Shooting video with the Canon 5dMKII – Part 3

 Photography Tips And Tricks  4 Responses »
Oct 032009
 

When I decided I needed to get this video stuff dialed, I needed something to shoot.  There’s no point trying to figure this all out unless you have a purpose and some footage to play with.  Leigh Powis, a local skier from Whistler, told about his crazy plan to put a trampoline on top of a cliff to help him practice a few new tricks before the winter.  This was the perfect chance to try filming some action AND some lifestyle.

So below is my very first ever video with the 5dMKII.  We shot it on 3 different days for about 2 hours on each day.  Please click through to the actual Vimeo page if you want to watch the video in HD.  But come back to find out more about the video!!

Cliff Trampoline – Whistler from Dan Carr on Vimeo.

The lenses I used to shoot it were the 85mm1.8 , 17-40 f4, 24-105 f4, 70-200 f4,45mm 2.8 Tilt Shift, 15mm fisheye and the 50mm 1.8.

There are many people out there shooting videos with the 5dMKII right now.  The new intro for Saturday Night Live was even shot with one last week!  A lot of these video pros are attaching all sorts of accessories to the camera to make it easier to shoot video.  External monitors, follow focus systems, matte boxes, shotgun mics and all manner of crazy rigs to hold them all together.  This video though was shot with a 5dMKII on a tripod.  Nothing else.

The tripod had a manfrotto 701HDV video head on it but that’s about the only difference to what I would usually carry for shooting photos.  That’s not to say that all those potential accessories don’t make a difference, they undoubtedly do, but they are not a necessity if you want to travel light.

The whole video was shot in full manual mode so that I had total control over the aperture.  In order to shoot at very wide apertures and keep the shutter speed down to something normal, I used a 2-stop neutral density filter on some of the lenses.  Occasionally I also put a polarizing filter stacked on to the ND filter which has the effect of cutting down the light even more.  This did produce some vignetting which you can see in a couple of the shots, but it actually looks like a nice effect!  A 2 Stop ND is going to be the absolute minimum you need to get a nice looking DOF on a bright day though.

For a couple of shots I attached the camera to the end of a Manfrotto studio lighting boom arm.  Not what it was intended for at all!! But it produced a dramatic angle.  The panning shot right before the action starts at 2min08sec was shot like this.  The camera fixed to the studio boom with a manfrotto magic arm and then panning on the mount on top of my regular Benro tripod.  Again, a nice video boom would have been great, but I wanted to make this with just the gear I had access to.  If you have read much about DSLR video before ,you will probably be aware of what “rolling shutter” is.  You really have to be careful with your panning to avoid this.  Slow and smooth is absolute necessity or you will get the jello effect.  I also found that the visibility of this effect was somewhat dependent on what shutter speed I was shooting at.  With a higher shutter speed it seemed to show up a lot easier.

Speaking of shutter speed, I experimented with that a bit too.  My preference was for the footage that was shot between 1/120 and 1/250 for the action stuff.  Anything faster than that and it gives it a sort of weird digital jerky effect.  For the lifestyle shots and interview shots I think I used it down at around 1/60 though.  I basically set the shutter speed I wanted, then used the filters to get to the aperture I wanted and then dialed in the ISO speed to get the correct exposure.  Incidentally, that is something that I found frustrating.  Its VERY easy to miss your exposure by a 1/3 of a stop because the “blinking highlights” feature is only available in playback.  Most times I would shoot a quick 2 second clip to check exposure before shooting the shot.  It would be great if there were some zebra lines to show overexposure.  They are available int he Magic Lantern firmware hack but I haven’t ventured that far yet….

One thing that I was pleasantly surprised about was how easily I managed to nail the focus in the shots even though it is fully manual.  The screen on the 5dMKII really is great and considering I wasn’t using any type of screen shade or eye-piece, I found it quite easy to get the focus right first time.  Pulling focus between 2 subjects takes a bit of practice to do smoothly, but its possible.

