thought it might be a possibility that you edited the other images as well. Alright, enough bantering, if you can fill me in I'd appreciate it...and good work!

[Chris Hurd]

Awesome, Dennis! Much appreciated,

[David Lach]

Hi Dennis, can you ellaborate on the look you were going for, how you acheived it with the XL2 (custom settings) and are you satisfied or not with the end result (anything you would have done differently looking back?).

Thanks for sharing.

[Kevin Gilvear]

How did you get on with motion shots? I see there are a few scenes with running in them. Did they turn out well in the end?

[Dennis Hingsberg]

@Devin

Thanks. Yes some of the footage did turn out very well, while other bits were quite soft for one reason or another. Before I try to blame the mini35 to save myself from shame, I should really say that although there is 'some' softening by the mini35 most of the reasons in these images were either because of production or post.

Some stills are soft because they are in motion and a 1/48th shutter speed is being used. There were also some focusing issues during the shoot - not a lot of attention was paid to lighting so most of the scenes were majorly under exposed and I shot them with the exposure meter in the Canon all the way to the extreme left side (That's just flipping crazy). I was using a Zeiss high speed T1.3 50mm and had to shoot with it fully OPEN which in turn gives you a small and extremely shallow window to perform your focus in. And while the director got the high resoluton Sony monitor, I got the 2" LCD viewfinder... and had to pull focus myself at the same time while operating camera!

The white diffusion you see in some outdoor shots are actually from condensation on the lens from going from a warm environment to a cold one. It was also drizzeling rain which didn't help the matter. Normally when switching temperatures with equipment you should let it change temperatures before you start using it.

Lastly in post I had to resize the images to adjust for the 1.2 pixel aspect ratio which may have also done something to soften the images a bit. Also because the images were shot underexposed, in post I boosted the gain to get a normal looking image which ends up adding some noise. I then used NR software to remove the noise but creates an even softer looking image.

Lesson of the day learned? Compromises = pain. But I can honestly say that in motion the footage looks quite amazing on CRT and LCD despite all these problems. Next time will be better!

You can see some other images I posted last week in this forum with the same setup which are not as soft. The thread is called "XL2 - BMW stills & video".

@Chris

Thanks, I was really excited to finally have some images to post after the problems I had getting my mini35 to go from XL1s to XL2. I've been waiting 3 weeks for this myself!

@David

Personally I get most of my "look" in post using Adobe After Effects. I think it is best to shoot everything as normal as possible with normal settings, mainly because what you capture in camera can not be reversed so it could really limit your options later on. The only settings changed in the XL2 from the default were the knee & black settings. I haven't tried much of the other settings or playing with them mainly due to time but I hope to one day soon.

@Kevin

The alley way motion shots were shot with a 24mm wide angle lens out a car window. It looks absolutely brilliant in motion - I hope to have some footage to post really soon because they did turn out very well. The 24P really shines in these motion type of shots because as long as you somewhat keep your subject in the same area of the frame, everything else just gets that 'judder' or motion blue associated with 24fps film speed. With regular video (well I mean 60i) every single object in the background would also be in focus without any motion blurring.

This is one of the reasons the DVX even without the mini35 ends up looking like film. Because when there is motion you get real 24fps motion blur. But without the mini35 you don't get shallow depth of field so its a toss I guess... I'm actually really excited about the 24fps 720p 4:4:4 cam being developed in the "Alternative Imaging" & "HD" forums - you get raw uncompressed video at 1280 x 720 using 2/3" CCD's with amazing shallow DOF which to me looks a lot more like film then my mini35 setup.

[Robin Davies-Rollinson]

<<and had to pull focus myself at the same time while operating camera!>>

I think that this just exemplifies the downside for people who strive for a "film look" using a shallow DOF. If it's to be shot properly, then a follow-focus rig is needed as well as an Focus Puller - note the capital letters; they're highly skilled people and worth every penny of their money!
I know that we have to look after every penny on some of our shoots, but there are two areas that I like to trust to other people - sound and focus... there's enough to be done with lighting etc etc ;-)

Robin

[Kevin Gilvear]

Well that's great stuff Dennis, sounds good and you have obviously learned a lot from this so as to improve in future. I'd like to see the finished result so keep us updated :)

[Dennis Hingsberg]

I completely agree that if people want to shoot like 35mm film then all aspects of production should be treated like a 35mm film shoot. In this case it was both financial and time constraints which lead some compromises having to be made. At the end of my day it was not my call, I was only hired to setup my rig and shoot with it how I could.

I've actually shot quite a wide range of work pulling my own focus and the results have more than often been exceptional. If time is on your side, you don't always need a major crew to get great footage but one definitely helps.

Testament to that is the footage I shot today for another short film titled "Little Acorns" which had a crew of two (and again I pulled my own focus during pans and tilts). Below is a link to the site with frame grabs and as you will see these set of images are quite sharper looking.

www.starcentral.ca/acorns.htm

I forgot to mention this film actually has 20 different scenes to it so I will be sure to add more pics as more is shot.

[Oliver Power]

Great stuff Dennis, I've just gotten my XL2 and am dying to go out and shoot with it - particularly using the mini35.

The 'Acorns' footage does look much sharper than the 'Doorway' footage. What did you do differently on this shoot that has made it so much sharper?

Also, can you tell us what else you were using to shoot with? i.e. matte box, filters, tripod, bounces and lights, etc.

thanks,

Oliver

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Oliver, welcome to the XL2! You must be excited, for me it was like getting married all over again - only this time her name was Canon.

As fas as camera settings and such nothing was done differently, I was even using the exact same lens. I think the main difference was the pace and not being rushed. For "Little Acorns" I shot about 15 minutes of footage with 4 outdoor camera setups over 2 hours. For "23rd Doorway" I shot 30 minutes of footage with 6 indoor camera setups in about 2 hours. This is approximately DOUBLE the rate and we had to deal with lighting a lot more indoors.

Despite the soft looking images, in motion they are great and look amazing. Fortunately the 23rd Doorway looks killer on CRT TV which is where it will be seen primarily.

Production Notes: 23rd Doorway used no filters or matte box and the tripod was very basic, I think the model was Manfrotto with RC128 head... ? Lighting for the bar was a kino flow and arri 650 with some diffusion. Outdoor was all natural. Little Acorns used some bounce, a Photoflex disc.

BTW: I upload a rough edit snipet from Little Acorns: www.starcentral.ca/images/bc/sample.wmv (I don't know how to get it to play 16:9, for me its playing squished at 4:3 - does anyone know what I have to do?)

[Jonathan Lawrence]

Your clip and stills look great. Very nice. Please advise when picture is complete. Keep up the good work.

[Yi Fong Yu]

my fav is:
http://www.starcentral.ca/images/bb/image011.jpg

excellent work. is there a trailer? we like to see things in motion for video stuff.

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Yi Fong Yu, no trailer yet - the film is still in production. However I put this together really quickly based on your request to see some footage with motion in them. In this sequence the character is running around town:

www.starcentral.ca/images/bb/sample.wmv

[Kevin Gilvear]

nice work. now i'm curious to know just what it is he's running from or to :D