| Trailer |
| New This Week - How Do I Control Exposure and Depth of Field in Bright Light? |
IntroductionWelcome| 00:03 | Richard Harrington: Hi!
My name is Richard Harrington.
| | 00:05 | Robbie Carman: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:06 | Richard: And we would like to thank you for
joining us as we take a look at the essential
| | 00:08 | skills needed for shooting DSLR video.
| | 00:11 | In this course we are going to
explore a new topic each week.
| | 00:14 | Robbie: And Rich, we are going to take a look
at these topics from the perspective of a
| | 00:17 | Video Pro and a Video Enthusiast, as well
as a Photography Pro Enthusiast.
| | 00:21 | Richard: Yeah, I think that's important to
realize that we are not going to make this
| | 00:24 | just for people who are pros. If you are hardcore
about getting better images, whether you relate
| | 00:29 | more to photography or video,
you should still enjoy this course.
| | 00:33 | We have designed this so people of all experience
levels who are serious about getting better
| | 00:37 | will be able to improve their skills.
| | 00:39 | Robbie: Yeah, and Rich, we are not going to
extrapolate on every single topic ad nauseam.
| | 00:42 | Richard: No.
| | 00:43 | Robbie: What we are going to do is be concise
and direct about the essentials that we want
| | 00:47 | to share with you, and we think that we should
you know for shooting DSLR video.
| | 00:50 | Richard: Yeah, and keep in mind that we have
formed this opinions over years of working.
| | 00:54 | We have both been shooting photography for
years and working in the video fields.
| | 00:58 | And this is an interesting time we live in,
where these DSLR cameras are taking the best
| | 01:02 | of photography and video
and combining it into one body.
| | 01:05 | So, we are going to make sure that what we
share with you are real-world techniques that
| | 01:08 | solve problems that we have
used on actual productions.
| | 01:11 | Robbie: Now Rich, we have made the assumption
though that if you are watching this title,
| | 01:14 | you are already pretty comfortable with the
basic operation of your camera.
| | 01:18 | Richard: Right! Hopefully you have taken it
out, you have shot a bit. Every camera is
| | 01:22 | different, they do come with manuals that
you can look at, and of course, for many cameras
| | 01:26 | we have training here available on the lynda.com
online training library.
| | 01:30 | You are going to want to make sure that you
have actually logged some time in the field shooting.
| | 01:34 | This way when we talk about solving problems,
you will experience some of these problems first hand.
| | 01:39 | It's a lot easier to learn something when
you have a point of reference.
| | 01:43 | Robbie: And Rich, I for one, am very excited
about this title.
| | 01:46 | I think it's going to be a great resource
for not only people who are new to DSLR video,
| | 01:50 | but for those who have been
shooting for a while as well.
| | 01:51 | Richard: Right, and in the course description
there is an email listed where we'd love to
| | 01:56 | get additional questions for future episodes.
We are designing this to be an ongoing series.
| | 02:00 | So each week you can log in
and get a solution for one problem.
| | 02:05 | Sometimes we will tackle it in 5 minutes,
sometimes it may take 10.
| | 02:08 | But we promise you that we are going to go
ahead and dig in deep and get you an answer.
| | 02:12 | But it's going to be concise and direct,
so one problem, one week.
| | 02:16 | Keep joining us week after week, and as the
library builds, feel free to jump around and
| | 02:20 | find the solution to the problem that you
are facing today.
| | 02:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
1. Which Frame Size Should I Use?Frame size recommendations| 00:00 | Richard: So, Rob a question I get asked all
the time is which frame size should I use?
| | 00:04 | You know, you pop open the menu on your camera,
and you typically have three choices.
| | 00:07 | Robbie: That's right! You usually have a standard-def
resolution, which is typically 640x480, and
| | 00:13 | in my opinion unless you have to use that
resolution, I'd avoid it.
| | 00:17 | Richard: Yeah, standard def
kind of lost the war.
| | 00:19 | People really aren't acquiring video in standard
definition anymore.
| | 00:22 | I don't even think you could buy a standard
definition TV set.
| | 00:25 | Robbie: Yeah, probably pretty hard.
| | 00:26 | But you know, if you need to use 640x480, most
of the time that's going to be because a
| | 00:30 | client is specifically requesting that you
shoot something in standard def or you just
| | 00:35 | have to fit a ton of footage on a card, but
in most cases and most situations, I would avoid it.
| | 00:41 | So that leads us to our next
resolution, which is 1280x720.
| | 00:44 | Richard: Yeah, often referred to as 720p, and
one of the things I've noticed that from manufacturer
| | 00:50 | to manufacturer will have variances in what
frame rates are supported, like on my Nikon,
| | 00:55 | I've got the ability to shoot at 24 and 30
and 60, and on the 7D, we just have 60.
| | 01:00 | So, what's the deal here
with 720, why so much variation?
| | 01:03 | Robbie: Well, let me show you. Let's pop into
the camera menu here for a second, and this
| | 01:06 | is a Canon 7D, and right now I'm at 1920x1080
at 24 frames per second, but I can actually
| | 01:12 | go down to 1280x720, and you'll notice that
this actually says 60 frames per second, that's
| | 01:17 | because I'm in a 720 NTSC mode.
| | 01:20 | It's not really even 60 frames per second,
it's 59.94, but we'll get back to frame rate
| | 01:24 | probably in a later episode.
| | 01:26 | That's because, again, on this camera I am
on NTSC mode.
| | 01:28 | If I switched over to PAL mode, this option
would be 720p 50, or 50 frames per second,
| | 01:34 | so it's just how the camera is setup.
| | 01:35 | Richard: Okay, and that's often used for over
crank affects or for specifically matching
| | 01:39 | other footage, so that makes sense.
| | 01:41 | Now there are some other technical benefits
to 720p, and one of the ones that stands out
| | 01:45 | for me is capacity.
| | 01:47 | So if I'm out on a busy day shooting, and
I've got limited card space or maybe I'm doing
| | 01:52 | out documentary approach, having that increased
capacity could just let me shoot for a longer day.
| | 01:57 | Robbie: Yeah, increased capacity is good choice,
but the other thing is you might need to integrate
| | 02:00 | the footage that you're shooting with your
DSLR with existing footage.
| | 02:04 | So if you've shot a lot of other stuff that
is 720p, well, it makes sense to go and shoot
| | 02:08 | 720p to integrate that footage into a project.
| | 02:10 | Richard: Right, so if the client asked for
720p, give them 720p.
| | 02:14 | Robbie: Exactly, Exactly! Richard: Okay, of
course, then we have 1080 and 1080 is king
| | 02:18 | sometimes called Full HD.
Robbie: Yep.
| | 02:20 | Yeah, so 1080 is the best
that we get in HD, right?
| | 02:23 | Of course there are 2K, 4K and above, you
know, sort of digital cinema resolutions, but
| | 02:28 | on these DSLRs the current crop anyway. We're
limited to a maximum resolution or maximum
| | 02:33 | frame size of 1920x1080,
but that's really good.
| | 02:36 | 1920x1080 is the best that HD is going to get,
and generally speaking I suggest people shoot at 1080.
| | 02:42 | Why? Well, because if you shoot at 1080, it's always
easy to go down to smaller resolutions, right?
| | 02:48 | Go to 720p or you can go to standard-def,
it's more difficult to go the other way around.
| | 02:53 | If you wanted to say up-res 640x480 footage
to HD, like 1920x1080, it's not going to look so good.
| | 02:59 | Richard: Yeah, remember when you're discarding
information, the picture still stays sharp,
| | 03:03 | when you try to artificially create new pixels
by blowing it up, it's going to get soft or pixelated.
| | 03:08 | Robbie: So that just doesn't work.
| | 03:09 | Richard: All right, so to recap, when you're
in that menu system, you are typically going
| | 03:12 | to have three choices, standard def, not very
useful, pretty much avoid it.
| | 03:17 | Robbie: Only if requested, yeah.
| | 03:19 | Richard: 720, great, if you need increased
recording capacity, client asks for it or
| | 03:24 | you're going for a Motion effect.
| | 03:26 | And 1080, probably what most people should be
shooting most of the time if their camera supports it.
| | 03:31 | Robbie: Yeah, I agree with that.
| | 03:32 | Richard: All right, great! So there you have
it, which frame size should you shoot?
| | 03:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Which Frame Rate Should I Shoot?Exploring frame rate choices| 00:00 | Richard: So, a question that I get asked all
the time Rob is which frame rate should I
| | 00:04 | shoot, because it's confusing, you got all
sort of choices in that menu, and I think
| | 00:09 | it gets even worse because what the menu says
isn't necessarily exactly what you're shooting.
| | 00:14 | Robbie: Yeah, that's right.
| | 00:15 | I mean, there are lots of frame rates to shoot
and to choose from.
| | 00:18 | Let's start with the bottom, and we sort of
work our way up in the various frame rates.
| | 00:22 | The first one that you'll probably encounter
is 24 frames per second, and 24 frames per
| | 00:26 | second is the traditional film frame rate.
| | 00:28 | Go to a movie theater, watch the film back,
and you're watching it back at 24 frames per second.
| | 00:32 | However, in these DSLRs especially if your
camera setup to an NTSC mode, you're probably
| | 00:37 | not recording true 24 frames per second, you're
probably recording 23.98 or 23.976.
| | 00:44 | Richard: And this is leftover due to backwards
compatibility with the original television
| | 00:49 | spec from the '50s?
| | 00:51 | Robbie: Right, decades ago when we're doing
things like introducing color into the signal
| | 00:55 | and so on and so forth, we actually had to
slow down the video signal just a touch to
| | 00:59 | get it to be compatible with television sets
that were out there.
| | 01:03 | So most of the times when we're shooting 24, we're
actually shooting 23.98, which is shorthand really for 23.976.
| | 01:09 | Richard: Although one of the things I've actually
noticed is that there is some variation between
| | 01:15 | cameras, even firmware versions.
| | 01:17 | Many of the cameras that said 24 were originally
shooting 24 until they updated the firmware.
| | 01:22 | So, there's really no way to know exactly
unless you record a file and then put it into
| | 01:27 | your editing system and look at it.
Robbie: Or of course you can read the manual.
| | 01:31 | Richard: What? You're assuming that those
are actually updated in timely fashion?
| | 01:34 | Robbie: Right, no absolutely.
| | 01:35 | So the next frame rate that will find typically
when we're in a PAL mode, PAL of course is
| | 01:40 | television system that's used in Europe and other
parts of the world is 25 frames per second, right?
| | 01:45 | And 25 frames per second is used all the time
for broadcast in Europe and other parts of
| | 01:49 | the world, but it can also be used if you
want a more filmic type look, you need to
| | 01:53 | integrate with say PAL footage
and things of that nature.
| | 01:56 | Richard: And in this particular case like
on the Nikon menu here, you're noticing that
| | 02:00 | 25 isn't showing up, because all I have to
go in and change my camera setup and switch
| | 02:05 | it to from NTSC to PAL.
| | 02:06 | Robbie: That's correct.
Richard: In order to access that, so--
| | 02:08 | Robbie: And it's the same thing on the Canon
cameras as well.
| | 02:10 | Richard: Yeah. They kind of hide that because they don't
want you accidentally choosing it, like what
| | 02:15 | video standard do you use, NTSC versus PAL
is kind of a fundamental question.
| | 02:19 | You could see on the map, it's going to vary
based on country, but even this is not a hard
| | 02:24 | and fast rule, because people in the US might
be shooting PAL in order to deliver to a country
| | 02:28 | that's going to broadcast in PAL, and I've
seen places where even though it's a PAL country,
| | 02:33 | like we don't care, it should be 24.
| | 02:35 | Robbie: Well, it could be
just a preference thing too.
| | 02:36 | As I said before you know you might shoot
25 here in the United States just because
| | 02:41 | you like that look of 25 frames per second,
so it can become a preference thing as well.
| | 02:45 | Richard: So let's get onto the most popular
one for broadcast, 29.97.
| | 02:49 | Robbie: Or as a lot of camera will say
30 frames per second, right?
| | 02:53 | Again, we have to remember sort of this fractional
frame rate thing that's in play.
| | 02:56 | So, 30 frames per second as you've pointed
out, a lot of the early DSLRs when they first
| | 02:59 | shipped it was a true 30 frames per second.
| | 03:03 | Richard: And that's because these cameras
were originally designed to make just web video.
| | 03:06 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 03:07 | Richard: Nobody ever thought, what you mean you're
going to take this video and put it on a broadcast signal?
| | 03:10 | Robbie: But most of the cameras now and through
Firmware updates and things of that nature
| | 03:13 | are shooting when you're in NTSC mode, and
you choose 30, are really shooting 29.97,
| | 03:19 | which of course is a standard and typical
broadcast frame rate here in States.
| | 03:23 | Richard: Okay so that makes sense if that's
what you need to deliver, and then we've got
| | 03:26 | this crazy option, and it will vary depending
upon how your camera is set up, NTSC or PAL,
| | 03:32 | 50 or 60 frames per second.
Why would I choose that?
| | 03:36 | Robbie: Well, first of all, most of the time
the 50 and 60 options are only going to be
| | 03:40 | available to in a 720 mode.
| | 03:43 | Most of these camera manufacturers have not
yet gotten 50 and 60 frames per second through
| | 03:48 | the 1080 modes just because it's a lot of
bandwidth and a lot of data to get onto the
| | 03:52 | card and to process by the camera.
| | 03:54 | Richard: If you've ever had your camera overheat
regularly shooting 1080 at 60 frames per seconds,
| | 03:59 | it's just like, oh let's cook an egg.
Robbie: Smoke will start coming out of it, yeah.
| | 04:03 | But typically 50 would be for camera setup
and the PAL setup, and 60 would be again for NTSC setup.
| | 04:10 | Now just remember with NTSC 60 is really 59.94,
again, that fractional frame rate thing is
| | 04:17 | in play, and people will shoot these higher
frame rates for really couple of reasons.
| | 04:22 | First, shooting a faster frame rate will give
you a more--I don't know--real sense of reality.
| | 04:27 | Things tend to move a little sharper.
| | 04:29 | It's good for things like sports or other
fast-moving stuff.
| | 04:32 | Some people think it's a little
too close to reality.
| | 04:35 | Richard: Yeah, I was to say I don't get that
look of video or film that I want.
| | 04:39 | It just looks too crisp and too sharp to me,
but I like it for slowing things down.
| | 04:44 | Robbie: Exactly, and that's the next reason.
| | 04:46 | If you shoot at a faster frame rate, say you
shoot 720p 60, 60 frames per second, which
| | 04:51 | is really, again 59.94.
| | 04:53 | You could then slow that down to, say 23.98, and you
get a nice slow-motion effect from that faster footage.
| | 05:01 | Richard: Yes, and that's all done in the post-processing,
but the big thing here is like if I'm in my
| | 05:06 | Movie settings, and I go ahead and I choose
one of those 60 frames per second option,
| | 05:11 | that's great, and I can use it.
| | 05:13 | Now on my Nikon I don't even have a choice
to shoot at 60.
| | 05:16 | Well, we're going to pop up your Canon here
in just a second and take a look at that.
| | 05:19 | Same idea, different choices, different cameras
so that maybe one factor as you're looking
| | 05:24 | at buying a camera, deciding what
frame rates you need.
| | 05:27 | But I'm just going to be honest, the number
of times I'm shooting 60 frames per second
| | 05:31 | is like 3 or 4 times a year.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 05:33 | Yeah, and just one more thing about the 60
or 50 frames per second, if you're using it
| | 05:37 | for slow-motion effects--which I'm sure we'll
talk about in later episodes--just be aware
| | 05:41 | that if you use slow down that video, your
audio is also going to be slow down.
| | 05:45 | So if you're going to shooting in one of those
faster modes, just be aware of what the audio
| | 05:49 | is doing as well.
Richard: I don't under--Oh I get it.
| | 05:52 | Robbie: Exactly.
Richard: Exactly.
| | 05:53 | Yeah, half rate, half audio speed.
| | 05:55 | All right! So there you have it, which frame
rate should you shoot.
| | 05:58 | Most commonly, it's going to be 24 if delivering
to the web or you want that film look.
| | 06:01 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 06:02 | Richard: If you're going broadcast, you're
going to be 25 or 30 or the fractional frame
| | 06:06 | rate there up, and because based on what the
client specified, and 60 if you want to get
| | 06:11 | Motion Effects or you are trying to get that
Hyper-reality, 50 same sort of thing.
| | 06:14 | Robbie: Yeah, exactly.
| | 06:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Frame rate recommendations| 00:00 | Robbie: So Rich, earlier we talked about what
the Frame Rate options that we had available
| | 00:04 | to us were, but how do I know
which one to use in what situation?
| | 00:09 | Richard: Well, sometimes it's super easy.
| | 00:11 | It's dictated by if you're shooting for a
TV network or a client, they're going to tell you.
| | 00:16 | And so, never hurts to say what frame rate
do you want?
| | 00:19 | Robbie: Right Okay Richard: And that's fine,
any others, there are logical rules like,
| | 00:23 | I want delivering to a PAL Broadcast Standard, 25,
or I'm delivering to an NTSC standard, 29.97.
| | 00:29 | Robbie: 30, right, exactly.
Richard: Sometimes it's set for you.
| | 00:32 | Other times it's up to you or up to your client,
and it becomes a real world conversation.
| | 00:36 | Robbie: Yeah, I know, that's a--
that's a good point.
| | 00:38 | I mean one of the things I think a lot of
people are going after these days is sort
| | 00:41 | of that filmic look, right?
| | 00:42 | They want that nice smooth motion, and to
get that typically, we're going to probably
| | 00:46 | shoot at 24 frames per second.
| | 00:48 | And really in NTSC countries it's a fractional
frame rate, so 23.98, and that frame
| | 00:53 | rate has just become sort of the factor standard
of what we think about when we think, hey,
| | 00:57 | film type look, has a nice smooth motion,
there's a little bit of motion blur, and it's
| | 01:01 | a sort easy on the eyes.
| | 01:03 | Richard: Yeah, and I've been
shooting 24p for years.
| | 01:05 | I'm a big proponent of it,
I think it looks great.
| | 01:08 | And this is where there is
a lot of confusion around here.
| | 01:10 | Just shooting 24p isn't going to give you
the film look, but combined with the Shallow
| | 01:14 | Depth or Field options in the DSLR and sort
of the curve response, it's much easier to
| | 01:19 | get a filmic image off of a DSLR, which is
why they're so popular.
| | 01:23 | But one of the things I think people get
confuse at is well, if I shoot 24p, am I stuck?
| | 01:28 | And I think people forget that.
| | 01:29 | We've been taking 24p content for years, and
converting it for broadcast, you know, you
| | 01:34 | do that all the time.
| | 01:35 | Robbie: Absolutely! Yeah, it's easy to--especially
when you're shooting fractional frame rates,
| | 01:38 | say 23.98 to go to 29.97, right?
That's very easy to do.
| | 01:43 | But I think another good reason to shoot 23.98
or 24 is when you're going to things like the web, right?
| | 01:48 | Because you are shooting at a lesser frame
rate, not as many frames per second, what happens?
| | 01:53 | Your file size is going to be smaller than
say a file that was shot at 29.97 or 30 frames
| | 01:59 | or 50 or 60 either.
| | 02:00 | Richard: Well, and that carries out through
the whole process.
| | 02:03 | Less frames to store on your hard drive, so
increased storage capacity for editing.
| | 02:07 | Less frames stored on your camera, so longer
record times there, less frames for the end
| | 02:12 | user to download, less frames to render.
| | 02:15 | We've been running 720p, 24 in my shop for
years, as we were transitioning clients to
| | 02:20 | HD, because it was just
a more affordable option.
| | 02:23 | But if you're delivering to iPad, Televisions,
Blu-ray, DVD, portable players, 720 is often
| | 02:30 | the best folks are going to get, while YouTube and others
will have 1080 and up, but practically nobody uses it.
| | 02:35 | Robbie: Yeah, I hear you.
| | 02:36 | So we have 23.98 and 24, then for film purposes
or saving file space, we have 25 and 30, or
| | 02:44 | 29.97 for say broadcast purposes.
| | 02:46 | What about the other frame rates that we see
on these typically on these cameras, 50 frames
| | 02:49 | per second and 60 frames per second, why would
I want to use those and in what situations?
| | 02:53 | Richard: I like to use those in music videos,
or sometimes if we are trying to show slow motion.
| | 02:59 | If you record something at 60 frames per second,
and then you deliver it at 24 frames per second,
| | 03:04 | you're able to slow that
down almost 2 & 1/2 times.
| | 03:06 | Robbie: So we can get a nice slow motion effect,
because it shot at a faster frame rate.
| | 03:10 | Richard: Yeah, and I'll use that all of the
time for things like if we're doing product
| | 03:14 | shots, turn tables, and we want nice smooth
slow pans as the object rotates around, or
| | 03:20 | we're showing sports, and we want to do a
slow motion, or we just want that nice fluid feeling.
| | 03:25 | Now that is a post technique.
| | 03:27 | When you look at it on the camera it's not
going to look that way.
| | 03:29 | Robbie: It's actually going to look sort of
Hyper-real, right?
| | 03:33 | And that's one thing that a lot of people
do like is especially for fast moving things,
| | 03:37 | like sports, you know Action Sports in Motocross,
snowboarders, whatever.
| | 03:41 | Because we're shooting faster than we typically
see things on TV, you know 30 frames per second,
| | 03:45 | we're going to get that Hyper-real type look,
which you know is a subjective thing.
| | 03:49 | I personally don't really like that sort of
hyper look, but depending on what you are
| | 03:54 | shooting, things that are moving really fast,
we don't want a lot of motion blur, those
| | 03:58 | faster frame rates might be a good choice.
| | 03:59 | Richard: And it also will affect, and we'll
talk more about exposure down the road.
| | 04:03 | But it will change your option and your exposure
because you're recording more frames, you're
| | 04:06 | going to have to get more
light on to the sensor.
| | 04:09 | Robbie: Yeah, absolutely! So there you go!
A couple of different situation where you
| | 04:12 | want to use different frame rate, you know,
23.98 or 24 frames per second if you want
| | 04:16 | that filmic look, or we're trying to save
on file space for things like web delivery,
| | 04:20 | 25 frames per second or 30 frames per second,
which is really 29.97 in NTSC countries for
| | 04:25 | broadcast delivery, or if you want that traditional
sort of TV type frame rate, and then go into
| | 04:31 | faster frame rates, 50 for PAL and 60 for
NTSC countries, if you want sort of a Hyper-real
| | 04:36 | type look or later on in postproduction you want
to slow down that shot to get a nice slow motion effect.
| | 04:46 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Mixing frame rates| 00:00 | Richard: Now, you, and I both do a lot of
work in postproduction, the editing stage,
| | 00:04 | and invariably in the middle of a project
you'll start looking at the footage going,
| | 00:09 | something just looks kind of weird.
| | 00:10 | Robbie: Yeah, that happens, well, that happens
for me all the time.
| | 00:12 | For one of the reasons that happens is typically because
we have projects that might have mixed frame rate media.
| | 00:18 | You know, something at 24 frames per second
or 23.98, something else at 29.97 and something
| | 00:24 | else may be even at 50 or 60 frames per second.
Richard: And this pops up for a lot of situations.
| | 00:28 | For example, we are dealing with clients who
have legacy materials, plus new materials,
| | 00:32 | you know a lot of people are moving to 24p,
but they'll cut in some older footage, and
| | 00:36 | it's got 30 frames per second or 25, or they
just get--I don't want to say it, but it's true: careless.
| | 00:42 | Different crews shooting on different days
use different settings, because the producer,
| | 00:46 | the director never says these are our tech specs.
They just let the crew set up the camera.
| | 00:51 | Robbie: Yeah, that first one obviously is
avoidable, right?
| | 00:53 | You know, check the camera every time for
its frame size and its frame rate before you start shooting.
| | 00:59 | Ask the producer whoever else is sort of the
stakeholder in the project, what frame rate
| | 01:03 | should we be shooting at, right?
| | 01:04 | Because, you know, it's fixable, a lot of
times we can integrate that stuff, and we'll
| | 01:08 | talk about this later on, when we talk more
about postproduction.
| | 01:10 | But we are going to integrate that stuff,
but it's always best to shoot at the proper
| | 01:13 | frame rate to begin with.
| | 01:14 | The other thing I want to point out is that
if you have footage that uses a fractional
| | 01:17 | frame rate, say, 29.97, and you're going to
go out and acquire a new footage, just make
| | 01:22 | sure you also shoot at a fractional frame
rate, say 23.98.
| | 01:26 | And another point that you bring up that I
think is a good one is that especially with
| | 01:30 | work like documentary work, for example, right,
you might have a lot of archival footage that
| | 01:34 | say at 29.97, you go out in the field and
shoot all your interviews at 23.98, because
| | 01:40 | you like that look, and we can integrate that stuff
really nicely, but it generally happens in postproduction.
| | 01:45 | Richard: Yeah, you basically run a filter
on the material, and it will drop frames or
| | 01:50 | merge frames, or you could run it through
a utility like Compressor or Adobe Media Encoder
| | 01:55 | to just generate new video files, but it makes
more work.
| | 02:00 | Editing tools do an okay job of mixing frame
rates, but I think the bottom line here to
| | 02:04 | realize is that this is an avoidable problem,
and it really comes down to find out what
| | 02:10 | is the frame rate that people want to be shooting.
| | 02:13 | If it's up to you--in our previous movie we
discussed what frame rate you would choose--
| | 02:17 | but once you've locked that in,
communicate it.
| | 02:20 | All cameras shoot the same, everybody follows
it, as much as possible you stick to it.
| | 02:24 | Robbie: Yeah, and there's one more big point
that I want to make about frame rates and
| | 02:27 | mixing them is when we shoot in a faster frame
rate, 50 and 60 frame rates, we want to make
| | 02:34 | sure that everybody on set is aware what we're
doing by shooting 50 in the case of PAL or
| | 02:39 | 60 in the case of NTCS, because typically
we are using those faster frame rates to
| | 02:44 | then do slow-motion type effects
in postproduction, right?
| | 02:48 | And the problem with that is that when we
slow down the footage in post, we're also
| | 02:52 | slowing down the audio, right?
| | 02:54 | So if you're going out there, and you're going
to be shooting 50 or 60 frames per second,
| | 02:57 | you want to make sure, everybody aware of,
hey! We are doing this to create a slow motion
| | 03:01 | effect, so you don't want to do things like
have somebody talking during the shot, right?
| | 03:04 | You don't want to do an interview at 50 or
60 frames per second and then go, oh yeah,
| | 03:08 | we'll slow this down, because the audio is
then going to become ror-ror, right, that's
| | 03:12 | not something we want.
| | 03:13 | Richard: Yeah and to make this easier in the field,
take advantage of something like DSLR Slate or Movie Slate.
| | 03:19 | You could have it right on your phone just
hold that out in front of the camera with
| | 03:22 | the frame rate right on it, so it's slated,
because remember, while you can open up the
| | 03:27 | file and see that by, browses columns of information,
having that visual slate upfront that says
| | 03:33 | the frame size and the frame rate,
really good idea.
| | 03:36 | So I think that gives you some really specific
workflow things to think about there.
| | 03:39 | Try to avoid mixing frame rates, a great movie
once said, don't cross the streams.
| | 03:44 | Robbie: Right, exactly! Richard: Yeah, keep
it clean as much as possible, but if you do
| | 03:47 | have to mix frame rates, make sure everybody
knows that that material is clearly flat,
| | 03:52 | and you're doing it for a reason, and that
reason might just be you have no choice, and
| | 03:57 | then the old adage kicks in, fix it in post.
| | 03:59 | Robbie: Yeah exactly, and I mean, I will say
that if you make a mistake, don't freak out,
| | 04:04 | we can always fix this stuff, as Rich said,
later in post.
| | 04:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. What Is the Impact of Compression?Understanding color loss| 00:00 | Richard: One of the questions that I get asked
all the time by photographers, especially
| | 00:04 | is why does the footage look so bad?
| | 00:07 | I have shot stills on my camera, looks great!
I switch over to Video mode, it's all washed
| | 00:12 | out, it's much lower resolution,
they don't get it.
| | 00:15 | And I think what people really should be asking
is what is the impact of compression?
| | 00:19 | Robbie: Of course, there are lots of things
that go into getting a nice looking shot,
| | 00:23 | of course, but video compression is something
that is particularly damaging to video footage,
| | 00:30 | and especially all these DSLR cameras, because
the compression is pretty aggressive.
| | 00:34 | Most of these cameras are going to use a few
different types of compression H.264, Photo
| | 00:39 | JPEG, AVCHD, there are a few of them.
| | 00:44 | But the point is is that these pretty aggressive
compression schemes, because you want to get
| | 00:49 | nice beautiful high definition video onto
a small, relatively small capacity as well,
| | 00:55 | Compact Flash or a SD card, so we can compress
the shot a lot.
| | 00:57 | Richard: I think what people need to realize
here, you know, you hear about cameras like
| | 01:00 | the RED, and oh, it's beautiful in Raw video.
| | 01:03 | In both cases, I mean, not that those don't
have great sensors, but the cameras are starting
| | 01:07 | out with the same source material, so there's
beautiful HD video signal, lots of resolution.
| | 01:13 | If you've ever shot time-lapse, or you've shot
in burst mode, you see how quickly that card fills up.
| | 01:18 | Well, remember you're shooting 24 to 60 still
images every second for minutes at a time.
| | 01:25 | So in order for that to just work from shear
mechanics, we're talking like 98% of the information
| | 01:31 | is getting tossed out the window before it's
written to the card.
| | 01:34 | Robbie: Yeah, and the principal way that that's
done is by losing color information, right?
| | 01:39 | This is referred to as Chroma Subsampling.
| | 01:41 | So in a perfect image, we would have
no Chroma Subsampling, right?
| | 01:43 | And we would see numbers to represent this
in technical literature.
| | 01:47 | 444 is no Chroma Subsampling, and what that
means is that we have just the same amount
| | 01:52 | of brightness or light information as we do
color information.
| | 01:55 | And that first number of 4 is generally always going
to be 4, that represent lightness or brightness information.
| | 02:01 | And because our eyes are really sensitive
to lightness or brightness information, we
| | 02:04 | typically don't discard any of that.
| | 02:05 | Richard: Yeah, if that number changed, we
would actually have darkening of the shot, right?
| | 02:10 | Robbie: Right! We wouldn't have the dynamic
range that's possible there.
| | 02:14 | But the other two numbers are color difference
channels, and we can actually throw information
| | 02:18 | away because our eyes are not as sensitive
to color information as they are to brightness
| | 02:24 | or lightness information.
| | 02:25 | So typically on these DSLR cameras we'll actually
have Chroma Subsampling ratios of say 4:2:0, maybe 4:1:1.
| | 02:32 | So let's just take it, for example, a 4:1:1
camera is recording color information only
| | 02:37 | a quarter of the amount that it's
recording lightness information.
| | 02:40 | Most professional broadcast like cameras are
4:2:2, which mean we are recording color information
| | 02:46 | at half the amount that we were recording
brightness information.
| | 02:51 | So when you go to 4:2:0, you can understand that we
are throwing away a ton, I mean, an absolute
| | 02:55 | ton of color information.
| | 02:56 | Richard: And that's really done for cost,
so we can use off the shelf or higher end
| | 03:02 | capacity cards that are still a couple of
hundred bucks.
| | 03:05 | You go to a professional broadcast camera
like say an XD cam or a P2, and it's doing
| | 03:09 | that 4:2:2, your memory cards are 5, 6, 10 times
more expensive for a reason.
| | 03:15 | Robbie: And there are lots of parts there
as you pointed out. I mean, and I think that
| | 03:18 | we are seeing with advent of some of the higher
end, sort of digital cinema type cameras that
| | 03:24 | are sort of based on DSLR designs.
| | 03:26 | We are seeing higher Chroma Subsampling
ratios of 4:2:2.
| | 03:30 | And the other thing that I think people are
working on is the ability--and we will talk
| | 03:33 | about this probably in a later episode of
HDMI ports on these cameras.
| | 03:38 | People have been claiming for years to have
these HDMI ports output a clean signal that
| | 03:42 | you could record to another recorder to get
even better color information, but unfortunately
| | 03:46 | on most of these cameras that's not available
right now.
| | 03:48 | Richard: It's coming on the D4, and that's
going to have the ability to put out a 4:2:2
| | 03:53 | signal over the HDMI when
you don't have a card in.
| | 03:55 | But I think you just need to realize this
does happen, and you're going to be losing
| | 03:59 | color information, and your professional job
is color, so if I lose this information what
| | 04:05 | can I do about it?
| | 04:06 | Robbie: Well, it's generally fine for most
shots, right, people worry that, oh! DSLR,
| | 04:11 | you're going to, not be able to color correct
it and make it look nice.
| | 04:14 | That's absolutely not the case.
| | 04:16 | For most of the time we're color correcting
DSLR so that we can make it great looking shot.
| | 04:20 | But you're going to notice that is if you're
doing a visual effects work, things like keying,
| | 04:25 | and stuff of that nature, where we need to
be very selective about selecting, either
| | 04:29 | lightness or color in the shot, then we are
a little limited, but even still, it can be done.
| | 04:34 | Richard: Okay, so I think the takeaway here
is that if you're used to shooting photos
| | 04:38 | on these cameras, especially, Raw images,
realize they're going to look a lot better
| | 04:43 | out of the camera with minimal processing,
because like Auto modes will kick in and sharpening
| | 04:47 | and boost to the color.
| | 04:49 | But the video files are going to look a little
bit flatter, a little bit washed out, particularly
| | 04:52 | in the color area.
| | 04:54 | But what I'm hearing you say is just relax,
in postproduction we can go ahead and boost
| | 04:58 | the saturation or boost the vibrance, and
this will likely fix the shot and make it
| | 05:03 | look more like what we saw when we were shooting.
Robbie: Giving us a nice looking shot, yeah.
| | 05:13 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding detail loss| 00:00 | Robbie: So earlier, Rich, we talked about the
impact of compression, and specifically we
| | 00:04 | talked about its effect on color.
| | 00:06 | But compression also affects detail in a shot
as well, doesn't it?
| | 00:10 | Richard: Yeah absolutely.
| | 00:11 | You got to realize that when you're shooting
video, you got a lot of frames going on.
| | 00:15 | In order to do that, you're not actually using the
whole sensor. It's only using a small part of the sensor.
| | 00:20 | So if you are recording this, you know, your
chances are even at 1080p, it's going to be
| | 00:26 | at a 2 megapixel image, versus--
Robbie: 19 or 18, 19, 20 megapixels, right?
| | 00:31 | Richard: Yeah so that is going to come in
both for things like zooming, but also, realizing
| | 00:36 | that you just don't have as high a resolution
source, and that resolution will have an impact
| | 00:40 | on fine details, crispness of edges, little
tiny things, plus you add the fact that we're
| | 00:46 | going to have you know, shutter issues here.
| | 00:48 | We're playing with a very limited Shutter
rate, and so that Shutter Speed is going to
| | 00:52 | impact crispness of the individual image.
| | 00:54 | Video is designed to look good with fluid
motion, individual still frames often will
| | 00:58 | look terrible when you pause
the playhead during editing.
| | 01:00 | Robbie: Sure! So those are more like mechanical
things, right, but like compression does affect
| | 01:04 | it as well, right, because, these cameras
whether they are using PhotoJPEG or AVC-Intra
| | 01:09 | or H.264, again, they're pretty aggressive
compression schemes, right?
| | 01:13 | One of the things about these Compression
schemes is that they're 8-bit, right?
| | 01:17 | Now taking photos you might be used to
10 bits, even 16-bit photos.
| | 01:22 | Richard: Most Raw files are 16 bit.
| | 01:24 | Robbie: 16 bit, and on professional video
cameras, we may also be shooting 10 bit, right?
| | 01:27 | And of course, the most noticeable part about
a lower Bit Depth is that we're not going
| | 01:33 | to have quite a smooth gradation between the
different parts of the tonal range.
| | 01:38 | What this really means for us though Rich?
Richard: Shadows get muddy.
| | 01:41 | Robbie: Shadows get muddy, there's not a lot
of information to be found in highlights,
| | 01:46 | and things of that nature.
| | 01:47 | Richard: That cloud is just a big white spot
as opposed to subtle shades of gray mixing together.
| | 01:51 | Robbie: Yeah, and I found this all the time.
| | 01:52 | I was recently on a shoot where I was--it
was an interview, a gentleman who had a very
| | 01:56 | shiny forehead, right, and I really couldn't
bring anything back in that shot, because
| | 02:02 | it was just kind of blown out.
| | 02:03 | Because, the aggressive compression being
8 bit in these cameras, there just wasn't
| | 02:08 | a whole lot of detail there, and you will
see that also in shadows.
| | 02:10 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 02:11 | So these cameras when they compress looked
to get the file smaller, and the biggest way
| | 02:15 | that that's done is by looking for repeated
color values and oftentimes detail values.
| | 02:20 | So it goes oh! This is about white and so
is this, so I'll just make this all white
| | 02:25 | and use the same pixel over again.
| | 02:27 | It's great, and that it gives us increase
recording capacity on affordable cards, on
| | 02:32 | affordable cameras, but you really need to
be mindful and in some ways I think what we're
| | 02:37 | saying here when it comes to compression is
you have to learn to let things go.
| | 02:42 | Just a couple years ago we were shooting DV.
I go back and I look at some of the DV productions,
| | 02:46 | I'm like, oh my god, that looks terrible.
But at that time--
| | 02:49 | Robbie: It looked great.
| | 02:51 | Richard: It looked great, it's like, hey, we're
shooting videos, and it didn't cost me $80,000 for a camera.
| | 02:54 | Robbie: I think, that also brings up a great
point about, because if you factoring that
| | 02:58 | we're having color loss as I talked about
earlier, detail loss whether it's mechanical
| | 03:01 | through the sensor and shutter speed, and
that kind of stuff, or detail loss through
| | 03:04 | compression is that, we just have to think
about these shots more, right?
| | 03:08 | And one of the ways that I like to combat
that is proper lighting, right?
| | 03:13 | Proper lighting goes a long way, even if I'm
shooting in 8-bit codec like these cameras
| | 03:17 | often do, if I properly light something, so
I don't have crushed blacks in the actual shot.
| | 03:22 | I have a lot more leeway when I get to postproduction.
Same things with highlights, right?
| | 03:26 | If I protect the highlights, and I don't have
things blowing out, I can still do a lot.
| | 03:30 | So even though you have slight limitations
with these sort of aggressive compression
| | 03:34 | and what is does to color and detail in these
cameras, I think if you go out there and sort
| | 03:38 | of, properly light things and properly work
through the shot, you can still get fantastic results.
| | 03:43 | Richard: And of course, with that comes proper
monitoring which we'll explore much more in
| | 03:47 | depth, but if you're not looking at it, if
all you see is little LCD, everything is going
| | 03:52 | to look good, and you're going to be pump
that out to a bigger screen, so you can accurately
| | 03:55 | judge how does this really look.
| | 03:57 | Robbie: Absolutely.
Richard: All right! So there you have it.
| | 03:59 | Compression is going to affect both the color
and the detail in your shot.
| | 04:03 | You are going to have to learn to sort of
live with it, but as Rob pointed out, we can
| | 04:06 | tweak this in post a little bit, but we need
to be mindful of how we shoot it and even
| | 04:10 | more importantly how we light it.
| | 04:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. What’s the Difference between Cropped and Full Sensors?Comparing sensor sizes| 00:00 | Robbie: One question that I get asked a lot
Richard, I'm sure you do as well is hey I'm
| | 00:04 | trying to buy a camera, should I buy a full
frame camera or should I buy a crop camera.
| | 00:09 | What is full frame versus cropped mean?
| | 00:11 | Richard: I think people get really confused
here, because you know everybody is automatically
| | 00:15 | gravitating towards I need the full frame
sensor, biggest is best, it's the SUV syndrome.
| | 00:19 | Robbie: More expensive has to be better, right?
Richard: Right.
| | 00:22 | And you know we're going to explore the benefits
of both crop versus full, but let's just focus
| | 00:26 | on what they are.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 00:27 | Richard: If you are going to go ahead and
buy a DSLR camera, usually at the highest
| | 00:32 | end of the DSLR line for most manufacturers
is a full frame sensor, a camera like the
| | 00:36 | Canon 5D Mark II.
| | 00:38 | This camera has benefits because the full
frame sensor is really superior for photography
| | 00:44 | tasks, higher megapixel count, less noise,
better low light shooting.
| | 00:48 | Robbie: And more light sensitivity exactly.
| | 00:49 | Richard: And that's great, but these cameras
are the most expensive.
| | 00:53 | And one of the things I think a lot of people
miss when it comes to DSLR video is that you're
| | 00:57 | really not usually using that full sensor.
| | 00:59 | There are benefits to it, but instead of putting
all that money into the camera body, a lot
| | 01:04 | of people are starting to route that money
into better glass or lenses, which takes them
| | 01:08 | to crop sensors, and you know the crop on
this Nikon is slightly different than the
| | 01:13 | crop on that Canon.
| | 01:14 | Robbie: That's actually a really good point,
because the crop is not a universal standard, right?
| | 01:18 | Nikon versus Panasonic versus
Sony versus Canon.
| | 01:22 | Everybody is going to have
a slightly different crop factor, right?
| | 01:24 | That's what we refer to it as.
| | 01:25 | Richard: Yeah, ranging from thing like 1.3
for some of the higher-end Nikons to a 1.5 or--
| | 01:31 | Robbie: 1.6 on the Canons.
| | 01:33 | Richard: Yeah, you know my Nikon 1.5 that's
1.6, you go to it like a GH2 or some of the
| | 01:38 | Micro Four Thirds systems, and it's two.
| | 01:39 | Robbie: It's two, right yeah.
Richard: And these are all perfectly valid.
| | 01:42 | Other cameras like the Panasonic AF100, that's
basically a Micro Four Thirds system with
| | 01:46 | a two crop factor.
| | 01:48 | Keep in mind though, you know we are saying
oh well it's a crop sensor, you know that's so small.
| | 01:53 | This still blows away every single traditional
video camera.
| | 01:56 | Robbie: Oh, yeah that's there is two points
about that. First, these sensors are like you
| | 01:59 | know Jupiter compared to our Moon when you
compare you know this image sensors to traditional
| | 02:04 | video camera size sensors.
| | 02:06 | The other thing that I think is important
is that everybody hot to trot on full frame
| | 02:09 | sensors, and as you pointed out, great for
photography, has there benefits for video
| | 02:12 | of course as well, but a full frame sensor
in say a 5D Mark II is actually way bigger
| | 02:17 | than a 35-millimeter frame and a piece of
35-millimeter motion picture film, right?
| | 02:22 | A 7D or some of these crop sized image sensors
actually match more closely the frame size
| | 02:28 | or the resolution of a 35-millimeter piece
of film.
| | 02:31 | So, when people say oh you don't want to shoot
with a crop sensor like a 7D because it's
| | 02:34 | not as big, I don't buy into that argument, right?
| | 02:37 | 35-millimeter motion picture film has been
the standard forever, right?
| | 02:40 | And when we have image sensors that are approximately
that same size, I think that's good as well.
| | 02:45 | And if you want to have a little bigger sensor
for some, you know additional features that
| | 02:49 | we'll talk about later throughout this title,
you can go that route as well.
| | 02:52 | Richard: Yeah I think that makes perfect sense.
| | 02:54 | So when you're out there shopping, make sure
you know there are differences between manufacturers
| | 02:58 | as well as within that camera line.
| | 03:01 | Typically the more expensive the camera, the
more likely it has a lower crop factor or
| | 03:07 | even a full frame sensor.
| | 03:09 | And the cheaper the camera, the more likely
you're going to have that higher crop factor number.
| | 03:13 | Robbie: That's right.
Richard: So just gauge that as your shopping.
| | 03:16 | Now this is not a number that they widely
put out there. It's not like they advertise
| | 03:20 | it as a feature or a--
| | 03:21 | Robbie: It's not a sticker on the box, right?
Richard: No they tend to hide these things.
| | 03:24 | One of the places I like to go to is digital
photography review, you know basically through
| | 03:29 | Amazon you can click to get this detail like
10-20 overviews of each camera model, it goes
| | 03:34 | into the depth there and explains it, but
you know let's go ahead and start to explore
| | 03:39 | the specific benefits of crop versus full
frame sensors next.
| | 03:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Why choose a cropped sensor| 00:00 | Richard: So Rob, I know you're one of the
early shooters, you had a Canon 5D Mark II
| | 00:05 | full frame sensor, then you
picked up a 7D, crop sensor.
| | 00:08 | I'm shooting on crop sensor, why would someone
choose a crop frame sensor?
| | 00:13 | Robbie: It's a great question and the one
that we know we get all the time there is
| | 00:16 | a couple of reasons that I would sort of suggest
people shoot on crop frame sensor.
| | 00:20 | First, crop frame sensors are generally in
cheaper cameras, right?
| | 00:23 | They are not going to be quite as expensive.
| | 00:26 | That's a general thumb, not always the case
but generally you can save a couple of bucks
| | 00:29 | by going with the crop image sensor.
| | 00:31 | The next thing that I particularly love is
that because we have a multiplication value
| | 00:35 | on a crop image sensor, so on this 7D it's
1.6 on your Nikon there it's 1.5, we actually
| | 00:41 | get more length on telephotos side of things.
| | 00:44 | What I mean by that is it say I put a 200
millimeters, it's not actually 200 millimeters,
| | 00:50 | it's 200 millimeters times 1.6.
| | 00:53 | So if I'm in a situation where I need to get
more distance out of my lens, for a like you
| | 00:59 | know a close up or something like that, I
have that multiplication value, which is nice.
| | 01:03 | Richard: And if I took that same lens if it
was a lens that had a different mounting system
| | 01:06 | that was flexible, or I use an adapter I put
it on here, with the 1.5, that 200 millimeter
| | 01:11 | lens would behave like it was
a 300-millimeter lens.
| | 01:14 | Now I think it's important to realize we're
not magnifying the image, it's just the fact
| | 01:19 | that because you're only using part of the
sensor, it's cutting in tighter, and it makes
| | 01:24 | it look like it's a tighter lens length.
| | 01:26 | Robbie: Yeah, and you can see that in the
graphic that we have here, right this is a
| | 01:29 | Full Frame Sensor, same shot and then a Cropped
Image Sensor.
| | 01:33 | Same shot, same lens just a slightly different
composition, and that's something that you
| | 01:36 | have to put into play, right?
| | 01:38 | As you have to understand what the multiplication
value is going to do to your framing of a shot.
| | 01:43 | And again we're going to see this most on
the longer end of things.
| | 01:47 | Now just be aware on the sort of you know
close up side or the wide end of things, you're
| | 01:52 | not going to have as much flexibility, right?
| | 01:54 | If you trying to go for a nice say you know
wide shot at 24 millimeters, well 24 millimeters
| | 01:59 | is not really 24 millimeters on a crop
image sensor.
| | 02:02 | And so you're going to have to go really wide
if you want to get that nice wide shot.
| | 02:06 | Typically on, you know, 7D something like a
10, 11, 12 millimeters lens, it's going to
| | 02:11 | give you that sort of traditional wide shot.
| | 02:13 | Richard: And it's kind of interesting, it's
where do you want to spend the money?
| | 02:16 | Those long telephoto lenses get really, really expensive
when you go over 200 millimeters, 300 millimeters
| | 02:21 | and particular it's sort of the threshold
from like, oh I'm a high-end hobbyist, too, oh
| | 02:26 | I'm a natural wildlife photographer, and I
need a whole separate support system just
| | 02:30 | for this giant barrel of a lens.
| | 02:32 | Same way though, as you start getting wider
and wider and faster and faster on those wide
| | 02:35 | angle lenses they could really kick in,
in price too.
| | 02:38 | So you have to think about your shooting style.
| | 02:40 | Now besides that crop factor which changes
the essential the, you know the practical
| | 02:44 | focal length, I think one of the other things
that really matters is sensitivity to light.
| | 02:49 | Robbie: Absolutely, absolutely.
| | 02:50 | Richard: Now it depends on the type of shooting
you're doing.
| | 02:52 | You know we'll talk about the benefits.
| | 02:53 | Everyone talks about oh the full frame sensor
is awesome for a low light performance.
| | 02:58 | What they don't say is oh but when you get
outside, you pretty much have to put on an
| | 03:02 | ND filter, because it blows out.
| | 03:03 | Robbie: Yeah, and the other thing that they
don't say is that compared to a traditional
| | 03:06 | video camera, a crop image sensor is not
small at all.
| | 03:11 | You know and even though these cameras are
using crop image sensors, they can still
| | 03:14 | give you that nice diffuse blurred background.
| | 03:17 | Richard: Yeah, and I think what we're getting
at there is that it works really well, and
| | 03:23 | it's sort of the middle compromise.
| | 03:25 | A crop frame sensor is
a compromise across the board.
| | 03:28 | It's a compromise on cost, they tend to be
little less.
| | 03:31 | It's a compromise for a low light versus outdoor
shooting. It still gives you really good
| | 03:35 | performance for low light shooting, especially
compared to traditional video camera.
| | 03:40 | However, it is going to not tend to over expose
when shooting outdoors, you know you still
| | 03:44 | may have an ND filter, but you're not going
to have to constantly work--
| | 03:47 | Robbie: It's not as sensitive, right?
| | 03:48 | And I think the last argument that I just,
I put a lot of credence into is that when
| | 03:52 | you compare a 35-millimeter motion picture
frame, you know from motion picture film,
| | 03:57 | a crop image sensor say like from my 7D
here or your Nikon there is about the same
| | 04:02 | size as that frame in a 35-millimeter motion
picture film.
| | 04:07 | So, I think the argument of crop image sensor
not as good to not be a really valid one, right?
| | 04:12 | These cameras, crop image sensors
are great for a lot of reasons.
| | 04:16 | And I think in most situations they're going
to produce shots that are just as nice and
| | 04:20 | just as beautiful as they're full frame equivalent.
| | 04:22 | Richard: Okay, so if money is any issue to
you--for some of you it's not, for many of
| | 04:27 | you it is--consider rerouting that cost difference
between the full frame versus crop sensor
| | 04:31 | and to some more support equipment or lenses.
| | 04:34 | All right. Let's go ahead and come back in a second
and talk about why you would choose a full frame sensor.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Why choose a full sensor| 00:00 | Richard: So people might have gotten the impression
from our last movie that we thought that you
| | 00:04 | would never need a full frame sensor.
| | 00:07 | People ask this all the time all the time,
and I think there are some legitimate reasons
| | 00:10 | to choose a full frame sensor.
| | 00:11 | Robbie: Absolutely!