Shooting Video with the Canon 5dMKII – Part 2

 Cameras, Canon Reviews & Articles, Equipment Reviews & Articles  2 Responses »
Oct 022009
 

So once you have all of your video in a format that you can work with, import it all into Final Cut and set up a new project.  This is where you need to tread carefully, depending on which version of FCP you have.  I have Final Cut 5 and that caused some problems to begin with because I had no clue what I was doing.  In FCP 6 and later, when you drag a clip into the timeline, it automatically converts the timeline/sequence settings to conform to the setting of your clip.  In this case 1920×1080 , 30fps, AIC.  In FCP5 though, this does not happen and it caught me out for a while.  I had changed the Video&Audio settings under the file menu, but I was not aware that there is a settings panel for the sequence under the “sequence” menu, or ou can hit Command+zero.  In this menu, you also need to specify the video size (1920×1080), the codec used (in my case AIC), and also the frames per second (30fps NOT 29.97fps).  You will have to enter the “advanced” menu to find the drop down menu for frames per second and change it from the 29.97 default to 30fps.

If you forget to change these settings, when you export the finished product you will be left with video that has been stretched from the default 720p size up to 1080p and it will look terrible!  This took me a while to figure out….which some of you will no doubt find amusing.  But bear in mind I am speaking as a person who only just opened Final Cut Pro for the first time and there’s a lot to take in!

As you now have your timeline set up as an AIC timeline, all the transcoded clips you made will now play and edit in real time.  Once you have that setup its plane sailing.  With a reasonable amount of RAM in your computer (i’d recommend 4gb or more) you will be able to throw clips around and add transitions to them in no time at all.  For me, once I had those steps figure out, it all started to come together.  Video with a 5dMKII is not that daunting after all.

Tomorrow I will post the first video that I made and also some practical information about the physical shooting side of things.  Lens choice, shutter speeds and ND filters.


Shooting video with a Canon 5dMKII – Part 1

 Cameras, Canon Reviews & Articles, Equipment Reviews & Articles  6 Responses »
Oct 012009
 

When I first got the 5dMKII last winter, the camera world was buzzing about the incredible HD video that it can shoot as well as the beautiful 21MP images.  This will be great I thought, I can shoot some videos in between shooting photos.  When it actually came down to it though, nice idea as it is, I didn’t have the time mid-winter to learn about shooting video and editing HD video or learn about all the weird idiosyncrasies that the 5d’s video has.  I made a couple of short videos that never turned out how I expected and then pretty much gave up on it until I had some time to sit down and figure it all out.

Every year in the Autumn downtime before winter I sit down and try and teach myself a new skill.  Up this year was naturally DSLR video shooting and editing with Final Cut Pro.  There’s a few things you need to be aware of, and a couple of problems to solve when shooting with the 5d so i’d better write it all down so you guys can give it s shot too.

The 5dMKII generates 1080p video files at 30fps in h.264 codec.  Only one out of these three things is actually a good thing.  Video people will look at 30fps and assume that I mean the NTSC standard of 29.97fps because it’s often shortened to 30fps when talked about. Wrong.  For some reason Canon decided to use an actual 30fps so that is something you need to bear in mind if you are shooting with any other cameras that shoot at 29.97 and intend to mix footage and audio together.  For me though, right now that wasn’t a huge problem and 30fps is just fine for web content which was my initial goal.

What was a problem though was the h.264 format of the files.  H.264 is typically used as a finishing format, it’s a codec used to compress movie files when you export them from an editing program like Final Cut or Avid (if you are on a PC).  The codec is NOT designed to be edited with and Final Cut will not handle it very well if you try.  Importing native h.264 files into FCP will have it breathing like its having a heart attack in no time.  Nothing renders in real time and a few seconds of footage requires a 5 minute render every time you make the smallest of changes.  This is what put me off the most when i first experimented with the video back in the winter.

First what you need to do is become familiar with some sort of transcoding program that will convert all of your h.264 video into a format that will Final Cut can handle at speed.  If you have Final Cut then you should also have Apple Compressor and this is certainly one program that can handle the task.  Another option though is a fantastic piece of freeware called MPEG Streamclip.  You can download it from their website HERE.

For batch processing a large number of files, I actually preferred using MPEG Streamclip for the job and it’s not at all as daunting as it may sound.  Which format you convert to will depend on your intended output for your project.  Are you aiming to make production quality TV shows, DVDs or just simply some web content at a scaled down size?  If you want to make the highest quality available to you, it is generally considered that converting to Apple ProRes 422 is the best option.  You will need Final Cut 6 or later though to have access to this codec.  Converting all the h.264 files is more or less a case of just dragging and dropping the files into Compressor or Streamclip and selecting the relevant setting from the menus.  I wont go into detail about that as its fairly self explanatory once you have the program in front of you.  Converting to ProRes format will roughly quadruple the size of your video files though, so if you go down that route, make sure you have some serious disc space available and a powerhouse of a computer to edit with…

If you are looking for a smaller file size then converting to AIC (Apple intermediate codec) is a great option.  File size is roughly half that of ProRes, it is very very hard to tell the difference between the two and AIC files are handled very quickly in Final Cut.  This is the option that I chose to work with for my project.

At this point i’m going to leave it here for now as this is getting quite long.  I have just finished editing a quick 5 minute short that I shot while I was going through this learning process and I will upload that to the web shortly, along with some more information on things I discovered whilst learning to shoot video with the 5d.

Think Tank Photo announces the Takeoff roller backpack

 Industry News, New Products, Think Tank  No Responses »
Sep 222009
 

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am something of a fan of Think Tank products.  I own many of their bags and they all have very different and specific uses for me.  One thing that they have become very well known for, is their line of roller bags for airport travel.  There are several bags in the range that are suitable for both international and domestic flight.

The new bag in the range is called the Takeoff.  And what makes this one special is the shoulder straps that lie concealed in the back panel.  A roller bag is ideal in many airport situations, but occasionally you can come across a time when it pays to have shoulder straps.  For example…. try dragging a roller bag across gravel or other rough surfaces!  Last month I found myself in bit of conundrum on a photo trip to New Zealand.  I had a roller bag (Think Tank Airport International) and a rolling pelican case (1610) as well as a rolling ski bag.  Three roller bags and only 2 hands is fine when you have a luggage trolley, but when a bus drops you in a city center 500yds from a taxi rank…….problem!  I could have done with shoulder straps in that situation.

With airline carry on restrictions getting tighter by the day, I have also noticed an increasing trend.  Rolling bags get weighed when boarding a plane, bacpacks do not…… could this new bag help you sneak a few more KG of gear onto the plane?  maybe, just maybe.

The deployment of the straps is ingenious and they are very smartly hidden behind a panel when they are not needed.  But when they are needed, these straps are nice and chunky and will spread the weight of the pack very well.

The sizing of the bag is slightly smaller than the airport international which is also welcome as size allowance also seems to be shrinking. Its also quite a bit lighter when empty.  The front pocket will accommodate a laptop sleeve and they have provided a locking cable to secure that to the bag.

If you decide to purchase any of the bags, Think Tank has a special offer on at the moment. If you visit their website via this link to buy their products, you will receive a free gift/bag at the checkout!

Tech specs:

  • ID: 13”W x 18.5”H x 5.25 – 6.75”D (33 x 47 x 13 – 17cm)
    ED: 14”W x 21”H x 8”D (35.5 x 53 x 22cm)
  • Weight: 8.6 – 10.3 lbs (3.9 – 4.7 kg) (depending on accessories used)

Whistler Blackcomb Peak to Peak campaign

 In Print  6 Responses »
Sep 082009
 

Back in the spring time I was asked to shoot a campaign for Whistler Blackcomb.  The ads were to center around the new Peak to Peak gondola that spans the gap between Whistler and Blackcomb and the first versions have now hit the news stands in Freeskier magazine and Transworld Snowboarding.  We had some difficulties with the weather for these shoots and they were postponed multiple times but in the end it turned out really well.