Richard: What do you think those are?
| | 00:13 | Robbie: Well, the first one I would start
with is increased light sensitivity, right?
| | 00:18 | Because we're going to that full frame sensor,
because it's physically a bigger sensor, that
| | 00:22 | naturally is going to be a little more sensitive
to light, so if you're going to be doing a
| | 00:25 | lot of dark shooting, you're shooting your
next horror movie, or you're shooting indoors
| | 00:29 | often or concerts, footage, weddings, exactly.
| | 00:32 | The full frame sensor is going to give you--
it's not considerable more amount of light
| | 00:37 | sensitivity than a crop image sensor, but
it is there. It is going to be more sensitive
| | 00:42 | to light then say a crop image sensor.
| | 00:44 | Richard: So that means you'll be less reliant
upon things like boosting the iSO, so the
| | 00:49 | image will tend to stay cleaner with a little
less noise.
| | 00:52 | Which I think actually leads to one of the
next benefits, which is the fact that if you're
| | 00:56 | going to be doing a lot of still shooting,
people love these cameras, especially for
| | 01:00 | weddings and events where they want that extra
resolution.
| | 01:03 | Robbie: Absolute! I mean these cameras were
built as still cameras, believe it or not, right?
| | 01:07 | People like you, and I have just taken them
and said, oh let's just shoot video with them.
| | 01:11 | But if you're in a situation where you're
going to be doing hybrid shooting, that is
| | 01:14 | shooting stills and shooting video, yeah,
nine times out of ten, I'll take a full frame
| | 01:18 | camera with me, because I like the still performance
of a full frame camera, for things like weddings
| | 01:24 | and taking stills and so on things of that nature,
and it just gives me a little bit more added flexibility.
| | 01:28 | Richard: I think there is one more reason,
which is if you have a lot of experience in
| | 01:32 | cinematography and in your head you could
just go, yeah, in order for this scene--
| | 01:36 | Robbie: You know, you are
one of those guys who does this.
| | 01:38 | Richard: Yeah. I go, yeah, I need a 50 for this, or I want
85, and you have these numbers in your head,
| | 01:43 | and you can look at a scene and see things
in millimeters?
| | 01:46 | Robbie: Yep Richard: Well, the benefit of
the full frame sensor is you don't have to
| | 01:49 | do any math or conversion.
| | 01:50 | Robbie: Exactly! You have the 50mm lens what's
written on the side of that lens on a full
| | 01:54 | frame camera, it means that it's truly 50mm,
that focal length is as advertised, compared
| | 02:00 | to a crop image sensor, where you'll have to
do a little math, you have to take the focal
| | 02:04 | length of the lens multiply it by whatever
the crop factor is to get your true or
| | 02:10 | effective focal length.
| | 02:11 | Richard: And that's happening a lot, especially
on sets when DSLRs are being used as second,
| | 02:15 | third unique cameras, or for special effects
or stunt work, where they are mixing these
| | 02:19 | with traditional film cameras or high-end
video cameras.
| | 02:23 | People like that confidence in knowing that
the lenses are matching up for effects work,
| | 02:27 | for blocking out shots, it's just a comfort
factor.
| | 02:29 | Robbie: Absolutely! One more sort of for the
focal length thing that I will mention is
| | 02:32 | that is that when I know that I'm going need
to do extremely wide shots, I'll often bring
| | 02:38 | a full frame camera with me, because when
I start getting into really wide lenses on
| | 02:42 | a crop image sensor, say, 10-11 millimeters,
that kind of stuff.
| | 02:46 | I might also get things like barrel distortion,
pincushion distortion and things of that nature,
| | 02:52 | where if I go, I'd say a 20 mm or 24 mm lens
on a Full Frame Sensor, because it's just
| | 02:57 | a little longer, and the advertised focal
length is true, I am less likely to get some
| | 03:01 | those artifacts on a Full Frame Sensor.
| | 03:03 | Richard: All right! So to recap, if you're
out at shopping and thinking about getting
| | 03:06 | a Full Frame Sensor, realize it's going to
typically cost you a bit more money.
| | 03:11 | But the benefit is easier understanding of
focal length, that the number on the lens
| | 03:16 | is actually the focal length that it's going
to perform at, the same effective focal length,
| | 03:20 | and you're going to get significantly better
low light performance compared to like a Micro
| | 03:25 | Four Third's Camera.
| | 03:26 | When you're putting it next to say 1.5 or
1.6 crop factor, it's noticeable, but it's
| | 03:31 | not a deal breaker.
| | 03:32 | Robbie: Correct, and I thing the last thing
is that if you're going to be doing hybrid
| | 03:35 | shooting, or you're going to want take a lot
of stills, and you are going to be shooting
| | 03:38 | video as well, you are going to get light
performance and another benefits out of using
| | 03:42 | the Full Frame Camera when you need to shoot hybrid.
Richard: Right!
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Why Does My Viewfinder Stop Working?Understanding how DSLR viewfinders react when recording video| 00:00 | Robbie: So Rich question that we get all the
time, especially from photographers is why
| | 00:05 | would I go into video mode
does my viewfinder stop working?
| | 00:09 | Richard: Yeah, and what they are really referring
to is the optical viewfinder.
| | 00:13 | So when you're looking through, and you are
framing up the shot in your scene, you got
| | 00:17 | a picture, but as soon as you
turn on live view, it stops.
| | 00:20 | Robbie: Right.
Richard: Well, there is a reason.
| | 00:22 | Robbie: Okay.
| | 00:23 | Richard: You just send your camera to me,
and I'll fix it, no.
| | 00:26 | The reason is that when you are shooting,
and you're doing normal pictures there is
| | 00:31 | a mirror on the camera, and essentially it's
acting like a periscope.
| | 00:35 | So when you're framing up the image, it's
just using that mirror, it's reflecting it
| | 00:38 | through the system and showing you a preview.
| | 00:41 | And then when you push the plunger, it flips
the mirror up and takes the still picture,
| | 00:45 | then flips back.
Robbie: Right.
| | 00:46 | Richard: Well, when we're shooting video,
you're not shooting a bunch of stills, you
| | 00:51 | are shooting continuously, so the mirror in
the camera has to stay up the whole time.
| | 00:55 | And this makes it different, it changes your
shooting style.
| | 00:57 | You know, if I'm shooting, and I'm used to
hear, and I've got this all right up against
| | 01:00 | the face, it's a more stable shot, I've got
a nice script.
| | 01:03 | Now all of a sudden I can't do this and look
at the live view monitor, some people are
| | 01:07 | doing this and they're holding it out.
| | 01:09 | And this changes the whole shooting style,
which we will get into when we talk about
| | 01:12 | camera support as well.
| | 01:13 | Robbie: Right! So just to be clear, there
is nothing wrong with your camera when you
| | 01:16 | go into video mode and the optical viewfinder
is no longer showing you what you want to shoot.
| | 01:20 | Richard: Yeah, it's just a totally different
way the technology works.
| | 01:22 | When you're shooting video, the optical viewfinder
is disabled, and that is by design, because
| | 01:27 | the mirror in the camera is up.
| | 01:29 | So don't panic, don't return your camera,
we see people posting on this all the time,
| | 01:34 | people freak out, it's supposed to happen that way.
Robbie: Right.
| | 01:37 | And we'll get into it a little later, we'll
talk about ways of--because we are not using
| | 01:40 | the optical viewfinder--different ways that
we can monitor the signal on the back of camera
| | 01:44 | with the LCD, different attachments,
monitors and so on and so forth.
| | 01:47 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 01:48 | Robbie: So that's just a little
bit more about why the viewfinder doesn't
| | 01:52 | seem to work when you switch
and go into video mode.
| | 01:55 | It's not broken, but as Rich pointed out, it's just
the nature of how these cameras technically work.
| | 01:59 | Their mirror flips up, thus blocking sort
of the periscope effect that you get through
| | 02:03 | the optical viewfinder, and you're only able
to see the image that you are looking at through
| | 02:07 | the LCD or some other monitoring
attachment on your camera.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding live view| 00:01 | Robbie: So earlier Rich, we talked about how
when we go into Video mode on most DSLRs,
| | 00:05 | we can lose the ability to actually view the
image through the optical viewfinder.
| | 00:09 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 00:10 | Robbie: Instead, we are viewing the image
on the camera's LCD on the back of the camera.
| | 00:13 | Richard: Yeah, like you are seeing here, the
LCD panels lit up on this camera.
| | 00:17 | When we went into Live View mode, it's giving
you a preview image, and this really grew
| | 00:22 | out of consumer cameras where
they didn't have that.
| | 00:25 | If you look at a lot of point-and-shoots,
they don't have optical viewfinders.
| | 00:28 | They just have an LCD panel.
| | 00:28 | Robbie: Yeah, they don't have mirrors either,
so they don't have the problem.
| | 00:30 | Richard: Correct.
Robbie: Right.
| | 00:32 | So I find you know when we are viewing in
Live View on the back of these cameras, there
| | 00:35 | is one big problem.
| | 00:37 | Even as these LCDs on the back of the cameras
get high-resolution, the fact is is that they
| | 00:42 | are still pretty tiny and pretty small and
most of the time, we are viewing them from
| | 00:47 | a little bit of a distance.
| | 00:48 | So my problem with that is that everything
tends to look, well good on the back of these
| | 00:54 | LCDs, and it's very difficult to judge things
like focus, exposure and so forth when you're
| | 00:59 | using just the camera LCD.
| | 01:01 | Richard: Yeah, you, and I were out shooting
in Amsterdam once, and I came back, and you
| | 01:05 | know I've been shooting all day and a good
third of my footage was softer than I'd like.
| | 01:10 | Robbie: But you didn't realize that at the
time though.
| | 01:12 | Richard: No, because I was looking at it,
and it wasn't because of Amsterdam, it was
| | 01:15 | because of that was--you know just this little
monitor makes everything looks sharp and clean
| | 01:18 | because it's so small.
| | 01:20 | The more you shrink the image down, the more
it looks in focus.
| | 01:22 | You might've noticed this before when you're
looking at thumbnails of photos at the finder
| | 01:26 | level or you know zoom down in Bridge or Lightroom
or Aperture, well that looks pretty good,
| | 01:31 | and then you blow it in a full screen like
oh, that's kind of soft.
| | 01:34 | That's exact same phenomena.
| | 01:36 | Robbie: Yeah. So the first sort of wanted offense that we
have to when we are in Live View, instead
| | 01:39 | of just using the camera's LCD because you
know all the problems that we have just discussed,
| | 01:44 | the first thing that we can do is we can actually
use a loop or an attached viewfinder like this one.
| | 01:49 | This one is made by a company called Zacuto
but there is plenty of other ones on the market
| | 01:52 | and what this basically does is it simply
attaches to a frame on the back of a camera,
| | 01:57 | and this actually magnifies the view that
I get on the camera LCD.
| | 02:01 | So now instead of just viewing the LCD on
its normal resolution or its normal magnification,
| | 02:05 | I can look through this, and I can see at
a magnified value what's really going on with my image.
| | 02:11 | Richard: And it's also nice as it provides
you a bit of stability.
| | 02:14 | Robbie: Yeah, for the contact.
| | 02:15 | Richard: So, for example, it goes right up,
yeah to the eye sort of taking the place and
| | 02:19 | giving you another eye cup like the traditional
viewfinder and these loops will typically
| | 02:23 | magnify the image two and a half to three
times, making it easier to see focus and also
| | 02:29 | judge exposure because you're not getting
light position because if you have the LCD
| | 02:33 | panel, you are getting on such
an environmental light.
| | 02:35 | Robbie: It can be very difficult
to see what's going on.
| | 02:37 | Richard: Absolutely.
| | 02:38 | Robbie: So then you know the next thing after
we have sort of this attached viewfinder and
| | 02:41 | something that's been sort of a recent development
in the world of DSLRs are these guys, EVFs.
| | 02:46 | Richard: Yeah, and what we have here is an
Electronic Viewfinder, and it just attaches
| | 02:51 | via the HDMI connection and runs out, and
if you look at these by default, it seems
| | 02:55 | like the screen is about the same size, and
you are like, well, what's the benefits, it's
| | 02:58 | the same size screen?
| | 03:00 | Well, this screen costs four times more than
this screen.
| | 03:02 | Robbie: It's much higher resolution.
| | 03:03 | Richard: It's kind of like the difference
between the early iPhones and the later ones
| | 03:07 | where they bumped up the pixel count.
They tighten that up so it's just--
| | 03:10 | Robbie: It's a retina display if you will.
| | 03:11 | Richard: Yeah, marketing term, but it really
does matter.
| | 03:14 | Not all screens are created the same.
| | 03:16 | You look at the screen on like you know a
cheap consumer electronic device versus a
| | 03:20 | high-res camera, and there's
a huge difference in quality.
| | 03:22 | So this is this, you know, much tighter screen,
better resolution, and as you are saying these can attach too.
| | 03:27 | Robbie: Yeah, and that's what I love about
some of these Electronic Viewfinders is that
| | 03:30 | you can attach a traditional loop or viewfinder
to it so now it's actually going to operate
| | 03:35 | much more in a similar fashion to how a traditional
viewfinder on a video camera will work, right?
| | 03:41 | You can look through this, and when you look
at it physically, it looks like a viewfinder
| | 03:44 | on a regular video camera.
| | 03:46 | Richard: Yeah, and then you could flip this up, if
you just want to see the screen or flip it back down.
| | 03:49 | Robbie: Or a client wants to come around and
take a look at it, yeah, absolutely.
| | 03:51 | Richard: Yeah, see your client germs, don't
get on your eye cup, you just will oh, have a look.
| | 03:55 | Yeah so that works great, and this gives you
certain benefits, and as you are noticing
| | 03:58 | with the overlay here, you can see things
like you actually have the ability to see
| | 04:03 | audio meters and to see
the camera information being displayed.
| | 04:06 | So you are always looking at those key settings.
| | 04:08 | You will also find in the menu that they sometimes
add other benefits and so, for example, here
| | 04:13 | if I flip this up, and you can't see it because
it doesn't send it out, but I have a whole menu setting.
| | 04:19 | What you get is the ability to actually go
in and see overlays.
| | 04:23 | So as you step through some of those options
there, you can get Focus Assist.
| | 04:27 | Robbie: Different frame lines,
all that kind of stuff.
| | 04:29 | Richard: Yeah, or Exposure Assist where I
can actually see little highlights showing
| | 04:33 | me with the Zebra stripes oh, this is overexposed,
we are getting near overexposed.
| | 04:37 | So these add certain benefits.
| | 04:38 | Robbie: Well, and then the last way, and you
have already pointed to it a couple of times
| | 04:42 | is to actually use an external field monitor
like this little one, and there is a lot of
| | 04:46 | a companies again that are making this, SmallHD,
Marshall, as this Panasonic one we have here,
| | 04:50 | and this has a couple benefits, right?
| | 04:52 | First, we are viewing
the image on a larger screen.
| | 04:55 | Nothing saying that we have to view it on
let's say you know, 5-6-7-inch screen, we
| | 04:59 | can view this on a 50-inch screen if we want
to, so they are great for being able to view
| | 05:03 | the image in large groups so client might
be present onset or something like that and
| | 05:07 | typically because they are bigger, it's going
to be easier to judge things like Exposure and Focus.
| | 05:11 | And the thing I really like about them is
that most of field monitors out there are
| | 05:15 | adaptable to different types of video signal.
| | 05:16 | What I mean by that is that we can go HDMI
into them, we could use, say HDMI to SDI converter,
| | 05:22 | SDI of course is a professional level video
signal path, and we can attach different--our
| | 05:28 | cameras in different signal paths to these
monitors to be able to view it.
| | 05:31 | Richard: And many times these professional
monitors will also have built-in measuring
| | 05:34 | tools, waveform, spectroscope, so you could
judge things like color and exposure.
| | 05:38 | So it's a whole spectrum.
| | 05:40 | I would say if I was out in the field running
about, the first thing I would choose would
| | 05:44 | be something like one of these loops.
| | 05:47 | Zacuto, Hoodman, lots of others make these.
It's a simple addition.
| | 05:50 | I like to call it the lens
for the back of your camera.
| | 05:54 | Before you buy another lens, buy the lens
for the back of the camera, so you can get
| | 05:57 | that sharper image and judge do you
have proper exposure and focus.
| | 06:00 | Robbie: And if you are in a more compact situation,
but you want a little higher resolution, the
| | 06:03 | EVFs represent a great solution, and then if
you're in a more stable or not running gun
| | 06:09 | situation, and you have a couple more hands
on deck in your production, an external field
| | 06:13 | monitor either separately mounted like this
or even mounted to a rig, works well also.
| | 06:19 | Richard: If you are going to those external
field monitors, you may find it useful to
| | 06:23 | get an HDMI to SDI adapter useful for the
pro-monitors and many of the monitors specifically
| | 06:29 | designed for DSLR workflow, will be high-res
monitors with HDMI inputs, so you can connect directly.
| | 06:34 | Robbie: So that's a little bit
more about Live View.
| | 06:37 | Of course Live View is enabled when we go
into Video mode on these DSLRs cameras and
| | 06:41 | our Optical Viewfinder no longer really works.
| | 06:43 | And of course we have also discussed different
ways of adapting Live View.
| | 06:47 | We can use a loop or a viewfinder or we can
use EVF, we can also pipe the single out to
| | 06:52 | an external field monitor, all of which makes
it much easier to judge things like focus and exposure.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. What Is Aspect Ratio?Understanding aspect ratio| 00:00 | Richard: So just like most industries, video
has its own jargon, and one of the terms you'll
| | 00:05 | hear thrown around a lot is aspect ratio.
What is this?
| | 00:08 | Robbie: Well, it's a term that people make
seem them like it's more complicated than
| | 00:12 | it really is, it's just width by height.
| | 00:14 | Richard: Okay, so comparison of how wide an
image is versus how tall?
| | 00:16 | Robbie: Exactly.
| | 00:18 | Richard: So if I go to the movie theater,
and I'm watching on the really wide cinema
| | 00:21 | screen, we'll often say that's 2.35:1, meaning
that's about you know little more than two
| | 00:26 | times wider than it is tall.
Robbie: Right.
| | 00:29 | Richard: Okay, and then if we go home, and
we watch on our HDTV set at home, it tends to be?
| | 00:33 | Robbie: Well, 16:9 aspect ratio, but you see,
aspect ratios often displayed or are measured
| | 00:38 | rather in ratios like 16:9 or decimals like
1.78 would be 16:9.
| | 00:44 | Richard: Okay.
Robbie: Because you are just dividing 16:9.
| | 00:46 | Richard: Okay, and 4:3 would be 1.33?
Robbie: That's right.
| | 00:50 | Richard: Okay, so these numbers are pretty
common and what's important to realize is
| | 00:54 | that what the camera shoots is often different,
and what you're delivering can vary.
| | 00:59 | You know, you might shoot one video, and it's
going to go to regular TV and to an iPad or
| | 01:03 | to a broadcast television on a 4:3 set, so
you have to be mindful of different aspect ratios.
| | 01:08 | Robbie: Well, you bring up a couple
of interesting points there.
| | 01:10 | First off all with these DSLRs, when you're
shooting still photos, most of the time we're
| | 01:14 | shooting at a--I want to say 4:3-ish aspect
ratio, it's not always exactly 4:3--
| | 01:19 | Richard: It's like 5:7.
Robbie: Right.
| | 01:21 | You know, but it's sort of in that square
kind of aspect ratio, that's one point.
| | 01:25 | The other thing is these cameras can actually
shoot 4:3 video if you want them to, but you
| | 01:31 | have to be in the standard def mode of the
video section on the cameras, to be able to
| | 01:36 | shoot true 4:3, when you're in the HD modes,
you're shooting 16:9.
| | 01:39 | Richard: Okay, and so I think two things are
there that are important.
| | 01:42 | One, when you change the aspect ratio of the
camera for different shooting mode, it's going
| | 01:46 | to likely put up some gray bars, it's partially
transparent that show you shaded areas.
| | 01:50 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 01:51 | Richard: Only inside that area is actually
being written by the video files, so the whole
| | 01:55 | Live View panel lights up, but the shaded
area is not being recorded.
| | 01:58 | Robbie: That's right.
| | 01:59 | Richard: So make sure you compose the shots,
and then if you are shooting for multiple
| | 02:03 | screen delivery, you might be shooting HD
at 16:9, but let's say we're intending to
| | 02:09 | deliver to the iPad, well,
that's more of 4:3 aspect ratio.
| | 02:12 | Robbie: And believe or not Rich, there are still some
people out there who have 4x3 aspect ratio televisions.
| | 02:17 | Richard: Oh yeah.
| | 02:18 | I know lots of folks, I have got relatives like,
but it still works, why would I replace it?
| | 02:22 | Robbie: Exactly! So you know oftentimes, instead
of actually truly shooting 4:3, because we'll
| | 02:26 | be shooting at a lower resolution, we can
shoot HD either 720 or 1080, but then protect
| | 02:32 | for 4:3 safety, and this can be done in a
couple of different ways.
| | 02:36 | The most low-tech way is just to use some
tape or china marker or something like that
| | 02:40 | on your 16:9 monitoring device, yes, you can
do it back here or on an actual film monitor,
| | 02:47 | and just mask off that 4:3 area.
| | 02:51 | A lot of higher-end monitors, external monitors,
that is will allow you to actually put on
| | 02:55 | an on-screen overlay on the monitor to protect
for that 4:3 area.
| | 03:00 | Now what's even cool about that Rich is that
it will also show you 4:3 Action Safe and
| | 03:05 | Title Safe Zones which are important when
you're protecting for 4:3.
| | 03:09 | Richard: And that's nice because that will
allow you to better compose the shots so that
| | 03:13 | action safe guide which we'll continue to
explore throughout some of our movies here
| | 03:16 | just helps you understand like bleed in print,
you don't want to get too close to the edges.
| | 03:20 | Now besides monitors or manually doing it,
if you get an electronic viewfinder, it's
| | 03:25 | really common there as well.
Robbie: Yep.
| | 03:27 | Richard: You just turn them on these guides.
| | 03:29 | So I think the key to realize here is that
we're pretty much in an HD world, which is
| | 03:34 | 16:9, at least for acquisition.
| | 03:36 | Robbie: Right! Richard: But when it comes
to playback, it's all over the place.
| | 03:40 | You've got 4:3 screens, the PowerPoint presentations,
iPads, a lot of mobile phones, BlackBerries.
| | 03:46 | We've got 16:9 for other devices.
| | 03:50 | Even the iPhone, for example, is not a true
16:9, it is like 14:9.
| | 03:53 | Robbie: Right.
| | 03:54 | Richard: And so you might not see everything
on the screen that you shot.
| | 03:58 | So it becomes important that you pay attention
to your delivery specs, and that might mean
| | 04:03 | masking out your viewfinder or using an overlay
feature on your monitor, so you know that
| | 04:08 | what you're shooting is going show up properly
on that intended playback device.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Why shoot 16:9| 00:00 | Richard: So in our last movie we talked all
about aspect ratios and what they mean.
| | 00:05 | You know, and I think it became pretty obvious
that we live in a 16:9 world, and sometimes
| | 00:09 | we deliver in 4:3.
| | 00:11 | But I still have clients ask me, well, why
would I do this project in 16:9?
| | 00:15 | You know, they're so used to shooting on Beta
equipment or traditional cameras, and they
| | 00:19 | are, it still exists. You know like, well,
what do you mean why shoot 16:9?
| | 00:23 | Robbie: It's an unbelievable thing.
| | 00:24 | I still get asked that question all the time,
which is kind of shocking, since our lives
| | 00:29 | over the past 5 or 10, 15 years have kind
of become dominated by widescreen displays
| | 00:34 | and widescreen presentations,
and that kind of stuff.
| | 00:36 | And there are a couple of reasons for 16:9.
| | 00:39 | First I just want to point out that any time
that you're in an HD movie mode on your DSLR,
| | 00:44 | you're by default recording 16:9.
| | 00:46 | There is no special switch you have to change
or setting in the menu, you're recording 16:9.
| | 00:52 | And one of the real reasons to shoot 16:9,
or that wide aspect ratio, is because from
| | 00:57 | a sort of human physiology and sort of perceptive
kind of model.
| | 01:02 | 16:9 takes up more of a peripheral vision,
and in the display, a large display like a
| | 01:07 | movie theater or nice home theater or something
like that, it's going to be more engaging,
| | 01:11 | and it's more how we see the world.
| | 01:14 | You know if you put your hands up to your
eyes like this and sort of emulate a square,
| | 01:18 | right, you're kind of blocking off a large
part of your peripheral vision, right?
| | 01:21 | That's not how you see the world.
| | 01:23 | We see the world in more
of a widescreen type view.
| | 01:25 | Richard: Well, what's interesting is how 16:9
itself actually involved as an aspect ratio,
| | 01:31 | movies in general.
Movies used to be 4:3.
| | 01:34 | You know, we started, and that's what they
were, and then television came along.
| | 01:39 | And with TV they are, oh well, we need to
do something different, we need a wider screen and--
| | 01:43 | Robbie: The movies wanted
to do something different.
| | 01:45 | So they even went not just 16:9,
they went crazy, right?
| | 01:49 | In Cinemascope and all these other aspect
ratios that were just mega wide.
| | 01:53 | Richard: If you've ever gone to a Cinerama
Theatre, it's just incredible.
| | 01:57 | You know, these giant aspect ratios, and over
time things sort of backed back down.
| | 02:01 | And I think what we're seeing now is that
really, while there's lots of aspect
| | 02:06 | ratios still in use, 16:9 is becoming dominant,
because as people are going to theaters less,
| | 02:12 | but have nice home theaters and movies and
portable electronic devices playback movies,
| | 02:17 | 16:9 has become the standard.
| | 02:19 | So if your client is asking you,
well, why shoot 16:9?
| | 02:22 | I don't know, a lot of the folks who
are delivering still have 4:3.
| | 02:25 | A thing that I say is okay, I want you to
go to a big-box electronics store and tell
| | 02:31 | me how many 4:3 TVs you find.
| | 02:34 | Robbie: Right.
And that's a good point.
| | 02:35 | I mean the other thing, too, is that as you
know, it's sort of an inevitable thing that
| | 02:39 | these cameras over the next thee, four or
five years will probably shoot even better
| | 02:43 | than our current crop of HD.
| | 02:45 | 2K, 4K, 5K, digital cinema resolutions and
a 16:9 would still be germane then, because
| | 02:51 | it's a widescreen display.
| | 02:52 | Now the one thing I will say though that's
kind of interesting about 16:9 is that versus
| | 02:57 | 4:3 that we've previously talked about is
that when you shoot 16:9 for aesthetic reasons,
| | 03:01 | people like to sort of get those go back to
that super widescreen type look.
| | 03:06 | So for final presentations often times people
will do things like, they will map the image
| | 03:10 | off with black bars.
| | 03:11 | Well, if you do that with a 16:9 shot you
don't have a lot of area to work with, you
| | 03:17 | end up getting these little strips.
| | 03:19 | So one thing that people do oftentimes is
that they'll shoot 4:3.
| | 03:22 | Now, not standard def 4:3, but the protect
for 4:3, and then they'll mask that off and
| | 03:27 | maybe blowup and enlarge the image a little
bit, giving us that look.
| | 03:30 | But most of the time shooting 16:9 is going
to be the choice that you want, you get that
| | 03:34 | by default on HD modes on these cameras.
| | 03:36 | Richard: So if you're talking to your client,
you try to convince them what to do.
| | 03:40 | I think the key here is to say, look, pretty
much the whole industry has gone to widescreen.
| | 03:45 | It might not be a true 16:9, you'll see slight
variations and things like mobile phones and
| | 03:49 | everything else, but when people turn on video
these days, they expect it.
| | 03:53 | I think the biggest bellwether that signified a change
was when YouTube went to from 4:3 video to 16:9.
| | 03:58 | Robbie: Yeah, that's a good point.
| | 04:00 | And you know just the thing is again, you
don't have to think about it.
| | 04:02 | We're making a big deal of
this is 16:9 versus 4:3.
| | 04:06 | The thing to point out is when you're in
standard-def modes on these cameras, you'll be probably
| | 04:09 | shooting 4:3 and all HD modes
will be shooting 16:9.
| | 04:12 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 04:13 | And remember, those gray bars on the back
of the camera are there for a reason, while
| | 04:17 | you could see through them, you're not actually
recording the video that's in the gray bar
| | 04:21 | area, so just make sure you compose
the shots the way you want.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Can I Crop Video?Composition matters| 00:00 | Richard: So Rob, one thing that pops up a lot,
especially when I'm talking the photographers
| | 00:04 | getting into shooting video is well,
can I crop?
| | 00:07 | People are so used to, they shoot the stills,
great high resolution images, they can crop
| | 00:12 | it after the fact.
Robbie: Totally right.
| | 00:14 | I've talked to photographers especially that
have that very question they have it all the
| | 00:18 | time, because you're right, they come in and
they shoot something, and you know, they'll
| | 00:21 | go, oh, that doesn't look right, I want to focus
more on this part of the photo, that kind of thing.
| | 00:25 | Richard: Oh, there is a lighting stand at the corner
of the shop, can we zoom it up a little bit?
| | 00:28 | Robbie: Right and they do it for aesthetic
reasons, for technical reasons, and they are
| | 00:32 | always asking can we do
that same thing with video?
| | 00:34 | And I say, well, sort of.
Richard: How low are your standards?
| | 00:40 | Robbie: And the reason I say sort of is because,
obviously, when you're shooting a still photo,
| | 00:45 | you're shooting 14, 15, 20 megapixels, and
you just have a tremendous amount of resolution
| | 00:52 | that's just inherent to that that native shot.
| | 00:54 | And so, if you're cropping into quite a bit,
you still might end up with a 5, 6, 7, 8 mega
| | 00:59 | pixel shot, even after you've cropped, and
it'll look sharp, and it'll look great, right?
| | 01:05 | However, if we start doing cropping on video--
and by the way, this often happens and always
| | 01:09 | happens in post--we are not doing really a
true cropping most of the time on the camera.
| | 01:13 | When we start cropping into video clip, you
have to keep in mind that the video clip originally,
| | 01:18 | 1920x1080 is just over 2 megapixels, right?
| | 01:22 | So if you start pushing into and cropping
off portions of the shot, you're potentially
| | 01:25 | going to lose information
and have some image artifacting.
| | 01:28 | Richard: Well, you bring up an existing trick
there, this is actually something we do a
| | 01:32 | lot of here is maybe you shot 1080, but you're
delivering at 720, which is an acceptable HD standard.
| | 01:39 | So if you are going down in size, yes, you
can technically crop in post.
| | 01:45 | If it means that you have to scale the image
down to see the whole frame, that's fine.
| | 01:49 | And if you're dealing with the 4:3 deliverable,
you might be panning and scanning and moving it around.
| | 01:54 | Robbie: Center-cropping it, right?
| | 01:56 | That's a really good point, and we talked
about this in other episodes, when we talked
| | 01:59 | about frame size that these cameras can record.
| | 02:02 | And it's always easier to go down
than it is to go up, right?
| | 02:07 | So if you're trying to--you have a 720p shot,
and you're trying to crop in on that, you're
| | 02:13 | going to have to blow up
the shots to crop in.
| | 02:15 | But if you have 1920x1080 shot that's in 720p
project, you have extra resolution to work with.
| | 02:22 | So it goes again more to that argument of,
why not just shoot 1080 most of the time,
| | 02:26 | even if you're shooting--
you are delivering a low resolution?
| | 02:28 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 02:29 | So, while you will find cropping in some your
editing tools, people will do this with
| | 02:33 | Motion tab or applications like Final Cut
Pro X actually have a crop feature.
| | 02:38 | What you need to do is be very careful.
| | 02:40 | A lot of times when you're editing video on
your computer, you're looking at it in a little
| | 02:45 | tiny window, so when you got that shrunk down
in the small window, and you crop it or you're
| | 02:49 | scaling it up, and you are recomposing the
frame and post, you go, oh that looks great!
| | 02:54 | And then you burn it off to a DVD or you play
it back on the big monitor and go, oh, that
| | 02:58 | looks like garbage.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 03:00 | And I suppose it's one of these things, again,
as you crop or blow into or push into photos
| | 03:05 | excessively, you might have seen noise if
you are doing photography, it's the same thing,
| | 03:09 | if push into a video clip, you don't have
to push in nearly as much, as you did, say
| | 03:13 | on a photo, you're going to start noticing
some of that pixalization and artifacting,
| | 03:17 | so you just want to be very careful for that.
| | 03:18 | Richard: All right! So just be very careful
when you're shooting, get the composition
| | 03:22 | you need when you shoot it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring the action-safe area| 00:00 | Richard: So in our last module we talked about
making sure that the frame was how you wanted
| | 00:05 | it, because you can't really
crop after the fact.
| | 00:07 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 00:08 | Richard: Now I think more importantly and
closely related is that not everything you
| | 00:13 | shoot is going to show up
on every single screen.
| | 00:17 | We have this area called Action Safe and explain
that, you do a lot of broadcast television work.
| | 00:22 | Robbie: I do, and Action Safe
has, well, a couple of uses, right?
| | 00:27 | The first thing is that you know back in the
day--I say that you know, not too long ago.
| | 00:32 | Richard: Nostalgia
| | 00:34 | Robbie: Nostalgia, we still have it,
but it's less, it's this idea of overscan.
| | 00:38 | And what that basically means is that the
actual image that's displayed on a television
| | 00:41 | set through broadcast signal was actually
bigger than the actual frame of the TV itself
| | 00:47 | right, because you don't want to see the edges
of the actual image.
| | 00:50 | And because of that sometimes say you know
somebody may be walking towards this side
| | 00:54 | of the screen, if they walk to too far guess
what, even though they're really still in
| | 00:57 | the picture, they would have actually exited
the frame of the screen.
| | 01:02 | So we've come up--well not we, but people
have come up through the years of this idea
| | 01:06 | of action safe, which generally is 90% of
the height and width of the screen.
| | 01:11 | If you draw a box around the screen, it would
be about 90% of the total viewable area.
| | 01:16 | Richard: And what's happening here is as Rob
said, that 10% pad on the edges is just used
| | 01:20 | as pad just like in the print world where
you have bleed, so before something was cut,
| | 01:25 | or margins on a book.
| | 01:27 | So that things don't get shoved right up to
the edge which makes it difficult and sometimes
| | 01:31 | makes things feel too tight.
So we tend to frame things just a tab looser.
| | 01:36 | Assume that the end viewer
is going to see everything.
| | 01:39 | If they are looking at this on the web, they're
going to see it.
| | 01:41 | If they're looking it on most modern TV sets,
they're going to see it.
| | 01:43 | Robbie: That's a good point, and I--that's
what I tried to say a long time ago, this
| | 01:46 | was bigger issue.
| | 01:48 | Because you know in the past, overscan on TVs was
much more present than we have on modern HDTVs.
| | 01:53 | Most modern HD TVs are showing you almost
100% of the image.
| | 01:58 | So if you're thinking to yourself, oh well
they are outside of action safe, I shouldn't
| | 02:02 | have to worry about, no, no, no...
| | 02:05 | That object or that person
might still be in view.
| | 02:06 | Richard: So if that boom mike dips into the
frame from overhead, most people are going
| | 02:11 | to see, you can't say oh just a little bit,
it poked in, it was outside of action safe.
| | 02:15 | Why we bring this up is that the world is
changing and evolving, so you need to be mindful
| | 02:20 | that everything you see within that shot is
going to be seen by the end viewer in most cases.
| | 02:26 | However, if you're working with old timers,
clients, even many editors they may say oh
| | 02:31 | that's just outside of action safe, no one
will ever see that.
| | 02:33 | Robbie: Well, it's not so true.
Richard: Not so true anymore.
| | 02:35 | So be careful of that, it used
to be a hard and fast rule.
| | 02:39 | Now it's a nice guideline
that only affects a few people.
| | 02:42 | Robbie: Yeah and the other thing about action
safe is you know when we're monitoring things,
| | 02:46 | because you know a lot of times on bigger
productions we'll be using external monitors
| | 02:50 | and field monitors and stuff like that is
that you can actually view action safe for
| | 02:54 | different aspect ratios right.
| | 02:56 | So you might be on the set, and you're shooting
16x9 but your end deliverable is going to
| | 03:00 | be say 4x3, right?
| | 03:02 | You're delivering for say may be an iPad or
you know a web series or something like that.
| | 03:06 | You can bring up 4x3 actions safe zones so
you can say, no I'm going to protect through
| | 03:12 | this actual aspect ratio and the action safe
within that aspect ratio.
| | 03:15 | Richard: Okay and a close cousin that you
might hear people kick around a little bit
| | 03:19 | is the term title safe.
| | 03:21 | This only kicks in with graphics, this is
a further 10% ingest.
| | 03:25 | So if action safe was 90% of the viewable
image, title safe is considered 80%, and this
| | 03:30 | is really closely related to the same reason
why books have margins.
| | 03:34 | If we put the text too close to the edge of
the screen, it may look cut off or hard to read.
| | 03:39 | So, if you're working with people on a professional
video project, don't be you know too surprised
| | 03:43 | to hear the terms action safe and title safe
kicked around, as the shooter always think
| | 03:48 | is my frame properly composed
for my delivery aspect ratio.
| | 03:52 | Make sure nothing is in
the frame that you don't want.
| | 03:54 | Some times this means stepping back, looking
at it, poring over the frame is everything
| | 03:59 | good, you know let me look
at this slowly before I roll.
| | 04:02 | Robbie: Yeah, and a great technique that I
often do is before I just jump into a shot
| | 04:06 | and go let's go, I'll record 5, 10, 15 seconds,
you know rewind or not rewind but playback
| | 04:13 | on my camera or on my external monitor and
really study that shot a few times because
| | 04:17 | you know there might be something that is
just so subtle that's in the frame that you
| | 04:20 | didn't catch it the first time around.
| | 04:22 | Richard: Yeah, so there you go. Can you crop
video? Yes and not so much at the same time.
| | 04:27 | The better thing to think about here is paying
attention to your composition throughout,
| | 04:31 | and remember, that with certain delivery things
you're going to have to keep a certain area
| | 04:35 | reserved such as action safe or a particular
aspect ratio for a different delivery device.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. What Speed Memory Card Do I Need?Understanding card speeds| 00:00 | Richard: One of the questions people ask all
the time is what type of memory cards do I need?
| | 00:03 | You know, you go to a store, there are millions
of choices, you log online to an online retailer,
| | 00:08 | and you're looking, and there are just so
many options, because these cards are used
| | 00:12 | in everything from consumer point and shoots,
all the way up to high, high-end video gear,
| | 00:17 | so it's kind of confusing.
| | 00:18 | Robbie: Yeah, well there are really two main
types of memory cards that you are going to
| | 00:22 | use for most DSLRs.
| | 00:23 | There is some new one on the horizon, they
are coming out, but the two main ones that
| | 00:26 | you are going to use are Compact Flash and
SD Memory Cards.
| | 00:29 | Richard: Right and SD is just Secure Digital.
Robbie: Yep.
| | 00:32 | Richard: And even within that there's an extra
flavor of SD called SDHC for High Capacity.
| | 00:36 | Robbie: Right.
| | 00:37 | Richard: And that's really sort of where you
are going to go.
| | 00:39 | Robbie: Yeah, For SD Cards definitely want
to go to the SDHC one.
| | 00:42 | Richard: Okay, yeah because that allows you
to store more files.
| | 00:45 | The previous ones had a much lower cap, and
that's probably one of the reasons why Compact
| | 00:49 | Flash was so popular early on is because it
had Higher Capacity.
| | 00:52 | But than with SDHC they sort of caught up.
| | 00:55 | Robbie: Right, and it's actually not uncommon
these days that you might have cameras that
| | 00:58 | have both, right?
Richard: Yeah.
| | 01:00 | Robbie: Commonly people think of SD Cards
as being more consumerish, slower speed, not
| | 01:05 | as durable, and I think
that's probably pretty true.
| | 01:09 | But you know and Compact Flash being a little more
rugged, little more durable, faster higher capacities.
| | 01:15 | But some camera manufactures like I know Nikon, you're
a Nikon shooter, a lot of their cameras they have both.
| | 01:19 | So the user can decide whether they want to
use an SD Card or Compact Flash Card or both.
| | 01:24 | Richard: And these days they've pretty much
caught up to each other.
| | 01:26 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 01:27 | Richard: What I think we're seeing is that
it costs more money initially to you know
| | 01:32 | make one or the other.
| | 01:33 | Now they are just putting both in there, and
you know cost per gigabyte, typically SD Cards
| | 01:38 | are less expensive, because they just, they
sell more of them.
| | 01:42 | You know because they're used in more devices
than a CF Card, usually you could find higher
| | 01:47 | capacity SD Cards at a lower cost.
| | 01:49 | It's not to say one is better than the other,
it's just you may have a choice or you may
| | 01:52 | not based on your camera.
| | 01:54 | Robbie: Yeah, and that's, I think the first
major decision that you have to make when
| | 01:57 | you're looking at--we'll get to speed in just
a second.
| | 01:59 | But when you get to you know looking at whether
you're going to SD or Compact Flash, it's
| | 02:03 | just sort of a like size or capacity, versus
speed argument, right?
| | 02:08 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 02:09 | Robbie: My personal feeling is to always go--
maybe it's because I am just sort of centrist
| | 02:13 | in my attitude here--is to go
sort of the middle of the road.
| | 02:17 | I no longer--I don't necessarily need the
biggest, fastest, beefiest card out there,
| | 02:22 | but I obviously don't want the slowest card.
Richard: Right.
| | 02:24 | Robbie: I find sort of going in that middle
of the road kind of card, either SD
| | 02:27 | or Compact Flash is going to be fine.
| | 02:29 | Because then here is the one thing that we
need to remember.
| | 02:31 | Is that when we're shooting video on these DSLR
cameras, the bandwidth requirements aren't
| | 02:35 | nearly as great as they are when we are say
shooting burst mode, taking Raw photos.
| | 02:40 | Richard: Well, let's put that into play here
for a second. I think there's a sliding scale
| | 02:43 | that people need to understand.
| | 02:45 | At the low end of that scale is a JPEG shooter.
Robbie: Right.
| | 02:48 | Richard: Very small, even in burst mode very, very small.
Robbie: Yep.
| | 02:51 | Richard: Sort of next in the middle of the
road is a DSLR video shooter because they're
| | 02:55 | shooting lots of frames, but when you're capturing
video it's a like a 2.1 megapixel file.
| | 03:00 | Robbie: Exactly.
| | 03:01 | Richard: Times 24 or 30 frames a second, so
there are a lot of them--
| | 03:04 | Robbie: But it's so not that bad with intensity.
| | 03:05 | Richard: Right, so the medium
middle of the road cards work great.
| | 03:07 | Robbie: Yep.
| | 03:08 | Richard: Then if you go up from there like
you know I shoot a lot of time-lapse, and ever
| | 03:13 | since Vincent Laforet yelled at me I've started
shooting my time-lapse in Raw.
| | 03:15 | Robbie: Right.
| | 03:17 | Richard: But man! Does the card fill up quick
when you're shooting Raw time-lapse?
| | 03:20 | Robbie: It does, and I think your budget and
what you're shooting needs a sort of a dictate
| | 03:24 | what you're going at, but you know once you
sort of make that decision, okay look you
| | 03:28 | know a 16 gig or a 32 gig middle of the road
card is fine for me, I still think people
| | 03:33 | get a little confused, right?
| | 03:34 | Because they are looking at these numbers
that are often on these cards and they'll
| | 03:37 | say, oh 90 MB per second.
| | 03:40 | Or they'll say you know 266 times, well what
does that really mean?
| | 03:44 | Richard: Yeah, well this one says 133x, and
it's Class 10, and this one over here which
| | 03:48 | is an older one says it's only 15 megs a second,
I'm guessing that that's not good enough for video.
| | 03:53 | Robbie: Right. So here is the deal, right?
| | 03:54 | Oftentimes, either in SD Cards or in Compact
Flash, you're going to see speed is shown in
| | 03:59 | two different ways, either in megabytes per second
as, you know, 50 MB per second, 30, you know, 90 whatever.
| | 04:05 | And that's going to dictate sort of the speed
that--the maximum speed that that card is
| | 04:08 | able to record at and the maximum speed that
you're going to able to get footage off of the card, right?
| | 04:12 | Richard: Right.
| | 04:13 | Robbie: You're also sometimes going to see
these cards rated as you just pointed out
| | 04:16 | 133x, 266x you know so on and so forth. Well,
what that X means is its baseline, right?
| | 04:23 | Because it's like math, high school math class,
right? 133 times what.
| | 04:26 | Richard: Scary Memory.
| | 04:28 | Robbie: Right, exactly. Well, that X is
150 kilobytes per second, right?
| | 04:33 | Richard: And we haven't talked about kilobytes
per second, in kilobytes for years since floppy
| | 04:37 | disks which is why it's 133 times that number.