On the left is Max Hill, on the right Mikey Pederson.

NZ Trip – What worked and what didn’t

 Equipment Reviews & Articles, Trip Report  4 Responses »
Sep 032009
 

I’ve seen similar post on a couple of other photographers blogs before and always found them to be interesting and useful.  When heading off on a long trip it can be tough to figure out how much gear to take and in what combination.  On my recent trip I had to do just about every type of ski photography you can imagine.  Backcountry skiing, heli skiing, daytime and night time park shooting, product shooting and portraiture.  I was trying to accomplish this with only 2 pieces of checked in baggage (32KG each) and one piece of hand baggage and that was a struggle.

Predictably I took too much with me.  Some of the gear stayed unused in my bag so here is a few notes in no particular order:

Think Tank Airport International: This is the bag I used to take my cameras and lenses on the plane.  You can fit a huge amount of gear in this.  Fully loaded with 8 lenses, 2 cameras and other miscellaneous trinkets it weighed in at 20kg but its dimensions are designed to make it legal carry on size.  Unfortunately the weigh limit for carry on on air New Zealand was 7kg.  My carry on is always over the limit so that’s no surprise.  I just do the old trick of taking it all out and hanging cameras round your neck with lenses in your pocket.  What did become a problem though is that this bag weighs 6KG when its empty….. leaving you with only 1 solitary KG of gear to be allowed in the bag should it get weighed by the “jobsworths” at the gate.  Certainly worth consideration.  Rolling cases are great for your back but I hadn’t appreciated how much the empty bag weighed until it was pointed out to me by my friendly gate agent.

Canon 45mm T/S:  A new purchase just before I left and first impressions are great.  It’s a little softer at f2.8 but by f3.5 is nice and sharp as long as you nail the focus, which is manual only.  This thing was absolutely awesome for some of the product photography I had to do for a catalog.  Total control of the plane of focus allowed me to control exactly which elements of the product you were drawn to in the photos.  Manual focus was not a problem when combined with live view on the 5dMKII.  I also found myself reaching for this lens for full length portraits too instead of my 50mm lens.  In fact my 50mm lens did not get touched once on the whole trip.  Played with the lens a little bit for action shots too, novelty value is there but could get old pretty quickly.

Elinchrom Ranger: Apart from the traveling problems I experienced with this, it worked flawlessly as usual and I used it nearly every day for product shots , portraits or action.  Taking this with me on a trip is a no-brainer.  One decision that I did make before I left was to only take metallic reflectors with me and leave other light modifiers behind such as softboxes.  I had no problems with this, the light quality from the ranger with a bare bulb is beautiful and it did the job admirably.  I took the huge sports reflector with me but found that I could have easily coped with the smaller standard reflector and the medium sized one with a 20 degree grid.

Support: 1 tripod, 1 monopod, large 12ft lightstand,  4ft lightstand and a manfrotto magic arm.  I could have left the monopod at home, only used it a couple of times.  I took it to use shooting some pipe but in the end i could have accomplished the same thing with the 4ft lightstand.  The magic arm didn’t get used more than once but i’d still take that with me.  I find that when i need that thing, there is nothing else that will do the job and it’s saved me a few times in the past.  I ditched the regular sized super clamp this time and just took the new nano clamp to go on the end of it but this was a mistake.  It is not strong enough to support a 1 series camera and I snapped off the end of a spigot inside one of the threaded holes on the clamp.  Next time I will take the super clamp too and just keep the nano for holding small flashes.

Long lenses: I had my 300mm lens with me but I was surprised how little I actually used it.  When sledding in the BC backcountry I use it all the time but I could probably have left it behind this time.  To save a little weight one day I took my 1.4 teleconverter with me and my 70-200 f4 L IS.  I had never used this combination before, not since I sold my 70-200 f2.8IS.  With the 2.8 version of the lens I was never happy with the 1.4x, in fact I hated it.  However this time, with the 70-200 f4 IS I was amazed at the quality!  With the old 2.8 lens you could tell from a mile off which shots had been taken with the teleconverter, but this time, with the f4 lens I actually had to check the EXIF data most times to figure it out!!  You need to stop it down a tiny bit, but overall I was very impressed by it and wouldn’t hesitate to use it again.

Small Flashes: I took 4 Nikon SB-80DXs with me.  I could have easily managed with just 2 of them

Pockewizards: I gave the TT1 transmitter one last try but the only time i tried to use it, it failed to learn the channel I needed it to and then I couldn’t get it to transmit at all.  Still total junk.  All my old plus IIs and multimaxes were just fine though.

Pelican 1610: This is the case that I pack my flash gear into.  Before I bought the case I studied the specs on several cases.  The trick is to get a case that gives you a good volume to weight ratio.  Some of the larger cases are so heavy even when they are empty that it leaves you very little allowance to put gear in before you max out at the 32KG limit enforced by airlines.  The 1610, packed with a ranger system including a spare battery, 4 pocketwizards, 4 small flashes, and a couple of small light stands weighs in at exactly 32KG.  The Ranger head and the battery pack are packed into modular inserts made by F-Stop.

Canon Announces the 7D

 Canon, Industry News  7 Responses »
Aug 312009
 

As I blogged about the other day, there’s been a lot of speculation about this camera for a few years and today is finally the day that Canon have announced the elusive 7D.

It fits into an entirely new position in their SLR lineup, right between the current 50d and the 5dMKII and comes in at the VERY attractive price point of $1699 US or $2099 CDN for the body only.

Specification run down:

  • 18 megapixel APS-C 1.6x Crop
  • 8fps
  • Dual Digic IV, new 14-bit ADC circuitry
  • New 19-point AF circuitry
  • 100% viewfinder with LCD overlay, allowing a level and gridlines to be projected on the screen
  • New 63-zone metering system
  • Exposure compensation is now +/- 5 stops
  • FULLY weathersealed, Not half-weathersealed like the 5D Mark II
  • 3″ Rear screen, upgraded version of the one in the 50D and 5D Mark II
  • Video is 1080p at 24, 25 or 30 fps, or 720p at 60/50/30/25/24 fps, has manual controls, gridlines and the virtual level available
  • ISO 100-6400, extend to 12800
  • Internal ETTL flash control (this is a big addition!)
  • Uses the same battery as the 5dMKII lp-E6
  • New battery grip

Canon has made some extraordinary advances with this camera and I think it’s going to be a huge bit with action sports and adventure photographers such as myself.  Having a camera that shoots with the speed of a 1-series camera but in a smaller, lighter package is something I have dreamed of for a long time.  There are a few subtle differences in there too which are quite exciting.  The 19-point focus system has all 19 points as more accurate cross-type sensors with lenses of 5.6 and up.  Great news for people using f4 lenses, the old system only had cross-type function for lenses of 2.8 and up.  This should mean greatly improved autofocus speed and tracking even if you are using a teleconverter on an f4 lens. The LCD overlay on in the viewfinder sounds like a great way to display info too.  Canon have also finally added ETTL control of external flashes meaning no more ST-E2 transmitter to remotely control and trigger external Canon flashes.  I might finally get some use out of my old 580EX now!

As you can see from the photos there are several ergonomic changes too.  A dedicated button for liveview and video recording is a welcome addition and also a programmable button next to the shutter release which can be assigned to any function such as mirror lockup.

Cramming 18 megapixles into a 1.6 crop sensor has a few people worried though, this has by far the biggest pixel density of any camera out there right now but has apparently been done with some new technology and should not effect the noise levels.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that one….

For me this is an exciting introduction.  It improves on my current 1dMKIIN in nearly every way and does so in a package that is half the size.  Alongside my 5dMKII this will make a formidable combination and I have already added myself to the waiting list to receive one of these cameras as soon as they come into Canada in about a months time.