Robbie: Right.
| | 04:40 | Richard: And turn that into something that's
more real-world today.
| | 04:43 | Robbie: Right, so if you take that baseline
X has been 150 KB per second, 133 times that
| | 04:47 | is about 20 MB per second,
so that's the throughput on that card.
| | 04:52 | Richard: So this card here that's labeled
300 MB a second--
| | 04:54 | Robbie: 30 MB a second.
| | 04:55 | Richard: 30 MB a second I should say is about a 200x card.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 05:00 | Richard: And why it gets confusing is I've
got cards here from different manufacturers,
| | 05:04 | and this one says ultra, and this one says ultra,
but it's a different speed, this one says extreme.
| | 05:07 | Robbie: Well, there--there
is two parts of it, right?
| | 05:10 | You have to sort of--
the marketing part of it--
| | 05:12 | Richard: The marketing part is usually BS.
Robbie: Right, and then the real world speed.
| | 05:15 | So you're going to see this real world speed
in two ways, right either in megabytes per
| | 05:19 | second or in that 133, 266 whatever times
speed, only thing you need to remember is
| | 05:23 | that that X is 150 KB per second.
| | 05:26 | Richard: So I think a good baseline to remember then is
that 133x is sort of the safe entry-level for shooting video.
| | 05:33 | That's going to give you 20 MB a second which
is going to be fine for shooting DSLR video.
| | 05:39 | It's going to be great for shooting Raw photos,
now may be not Raw burst mode you won't get
| | 05:43 | the same throughput, but if you're just looking
for DSLR video cards, that's probably fine.
| | 05:48 | And I think to make this a little bit easier
we do have ratings and classes that sometimes
| | 05:53 | cue you that this is
a card designed for video.
| | 05:55 | Robbie: Well, right, and that's I said there
are sort of two ways that the manufacturers
| | 05:59 | advertise, there is really
kind of a third way.
| | 06:01 | And this especially gets a little confusing
when you talk about SD Cards.
| | 06:03 | Oftentimes you'll see SD Cards
rated in classes, right?
| | 06:05 | Richard: Right.
| | 06:07 | Robbie: And to make it simple, the higher
the number of the class, the faster the card is.
| | 06:11 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 06:12 | Robbie: So a class 10 card is going to be
faster than say a class 6 card.
| | 06:17 | And likewise on Compact Flash Cards when you
see that it's UDMA rated, that's going to
| | 06:22 | mean that it meets a certain baseline for
throughput, and that's going to be a faster
| | 06:25 | card than a non-UDMA Card.
| | 06:26 | Richard: But not all SDHC Cards are the same,
'cause there will be different classes and not all
| | 06:31 | UDMA cards are the same speed either.
| | 06:33 | So that's sort of a threshold that has to
cross that line.
| | 06:36 | Like you could see an SDHC Card and go that's
fast enough for video, but it's a class 4
| | 06:41 | card, and it may not be fast enough.
| | 06:42 | Robbie: Right, and you got to test and the
last thing I'll say about that besides just
| | 06:45 | sort of testing ones is I've found--and I
am not trying to plug you know a specific
| | 06:49 | brand or anything like that--but I've found
that the major players generally are pretty
| | 06:53 | true to what they advertise in their speed.
| | 06:56 | You know if you find you know oh I get five
32 gig cards on Amazon for a super cheap,
| | 07:01 | yeah, you might be a little skeptic.
| | 07:04 | Richard: Well, I got a lot of different brands
up here, you know, and I've had good performance
| | 07:07 | with most of them.
| | 07:08 | There is one in this wall
that was I not happy with.
| | 07:10 | I think a good clue is if you're looking online,
and you're looking at the reviews that people
| | 07:14 | are posting, trust those.
| | 07:16 | You know photographers and video pros tend
to want to look out for each other and share
| | 07:19 | good news and bad news.
| | 07:21 | So you know I took a gamble, I needed a 600x
card for shooting time-lapse, and I wanted
| | 07:26 | that extra speed because I was going to do
a whole bunch of Raw time-lapse, and I was
| | 07:28 | going to be on the road.
Robbie: Sure.
| | 07:30 | Richard: So I bought you know a cheaper card,
and I bought a more expensive card, you know,
| | 07:35 | and I was able to get a 32 gig card for the
same price as a 16 gig card from another manufacturer.
| | 07:38 | Robbie: Yep.
| | 07:40 | Richard: Well, that 32 gig card failed multiple
times while shooting in burst mode and time-lapse.
| | 07:45 | I'd come back and the camera was blinking
from card error, and it was like, oh you mean you want
| | 07:50 | 600x all the time, not some of the time.
Robbie: Right, right?
| | 07:53 | Richard: Oh well, we never said it did that,
so you got to look at reviews and performance.
| | 07:57 | And I think the other thing that is difficult
for people to wrap their head around is that
| | 08:00 | cost versus size argument.
| | 08:03 | You want to make sure that as you do that
that you're not getting cards that are too
| | 08:09 | expensive, and I think you know you could
just take the capacity divided by the cost
| | 08:12 | and get the cost per gig, and that helps you
to look at that a little bit.
| | 08:14 | Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 08:15 | Richard: So pretty straightforward, now we're
going to specifically explore the workflows
| | 08:19 | of shooting video versus photos next.
| | 08:22 | But just to recap when you're out there shopping
for memory cards, these days not a big difference
| | 08:26 | between CF and SD Cards, it's going to vary
by manufacturer.
| | 08:30 | Make sure you look for those class ratings,
SDHC Class 10 on up for SD Cards, UDMA ratings
| | 08:36 | for video cards, and then sort of a 133x as
the bottom-line cap of where you're going
| | 08:42 | to go for a video rated card.
| | 08:45 | If you can go a little bit faster, you'll be
happier with it for both video and still work.
| | 08:50 | And anything else you want to add Rob.
| | 08:51 | Robbie: No, I think that about covers it Rich.
| | 08:53 | Richard: All right, so there you have it.
| | 08:54 | Hopefully you can shop a little smarter when
you're out there looking for memory cards.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shooting video| 00:00 | Robbie: So Rich, earlier we covered sort of
the basics of what's out there for memory
| | 00:04 | cards, but as you get into shooting video
with DSLRs, there are some specific recommendations
| | 00:09 | that we have about the memory cards
that we're going to use.
| | 00:12 | Richard: Yeah, I think it's important to really
think about what type of formats you're going to shoot.
| | 00:17 | If you're shooting 720, that's not going to
be as demanding as shooting 1080 unless of
| | 00:23 | course you're doing 720, 60, then it's more
demanding, and then some of the newer cameras
| | 00:27 | coming out are actually
supporting better codecs.
| | 00:30 | So we've got new generation DSLRs, sort of
the third generation DSLRs coming out, and they'll
| | 00:35 | have options for what they call edit-friendly
codecs that are less compressed and those
| | 00:40 | are higher data rates, right?
Robbie: Yeah, absolutely.
| | 00:42 | I mean as a rule of thumb for shooting video,
if you know that you're going to be shooting
| | 00:45 | video only, what I tell people is that, you
don't need to spend that extra money on the
| | 00:51 | biggest, the best card or memory card that's
out there, because it's kind of overkill.
| | 00:56 | If you look at sort of the data rate of most
of these codecs, it's actually pretty low.
| | 01:01 | You know you're talking about 300, 400, maybe
500 utmost megabytes per minute on this.
| | 01:08 | So it's not all that bandwidth-intensive.
| | 01:10 | I have found that as a baseline for video, a 133x card,
or about 20 megabytes per second works very well.
| | 01:17 | If I am going to be shooting video and photos,
I might go for a middle-of-the-road card, say
| | 01:23 | like a 300x card or some printer
around 60 megabytes per second.
| | 01:27 | That typically is sort of a nice middle-of-the-road
card that will get me the best of both worlds.
| | 01:31 | Richard: Yeah, you don't want to go right
up to the edge, but 133x or 20 megabytes
| | 01:35 | a second is plenty when you're only recording
320 megabytes in a minute, right?
| | 01:39 | Robbie: Right.
| | 01:41 | Richard: That's more than double what you
need. So you got safety there.
| | 01:44 | You know the reason why you don't go right
up to the edge is you don't want your system
| | 01:48 | to sort of teeter, you don't want it to get
close to the point, especially when cards
| | 01:52 | start to get warm, that causes an issue.
| | 01:54 | Now, one of the things I will say is that
it's going to vary by manufacturer.
| | 01:59 | You know the data rates will compare.
| | 02:00 | So if you're shopping for cards, don't go
out and buy 20 133x cards.
| | 02:03 | Robbie: Right.
| | 02:05 | Richard: If that's what's affordable, and
that's what you have, use it, but I typically
| | 02:08 | will always start with my best cards first.
Robbie: Yep.
| | 02:11 | Richard: And then work my way down, and it
makes a lot of sense.
| | 02:15 | Now I think when you're out there looking,
you are going to want to get cards organized.
| | 02:19 | For example, I have different card wallets
and one of the things I'll do is I'll keep
| | 02:24 | my photo cards separate from my video cards,
and it just makes it easier.
| | 02:28 | So you know the last thing you want to do,
like in this case we've mixed them together,
| | 02:32 | and we've got a 15 megabyte per second and mixed
in with an 80x card, that ain't going to do video.
| | 02:39 | Robbie: Right, right exactly.
Richard: But you know, oh! Here is a UDMA one.
| | 02:41 | So the last thing you want to do is be in
the rush, in the field and pop out a card
| | 02:45 | and go oh, this one is fine
for JPEG shooting, but not video.
| | 02:48 | So I recommend isolating those video cards
into a wallet uniquely.
| | 02:51 | Robbie: The other thing I will say,
and that's a very good point.
| | 02:53 | The other thing I'll say when you are looking
at cards, obviously capacity is a big thing, right?
| | 02:56 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 02:57 | Robbie: And there is this argument of do I
get smaller cards and more of them or do I
| | 03:03 | by bigger cards and less of them, right?
| | 03:06 | Richard: Well, let's put this in perspective
for people that are photo shooters.
| | 03:09 | You're going to go through a gig about every
three minutes so that 16 gig card is less
| | 03:14 | than an hour of shooting.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 03:17 | My personal feeling on it is that again, I
like to go middle-of-the-road.
| | 03:19 | I am not going to go for a--I don't want the
102 gigabytes cards, but I also don't want
| | 03:24 | to put all my chickens in one basket--
or eggs in one basket rather.
| | 03:27 | I want to have sort of
split it up a little bit.
| | 03:29 | So I am not going to have 64 gig cards.
That kind of makes me a little nervous.
| | 03:32 | My personal feeling is I like that currently
that middle-of-the-road number, about 32 gigs,
| | 03:36 | gives me a nice long shooting capacity, but
without putting everything on one card, because
| | 03:41 | God forbid, the card dies, well, guess what?
It's all done.
| | 03:44 | Richard: Yeah. I'm with you there.
| | 03:45 | For shooting video, I use 32 gig cards, and
we'll talk more about time-lapse next, but
| | 03:50 | that's where my 64 gig cards come in handy
because if I'm shooting Raw time-lapse, I
| | 03:53 | want that higher capacity
so I could shoot longer.
| | 03:56 | Robbie: Absolutely.
Richard: And that does matter.
| | 03:57 | You want to think about real-world things
like, for example, if you're shooting a concert
| | 04:01 | or an event and swapping out a card is going
to mean, oh! That's going to take 30 seconds
| | 04:06 | to get the card in.
| | 04:08 | That's going to be a delay and maybe a gap
in coverage that you don't want.
| | 04:10 | So you got to think about the workflow.
| | 04:13 | The other thing is is more cards,
easier to lose.
| | 04:16 | So you want to make sure that
you don't spread things out too far.
| | 04:20 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 04:22 | And the last thing I'll bring up is that even
though I have sort of made the argument for
| | 04:25 | going in sort of middle-of-the-road, you know
maybe a 32 gig card, 300x, that kind
| | 04:30 | of stuff, there is a benefit of having a faster
card, especially when you get to the post-production
| | 04:35 | side of things, or the offloading side things.
| | 04:38 | If you have a really slow card, and let's
say you have 32 gigs of it full, and you're
| | 04:43 | going to through a USB card reader, guess
what, you're going to be waiting a long time
| | 04:46 | to offload that card.
| | 04:48 | But if you go to say 400 or 600 times card,
and you have a fast memory card reader like
| | 04:53 | this, like this FireWire 800 one,
goes pretty quick.
| | 04:54 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 04:56 | So you got to think about
where you are paying the tax.
| | 04:59 | A lot of people forget that time is money
and so did you choose to save $30 on that
| | 05:04 | card, but every time you go to offload it,
it's going to take you 20 minutes longer?
| | 05:06 | Robbie: Right.
| | 05:08 | Richard: You know that adds it pretty quickly,
at least to me.
| | 05:10 | So, go with what you can afford, read those
reviews, make sure you keep your video cards
| | 05:16 | isolated from your photo cards.
| | 05:17 | If you have got older cards that
might really make that hit.
| | 05:20 | The last thing you want to do is like pop
in a slow card, and you're rolling on the
| | 05:24 | scene, and then you get right do
that interviewing like, card error.
| | 05:28 | What do you say to your subject?
| | 05:29 | You are going to tell 'em, um, act of God? No, it
doesn't really work. It's like no, human error.
| | 05:34 | And I think that works pretty straightforward,
and then I can't emphasize enough keeping
| | 05:38 | things organized in a card wallet.
| | 05:39 | They are going to keep those cards protected.
They are going keep dust off the cards.
| | 05:43 | In this particular case, an SD card, a little
bit flimsy, pretty easy to crack.
| | 05:46 | Robbie: Yep.
| | 05:47 | Richard: But I put it here in this pelican
case with nice rubber to isolate and protect
| | 05:51 | the cards, I can, and I have rolled over this
with a car.
| | 05:54 | Robbie: Oh, wow.
| | 05:56 | Richard: No damage, I didn't do it on purpose.
I don't recommend you try your case out that way.
| | 05:59 | But this is a good way to keep stuff safe
when you want that solid secure storage.
| | 06:02 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 06:03 | And the things that I would emphasize are
getting a card capacity that is going to be
| | 06:07 | enough for you to get--or you know pretty
lengthy recording on it, but not too big to
| | 06:12 | where if you lost that card or got damaged
or went corrupt that you're going to lose everything.
| | 06:17 | And then the second thing, I would emphasize
is sort of a middle-of-the-road sort of speed card.
| | 06:21 | I'm not saying that you cake at the fastest,
if you want to, if you have that money to
| | 06:24 | do so, more power to you, but that middle-of-the-road
type speed card is going to give you a nice
| | 06:28 | benefit, it's going to be more than enough
for shooting most DSLR video, and it's nice
| | 06:31 | and comes in handy when you want to switch
over and say shoot photos.
| | 06:34 | Richard: All right, great! And that's going
to be our next topic.
| | 06:36 | We're going to talk specifically about shooting
time-lapse and how this puts higher demands on your cards.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shooting time lapse| 00:00 | Robbie: So earlier, Rich, we talked about requirements
of memory cards for video and then in general,
| | 00:04 | but what about time-lapse?
| | 00:05 | Richard: Yeah, I think time-lapse is a little
bit trickier, because it really depends upon
| | 00:10 | what you're doing.
| | 00:11 | There is lots of factors, I put out there,
the first one being record time.
| | 00:16 | You know the thing you can't do in time-lapse
is touch the camera. As soon as you've touched the camera--
| | 00:20 | Robbie: You've screwed it all up.
Richard: Yeah.
| | 00:22 | It's going to make even if you're like, oh!
I'm really careful, and I am popping this
| | 00:25 | memory card, the slightest vibration or touch
destroys the frame, and you have jump.
| | 00:28 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 00:29 | Even if it's in the middle of taking pictures,
if you have a long interval, you are still
| | 00:34 | possibly going to move that camera just a touch.
Richard: Yeah.
| | 00:36 | So you have to make sure you have enough capacity
to record for the duration you want to record.
| | 00:41 | Now some cameras have built-in interferometers,
which is the device that allows you to set
| | 00:45 | the timer for how often it takes pictures,
many times the built-in ones will cap out
| | 00:49 | at 1000 pictures.
Robbie: Right.
| | 00:51 | Richard: But you have other options to record
a lot more with an external interferometer.
| | 00:57 | So you might be recording for days or weeks
and in that case, you could really need those big cards.
| | 01:02 | So it's not uncommon to buy those 64 gig cards,
and I think we're starting to see 128 gig cards too.
| | 01:08 | Robbie: Yeah, together.
| | 01:08 | Richard: They are expensive, but you know
a time-lapse shooter would likely buy that
| | 01:13 | in order to support the record time and one
of the things people just have to think about
| | 01:16 | is how long do they need to record.
So I just think of it this way.
| | 01:20 | Remember, if you're recording 24 stills, you
know that's going to be about a second or
| | 01:24 | maybe you are doing 30.
| | 01:25 | A lot of times at time-lapse people will hold
an individual frame repeated for a couple of counts.
| | 01:30 | So you might only be shooting 10 frames per
finished second or 8 frames, but even still,
| | 01:36 | you're going to go through a lot.
| | 01:37 | The other big issue is going to really be
how big those file sizes are because this
| | 01:42 | is not a 2-megapixel image.
| | 01:43 | Robbie: Well, right, and you know that's one
of things I always think about, I'm going
| | 01:46 | out there, and I am like, okay I am used to
shooting video, but all of a sudden go from
| | 01:48 | two, you know roughly 2 megapixels up to
maybe 20 megapixels or a 20 megapixels plus
| | 01:53 | so that file size is going
to be whole lot bigger.
| | 01:56 | Also, it's going to depend right if I am shooting
JPEG on my camera or if I am shooting Raw on my camera.
| | 02:01 | Richard: Yeah. And a lot a folks struggle with this.
| | 02:03 | You know, obviously the benefit with JPEG
is it's ready to use, and it comes out at
| | 02:07 | a nice small size, and it can fit a lot on
the card, and that used to be the only way
| | 02:11 | people shot time-lapse
because cards are so low.
| | 02:13 | You are like oh! I have got
a 4 gig card, I'm shooting Raw.
| | 02:15 | Oh! I got a 2-second time-lapse.
It kind of defeats the purpose.
| | 02:17 | Robbie: Right, sure.
| | 02:19 | Richard: But you know what we're seeing now
is with these larger couple of cards, we can record longer.
| | 02:23 | The benefit with Raw is that it gives you
greater flexibility.
| | 02:26 | So you can use a program like Adobe Camera
Raw, open up the first image, recover the
| | 02:31 | highlights, boost the shadows, pull a bit
of vibrance in there, and then apply that
| | 02:35 | to the whole sequence. That's works great.
| | 02:38 | Or if you're dealing with tough situations
like sunrise or sunset, you could develop
| | 02:42 | it for the sunrise state and then develop
it for the predawn state and just cross-dissolve
| | 02:47 | between those two streams.
Robbie: Right.
| | 02:48 | Richard: So there is lots
of ways of pulling this off.
| | 02:51 | But JPEG on the other hand just gives you
longer record times.
| | 02:53 | Robbie: Right.
| | 02:54 | So if you're you know--the best quality obviously,
you might shoot Raw, if you are fine with
| | 03:00 | the way it looks in camera JPEG.
But that sort of determines our capacity.
| | 03:04 | You know how long you have to go out there,
and you're determining the file size between
| | 03:07 | JPEG and Raw, but what about speed?
| | 03:10 | You know you might be in a situation with
the time-lapse that you could go with a pretty
| | 03:13 | slow speed card, high capacity with slow speed
because you're firing off one shot say every
| | 03:18 | five minutes or something like that, you know
if you are doing a multi-day time-lapse, but
| | 03:22 | you might also be doing a time-lapse where
you are shooting off a frame every ten seconds
| | 03:26 | or five seconds or a second even.
| | 03:28 | Richard: Yeah. It totally depends on the style.
| | 03:30 | Like if I am doing long stuff where it's showing
progress over time like hours, it might be every 10 seconds.
| | 03:36 | On the other hand, if I'm shooting people
and doing time-lapse, and I want that energy
| | 03:40 | of people flowing through the scene, I sometimes
will shoot a one second exposure to get streaks
| | 03:45 | at a one second interval.
| | 03:47 | So it's just basically snapping open, close
right back open, and that's continuous raw
| | 03:50 | data and in that case--
| | 03:52 | Robbie: If you are shooting
Raw, yeah then that's what's I was going to
| | 03:54 | say, if you're shooting that fast, and you're
shooting Raw, you are going to need a pretty
| | 03:57 | fast card, right?
| | 03:58 | Richard: Yeah. And what you'll notice here
is if you don't, the camera will lock up.
| | 04:02 | So a lot of times people will just sit there
on time-lapse, not touching the camera, but
| | 04:05 | just listen, and it's going for a few seconds
where it's--and then all of a sudden it's like--
| | 04:11 | Robbie: Right, right? Something went away.
Richard: Then it will change.
| | 04:15 | Robbie: I have had that experience actually.
| | 04:18 | Earlier we talked about having
organized our memory cards.
| | 04:22 | I actually had that problem
a couple of weeks ago.
| | 04:23 | I went out, and I was doing time-lapse, I
was shooting Raw, and I wasn't paying attention,
| | 04:27 | I put a slower card in, and you know my camera,
my 7D had--you know, it has a pretty big
| | 04:32 | internal buffer, but that internal buffer
filled up, and it couldn't clear fast enough
| | 04:36 | to write the card.
| | 04:36 | The next you know the whole camera locked
up, and I had to start over from scratch.
| | 04:40 | Richard: Yeah. And sometimes it'll just slow down,
and sometimes it'll totally lock up, and it'll fail,
| | 04:44 | and then you have to restart the camera
and go through your settings.
| | 04:46 | So really in that case, having
a faster card comes in handy.
| | 04:51 | I'll typically go 300x on up, although I have
shot Raw time-lapse to 133x cards.
| | 04:57 | Typically though, I can't do a faster interval
than, say, a 5-second shot.
| | 05:00 | Robbie: Right.
| | 05:01 | Richard: Now, another variable is how many
slots does your camera have?
| | 05:05 | A lot of the cameras, that I use for time-lapse,
have two memory slots.
| | 05:08 | And so I could set the one card up and then
put a secondary card for rollover.
| | 05:13 | So it'll go ahead and write to the second
card once the first one is full.
| | 05:17 | That's great because that gives you the ability
to shoot longer without having to swap cards or start all over.
| | 05:23 | Robbie: And rustle the camera a little bit.
| | 05:25 | Richard: Yeah. And so I think the final thing I
would say is it really comes down back to your post
| | 05:29 | workflow, the post-production side of thing,
and this is where JPEG versus Raw kicks in.
| | 05:33 | A lot of people want to use the JPEGs because
they are really quick to edit together.
| | 05:38 | You can fire open QuickTime Pro and say make
a new image sequence, and it will slam all
| | 05:41 | together, and it's great, and you know, you can use
basically free software to do this, and that's fine.
| | 05:47 | The people who are really doing the high end
stuff, are taking the time to shoot Raw, and
| | 05:52 | then they're using tools like Aperture, Lightroom
or Photoshop to batch process those Raws and
| | 05:56 | spit them out or even Adobe After Effects,
which could pull Raw in, it really though
| | 06:01 | is a huge leap in system performance, like
if I pull in a Raw image sequence into After
| | 06:06 | Effects, I can't really do that on my laptop,
I got to switch to a desktop computer, or
| | 06:11 | I got to work at such a low quality, and then
I hit Render, and I walk away for a while.
| | 06:14 | Robbie: Right, the digital
timeout, if you will.
| | 06:17 | Richard: Yes.
Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 06:17 | Richard: So I think it works pretty well.
I mean do you want to just recap for our listeners?
| | 06:21 | Robbie: Yeah, I think a few things to pay
attention to are determining how long you
| | 06:25 | are going to be shooting for.
| | 06:26 | That's going to determine the capacity of
the card that you need.
| | 06:29 | If you're going to be doing say an overnight
shoot where you are going to be shooting for
| | 06:32 | 12 hours, you're going to need a big card.
| | 06:35 | The second thing that's going to sort of determine
your capacity, but as well as your speed,
| | 06:38 | as well if you're going to be shooting JPEG
or Raw, right, obviously JPEG, it's going
| | 06:42 | to be smaller file sizes, and it's not to
going to be as bandwidth-intensive on the card.
| | 06:47 | And if you're shooting Raw, that's going to
affect the size of the card that you need,
| | 06:50 | but also the bandwidth and the speed
of that card that you need.
| | 06:53 | And then the last thing there is
more of your post workflow.
| | 06:57 | If you're going to be shooting Raw, you are
going to need a faster card, but also a faster
| | 07:01 | computer when you are going
into process that stuff.
| | 07:03 | Richard: Yep! So there you have it.
| | 07:04 | If you're going to be a time-lapse shooter
in additional to a DSLR shooter, make sure
| | 07:07 | you pick up some of those faster cards because
they will really come in handy.
| | 07:10 | The JPEG workflow is just fine if you are
getting started out or you're shooting during
| | 07:15 | day time where you don't have a lot of lighting
conditions changing.
| | 07:18 | But if you're dealing with sunrise, sunset
or low light shooting, Raw is an absolute saver
| | 07:23 | that just makes things look great.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. What Causes Rolling Shutter?What is rolling shutter?| 00:00 | Richard: So, one of the questions that comes
up a lot, and I think it's almost entered
| | 00:04 | urban myth sort of status is oh! You
know those CMOS sensors, we're going to get
| | 00:10 | that wobble, that Jell-O, that skew.
Robbie: The Rolling Shutter effect.
| | 00:15 | Richard: Yeah, and people like how do I apply
the Rolling Shutter, like no, it's not something you want.
| | 00:19 | Robbie: You want, right?
Richard: But people--
| | 00:21 | but producers are terrified of this. Like I've
had something that's like no, we can't shoot
| | 00:24 | on the camera, it's going to
have a Rolling Shutter effect.
| | 00:26 | Robbie: Oh, you know--now you know, sort of--you
are right, it's sort of entered urban legend.
| | 00:30 | Now when camera manufactures talk about any
camera that they're coming out with, they
| | 00:34 | specifically say you know, reduce Rolling Shutter
artifacts or no Rolling Shutter, or this and that.
| | 00:39 | You know, Rolling Shutter is something to
be aware of, but it's not something necessarily
| | 00:43 | to be scared of, right?
| | 00:45 | Richard: Well, and I think even before that--
Let's just clarify, this is not unique to DSLR.
| | 00:49 | Robbie: Well, it's--
Richard: Even a Red camera has Rolling Shutter.
| | 00:52 | Robbie: Right.
| | 00:52 | And we're going to commonly, most commonly
find this sort of artifact in CMOS image sensors,
| | 00:57 | right, that are using DSLRs, using other high-end
cameras and just for fun sake, what does CMOS stand for?
| | 01:03 | Do you know?
| | 01:05 | Richard: Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor.
Robbie: Oh, well, you won jeopardy tonight.
| | 01:09 | Richard: Yes.
Robbie: Good job, good job, good job.
| | 01:10 | Richard: So you have it for pure trivia.
| | 01:12 | But from a practical sense, older times, video
cameras used to be CCDs where you'd have multiple
| | 01:17 | chips, and now we're using a single chip to
capture the image.
| | 01:20 | Robbie: Well, even more so than that, a CCD
used what we refer to as a global shutter, right?
| | 01:25 | So the entire image sensor was--
Richard: And that was a Charge-Coupled Device.
| | 01:27 | Robbie: There you go.
Richard: Double jeopardy.
| | 01:29 | Robbie: A CCD, it was a global shutter, so
the entire sensor was exposed at sort of the same time.
| | 01:34 | The way that CMOS chips or CMOS, depending
on you know tomato or tomato, where you're from.
| | 01:39 | Richard: If you're from Canada.
Robbie: Right, exactly.
| | 01:41 | The way that these chips work is that they scan,
the shutter scans the actual image sensor, right?
| | 01:45 | So if you start at the top of the sensor,
you're scanning down to the bottom of the sensor.
| | 01:49 | So in other words, the scanning, at the top
and the bottom are actually different points in time.
| | 01:55 | It might be, you know, a really
short period of time.
| | 01:58 | Richard: We are talking fractions of a second
because if you're shooting 30 frames a second
| | 02:02 | that's refreshing every
30th of a second, but--
| | 02:04 | Robbie: Every 60th of a second, if you do
fields yeah, exactly.
| | 02:07 | Richard: Yeah, so I think that the people
get hung up here because they're like oh!
| | 02:10 | You know that's plenty of time.
| | 02:12 | You know, the split difference sometimes--and
winning a race could be 30th of a second.
| | 02:16 | I mean while it's very, very fast when shooting
video, you know a 30th of a second is not that fast.
| | 02:22 | Robbie: Well, let's just take
a look at this clip that we have here.
| | 02:24 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 02:25 | Robbie: So in this clip obviously, it's just
a set of window blinds, shooting out the window,
| | 02:29 | but as we're panning back and forth, what
you'll notice is that the strong vertical
| | 02:33 | lines seem to wobble back and forth.
| | 02:35 | And again that's because
of the Rolling Shutter effect.
| | 02:39 | The top of the sensor and the bottom of the
sensor as the shutter scans that sensor are
| | 02:43 | different moments in time.
| | 02:44 | And we are most commonly going to see this
on fast movement and fast pans, and you're
| | 02:48 | not going to just get this Jell-O effect, refer
to this as wobble most of the time.
| | 02:52 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 02:53 | Robbie: You might get things
like smearing or skewing.
| | 02:57 | The one that I see all the time because I
do a lot of natural history stuff is--or sort
| | 03:01 | of outdoor stuff, say, for example, a lightning
strike in often the distance, right?
| | 03:07 | What you might see is the top of the frame is nice
and bright, and the bottom of the frame is darker.
| | 03:11 | So to get this partial exposure going on,
all of these are symptoms of Rolling Shutter.
| | 03:16 | Richard: Yeah, and I think what's important
to realize here is you're going to start to
| | 03:20 | see this as you've mentioned when movement
or subject are faster than your frame rate.
| | 03:25 | So if you're dealing with something speeding
through the frame, like you have got a large
| | 03:29 | delivery truck, big boxy truck, and it's driving
80 miles an hour down the street, which it
| | 03:34 | shouldn't be, but if it is, and it goes past
your camera shooting 24p, it's very possible
| | 03:39 | that that truck will take on a diagonal shape
because it's moving so fast.
| | 03:42 | Robbie: Well, it's not just
the frame rate, it's also--
| | 03:44 | it's really the shutter speed, right?
Richard: Yeah.
| | 03:45 | Robbie: So you know you're shooting at 24, you might
be shooting at the shutter speed of 150th, right?
| | 03:48 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 03:49 | Robbie: And that's what's going to cause that,
and I think you're right, I mean the thing
| | 03:52 | to be aware of Rolling Shutter is that some
people convince themselves that they can see
| | 03:55 | it all the time, right?
| | 03:57 | Richard: Yeah.
Robbie: I take argument with that.
| | 03:59 | But to me, the only place that I'm really
going to notice is that when we have strong
| | 04:03 | vertical lines or things moving really fast,
like helicopter blades are the famous example,
| | 04:07 | they're rotating around and all seem you through
like they look like they are bent or something like that.
| | 04:11 | Richard: But we used to see this on wagon wheels
that would look like they were rolling in reverse.
| | 04:14 | Robbie: Right.
| | 04:15 | Richard: The human eye
and cameras behave differently.
| | 04:18 | Robbie: Right, and so my suggestion is be
aware of that it's sort of phenomenon that
| | 04:22 | happens with these sensor types--
| | 04:24 | Richard: It's an optical illusion.
Robbie: But don't let it paralyze you, right?
| | 04:27 | Richard: Right.
| | 04:28 | Robbie: And later on, we'll take a look at
how to minimize Rolling Shutter artifacts
| | 04:32 | when we're actually out filming.
| | 04:33 | Richard: Okay, so to recap I think what we
want to point out here is Rolling Shutter
| | 04:37 | does exist, it is real.
| | 04:39 | But it's only going to come up in certain
shooting situations, like strong, fast movement,
| | 04:44 | really fast panning, really fast subjects.
| | 04:47 | It's going to manifest itself as image wobble,
as skewing where vertical lines start to look
| | 04:53 | diagonal, or smearing where we just start to
see blurring or in some very rare cases partial
| | 05:00 | exposures when you're dealing with things
like flash photography or lightning where
| | 05:02 | you have really quick changes in the scene
where the sensor doesn't refresh as quickly.
| | 05:07 | Now the big thing I want to say is don't just
keep going frame-by-frame through your video,
| | 05:12 | stepping one frame at a time.
| | 05:14 | If you do that, any video looks terrible, because
remember video is all about persistence of
| | 05:20 | vision, where multiple frames add up and create
smooth movement within the brain and video looks good.
| | 05:26 | If you look at any individual freeze-frame,
it's always going to look a little soft,
| | 05:30 | a little smeary, potentially a little bit skewed.
| | 05:32 | It's the cumulative effect of watching that
video playback in real time.
| | 05:37 | And if you don't see it there, don't obsess,
your clients or your customers may have heard
| | 05:41 | about this effect.
| | 05:43 | Just tell them it happens in a few situations
and in our next movie, we're going to talk
| | 05:48 | about strategies for avoiding it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Avoiding rolling shutter| 00:00 | Richard: So obviously people are kind
of freaked out about Rolling Shutter.
| | 00:04 | They want to make sure that they
don't get it in their productions.
| | 00:07 | What are some strategies?
| | 00:08 | Robbie: Well, they could buy
a camera that has a CCD sensor.
| | 00:11 | Richard: Yeah, but that kind of--these all
purpose of shooting DSLRs.
| | 00:14 | Robbie: Right, you are not
going to really find that, no.
| | 00:16 | Probably the easiest one is to control the
speed of your pans.
| | 00:22 | DSLRs and CMOS in general,
but DSLRs are not particularly--
| | 00:26 | Richard: So, not this, right?
Robbie: Exactly.
| | 00:29 | Richard: Okay.
| | 00:30 | Robbie: DSLRs are not probably the first choice
to go out and shoot your next action movie
| | 00:34 | whip pans, Jason Bourne type stuff.
| | 00:36 | Now with that said, it's all about whether
you notice it or not, right?
| | 00:39 | Richard: Right.
| | 00:41 | Robbie: You know in a fight scene in action
movie, if there are no strong vertical lines,
| | 00:46 | you are probably never going to notice it,
and it would be just fine.
| | 00:49 | However, if you're filming city-scapes, you
now like tall vertical buildings, and you
| | 00:55 | are doing fast whip pans there, yeah, you
are probably going to notice it.
| | 00:58 | Earlier we took a look at this shot where
we had the windows here, right, and it's just
| | 01:01 | a static shot, and you can notice that we
are getting this sort of Jell-O effect, or this
| | 01:05 | wobble effect back and forth.
| | 01:07 | So but if I had panned slower, while we were
doing that, a nice controlled pan, we would
| | 01:12 | have gotten less of that wobble.
| | 01:13 | Richard: Well, we call that a film pan, and
it's basically speed like that.
| | 01:17 | It goes back to the days of film of making
sure that you can count as you are panning,
| | 01:23 | and there is an actual ratio, but the general
rule of thumb is is just go at a reasonable speed.
| | 01:28 | I could still go about like there.
| | 01:29 | But I want to just make sure as I am panning
that it gets it. And a lot of tripods will
| | 01:33 | have tension knobs so you can adjust this,
and that's the benefit of the fluid head.
| | 01:37 | Notice I let go, it holds.
Robbie: Right, exactly.
| | 01:39 | The other thing I will say about that is that
you know this is all about, I don't want to
| | 01:44 | say preproduction, but sort of testing on
set before you are actually trying to get that shot.
| | 01:48 | You know a good DP and a good shooter will
say okay actors let's take our marks let's
| | 01:53 | walk through the scene and they will play with
the speed of that pan or that movement because
| | 01:58 | it's not just panning.
| | 02:00 | You might be on a steady cam or something like
that, and you are running really fast, or
| | 02:04 | you are on a dolly, and you
are moving really fast.
| | 02:06 | So practicing that and monitoring
it of course, you know?
| | 02:09 | The back of the camera LCD, not the best place
to show you those, those Rolling Shutter artifacts,
| | 02:14 | an external monitor or better yet even ingesting
that footage so you can see it on your computer a better bet.
| | 02:19 | Richard: Well, I'm a big fan because we do
have applications now that work native with
| | 02:23 | the footage, newest version of Avid, Premiere
Pro, Final Cut X, you could pop that card
| | 02:28 | in and open it up, look at it right away,
see the shot in its native form and put it
| | 02:34 | on a big screen and watch it back, play back
full-screen on a laptop, you will see this
| | 02:39 | full-screen on a laptop.
| | 02:40 | Robbie: Yeah, but in some circumstances Rich,
you know it's just going to be unavoidable, right?
| | 02:43 | Richard: Right.
| | 02:44 | Robbie: You know, the script or the type of
camera movement that you are doing is just
| | 02:48 | going to have a little bit
of Rolling Shutter in it.
| | 02:51 | Richard: Well, how long is it going to take,
I mean, jump cuts, lens flares, flash frames,
| | 02:57 | those were all mistakes that
all of a sudden now people ask for.
| | 03:00 | Robbie: Right, exactly.
| | 03:00 | So one of the things that you can do to sort
of cheat this, because remember Rolling Shutter
| | 03:05 | is all about the speed at which the shutter
is scanning across that image sensor, so where
| | 03:09 | we have sort of a different moment in time
in top of the sensor versus the bottom of the sensor.
| | 03:13 | One way that we can sort of alleviate this,
I didn't--notice I didn't say eliminate this,
| | 03:17 | but alleviate this--
Richard: Reduce it.
| | 03:19 | Robbie: Reduce it is by shooting at a slightly
faster shutter rate.
| | 03:24 | So if your standard shutter is sort of following
that 180 degree shutter rule where you double
| | 03:29 | your frame rate and put a one over it, kind
of thing, we can nudge that up a little bit.
| | 03:35 | Just be aware that while you're reducing that
rolling shutter, you might also be introducing
| | 03:40 | some sort of staccato rhythm, people getting
a little herky-jerky there.
| | 03:43 | So it's a little bit of a tradeoff.
| | 03:45 | Richard: And changing shutter speed means
that you're changing the exposure triangle,
| | 03:48 | so you will need to adjust as well.
| | 03:50 | But this is trial and error.
I think you really hit on it saying test this.
| | 03:54 | Newer cameras, less a problem, they keep fixing
this and refining it.
| | 03:58 | Robbie: It's been amazing, every camera that
comes out, and it's like it's less and less
| | 04:01 | and less, and I'm sure that we are going to
see a point where it's just not a non-issue anymore.
| | 04:05 | Richard: I'm sure we are going to get top
the point where you could turn off or on because
| | 04:08 | there is going to be who want it.
| | 04:09 | Now of course the good news is it's like all
things production related, there is generally
| | 04:15 | speaking a viable way to fix it in post.
| | 04:18 | Robbie: Yeah, the phrase that I hate,
fix it in post, but yes there are.
| | 04:22 | I mean you know earlier on, we were dealing
with our plug-ins like the Foundry's Rolling
| | 04:26 | Shutter plug-in for After Effects and stuff
like that, but now even most editorial tools
| | 04:30 | are starting to introduce these fixes, for
example, in Final Cut Pro X from Apple, you
| | 04:34 | can analyze a clip for rolling shutter and
have Final Cut Pro X automatically fix it
| | 04:38 | for you which is cool.
| | 04:39 | Richard: And the Warp Stabilizer in Adobe's
products will actually fix handheld shakiness
| | 04:44 | or bumps and can remove rolling shutter if
you go into the Advanced section and turn it on.
| | 04:49 | So these are both very viable features, and
you know if you head here on lynda.com, and
| | 04:53 | you look around, go to the Final Cut X tutorials,
go to the Adobe Premiere Pro tutorials, you
| | 04:58 | will find how to specifically fix this and
Rob mentioned, the Rolling Shutter plug-in
| | 05:03 | from The Foundry is available for tools like
Avid and other compositing tools.
| | 05:06 | So, there's always a way around this problem.
| | 05:09 | Of course software takes longer
than shooting it right.
| | 05:13 | But you know, that's often the job of the editor
or the compositor is to remove the problems
| | 05:17 | or to sort of erase away the sins of what
happened in the field.
| | 05:21 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 05:21 | And If you just focus on a few key things,
actual physical movement of the camera, panning
| | 05:26 | and things of that nature, you can alleviate
Rolling Shutter quite easily.
| | 05:29 | Richard: All right! So just slow things
down a little bit.
| | 05:32 | You should be able to just get rid of it and
of course test and check and make sure it's non-existent.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. What is Moiré?Moiré explained| 00:00 | Richard: A word that will come up a lot, especially
for people that are starting to get serious
| | 00:04 | about shooting DSLR video, is moire.
| | 00:06 | And you're like oh, I want to avoid this.
I hear it really damages the image.
| | 00:10 | And I think that you know this is a real-world
problem, but it's a lot like rolling shutter.
| | 00:14 | You can shoot for a long time
without ever seeing it.
| | 00:17 | Robbie: Yeah, it certainly something to be
concerned about but not something to be obsessed
| | 00:20 | about or paralyzed over you know.
| | 00:23 | The thing about moire is that it happens when
we have tight overlapping pattern, right something
| | 00:27 | like pinstripes in a shirt, maybe a screen
door, tight brick patterns, carpet patterns,
| | 00:34 | that kind of stuff.
| | 00:35 | And what it looks like is basically some vibrating
of the actual image, right?
| | 00:40 | And this happens again, just like rolling shutter,
mainly because of how the sensors are working
| | 00:45 | on these cameras, right?
| | 00:47 | Richard: But it's not just CMOS sensors, I
mean I remember back in the day when I was
| | 00:51 | a Floor Director for a television news station,
and I did the morning show.
| | 00:55 | We would have guests on all the time, and
it would be like, I'm sorry sir, could we
| | 00:58 | hand you this nice off-white shirt instead
of that tight pinstripe that you have.
| | 01:02 | Robbie: Absolutely, this is I mean, that's
like video production 101, right?
| | 01:05 | You want to wear solid color versus tight
patterns and something like that.
| | 01:08 | Richard: I'm sorry that tie
is not legal for television.
| | 01:10 | Robbie: Right.
| | 01:11 | But it's exacerbated little bit by the CMOS
sensors that are in use in these DSRL cameras.
| | 01:17 | And the reason that is is because you can
think about these sensors, right, they're
| | 01:20 | pretty big, they're really big in fact because
they were meant to take photos, right?
| | 01:26 | You have these 20 megapixels sensors, but
what we're doing when we're shooting videos
| | 01:29 | we're going down to smaller portion of the
sensor. So to do that--
| | 01:32 | Richard: Right, when we're taking 20 megapixels
sensor and making it only capture about 2 megapixels.
| | 01:36 | Robbie: Right, and to do that there's a whole
bunch of fancy math involved.
| | 01:39 | But you know we don't have
to bore people with.
| | 01:42 | But there is issues like line skipping, meaning
that not every, you know row of pixels is
| | 01:47 | going to actually record in
a part of the image, right?
| | 01:50 | So, when you get in the things like line skipping
and the math that's involved and sort of the
| | 01:53 | interpolation that happens, because we're
doing fancy math, guess what, there are errors, right?
| | 01:57 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 01:58 | Robbie: And some of those errors manifest
themselves as moire patterns.
| | 02:02 | Richard: Well, this happens even in still
photos when you down-sample a high-res still
| | 02:06 | to a lower-res image.
| | 02:08 | Sometimes you'll see weirdness, or if you've
ever had an image opened say in Photoshop,
| | 02:13 | and you're looking at it at 25% magnification,
it's like well that looks really weird, and
| | 02:17 | then you go to 100%, you no longer see it.
Robbie: Right.
| | 02:19 | Richard: Sometimes that down-sampling, especially
when it's being done in the real time, leads
| | 02:24 | to as you described image errors, and we see
this with photos even.
| | 02:28 | But it becomes worse in moving footage because
you have--especially which is slight movement.
| | 02:33 | So if I were wearing say an obnoxious tie,
and I was just rocking back and forth--
| | 02:37 | Robbie: Which I've seen you in, by the way.
Richard: Yeah, I have a few.
| | 02:39 | If I rocked back and forth on camera you would
see all this vibration happening.
| | 02:43 | Robbie: Absolutely, it's movement, it's the
angle towards the pattern, and you know the
| | 02:47 | things of that nature, and that's why you
know a lot of times that if you're going to
| | 02:50 | be specially doing a narrative, something like let's
say you're shooting a shot through a screen door, right?
| | 02:55 | You know, you can still take that shot, right?
But you need to be very careful about the
| | 02:58 | angle and shots that you're shooting on to
that screen doors to avoid the moire patterns.
| | 03:01 | Richard: All right.
| | 03:03 | So now that we understand what it is, let's
come back in a second and talk about how to
| | 03:08 | fix it or avoid it altogether.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Avoiding Moiré| 00:00 | Richard: Okay, so we've made a pretty good
case of what moire is.
| | 00:04 | Let's talk about the next step, the logical
next step which is how do we avoid it?
| | 00:07 | Robbie: Exactly.
| | 00:09 | Well, the easiest and the most straightforward
method of avoiding it is avoiding things that
| | 00:12 | will give you moire patterns, right?
Richard: Right.
| | 00:14 | Robbie: So, if you're shooting say an interview
you might want to put that talent in you know
| | 00:18 | a non tight pattern, pinstripe kind of shirt
and then want to put them in the solid shirt.
| | 00:23 | You might also want to just say you're shooting
say brick or some carpet or whatever, you
| | 00:27 | might want to do things like shoot it at selectively
different angles, because again the position
| | 00:31 | of the camera to that pattern is going to
influence how obvious that moire pattern is.
| | 00:37 | Richard: Well, and to that end I think
preproduction can solve both of these.
| | 00:40 | Robbie: Yep.
| | 00:41 | Richard: Yeah, we'll send out a sheet, a call
sheet to our talent with instructions on wardrobe.
| | 00:47 | And we'll also emphasize even if we're working
with non-professional corporate talent, please
| | 00:51 | bring an alternate set of clothes with you.
Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 00:54 | Richard: It's clearly spell out, avoid these
sorts of things.
| | 00:57 | And if we're doing a corporate shoot we'll
actually have a couple of ties in the bag
| | 01:00 | just to swap out with the guys, or you know
it's not just ties, we might way to the women could
| | 01:04 | you please remove that complicated fancy necklace?
It's giving us a problem.
| | 01:08 | Robbie: Yeah, absolutely.
| | 01:08 | Richard: And so you want to give people some
warning, and you can do this.
| | 01:11 | And then for those tight patterns like on
exteriors with the brick and things, going
| | 01:15 | there ahead of time and giving a test shoot.
| | 01:17 | I know that, for example, a lot of shows and
music videos are starting to use DSLR but
| | 01:22 | as a fallback there people may have a secondary
camera, maybe it's an AVCHD or an HDV or a
| | 01:29 | typical CCD type camera, and for that one
shot they might have to switch to older technology.
| | 01:33 | Robbie: That's true.
| | 01:35 | Richard: Or some of the things that I've done
is just shoot a still with it and then do
| | 01:39 | an effect later, like composite in a moving
sky on that still photo, and it looks like
| | 01:43 | it is moving video.
Robbie: Well, right?
| | 01:45 | But you know even with that said there is
a lot of fancy things you can do, but you
| | 01:47 | can also go little old school with it and
one of the things that we can do is filter
| | 01:51 | the lens a little bit right.
Richard: Yeah.
| | 01:52 | Robbie: So one of the ways that you can avoid
moire is by sort of slightly softening or
| | 01:56 | diffusing the image just a little bit.
| | 01:59 | Things like pro mist filters work pretty well
to get to rid of some of that.
| | 02:02 | Richard: Yeah.
| | 02:03 | Robbie: You know, some of that type patterns
that you might get.
| | 02:05 | There's companies like Zeiss even that are
making specific anti-moire filters now.
| | 02:10 | That go on--they don't really make the entire
image soft, they just sort of focus on diffusing
| | 02:14 | those tight patterns and they work pretty well.
| | 02:16 | Richard: Well, one of the things I also found,
too, is that the patterns will show up at different
| | 02:20 | points, especially with the zoom lens.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 02:22 | Richard: So we're doing some work where we
had to shoot a lot of iPads and electronic
| | 02:27 | screens, and that's another thing where you'll
see the moire because you're dealing with
| | 02:30 | a screen that's a lots of--
Robbie: Tiny pixels, yeah.
| | 02:32 | Richard: Yeah, and they're like oh, I guess
that really is a bunch of little dots with
| | 02:35 | a repeating pattern that in vibrates.
Robbie: Sure.
| | 02:37 | Richard: We found by simply adjusting the
distance of the camera from the screen that
| | 02:42 | sometimes different zoom levels would clear
it up, or just going like--and I mean a hint--
| | 02:49 | like from tack sharp to sharp.
Robbie: Yeah, absolutely.
| | 02:52 | Richard: You know just roll that focus enough,
it's like oh it's gone.
| | 02:55 | You know this typically shows up in things
that you don't need that distance.
| | 02:59 | And remember, if you are dealing with things
like brick or maybe it's a screen window behind
| | 03:03 | the person sometimes you could move them off
angle, you can pull them further away and
| | 03:08 | then change your lens to change the compression,
of you know how far away they are and just adjust your zoom.
| | 03:13 | There are lots of strategies for changing
how you shoot this to get rid of it.
| | 03:18 | And if that doesn't work, then it's either
switch the camera or take advantage of one of
| | 03:22 | these hardware filters and either go on the front
of the lens or between the lens in the camera body.
| | 03:26 | Robbie: Well, one more thing about switching
the camera that I think it is interesting
| | 03:28 | is that as these cameras mature and the censor
development gets more mature in itself, we're
| | 03:34 | seeing less problems with moire, right?
Richard: Yeah.
| | 03:37 | Robbie: You know, the very first generation
of DSLRs maybe this was a little more pronounced.
| | 03:40 | You know the second, now third or fourth generations
it's getting less and less, as issues like
| | 03:45 | line skipping and some other artifacts, and
this is sort of the--what is really going
| | 03:48 | on with the sensors get sort of you know,
fixed or limited it all together those problems.
| | 03:53 | We're seeing this is less of an issue.
| | 03:54 | I will say having owned, you know, a 5D Mark II
and 7D and having played with the 1D Mark IV
| | 04:00 | on the Canon side and same
thing on the Nikon side.
| | 04:04 | As the cameras are maturing, and they--you know, each
successful generation we're seeing better moire performance.
| | 04:08 | Richard: Well, we're also seeing a rise in
popularity of Crop sensors for people that
| | 04:13 | are deciding shoot video.
| | 04:15 | And, for example, if you look at like the Panasonic
AF100, it's not a full frame sensor, it's a Crop sensor.
| | 04:21 | It's like a Micro Four Thirds.
| | 04:22 | And we're seeing this with others, like people
are going oh you know what that giant full
| | 04:26 | frame photo sensor might be too big.
| | 04:29 | Robbie: Right, sure, sure, sure.
| | 04:31 | So I mean I get I think at the end of the
day the thing to understand about moire is
| | 04:35 | that you can avoid it in
a couple of different ways.
| | 04:36 | You know avoiding those tight patterns, adjusting
your angle, zoom to patterns if you have to
| | 04:40 | shoot them, right?
| | 04:41 | I think that you can think
about diffusing methods.
| | 04:44 | You know you go through something like
a Pro mist or something special.
| | 04:46 | Special filters are out there.
Then also I'm going to hate to say this.
| | 04:49 | You might to need to upgrade your equipment.
| | 04:51 | If your equipment is 4-5 years old and exhibits
these problems greatly, you might think about
| | 04:55 | the newest and latest generation of cameras that
are much better at handling strong moire patterns.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
11. Why Is My Footage Out of Focus?The dangers of tiny screens| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: You know Rich, one of the
questions that I get asked about all the time is, why
| | 00:04 | is my footage out of focus,
when I get back to the studio?
| | 00:07 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and there's really
a lot of reasons, but I think the biggest
| | 00:11 | culprit is the fact that you got a little tiny
LCD screen on the back and it makes everything
| | 00:16 | look sharper, because you're
shrinking the pixels down.
| | 00:18 | Robbie Carman: You mean, so everything that I see on
here is not exactly the way it's going to look?
| | 00:23 | Richard Harrington: Absolutely.
| | 00:23 | Robbie Carman: Oh, okay.
| | 00:24 | Richard Harrington: And well, it would be if
you're only delivering to the iPhone crowd.
| | 00:28 | Robbie Carman: Oh, I got you, I got you.
| | 00:29 | Richard Harrington: And only the original
iPhone before it got the sharper retina display.
| | 00:32 | So, yeah if you were delivering to the entire
world and TVs were no bigger than that, that
| | 00:37 | would be an accurate judge, but what we do
is we want to look at it on a larger screen,
| | 00:41 | so we can judge this and
it gets pretty tricky.
| | 00:43 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and when we've talked about
this you know over the course of other episodes
| | 00:47 | about some external monitoring, using
viewfinders and loops, and things of that nature. That's
| | 00:53 | going to get you away from the back of the
camera back--from away from this LCD screen,
| | 00:57 | so you're viewing at a higher
resolution or on a larger monitor.
| | 01:01 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and you really have
to two ways of setting focus at that point.
| | 01:05 | You can use the built-in auto focus features,
which are going to work okay if you've got
| | 01:09 | a lot of illumination or you can manually--
| | 01:11 | Robbie Carman: --and you have a lens that's capable of auto
-focusing with that camera body, all right.
| | 01:15 | Richard Harrington: True, and you can manually set
it and let's go ahead and take a look at both
| | 01:19 | those methods next.
| | 01:20 | Robbie Carman: Okay.
| | 01:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| How to set focus before recording| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Okay, so Rich, we basically
said that using the back of a camera not the
| | 00:04 | greatest for getting critical focus.
Richard Harrington: Nope.
| | 00:07 | Robbie Carman: We might often want to pipe
the signal out to say an electronic viewfinder
| | 00:10 | or an external monitor, or maybe use an
attached loop, but often times you know we might not
| | 00:15 | have those available to us and we still need
to check focus on the back of the camera using
| | 00:20 | the camera LCD. And there is a tried-and-true
method for sort of setting focus before we
| | 00:25 | actually start shooting.
| | 00:25 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and what
it's really called is take a picture.
| | 00:30 | You put your camera into auto-focus mode
if you're working with a lens that supports
| | 00:34 | that and then you can just hold down the
plunger and let it sort of find the exposure, and as
| | 00:39 | you see there, it locked.
It went from red to green.
| | 00:41 | Robbie Carman: Right, and on your camera that little box
there represents the area that it's looking at to try to focus
| | 00:47 | and we can move that around the screen.
| | 00:48 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, if I go ahead and
move that and let's say I set this on the
| | 00:52 | bottle, I wanted the bottle in focus, and I
just halfway hold down the plunger, it's going
| | 00:57 | to wrack through the settings and then it
locked in, and you'll notice in this case that
| | 01:01 | the bottle is in focus while
the bird is not as in focus.
| | 01:04 | Robbie Carman: Okay, that's great.
| | 01:06 | That's you know if you're running sort of a
run-and-gun situation and you don't really
| | 01:09 | trust what you're seeing, that you don't
trust your own eyes, you can do that.
| | 01:11 | Richard Harrington: And that does have one
other benefit which is by taking the still
| | 01:15 | you're capturing a higher-resolution image, if
you need it for print or web, and it's getting
| | 01:19 | relevant metadata about the lens and the settings
you use, because the video file doesn't have that.
| | 01:24 | Robbie Carman: Now were you actually taking a
still there or were you just using the auto-focus
| | 01:26 | capabilities of your movie mode?
| | 01:28 | Richard Harrington: If I let it auto-focus
and then it finished, I can go ahead and push
| | 01:31 | it and you know it would
then take the still--
| | 01:34 | Robbie Carman: Got it.
| | 01:34 | Richard Harrington: --and fire that off.
| | 01:36 | Robbie Carman: Cool.
| | 01:36 | Richard Harrington: You know and it would
store it as a still image, and in this case,
| | 01:39 | you actually saw there the blinkies came on,
it gives you an idea of if you're under or
| | 01:43 | properly exposed using some of
those photographic features.
| | 01:46 | So there are certain benefits to firing
off a photo first if you have got the time.
| | 01:50 | Robbie Carman: Got it! Now a method that I
like in terms of getting in focus is because
| | 01:54 | you know I'm--I don't know how should I say,
skeptical of auto-focusing and any sort
| | 01:58 | of machine helping me do something.
| | 02:01 | Richard Harrington: You like to be in control.
| | 02:02 | Robbie Carman: I like to be in control. Yes,
I have a little bit of OCD, I'll admit that.
| | 02:05 | One of the tried-and-true methods that I like,
besides that one, is actually zooming into the image.
| | 02:10 | Now I don't zooming in by physically zooming
like on a lens zoom, I mean by using some
| | 02:16 | of the focus features that I have on my
camera to be able to enlarge the size of the shot
| | 02:20 | in the Viewfinder.
| | 02:21 | Richard Harrington: Well, you
bring up a really good point there.
| | 02:23 | The danger in adjusting the zoom lens if you had
it attached is that the aperture could change.
| | 02:29 | So that could completely change your focus
and everything else and so then when you go
| | 02:32 | back out, all of a sudden what you
set focus on, isn't the same reality.
| | 02:36 | Robbie Carman: That's a good point.
| | 02:36 | I'm talking more about getting the shot framed
up, all my other technical settings right now,
| | 02:40 | I'm adjusting focus.
| | 02:41 | We can actually sort of crop in or
sort of zoom in on the sensor level.
| | 02:45 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, remember that we're not
using the whole sensor when we're shooting video.
| | 02:50 | Robbie Carman: Right.
Richard Harrington: So I can use the magnification
| | 02:53 | button and zoom that in a bit, and you know,
| | 02:55 | depends on the camera, but sometimes you'll
have a 50% zoom or a 100% or a one-to-one
| | 03:00 | view where you're seeing each pixel, and it
will give you that overlay. Then you can go
| | 03:05 | ahead and move that bounding box around.
| | 03:07 | Now if your camera has a little thing that sometimes
says L or Lock, if you have got that turned on--
| | 03:11 | Robbie Carman: You might
not be able to move that.
| | 03:12 | Richard Harrington: --you're like, why is it
moving? You know, look for that lock, but
| | 03:15 | this allows you to sort of move around the
image and find what you want to focus and
| | 03:20 | then if your camera is in manual mode,
you can go ahead and adjust it.
| | 03:24 | Some cameras will have a switch on the side of
the body for focus, others will have a switch
| | 03:29 | on the lens, but you know--or maybe both, you
might have to engage both switches to manual.
| | 03:33 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and this is a great
technique I find especially for things like interviews,
| | 03:37 | right? Because when we're doing an interview,
we want the person's eyes to be nice and sharp
| | 03:42 | in focus. That's what most people connect to
when we're looking at people, so oftentimes,
| | 03:47 | I'll zoom into somebody's nose or their eyes
or something like that to get this sort of
| | 03:51 | part of there face nice and sharp and
this is a great method to do that.
| | 03:55 | Richard Harrington: And then at this point,
you could just hit the Record button and the
| | 03:57 | camera will automatically go back to normal
view or if you're not ready to roll yet, just
| | 04:02 | tap the magnifying glass with a minus sign
and it will pull back out and that lets you
| | 04:06 | see the whole image, and so you just punched
in there to check focus and then punched back
| | 04:11 | out to set the shot.
| | 04:12 | I didn't actually touch the lens, I didn't
adjust its framing, its composition, any other
| | 04:16 | settings, I just tweaked the focus
manually and I think that really works great.
| | 04:21 | Now if you are using an external monitor, some
monitors and some viewfinders will actually
| | 04:27 | have a feature called Focus Assist that will
show you Edge Detection and you could turn
| | 04:31 | that on at the monitor level, and as you adjust
the focus, what's happening there is it will
| | 04:36 | help you detect the edges and say
this edge is in focus or it's not.
| | 04:40 | Robbie Carman: There you go.
| | 04:41 | So that's using a couple different methods
to get sharp focus, right? We can--even
| | 04:46 | if we are using the back of our camera, the
camera LCD, we can still get pretty sharp
| | 04:50 | focus, and the first method that we took a
look at was using some of the auto-focusing
| | 04:54 | capabilities, simply pressing the shutter
button down halfway, and inside of that box
| | 04:58 | we can get what's in focus there. We can also
take a photo which will sort of let us check
| | 05:03 | focus, but has the added benefit
of capturing additional metadata.
| | 05:07 | We can also zoom in on the sensor level, as
you said, 50% zoom or 1:1 zooms, zoom
| | 05:13 | all the way and get focus and then come back
out to record, and then depending on other
| | 05:17 | monitoring equipment that we have, say like a
Viewfinder or external monitor, we can use
| | 05:21 | additional features on those
monitors to help us ensure sharp focus.
| | 05:25 | Richard Harrington: And I think the thing
to realize here is that focus is critical.
| | 05:30 | People can forgive a shot that's a little
too dark, you can always boost saturation
| | 05:34 | to fix it if the colors washed out, you
could make the audio a little louder, but there
| | 05:39 | is no filter to fix focus, we'll be like
oh just sharpen the shot.
| | 05:43 | Robbie Carman: Not the same?
| | 05:44 | Richard Harrington: No.
| | 05:45 | It's like hey, there is lots of
noise in that auto-focus image.
| | 05:48 | So until those Lytro cameras kick in
and it's actually going to be possible to
| | 05:52 | get those in video cameras, I hear that's
what's coming next, until we have a change
| | 05:56 | in lens technology, you got to focus, you
got to make sure you're in focus, and you got
| | 06:01 | to check your focus anytime anything
changes. You move the camera, check focus.
| | 06:06 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely.
| | 06:06 | Richard Harrington: Lighting condition changes,
check focus, before you roll any shot, not
| | 06:10 | a bad idea to check focus.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
12. How Can I Connect a Monitor?Using your HDMI port| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: So, when you're looking
at DSLR cameras, they typically only have
| | 00:03 | one way of actually monitoring the HD signal,
and that is the HDMI Port. Tell us about it.
| | 00:09 | Robbie Carman: Well HDMI stands for High
Definition Multimedia Interface and it's common
| | 00:12 | on almost every DLSR that I can think of, and
it's usually just found on the same place
| | 00:17 | that you find other ports on the camera, and
HDMI of course is a very popular way of connecting
| | 00:22 | devices, right? You can connect video and
audio through one cable from your camera to
| | 00:27 | say a monitor, but you probably also use this at
home, maybe from a Blu-ray player to your HDTV.
| | 00:31 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, or Apple TV devices,
even computers sometimes will have HDMI ports
| | 00:36 | to connect the computer monitor.
| | 00:38 | The thing I think to remember is, one, people
don't include cables in the box anymore, so
| | 00:42 | you are going to need to buy a cable,
probably a long enough cable so you don't put that
| | 00:46 | port under pressure, and then you're going
to need a cable--there are two sizes, so we
| | 00:50 | have the full size and we've the little
size like we have here, most cameras use--
| | 00:55 | Robbie Carman: Use the small size, yeah.
| | 00:56 | Richard Harrington: --the mini size plug, and
that will connect to the camera and then the
| | 00:59 | full size will go into your device.
Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 01:01 | And just to be clear, one of the reasons that
we want to be able to access this HDMI port
| | 01:05 | is so we're not viewing things on the small
little LCD in the back of our camera, right?
| | 01:10 | We're going to eventually, probably as you do
more shooting, want to attach to an external
| | 01:13 | monitor, to an EVF, and so on.
| | 01:15 | Richard Harrington: Okay, so,
pretty straightforward.
| | 01:16 | Now I think one of the things people get
hung up on is, you know, I'm just going to go
| | 01:20 | ahead and attach this here, and when I do that,
you know we've already got this connected
| | 01:25 | to a few monitors. We'll just flip that on
and we'll start to send a picture through.
| | 01:29 | Robbie Carman: Here you go.
| | 01:29 | Richard Harrington: There's all sorts of
stuff all over that image. So you know, I can go
| | 01:33 | into my Menu system, I could play all day
long and try to turn that stuff off, but you
| | 01:38 | really can't. It's going to always have some
overlay and this depends on manufacturers.
| | 01:44 | When you're recording, it
might just be a record dot.
| | 01:46 | Robbie Carman: And you actually brought up an
interesting point, right now we're actually
| | 01:48 | seeing overlays from your camera itself.
| | 01:50 | In this case, we're actually looping through
your EVF and sometimes depending on the HDMI
| | 01:55 | port, sometimes it will display
overlay information and sometimes it won't.
| | 01:59 | So like for example, on your EVF, we're
actually not seeing any overlays from it, and this
| | 02:03 | is actually really kind of
interesting point, because a lot of--
| | 02:06 | Richard Harrington: Well, there is one
giant one, the big red box in the--
| | 02:08 | Robbie Carman: Oh, of course, yeah.
| | 02:09 | Richard Harrington: And on your Canon, it's
going to be a giant red dot in the corner.
| | 02:13 | Robbie Carman: Right, and this is my point, is that for
years since the DSLR has now really sort of come to the
| | 02:18 | forefront, people have been searching for
ways to get a clean signal out of the HDMI
| | 02:25 | port on the camera. They want
to do this for couple reasons.
| | 02:27 | One, just from an esthetic point of view when
they're monitoring, they don't want all this
| | 02:29 | other junk in the way, but two, they've been
trying to output sort of a clean uncompressed
| | 02:35 | signal from the camera to record to a digital
recorder, like a KeyPro or other devices that
| | 02:40 | are out there, so they can do higher bit rates,
better chroma subsampling, and so forth, by
| | 02:45 | recording to those recorders.
| | 02:46 | Richard Harrington: And this problem has been
solved, but it's not what you're hoping. A lot
| | 02:51 | of people have been looking for firmwares or
hacks, and this is pretty deeply ingrained
| | 02:56 | in the cameras because let's just be honest
here, there is no technical reason to watermark
| | 03:01 | the image. It's a financial reason, which is
that when they have that HDMI port unlocked,
| | 03:07 | they have to pay different
licensing fees to use it as a transport.
| | 03:10 | Robbie Carman: Well, also in the case of
companies like Canon and Sony for example, who make
| | 03:14 | very nice high-end video cameras themselves,
they don't necessary want to infringe on that
| | 03:20 | market, and there are cameras that are coming
out, some of the newer sort of digital cinema
| | 03:23 | style cameras, you know C300 and
stuff like that and the D4--
| | 03:27 | Richard Harrington: Even the Nikon--the new
Nikon D4 doesn't have a watermarked image.
| | 03:31 | Of course, you are getting into a $5,000-$6,000
camera, so this tends to be the highest-end
| | 03:37 | pro feature. So if you're like boy, I wish
I had a clean unwatermarked image, so I can
| | 03:41 | go out my DSLR camera into my $2000-$3000
digital disc recorder, I'll let you in on a
| | 03:47 | secret, you are a pro, therefore at least
you're working in a pro world, you're going to pay
| | 03:52 | more for that sort of functionality.
Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 03:54 | And the last thing I'll say about the HDMI port
is that it's a very kind of fragile connection.
| | 04:00 | If you notice here on your viewfinder there,
if you kind of just wiggle that cable a little
| | 04:04 | bit, it moves around quite a bit, right?
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 04:06 | This special cable is actually designed to
rotate and bend and this is a special DSLR
| | 04:10 | cable that rotates in two
directions. It bends in two directions.
| | 04:13 | Robbie Carman: Which is really nice, because
a lot times if you put even just some modest
| | 04:17 | amount of pressure on these HDMI cables, they can bend
the contacts, they can pull out of the port itself.
| | 04:23 | So if you're using just a straight HDMI cable,
just be a little extra careful about how it's
| | 04:28 | actually physically connected and the pressure
that you're putting on the cable, because the last
| | 04:31 | thing you want to do is actually cause damage to your
camera or the monitoring device that you're using.
| | 04:35 | Richard Harrington: And they do make camera
cables that are designed to be more flexible.
| | 04:38 | So you know, it's all and what you look for,
but make sure you have a long enough cable,
| | 04:42 | so you're not putting that under tension on the
port, otherwise not only can you lose signal
| | 04:46 | while monitoring, you can
actually damage the port.
| | 04:49 | If you damage the port on
the side of the camera--
| | 04:51 | Robbie Carman: That's a lot of dough.
| | 04:51 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, you are going to have
to send it in for a repair, and it's amazing;
| | 04:54 | that little port is basically like hardwired
directly into all the electronics in the camera,
| | 04:59 | so it's not like, oh I broke the port, replace the port.
It will like, oh! Let's replace the motherboard.
| | 05:02 | Robbie Carman: Right, right, exactly.
Richard Harrington: So it's going to run you some coin.
| | 05:05 | All right, so that's why you would use
the HDMI signal to pull something off.
| | 05:10 | When we come back, we're going to take a look
at ways of adapting this, so you can use a
| | 05:13 | professional monitor and
get higher-quality output.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adapting HDMI to SDI| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: So in the pro world, people
will say, oh HDMI, that's consumer technology.
| | 00:06 | It's not a stable signal you know and we talked about
before how the cables can easily come unplugged.
| | 00:12 | You know they're just--they're designed to get
plugged in. They're not really good under tension.
| | 00:16 | Pros use a technology called
SDI and tell me more about it.
| | 00:20 | Robbie Carman: Well SDI or Serial Digital
Interface is absolutely a pro-level kind of connection.
| | 00:26 | And there's a couple of reasons
that it's you know preferred by pros.
| | 00:30 | First is the distance
that the cables can be run.
| | 00:34 | You can run SDI for extremely long distances.
| | 00:37 | Richard Harrington: And this is if you have the
camera in one place and the monitor somewhere
| | 00:41 | else, or a live switching situation, you
might need to actually get the footage from the
| | 00:47 | camera that's at the front of the room
to the back of the room for switching.
| | 00:50 | Robbie Carman: Right, and with un-powered HDMI
cables, you know un-equalized and un-powered
| | 00:55 | cables, you're typically in that 30, 40 maybe
at the most, depending on the quality of the
| | 01:00 | cable about a 50-foot range before you are going to
get signal degradation or no signal at all.
| | 01:06 | Where SDI on the other hand, can go
for much, much, much longer distances.
| | 01:10 | The other thing I think is important about
SDI is that the actual connections, or the
| | 01:15 | connector type that SDI cables use, is a BNC
or a Bayonet Neill-Concelman connector
| | 01:21 | to lock in the actual connector.
| | 01:22 | Richard Harrington: You're such a geek.
| | 01:23 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, I win Jeopardy every night!
And so the BNC connection allows
| | 01:26 | you to actually lock in the cable.
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 01:29 | Robbie Carman: So if you stepped on it,
accidentally somebody walked by and snagged it, it's
| | 01:32 | not going to pop out of the
actual connector itself.
| | 01:35 | That's not always the case with HDMI.
| | 01:37 | We talked about previously that HDMI is sort
of a fragile interface and the pins can easily
| | 01:43 | get bent, the cable can get pulled out.
| | 01:45 | Now there are locking HDMI cables, but
they're just not all that common. They're
| | 01:50 | more expensive, they require
a slightly modified port.
| | 01:53 | So often times you want to be able to you
know use HDMI, because after all these cameras
| | 01:58 | they don't have SDI ports on them.
They have HDMI ports on them.
| | 02:01 | But you might want to be able to use SDI as
well, in the case of running to a monitor
| | 02:06 | that's really far away.
| | 02:07 | Richard Harrington: Or if you already have
an existing pro-monitor like you know as a
| | 02:10 | video production company I have multiple professional monitors.
Robbie Carman: Yup.
| | 02:13 | Richard Harrington: And HDMI was previously
thought of as only a consumer format, so it was
| | 02:17 | often left off of professional monitors.
| | 02:19 | Robbie Carman: So you may have a monitor that's a
couple of years old that doesn't have HDMI but has SDI.
| | 02:23 | Richard Harrington: Yeah and so just for
compatibility, so in this case like all things you know,
| | 02:27 | any video pro you say, show me your adapters.
They've got bins full of audio adapters, video
| | 02:32 | adapters, cable adapters. There are adapters to
go from HDMI to SDI, but they do require power.
| | 02:38 | Robbie Carman: Yeah and we
have one of them right here.
| | 02:40 | This one is made by AJA, others are made by
Blackmagic Design, and there are other manufacturers.
| | 02:45 | But basically the way that these work is
that they're a little hardware box like this, and
| | 02:48 | as you pointed out they do require power. So you need
to make sure that you have a power source nearby.
| | 02:54 | And basically what happens is that you pipe
in HDMI onto one side of it and then on the
| | 02:58 | other side, in the case of this AJA one, we
can actually output two HD-SDI signals, and
| | 03:03 | actually that's how we're viewing something
up here on this little field monitor right
| | 03:06 | now, that's HD-SDI.
| | 03:07 | Richard Harrington: Yeah one is going to the
monitor and then we're sending one out to
| | 03:11 | a recorder, so as we cut to that so you could
see you know this is what the HDMI signal
| | 03:16 | looks like converted to SDI.
| | 03:18 | You're really not going to see any quality
loss; it's just more for compatibility.
| | 03:21 | Now these types of boxes
range in price for about $250-$300?
| | 03:25 | Robbie Carman: Yeah you know, they're not
inexpensive but they're not the most you know
| | 03:29 | expensive piece also.
| | 03:29 | And they're one of those things that I feel like you
know if you're not using it everyday, that's okay.
| | 03:34 | It still might be worth the purchase,
because the last thing you want to be is in
| | 03:38 | the situation where you are on set somewhere and
you have to make a specific type of connection,
| | 03:42 | and you know, say HDMI to SDI, and you
don't have that ability to do so.
| | 03:46 | These boxes also, by the way, can go the other
way; not nearly as needed for DSLR production,
| | 03:51 | because oftentimes we're not going
SDI to HDMI, but they do exist.
| | 03:55 | Richard Harrington: So both HDMI and SDI can coexist
together and work very well on a professional set.
| | 04:01 | By default HDMI will work as
is, just get good cables.
| | 04:05 | If you need to use the professional option
of HD-SDI you're going to need a converter
| | 04:10 | box and pick up those heavy-duty
cables with the BNC connector.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
13. Why Does My Audio Sound So Bad?You call this a mic?| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So Rich, one of the questions
that comes up all time is, why does my audio
| | 00:04 | not sound all that great on my DSLR?
| | 00:07 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, let's just say
you know most audio recorded with DSLR sucks.
| | 00:11 | Robbie Carman: Ah, yeah.
| | 00:11 | Richard Harrington: And the reason why, is
that first and foremost, these are designed
| | 00:15 | to be still cameras.
| | 00:17 | Robbie Carman: Right, I don't see
any microphones on here at all.
| | 00:21 | Well, hold on, wait! They do.
Wait, wait, there it is.
| | 00:23 | It is four little pin
holes in a piece of plastic.
| | 00:26 | That's my microphone.
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:28 | This has a mic that's three or
four times better than that.
| | 00:31 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 00:32 | So that's the first thing, right, is that
with these microphones being so small and
| | 00:36 | so and so well not good, we can't expect them
to record great audio. After all, when
| | 00:42 | you consider the fact that you have little
four little pricks on a piece of plastic,
| | 00:45 | it's not like having a dedicated shot going or
higher end microphone attached to the camera.
| | 00:49 | Richard Harrington: Plus that microphone is
right next to the lens that if you're doing
| | 00:53 | auto-focusing or adjusting, you are touching
the camera body, you are going to hear rub.
| | 00:58 | And you know, let's be honest, unless you were
interviewing me this far away, that mic is too far away.
| | 01:03 | Robbie Carman: You know that these mics,
they're not all that great and they don't--you know
| | 01:07 | the audio that they record often people describe
as being tinny or kind of hollow or something
| | 01:12 | like that. It's not to say that
they can't be used for anything.
| | 01:15 | I mean in a run-and-gun situation obviously
having some audio is better than having no audio.
| | 01:20 | Richard Harrington: Right.
| | 01:21 | Robbie Carman: But you know most of the
time they're not going to be great resources.
| | 01:24 | But what they are good for is recording
reference audio when you're in dual system situations;
| | 01:30 | that is recording audio to say a dedicated
digital audio recorder and recording reference
| | 01:34 | audio to the camera.
| | 01:35 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, these sort of mics
are just that, they're for reference purposes
| | 01:39 | or backup purposes, but you do have the ability
to run external audio in. There is typically
| | 01:45 | on most DSLRs an audio input jack. It usually is
going to be a mini plug like a stereotype plug.
| | 01:52 | So this is going to involve a
couple of different workflows.
| | 01:55 | You can use a cable like this and go to an
XLR adapter and run it right in. You can use
| | 02:01 | a digital recorder or a preamp. They have
preamps that attach to the bottom that
| | 02:05 | you connect the mics in, and they power the
microphone, and then it sends out a signal.
| | 02:10 | So, you know, these cameras have the ability to pull
audio in, but there is an inherent danger there.
| | 02:15 | A lot of people don't realize, it's like well, I'm
getting good audio, I'm seeing the levels bounce.
| | 02:19 | Well maybe the levels are bouncing, but you
don't realize that the mic is clipping because
| | 02:24 | it's too close to your subject, or maybe that
there is an electrical interference because
| | 02:28 | a power cord is going over your mic wire. So
just because the levels are moving, doesn't
| | 02:33 | mean that you're actually getting good audio.
Robbie Carman: That's right.
| | 02:35 | Yeah, I mean, and just like your Nikon, I
can hear audio playback on here, but piping
| | 02:39 | it out to a set of headphones or a set of
external speakers is something that I cannot
| | 02:43 | do currently on this camera.
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 02:45 | So we're going to continue to see evolvement
in these cameras as they start to add new
| | 02:49 | features and they continue to grow. Audio is
one of those things that they're starting
| | 02:53 | to become aware of that
they need to improve it.
| | 02:56 | You know, if you look at the latest camera
from Canon, the C300; there is sort of a DSLR
| | 03:01 | style sensor and form factor, but they actually
expanded it a bit. Definitely a focus on audio,
| | 03:07 | but we've also seen the DSLR
Killer cameras coming out.
| | 03:10 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
Richard Harrington: Sony F3, Panasonic AF100.
| | 03:13 | Robbie Carman: Large image sensors in those cameras,
but more of a traditional video camera type body.
| | 03:18 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, so if you are shooting strict
DSLR, these microphones are just purely for reference.
| | 03:24 | Don't turn the sound off, but don't rely on it
for anything other than a cursory background
| | 03:28 | sound, or to help you sync up audio that you
record externally on a dedicated device like
| | 03:34 | a Zoom H4n or Tascam, or you know a bigger
device like this that has multiple inputs
| | 03:40 | and a built-in hard drive or card that lets
you record high-quality audio, monitor with
| | 03:45 | digital VU meters, so you can actually see the
audio, which is great, and plug-in professional
| | 03:50 | headphones and monitor.
| | 03:51 | Lots of different things here, we're going to
explore in another title here on lynda.com,
| | 03:55 | a whole sync sound workflow.
Robbie Carman: Yup.
| | 03:56 | Richard Harrington: But you know, the key
here is to realize that the camera is really
| | 04:01 | designed by people who make
still cameras, not audio equipment.
| | 04:04 | Robbie Carman: That's right.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The impact of Auto Gain Control| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: So one option in a lot of
these cameras is that the microphone wants
| | 00:04 | to run on auto, and in some cases it's
not even an option. It's the only choice.
| | 00:08 | Robbie Carman: Right, this is known
generally as AGC or Automatic Gain Control.
| | 00:13 | And the best way to think about Automatic
Gain Control is that is the camera sort of
| | 00:17 | being an automatic turner upper or turner downer--
Richard Harrington: Right.
| | 00:20 | Robbie Carman: --depending on the volume level
that is perceiving through its microphone.
| | 00:23 | So something like me who's rather loud is
talking close to the camera--the audio--the
| | 00:29 | levels are going to get sort of turned down so
I'm not going to peek out and be too loud and
| | 00:32 | over modulate the signal.
| | 00:34 | Conversely, if you have somebody that's
relatively quite, it's going to try to raise that level
| | 00:37 | up to be you know sort for audible
in--you know at a certain level.
| | 00:42 | Richard Harrington: And in theory
this sounds like a good thing--
| | 00:44 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 00:45 | Richard Harrington: But it's really not.
Robbie Carman: No.
| | 00:46 | Richard Harrington: Because what's going to
happen is something that's farther away from
| | 00:49 | the camera is not going to sound like
it is father away from the camera.
| | 00:53 | It doesn't matter if you're right up on the
camera making noise or you're farther away.
| | 00:57 | Normally the camera is functioning as the eyes of the
viewer. A lot of times serving as a point of view.
| | 01:02 | So something that's farther away from the
camera is generally expected to sound like
| | 01:06 | it's off-mic or further away.
| | 01:08 | It doesn't want to sound like
it is right there in your ear.
| | 01:10 | Plus when it changes up and down, you know
a microphone that's right here, you know,
| | 01:15 | so if we have a shotgun mic right here and
the person is standing right there in front,
| | 01:21 | they should sound better than
the person who's further away.
| | 01:23 | Robbie Carman: Or louder rather, yeah.
| | 01:24 | Richard Harrington: Yeah at
least louder, but clearer,
| | 01:25 | but as you crank that volume it's
not a perfectly clean crank, right?
| | 01:29 | Robbie Carman: No, and that's one of the
problems of the AGC is that it can lead to when you
| | 01:33 | have you know sort of separate levels that
are you know some are loud, some are quite,
| | 01:37 | it can lead to a phenomenon known as
breathing where we can actually hear the AGC kicking
| | 01:41 | in and then turning off, and then kicking in and
then turning off, and it can be kind of annoying.
| | 01:47 | So, some cameras, my 7D not being one of them--
Richard Harrington: Yes.
| | 01:51 | Robbie Carman: --let's just actually turn AGC
on and off, which is a nice thing to have.
| | 01:56 | I think your Nikon actually has
the ability to turn AGC off.
| | 02:00 | Let's go and take a look at that menu.
| | 02:02 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, if I go
over to the Microphone setting,
| | 02:04 | it's going to give me five choices.
Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 02:08 | Richard Harrington: Microphone off; I would
never turn the mic off unless we were doing
| | 02:12 | something like maybe we're on a location
scout and we were just getting B-roll.
| | 02:16 | And you know, a lot of times it's amazing
how people forget that the mic is rolling.
| | 02:20 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
Richard Harrington: So the only time I'd turn
| | 02:21 | the mic off is if I was having a conversation
that I didn't want recorded.
| | 02:25 | Robbie Carman: Understood, understood.
| | 02:25 | Richard Harrington: Other than that, you know
if I was shooting in a loud environment, I
| | 02:29 | might go for low sensitivity. My standard is
medium or high, but there is that auto sensitivity
| | 02:34 | that people will have and that's
what's usually on by default.
| | 02:37 | Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 02:38 | Richard Harrington: So Nikon is giving us a
choice; Canon is sometimes giving us a choice.
| | 02:43 | It depends on models, typically we're seeing
the newer the cameras that come out, the more
| | 02:47 | likely they are to support this
feature of turning off Auto Gain Control.
| | 02:51 | Robbie Carman: Yeah and other manufacturers
have sort of come up with various schemes
| | 02:55 | to sort of override Automatic Gain Control.
| | 02:58 | For example, juicedLink which is a company
that makes microphone preamps, the way that
| | 03:02 | they're able to do it is they send out a
very high frequency tone over the stereo cable
| | 03:07 | that attaches to the camera.
| | 03:08 | Richard Harrington: Something a
dog could hear but not a person.
| | 03:10 | Robbie Carman: Right, and that tricks the
camera and goes oh, let me turn off AGC.
| | 03:12 | So you know one of the things about AGC I
think that's really important also to keep
| | 03:16 | in mind, is that if you can't disable it on
your camera, it's more--it's important then
| | 03:21 | to sort of try to put something in front of
the camera, say a mixer or something like
| | 03:26 | that, where you can--or a preamp, where you can have
greater control over level coming into the camera.
| | 03:31 | Because, again the way that AGC works is if
it's noticing these varying levels, it's trying
| | 03:36 | to act aggressively.
| | 03:37 | But if it's getting everything at a nice, normal,
solid level, which you can control if you
| | 03:41 | put a mixer or preamp in front of the
camera, it's going to not act as aggressively.
| | 03:45 | Richard Harrington: Well not just a
mixer or preamp, but often times a person.
| | 03:48 | Robbie Carman: Oh, absolutely.
| | 03:49 | Richard Harrington: In a professional video
set it's not uncommon to have a dedicated
| | 03:53 | audio engineer who's going to be paying
attention to audio while the director of photography
| | 03:57 | or the videographer is
paying attention to video.
| | 03:59 | It's pretty difficult to do both.
| | 04:01 | If you are tasked with getting good audio and
good video, then I think one of these smaller
| | 04:05 | devices, like the Zoom H4n with its built-in
meter, so you can have microphones running
| | 04:10 | to your subject and, you know, mount this right
next to the camera attached to the tripod,
| | 04:14 | so while you're rolling you can glance
down and keep an eye on the levels
| | 04:18 | to make sure they're working.
That's going to be important.
| | 04:20 | So it really it comes down to this.
| | 04:21 | If you can't turn the Automatic Gain
Control off, you have to outsmart it.
| | 04:25 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
Richard Harrington: And that means taking
| | 04:26 | advantage of either dedicated hardware or
| | 04:29 | mixing better audio before
it ever gets to the camera.
| | 04:31 | Robbie Carman: That's right.
Richard Harrington: All right.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The dangers of not monitoring audio| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So Rich, how many times have
you heard something like this? Well I was
| | 00:03 | on set and everything looked good with audio
meters, but when I came back to the studio
| | 00:07 | and I was listening to my audio it was
muffled or you know there was some other noise in
| | 00:11 | it or something like that.
| | 00:13 | Why does that happen?
| | 00:14 | Richard Harrington: It happens from
carelessness really, and I have actually had some crew
| | 00:18 | that are on my blacklist,
because sent out a two person--
| | 00:22 | Robbie Carman: You will never work again.
| | 00:23 | Richard Harrington: Never work with me again
actually, yes because they went out and they
| | 00:27 | had the camera up, and they had the mics plugged
and you know on a Pro video camera there are
| | 00:33 | little switches on the back that make it easy
to change between the camera's shotgun mic
| | 00:37 | and the lav mic, so they had all the mics
running in and the VU meters were bouncing,
| | 00:42 | but they were getting the wrong mic feed.
| | 00:44 | And you know while DSLRs don't have as many
inputs, I've have seen plenty of instances
| | 00:48 | where the VU meters were moving, but it was
because the built-in mic was picking it up.
| | 00:54 | They had a loose cable or
the cable had popped out.
| | 00:56 | You know, I have seen instances like whole
scenes have run and you've got a shotgun mic
| | 01:00 | on top and the cables dangle at the side, or
the power was off you know and you're like
| | 01:05 | you think you were recording and you weren't.
| | 01:06 | Robbie Carman: So if I understand you correctly,
there is a technical reasons and problems
| | 01:10 | that might happen, but the real crux to the problem is
that we weren't listening and monitoring the audio.
| | 01:16 | Richard Harrington: Well yeah, you
know audio is not something to look at.
| | 01:18 | Robbie Carman: Right.
Richard Harrington: Audio is something you listen to.
| | 01:21 | And in normal people's defense, on a DSLR
that's kind of hard, as we mentioned, that camera
| | 01:27 | doesn't even have a headphone jack.
| | 01:29 | Robbie Carman: No, headphone jack. So I
need to find another way of monitoring.
| | 01:32 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and this one, same
sort of problem, can't play it back. I can't
| | 01:36 | listen to the audio while
recording, only when playing back.
| | 01:39 | In that case it means after a take, go into
the Menu, play the clip back, listen to it,
| | 01:44 | plug your headphones in and hear it.
| | 01:46 | Or pop the card out, plug it
into a laptop and watch it back.
| | 01:50 | I see a lot of people carrying around like a
MacBook AIR or a light weight Tablet computer,
| | 01:55 | yeah and you can pop it in, even an iPad. A
lot of the DSLR formats, if you are shooting
| | 01:59 | on an SD card, or you've got the iPad adapter
that lets you plug in, you can get the camera
| | 02:04 | kit adapter for an iPad, plug into the bottom
and plug into your camera, and just transfer
| | 02:09 | a video file over and watch it on your iPad.
| | 02:11 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, absolutely.
| | 02:12 | So I think you are hitting on a couple things
that I want to expand on just a little bit.
| | 02:15 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 02:15 | Robbie Carman: The first is how do we actually
monitor and obviously that's done while using
| | 02:19 | headphones, right?
Richard Harrington: Yes.
| | 02:20 | Robbie Carman: And so, I have a set of headphones like
this, right or little--you might have those little
| | 02:25 | white ear-buds that you get
with your iPod or your iPhone.
| | 02:27 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 02:28 | Robbie Carman: This is not what I am
talking about for a good monitor.
| | 02:31 | Richard Harrington: No, no, no.
| | 02:31 | Robbie Carman: You know these little guys,
even though you know they are okay, they came
| | 02:34 | with your iPod, they are not the type
of headphones that you want to use.
| | 02:38 | What we really want to use is some
headphones like you have there.
| | 02:40 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 02:41 | Robbie Carman: Most of the time sort of
these circumaural ones that go over your ears are
| | 02:45 | sort of the best headphones to use on set,
because they block sort of ambient sound out.
| | 02:50 | So when you are listening to audio you
want to try to be isolated as possible.
| | 02:53 | There are noise canceling
options that work very well.
| | 02:57 | And if you like the ear-buds style there are
also some inner ear headphones that actually
| | 03:02 | go into your ear canal a little bit,
and again, those will isolate you.
| | 03:05 | The point is, you want to be isolated from the sound
that's going on on set to be able to monitor.
| | 03:12 | The other thing that's
kind of important other than this--
| | 03:14 | Richard Harrington: Can I take these off?
Robbie Carman: You can take them off, yes.
| | 03:16 | The other important thing that Richard has
pointed out is that not every camera
| | 03:19 | is going to have a microphone
input. In fact, most of them do not.
| | 03:23 | So we need to be able to find a way to be
able to monitor the audio while recording.
| | 03:27 | Now the best situation of course is
to be monitoring audio
| | 03:30 | directly from the recording device,
a.k.a. the camera.
| | 03:33 | But there are other ways that we can monitor.
| | 03:35 | For example, on some of these little shotgun
mics, you have a headphone input so you can
| | 03:38 | monitor directly from say the shotgun mic.
Not the same as monitoring from the camera but
| | 03:43 | at least you are still monitoring--
| | 03:44 | Richard Harrington: It's a start.
Robbie Carman: It's a start.
| | 03:45 | The other thing that we could do is use
something like a microphone preamp where we can
| | 03:50 | plug in professional microphones here and
we can monitor directly off of the preamp.
| | 03:55 | Again, that's feeding the camera but again
we are still listening the audio--the path.
| | 03:59 | Richard Harrington: And a device like that,
you have the chance--in a normal audio wiring
| | 04:04 | situation, there is lots of ways things can
go wrong. Something can be wrong with the mic
| | 04:07 | itself. Something could be wrong with the cable
from the mic to the device, or going out of
| | 04:12 | the device, or the cable from
the device to the camera.
| | 04:16 | In this case, we have eliminated 3/4ths of the
problem and we are just hoping that that last
| | 04:21 | little jump from here to there--
| | 04:22 | Robbie Carman: Is working.
| | 04:23 | Richard Harrington: Is working.
Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 04:24 | Richard Harrington: Now that's still hoping.
| | 04:25 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and I mean that's
unfortunately that's kind of where we are at the moment.
| | 04:28 | I mean obviously just the digital audio
recorders that you might use in a dual system
| | 04:32 | setup, same thing. You can monitor audio
directly from here, which is actually better, because
| | 04:37 | this is where you are
recording your actual audio to.
| | 04:39 | Richard Harrington: Well there is two benefits
to that. One is that you actually have better
| | 04:42 | monitoring controls and the ability
to adjust while recording,
| | 04:45 | but also these record a
higher quality audio file.
| | 04:48 | Robbie Carman: That's right.
| | 04:49 | Richard Harrington: And I do think it's
important to point out that camera manufacturers have
| | 04:52 | started to figure this out. The new crop of
DSLRs coming out are starting to add audio
| | 04:57 | monitoring abilities.
| | 04:58 | Not universally and I am still not ready to
give up a sync sound workflow, but let's be
| | 05:02 | clear, even on sets where they are using Red
and Alexa, it's still a sync sound workflow.
| | 05:07 | Robbie Carman: Yeah I mean that's a good point.
I mean even though we are getting to better
| | 05:10 | audio monitoring capabilities,
headphone jacks, and stuff like that.
| | 05:13 | You know one of the big problems with the DSLR
form factor is, where do you put all this stuff?
| | 05:19 | Richard Harrington: Right.