For the video guys out there the 7d finally adds multiple frame rates with 24p, 25p and 30p in HD and 60p in 720p resolution.

Flying with an Elinchrom Ranger

 Equipment Reviews & Articles, Studio Equipment  29 Responses »
Aug 292009
 

This morning I was woken up at 4am by someone hammering on my front door.  I was ecstatic.   Why?

Because the guy who was banging 7 shades out of my door, was also carrying my pelican case full of flash equipment that I had last seen at Queenstown airport in New Zealand 4 days ago.  If you own and travel with an Elinchrom Ranger (or similar batery powered flash) then you would be advised to read on.

Let’s face it, if you put a Ranger through an x-ray scanner at an airport , it’s going to trigger some alarms.  And so it should, a metal box full of wires wrapped around something resembling a car battery.  I’d be worried if airport security didnt want to have a closer look at it.  When flying though most countries, baggage security agents will open up your case, have a quick look at it, swab it for bomb making substances and then send it on its way.  In case you are unfortunate enough to have an agent who has not seen a flash battery system before, its always advisable to include a copy of the manual for the Ranger clearly visible in the case.

You can download a copy of the manual from this link : HERE

On the font of the manual I write a quick note saying that the IATA specifications are located on page 4 of the manual.  These specifications state that the Ranger battery meets all the necessary standards to be deemed a non-dangerous goods item by IATA providing that the 30amp fuse is removed from the battery and the battery stored separately from the Ranger.

Sometimes security agents get especially freaked out by the words “lead acid battery” written on the side of the battery case.  It is in fact a Sealed Lead Acid Battery that does meet all the necessary requirements for air travel but I have had the batteries confiscated in the past at Auckland airport because the security personnel were not willing to listen to me.  In that situation I returned home with everything apart from the battery and then contacted Elinchrom for a suggestion.  They pointed me to a separate letter from a Panasonic engineer that specifically stated the specs for the actual battery inside the battery box.

You can download this letter: HERE

I provided the agents at Auckland airport with this letter and they returned my battery. Keep a copy of this letter along with the Ranger manual inside your case.

So far I have flown to many different places with my Ranger and these 2 printed items have done the trick.  But a few days ago I experienced more trouble traveling through Auckland airport. My bag was checked through to Vancouver via Auckland when I left Queenstown.  My flight to Auckland was delayed and there was only a matter of minutes between landing there, and taking off again on my way to Vancouver.  I was already on the plane which was about to pull away from the gate when an Air New Zealand representative came running down the aisle looking for me.  I was dragged off the plane (in front of 300 pairs of glaring eyes) and was told that my bag had caused a level 4 security alert.  No problem I told them, i know why and you can find the IATA specification for the offending item inside the case.

Now hear lies the problem because as it turns out, the passenger HAS to be present in New Zealand for the case to be opened.  They could not read the info I had provided because they were not allowed to open the case unless I was there.  At this point the plane was late and costing them a fortune in ground fees.  My case was somewhere on the other side of the airport in a secure room.  If they left it there, it could not be opened if I left, but if i went to open it the full 747 of people would be even later.  And it was already 10 minutes late having waited for me to arrive on my connection from Queenstown.

Now in the end I talked them through exactly what it was in the case and sent the keys to the lock off with an Air NZ rep who went and opened it herself after many phone calls and frantic radio conversations.  How could this have been avoided?  Apparently if I had also carried a copy of the specifications with me in my hand-luggage and ALSO given a copy to the check-in agent ( who would have attached a note to the outside of the case) then this could have been avoided.  They ended up sending me on the flight without my case, which finally arrived, as i mentioned last night.

I had always assumed that my case would opened by security and that the specs in the case would solve all problems.  I dont know how many countries have similar regulations to New Zealand but in the future I will be travelling with a huge stack of these letters linked above and I suggest you do the same.  Sitting on the other side of the world wandering if your precious cargo will ever safely make it back to you is not a nice feeling…..

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