Robbie Carman: You know people are asking
| | 05:21 | for so many features. Where are you going
to put the headphone jack?
| | 05:23 | I mean I doubt that we'll see in this current
kind of form factor, XLR inputs or any other
| | 05:27 | type of microphone inputs, because it's simply not a
whole lot of real estate going on these cameras.
| | 05:31 | And that's why we have seen Canon and others
go to slightly modified form factors, like
| | 05:37 | the C300, and stuff like that, that are sort
of have DSLR sort of heritage to them but are
| | 05:42 | not exactly what you would say is a DSLR.
| | 05:44 | Richard Harrington: Well I'd like to a see a
battery grip size device that just screws
| | 05:47 | on the bottom, but we will
continue to see improvement.
| | 05:50 | In the mean time you can get an L bracket
for your DSLR camera like that you'd normally
| | 05:54 | use for panoramic or portrait shooting, and
that will make it much easier to attach it
| | 05:59 | right on the side, or you could attach
this to your tripod or your rail system.
| | 06:03 | There are lots of ways to mount this.
| | 06:05 | Although let's be clear, nothing says you
have to have the audio controller attached
| | 06:09 | to your camera. Sometimes there is the benefit
of just leaving it really close to your subject
| | 06:14 | tether it with a wire, hide it behind them
and who cares. You know you don't necessarily
| | 06:18 | need to have wires running 30 feet from your
subject sitting way over there, to the camera
| | 06:23 | over here. Just let it go right to the
recorder that's just off to the side.
| | 06:26 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, I think that's right.
| | 06:27 | So let's just recap here. I think
there is a couple of things to point out.
| | 06:30 | First, we can't tell what's going on with
our audio unless we are monitoring it,
| | 06:33 | and monitoring on set
usually means using headphones.
| | 06:36 | And try to avoid the cheapo ear-bud style
headphones and go more towards the professional
| | 06:41 | level over-the-ear headphones or
in-the-ear headphones like that.
| | 06:45 | And monitor at different parts of
the signal path if possible.
| | 06:48 | Most of the time we are not going to be
able to monitor directly from the camera,
| | 06:52 | so the next best bet would be to monitor
from the microphone, or from the preamp, or from
| | 06:56 | a digital audio recorder, or
somewhere in that signal chain.
| | 06:59 | Until you are able to monitor directly from the
camera that's about as good you are going to get.
| | 07:02 | Richard Harrington: It's not a bad idea to
pop that memory card out of the camera after
| | 07:06 | you have done a take, put it in your laptop
or transfer it to another device, and just
| | 07:10 | play it back and listen.
| | 07:12 | The key here is to realize, you know I think
that popping the card is good for two reasons.
| | 07:16 | Not only can you check your audio but you
could put that clip into a laptop and play
| | 07:20 | it back on a HD screen and
check focus at the same time.
| | 07:24 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely, all good points.
Richard Harrington: Great!
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using an attached mic| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: So I think we have pretty
established that there is lots of different
| | 00:03 | ways to getting good audio,
| | 00:05 | and that the built-in mic in
the camera is pretty anemic.
| | 00:07 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, not so good.
| | 00:08 | Richard Harrington: Now I like to have the
flexibility for running and gunning to get
| | 00:11 | good audio still into the camera, as well as
have better reference sound, and to do that
| | 00:17 | I like to use an attached shotgun mic.
| | 00:19 | Now you use the same
thing. What are your reasons?
| | 00:21 | Robbie Carman: Well, there are a couple of
reasons actually, and this is what you are
| | 00:24 | talking about. This is a little attached
shotgun microphone. This one is made by a company
| | 00:27 | called RODE, but there is lots of
other manufacturers that make them.
| | 00:30 | This one is sort of a DSLR specific model,
not because of the actual shotgun and the
| | 00:35 | windscreen, but really because of this guy.
| | 00:37 | It outputs directly to a little 1/8th inch stereo
jack, so I can plug it directly into the camera
| | 00:42 | and it has a little hot shoe adapter here,
so I can simply just slide it right on to
| | 00:46 | the top of my camera just like that.
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:49 | Robbie Carman: And this is really nice because in
a run-and-gun situation, you are doing documentary
| | 00:52 | work or you are doing like you know maybe
you are a sports reporter and you are getting
| | 00:56 | interviews after a game or something like
that, instead of having to have a complicated
| | 01:00 | dual system or recording setup with a separate
digital audio recorder, you get a nice little
| | 01:06 | on camera microphone.
| | 01:07 | And then if you've ever done any broadcast
work or see any sort of bigger broadcast
| | 01:10 | camera in play, all of them
have a little shotgun mics.
| | 01:13 | Richard Harrington: Right.
Robbie Carman: And this is great.
| | 01:14 | The other reason that I love to have an attached
microphone like this, is in fact when I am doing a dual
| | 01:20 | system workflow, where I am recording
to say a digital audio recorder like this.
| | 01:24 | Richard Harrington: Right, we might be in a
place where we are using a larger--a boom
| | 01:28 | poll mic to get right over the
action and get better dialogue.
| | 01:31 | Robbie Carman: Right, so you might have this
shotgun attached to via XLR to your digital
| | 01:36 | audio recorder, and this is going to be
your principle method of recording audio.
| | 01:40 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, using a boom pole
or perhaps it's a Lavalier microphone pinned
| | 01:43 | on your subject like how
you are wearing a lav today.
| | 01:45 | Robbie Carman: Exactly! but the reason I want to have this
better attached microphone is because when we get into
| | 01:50 | post production we want to be able to compare
the audio from our camera, what we refer to
| | 01:56 | as a reference audio, with the high quality audio
that's recorded on the digital audio recorder.
| | 02:01 | And if I am just using that little built-in
mic, and we talked about this previously, the
| | 02:05 | four little pin pricks in the plastic here.
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 02:07 | Robbie Carman: I am probably not
going to get good reference audio.
| | 02:10 | But when I have an attached microphone like this
I am going to get much better reference audio.
| | 02:14 | In fact Rich, there is pieces of software
out there like PluralEyes and DualEyes, and
| | 02:18 | some of the editorial tools can do this natively
now, where they can automatically synch
| | 02:23 | your reference audio and
your high quality audio.
| | 02:25 | And the quality of that reference audio makes
all the difference in the world for how good
| | 02:29 | that synching process is going to work.
| | 02:31 | Richard Harrington: Yeah to break that down for
you guys, the idea here is that you actually
| | 02:34 | have decent audio recorded by the camera, but it may
sound hollow because the microphone is so far away.
| | 02:41 | As a general rule of thumb, unless the mic
has a really good pick up pattern, you are
| | 02:45 | dealing with wanting to keep the mic about this
far away from your subject's mouth, like there
| | 02:49 | is Rob's lav and it's about that far from his
mouth. Same with mine. It gets better audio.
| | 02:53 | If we had the boom mic overhead it might just
be out of the frame, it will be hung above
| | 02:57 | him pointed towards his mouth.
Lots of different strategies.
| | 03:01 | Well, that audio, no matter what you do is
going to still sound better than that audio.
| | 03:06 | But because the camera is getting such good
reference audio we could take advantage of
| | 03:10 | automated software that will analyze the
waveforms on both tracks and go, oh these waveforms look
| | 03:16 | similar enough and it will shift it and line
it up, or even create entirely new clips where
| | 03:21 | the old, bad or hollow audio is stripped off
and your better audio is swapped in place.
| | 03:27 | So this works great, so if you are doing
editorial, tools like PluralEyes work great in Premiere
| | 03:32 | Pro, Vegas, Avid, Final
Cut Pro and Final Cut X.
| | 03:36 | And then other tools allow you to do it right
within the editing application with built-in
| | 03:39 | stuff, or if you are a standalone shooter and
need to hand your footage off to other folks,
| | 03:44 | tools like DualEyes will
create new self-contained clips.
| | 03:48 | So that reference mic just really is the key
ingredient to a better post production workflow,
| | 03:54 | because it gives you an audio source
that you can feel confident using.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
14. Why Does My Footage Jitter?Shutter speed explained| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So Rich, one of the questions
that I hear all the time and I am pretty sure
| | 00:03 | you hear also is, I shot some stuff. I bring it
back to the studio. I start looking at it,
| | 00:08 | now everything looks kind
of jittery. What gives?
| | 00:11 | Richard Harrington: Well there is two things;
one is hand held shooting, you know, and there
| | 00:15 | it's more wobbly. It's not so much a jitter, but
yeah, it's people being over over-caffeinated.
| | 00:21 | Or if even if they using a tripod
they are not using a fluid head tripod so
| | 00:25 | they are holding on to that with the
death grip and they are shaking.
| | 00:27 | Robbie Carman: Yep.
| | 00:27 | Richard Harrington: So if we have eliminated
human error then it's probably the camera
| | 00:32 | settings, and lot of photographers are used
to shooting with really fast shutter speeds.
| | 00:37 | So if you are shooting stills, you might go
to a thousandth, a hundredth, the 500th
| | 00:42 | of a second to freeze the action.
| | 00:44 | Robbie Carman: Exactly and a lot of photographers
use shutter if they are in their Shutter Priority
| | 00:49 | mode even to sort of control
their exposure even on the shot.
| | 00:53 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and I think the
big thing here to realize is like if you are
| | 00:57 | shooting in say Aperture Priority mode, your
shutter can vary over time. It might change depending
| | 01:02 | upon the brightness of the scene if something
dark or light comes in, or if you pan to a
| | 01:07 | different area, which is why I
always tell folks shoot manually.
| | 01:11 | So if you are seeing shutter only some of
the time, chances are you weren't shooting
| | 01:15 | in Manual mode where you precisely set the
shutter speed you are letting the camera choose
| | 01:20 | the ideal shutter speed.
| | 01:22 | And the camera brain is actually more designed
for still work than video work. You need to
| | 01:26 | manually set that shutter, and
what should they be setting it to?
| | 01:28 | Robbie Carman: Well this is a good--debatable thing,
but the general rule of thumb is that we like
| | 01:32 | to follow the 180 degrees shutter rule, and
so what that basically means is you first
| | 01:36 | determine your frame rate.
| | 01:38 | So let's say you are
shooting at 24 frames per second.
| | 01:41 | What you do is you double that so you
get 48, and then you put a one over it.
| | 01:46 | So the ideal shutter speed at 24
frames per second would be 1/48th right?
| | 01:51 | Most DSLRs you are not actually going to be
able to get to 1/48th so you just go to the next
| | 01:54 | thing that's close to usually 1/50th, right?
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 01:56 | Robbie Carman: And if you were shooting at
say frame rate of 30 frames per second you
| | 01:59 | would go to 1/60th.
| | 02:01 | And that's going to give you sort of
natural type motion blur in the shot.
| | 02:06 | So again, it's sort of--try to mimic
traditional film look, film cameras right.
| | 02:10 | But that's not to say you have to stay at that.
| | 02:12 | Richard Harrington: No, that's the default
settings that are going to produce the most
| | 02:16 | natural results most of the time.
| | 02:18 | I find for example, we talked about in low
light shooting, that if it's really, really
| | 02:23 | low, I might have to slow that
shutter down to say a 30th of a second.
| | 02:27 | So it's staying open
longer to let in more light.
| | 02:29 | Robbie Carman: But you are going to get a
little bit more motion blur when you go do that.
| | 02:32 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, it won't be
jittery; it will just be blurrier or streakier.
| | 02:35 | Robbie Carman: Right, right.
| | 02:35 | Richard Harrington: So it's good for locked
down shots like shooting at a concert where
| | 02:38 | maybe the performers basically stationary,
but the bigger problem is when people aren't
| | 02:43 | using all three sides of that exposure triangle.
You know, they have gone and they have set
| | 02:49 | what they wanted with the aperture for the
depth of field, and then maybe they have cranked
| | 02:52 | the ISO the wrong way.
| | 02:53 | So then they are using shutter
speed to cut down the light.
| | 02:55 | Robbie Carman: To control their speed and
consequently they go to a really fast shutter
| | 02:58 | speed and that's when
they get that jittery look.
| | 03:01 | Richard Harrington: And this is particularly
true when people are shooting outdoors on
| | 03:04 | full frame sensors.
| | 03:05 | You know they have got a reasonable ISO,
maybe they are ISO100; it's a bright sunny day.
| | 03:09 | And they have got a shallow depth of
field and they got too much light.
| | 03:11 | Oh I will just crank up the shutter speed, you know.
I will have a faster shutter so less light gets in.
| | 03:16 | And then all of a sudden everyone looks like
it's a stop motion movie, like you know, it's
| | 03:20 | Mr. Roboto out there.
| | 03:21 | Robbie Carman: So the way that I feel about
this is if you are try to follow most of the
| | 03:25 | time that 180 degree shutter rule, you might
have to do other things to control exposure.
| | 03:29 | You might have to use, say outside, you might have
to use ND filters, or something like that,
| | 03:33 | to drop down the exposure.
| | 03:34 | Now you can go up and down, but I tend to do only
go up and down, maybe one or two levels, right?
| | 03:42 | So I might go down to 1/40th or maybe 1/30th
on a low end, and on top end of let's say I
| | 03:47 | am shooting 24 frames a second, I might go to
1/60th or 1/70th, something like that at the
| | 03:53 | most. More than that, you are going to start to
get excessive motion blur on the low end of things,
| | 03:57 | and then at the top end of things you get
that jitter effect and people start looking
| | 04:01 | and the movements starts looking sickado
if you go too fast in the shutter speed.
| | 04:04 | Richard Harrington: All right, so I think
the real thing here is to realize get into
| | 04:08 | Manual mode and manually set your shutter.
| | 04:11 | You know, set it to that base shutter, go into
Aperture get the look you want, try to control
| | 04:16 | it with ISO, and then if you can't get there
with ISO, choose filtration or light, but really
| | 04:21 | this becomes a problem usually when there
is too much light and people are going to
| | 04:25 | those faster shutter speeds.
| | 04:26 | So just keep an eye on that, you may not see
it like most things on the back of the camera.
| | 04:31 | This is going to be more evident when you
are playing back the video file full screen.
| | 04:35 | And that's when you go, wow it looks kind
of weird, or it looks shaky, or jittery.
| | 04:38 | So you can completely avoid this problem by
just setting up the manual settings correctly.
| | 04:45 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
15. Why Is My Shot Too Dark?The Exposure Triangle for low light | 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So Rich, one of the things that we
hear all the time is that people go out and shoot.
| | 00:03 | Then they come back to the studio and they say, gosh,
all my footage is really dark and underexposed.
| | 00:08 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and
there are sort of two things there.
| | 00:11 | One could be that you've turned up
the brightness on your LCD too high.
| | 00:15 | You go past the default centered value and
you're like, oh, the LCD is brighter, but
| | 00:19 | the footage isn't.
| | 00:20 | Robbie Carman: Keep darkening it down.
Richard Harrington: You trick yourself.
| | 00:22 | But more likely what's happening and this
is usually for people who are just getting
| | 00:25 | started out, they are using the kit lens,
the lens that comes with the camera in the
| | 00:30 | box, and let's face it, that's really a cheap
lens, or a cheaper lens, designed primarily for
| | 00:36 | outdoor shooting.
| | 00:38 | So those type of lenses tend to have f-stops
for the aperture between about 3.5 and 55,
| | 00:43 | and the more you zoom in the more the f-stop goes up,
the less sensitive it is to letting in light.
| | 00:48 | Robbie Carman: And of course the higher number,
say f/5 or f/6, versus say f/1 or f/2, that higher
| | 00:55 | number means that you're actually
getting less light into the camera.
| | 00:57 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:58 | This goes against everything Americans learn
where the bigger number is the worst choice.
| | 01:03 | Robbie Carman: Right, right, right.
| | 01:04 | So you mentioned aperture, but I think that
there's other reasons that the image
| | 01:08 | might become underexposed and we generally
refer to this collection of reasons, not just
| | 01:12 | aperture, but shutter speed as well
as ISO as the exposure triangle.
| | 01:16 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and this is a standard
photographic thing that if you've been shooting
| | 01:19 | stills for along time you're probably used to.
| | 01:22 | Just like you need three legs to make a table
that's stable, the same thing holds true for
| | 01:27 | properly exposed image.
| | 01:29 | You've got the shutter speed, the ISO,
and the aperture working together.
| | 01:33 | Aperture is going to
control the depth of field.
| | 01:35 | So the lower the number, the shallower the
depth of field, and you'll use this primarily
| | 01:40 | as an artistic control.
| | 01:41 | It certainly has technical benefits.
| | 01:43 | Robbie Carman: Right, how much light
is coming into the camera, sure.
| | 01:45 | Richard Harrington: Using a prime lens you
can get lenses with a lower aperture value.
| | 01:49 | They are going to let in more light
and that's going to work great for you.
| | 01:52 | Robbie Carman: But the depth of field thing
is an important thing and that's one of the
| | 01:54 | reasons that people are drawn to these cameras
is because they do, because of the large image
| | 01:58 | sensors and using a fast lens, you can
create an extreme depth of field look.
| | 02:02 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, the nice shallow
look that's really popular, and we are going
| | 02:05 | to explore that more in just a second.
| | 02:07 | Balancing that out though
are the two other things.
| | 02:09 | ISO is going to be how sensitive the
camera sensor is to capturing the light.
| | 02:14 | So you can boost that and the good news is, is
that modern DSLRs can get really high; 1200,
| | 02:19 | 1600, even more than that and do a great job
where they never used to, but more--the higher the
| | 02:25 | ISO the more noise in the sensor.
| | 02:27 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and that's going to
vary also a little bit from camera to camera.
| | 02:30 | Even though the same camera type is 7D to
another 7D, the ISO performance is a little
| | 02:35 | different, and later on we will talk a little
bit about how to test for ISOs and which one
| | 02:39 | is right for you, but that
sensitivity is amazing.
| | 02:41 | I've actually worked with the Canon 1D Mark 4.
| | 02:45 | That camera can see in the
dark and I am pretty sure that--
| | 02:48 | Richard Harrington: And it's
not even a full frame sensor.
| | 02:50 | Robbie Carman: Right, and I am pretty sure that the
new Nikon D4, it's just amazing what you can do
| | 02:54 | with ISO settings to get that
sensor much more sensitive.
| | 02:58 | Richard Harrington: And the last one that a
photographer is used to having a lot of
| | 03:02 | control over, shutter speed.
| | 03:03 | If you're a photographer and you're shooting
at sunset and you're on a tripod and locked
| | 03:07 | down, you can go for a one second exposure
and just let all that light soak in.
| | 03:11 | It looks beautiful.
| | 03:12 | Well, if you're shooting 24 or 30 frames per
second, you don't have that many options when
| | 03:16 | it comes to shutter speed.
| | 03:17 | We typically are dealing with shutter
speeds of like 30th, a 50th, a 60th.
| | 03:21 | We will talk about those more in-depth in just a
second, but you don't have very many options.
| | 03:26 | So it's sort of like a three-legged table
where one of the legs is already set and you've
| | 03:30 | got the other two to adjust
to properly get exposure.
| | 03:33 | Robbie Carman: That's right.
Richard Harrington: All right.
| | 03:34 | So let's take a look at each of these legs
in-depth as we tackle the exposure triangle.
| | 03:40 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting aperture| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So earlier Rich we talked about the
exposure triangle and there were three parts to it.
| | 00:05 | There was shutter speed, aperture, and ISO,
and here we are going to talk a little bit
| | 00:09 | more in-depth about aperture.
| | 00:10 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, the very first
thing I would do before I monkeyed with aperture
| | 00:14 | is set my camera to the default shutter speed.
| | 00:17 | Typically, what this is going to be is if you're
shooting a 30th a second, it's going to be 160th.
| | 00:22 | So 13 frames per second equals 160th.
| | 00:24 | If you're shooting 24, it's going to be
technically a 48th; you only have a 50th as an option.
| | 00:29 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and a lot of people refer
to this as the 180 degree shutter rule where
| | 00:33 | your shutter speed is going to be
double that of your frame rate.
| | 00:36 | So if you're shooting, as Rich said, 30
frames a second, 160th for your shutter speed.
| | 00:41 | Shoot in 24, 148th or as
close as you can get to 150th.
| | 00:44 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:44 | So I've got that locked down already.
| | 00:46 | I am looking at this here.
| | 00:47 | Let me just get my shutter speed correct.
| | 00:49 | I may have to jump out temporarily and I've
got this set to a 50th because I am shooting
| | 00:54 | at 24 frame per second.
Robbie Carman: Great.
| | 00:56 | Richard Harrington: And if you look at the shot
here you will notice that it is pretty dark.
| | 01:00 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, pretty dark.
I can't really see anything.
| | 01:02 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and that's because,
well, first off, I'm on ISO 3200 like, oh,
| | 01:06 | well with that much sensitivity, should you be seeing
it? Well, I've got my f-stop adjusted here
| | 01:11 | all the way in this case to f/32.
| | 01:14 | So I am using a lens here that has a manual
ring and I can start to click through this.
| | 01:19 | And as I change that, you're going to notice
that with each setting, it's showing more in.
| | 01:24 | Robbie Carman: So as you're getting brighter
just to be clear, you're actually opening
| | 01:28 | up the lens going to a lower f-stop number.
| | 01:32 | So you were at 32 and now you're at
whatever it is, 10 or 12 or whatever it might be, as
| | 01:37 | you go down to lower numbers, that's
going to let more light into the camera.
| | 01:40 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 01:40 | Robbie Carman: And that's a perfect place to
start when you have an underexposed shot.
| | 01:45 | Letting a little bit more
light in by adjusting aperture.
| | 01:47 | Richard Harrington: And one of the things I
want to point out here is in the overlays
| | 01:50 | you are seeing on the camera there, it's saying
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, in some lenses they don't accurately
| | 01:56 | communicate with the camera body.
| | 01:58 | In this case, I am using a lens with a manual
ring and it's giving me that control as I
| | 02:03 | step through, but it's not handing off the
correct data, because this lens doesn't actually
| | 02:07 | have a computer chip to tell it.
| | 02:08 | Robbie Carman: That's a
really good point, Rich.
| | 02:10 | Some lenses don't offer actually any aperture
control on the actual lens, like this guy right
| | 02:15 | here. No aperture control.
| | 02:17 | Instead what has to happen is that the
aperture is adjusted on the camera itself, and it's
| | 02:22 | going to be a little problematic if you're
doing something where you need to change the
| | 02:25 | aperture dynamically, because as you click,
well, there is a click. A little vibration going
| | 02:30 | on with the camera and stuff like that.
| | 02:31 | Richard Harrington: I like the ability to
just be able to adjust with one hand aperture
| | 02:35 | and focus, with the same hand on the lens, which I'm
usually holding there for some stability anyways.
| | 02:40 | Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 02:41 | And this lens, for example, like your lens has
a manual aperture ring, so you can actually
| | 02:45 | dial through those apertures and nice and smooth,
and this particular one clicks a little bit,
| | 02:49 | but you can actually get these lens declicked
as well so they are nice and smooth as you
| | 02:53 | are adjusting aperture.
| | 02:54 | Richard Harrington: I think one of the
things to realize with aperture is that there is
| | 02:57 | a lot of variety out there.
| | 02:59 | For example, this is an expensive zoom lens, a 70
to 200 vibration reduction, lots of great things.
| | 03:06 | What's nice about this lens is it has an f-
stop of 2.8, which is really pretty fast for
| | 03:11 | a big heavy zoom lens, and what's unique is as I
adjust the zoom, the aperture does not change.
| | 03:17 | On the other hand, this is a moderately
priced lens; not a cheap lens, not the kit lens,
| | 03:22 | and it goes from 28 to 300 millimeters.
| | 03:25 | Well, at 28 it's a 3.5 lens,
at 3 millimeters it's a 5.6.
| | 03:29 | Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 03:30 | So you have variable aperture lens and that's
actually really important thing to keep in
| | 03:34 | play that because you might have a shot that
you framed up and then you say zoom into
| | 03:38 | something, all of a sudden it gets darker
and you are going, why is it getting darker?
| | 03:42 | That's because you have a
variable aperture lens.
| | 03:44 | Richard Harrington: Well, and here is why. Notice
as we change the zoom level here, let's just
| | 03:47 | unlock this, and we start to zoom that out,
what you are going to see is a dramatic change
| | 03:52 | in the length of the lens and that's going to
change it's sensitivity to light. As opposed
| | 03:57 | to a more expensive zoom lens here,
as I'm changing the zoom lens.
| | 04:00 | Robbie Carman: All happening inside.
| | 04:01 | Richard Harrington: Everything is happening inside and
the lens isn't changing expanding or contracting.
| | 04:04 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely.
| | 04:04 | Richard Harrington: So that
makes a huge difference.
| | 04:06 | Now if we look at the shot here, one of
things I recommend is I am going to back off the
| | 04:11 | ISO just a little bit here to sort of a default
setting, because 3200 is going to be too noisy.
| | 04:15 | Robbie Carman: Pretty high. Yeah.
| | 04:16 | Richard Harrington: So what I have to decide
is if I'm here as let's say ISO 400, that's
| | 04:21 | a little low for indoor shooting.
| | 04:23 | So I'll bump that up, but let's rock that
there, and as we change the aperture and it gets
| | 04:29 | more sensitive, the depth
of field gets shallower.
| | 04:32 | So notice in this case that the foreground candle
could be in focus while the background is out.
| | 04:36 | Robbie Carman: So you're
really doing two things.
| | 04:38 | As you are adjusting aperture you're letting
more light into the camera, which is good for
| | 04:42 | dark shots that you want to lighten up, but
you are also adjusting the depth of field.
| | 04:46 | The lower the number you are going to have
more blurry backgrounds, stuff in the foreground
| | 04:49 | is going to be more in focus.
| | 04:50 | If you go to higher numbers,
everything is going to be in focus.
| | 04:53 | Richard Harrington: And what I recommend in that
case is if you change aperture, take advantage,
| | 04:57 | use the Zoom button on your camera, adjust
the framing so you can see what it is that
| | 05:03 | you want in focus.
| | 05:04 | Robbie Carman: Then adjust focus from there.
| | 05:05 | Richard Harrington: Then check focus
when you're zoomed in. Like notice there,
| | 05:09 | see how we've got the candle in focus,
those knobs on the front?
| | 05:12 | Richard Harrington: Well, as I change my aperture
there, notice how even the shot--yes, it got
| | 05:17 | darker, but the candle behind it is--
Robbie Carman: Is now more in focus.
| | 05:19 | Richard Harrington: More in focus.
| | 05:20 | So you have to decide.
| | 05:23 | Don't automatically go for the widest open lens,
because it might be too shallow of a depth of field.
| | 05:28 | So in this case, I am going to go in here and
I am set to about 5-6 there, which is okay,
| | 05:35 | and we've got good focus.
| | 05:36 | I've both the foreground and
background object in focus.
| | 05:39 | I am happy with that.
| | 05:40 | Now that I've settled on the aperture
then we are going to move on to ISO.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting ISO| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Okay.
| | 00:01 | So Rich, we've defined the exposure triangle
and we've talked about adjusting aperture.
| | 00:05 | Richard Harrington: Yep.
| | 00:05 | Robbie Carman: The next thing
I want to talk about is ISO.
| | 00:07 | What does ISO stand for?
| | 00:09 | Richard Harrington: Well, it's the
International Standards Organization, and that's just a
| | 00:12 | group that set standards, but
basically it's an electrical measurement.
| | 00:15 | Robbie Carman: Okay.
| | 00:16 | Richard Harrington: So the more you increase it, the
more you're increasing the sensitivity of the sensor.
| | 00:21 | Now this is great, and with modern sensors
we can get a lot of value out of it compared
| | 00:25 | to the days of film, it's
amazing how high you can go.
| | 00:28 | Robbie Carman: And by value I am assuming that
you mean that we can go to high ISO settings
| | 00:32 | without bad effects.
| | 00:34 | Not a lot of noise.
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:35 | It's pretty amazing how much you can boost the ISO
these days and still get an image that's usable.
| | 00:40 | It used to be you went over 800, even at 800
on a film shoot, you would have all sorts
| | 00:45 | of noise and problems.
| | 00:46 | You would only use that for concerts.
| | 00:48 | These days shooting at 800 is a piece of cake.
| | 00:50 | Robbie Carman: I mean 800 is low. I
shoot at 1600, 3200, sometimes, it's just fun.
| | 00:54 | Richard Harrington: Yeah. So what happens is,
is it does produce noise.
| | 00:57 | So in the case of our shot here, you
notice that we've got an okay base exposure.
| | 01:02 | We set the aperture for the depth of field
we wanted and I am at a shutter speed of 50.
| | 01:05 | Robbie Carman: That's a really interesting
point though, is that often times we'll go
| | 01:08 | to ISO after we are basically satisfied, right?
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 01:12 | Robbie Carman: With the aperture and the depth
of field that we have, but the exposure might
| | 01:16 | not be perfect yet.
| | 01:17 | We like the depth of field, but in this case
it might need to be a little brighter still.
| | 01:22 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 01:22 | And remember it is better to slightly
underexpose than slightly overexpose.
| | 01:26 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely.
| | 01:27 | Generally speaking, once you start to
overexposing something all detail and information is lost.
| | 01:31 | Richard Harrington: So I am just going to
hold on the ISO button here and I'm at 640
| | 01:35 | right now, and let me go down a little
bit and you see as we turn that down.
| | 01:39 | Robbie Carman: It starts to get
a little darker, yeah.
| | 01:41 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and you're going
to use things like 100 for shooting outdoors
| | 01:45 | on a bright bright sunny day, 200 for shade.
| | 01:47 | Robbie Carman: Now just to be clear, you haven't
changed the aperture or the shutter speed.
| | 01:50 | We are just adjusting the ISO.
| | 01:51 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and you see that
Overlay number there, those are accurate.
| | 01:54 | So as we open this up it depends. Am I going for
a moody, shadowy shot, or do I want to actually
| | 02:00 | see all the details including the table and where
the seam is? I mean this is changing immensely.
| | 02:06 | Now I'm in High 2.0, which is
as high as this camera goes.
| | 02:09 | Robbie Carman: It looks a
little overexpose there, yeah.
| | 02:11 | Richard Harrington: It's both overexposed
and you see all of that noise and grain.
| | 02:14 | Robbie Carman: So you bring up a really
interesting point about noise and grain though, especially
| | 02:17 | at the higher ISO values.
| | 02:18 | I think a large part of this is sort of tolerance,
what you or a client or a producer can tolerate
| | 02:27 | in terms of noise.
| | 02:28 | What I like to do is a simple test that a
lot of people are not aware of, and that's
| | 02:34 | what I refer to as the
Lens Cap Test to test ISOs.
| | 02:38 | What do I ISOs? Well, for a couple reasons.
| | 02:40 | You would think that say on Canon 7D here
that, I don't know, ISO 600 or 640 is less
| | 02:47 | noisy than ISO 800, right?
That's not always the case, right?
| | 02:51 | Richard Harrington: Right.
| | 02:52 | Robbie Carman: Our cameras, even cameras of
the same make and build and model number,
| | 02:56 | have different ISO performance.
| | 02:57 | So one of the tests that I like to do is
to simply put my Lens Cap on the camera.
| | 03:02 | So I'm recording black.
| | 03:03 | I go into Record mode and then simply dial
through the various ISOs, and record four or
| | 03:10 | five seconds at say ISO 100, then 125,
and step through your different ISOs.
| | 03:16 | Once you're done doing that recording, what
you can do is bring that footage onto your
| | 03:21 | machine and then look at it closely to see
the grain structure and the noise structure
| | 03:26 | at different ISO values.
| | 03:28 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and as we get this
up here, we are not going to see any noise
| | 03:31 | most likely down here in 640.
Robbie Carman: No nothing.
| | 03:34 | Richard Harrington: And it doesn't
mean that there should be some noise.
| | 03:37 | Noise and grain is a natural phenomenon.
Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 03:38 | Richard Harrington: With both
photography and film and video.
| | 03:41 | But as we start getting here into 1600, it
starts to become visible, and as I crank this
| | 03:47 | up here and we are getting into 3200, that's
sort of the upper threshold that just about
| | 03:52 | anybody I know is comfortable shooting at.
| | 03:53 | Robbie Carman: Well go all the way
up to your High mode there.
| | 03:55 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, 64.
Robbie Carman: Yep.
| | 03:57 | Richard Harrington: High 0.3. 0.7.
| | 04:00 | Robbie Carman: And you can see that the
image definitely starts to get more noisy.
| | 04:03 | And again, this is a good thing to do just to test
this specific ISO performance of your camera.
| | 04:10 | And it's something I always like to do
before I go out and shoot in the field.
| | 04:13 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 04:13 | So I'm just going to pop that lens off and
when we look at the shot itself that noise
| | 04:17 | really becomes visible
when you're looking at it.
| | 04:20 | So in this case, I mentioned that 3200 is
sort of the threshold cap for most folks,
| | 04:26 | that's more exposure than I need there.
| | 04:28 | I would actually go back down, in
this case, all the way down to 1600.
| | 04:33 | That's still plenty of Exposure to work
with, a little curves adjustment in post.
| | 04:36 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, gives you a
less of moody kind of shot there.
| | 04:38 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, yeah.
| | 04:38 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
Richard Harrington: Right.
| | 04:39 | So to recap, you're going to go ahead and
have shutter speed locked down to start and
| | 04:44 | that's going to be typically
somewhere between a 30th and a 60th.
| | 04:47 | Richard Harrington: You're going to set aperture
to give you the depth of field that you want,
| | 04:51 | the lower the number the shallower the
depth of field, but the more light coming up.
| | 04:54 | Robbie Carman: And to set your base exposure.
| | 04:56 | Richard Harrington: Right.
Then ISO is just a refinement.
| | 04:59 | It's basically adjusting the exposure by
giving it more sensitivity with the camera sensor.
| | 05:04 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and that's a perfect
way of thinking about it, as a refinement.
| | 05:07 | I don't think that you should depend on ISO
solely as an exposure tool, because as we
| | 05:12 | have talked about before, it's all about the
exposure triangle and how these three parts
| | 05:16 | of exposure triangle work together.
| | 05:18 | Richard Harrington: Right.
| | 05:19 | And if it doesn't work, and that's when you
get desperate, then you will go to shutter speed.
| | 05:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting shutter speed| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: So we've been talking
about shutter speed a lot, and people might
| | 00:03 | be saying, why you still
talking about shutter speed?
| | 00:06 | To recap, you're going to take your frame
rate, multiply it by two and put a one on top.
| | 00:11 | So 30 frames per second becomes 30 times
two or 60, or a 60th and that's a good rule.
| | 00:17 | But I know you Rob, rules are meant to be--
| | 00:20 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, broken.
| | 00:21 | I've been doing it since I was a
little kid to my parent's chagrin.
| | 00:24 | Yeah, I mean the thing about shutter speed
and the 180 degree shutter rule, it's a good
| | 00:30 | rule of thumb to get a sort of natural
motion reproduction in a shot.
| | 00:34 | But it's a rule of thumb.
| | 00:37 | It's not something that
you have to stick to 100%.
| | 00:39 | If you are just starting out shooting DSLR video,
I would well, stick with the rule of thumb.
| | 00:44 | You are going to get better results
that way and be happy with your experience.
| | 00:48 | But as you start working in very stringent
situations, you can nudge that shutter speed
| | 00:54 | a little bit to give you different results.
| | 00:56 | And there is generally two ways that we go
obviously; up or down from that standard shutter speed.
| | 01:01 | So first, if we go down
what's the effect going to be?
| | 01:04 | Richard Harrington: Well, if we go to a slower
shutter speed, more light is going to get in the camera.
| | 01:09 | In the case here, we're talking about
a footage shot that is too dark.
| | 01:12 | So this is desirable, but there
is a little bit of a tradeoff.
| | 01:15 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 01:15 | Richard Harrington: You're
going to get some motion blurring.
| | 01:17 | So if you are doing handheld camera work,
this is going to make it look more out of
| | 01:21 | focus and smeary.
| | 01:22 | This is where being on a tripod becomes
critical, because you're going to want to have that
| | 01:26 | stable platform and minimize
camera vibration or shake.
| | 01:30 | Robbie Carman: In this case, it's fine for
something like a still life where we were
| | 01:33 | trying to, to get it to be a little brighter.
| | 01:35 | So if you slowed your shutter speed a little
bit, you'll notice that the image actually
| | 01:39 | gets a little brighter.
| | 01:41 | Now we're not seeing it here, because nothing
is really moving, but if you had done that
| | 01:44 | same thing, say outside shooting cars going
down the street, the other thing that you
| | 01:49 | would see is a little bit more motion blur, some
smearing, as things were moving across the screen.
| | 01:56 | Sometimes that's kind of a cool effect.
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 01:58 | Robbie Carman: You want to get those headlights
really kind of blurring with each other. Other
| | 02:02 | times it tends to sort of soften up the image and
people kind of go, oh, that doesn't look so great.
| | 02:06 | Richard Harrington: It looks good
when shooting night time traffic.
| | 02:08 | It doesn't look good when
shooting a basketball game.
| | 02:11 | Robbie Carman: Exactly, exactly.
| | 02:12 | Richard Harrington: So you're
going to have to find that.
| | 02:14 | The other way is if we take the shutter speed
the opposite way and we make it faster, the
| | 02:19 | image gets darker.
| | 02:20 | Now this is also another way when doing
bright outdoor shooting to control exposure.
| | 02:24 | We'll explore that more later.
| | 02:25 | I think the key to realize here is that
unlike photography where you could have a really
| | 02:30 | fast shutter, you're not going
to go below a 30th in this case.
| | 02:33 | Robbie Carman: No.
Richard Harrington: Because I can't.
| | 02:34 | I'm shooting 30 frames a second.
| | 02:36 | Robbie Carman: You can't, and going back to
increasing the shutter speed, one of the problems
| | 02:39 | with it, again, it's fine on something like a
still life here, not the exact effect
| | 02:43 | we want, because we wanted this image to actually
brighter, because we're talking about lightening images.
| | 02:47 | But if you were to go to a faster shutter
speed and there were things moving in the
| | 02:50 | shot, guess what's going to happen.
| | 02:52 | People are going to sort of start having--objects
are going to have a staccato type rhythm to them.
| | 02:56 | Richard Harrington: It's going
to start looking like stop motion.
| | 02:57 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and
that might not be desirable.
| | 03:00 | It could be an effect that you like, but
most of the time that's not desirable.
| | 03:03 | Richard Harrington: Yep.
| | 03:04 | All right, so that pretty much
breaks down the exposure triangle.
| | 03:08 | Throughout this shooting you notice
that we were using prime lenses.
| | 03:11 | Prime lenses are the type of thing that are
really worth investing in, because they are
| | 03:15 | generally going to be faster than a zoom lens.
| | 03:17 | So if you're doing interviews or shooting
concert or lowlight photography, there are
| | 03:21 | some great things about prime lenses, really the
performance at lowlight, but they don't zoom.
| | 03:25 | So you are going to be
moving more with your feet.
| | 03:27 | I think another thing worth pointing
out is that you can use older lenses.
| | 03:31 | This is a 30-year-old prime lens that I got
used at a camera shop and while it's on my
| | 03:35 | Nikon body, I could pop this off
and with a simple adapter ring.
| | 03:39 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 03:39 | Richard Harrington: Put it
over on Rob's Canon body there.
| | 03:41 | Robbie Carman: Just take this little adapter ring,
pop it on, and I could use it on the Canon as well.
| | 03:45 | Richard Harrington: The big thing there though
is that you have to make sure that the prime
| | 03:47 | lenses actually have controls on the outside--
rings that you can manipulate--because when you
| | 03:52 | use those adapters, it's very difficult because the
computer in the camera won't talk to the lens.
| | 03:58 | So you need those manual controls.
| | 04:00 | Plus I like the manual controls anyways,
because it gives me greater flexibility to make an
| | 04:04 | adjustment right on the shot without
having to jump into a memory system.
| | 04:08 | I could just rack through and find it as opposed to
sitting there going dial, dial, dial, dial, dial.
| | 04:13 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, I know that's
a great feature to have as well.
| | 04:15 | Richard Harrington: Yup. So it's
all about balance.
| | 04:17 | Looking at an exposure triangle and
remember that the three factors work together.
| | 04:21 | You're going to use aperture to control the
depth of field, typically an artistic adjustment
| | 04:26 | that you're going to set first, and then
you're going to use ISO to adjust the sensitivity.
| | 04:31 | Now both of those are going off of the
assumption that your shutter speed was locked.
| | 04:35 | If you still can't get the results you need
when shooting in low light, you've got two choices:
| | 04:39 | cheat a little bit and adjust the shutter
speed or do the more professional thing and
| | 04:43 | I know it's going to sound strange,
add some light to the scene.
| | 04:47 | Just a little bit of light can go a long way.
While these cameras do work in better low light
| | 04:51 | conditions, light is what gives you that
artistic control and allows you to really create the
| | 04:55 | type of look you want right in the camera.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
16. How can I Avoid Lens Flares?Avoiding lens flare| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: So Rob, one of the things
I've noticed is that people have very strong
| | 00:04 | opinions about lens flares.
| | 00:06 | Some people love them, clients, music video
directors, special effects folks, there's plug-ins
| | 00:12 | to add flare after the fact.
| | 00:13 | Robbie Carman: You know it's funny, I was
watching the most recent Star Trek movie last night
| | 00:16 | and there is a lens flare in
every single shot in that film.
| | 00:20 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, that's sort of
hallmark of J.J. Abrams style. He likes lens flares.
| | 00:24 | Robbie Carman: That's right!
| | 00:25 | Richard Harrington: So, that's fine and if
you want lens flares and you are designing
| | 00:28 | your shots so they show up,
that's perfectly acceptable.
| | 00:31 | You know, what we're talking about here are
those accidental lens flares that you might
| | 00:35 | miss while shooting, and remember, the lens
flare is caused by the light really just hitting
| | 00:40 | the lens at a weird angle.
| | 00:41 | Typically, if you're pointing the lens up
into the sun or you're starting to get a
| | 00:45 | little bit high, you know, you'll have that bounce
in or could be a reflection, but what it really
| | 00:50 | results in is an area where you see a loss of
contrast and maybe a weird geometric artifact.
| | 00:55 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, it's interesting.
| | 00:56 | I mean again, you're absolutely right. It's
sort of the angle of your light source to
| | 01:00 | the front element of the lens, and most of
the time that happens by accident and it's
| | 01:04 | probably not wanted, but it can happen on
purpose, you know? Working with a gaffer you
| | 01:08 | can position those lights, so as
you move, you're going to get them.
| | 01:11 | I'm sure you remember back to the '80s as
well, when we have the good old--the star
| | 01:16 | filter where we get those nice star lens flares,
which was cool as well, but most of the time
| | 01:21 | you're right, they're unwanted.
| | 01:22 | And the thing that I noticed most about them
is when I'm watching films or watching
| | 01:25 | TV, when they're fake and they're inserted
for stylistic reasons, they often tend to
| | 01:30 | be perfectly uniform in their lightness and sort of
their color and that kind of stuff and the shape.
| | 01:36 | When they are done by accident like, oh, that
looks like a dirty spot on the lens or something
| | 01:40 | like that, right?
| | 01:40 | Richard Harrington: Yeah! It looks absolutely
like you have a smudge on the lens or that
| | 01:45 | for some reason, why is the shot
just--why has it all lost contrast?
| | 01:48 | Robbie Carman: Right! And let's be honest with you,
they're unavoidable in certain circumstances, right?
| | 01:54 | So if you really wanted to go about it, you
could rotoscope them out in postproduction,
| | 01:58 | that kind of stuff, but we have a much, much,
much more simple way, couple of different
| | 02:03 | ways actually of avoiding lens flares and
that's what we're going to talk about next.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using a lens hood| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So earlier Rich, we talked
about what a lens flare actually is. Let's start
| | 00:04 | our exploration about how
to control lens flares.
| | 00:06 | Richard Harrington: Sure! Well, most lenses
have a built-in feature to help with this.
| | 00:10 | The problem is, is it's sort of
deactivated when the lens ships.
| | 00:14 | So, for example, a lens like this comes in
the box. They have the hood reversed, so it
| | 00:20 | fits more easily.
| | 00:21 | Well, the first thing you're
supposed to do is pop this off.
| | 00:24 | Robbie Carman: Oh that's what that's for?
| | 00:25 | Richard Harrington: Yes.
| | 00:26 | Well, I know that you know this, but I can't
tell you how many people I see out shooting
| | 00:32 | who don't turn the hoods around.
| | 00:34 | And you got to reverse them in order to pack
in your bag, because otherwise it takes up
| | 00:37 | a lot more space.
| | 00:37 | Robbie Carman: Yeah! Lens hoods come in a
variety of different shapes, lengths and styles.
| | 00:41 | So for example, this is just an actual rubber
lens, so that I can compress back down here
| | 00:46 | and pick up real cheap, but effective. You
get round styled ones like this which is nice
| | 00:52 | and small. You might also get sort of more squarish
type ones, and then more petal sized ones like that.
| | 00:56 | Richard Harrington: That have notches. This
particular one, because this is a wide angle
| | 01:00 | lens, when I'm shooting at a wider angle,
we're concerned here--like if this was equal
| | 01:05 | sized, we'd pick up the hood and get
darkening or vignette at the edges.
| | 01:08 | So it's saying, oh, you know what, we probably
only need to protect for flares coming from above.
| | 01:13 | Robbie Carman: Right, exactly! And again,
just to reiterate, lens flares are most often
| | 01:18 | caused by light hitting the front element of
the lens at an angle, and because we have
| | 01:23 | the sort of protection around the front of the
lens, we're less likely to see those actual
| | 01:30 | lens flares and to get those in our shots.
| | 01:32 | Richard Harrington: Yeah! So most lenses will
have a hood that comes with it, if not, you
| | 01:36 | could buy third-party ones, like
this one screwed on with a filter.
| | 01:39 | I was on vacation.
| | 01:40 | I lost it, but typically it will be included and if
not, you can order replacements if you lose them.
| | 01:46 | Robbie Carman: Yeah! I was going to say,
some of like, you know--some of the mid priced lenses
| | 01:50 | to save costs, a lot of the manufacturers
don't actually ship the actual lens hood with it.
| | 01:55 | It's another way for them to make money.
| | 01:57 | It's like you know a $30 or $40 accessory. You
can find off-brands that are compatible with your lens.
| | 02:02 | The thing you want to make sure of when you purchase
a lens hood, if it didn't come with your camera,
| | 02:06 | is that you're matching the diameter of the
front element to the lens hood and often times
| | 02:11 | the hood on itself will say exactly the model
number and the size element that it will fit.
| | 02:16 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, what's confusing
is lot of times you can move a filter from
| | 02:20 | one lens to another, because a lot of lens
will have the same size thread, but the hoods
| | 02:24 | are often terribly specific to that lens.
| | 02:27 | So I don't think this is necessarily
conspiracy of the manufacturers, but you'll find many
| | 02:33 | third-party hoods, but most often you're going to be
buying an OEM one from the original manufacturer.
| | 02:37 | Robbie Carman: Right! And so there you go.
Lens hoods are a simple and practical way
| | 02:42 | to protect against unwanted lens flares.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using a matte box| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So earlier Rich, we talked
about using lens hood that comes with lenses to
| | 00:04 | protect and control lens flare, but there is
another way that we can control lens flare
| | 00:09 | and that's with this guy, and what is this?
| | 00:11 | Richard Harrington: It's a Matte box and it
really has two features; it can hold filters
| | 00:15 | which we'll talk about more in a second, and
it has a very large flag on top, which you
| | 00:19 | angle to protect the sun.
| | 00:20 | So, while this lens hood is a pretty good size,
this is just much larger and you can adjust it.
| | 00:26 | Robbie Carman: Well in fact, right
now on this particular matte box,
| | 00:28 | I only have a hood right here on the top or
flag here on the top, but I could put flags
| | 00:33 | on the side, either side, or on the bottom,
so I have much more granular control over
| | 00:37 | controlling how the light is going to come
into the actual lens in that front element,
| | 00:42 | because I have sort of four
different points that I can control.
| | 00:45 | Richard Harrington: Right! Because remember,
if we're talking about a lens flare caused
| | 00:48 | by the sun that's typically coming from above,
but you can get lens flares some other lights
| | 00:52 | on set, which might be entering from
the side of the frame or from below.
| | 00:56 | So, having that ability to move the flag around
is going to give you greater flexibility and
| | 01:01 | that's really simple.
| | 01:02 | You see that it attaches here using a rail type
system and that works well for professional use.
| | 01:06 | It's going to let you do other options like a
follow focus, which we'll talk about later.
| | 01:10 | You can attach other accessories, but
this is going to bump up the price.
| | 01:13 | A matte box is usually several hundred dollars
and the filters also add up, but they really
| | 01:19 | serve a great purpose.
| | 01:20 | You know, for example, on this lens I have an ND
filter which is great if I want to be shooting
| | 01:24 | outdoors under bright lights.
| | 01:26 | And you know, this just screws onto
front of the lens, and that's fine.
| | 01:30 | In this case it's a circular one, so
I can rotate it and I've got that.
| | 01:33 | Robbie Carman: So we've filtering there, but
we can also have filtering here on the matte
| | 01:37 | box itself, right?
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 01:38 | Robbie Carman: And these filters are
actually just drop-in or slide-in type filters.
| | 01:43 | And this is really nice, because on most matte
boxes, you're going to be able to support. While
| | 01:47 | some of them only have one
level or one stage of filtering,
| | 01:50 | a lot of them have dual stages like this one
does, so we could put in say an ND Filter
| | 01:54 | and then maybe a Graduated Filter or two
different ND Filters to add them together.
| | 01:58 | And you'll notice that they are pretty big,
these 4x4s, and you can still rotate them.
| | 02:03 | For example, if you're doing a circular polarizer,
you can still rotate them inside of the matte
| | 02:07 | box, and the cool thing about these is that
this is pretty much what most professional
| | 02:12 | setups, cinema type setups are
going to use for filtering.
| | 02:16 | It's not just specific to DSLRs. You could
use a matte box on ARRI or RED or whatever
| | 02:21 | you want to do. I mean, it just
gives you a lot of flexibility.
| | 02:23 | You could buy one set of high quality filters, and
continue to use them over your entire career.
| | 02:28 | Richard Harrington: Well, yeah,
you really hit it on the head there.
| | 02:30 | This is a better quality filter than most
filters sold in photo stores, and if I was
| | 02:36 | using a circular polarizer on this lens, well,
this doesn't fit this lens, and it certainly
| | 02:40 | doesn't fit that lens.
| | 02:41 | So if you're a one or two lens shooter, buying
screw-on filters is a good deal, because you
| | 02:47 | are only going to buy a couple of them,
but if you have lots of lenses--
| | 02:50 | Robbie Carman: It's going
to add up pretty quickly.
| | 02:51 | Richard Harrington: Yeah! So on set, you'll see here
this just little squeegee, basically it's like--
| | 02:55 | Robbie Carman: It's called a donut.
| | 02:56 | Richard Harrington: Yeah and it just wraps
around the lens, so I could switch to a different
| | 02:59 | lens quickly and just pull this forward, pop
on the lens, close it back up, and I've got
| | 03:04 | the same filtration, the same flagging, and I
just changed prime lenses without having
| | 03:09 | to start all over again.
| | 03:10 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and there's lot's of
different styles of matte boxes, right? I
| | 03:13 | mean there's one that are sort of--that are
attached to rail systems like this one. There's
| | 03:16 | freestanding ones. There is ones that have
swing out design, so it's much easier to change
| | 03:21 | lenses, and of course, they
run the cost gamut as well.
| | 03:24 | I mean for some strange reason matte boxes
are like one of those things, you're like,
| | 03:27 | why are they so expensive?
| | 03:28 | Richard Harrington: Well, the only people who
need them are people who know the difference
| | 03:33 | between good and great, and if you know the
difference between good and great, you realize
| | 03:38 | you pay for that difference.
Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 03:40 | So matte boxes are a pretty straightforward
thing. They do really two things for us;
| | 03:45 | first, by using the flags that we can attach to
the matte box, we can easily control lens
| | 03:48 | flare from all angles. Not
just the top, but the sides,
| | 03:51 | the bottoms, and things of that nature, and
most matte boxes are also going to have multi
| | 03:55 | stage filtering using these 4x4 type filters
that we can just drop in, rotate and position
| | 04:00 | however we want, which is much more convenient
a lot of times, than screw-on type filters.
| | 04:04 | Richard Harrington: So a great solution if
you could afford it. When we come back, we're
| | 04:08 | going to take a look at a nice middle of the
road solution that's easy to add and won't
| | 04:12 | set you back very many dollars.
| | 04:15 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring other strategies for avoiding lens flares| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So Rich, we've talked about
using lens hoods that come with lenses, we've
| | 00:03 | talked about using a matte box, and both these
options work pretty well, but there's a practical
| | 00:09 | technique that gaffers and DPs have been
comfortable with for seemingly ever. What is that?
| | 00:14 | Richard Harrington: Flagging the shot.
Basically putting something between the lens and the
| | 00:18 | offending light source.
Robbie Carman: Okay.
| | 00:20 | So we have a lot of different ways of doing
this though, don't we? We have you know pretty simple
| | 00:23 | straightforward ways or we
could build very complex systems.
| | 00:26 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, I think you
know you've actually got a flag here.
| | 00:28 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 00:29 | Richard Harrington: And it's
just a piece of fabric in a frame.
| | 00:31 | Robbie Carman: Yep.
| | 00:31 | Richard Harrington: Now this is a professional
one and this could be attached to a C-stand.
| | 00:35 | There's a little thing there that you can
attach to the knuckle and it'll hold that,
| | 00:38 | you can position it or you can have an assistant
hold it up, but really if you were in a pinch,
| | 00:43 | you could just get a piece of foam core from
an art store and use that as a reflector or
| | 00:47 | to bounce light and block it--
| | 00:48 | Robbie Carman: And we can
position these all over.
| | 00:49 | You notice that if I put it kind of right
here, I'm blocking you off a little bit.
| | 00:52 | Richard Harrington: That's my light, man.
(laughs)
| | 00:54 | Robbie Carman: Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize.
| | 00:55 | Exactly, so it can be used for
stylistic reasons obviously--
| | 00:58 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:58 | Robbie Carman: To sort of shape the light
in the scene, but on a practical point--
| | 01:01 | the question for--that we're talk about now is that we
can use it so we can avoid lens flares as well.
| | 01:06 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and that works
really well, but you typically are going to have
| | 01:09 | to have some grip equipment, either a grip,
a person to hold it for you or a stand and
| | 01:14 | you set it up and put a sandbag
on it, so it doesn't flip over.
| | 01:16 | Robbie Carman: And right, and this is relatively
small one. When I stand and talk about complex
| | 01:19 | systems, and we both have been on sets where
we have sort of huge canopies of flags over
| | 01:25 | a scene to protect it, but we
can go sort of on the micro level as well,
| | 01:28 | and you've got another one right here.
| | 01:29 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, in this case this is
normally called a FlashBender and it attaches
| | 01:33 | to your camera flash and this allows when
you bend this to angle the flash, and this
| | 01:38 | is just sort of used to shape where
the light bounces or to create a scoop.
| | 01:42 | Robbie Carman: Now of course, in video work,
we're not using strobes or a flash or still
| | 01:46 | flashes like that really.
| | 01:47 | Richard Harrington: Correct! So I had this in
my bag one day and I just had a nasty flare.
| | 01:51 | I couldn't get rid of it. I was out on my
own and I'm like, well what do I have, what do
| | 01:55 | I have--was like, wait a minute, and I just
figured out, oh, this has got a piece of elastic
| | 01:59 | and I just wrapped it around the
lens, just put it on in there, and--
| | 02:03 | Robbie Carman: So now you're kind of getting
the benefits of a flag, say on a matte box,
| | 02:08 | but in a much more pliable
and probably cheaper solution.
| | 02:11 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and my
flag is bigger than your flag.
| | 02:13 | So it allows me to go ahead
and bend that into place.
| | 02:15 | I could shape from the side, if it was coming
from the side. You can turn that over to the
| | 02:20 | side, just rotating it.
Robbie Carman: Yep.
| | 02:21 | Richard Harrington: And that
allows you to really bounce the light.
| | 02:24 | Now you got to be careful, obviously, if this
is too close to the lens and you're really
| | 02:27 | wide, you might see it.
| | 02:28 | Robbie Carman: You might get some vignettes.
You can see in there, yeah, sure!
| | 02:30 | Richard Harrington: But this is a bendable
system, so nothing keeps you from pulling
| | 02:33 | that back a little bit and scooping it, and just
getting that out of the shot, so it's protected.
| | 02:37 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, that's very cool!
| | 02:38 | Richard Harrington: So very simple things,
this is only about 50/60 bucks for one of
| | 02:42 | these, and you know, it's easy, it lays flat.
You can keep it in your bag and pull it out.
| | 02:46 | And the nice thing about it is it works both
for still shooting and video shooting, which
| | 02:50 | is nice. You know, you're going to
get that double value.
| | 02:52 | So in either case here, you can go as low-tech as
a piece of black foam core from an art store.
| | 02:57 | Robbie Carman: Something sort of in the middle
like a more professional type flag like this.
| | 03:01 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, using
with a stand or an assistant.
| | 03:03 | Or get a device like one of these
FlashBenders that could be attached to a lens and then
| | 03:07 | bent in to shape to block the light.
| | 03:09 | In any case, you are just taking greater
control and putting something between the lens and
| | 03:14 | the offending light source.
| | 03:15 | Robbie Carman: Yep.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
17. Why Is My Footage Shaky?What causes shake?| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: The question I'm sure we both
get a lot is why is my footage shaky? And
| | 00:04 | we have a lot of stuff here in front of us
that will help us solve this problem, but
| | 00:09 | let's first get to the root of the problem.
| | 00:11 | What causes shaky footage?
| | 00:12 | Richard Harrington: Well, shake
is really a human condition.
| | 00:15 | It's caused by the camera operator.
| | 00:17 | Now the form factor of the
camera makes this worse.
| | 00:20 | And when I'm shooting stills, I've got this
right up against my eye; it's tight, my arms
| | 00:24 | are in tight. You know
I've really got this braced.
| | 00:26 | Robbie Carman: Yup.
| | 00:27 | Richard Harrington: You've got that nice grip, arm
underneath; you are bracing the camera, that's cool.
| | 00:32 | Well, now you turn on the Live View monitor and
you can't look there, you've got to look there.
| | 00:36 | So you're starting to hold
the camera in front of you.
| | 00:38 | Okay, so now, instead of my
arms being in, they're extended.
| | 00:41 | Robbie Carman: And depending on the camera it
may weigh you know, a little bit, you know,
| | 00:45 | it might get your arms fatigued and
next thing you know they start shaking.
| | 00:47 | Richard Harrington: Well, you can do this for
a few minutes, but you're holding up there
| | 00:51 | forever, eventually your back starts to hurt.
| | 00:53 | Sure, you could switch hips, or try to cradle
it or people will do this, but if you don't
| | 00:58 | modify it, just the ergonomics
of the camera make it difficult.
| | 01:02 | Add-on to that, you've got things like, I
don't know, busy work schedules, lack of sleep,
| | 01:07 | people drink caffeine, they smoke.
| | 01:09 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, right.
| | 01:09 | Richard Harrington: You
know, they're stressed.
| | 01:11 | I mean if--without even a camera in your hand,
if you could just take your hand and hold
| | 01:15 | it in front of you, mine is shaking--
| | 01:17 | Robbie Carman: Just a little bit, yeah.
| | 01:18 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, just slightly.
| | 01:19 | It's really difficult, and so just as a human factor,
the more you touch the camera, the more it shakes.
| | 01:26 | Robbie Carman: Well, I think the other thing
too is that sometimes shake happens when you're
| | 01:28 | not even holding the camera.
| | 01:30 | For example, you might be doing a narrative
piece and you might be in a car, right, and
| | 01:34 | driving down the street and just the
vibration of that car is going to give you a little
| | 01:38 | shake. Things of that
nature also introduce shake.
| | 01:40 | Richard Harrington: Well, to get around that
some lenses will have vibration reduction
| | 01:43 | or IS for Image Stabilization and
you will typically see two modes.
| | 01:48 | There is one mode that's sort of standard.
| | 01:50 | And most lenses that have this will have this feature,
and this just works to compensate for you shaking.
| | 01:56 | Now many lenses will also have an active mode,
meaning that the vehicle or the platform you're
| | 02:00 | on is vibrating, and so
then it's constantly on.
| | 02:03 | Although this can introduce some audible noise
that might get picked up by your reference mic.
| | 02:07 | Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 02:07 | Richard Harrington: Now the easiest thing
to do here is stop touching the camera.
| | 02:12 | Put it on a tripod. If a tripod is too bulky
to carry around, using a monopod like this
| | 02:18 | will also come in handy.
| | 02:20 | But we're going to cover some of these other
gadgets in a second, but the real thing here
| | 02:24 | is shake is caused by touching the camera.
| | 02:28 | And the more you're zoomed
in, the worse it looks.
| | 02:30 | Robbie Carman: Oh, yeah.
| | 02:31 | I mean that's--I have had that problem too,
where I've tried to handhold like a big 300
| | 02:36 | mm lens or something like that.
| | 02:38 | You know, and maybe on a little light--
you know, 50 mm lens, I think it's doable.
| | 02:42 | But you start getting that
nice long telephoto lens.
| | 02:44 | Sorry, there are not a whole lot of people
in world, even the best DPs who are going
| | 02:48 | to be rock solid holding like that.
| | 02:49 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, you've got to
realize that people using those long lenses, when
| | 02:52 | you're shooting stills, you don't see this,
because you're freezing the action, but if
| | 02:56 | you want to see this, go ahead and shoot burst
mode in stills and you will see just how much
| | 03:01 | shake you still have when shooting still images,
because there will be little variations between the frame.
| | 03:06 | You need to get it locked down. You need to
get your hands off a bit if at all possible,
| | 03:11 | and if not, then you need to adapt the body
of the camera to go ahead and compensate for
| | 03:15 | this, and that's what we're
going to talk about next.
| | 03:17 | Different devices that will help us
redistribute the weight and balance of the camera.
| | 03:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using a stable platform| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: We have a lot of different
stuff here and I think before we start getting
| | 00:04 | into expensive rigs that are very,
very dedicated or high specialty--
| | 00:08 | Robbie Carman: Let's go low-tech.
| | 00:10 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, let's
go low-tech, some of the basics.
| | 00:12 | So, I've got a camera here, I got a strap.
Robbie Carman: Yup.
| | 00:14 | Richard Harrington: Strap can go
around my neck and just extend it out.
| | 00:17 | Robbie Carman: Hey, stabilization.
Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:19 | I'm transferring this here, so now there is
less shake, because I have resistance and
| | 00:23 | I could still even do focusing and turn. Just
make sure this is a firm connection because if you're
| | 00:28 | really cranking on this and it goes pop.
| | 00:29 | Robbie Carman: The other thing about this,
I've done this technique before, because this
| | 00:31 | is a nice light weight kit, obviously
straps are easy to walk around with.
| | 00:35 | If you do it all day, next thing you know, you
definitely have a little bit of a pain in the neck.
| | 00:39 | So there is another way of actually doing this that
that you showed me that I think is really nice.
| | 00:43 | It's kind of putting it under the arm and
pulling on this. Now you're not pulling on
| | 00:46 | your neck, you're more pulling on sort of the
back part of your shoulder here and it gives
| | 00:50 | you not the same, but again, a nice
little bit of stabilization there.
| | 00:53 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, you are just
cranking that in or you could tighten it down, you
| | 00:55 | can go under the elbow.
| | 00:57 | Now some people will trap that there with
the elbow and just get a little bit tighter.
| | 01:00 | Yeah, you could shorten this, but it's just
putting tension on it to really tighten that up.
| | 01:04 | And another type of thing like this is the R-
Strap, is another one that goes across the
| | 01:08 | chest, camera slings to the side, you
could pull that up for some good support.
| | 01:11 | You are just using the
strap and that works well.
| | 01:15 | Another device that we talked about before
is using a loop or a viewfinder, and this can
| | 01:19 | add another point of contact.
| | 01:21 | Robbie Carman: So this is just a loop or a
viewfinder, but before we talk about the points
| | 01:24 | of contact, generally speaking when you're
using a Live View mode, you only have really
| | 01:28 | two points of contact, left hand, right hand,
right? But if we go ahead and add that viewfinder
| | 01:34 | here, just by snapping it on the back here, now
I have a third point of contact, right? So
| | 01:38 | my two hands, and then the actual loop on
the back of the camera attached to mine, and this
| | 01:44 | nice and even if you don't have a loop on it
for a third point contact, you can easily
| | 01:49 | create a third point of contact.
| | 01:51 | What I mean by that is using
things that are around you.
| | 01:54 | So for example, if you're shooting and there
was a wall in front of you, like a brick wall
| | 01:57 | or fence, you can place the camera on that.
| | 02:00 | For example, I just place it on the table
here and now I have another point of contact
| | 02:04 | for stabilization. So you don't necessarily have to
spend a lot of money to get some cheap stabilization.
| | 02:08 | Richard Harrington: Well, one of the favorite
terms I heard that a photographer introduced
| | 02:12 | me to, "oh that's my trash pod," using the trashcan
as a point to set the camera on so it's stable.
| | 02:17 | You'll see trashcans out there, you'll see
railings, park benches, anything that's flat
| | 02:23 | and sturdier than you is a great place to
set the camera. Don't set it and walk away.
| | 02:28 | It will get stolen or blow over, but just
set on that ledge and use it, and that really
| | 02:32 | cuts down on the shake.
| | 02:33 | Robbie Carman: But you said, you mentioned
the word pod, trash pod, but let's talk about
| | 02:35 | some other types of pods, right? One of the
most common ways that photographers use to
| | 02:40 | stabilize their shot, even if they are not
doing studio shots, they are out there in the
| | 02:43 | field, is with a guy like this, like a monopod,
right? Mono meaning one, so this is
| | 02:48 | just a single leg monopod that I can extend out,
twist these guys out, and put this you know
| | 02:52 | on the ground or wherever I'm shooting,
and I have a little extra stabilization.
| | 02:55 | This is particular great when you have a heavier
camera or heavier lens attached to the camera
| | 03:02 | and it's little hard to handhold.
| | 03:03 | Richard Harrington: And I
got a trick with this too.
| | 03:05 | One of the things I like about this, if I
extend it all the way, I can actually do things
| | 03:09 | like, I'm not going to hit the ceiling here,
but this gets pretty tall, going up at a concert
| | 03:14 | to get over the crowd, doing basically a
boom type move where you lift the camera up to
| | 03:20 | reveal something, following the action around
a corner. I have actually hung cameras and
| | 03:25 | got low angle shots underneath vehicles.
This opens up all sorts of things, and it
| | 03:30 | let's you use your body.
| | 03:31 | Robbie Carman: Just make sure
that plate is tight up there.
| | 03:33 | Richard Harrington: Yeah
correct; safety, cables, chains.
| | 03:36 | Yeah, so yeah, this is normally designed so
you're holding it in that, but this is a great
| | 03:40 | way to just really extend your
reach and get a lot of shots.
| | 03:43 | Robbie Carman: And so besides the monopod of
course, we have the tried and true tripod.
| | 03:46 | Now this is a more of a photo type tripod
base with the legs here, but the nice thing
| | 03:50 | is we have a fluid head on this tripod and
that's actually something I think is pretty
| | 03:54 | important when people go to
tripods for stabilization.
| | 03:57 | If you're coming from a photography background,
you might be used to sort of the ball head on
| | 04:02 | the tripod, and it can work okay for locked
down shots when we are shooting video, but
| | 04:06 | if you're getting more equipment on the tripod,
bigger lenses, various things on there, it's
| | 04:12 | probably going to sag a little bit and not
work too well. That's why we always suggest
| | 04:15 | when you use a tripod and you're shooting
the DSLR video, get a fluid head on here,
| | 04:20 | and this can obviously range in price,
but they're definitely worth it.
| | 04:22 | Richard Harrington: And what's nice is
they actually have locks, but they generally
| | 04:25 | lets you adjust the tension, so you can have
it so you could freely position it and then
| | 04:29 | when you let go, there is enough tension that
it holds, as opposed to a photo tripod, where you
| | 04:33 | have to keep unscrewing things, angle it,
okay is it level, okay, tighten it all back
| | 04:37 | down. They're fine, but you know, you brought
up the point; this was a photo tripod that
| | 04:41 | I adapted to a video tripod by
just swapping out the head.
| | 04:44 | Still lightweight, carbon fiber legs. I
switched the feet to being rubber feet. They are a
| | 04:48 | little more robust, make it a little more
stable, but there's lots of ways a video tripod
| | 04:53 | can be an adapted photo tripod, or you can get a
dedicated video tripod if you have the dollars.
| | 04:57 | Robbie Carman: Yeah and of course, video tripods
are--they're going to run the gamut from relatively
| | 05:01 | inexpensive, aluminum and steel models, up
to very expensive carbon fiber models that
| | 05:06 | can handle huge big rigs.
| | 05:08 | Richard Harrington: Now there
are other types of approaches.
| | 05:10 | Robbie Carman: There are.
| | 05:11 | So, the next step after you've sort of gone
and you've used the monopod or the tripod,
| | 05:17 | one of the things that people find particularly challenging
is stabilizing the shot when they're mobile, right?
| | 05:23 | It's difficult to do that and sort of the
first line of way or sort of the first method
| | 05:27 | of doing that is with sort of
shoulder mount or handheld rigs like this.
| | 05:31 | This particular one is made by a company called
Redrock Micro. That one that you have there is
| | 05:35 | made by a company called Zacuto, but
there are ton of manufactures out there.
| | 05:38 | And the real point with these is that
they offer multiple points of contact.
| | 05:43 | So on this one, for example, I have two
handgrips here, a shoulder grip, and if I had a camera
| | 05:47 | mounted I can even have a little loop on the
back, where I can have a fourth point of contact.
| | 05:51 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, let
me have that for a second.
| | 05:51 | Robbie Carman: Yeah sure, you
snap that on the back there.
| | 05:55 | Richard Harrington: And this just makes it
nice and secure, so in this case, I could
| | 05:59 | adjust the angles of these pieces here, so
I'm just going to tilt this down a little
| | 06:03 | bit to hit my shoulder blade.
| | 06:05 | It goes in, the eye is placed, it's going
against my shoulder blade. I have two hands
| | 06:09 | here, so I can walk, I could pan, I can rotate
and if I had to I could let go with one arm
| | 06:16 | and adjust the lens depending on
the type of connection we had.
| | 06:19 | Now this particular one is a prime, so there
is really no zoom to adjust, but you could
| | 06:23 | refine the focus, and this is just very
comfortable for lots of shooting situations, so if you
| | 06:27 | have to shoot for a long period.
| | 06:30 | Now I will let you know that taking one of
these devices through an airport security
| | 06:34 | is pretty much a guarantee that they going
to say, and what do you do for a living? But
| | 06:38 | these do break down nice and small. I
usually pack mine into my bag, so I don't have to
| | 06:43 | deal with the hassle, but you could break
these down into just the tubes and the kits,
| | 06:46 | and all of these come apart pretty simply.
| | 06:49 | And then if you are doing lots of
shooting or real hard-core stuff.
| | 06:52 | Robbie Carman: This is more sophisticated rig
that we don't have a camera on there right
| | 06:55 | now, but you can see it's a
little bit more complicated.
| | 06:58 | We have sort of dual style pistol grips here,
over the shoulder, which is really nice.
| | 07:03 | And you can see on the back there, there's
a weight, so we can actually counterweight
| | 07:06 | this depending on what we have going on,
on the front end of the rig here.
| | 07:10 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, you adjust where
that weight is positioned and so you if had
| | 07:13 | a matte box and a follow focus and audio equipment
and a monitor, this will get really front heavy.
| | 07:19 | So having all that weight in the back, means
that you're not holding the camera up, rather
| | 07:23 | it just balances perfectly on your
shoulder and you're just keeping it there safe.
| | 07:27 | Robbie Carman: And this one is also really
nice, because it has this handle, so we can
| | 07:29 | actually do some low angle work, holding
the rig, we could have multiple handles.
| | 07:32 | Now I actually think that's a really good
point with all of these rigs, because that
| | 07:36 | they're pretty modular in the way that you
can adapt them. You can put on different bars
| | 07:40 | and different attachments.
| | 07:42 | Now there is one thing Rich that we don't
have here that we should talk about, that
| | 07:45 | is sort of the upper end of stabilization,
would be sort of systems like the Steadicam
| | 07:49 | system or Gimbal Systems, where we're going to
have the camera sort of floating in a supported
| | 07:56 | space, in the case of a Steadicam, with
a vest on us and sort of a balance rig like that.
| | 08:02 | Richard Harrington: I got a couple things to
say about that though, buying a Steadicam
| | 08:05 | does not make you a Steadicam operator.
| | 08:08 | If you're going to get one of these rigs,
there tends to be classes, and training, and
| | 08:11 | lots of practice. It takes
years to get great at it.
| | 08:14 | But you can absolutely do that with a DSLR.
| | 08:17 | There are affordable ones from companies like
Glidecam that are designed for lightweight cameras.
| | 08:22 | Another way though to get smooth movement in,
this a popular thing with DSLR, is the
| | 08:26 | use of a slider, which is essentially a platform
on wheels and you mount the camera and you've
| | 08:31 | got the ability to go ahead and slide that
back-and-forth, and that let's you get fluid
| | 08:36 | motion for tracking shots, pans, et cetera.
| | 08:38 | Robbie Carman: These have become really popular.
A lot of people use them for time lapses.
| | 08:42 | I particularly love them for interviews, where
we having not so much, you know, a very drastic
| | 08:48 | move, but a nice sort of slow sort of move
left and right, and that adds some sort of
| | 08:53 | dimensionality to the shot, makes
it seem a little bit more dynamic.
| | 08:56 | Now the cool thing about these, this one you
have right here is just sort of a push model,
| | 09:01 | but they can have motors attached to them.
| | 09:03 | So if you're doing this, for example, action
photography or sophisticated time lapse photography,
| | 09:08 | you can have it move in specific
increments and things of that nature.
| | 09:11 | But this is great--come in different lengths
depending on how much you want the camera to move.
| | 09:15 | Richard Harrington: Right.
| | 09:15 | And if after all of these things you still have
camera shake, there's always postproduction.
| | 09:20 | When we come back, we'll talk about
strategies for eliminating camera movement during the
| | 09:25 | editing stage.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fixing shake in post| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: Rob, you and I both make a
good part of our living doing postproduction.
| | 00:04 | Robbie Carman: Because people
say, oh, we'll fix it in post.
| | 00:06 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and an image
stabilization is definitely one of those things.
| | 00:11 | Now, I think it's important to point out
that if you are stabilizing in postproduction,
| | 00:16 | the simplest concept what you're basically
doing is scaling the footage up and then moving
| | 00:21 | it around the opposite way that the shake
occurred. So if we are shaking this way, it
| | 00:25 | moves it back that way.
| | 00:26 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, it's all about
counterbalancing that movement, right, by doing the opposite
| | 00:30 | kind of--opposite move.
| | 00:31 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and you
don't have to do this manually any more.
| | 00:33 | We've got great tools that help, but the
thing to realize is you're blowing up the shot.
| | 00:38 | So you can only stabilize to a certain point,
and if you stabilize footage that's really
| | 00:43 | shaky, it might start to look soft,
because it's gotten too big.
| | 00:46 | Robbie Carman: Right. And there's that, but
there is also part of the aesthetic thing
| | 00:48 | that I think people don't realize.
| | 00:50 | One of the things that's become very popular
over the past, I would say 5, 10, 15 years
| | 00:55 | is that slight sort of drifting
camera type look where it's moving--
| | 00:58 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, the float.
| | 00:59 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, where it's
moving around just a little bit.
| | 01:01 | I think there is a sort of--a lot of people
sort of go into seeing shaky footage and they
| | 01:05 | have this mentality of, it must be rock solid,
no movement at all, and in fact, if you think
| | 01:11 | about the way that you stand up, I mean you're
doing it right now, I'm doing a little bit,
| | 01:14 | you know, we're moving around a little bit.
| | 01:16 | Our world is not perfectly static, so one of
things I think--I tell people all the time
| | 01:20 | is a little bit of movement is okay,
if it's the right type of movement.
| | 01:25 | If it's a little bit of float--if it's this
really fast kind of like shake like that,
| | 01:28 | yeah, then we probably want
to do something about it.
| | 01:30 | Richard Harrington: Well, I think you're
going to see the shake a lot on pans, especially
| | 01:33 | if you're following the action with your body,
it's not going to be smooth as a tripod, but
| | 01:37 | you're right, you do want some of that motion.
| | 01:39 | The good news is, is the
software tools support that.
| | 01:42 | So we now have things like the
stabilizers inside a Final Cut X built right in.
| | 01:47 | They will go ahead and correct, we've got the Warp
Stabilizer in the Adobe Suite, does the same thing.
| | 01:52 | All of these have choices, like you could
say, I want no motion or you could apply a
| | 01:58 | percentage; stabilize it 50%.
Remove 50% of the shake.
| | 02:02 | Robbie Carman: Yeah and to be honest with
you even if you're not using just the basic
| | 02:06 | editorial tools, which most of us probably are,
when you get into the high end of things,
| | 02:11 | I've been amazed by tools like Smoke on the Mac,
and DaVinci Resolve, and these other high-end
| | 02:16 | finishing tools, that they have dedicated toolsets
for doing nothing, but stabilization, which is great!
| | 02:22 | Richard Harrington: And this is often tied
into things like match moving where they're
| | 02:25 | integrating 3D objects that are rendered into that
handheld shot so that looks like it was in the scene.
| | 02:30 | A movie like Transformers, this is obviously
done a lot, but the thing to realize here
| | 02:35 | is that there are lots of solutions.
| | 02:36 | You also have dedicated Apps besides those
high-end ones that are reasonably priced that
| | 02:41 | you can get like the Mac App Store for
stabilizing footage. You really have no excuse.
| | 02:46 | At this point, stabilization is
subjected. It is essentially an effect.
| | 02:51 | You really hit on that before, when you said
some people have this desire to pull it all out.
| | 02:54 | The best description I've heard is that you
want to stabilize, so it feels pleasing, not
| | 03:01 | so it looks like you've excised a demon.
| | 03:04 | Robbie Carman: Right, exactly! I mean, as I
said before, there is something to me anyway;
| | 03:08 | just a little bit unnatural when there is
no movement at all. When you clearly have
| | 03:12 | sort of locked that off.
| | 03:14 | But again, it's a subjective thing and I
think the important thing to sort of say here is
| | 03:19 | that we now have those tools. If you can't get
it with devices like this, other stabilization
| | 03:25 | methods on set or on location, we do now have
some great options built into editorial tools,
| | 03:31 | standalone tools, and on the high-end, the finishing
tools to help us stabilize shots and to do
| | 03:35 | it pretty quickly and to yield great results.
| | 03:37 | Richard Harrington: Yeah, and I think the
last piece of advice I would have on this
| | 03:40 | topic is that make sure that all the parties
that have an interest in the piece talk,
| | 03:45 | because I've seen instances where the DP
wants to shoot it one way and maybe the director
| | 03:50 | was onboard, but the client wasn't, and then they
spend a fortune of time and money in post fixing it.
| | 03:55 | Conversely, I've seen editors take it
upon themselves--oh, the shot is shaky, I'm
| | 04:00 | going to take this out, and the director
comes in to review and they are like--
| | 04:03 | Robbie Carman: What's that?
| | 04:03 | Richard Harrington: Wait! Where's
all the energy? I had shake in there!
| | 04:07 | Like many things these days what used to be
a strict mistake, lens flares, light leaks,
| | 04:14 | jump cuts, flash frames; camera shake is
often used as a stylistic tool, but you can
| | 04:20 | fix it ahead of time by changing your
shooting style, or using support devices, or like you
| | 04:25 | said, you can go ahead and even further
refine it during the postproduction stage.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
18. Why Should I Shoot with a Prime Lens?What are prime lenses?| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi! My is Rich Harrington.
| | 00:01 | Robbie Carman: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:03 | Rich Harrington: And welcome to lynda.com.
| | 00:04 | We are talking DSLR video tips today
and we are looking at prime lenses.
| | 00:08 | Now Rob, a lot of folks use prime lenses
but for those who haven't given them a shot yet,
| | 00:13 | just tell folks what is a prime lens?
| | 00:15 | Robbie Carman: Well, let's put it this
way Rich, a prime lens is not a zoom lens.
| | 00:19 | A prime lens is a simple lens that actually
uses less glass in the lens, and because you
| | 00:24 | are using less glass, prime lenses are often
more sharp, they tend to be faster, meaning
| | 00:28 | they have wider maximum apertures, and they
are good lens to go to to get standard length
| | 00:34 | shots; 50 millimeters, 35
millimeters, and things of that nature.
| | 00:36 | Rich Harrington: Obviously useful, there is
lot of technical as well as aesthetic benefits,
| | 00:40 | which we will explore in a moment, but I
think the big thing to really differentiate this
| | 00:44 | for folks, is that when working with
the prime lens, that concept of zooming gets
| | 00:50 | replaced by the concept of
physically moving the camera.
| | 00:53 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and actually Rich, if you
look at one of these lenses, you'll notice
| | 00:56 | that they are indeed much smaller than a zoom
lens, and that's because there's physically
| | 00:59 | less glass in the lens.
| | 01:01 | There's no zoom mechanism in the lens.
| | 01:04 | So they can be more compact and that's an
advantage, so depending on what you're doing,
| | 01:07 | but as you pointed out, often times you have
to actually physically move the camera or
| | 01:12 | the lens, in and out of the shot, rather than depending
on the mechanism of the lens to do that for you.
| | 01:16 | Rich Harrington: One of the others things
that I like is that when using the prime lens
| | 01:20 | is that it's a lower weight,
because there is less glass.
| | 01:23 | So that does really come in handy, I find when
shooting handheld, and probably the biggest
| | 01:27 | advantage is that the aperture
doesn't change as you zoom.
| | 01:32 | You know, so you don't have to worry about--as
I adjust the shot, going in and out, is
| | 01:36 | my shot getting brighter or darker, because a
lot zoom lenses actually have the aperture
| | 01:41 | that's going to change throughout the shot.
| | 01:43 | I really think that prime lenses
are a good investment for a kit.
| | 01:47 | If you were going to buy a single prime lens
Rob for an interview, to put into your kit,
| | 01:51 | what would be the first lens you would buy?
| | 01:52 | Robbie Carman: Well, that's kind of a loaded question
Rich, because I like to buy lenses like they
| | 01:55 | are going out of style.
| | 01:56 | However, in my kit I like to have a nice
wide prime lens, somewhere maybe in the 30, 35
| | 02:02 | millimeter range. A 50 millimeter is sort of that
standard lens that every kit should include.
| | 02:09 | And then you might go for a little longer,
maybe something like an 85 mill lens, because
| | 02:13 | at that point you start to get a good nice
focal length for portraiture work, interviews,
| | 02:16 | and that kind of stuff.
| | 02:18 | If I only had one lens, I'd probably go with
a 50, but remember that your lens and the sort
| | 02:23 | of the focal length is going to be impacted
by the crop factor or the sensor size that
| | 02:27 | your camera is using.
| | 02:28 | So always just factor that into play. If
you have a cropped image sensor and you are
| | 02:31 | choosing a prime lens, you might want to go
a little wider, because when you put that
| | 02:35 | kind of lens on that cropped
camera, it will be a little longer.
| | 02:38 | Rich Harrington: And we actually talked about
that in earlier episodes, so if you missed
| | 02:41 | it, be sure to jump on over to the lynda.com
website, where you can look at the movie all
| | 02:45 | about crop sensors.
| | 02:47 | The short version is if I take say this 35mm
lens and I put it on a camera that has a crop
| | 02:53 | factor, it might behave like a 50.
| | 02:55 | Now we're using a full frame sensor here.
We actually have 85mm lens connected. We'll
| | 03:00 | talk about that, but it's a kind of funny,
like Rob was spitting off all those things,
| | 03:04 | and this is from my lens kit; I have got a
28, a 35, a 50, and an 80. So according to
| | 03:12 | you, I know what I am doing.
| | 03:13 | Robbie Carman: Well, that's debatable, but yes,
on the surface of it, it seems like that.
| | 03:17 | Rich Harrington: Good.
| | 03:17 | So we'll be right back and we are going to
take a look at how these lenses actually work.
| | 03:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring low-light performance| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Okay Rich, so now that we've
discussed what prime lenses actually are, in the next
| | 00:03 | couple movies, let's talk about
some of the benefits of prime lenses.
| | 00:07 | And I want to start out by
talking about low-light performance.
| | 00:09 | Rich Harrington: Well, so obviously people
get really hung up on low-light performance.
| | 00:14 | My philosophy is lighting is a good thing.
| | 00:17 | But there are times when you have to shoot low-light,
particularly one of my genres that
| | 00:21 | I work in a lot is concert
photography and concert video.
| | 00:24 | And so it really comes in handy, because I
can't just say, "could we turn these house
| | 00:27 | lights up?" Because really, everybody
else is there for the show, not for me.
| | 00:31 | Robbie Carman: Right, right.
Rich Harrington: So I kind of have to give a little.
| | 00:33 | Robbie Carman: So the benefit of shooting in
low-light with the prime lens is that prime
| | 00:37 | lenses often have, or really, always have a maximum
aperture that's wider than what you are going
| | 00:42 | to find on a zoom lens.
| | 00:44 | On a typical zoom lens you might find
aperture values of say 3.5 to 5.6, somewhere in that
| | 00:50 | range, but on a good prime lens, it's not
uncommon to find apertures of 2.0, 1.8, and
| | 00:55 | even as low as 1.2.
| | 00:57 | And I have actually seen a lens that is low
as .9; that's pretty much seeing in the dark.
| | 01:02 | Rich Harrington: So we have one here and
let's cut to the camera live for a second.
| | 01:06 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 01:07 | Rich Harrington: We are at f5 and ISO 3200.
| | 01:11 | Robbie Carman: So we are shooting
at a pretty typical aperture,
| | 01:14 | aperture of 5, you might
find on a typical zoom lens.
| | 01:16 | But in this case we are shooting at
f5, but we have stepped up the ISO considerably,
| | 01:20 | and of course the danger of stepping up your
ISO is that you might introduce visible noise.
| | 01:26 | So what we can do instead, because this is a
prime lens, we can actually widen the aperture.
| | 01:31 | Remember, wider aperture is a lower number.
| | 01:33 | So let's go ahead and step
this down a couple notches.
| | 01:35 | Rich Harrington: So as we are at 3200 here, I am just
going to start to change the f-stop. We go to f3.5.
| | 01:42 | So we're well over-exposed there, so I am
just going to pull the ISO down, and yeah,
| | 01:48 | it still looks okay. We are at 1600 there.
Robbie Carman: Sure!
| | 01:50 | Rich Harrington: This is an acceptable ISO,
still you wouldn't have problems on shooting
| | 01:55 | still photos this way, but with video,
you'd probably see some dancing pixels,
| | 01:58 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely!
| | 01:59 | Rich Harrington: So we are going to
want to take this down even further.
| | 02:01 | I am at 2.0, you know, a lot of prime lenses
will top out around here, right, and that's
| | 02:07 | going to let us drop that all the way down to ISO
500, even 400. It still looks pretty good, right?
| | 02:13 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, it looks great, and so
what you are telling me Rich is that when
| | 02:16 | we shoot at lower or wider maximum aperture right,
that lower number, we get more light into the camera?
| | 02:22 | Rich Harrington: Hey, smaller number, bigger
hole. I know, it's a little confusing right?
| | 02:27 | But yes, the smaller the number, it's a ratio,
the bigger the hole is letting in more light,
| | 02:32 | and you can see that in the graphic here,
just some of the common f-stops illustrated.
| | 02:36 | But in this case we're not actually
done. We can go wider on this lens.
| | 02:39 | Robbie Carman: Well let's try it.
| | 02:40 | Rich Harrington: So this one tops out at 1.4,
but we are all the way down there to ISO 250,
| | 02:46 | which is perfectly normal.
| | 02:48 | Now you might be noticing that in this
particular case, as we open that up, things got shallower
| | 02:53 | and actually that's our next movie.
| | 02:55 | We're going to talk about depth of field,
both artistic uses and some of the drawbacks,
| | 02:59 | as you open up that aperture.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with shallow depth of field| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: We started to see the
shallow depth of field kick in as we open up that
| | 00:04 | aperture more and more.
Robbie Carman: Uh-huh!
| | 00:06 | Rich Harrington: So Rob,
sometimes people like this right?
| | 00:08 | Robbie Carman: Well, over the past couple
of years Rich, it seems like shallow depth
| | 00:12 | of field and DSLRs go hand-
in-hand with one another.
| | 00:15 | In fact, if you look at the different
websites out there, it seems like all anybody cares
| | 00:20 | about is getting focus to be about that
thick, about the thickness of a piece of paper.
| | 00:24 | Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:25 | Robbie Carman: And there is a
benefit of using a prime lens.
| | 00:28 | Because we have those wider maximum aperture
values, your depth of field and how shallow you
| | 00:33 | can go with that depth of field is much greater
than say on a zoom lens that can only go down
| | 00:38 | to f4 or something similar.
| | 00:39 | Rich Harrington: Yeah,
and so this is a benefit.
| | 00:41 | But remember, if you're dealing with a
subject that's moving, it could be tough.
| | 00:46 | So one of the things I want you to think about
is really controlling this. So if you're dealing
| | 00:50 | with an interview subject,
| | 00:53 | maybe you are going to go around 2, 2.4; that's
going to allow them to move in and out a little bit.
| | 00:58 | If you're doing something like a tabletop
shot where you are shooting a product, you
| | 01:02 | can kind of get away with going as wide open
as your lens does, and that allows you to
| | 01:05 | rack focus from foreground to background or
maybe you are using a turntable shot with something
| | 01:10 | spinning, and you want to go ahead and see
it sort of come from out of focus, in focus.
| | 01:15 | There are lots of ways of doing this, but let's
actually take a look at it right here on the table.
| | 01:20 | What we've got here is our subject
and we are opened up all way at 1.4.
| | 01:25 | Now I'm going to zoom in and check focus,
and by zooming, I'm doing a digital zoom,
| | 01:30 | not changing the prime lens, because
remember, you can't actually zoom a prime lens.
| | 01:34 | So Rob, on my Nikon here, I'm just hitting
the magnifying glass to go in, it's similar
| | 01:38 | on a Canon and another manufacturer, right?
| | 01:40 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely! And this is always
a good way to check focus by zooming in on
| | 01:43 | the image sensor.
| | 01:44 | Rich Harrington: So I'm just rack
focusing until I find it. That looks pretty good.
| | 01:49 | I can also use the auto-focus feature
sometimes on the camera that will lock up.
| | 01:53 | We've got that, and then I'm just pulling back
out and you see that we've got our foreground
| | 01:59 | and subject, the flamingo, whose is doing a
great job--
| | 02:03 | Robbie Carman: He is a character actor.
He is great!
| | 02:04 | Rich Harrington: It's a little out of focus, and the
zebra, we don't even need a model release
| | 02:08 | for him, because he is completely out of focus.
| | 02:09 | Robbie Carman: Now Rich, there is one really
big important thing I do want to mention about
| | 02:13 | shooting at very wide maximum
aperture or values with the prime lens.
| | 02:18 | Is that--it's one of those things just because it's
there, doesn't mean that you should always do it.
| | 02:22 | And a good example of this is something like
landscape shooting or outdoor shooting like
| | 02:26 | in maybe in an establishing B-roll shot, right?
It pays sometimes to actually have things
| | 02:31 | in focus and not to have everything be
blurry, and when you do things like even interviews,
| | 02:37 | you got to be careful, right, because the
last thing you want is you're filming
| | 02:42 | the CEO of a company, or a politician, or you're
an actor on set, and having them just by subtle
| | 02:47 | movements going in and out of focus,
that can be distracting to the audience.
| | 02:52 | So oftentimes I'll do an aperture that's
pretty wide and pretty fast, but maybe I'll back
| | 02:57 | off it just a touch.
| | 02:58 | Rich Harrington: So let's do that here.
| | 03:00 | So we are on 1.4.
| | 03:01 | I'm going to go head and change that.
| | 03:04 | We'll go all the way back up to
a little more respectable 2.8
| | 03:07 | Robbie Carman: Yup
| | 03:08 | Rich Harrington: And in this case we still
have a pretty good light in the camera, we
| | 03:11 | put a light on the scene.
| | 03:12 | We're not trying to shoot in the dark, and
I'll just bump that up to about ISO 400, and
| | 03:16 | now, the hyena, the flamingo are both in focus and
the zebra is just sort of hanging on background,
| | 03:24 | but we can tell it's a zebra
and not a black and white blob.
| | 03:26 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely! And that's a good
way or sort of good thought to sort of tie
| | 03:29 | this movie, and in the last movie, in this
question for this week together, is that as
| | 03:34 | you increase that number, getting to a bigger
number, you're going to have to adjust other
| | 03:38 | settings on your camera.
| | 03:40 | Like the ISO or God forbid, even add some
more light into the scene, right? So it's
| | 03:45 | one of those things where the shallow depth
of field is a great characteristic of a prime
| | 03:49 | lens and it has really good uses sometimes,
but in my mind, you got to be careful about
| | 03:54 | shooting very, very wide, and it's also
not a substitute for things like lighting.
| | 03:59 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, so this is just a great way
to take more control over the shooting situation.
| | 04:03 | One of the things I really like is that
this just gives me more flexibility.
| | 04:07 | So in this case, I am at 2.8. If my lighting
situation were to change, I've got plenty
| | 04:12 | of overhead, I could change the f-stop.
| | 04:14 | I could easily bump up the ISO,
so a lot of flexibility.
| | 04:17 | All right, when we come back, we're going to
look at the last issue which is cost, and
| | 04:23 | the funny thing is when it comes to prime
lenses, you can spend a little or a lot. It
| | 04:28 | all depends on your shopping habits.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Examining cost issues| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Okay Rich, now that we've
talked about some of the benefits of prime lenses,
| | 00:03 | one other thing that's going to happen to
you when you go online, or go into the camera
| | 00:07 | store and start shopping for prime lenses,
is that you're going to go, whoa! These are
| | 00:12 | pretty expensive lenses, and in some cases
they're actually more expensive than zoom lenses.
| | 00:17 | Richard Harrington: Well, it really just depends,
because if you are going for that insane 0.9
| | 00:23 | lens you talked about, it's going to be a
lot more expensive than a 1.8 lens, and not
| | 00:28 | just maybe twice as much expensive,
maybe three, four times as much expensive.
| | 00:31 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, so as you get to that maximum aperture
value, that lower number, that means dollars, most of the time.
| | 00:38 | Richard Harrington: Yeah. It's kind of like a sports car, right?
Like there are only so many people who are going
| | 00:41 | to buy the Lamborghini, so they could charge more,
and that's part of it. They just don't make as many.
| | 00:46 | On the flipside though, you could find incredibly, and I
mean incredibly affordable prime lenses too, right?
| | 00:52 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, absolutely! I am willing
to bet you have a pawn shop or a camera store
| | 00:58 | near you, and a lot of times those places will
sell used lenses, and it's one of those things
| | 01:03 | where, I think we're both guilty of this, is
that we like the newest and the latest and
| | 01:07 | greatest, but that doesn't mean that you can't find
outstanding image quality with even used lenses.
| | 01:12 | And for example, we have a couple of lenses;
I think you're holding one right there.
| | 01:15 | Richard Harrington: Yeah.
| | 01:15 | Robbie Carman: And an older style Nikon
lens that you found for pretty cheap.
| | 01:19 | Richard Harrington: This particular
lens here, really, really affordable.
| | 01:22 | This is a 2.8, it's an older type lens, like
Rob mentioned, it is a Nikon lens, but they
| | 01:27 | make adapter rings, so you
can put this on a Canon.
| | 01:29 | The big thing here to realize, they have
totally manual controls, so unlike having to rely
| | 01:34 | upon the camera to change the f-stop,
you have a physical ring.
| | 01:38 | A lot of people like that. They
even go as far as declicking it.
| | 01:41 | So instead of only having certain values, you
can get those in between values, and notice
| | 01:46 | there, as we change that, how it really opens up and
changes the size of how much light is coming in.
| | 01:51 | Another nice thing on these older prime lenses is
that the focus ring generally has a giant rotation.
| | 01:58 | Now the reason why this is is that modern
lenses, they want that really fast auto-focus,
| | 02:03 | when you hit the plunger, it
just goes, chk, chk, and locks in.
| | 02:06 | These older prime lenses they may rotate for
three fourths or even more of the barrel which
| | 02:11 | makes manually focusing or
rack focusing, so much easier.
| | 02:14 | Robbie Carman: This is true.
| | 02:16 | Now with that said Rich, if you don't want
to go out and buy used lenses, you can find
| | 02:19 | some pretty affordable
lenses out there on the market.
| | 02:22 | For example, both Canon and Nikon
make what I refer to as the nifty 50s.
| | 02:26 | These are 50 millimeter prime lenses usually
an aperture value of 1.8, and they can be
| | 02:31 | had for around $100,
depending on where you go.
| | 02:34 | Now Rich, of course, when it comes to
prime lenses, the sky really is the limit.
| | 02:38 | Richard Harrington: Well, yeah, you did
mention these are cheap lenses. I would definitely
| | 02:42 | pick up a 50 or 35 millimeter for your kit.
These are nice, they're affordable, the 1.8s
| | 02:47 | are perfectly reasonable to have.
| | 02:49 | I did step up in this case and I have an 85
millimeter here. I consider this sort of a portrait lens.
| | 02:55 | The nice thing about the 85 millimeter is
it allows me to get little bit closer to my
| | 02:59 | subject without putting the camera right in
their face, so I love this for an interview
| | 03:03 | lens, particularly from a little further back.
It's nice because it can compress the action.
| | 03:08 | Of course, a lens like this, this one is a
Sigma, you are getting into the thousand dollar
| | 03:12 | range, but it wouldn't be video if it
didn't go up from there, right Rob?
| | 03:16 | Rob Carman: Well right, and that was kind of
my point, is that the photography lenses,
| | 03:20 | 1.2 lens maybe around $2,000 to $2,500, but if
you want to go to even a cinema style lens
| | 03:27 | for example, those made by companies like
Zeiss and Cooke and others, you're talking
| | 03:32 | some big bucks, but those big bucks come with, I
think in my opinion, three really important things.
| | 03:38 | First is image quality. These are some of
the best lens manufacturers in the world and
| | 03:42 | the quality of the lenses is outstanding,
including the build quality and the controls.
| | 03:46 | Second, on traditional photography lenses,
modern photography lenses, we do find most
| | 03:51 | of the controls are electronic, on
the actual camera body itself.
| | 03:55 | These lenses have a lot of manual control
directly on the lens, which makes adjusting
| | 03:59 | the aperture and things like that much, much
easier, and the other thing that these sort
| | 04:03 | of dedicated cinema lenses have is they often
have multiple mounts, and what I mean by that
| | 04:08 | is that they can work with say a Canon camera
or a Nikon camera, or even with cinema style
| | 04:13 | cameras that use PL mounts.
| | 04:14 | Now it's beyond the topic today to talk about
different types of mounts, but that is nice.
| | 04:19 | If you find a lens that you really, really,
really like, often times you can use that
| | 04:24 | lens on different camera mount systems.
| | 04:26 | Richard Harrington: Yeah and what this really
is saying is that you get great flexibility.
| | 04:29 | So if you're investing in some of these more
expensive cinema prime lenses, they're going
| | 04:34 | to work with your DSLR. They're going to work
with some of the other cameras that are out
| | 04:37 | there, Micro Four Thirds type cameras, big
chip cameras, like the Panasonic, Red, Alexa;
| | 04:43 | you're really making an investment.
| | 04:45 | And what this also means is that these lenses can
often be had at a reasonable price as a rental item.
| | 04:51 | Remember, you don't have to buy everything.
You can go ahead and rent a prime lens for
| | 04:56 | your shoot or rent a whole kit of prime lenses,
often for just a few hundred dollars for the day.
| | 05:01 | So this is a nice way to really extend the
quality and the look of your production.
| | 05:06 | So I think people have a
good idea on prime lenses.
| | 05:09 | Just to summarize, those major benefits are
going to the low light performance, as well
| | 05:13 | as control over depth of field, and one of my
favorite features, the fact that the f-stop
| | 05:18 | doesn't change while shooting, just greater
consistency, really that's cinema control.
| | 05:23 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely!
| | 05:24 | Richard Harrington: Great! We'll be back in
another week with some more tips for you.
| | 05:27 | Be sure to tune in then.
| | 05:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
| 19. Why Should I Use a Matte Box? |
20. Why Should I Use an Electronic Viewfinder?What is an EVF?| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi! My
name is Rich Harrington.
| | 00:01 | Robbie Carman: And I'm Robbie Carman.
| | 00:02 | Rich Harrington: And today we're
talking about electronic viewfinders.
| | 00:05 | Now as DSLR camera shooting continues to evolve,
we're seeing more and more adaptations that
| | 00:12 | make them function more--I hate to use
this word, but like a real video camera.
| | 00:17 | Robbie Carman: Well, not a real video
camera. Let's say a traditional video camera.
| | 00:21 | Rich Harrington: Fine.
| | 00:21 | Robbie Carman: Because these cameras
can record real video, but you're right Rich.
| | 00:25 | One of the things that's been a problem in
DSLR video so far in the evolution of these
| | 00:29 | cameras has been most of the time you are
stuck behind the camera here in some way.
| | 00:34 | With the traditional viewfinder maybe you
used a loupe, and we'll talk about loupes in
| | 00:38 | another week, but what's happening these days,
and let's say probably over the past year
| | 00:42 | or so, is sort of the introduction of the evolution
of the viewfinder or the loupe to these guys, and
| | 00:47 | this is an EVF or an Electronic Viewfinder.
| | 00:49 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, and what we're seeing
here is that the electronic viewfinder, the
| | 00:52 | screen sizes look similar, but
one is a lot higher resolution.
| | 00:57 | Now for those of you who are iPhone users
or Smartphone users, you probably remember
| | 01:02 | the type of screens you had early on versus
the ultrahigh resolution screens we have today.
| | 01:08 | Same thing, the trend we're seeing on laptops
switching over to these higher display count
| | 01:12 | displays, and it just works better.
| | 01:14 | So a big chunk here is that we
have a higher resolution image.
| | 01:18 | But there are lots of benefits including the
ability to see the image with clearer focus,
| | 01:24 | better use of color and even
overlays to get the camera controls.
| | 01:28 | Now there are a lot of these on the market
with more coming. We're using a Zacuto
| | 01:33 | Electronic Viewfinder here; small HD, lots of
other companies are coming out with these.
| | 01:37 | We're also even seeing some of the digital
disk recorders having a display built-in that
| | 01:43 | you can use to record, and really this
is just meant to give you flexibility.
| | 01:47 | I've mounted it on the camera here but I
could actually just unhook this really quick and
| | 01:51 | switch it over to my rig, and I'll show you
how this could really add some flexibility.
| | 01:56 | So I'll just take this off the hot shoe.
Robbie Carman: Yep!
| | 01:58 | Rich Harrington: Nice here in that I
can articulate this and adjust it.
| | 02:01 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely.
| | 02:01 | Rich Harrington: But if I just put this right
on to my body here, I've got a shoulder rig,
| | 02:06 | we'll just slide that into play.
| | 02:08 | Robbie Carman: There you go, right there.
Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 02:09 | Robbie Carman: And now the other cool thing
about these though is that it doesn't necessarily
| | 02:13 | have to be on the camera itself.
| | 02:15 | I've seen a lot of rigs where people will
sort of mount them on a separate arm or another
| | 02:21 | place over here somewhere on the rig.
Rich Harrington: Yeah
| | 02:23 | Robbie Carman: So not the camera person
necessarily using the EVF but maybe a focus polar or an
| | 02:28 | assistant camera person or something like
that has access to it, and as Rich pointed
| | 02:31 | out, one of the great things about these
electronic viewfinders is that they provide a much higher
| | 02:36 | resolution image than you're going to get on the back of the
camera, but they still give you that image
| | 02:41 | at a nice compact form factor instead of
having to go to a larger external monitor.
| | 02:46 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, so let's take a
look at some of these benefits in depth.
| | 02:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Checking focus| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: One of the things I notice
most, particularly as I continue to get better
| | 00:04 | and better shooting, is that everything on
the back of the camera always looks good.
| | 00:10 | It always looks in focus, it always looks
tack sharp, and that's because it's such a
| | 00:14 | small little screen that
shrinks everything down.
| | 00:17 | Robbie Carman: I can't tell you Rich how many
times I've had clients come into my studio
| | 00:20 | totally excited about their footage.
| | 00:22 | And then we put it up on the big screen
and they go, it's little soft isn't it?
| | 00:27 | And I go, mhmm.
Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:28 | Robbie Carman: And then my next question is, you
just used the LCD on the back of a camera
| | 00:32 | didn't you? And they go, yeah!
I needed to do something else?
| | 00:35 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, you
did need to do something else.
| | 00:38 | Robbie Carman: Exactly.
Rich Harrington: And that is step up.
| | 00:40 | So in this case here, let's take a look through
the viewfinder, and what you're seeing, clearly
| | 00:46 | an out-of-focus shot.
| | 00:47 | Robbie Carman: Well right, this
is like a starting point, right.
| | 00:48 | A lot of people say, oh this looks beautiful, right?
But no, this is in fact obviously out of focus video.
| | 00:54 | Now on this particular camera what we have
going on is we have the electronic viewfinder
| | 00:58 | mounted to the hot shoe here at the top, and
we are just coming HDMI out of the camera,
| | 01:03 | and so up here on the actual monitor, I
actually have a nice crystal-clear image of what
| | 01:09 | I am seeing out of the lens.
| | 01:10 | Rich Harrington: And you've been able to adjust
it, so it's at eye level for you so you don't
| | 01:13 | spend the whole day doing this
staring down the back of the camera.
| | 01:16 | Robbie Carman: Exactly.
| | 01:16 | Now one of the things about this particular
viewfinder is that it actually can accept a loupe as well.
| | 01:22 | This is just a loupe made by Zacuto, right.
| | 01:25 | So this is the actual electronic viewfinder
itself and then this is just a loupe, and
| | 01:29 | you can use it in either way.
| | 01:30 | So now right now without the loupe attached,
I get a nice 3 or 4 inch screen here that I can
| | 01:35 | view which is actually pretty nice.
| | 01:37 | If you want to have clients walk up to the
camera and take a look at how the shot is framed,
| | 01:40 | and the focus and that kind of stuff, but
oftentimes if you are in the studio or especially
| | 01:44 | outdoors and on set, you might want to add a
loupe to this and you can simply put that
| | 01:48 | loupe down and that gives nice
light controlled view of the screen.
| | 01:52 | Now I do want to be clear that the benefit
of this is that it's much higher resolution
| | 01:57 | than the screen on the back of a camera.
| | 01:58 | I am actually viewing on this
particular model in 720p resolution.
| | 02:02 | So what I'll do is I'll just come in and
I'll get a nice sharp view here and I am just going
| | 02:06 | to adjust my focus until I get a nice
sharp focus something like that working.
| | 02:12 | Now the other benefit is that besides been able
to just view it, depending on the electronic
| | 02:17 | viewfinder that you are using, there are other
features like false color and things of that
| | 02:21 | nature that can make focusing a little easier.
| | 02:23 | Rich Harrington: And this is also going to
allow us to check exposure, but the big thing
| | 02:26 | here, you can't fix focus with a filter
in post. If it's out of focus, it's out of focus.
| | 02:32 | That could really be the difference between
a shot that's usable and one that's not.
| | 02:37 | So the ability here to just punch in, really see
that these cameras will allow you to see the image.
| | 02:43 | You can also go ahead and push in a little
bit on the camera itself if you want to check
| | 02:47 | that, but between that and the higher
resolution display you can absolutely positively tell
| | 02:53 | do I have focus, and it just gives you that
confidence in the shot. Plus the loupe itself,
| | 02:59 | in this case, is magnifying the display here.
| | 03:02 | So it kind of looks like you're looking at
like--about a 10 inch television. It's
| | 03:06 | a lot easier to tell than the little
tiny thing on the back of the monitor.
| | 03:10 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely, and like we've
mentioned in an earlier movie these can be
| | 03:13 | adapted to different
camera systems and rigs.
| | 03:15 | So if you do like that traditional
viewfinder look, where it's sort of in the back of the
| | 03:19 | camera and extended towards your eye.
Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 03:21 | Robbie Carman: You can put this on an arm
or something like that so it reaches out on
| | 03:25 | the side and however you are comfortable to
get sort of a more ergonomic view at a higher
| | 03:30 | resolution using the EVF.
| | 03:31 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, I could just put an
arm right here and attach that EVF so it's
| | 03:34 | sitting right here, comfortable for the eye
while the camera is well-placed, and that gives
| | 03:39 | me great flexibility and control.
| | 03:41 | So the fact that you are now better control
over ergonomics will improve your shooting
| | 03:45 | style and really removes any excuses
you might have for bad monitoring.
| | 03:50 | Now focus is just one issue, the other is
exposure. When we come back, we are going to
| | 03:54 | take a look at that.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Checking exposure| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: So Rob, you do a lot of color
grading, fixing other people's footage.
| | 00:07 | One of the hardest things to fix
is an overexposed shot, right?
| | 00:10 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely! The overexposed
shot is sort of the bane of my existence.
| | 00:14 | You know, it's just one
of those things where--
| | 00:16 | Rich Harrington: You just
twiddle the slider, right?
| | 00:17 | Robbie Carman: Right, you know, an underexposed
shot, I can usually save. An overexposed shot
| | 00:22 | where things just kind of get
burnt out and go to white,
| | 00:25 | I like to say it's more of a
band aid on bullet hole approach.
| | 00:29 | I can make it slightly better, but I'm
not to going to make it look awesome.
| | 00:33 | And that problem actually
starts out in the field of course.
| | 00:37 | Rich Harrington: Right!
| | 00:37 | Robbie Carman: A lot of people, especially
when they are shooting DSLRs, are using just
| | 00:40 | the viewfinder here on the back of the camera
and as you pointed out in an earlier episode,
| | 00:45 | guess what? Everything looks good--
Rich Harrington: Yeah!
| | 00:47 | Robbie Carman: on the
back of the camera, now--
| | 00:48 | Rich Harrington: And what I hate too is that
environmental light can make it really hard
| | 00:53 | to see, like I've been shooting outdoors without a loupe,
with out a monitor, I am like, I think it's right?
| | 00:57 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely! And so, because
of that you might think that you're getting
| | 01:02 | a nicely exposed image, when in fact there might be
part of the image that are pretty overexposed.
| | 01:07 | Now there are other options that we have out
there in the DSLR world with larger external
| | 01:12 | monitors, using
videoscopes and that kind of stuff.
| | 01:15 | But in this movie, I want to talk about how
an EVF can sort of help us benefit with this,
| | 01:19 | because an EVF is going to give us a much
higher resolution image and depending on the
| | 01:23 | EVF that you are using, you will have different
options that you can use to check your exposure.
| | 01:28 | So combined with a higher resolution and those
options, it's really easy to get a really
| | 01:33 | nice exposure. And I'm sorry, but there's
no real excuse anymore to come in back with
| | 01:37 | footage from the field that's
5, 6 ,7, stops overexposed.
| | 01:40 | Rich Harrington: Yeah!
| | 01:41 | Robbie Carman: It shouldn't happen
when we have such great monitoring now.
| | 01:43 | Rich Harrington: One of my favorites is that
I can actually get zebra bars where it shows
| | 01:47 | me peaking for those areas that are overexposed and
those are getting closer to that maximum exposure.
| | 01:53 | Well, let's look through the camera here.
Robbie Carman: Okay
| | 01:55 | Rich Harrington: And what we are seeing is
clearly a shot like the histogram point of
| | 01:59 | view, it's right in the middle. It looks great!
It's in the middle, except we are shooting
| | 02:03 | over a black background here and it just
kind of looks is like a white blob, right?
| | 02:06 | Robbie Carman: Yeah! In fact, every--all those
little pieces of stone there in the vase are
| | 02:11 | kind of blown out into white, and I might
be able recover some of that in post, but
| | 02:17 | it's better to always start in the field with
fixing problems, rather than reverting to
| | 02:20 | that old adage of, we'll fix it in post.
| | 02:23 | So why don't you just stop down the camera a few
stops, and there we go. Go one more stop for me.
| | 02:28 | Rich Harrington: Yeah! I am actually going to take the
ISO down too, because we are really high there.
| | 02:31 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, there you go, and
that's looking much, much better to me.
| | 02:35 | Now one of the other benefits depending
again on sort of the EVF that you are using, is
| | 02:39 | that I do like using a loupe with an EVF,
because it does magnify the image, right? And you
| | 02:44 | might notice that there might be something
off in the corner of the screen, you know,
| | 02:48 | somebody's watch or something like that,
that just with the naked eye without using the
| | 02:52 | actual loupe itself on the EVF, you are not
really noticing; it's nice to get sort of
| | 02:55 | a magnified view as well.
| | 02:56 | Rich Harrington: Well I freely admit, I've
had productions where we've missed a reflector
| | 03:00 | being--sitting in the back corner.
Somebody set a reflector down.
| | 03:04 | Robbie Carman: Yeah!
| | 03:04 | Rich Harrington: Or the leg of a C-Stand
creeping into the scene. There is something about just
| | 03:09 | taking the time to focus and look through
the loupe into the EVF that just totally let's
| | 03:14 | you see what's happening.
| | 03:16 | The other thing that's nice is it actually
puts some of the camera displays heads up,
| | 03:20 | so you could really see what you're doing.
| | 03:21 | When we come back, we're going to talk about
some of those important options to look for
| | 03:25 | when you choose an electronic viewfinder.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Viewing camera settings| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So Rich, we discussed how EVFs
can help you do things like check focus and
| | 00:04 | check exposure, but they also have another
benefit that I think is really cool and that's
| | 00:09 | the ability to see different camera settings
and even audio on the display of the EVF,
| | 00:14 | without having to fiddle around
with the back of the camera here.
| | 00:17 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, there is a lot of
information that can be passed through to the electronic
| | 00:21 | viewfinder and different manufacturers will have
different options, and one of things I like
| | 00:24 | is they keep releasing new firmware
updates to unlock even more features.
| | 00:28 | So most of these electronic viewfinders can
be updated, and so, they could better interact
| | 00:33 | with the cameras.
| | 00:34 | Now when I'm looking at this EVF here, one of
things I'm able to see is that I have actually
| | 00:38 | got audio meters, so I could see that they're
peaking here, in fact, I could see that I'm
| | 00:42 | hitting red, and so the camera audio in this
case would need to be adjusted if we were
| | 00:47 | actually recording.
| | 00:49 | Another nice thing is I can actually see the
battery meter. So it's really nice that I can
| | 00:53 | look in there and see the
status of where I'm at.
| | 00:56 | I've got overlays here for
things like safe title area,
| | 00:59 | crosshairs; I could punch in and out to do
pixel magnification, so I'm truly seeing a
| | 01:04 | one-to-one ratio.
| | 01:06 | Now that is incredibly useful if you think
you're getting moire on set, those tight
| | 01:11 | patterns. Punching in, you can absolutely see that,
and there's a whole wealth of other things.
| | 01:16 | So if you're a very traditional shooter and
you like shooting with blue gun on or looking
| | 01:22 | at just a gray scale image, sometimes it's
really useful to be able to actually switch
| | 01:27 | this to monochrome. I see different
things when I look at a grayscale image.
| | 01:30 | Do you do that as well?
| | 01:31 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, absolutely! You see,
now sometimes when we are having trouble with
| | 01:34 | some of the thing that we're talking about before,
judging your exposure or judging your focus.
| | 01:39 | For example, if something you have--an object
that's very saturated in the scene, it can
| | 01:44 | distract you from really seeing what the
exposure is like in the scene, so oftentimes switching
| | 01:49 | over to a grayscale is
going to be the way to go.
| | 01:51 | Now the one thing that I do really enjoy about
these EVFs is that as you get more sophisticated
| | 01:57 | in your shooting, and you start building more
complex rigs, and have more gear going on the
| | 02:01 | tripod or a rig like that, it can be--
Rich Harrington: Making it more manly!
| | 02:05 | Robbie Carman: Well of course, the more stuff
you have on your camera rig, the cooler--
| | 02:08 | Rich Harrington: The more manly it is.
| | 02:09 | Robbie Carman: Exactly! But one of the
things is that as you start getting more stuff
| | 02:12 | on the camera and also of course, getting
more people involved, focus pullers, camera
| | 02:16 | assistants and things of that nature, it can
be very difficult to access some of that data
| | 02:21 | and that information on the
back of the camera, right?
| | 02:23 | But by having this EVF and by being able to
pull some of that information from the camera,
| | 02:27 | being able to see, hey, what F-stop are we
shooting at? You know, what's my audio doing,
| | 02:32 | and things of that nature, it's just more
ergonomic and more convenient, and when you
| | 02:36 | add up all the benefits of an EVF in terms of
being able to check exposure, focus, viewing
| | 02:41 | at a much higher resolution.
| | 02:43 | Even though they're slightly more expensive
than say a traditional loupe, in my opinion
| | 02:48 | they're well worth it, and if you're sort of
in between; should I buy a loop? Should I buy
| | 02:53 | a bigger external monitor? This is a nice
happy medium, because it's going to provide
| | 02:57 | you that nice form factor of the loupe by
giving you the ability of the view camera settings
| | 03:01 | and audio, and all of the other stuff we talked about,
but by still having a nice small compact form factor.
| | 03:07 | Rich Harrington: So truly useful.
| | 03:09 | I find that using an electronic viewfinder
just improves my confidence when shooting.
| | 03:14 | There's a lot of manufacturers out there.
Feel free to research them, decide what you
| | 03:19 | want, but this really is
the happy middle ground.
| | 03:22 | It gives you a monitor that you can easily
see, and others can see, much higher quality
| | 03:26 | than what's built into the back of the camera.
| | 03:28 | It typically runs off the camera battery itself,
so you can get a really long record time and
| | 03:33 | be able to use this throughout the day.
| | 03:35 | And I even find that I could set it to turn
off the back live view display in lot on my
| | 03:40 | cameras and still feed out a signal giving
me better battery life on the DSLR itself.
| | 03:45 | So give these a shot. Take a look at the
different manufacturers, see what you think,
| | 03:49 | but I really feel that this is one of those
things that will help a lot of you feel more
| | 03:54 | confident when shooting.
| | 03:55 | For DSLR Video Skills, my name
is Rich Harrington.
| | 03:57 | Robbie Carman: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 03:58 | Rich Harrington: And be sure to join us next
week where we'll explore more topics to improve
| | 04:02 | your shooting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
21. Why Should I Use a Loupe?What is a loupe?| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Hi there! I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:01 | Rich Harrington: And I am Rich Harrington.
| | 00:02 | Robbie Carman: And Rich, this week,
we're going to talk about loupes.
| | 00:04 | And I know that people think you're a
little loopy, but that's not what I mean.
| | 00:07 | I mean this piece of camera
gear that you have in your hand.
| | 00:09 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, well this is a traditional
loupe, and this is actually designed for photography
| | 00:14 | purposes, not DSLR purposes.
| | 00:17 | So you could take this, put it on the back of the
camera, checking things like the focus, exposure.
| | 00:22 | And this will get used all the time in a field
workflow because if you are out shooting landscapes
| | 00:26 | or sunrise, sunset, you really
couldn't see what's happening.
| | 00:30 | Now this type of loupe doesn't actually
magnify the image, so a photography loupe typically
| | 00:35 | is a one-to-one view. It's just
designed to block out the light.
| | 00:39 | But a video loupe does more than
block out the light. Right Rob?
| | 00:43 | Robbie Carman: That's right Rich.
| | 00:44 | And the thing is that as we've gotten more
advanced with DSLR cameras, everybody sort
| | 00:48 | of realized one thing, we've hit on this in
other episodes; everything looks good on the
| | 00:53 | camera LCD, right? And
that's actually a bad thing.
| | 00:56 | A lot of times you'll have footage that's
soft and out of focus, or over-exposed and
| | 01:00 | that kind of thing, so enter the video loupe for
our DSLR camera, like this one made by Zacuto.
| | 01:05 | And there is a whole bunch of brands that
make these loupes, but they all essentially
| | 01:09 | do the same thing.
| | 01:11 | And that is they attach to the back of the
camera, just kind of like this. They kind
| | 01:14 | of just snap on, some of them have little
brackets on the bottom of the camera, so you
| | 01:18 | can sort of swing them out back
and forth from the camera LCD.
| | 01:21 | But they attach to the back of the
camera and they do a couple of things.
| | 01:25 | First, they magnify the actual image that
you're seeing on the camera LCD which is essential
| | 01:31 | when you need to get critical focus.
| | 01:33 | The other thing that they do
is they block ambient light.
| | 01:36 | You can sort of see that this is a self-
contained unit that's blocking the LCD screen.
| | 01:40 | So when I look into it, I'm not bothered by
all the light coming in from around me which
| | 01:45 | makes doing things like checking exposure,
and that kind of stuff much easier because
| | 01:49 | the camera LCD is not going to be washed out.
| | 01:51 | Rich Harrington: Now you're using one of the
older styles that they had there which allowed
| | 01:55 | you to attach to an adhesive frame.
| | 01:57 | I actually have what they call a
guerrilla plate here, pretty straight forward.
| | 02:02 | And what this is doing is just screws to the
bottom of the camera, and then it's a metal
| | 02:05 | plate, same thing, snaps in place.
| | 02:08 | Always a good idea when you're using this,
you'll notice that this particular one has
| | 02:12 | a lanyard; putting a lanyard on these,
because last thing you want is for this to bounce.
| | 02:16 | The other little thing I want to point out
is we're going to talk all about exposure.
| | 02:20 | This little red dial here, it can be deadly.
| | 02:23 | It's a diopter, it allows you to adjust.
| | 02:25 | And it's just one of the
tools we use when we set focus.
| | 02:28 | Now when we come back, we're going to take
a look just at that actual fact, how do we
| | 02:32 | use this to make sure we have
critical focus when shooting DSLR video?
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Proper focus with a loupe| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: All right Rob! So you and I
both know the dangers of soft focus. You see
| | 00:05 | this all the time as professional colorist,
people get pretty disappointed, right?
| | 00:09 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 00:10 | And as much as I love these cameras,
they are responsible not 100%.
| | 00:15 | Rich Harrington: You should love them a
lot. They make lots of work for you.
| | 00:18 | Robbie Carman: This is true! They are
responsible for the proliferation of soft focus.
| | 00:22 | Now of course there is more to do with soft
focus than just monitoring and we'll talk
| | 00:26 | about loupes here in a second, things like
shallow depth-of-field and the lenses and
| | 00:29 | that kind of stuff.
| | 00:29 | But I am seeing a lot
more out of focus footage.
| | 00:33 | Again, we'll say this probably for the fourth
or fifth time is that everything looks good
| | 00:37 | on the back of the camera LCD, and because
when you're not being critical about the focus,
| | 00:41 | guess what? Little differences. That ever so
slight softness tends to creep into the image.
| | 00:46 | Rich Harrington: Well, what I like to recommend
is make sure that you set the loupe up first.
| | 00:51 | Now when you attach this to the camera, what's
going to happen here is you're going to snap it on.
| | 00:56 | And depending upon the camera, you might
have to adjust where this actually hits.
| | 01:00 | So I take it up, hit Menu button, so I could
actually see the menus, and then I'm going
| | 01:05 | to adjust the actual diopter here,
so the menus are tack sharp.
| | 01:10 | And what most people don't realize is that that
diopter is designed for people with vision problems.
| | 01:15 | Now Rob, you wear glasses.
Robbie Carman: I do.
| | 01:16 | Rich Harrington: Do you
rely on the diopter at all?
| | 01:18 | Robbie Carman: I do.
| | 01:20 | It's one of those things where sometimes
depending upon my outside, hot and sweaty, I might take
| | 01:23 | my glasses off because I actually can see
close, I just can't see far all that well.
| | 01:27 | Rich Harrington: Right.
| | 01:28 | So to that point though, you could compensate
for having your glasses off, you just focus
| | 01:33 | this until the menus look in focus.
| | 01:35 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely! And one of the
things that you might find if you have really
| | 01:38 | bad vision is that a lot of the manufacturers
will sell sort of step-up plates on the actual
| | 01:43 | back of the loupe, and what that does is it
actually gets the loupe further away from
| | 01:49 | the actual LCD screen, so the diopter is going
to have even more of an effect, because it's
| | 01:53 | further away from the actual LCD
screen that you're trying to focus on.
| | 01:57 | Rich Harrington: And what you need to realize
is the reason why I keep saying focus on the
| | 02:00 | menus is that the menus theoretically should be
tack sharp because they are computer-generated
| | 02:06 | text and graphics.
| | 02:07 | So you just set the diopter until you have
proper focus, and then you could trust it.
| | 02:13 | Now I've got this, it's got the eyepiece.
| | 02:15 | When I put this up to my eye here,
I'm getting a nice clear image.
| | 02:18 | I'm able to block out things.
| | 02:20 | All I'm looking at is the actual image itself.
| | 02:23 | Now I'll typically close the
other eye, so I'm not distracted.
| | 02:26 | Although, I do know some people who
try to shoot with both eyes open.
| | 02:29 | I find it a little hard.
| | 02:30 | Robbie Carman: It is, but don't forget Rich,
you also have one more thing there in camera
| | 02:33 | that can aid you in focusing.
| | 02:35 | Almost every single DSLR is going to
let you zoom in to the actual sensor.
| | 02:39 | So when you're looking through the camera,
you can actually press the zoom button to
| | 02:43 | get sort of a 1 pixel to 1 pixel view which
is really critical when you're using a loupe
| | 02:48 | or without a loupe to get proper focus.
| | 02:50 | And I often do that with a loupe attached, so
I'll zoom in to get maybe all the way into
| | 02:56 | that 1:1 pixel ratio and then sort of adjust
my focus, and then you can be really sure
| | 03:01 | that your focus is tack sharp.
| | 03:02 | Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 03:03 | What's happening there is it's not while you're
recording, it's just when you're in that initial
| | 03:07 | preview mode you're seeing it,
so that's really useful.
| | 03:10 | Now there are other ways
of actually doing this.
| | 03:12 | There are lots of
manufacturers for loupes out there.
| | 03:14 | In this particular case here, I've
got sort of a periscope style loupe.
| | 03:18 | When I take this up, same idea, it's going
to behave very much like that Zacuto brand.
| | 03:22 | But what's different about this one is that
I can actually go ahead, and lift this up
| | 03:27 | and flip it down, and what I'm getting here is the
ability to look in the camera while shooting.
| | 03:32 | So essentially, I could be looking
through a periscope type mirror configuration.
| | 03:37 | And this allows me to cradle the camera,
and actually get shots and use my body.
| | 03:42 | And I find that this is really useful,
because it lets me hold the camera in tight while
| | 03:47 | still actually seeing my shot
and telling what I'm doing.
| | 03:50 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely! And that's nice
for things like low angle shooting and that
| | 03:53 | kind of stuff because with these traditional
sort of loupes that are mounted right on the
| | 03:56 | back that don't have the periscope option, you
kind of have to be behind it to see through it.
| | 04:00 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, so if you needed to
get lower, you would change the height of
| | 04:03 | your body obviously.
| | 04:04 | So lots of different options here.
| | 04:06 | All of them are going to help you
with that area of critical focus.
| | 04:10 | The other area that's a problem you really
can't fix and post is going to be that exposure
| | 04:14 | problem, and when we'll come
back, we'll take a look at that.
| | 04:18 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Proper exposure with a loupe| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: In the video world, there
is a very common saying, that is, better to
| | 00:04 | be a little bit underexposed than overexposed.
| | 00:07 | And I find that if I'm outdoor shooting, it is
so tough to judge exposure on these cameras.
| | 00:12 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely! Because when you're
outside or even actually under studio lights
| | 00:15 | like we are now, the camera LCD when you're in
live view tends to look a little washed out.
| | 00:20 | And so if you're judging your exposure based
on this with all this ambient light coming
| | 00:24 | in from the studio lights here or outside, you
tend to compensate usually in the wrong direction.
| | 00:29 | Rich Harrington: It's a nice
little mirror that you have there.
| | 00:32 | It's a highly reflective glass surface that's
perfectly angled to pick up all the light.
| | 00:36 | Robbie Carman: It's true.
| | 00:37 | So when you're outside under bright lights,
you might make the mistake of sort of stepping
| | 00:41 | down too much, where you end up with sort
of a underexposed footage, or if you're in
| | 00:46 | sort of medium lit scenes or darker
scenes, you might overcompensate.
| | 00:50 | And that's solely because of the ambient light
that's hitting the back of this LCD screen.
| | 00:55 | So that's actually a really
useful way to use a loupe.
| | 00:58 | By using a loupe, such as this one from Zacuto,
which I can just pop on here to the back of
| | 01:01 | the camera, what I'm actually doing is I'm
covering up the LCD screen with the loupe itself.
| | 01:07 | What this does is it blocks
ambient light from coming into the LCD.
| | 01:11 | So when I go ahead and take a look here, I'm
actually looking directly at the LCD screen
| | 01:16 | in a magnified view, but I'm not
being impacted by the ambient light.
| | 01:20 | Now I will say that there are better ways
to judge exposure with videoscopes and some
| | 01:26 | of the monitoring options that we've talked
about in previous episodes and we will in
| | 01:29 | future episodes, but this is a good place
to start, because instead of being impacted
| | 01:34 | by the ambient light, you have a fighting
chance at least of what's going on without
| | 01:38 | being sort of affected one way or the
other by what's going on in your environment.
| | 01:41 | Rich Harrington: What's happening
here is exactly what you said there.
| | 01:44 | I could have a good idea of
what it is that I'm seeing.
| | 01:47 | I don't have to be fearful that
the environment is messing with.
| | 01:51 | The other nice thing too is that this
does provide another point of contact.
| | 01:54 | Robbie Carman: Yup!
| | 01:54 | Rich Harrington: So when I put this up here
to my body, I'm getting the point of contact
| | 01:58 | of hand on it, and on the lens if needed
another point of contact on the face as opposed to
| | 02:03 | try to hold this out there and
it's shaking, and it's vibrating.
| | 02:06 | So it does benefit you there.
| | 02:08 | But there is a little gotcha.
| | 02:10 | You'll notice here on this particular one,
I have this little clip-on cap, and I even
| | 02:14 | have a little 16x9 mask.
| | 02:17 | If you've ever heard that phrase or you've
ever, you've seen it, not encouraging that
| | 02:22 | you actually try this, but where people would
take a magnifying glass and fry an ant, this
| | 02:28 | is a giant magnifying glass pointed
right at the back of your camera.
| | 02:30 | Robbie Carman: You've got to be really careful
about this, especially if you're in an outdoor
| | 02:34 | scene, and shooting and you just put the camera
down, all of a sudden, that sunlight is coming
| | 02:39 | in to the back of the loupe here.
| | 02:41 | Guess what? It's focusing the sunlight
directly through the loupe onto the LCD.
| | 02:47 | And if you leave it there long enough, guess
what's going to happen? You're going to get
| | 02:49 | sort of spots and sort of discolored areas
on the camera LCD because you've essentially
| | 02:54 | burned the LCD out by the
magnifying glass effect.
| | 02:57 | And instead of ants, well,
you're burning the LCD.
| | 03:00 | Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 03:01 | So if you happen to get lost while in the
woods shooting with your DSLR video, you probably
| | 03:05 | could start a fire with one of
these for safety sakes purposes.
| | 03:08 | But just remember, keep it covered and
that's why you actually have that little cap that
| | 03:13 | goes on there, keep the camera so the sun
is hitting the top, don't tilt it so that
| | 03:18 | the sun is just pouring into the back there.
| | 03:20 | You want to be careful that
you don't get extra sunlight.
| | 03:23 | All right! So that is that benefits of the
loupe. In summary, critical focus, another
| | 03:28 | point of contact as well as accurate exposure.
| | 03:32 | And I like to say that this
is one of those top three.
| | 03:35 | When I talk to a new person, and what's the
gear they should get, I say look, a tripod,
| | 03:40 | so you have a stable shot, a microphone, so
you can hear your shot, and a loupe, so you
| | 03:46 | know that the shot is
properly exposed and in focus.
| | 03:49 | This is the lens for the back of the camera,
and without it, you're really just sort of
| | 03:53 | guessing with what you're getting.
| | 03:54 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 03:54 | And Rich, you know, for the price of them,
I think they're a very good investment.
| | 03:58 | You can keep them around for a long time,
and they are really going to benefit your
| | 04:02 | shoots when you're going out there and shooting
in all sort of different lighting situations
| | 04:06 | and you need to get critical
focus and critical exposure set.
| | 04:09 | Rich Harrington: Just make sure you take that
lanyard and attach it to the device; there
| | 04:12 | are different ways.
| | 04:13 | You've got a clip one there.
I've got a metal clip.
| | 04:16 | But, you can have this either around your
neck or tether this somehow to the camera
| | 04:20 | body or your tripod because what's going to
happen is you're going to have this attached
| | 04:23 | to the camera and something is going to
happen on set, you turn quickly or someone bumps
| | 04:27 | your camera; while this is sturdy, you don't
want it dropping and bouncing on the ground.
| | 04:32 | Having it on a string is going
to prevent that unwanted damage.
| | 04:36 | Now lots of manufacturers out there, I've
personally used the Zacuto model, we have
| | 04:40 | a periscope model here.
| | 04:42 | I also like the ones that come from Hoodman,
and I've used their products, but there are
| | 04:47 | tons of these out there.
| | 04:48 | Just find the one that's a good
match for you and your budget.
| | 04:51 | These are going to start in the low $100-150,
peak up to about $300-400 dollars depending
| | 04:57 | on the feature set that you want.
| | 04:59 | But, just like a good lens, this is a great
investment that will carry across all of your
| | 05:03 | DSLR shooting and allow you to use this as
you step up to new camera bodies in the future.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
22. Why Use a Monopod?What is a monopod?| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Hi there! I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:01 | Rich Harrington: And I am Rich Harrington.
| | 00:02 | Robbie Carman: And Rich, this week we want to
discuss why use a monopod on your DSLR productions?
| | 00:06 | Rich Harrington: Well, a lot of folks are
used to tripods and they use these, but then
| | 00:12 | there's the other camp that wants to go handheld.
They don't want to be sort of weighted down--
| | 00:17 | Robbie Carman: Tethered down, if you will.
| | 00:18 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, too
much gear, too much baggage.
| | 00:19 | Well, a monopod is kind of the
middle ground for both parties.
| | 00:24 | Robbie Carman: Now, the interesting thing
about monopods, especially when you talked
| | 00:26 | to video folks, is they are like, well, isn't
that for photography? And of course that's
| | 00:30 | where monopods have really
sort of come into their own.
| | 00:33 | Watch a football game on a Sunday afternoon, all
the photographers are sitting there with monopods.
| | 00:37 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, supporting those really long lenses.
Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 00:40 | Rich Harrington: And actually that is a good
point, if you are using a really long lens,
| | 00:44 | you don't want to let that hang off the front
of the camera, instead you're going to get
| | 00:48 | a shoe and actually attach the monopod to
the lens itself and that's very important
| | 00:53 | for proper support.
Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 00:54 | Rich Harrington: But this monopod that I've got here,
super small, carbon fiber, super lightweight.
| | 00:59 | This weighs like a pound-and-a-half, but I
can go ahead and extend this and get quite
| | 01:04 | the reach, all the way up, I'm pretty tall,
I'm about 6'4". This is actually taller than
| | 01:09 | I need. This will work for
somebody who is almost 7 feet tall.
| | 01:11 | Robbie Carman: Well, that's actually one of the
really nice benefits of a monopod is because
| | 01:14 | you can extend it out to sort of nice long
reach, and of course depending on the monopod
| | 01:19 | you choose, they'll have different lengths,
and they're good for things like maybe you're
| | 01:22 | shooting a concert, or an event where there's
a lot of crowd and a lot of people around,
| | 01:27 | you can get the camera nice up and high over the heads
of people to capture the shots that you need to get.
| | 01:32 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, what I really like
about this monopod is just that it's small
| | 01:36 | and lightweight enough and it
really gives me that stability.
| | 01:39 | So we're going to talk about both stabilize
shooting and overhead shooting, but this is
| | 01:43 | a real basic lightweight traveling monopod and
why don't you hold up the one have there?
| | 01:47 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, this
one is a little beefier.
| | 01:48 | On this one you'll notice that it's
obviously thicker. It's beefier around.
| | 01:52 | It also has a fluid video head on it.
| | 01:54 | The head that you have on here is just sort of
a ball head traditionally used in photography,
| | 01:59 | but will work just fine.
| | 02:00 | The problem with ball heads is that you can't
really do nice smooth pans with them without
| | 02:05 | having to unlock everything
and it kind of wobbles around.
| | 02:08 | With a fluid head like this, like a traditional
video tripod would have, you can do nice smooth
| | 02:14 | tilts and pans and stuff like that.
| | 02:16 | The added benefit of this particular monopod
is that it also kind of well looks kind of
| | 02:21 | like a tripod, right? Is that it has this nice
tripod base to give you even more stability,
| | 02:27 | which we'll talk about in a later movie.
| | 02:29 | When you're using a monopod, stability is
one of the things that you benefit from.
| | 02:32 | Rich Harrington: So when we come back we're
actually going to talk about how this can
| | 02:35 | improve your shooting
style with greater stability.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring stabilized shooting| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: One of the problems that I often
face when shooting is having a stable shot.
| | 00:05 | I think it's because I don't
sleep enough. I have young children.
| | 00:09 | Robbie Carman: You drink way too
much caffeine, no doubt about that.
| | 00:10 | Rich Harrington: Way too much caffeine.
| | 00:11 | Robbie Carman: Yeah.
Rich Harrington: I don't smoke.
| | 00:12 | Robbie Carman: No, that's good, that's good.
| | 00:13 | Rich Harrington: But, you know, there's all
these environmental things that if I just
| | 00:16 | held my hand out, it shakes ever so slightly,
and if I put the weight of a camera in there--
| | 00:22 | Robbie Carman: Oh yeah.
Rich Harrington: It's not so slight.
| | 00:23 | Robbie Carman: It's bad news.
| | 00:24 | Yeah, I was never destined to be a surgeon
either when it comes to my shaky hands, and
| | 00:29 | it's one of the things about these cameras
is that we are so used to taking photos with
| | 00:33 | them, they fit nice in your hands, but the
thing you have to remember, is that when
| | 00:36 | you are taking a still
picture, it's just one frame.
| | 00:39 | Rich Harrington: Oh yeah, it's freezing it.
| | 00:41 | Sometimes it's like a 1000th of a second.
Robbie Carman: Right, right.
| | 00:43 | Rich Harrington: So you could be like riding
on the back of a rhinoceros, it would still
| | 00:47 | get a sharp picture, because it freezes it.
| | 00:48 | Robbie Carman: But when you come to start
taking video, you are taking obviously continuous
| | 00:51 | frames, and one of the things that happens
is just that these are not very stable, even
| | 00:55 | with two hands on them, and then over time, I
mean, they weigh a couple of pounds. Your
| | 00:59 | arm is fatigued, your hand starts shaking,
and you kind of get this thing going on.
| | 01:04 | And so stability is the name of the game
when it comes to shooting video. You are going
| | 01:07 | to get much better results and clients and the end
product will appreciate that the footage is stable.
| | 01:14 | And one of the ways that we can do that of
course is with a tripod, but if you want to
| | 01:18 | go a little bit more lean and have a little
bit more of a compact package, a monopod is
| | 01:22 | a great way to do that.
| | 01:23 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, exactly, I like that.
| | 01:25 | The fact is here you see that we've got
this, I could just take my two hands here
| | 01:28 | and just sort of rub them together
sort of like that classic fire rubbing--
| | 01:31 | Robbie Carman: Yup.
| | 01:31 | Rich Harrington: --and I can do an easy pan or a
tilt, or I could use things like lean forward.
| | 01:36 | Robbie Carman: Yup.
| | 01:37 | Rich Harrington: --and back
to do a reveal or a tilt up.
| | 01:40 | So even though I don't have a fluid head, I've got
all that flexibility, I just absolutely love that.
| | 01:45 | In fact, sometimes if I am running and gunning, you'll
notice that this actually has a little notch here.
| | 01:50 | I could go ahead and turn that and just flip
that up, and then, boom, right under my arm,
| | 01:56 | I've got a nice stable platform here.
| | 01:59 | So now I could turn with my body and you see
that's really fluid much more so than trying
| | 02:05 | to hold that camera in front of you.
| | 02:07 | So this is just great.
| | 02:08 | You really transfer this from just the shakiness
of the hands to using your whole body to support.
| | 02:13 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely, and as we mentioned
earlier, monopods are going to have different sort of
| | 02:17 | configurations, and your monopod has a
traditional photography ball head on it, which is nice,
| | 02:23 | nice stable platform. It can be a little difficult
when it comes time to pan and stuff, and like
| | 02:28 | something like this guy has a nice fluid head
on it so I can do nice tilts and smooth pans.
| | 02:33 | But depending on the model that you get
you'll have additional features like this little
| | 02:37 | tripod feet on here, and again the idea is
that when you put this down on the ground
| | 02:41 | and on the surface there, it provides even more
stability, right? And that's the name of the game.
| | 02:47 | Now I want to be clear about something, Rich.
| | 02:49 | Monopods are not tripods, right?
| | 02:50 | Rich Harrington: Yes, you
don't want to do this.
| | 02:52 | Robbie Carman: Right, exactly.
Rich Harrington: Bad, bad idea.
| | 02:54 | Robbie Carman: But the point is that, there
is going to be even if you are pretty stable,
| | 02:58 | there is so going to be some of that motion,
and one of the things that I really urge people
| | 03:02 | to do is practice with your monopod, right,
because depending on the camera that you have
| | 03:07 | on there, depending on the lens that you have
on the camera, it can be different each time
| | 03:12 | you put a different body or lens on there
and the amount of movement and the strength
| | 03:15 | that it takes to maintain that stable image.
| | 03:18 | So for example, one of the things I like to do,
just kind of how you did the armpit trick,
| | 03:21 | is if I have a fluid head like this, where I
have a little handle here, I'll just maybe
| | 03:24 | lean the handle against my body like this to
provide another contact point, especially
| | 03:29 | with a heavier setup that's going
to provide even more stability.
| | 03:31 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, and I like to use
the wrist strap for some extra protection.
| | 03:34 | But going ahead and just sort of letting that
extend out there, I can go ahead and use my
| | 03:39 | body for fluid movement, and I really will just
sometimes lean into the shot, pull my body
| | 03:45 | back, and using that more like a fulcrum point.
So instead of doing all this right here, I
| | 03:50 | am literally just moving the body
in and then rocking back for out.
| | 03:54 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely!
| | 03:55 | Rich Harrington: By making that a full
body movement you get better control.
| | 03:59 | So don't feel like, oh, I am just going
to waive this stick around. That's part of
| | 04:02 | it, but use your body, so move the shot, as
you are moving the body side-to-side, this
| | 04:07 | is just going to transfer that
movement and make it that much more stable.
| | 04:11 | Now when we come back, there is one thing I
love about this, and this really ties to my
| | 04:15 | concert photography, but I love the ability
to get the camera high, and hey, a six-foot
| | 04:20 | pole with a camera attached is going to open
up some new shots. So we will be right back
| | 04:24 | and we are going to talk all
about getting a higher angle shot.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring overhead shooting| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So Rich, one benefit that
monopods have is sort of an unexpected one.
| | 00:04 | Obviously they're great for stability, but
when you're in certain shooting situations,
| | 00:08 | like a concert or a crowded event, they can
help you get that camera elevated so you can
| | 00:13 | get key shots that you
might have otherwise missed.
| | 00:15 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, and it's not just the booming
up sort of shots, I also like it for overhead shots.
| | 00:21 | So if I want to get action, for example, I had
some great shots where the kids were playing
| | 00:25 | at the beach, I just want the camera to be
floating above them, and I didn't want to
| | 00:29 | cast a shadow by standing right over them
shooting, so I was able to get the camera higher.
| | 00:33 | So you nailed it, you can do the traditional
sort of--we're going to go right out of the frame
| | 00:38 | here, periscope up, and get really, really high,
or you can go ahead and lean that forward,
| | 00:47 | and again, sort of like, okay, we're fishing
here. We're going to take it and boom up.
| | 00:51 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, that's a very similar
technique to maybe how you would hold a microphone boom.
| | 00:55 | You'd get into the scene, so you're looking
down on something and getting action, yeah.
| | 00:58 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, and that works great,
and really the extra height goes a long way.
| | 01:02 | Now in this case here, one of the features
that will come in handy, some DSLRs will have
| | 01:07 | a reticulating LCD panel,
so you can angle that down.
| | 01:12 | Or maybe you are going to use that external
monitor on a boom arm so you can see what you're
| | 01:16 | shooting, but if you frame the shot up, you
can go ahead and take that up high, start
| | 01:20 | to shoot. Same thing, I am just twisting this
here, but while we were talking earlier, you
| | 01:24 | actually brought up sort of a good thing.
| | 01:26 | Robbie Carman: One of the things you might
have seen like flag bearers, for example,
| | 01:29 | in a parade, they have sort of these--
| | 01:31 | Rich Harrington: Belt pocket right here.
| | 01:32 | Robbie Carman: A belt on, a little pocket on
to hold the flag, so they're not carrying
| | 01:35 | the weight of the flag.
| | 01:36 | Well, you can actually repurpose those for
purposes of using a monopod and it actually
| | 01:40 | adds more stability to the shot, because you're not
holding the full weight of the entire monopod.
| | 01:45 | Instead of doing one of these numbers, you
are just leaning it into this pocket and then you
| | 01:49 | can tilt around and do whatever you want, and
it provides a little extra stability for sure.
| | 01:53 | Rich Harrington: Yeah. So I think
you ought to give this a shot.
| | 01:56 | The monopod is one of those great things.
| | 01:58 | If you find yourself going, oh,
lugging a tripod, I'll just handheld it.
| | 02:02 | I never regret bringing the monopod,
particularly because when I collapse this down, there are
| | 02:07 | really robust ones, and I love the one that
you have there, but this adds about 9 inches,
| | 02:14 | 12 inches into my backpack, not a lot
of weight to carry, very lightweight.
| | 02:18 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and then that's the thing
too is that, you have just like every other
| | 02:21 | piece of gear out there, you have a lot of
options for how you want to spend your dollars
| | 02:26 | on a monopod, and one of the great things
about monopods is they're available in a lot
| | 02:31 | of different styles, different heads, like a
fluid head or a ball head you have right there.
| | 02:36 | You can get them in high-quality carbon fiber.
| | 02:38 | You can get them in more traditional
aluminum casings for the monopod.
| | 02:42 | So they are available for different price
points and different features, and the point
| | 02:46 | is try out a couple, because
some of them might be more useful.
| | 02:49 | For example, I actually find a heavier duty,
sort of heavier monopod to sometimes be more
| | 02:55 | useful than the lightest weight carbon one out
there, because I want a more stable platform
| | 03:00 | without the bulk of a tripod, so a
little heavier is not so bad all the time.
| | 03:05 | Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 03:06 | And push comes to shove, it's a great walking
stick when you're trying to shoot or maybe
| | 03:10 | you just need personal self-defense weapons.
| | 03:11 | Robbie Carman: Right, fending off
grizzly bears and stuff like that, exactly.
| | 03:14 | Rich Harrington: It actually wouldn't be the
first time a photographer had to do that.
| | 03:17 | So take a look at those monopods,
head down your local camera store.
| | 03:21 | Remember, they're not just for photo
shooting--really come in handy for video too.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
23. What Type of Audio Recorder Do I Need?Why use a dedicated audio recorder?| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Hi there! I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:01 | Rich Harrington: And I am Rich Harrington.
| | 00:02 | Robbie Carman: And Rich, this week we want
to talk about what type of audio recorder
| | 00:05 | do you need, and I think that this is something
that generates a lot of buzz in the DSLR community,
| | 00:11 | and that is sort of the idea of recording
dual system sound; shooting video on your DSLR
| | 00:16 | and then recording audio somewhere else,
like a dedicated digital audio recorder.
| | 00:19 | Rich Harrington: And one of the things I want
to say is this is not unique to DSLR. Most
| | 00:23 | RED Camera workflow, same thing.
Feature film, same thing.
| | 00:28 | It really just comes down to the fact that audio
is so much better when you record it separately.
| | 00:34 | Now this really becomes a critical issue, because
audio on a DSLR couldn't suck much more, could it?
| | 00:40 | Robbie Carman: Well, when you factor in that
the microphone is basically three pinheads
| | 00:45 | in a piece of plastic at
the top of the camera.
| | 00:47 | Rich Harrington: Right
where the hand tends to grab.
| | 00:49 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, you're probably not going
to get great results from that, and because
| | 00:52 | of that, people often decide to choose a
separate digital audio recorder to choose from.
| | 00:57 | And this week we're going to sort of cover a
bunch of the issues surrounding how to choose
| | 01:01 | sort of an audio recorder; in terms of what
inputs do I need, what file formats and sample
| | 01:05 | rate, and all that kind of stuff
that we use on a DSLR production.
| | 01:09 | But the point really is a separate digital
audio recorder can really add a lot of benefits
| | 01:13 | and really give you great sounding audio when
you're shooting DSLRs for a particular production.
| | 01:18 | Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 01:19 | What I like to point out is that
it gives you great flexibility.
| | 01:21 | In this case here, I've attached it to a stand.
I can easily position this near my subject,
| | 01:27 | just behind them, run the microphone, cuts
down, gives me more freedom for mobility.
| | 01:32 | I can move the camera and not be tethered
to my subject while getting great audio.
| | 01:36 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely! And then the thing
about these too is that there are just a lot
| | 01:39 | of different form factors, a lot of different
price points, and a lot of different features.
| | 01:43 | From something like this little small zoom
H4n, to more expensive devices from those
| | 01:47 | that you find maybe from sound devices and
other dedicated audio companies, and it just
| | 01:52 | really--you have to choose what matches
your project. You might need some features.
| | 01:55 | You might not need other features.
| | 01:57 | But the point you're making Rich is well-taken,
is that you can get great sounding audio out
| | 02:01 | of a pretty simple and pretty cost-effective
device and that goes a long way to improving
| | 02:06 | your productions, and I think that a dedicated
digital audio recorder is something that every
| | 02:11 | DSLR kit should have.
| | 02:13 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, even if you're just
buying the $100 version of this, $100 on an
| | 02:18 | audio recorder is going to be $500 better than the
audio built into the camera. It just goes a long way.
| | 02:24 | Plus, this is going to free you up for lots of
different options in what type of mics you connect.
| | 02:29 | So when we come back we're going to talk
exactly about that. What are the different ways to
| | 02:33 | bring audio into these devices and really
knowing the type of scenarios you're going
| | 02:38 | to be shooting in will
impact which device you choose.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| What inputs do I need?| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: So Rob, when it comes time
to pick one of these things, unless you are
| | 00:03 | an electrical engineer, the insides don't really
matter. It's the ports. What can you put into
| | 00:10 | it? What are the connection options that
really drive? Which one of these is right for you?
| | 00:14 | Robbie Carman: And Rich, you know, depending on
the actual recorder that you get, you're going
| | 00:17 | to have different options.
| | 00:18 | For example, mid-range recorders like this
one are going to have XLR inputs, which is
| | 00:22 | a professional level connection, a balance
connection that you can plug right in. You
| | 00:26 | might also have quarter-inch, like
you have over there on this one.
| | 00:29 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, on this particular
one or it's sometimes called a Phono Plug,
| | 00:32 | this is a real common type of connection when you're
dealing with house audio at a venue, or maybe
| | 00:37 | weddings and events, so I could just take
that, jacks right in. I can record or I can
| | 00:42 | go right off the other end, if I had to record
sound from say a laptop or some sort of device.
| | 00:46 | So really with just a couple of plugs and
adapters you could plug into just about any
| | 00:51 | connection option out there. XLR though
really does have some benefits, right?
| | 00:54 | Robbie Carmon: Well, absolutely. I mean the
thing about XLR connection is it's a professional
| | 00:58 | level connection.
| | 00:59 | So when you start dealing with professional calibre
microphones, both, you know, sort of dynamic
| | 01:04 | as like this microphone, as well as a
condenser microphone, as well as things like labs and
| | 01:09 | booms and that kind of stuff, you are going
to have typically XLR connections on those
| | 01:13 | microphones, and it's nice so you don't have
to have a range of adapters and things of
| | 01:16 | that nature. Just take the XLR out of the microphone,
plug it right into the digital audio recorder.
| | 01:21 | And the cool thing about this, Rich, is that a
lot of these digital audio recorders actually
| | 01:25 | give you multiple inputs.
| | 01:27 | So you can see on this zoom for example I
have two channels of inputs down here.
| | 01:31 | So I could have one interview on--a person you are
interviewing on channel one, and another person
| | 01:35 | that's speaking in an interview on channel two,
which is nice. So you can keep those separate
| | 01:40 | microphones separate which makes your life
much easier when you get back into post.
| | 01:44 | Rich Harrington: And this particular unit, if
I could borrow it from you for a second, one
| | 01:46 | of the things I really like about this one,
it's got two mics built in, these actually
| | 01:50 | rotate and what a lot of people don't
realize is this is affecting the angle.
| | 01:55 | So you could set it to a really tight pattern
of 90 degrees or up to 120, and that's just
| | 02:00 | the pickup pattern, but you don't hold it
like this to the person. It's actually designed
| | 02:04 | to be a two-way mic, so this one is my mic,
this one is your mic, and you can use this
| | 02:09 | as a backup audio supply.
| | 02:10 | So like putting this right between people
that you're interviewing you can use this
| | 02:14 | as a backup audio source in
addition to lob mic or the mic--
| | 02:18 | Robbie Carman: Absolutely.
| | 02:18 | One of the cool things about this mic as you've
mentioned it's a backup, but also in a pinch,
| | 02:22 | if you don't have a lot of extra gear, mic
cables, and different microphones and that
| | 02:25 | kind of stuff, this is still going to give
you dramatically better audio than you're
| | 02:31 | going to get on the actual camera body itself.
| | 02:34 | And there is even different audio recorders
out there that will even let you record in sort
| | 02:37 | of surround sound, right?
Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 02:38 | Robbie Carman: So instead of having just a
stereo X, Y pattern here, you can also have
| | 02:42 | a surround field which could be
nice for different purposes.
| | 02:45 | Rich Harrington: And one other workflow I
like to recommend that you can actually pull
| | 02:49 | off here, that's kind of easy.
| | 02:51 | If you take the headphone port off of these
devices, you can actually get a splitter.
| | 02:56 | So for example, if you get a multi-jack splitter,
what we did recently on a multi-camera shoot
| | 03:02 | is we had it just tapping out and we were
able to plug in a pair of headphones, because
| | 03:06 | if you can't hear the audio it's really
no good. You're just sort of gambling.
| | 03:10 | Well, I think I'm recording the right thing.
| | 03:12 | The VU meters look like they're moving. This is
going to let you hear things like, is there
| | 03:16 | interference? Did a power cable cross over?
But more importantly we were then able to
| | 03:21 | take that and just run out with mini plugs,
the audio into all of the cameras onset.
| | 03:26 | So for the reference audio, for purposes of
synching a multi-camera interview, we were
| | 03:31 | able to just drive that to a
lot of places all at once.
| | 03:34 | So this really does open up all sorts of options
that are way beyond what the camera could do itself.
| | 03:40 | Robbie Carman: And Rich, there is actually
one more thing that I want to mention about
| | 03:42 | these digital audio recorders.
| | 03:44 | Now it's not a input per se, but you know,
it's a slot on the camera, and that is the
| | 03:49 | actual memory card or the storage medium
that these digital audio recorders record to.
| | 03:54 | Now in the case of this Zoom H4n it's actually
just a little SD card, but different recorders
| | 03:58 | have different options. So you might be able
to find a recorder that has a hard drive-based
| | 04:02 | recording mechanism, even an SSD, which is
even better because you're not having moveable
| | 04:07 | parts in your storage.
| | 04:09 | So that's another thing to sort of look out for
when you're choosing a digital audio recorder
| | 04:12 | and I always am kind of the mindset, go big.
| | 04:16 | So I often get a lot more storage than I need.
| | 04:19 | Rich Harrington: So, you're right. Audio takes up
less space than video, a big card will easily
| | 04:23 | let you go for the whole shoot.
| | 04:24 | Most of these recorders ship
with a pretty small card.
| | 04:28 | Now you can get audio recorders with built-in
flash memory, built-in hard drives, it's really
| | 04:31 | up to you, but just make sure you
get one that works well for you.
| | 04:35 | Most of them these days are SD card-based;
just a little bit cheaper type of media, but
| | 04:40 | you can go with compact flash. Pretty much
anything is out there if you look for it.
| | 04:45 | So when you are picking one of
these, it's really a matter of cost.
| | 04:48 | They start around a $100. They go well up
from there, but there is lots of great options
| | 04:53 | to be had with multiple inputs, the ability to
monitor for just a couple hundred dollars.
| | 04:58 | Now when we came back we're going to talk
about some of the settings and file types
| | 05:02 | you're going to want to look for, because
not all audio recorders are created equal.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| File formats to choose from| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: So Rob, not all audio
recorders are created equal, and I think we've
| | 00:05 | become desensitized as a production
community to good audio, because things like iTunes
| | 00:11 | and AAC audio, AC3, MP3; we've
taken convenience over quality.
| | 00:17 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, that's right.
| | 00:18 | It's not to say that those formats don't sound
pretty good, but there's a lot that goes into
| | 00:24 | good audio and understanding some of the technical
aspects of how a digital audio recorder is pretty important.
| | 00:31 | And so one of the first things that I look
at when choosing a digital audio recorder
| | 00:34 | is what file formats that it can record to,
and the most common ones that you're going
| | 00:38 | to find are AIFF, WAV and then MP3.
| | 00:42 | Now some of the recorders could also do AAC,
but more times than not you're going to find
| | 00:46 | WAV, AIFF, or MP3.
| | 00:49 | Richard Harrington: And there really
is no huge difference in two of those.
| | 00:53 | For example, if you're using AIFF or WAV, it's
really just a matter of the native platform.
| | 00:59 | The AIFF format was more commonly used in a
Macintosh workflow while the WAV was more
| | 01:05 | common in a Windows-based workflow.
| | 01:08 | But these days they're pretty interchangeable,
about the same file size, and it's really
| | 01:13 | just sort of a matter of personal preference.
| | 01:15 | People get hung up on it, but if I see either, I'm
pretty happy with the device for a base audio recorder.
| | 01:22 | But you had a good point, if we're working
with a higher-end audio recorder, the WAV
| | 01:26 | format does have one additional option.
| | 01:28 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and typically this is
going to be found on higher-end recorders,
| | 01:31 | I just want to clear about that, and that's
what's called the Broadcast WAV format, and
| | 01:35 | a Broadcast WAV can
actually carry timecode with it.
| | 01:38 | Now the only thing that this is cool for is
that if all your other devices are carrying
| | 01:42 | timecode, just keep in mind that most
DSLRs don't have true SMPTE timecode.
| | 01:47 | Richard Harrington: Although
we're starting to see them come out.
| | 01:49 | So timecode, you don't need timecode.
| | 01:51 | No, timecode is incredibly useful, especially
when you have multiple cameras and you want
| | 01:56 | to sync them up. There are great tools out
there. We will explore things like PluralEyes
| | 02:00 | on a future episode.
| | 02:01 | But timecode is truly useful and it is sort
of a universal counting number, so you can have
| | 02:06 | very specific notes to exchange with other people;
well, about halfway through the clip when Bob says.
| | 02:12 | Robbie Carman: Right, sure, timecode
is very useful for that, absolutely.
| | 02:15 | Now Rich, there are two other things that
I look at on a digital audio recorder
| | 02:19 | when I'm trying to make a decision about which
one I want to use; are what the maximum sample
| | 02:23 | rate and bit depth of the
digital audio recorder has.
| | 02:27 | And what I mean by that is that you see numbers like
44.1, 48 kHz, 96 kHz, and this is the sample rate.
| | 02:35 | As a rule of thumb, the bigger that number,
the higher the number, the higher sampling
| | 02:39 | rate is going to give you
overall better audio fidelity.
| | 02:42 | Now just to be clear though, there's limits to
that. I won't go into all the geeky stuff on you.
| | 02:47 | Richard Harrington: Well, it's kind of like the
Best Buy theorem here, right? In the simplest
| | 02:51 | sense, and what I consider the Best Buy theorem is,
if it's got a bigger number, it's obviously better.
| | 02:56 | And this does actually hold up here, right?
| | 02:58 | Robbie Carman: It does.
| | 02:58 | I think as sort of a baseline level, you
should be looking at a recorder that can record at
| | 03:02 | least 48 kHz as its sample rate.
Even better if it can do 96 kHz.
| | 03:08 | Now if you really want to spend a lot of money,
you can find a digital audio recorder that
| | 03:11 | can do 192 kHz, but for a lot of
productions that might be overkill.
| | 03:16 | Richard Harrington: And keep in mind, if you're
going to go with those higher sampling rates,
| | 03:19 | you might need better
microphones and better audio workflow.
| | 03:23 | If you're shooting this and monitoring and
doing all these steps yourself, don't think
| | 03:28 | that extra audio number, that extra quality
is going to go anywhere, you're just going
| | 03:31 | to want to probably stick with 48 kHz.
| | 03:33 | But you can go with 96 if it's an
option. It's usually built into the menu.
| | 03:37 | Again, anything over than that, you really
should be looking at a dedicated audio engineer,
| | 03:42 | with some really high quality microphones
and audio monitoring devices to actually hear
| | 03:46 | what's happening.
| | 03:47 | Robbie Carman: And the last thing to look
at when choosing a digital audio recorder
| | 03:49 | is the sample size. So we talked about sort
of the sample rate; 44.1, 48, 96--
| | 03:54 | Richard Harrington: How many thousands of time
per second it's going to be sampling the audio.
| | 03:57 | Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 03:58 | And then sort of the related concept is sort
of the bit depth, and a good way to think
| | 04:02 | about this is sort of the quality or sort
of the gradation between frequencies that
| | 04:06 | are being recorded.
| | 04:07 | So you've seen numbers like 16-bit or 24-bit,
and this is definitely a case where getting
| | 04:13 | a higher bit rate is definitely going to be a
better thing, especially if you're recording
| | 04:17 | things that are very nuanced, like an orchestra, for
example, or somebody who has a very interesting voice.
| | 04:23 | But at a minimum, you want to try to find a
recorder that can at least record 16-bit,
| | 04:28 | with an option of 24-bit is a good
one to have if it's there as well.
| | 04:31 | Richard Harrington: So to break this down for
those of you with a photography background,
| | 04:35 | it's very much like samples per inch
or pixels per inch and bit depth.
| | 04:41 | So a higher PPI, the fact that you have more
pixels packed in an inch is really the sample
| | 04:46 | rate; how much information is being gathered.
| | 04:49 | Then the bit depth, 8 bits per channel, 16
bits per channel, is the same thing as the
| | 04:53 | bit depth in the audio; how much information is
used to be describing the captured information.
| | 04:59 | So bigger numbers really do come in handy
and they're going to give you more accuracy.
| | 05:04 | Of course if you just want to take all this
hard work and throw it out the window, set
| | 05:08 | your device to record as?
Robbie Carman: MP3.
| | 05:10 | Richard Harrington: Yeah,
don't use the MP3 setting.
| | 05:13 | You need to be really
desperate to take advantage of MP3.
| | 05:15 | Robbie Carman: Yeah. I mean, the thing about you're
starting with--it's always good to start with a unfeathered
| | 05:19 | or sort of uncompressed audio file.
| | 05:22 | When you start with MP3 as a source, when you
get later on down the road into postproduction,
| | 05:26 | it can have workflow ramifications,
but also overall quality ramifications.
| | 05:31 | It's going to be more difficult to sort of
get the most out of that audio when it's an
| | 05:35 | MP3 versus an uncompressed format,
like an AIFF or a WAV file.
| | 05:39 | Richard Harrington: All right, hope
you enjoyed this week's episode.
| | 05:42 | On an upcoming episode we are going to explore
the specific settings and things like adjusting
| | 05:47 | levels with your device.
| | 05:49 | So there's more to audio recorders, but now
that you know what features to look for, consider
| | 05:53 | picking one up soon so you're ready to dig
deeper into professional audio workflow as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
24. How Do I Use a Dedicated Audio Recorder?Setting levels| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi, my name is Rich Harrington.
Robbie Carman: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:02 | Rich: And today we're talking all about
getting your audio recorders set up properly.
| | 00:06 | Now Rob, I'm going to defer to you, you
do a lot more with audio than I do. I am kind
| | 00:11 | of the set it forget it kind of guy, but
we've got the mic hooked up, we've got a dedicated
| | 00:16 | external recorder, in this case the Zoom H4n,
how do I know what are my proper levels?
| | 00:22 | Robbie: Well, Rich, this is sort
of loaded question, right?
| | 00:25 | The first thing that you need to know about
recording audio is that on a digital audio
| | 00:29 | scale which uses a scale of dBFS, Decibels
Relative to Full Scale, 0 is a bad, bad, bad thing, right?
| | 00:38 | Anytime that your meter is going to hit 0,
distortion is possible and actually probable, right?
| | 00:43 | So you want to try to avoid hitting 0 on a
digital audio scale as much as you can, because
| | 00:49 | the second it does that you
potentially destroy your audio.
| | 00:51 | Rich: But they always say take it to 11.
That's analog that, right?
| | 00:55 | Robbie: That works in spinal
tap, but not so much in--
| | 00:57 | Rich: Not so much in the DSLR world.
Robbie: No, not so much in the DSLR world.
| | 01:00 | So a good rule of thumb is that you want to try to
find out what your average levels are going to be.
| | 01:06 | Now, when you talk to people who work in
broadcast a lot, they'll tell you, hey, average levels
| | 01:10 | should be around should be -20 dBFS, you talk to
people who do corporate video they say -12dbfs.
| | 01:15 | Rich: And if you're dealing with an
audio engineer mixing a CD for a car--
| | 01:20 | Robbie: It's maybe like -1.
| | 01:21 | Rich: Yeah, because they take
it all the way up to the top.
| | 01:24 | But so it kind of get tricky. It also really
depends on how much variation you're going to have.
| | 01:29 | One of the things that I have noticed is that
if I'm recording music where there is a constant
| | 01:35 | variety and fluctuation, it
tends to not have as much variation.
| | 01:38 | If I'm recording a single person talking,
it's going to go up and down, they get excited,
| | 01:43 | they get passionate, it gets tough and so in
many cases I find myself having to actually
| | 01:48 | live monitor and make
adjustments while recording.
| | 01:51 | Robbie: Well, that's a very good to do, obviously.
You always want to be listening to your audio,
| | 01:55 | and we'll talk about that in just another
episode shortly, but the one thing that I
| | 01:58 | find that myself doing all the time is give
yourself what we refer to as headroom, right?
| | 02:04 | It's always easier to bring up the level in
post-production than it is to bring down distorted audio, right?
| | 02:11 | So if you're sort of in between setting your levels, always
opt to go a little lower rather than a little higher.
| | 02:17 | And again, what I typically do when
setting up an interview, for example, is I'll have
| | 02:22 | the persons say, hey you know, talk normally
and I'll sort of figure out where the level
| | 02:26 | is on my audio recorder.
| | 02:27 | Rich: And what I do in that case is I don't
say, oh, can you give me a mic check, 1-2?
| | 02:31 | Yeah, that's not normal.
| | 02:32 | I say things like, hey, we just want to get
our gear calibrated, can you tell me about
| | 02:37 | your drive over today, what
did you see, what was it like?
| | 02:40 | Tell me just a short story, you know? Anything funny
happen on the way into the office, and we'll talk.
| | 02:44 | Robbie: Yeah, and the nice thing about that is
that when somebody is telling a story or something
| | 02:48 | that they're just sort of, you know, rattling off the cuff,
they'll also have more dynamic range in their voice.
| | 02:53 | You know, so for example, I'm very loud person--well,
when I get really excited, I get really loud, right?
| | 02:58 | And so the one thing you want to make sure
when you're setting levels is that you have
| | 03:01 | sort of that average level, but as well as
you're accounting for sort of the peak levels.
| | 03:05 | Now some digital audio recorders
are going to give you a helping hand.
| | 03:09 | They'll have compression or limiters built
in and these are just ways of sort of bringing
| | 03:13 | down levels that get too hot,
but don't depend on those.
| | 03:17 | It's always still a good idea to
sort of manually set their levels.
| | 03:20 | So Rich, let's take a quick look at how to
manually set a level on for example this Zoom H4n.
| | 03:25 | So I'm just going to ask you to talk.
| | 03:27 | Rich: Okay, so I'm just talking into the
microphone here, and this is about my volume and typically
| | 03:31 | this is where I'll talk while
delivering my standard narration.
| | 03:35 | Robbie: Right, so you can see I'm right there between
about, I don't know, about -12, maybe about -13, -14.
| | 03:40 | I actually think that's a pretty good level.
| | 03:42 | Rich: Yeah, you're part of a broadcast guy so
that you're comfortable around -16, right?
| | 03:46 | Robbie: Yeah, that's always fun.
| | 03:47 | But if I wanted to go and turn this up,
different digital audio recorders are going to have
| | 03:51 | different ways of doing this, but on this
Zoom H4n, guess what? It's just a little plus
| | 03:55 | and minus button right here on
the side of the actual recorder.
| | 03:58 | Rich: So I'll just give you a fresh level, and
it should be reading a little bit higher now
| | 04:02 | as I talk, and this my voice and this is me talking.
| | 04:04 | Robbie: And we'll go up higher even
a little bit more, go try that.
| | 04:07 | Rich: And it's giving you feedback here, and you get a
number to show the change and it definitely works.
| | 04:11 | Now one of the gotchas that drives people
nuts is if we didn't have this record button
| | 04:15 | lit, you know, now it's actually recording.
| | 04:17 | But if I hit Stop and I don't have the record
button lit, you might not actually see like,
| | 04:24 | wait, the view meters, they're not moving.
| | 04:26 | You're going to panic, like wait, and you start
playing with all the settings.
| | 04:29 | Robbie: Totally true.
| | 04:30 | Rich: Yeah, it practically happened. I was like,
why is the meter? Oh yeah, tap the record button once.
| | 04:36 | Blinking means that you're in monitoring mode.
| | 04:40 | Solid means you're recording, and I can't tell
you how many times--never on my shoots of course.
| | 04:45 | Robbie: Of course not, no.
| | 04:46 | Rich: Now never on mine, but how many times I
have heard of other people thinking they're
| | 04:50 | recording when they're not recording.
| | 04:52 | If you don't actually hit that button and it
goes solid and the numbers aren't spinning,
| | 04:57 | you're not recording.
Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 04:59 | And there's two additional things to check
in this sort of this level setting process,
| | 05:03 | especially if you're recording multiple
people or multiple audio sources, you want to sort
| | 05:08 | make sure that you can independently
get those different audio sources.
| | 05:12 | So for example, with Rich and I up here
talking, before we actually started recording this
| | 05:16 | movie, we were testing my microphone and then
Rich's microphone and getting those separate
| | 05:21 | levels together and then we're both talking
at the same time, because you know, sometimes
| | 05:24 | we talk over each other and
seeing where that level is going.
| | 05:27 | The other thing that's always good to do,
Rich, when you're setting your levels is to make
| | 05:30 | sure that your channel assignments are correct.
| | 05:33 | And what I mean by that is that, hey,
microphone 1 is going to input 1, microphone 2 is going
| | 05:39 | to input 2 and so on and so forth, because
it can be a little bit of a pain when you
| | 05:42 | get to post-production to sort of have to figure out who
is on what channel and what audio source is going where.
| | 05:47 | So it's just, you know, sort of check that as
you're going through the process of setting your levels.
| | 05:52 | Rich: And it's not check that, it's write it
down and put in the notes that you bring back
| | 05:56 | from the field into post-production.
| | 05:58 | So, hopefully that made
sense on how to set the levels.
| | 06:01 | When we come back, we're going to talk about
some of the other options, such as monitoring,
| | 06:05 | to make sure you actually
hear what it is you're getting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Monitoring sound| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Well, in our last movie we talked all about
looking at the VU meters, setting your levels visually.
| | 00:06 | Of course, looking at them and seeing them
from a visual point of view still doesn't
| | 00:11 | really matter. It's how they sound, right?
| | 00:13 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, I got to be honest with you, Rich,
I've seen more productions literally ruined
| | 00:18 | because nobody was actually
monitoring the audio on-set.
| | 00:21 | And they said, oh you know, the levels look
fine, but then when they got back to their
| | 00:26 | studio and started post-production, there
was things like power line hum or AC noise,
| | 00:32 | or worse yet, audio that's over-modulated
and distorted and things of that nature.
| | 00:36 | Rich: I got even simpler than that.
| | 00:37 | I was on a shoot and I had two crew
people and I turned to both of them.
| | 00:42 | I was directing, not shooting, I
said, are we getting good sound?
| | 00:45 | Robbie: Right.
| | 00:46 | Rich: And he had headphones plugged in and then
one guy was listening to what was going into
| | 00:50 | the mixer, he is like, sounds great!
| | 00:52 | And the camera operator said I got good
levels, he was just looking at what was bouncing.
| | 00:57 | Well, they had things patched incorrectly,
while he had the cable going into the back
| | 01:02 | of the camera, he had the
camera set to shotgun mic.
| | 01:05 | So all that audio, the boom mic, the lav,
none of it was getting picked up by the camera,
| | 01:09 | instead it was like--sounded like
we were in a tin can from far away.
| | 01:14 | It was so bad that we had to go back and re-
shoot the whole production, and can I just tell you,
| | 01:19 | that was 3 years ago, I have
not hired that crew person ever again.
| | 01:23 | Robbie: And you're obviously still mad about it.
Rich: I am still mad about it.
| | 01:25 | Robbie: I get it.
| | 01:26 | Well, this brings up an interesting point,
Rich. On a lot of DSLRs, you're not going to
| | 01:30 | have a dedicated headphone output.
| | 01:32 | So you're not going to be actually
listening to what's going to the camera itself.
| | 01:37 | And then when you factor in that a lot of
productions are using a dedicated digital
| | 01:40 | audio recorder, all you're really doing on
most DSLRs in a dual system shoot will be
| | 01:44 | monitoring reference audio, which don't get
me wrong, is still really important to monitor.
| | 01:49 | So a better option when you use a digital
audio recorder is to monitor directly from
| | 01:54 | the recorder itself.
Now, how do you do this?
| | 01:56 | You don't just stick your
ear up to it and try to listen.
| | 01:58 | Rich: So you take your iPod
headphones out of your pocket.
| | 02:01 | Robbie: No, we don't do that Rich.
| | 02:03 | What we do is we invest in a
good set of high-quality headphones.
| | 02:07 | Now when you choose headphones,
you have a couple of options.
| | 02:10 | You can get ones like this that are over
the ear that fit right over, and they provide
| | 02:14 | a nice amount of sort of noise cancellation or
sort of at least isolation from the rest of the set.
| | 02:21 | You can also find headphones kind of similar
to your iPod or iPhone ones that go actually
| | 02:26 | in your ear canal, and what those do is they
really isolate and really block out the environment.
| | 02:31 | The point is when you're monitoring, you need
to have a good way of doing that by isolating
| | 02:36 | yourself from the other noises
that are going around on set.
| | 02:39 | So even if that means backing away from the
camera and the rest of the crew for a little
| | 02:43 | bit so you can actually hear what's going on.
| | 02:45 | Rich: Now, how do you feel about the true noise
canceling headphones, like the ones you might
| | 02:49 | wear on an airplane?
| | 02:51 | Robbie: I have mixed feelings about them. I think
in certain situations, for example, like a concert
| | 02:56 | or something like that where somebody right next
to you is screaming I love you to the lead singer.
| | 03:02 | Rich: I get that when I walk down the street.
| | 03:03 | Robbie: Right, well yeah, they
might be a good choice there.
| | 03:06 | But a lot of times they are potentially
masking true audio problems, right?
| | 03:12 | HVAC noise in a room or something like that.
| | 03:15 | So I tend to find that I like headphones
that are giving me a truer representation of the
| | 03:20 | sound without doing any cancellation, but
again, it's one of those things that you sort
| | 03:24 | of have to test on your own.
| | 03:26 | Now the only other thing about this, again, is just
how do you get the headphones to the audio source?
| | 03:32 | Well, that's easy, Rich. Simply come over to
the actual digital audio recorder and plug in.
| | 03:36 | Rich: Now with this a lot of times you'll
find a volume meter for the headphone jack, and
| | 03:42 | it gets kind of tricky, like I've seen people go,
oh, it sounds too low and they start cranking
| | 03:47 | the levels up, not realizing
that the volume was set to like 3.
| | 03:50 | Robbie: That is a fantastic point.
| | 03:52 | On most digital audio recorders, you're
going to find separate input level controls and
| | 03:57 | then headphone or sort of monitoring controls.
| | 04:00 | And it's really a good idea to make sure
you're pushing the correct button for either inputs
| | 04:05 | or for your headphones because that exact
problem that you just described can happen
| | 04:09 | and next thing, you know, oh, the audio
sounds low, so you click one button and the next
| | 04:13 | thing all of your audio is
over-modulated and distorted.
| | 04:15 | Rich: Yeah, I tend to set my output volume in
the middle or around if it's a 10-point scale,
| | 04:21 | 6 or 7, so I'm not blasting it.
Robbie: Right.
| | 04:24 | Rich: At the same time I
want to actually hear that.
| | 04:27 | And a lot of times if you got it set really
low, you might start adjusting the volume,
| | 04:31 | inadvertently changing the
quality of audio recording.
| | 04:34 | So pretty straightforward stuff,
invest in a pair of real monitors.
| | 04:37 | These are going to be anywhere from
$80 up to several hundred dollars.
| | 04:41 | Robbie: Yeah, absolutely.
| | 04:42 | Rich: It just really
depends on the quality you want.
| | 04:44 | But something better than your typical music
headphones or phone headphones just aren't going to cut it.
| | 04:51 | If your camera does have a headphone jack,
the big thing to be careful of is that usually
| | 04:56 | it will only send out audio when you're
playing back the clip, not while you're recording.
| | 05:02 | And if you don't monitor while you record,
you don't know if you miss something.
| | 05:05 | Robbie: Yeah, and the thing about recording
audio--and I say this to a lot of people who ask
| | 05:10 | audio questions related to DSLR cameras--is
that when you're monitoring audio--I'm not
| | 05:15 | kidding, this is probably the biggest thing that
can you know sort of crash and burn a production.
| | 05:20 | So when listening to audio, make sure that
the person who is monitoring audio is empowered
| | 05:24 | to say everybody, let's stop.
There is an audio problem, right?
| | 05:28 | Because if they don't, it can be very
difficult to fix later on in post-production.
| | 05:32 | Rich: Now to that end, I generally go and have
a conversation with my audio person before
| | 05:37 | the shoot and I say don't interrupt me for
every single thing like the rumble of a truck
| | 05:43 | going behind or if somebody coughed in
the background. I'll usually hear that.
| | 05:48 | But when we get to the end of a take like
a question or a scene take, let me know if
| | 05:53 | you really think we need to do that one again.
A lot of times it's a passing issue.
| | 05:57 | Now if it's a constant issue like a big hum
or a buzz and the whole take is a waste, then
| | 06:02 | do politely interrupt me and just say I'm
having a small issue here we need to address.
| | 06:08 | Be careful not to point the blame and be
careful how you bring it up on set, because if you're
| | 06:12 | working with amateur talent, you
can make them feel uncomfortable.
| | 06:15 | Now there's one more thing here to talk about,
which is we've got all of these different
| | 06:19 | devices, we got the camera, we got the audio
recorder, we got the microphones, we got to
| | 06:23 | sync all of these up.
| | 06:24 | Robbie: That's right. Yeah, this idea of sort
of putting in your video that you record on
| | 06:28 | your DSLR right here and then the audio
that you record on your digital audio recorder
| | 06:32 | and putting it together.
| | 06:33 | And of course that's done mainly in post-
production, but in the next episode we'll talk about
| | 06:38 | a tool and a technique that you can use
while on set to make your life of syncing these
| | 06:43 | separate files up together
in post, much, much easier.
| | 06:45 | Rich: Alright, so come right back, and we'll
talk all about sync sound workflow for the field.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Slating takes| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So Rich, we've talked a little bit
about audio, but one of the big things that you
| | 00:04 | can do to really help yourself later on in
post-production is slating both the video
| | 00:09 | and your audio while recording.
| | 00:11 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, and that's something I think a lot
of people miss is they'll use the visual slate,
| | 00:16 | which is great, it helps out a lot because
then you've got that as you're scrubbing through
| | 00:20 | your clips, you can see it, you go over the
thumbnails, particularly things like hover scrub or skimming.
| | 00:25 | Robbie: Yup.
Rich: Makes it really easy to see that information.
| | 00:28 | But they forget to do an audio slate, so all
they have is the time of day that things were
| | 00:33 | recorded, which brings up a good point.
| | 00:35 | You may want to set the clock on your
digital audio recorder, because that will help.
| | 00:39 | Robbie: As well as your camera,
you can do the same thing.
| | 00:41 | Rich: Yeah.
Robbie: So what do we mean by a slate?
| | 00:43 | Well, this is a slate. Maybe you've
seen one of these guys before, right?
| | 00:45 | And a slate allows you to fill in
information about a scene, a take, a location, and so on
| | 00:51 | and so forth, but I am sure you've seen
this little guy at the top, a clapper.
| | 00:55 | So as Rich mentioned, one reason to use a
slate is for information, but the other way
| | 00:59 | to use a clapper is for an actual sync point.
| | 01:03 | And that is a point that you can sync up in
post-production between your video and your
| | 01:07 | DSLR and then your audio on
your digital audio recorder.
| | 01:09 | So, the way that this works is you simply
hold up this slate in front of your camera
| | 01:13 | or multiple cameras, and if you're using multiple
cameras make sure all of the cameras can see this slate.
| | 01:18 | And then what you do, say I'm ready to go
and then we go take and clap that clapper
| | 01:23 | down, and you heard that loud boom?
| | 01:25 | What that's going to allow you to do later
in post-production is use that audio slap of
| | 01:30 | the slapper right here to
sync up your video and audio.
| | 01:32 | Rich: If you clap that in my ear again.
Robbie: Okay, I am sorry.
| | 01:35 | Now just to be clear, too, Rich,
you don't have to use a slate.
| | 01:37 | Rich: Yeah.
| | 01:38 | Robbie: Now, if you don't really have access
to a slate or which we're just going to show
| | 01:41 | you in just a second, in iPad app
you can use these two things, right?
| | 01:46 | You could always put your hands in front of
the camera and just clap just like that and
| | 01:50 | that's going to serve the same general
purpose as a sync point later on in post-production.
| | 01:54 | Rich: Yeah, and what I have here is
DSLR slate, pretty straightforward.
| | 01:58 | It's got all of the relative information on it,
I can load in information about the lenses,
| | 02:02 | the shoot, the crew and when I go ahead
and I just open that slate up what you'll see
| | 02:07 | here is it puts most of
that information right there.
| | 02:11 | And I'll just make sure that the volume is
up on this here so we can hear it, but we
| | 02:15 | load in that detail and then we just go
ahead and I can hit Start, it will cycle through
| | 02:20 | all of that info and makes a visible pop.
| | 02:23 | Now when you notice that cycling through, it
was flashing all of that relevant metadata.
| | 02:30 | The benefit of that is that the editor could
find out things like what was the date that
| | 02:34 | this was shot, what was the time of day.
| | 02:37 | And the cool thing is about something like
the iPad where they make this for phones too
| | 02:40 | and android phones as well, their versions
is that you have a satellite clock on you,
| | 02:45 | so you actually know the location for the shot
from the GPS and you know the exact time of day.
| | 02:50 | Of course, just running those slates
doesn't really hit the information.
| | 02:55 | So what's important is that when you're
holding that slate up, you would do things like say,
| | 03:00 | this is scene four, take two, marker.
| | 03:04 | That way when you're looking at the
material in your non-linear editing tool and you're
| | 03:08 | skimming through a bunch of files with
nonsense names, you can go, oh, that's the right one
| | 03:13 | and that goes with this
video file and you join them up.
| | 03:15 | Robbie: So you don't do it like I do
where I just say ready to go, slap.
| | 03:18 | Yeah, exactly, It helps as Rich said, it helps
to not only sort of show what's on the slate,
| | 03:24 | but also to reiterate in voice what's
going on the scene, the shot take, the location
| | 03:29 | and that kind of stuff.
| | 03:30 | Rich: Yeah, so these are all useful things to
do that's going to dramatically speed things
| | 03:34 | up when you get to post.
| | 03:37 | Now, in some upcoming episodes we're going
to take a look at a whole bunch of different
| | 03:40 | ways to put this together.
| | 03:41 | We've got dedicated software like PluralEyes
that's going to automate this process as well
| | 03:46 | as individual workflows for popular editing
tools like Final Cut Pro X and Premiere Pro.
| | 03:51 | So we'll explore all of those, but for now
you've got all the essentials you need to
| | 03:55 | go out there and record proper audio, get
some practice, get some sync sound recorded,
| | 04:00 | and on an upcoming episode we'll show
you how to put all the pieces together.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
25. How Can I Record Sync Sound with My iPhone?Apps you can use to record sync sound| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: Hi, My name is Richard Harrington.
Robbie Carman: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:02 | Rich: Now Rob, whenever I go out and I speak
at a conference, or I am out shooting in the
| | 00:06 | field, everyone always seems obsessed on how
do I get my tablet or my smartphone to work?
| | 00:12 | People are like, can I use my
iPad as a monitor? No, not really.
| | 00:16 | Can I use it do this?
No, not really.
| | 00:18 | But there is a wealth of all sorts of
apps that help out with things like audio.
| | 00:22 | Robbie: Well, yeah, you know something like
an iPhone for example is guess what, a
| | 00:26 | dedicated digital audio recorder.
| | 00:28 | Rich: You mean it's designed to
have sound go in and out of it already?
| | 00:32 | Robbie: That's right Rich.
| | 00:33 | And you know, thanks to all of the
wonderful app developers out there, not just for iOS
| | 00:38 | but for Android and other applications where
you can use a mobile device like a phone or
| | 00:42 | a tablet as a dedicated digital audio recorder.
| | 00:45 | Now just to be clear, it's probably not recommended,
just sort of if you haven't tested it out and you just go.
| | 00:51 | I am going to bring up my phone, and
this is a really important production.
| | 00:53 | But in a pinch, and especially if you're
not at a point where you're ready to invest in
| | 00:57 | a dedicated digital audio recorder, we can
absolutely use handheld devices like an iPhone
| | 01:02 | for example as a digital audio recorder.
| | 01:04 | Rich: Yeah, one of the things I like is
I'll use a microphone app from Blue Microphone
| | 01:08 | and they have their own app and they have
a thing called the Mikey that plugs right
| | 01:12 | into the iPod Connector Dock, at least the old
iPod Connector Dock before they keep changing it.
| | 01:17 | And this is actually a cool
mic that works as a good pinch.
| | 01:20 | So I need to do an audio interview, I could
slip that right in someone's pocket off camera
| | 01:25 | or have them hold it like it was a stick
microphone and use that as an audio recorder and just
| | 01:29 | put it so it's just out of the camera
frame and it works like a stick mic.
| | 01:33 | And that's really cool, pretty
straightforward, I like that.
| | 01:36 | But one of my favorite ones I've come across
recently is called Pro Audio To Go, and it
| | 01:41 | actually converts it and it was originally
designed for I believe CNN.
| | 01:44 | Robbie: Okay.
| | 01:45 | Rich: Diana Weynand, who is a very well known
Final Cut trainer--actually a trainer at Lynda.com
| | 01:50 | herself--worked on this app and its design
to give you professional uncompressed audio
| | 01:56 | recording right inside the app.
| | 01:58 | So, a lot of options here, we have the ability
to name our files and record, we can actually
| | 02:03 | have presets for equalization so we can
define, boost the midtones or the high range, you
| | 02:08 | can make your own presets, which is kind of
cool, and the ability to actually FTP those
| | 02:13 | files in, so you can get them right off the
device and even send them in remotely from the field.
| | 02:17 | Robbie: That's awesome.
| | 02:18 | Rich: So it's really pretty robust, because
let's face it, I've got my own digital audio
| | 02:24 | recorder, I love it, dedicated battery life,
it works great except when you forget to charge
| | 02:29 | the batteries or you
leave it at your hotel room.
| | 02:32 | Robbie: Exactly, better yet, most people
have their phones on them at all times,
| | 02:36 | and so in a pinch that's going
to be a perfect way to record audio.
| | 02:38 | Rich: Yeah, so it's going to come in handy,
but it's not just getting the app, there is
| | 02:42 | a couple of things you need to do to
make your phone ready out of the gate.
| | 02:45 | Chances are your phone isn't set up for professional
audio input, so when we come back, we're going
| | 02:50 | to talk about a very useful
cable you're going to want to pick up.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adapter cables| 00:00 | Richard Harrington: A lot of times you're going to
want to get information into your phone, and you
| | 00:03 | really have two ways to go about it.
| | 00:05 | Typically, at the bottom of the phone is
some sort of data port, maybe an iPod connector,
| | 00:11 | the new lightning connector, or a USB port.
Robbie Carman: Right.
| | 00:14 | Rich: And this works pretty well, there
are USB adapters that allow you to plug in USB
| | 00:18 | microphones into many tablets or other devices.
| | 00:21 | Robbie: Absolutely, and then the other way,
of course, would be to use the headphone jack
| | 00:24 | at the top of the actual device itself.
| | 00:27 | And most devices is not just for
headphones, it's also an input jack as well.
| | 00:32 | So Rich, on this particular device we have
a cable that has an 1/8 jack connected to
| | 00:37 | the phone itself, and then on the other end
you'll see it's kind of like a wire right here.
| | 00:41 | Right, here I have a headphone jack that I can
actually monitor the audio that I am recording
| | 00:45 | on the phone, and then on this end right
here I have an XLR connection that allows me to
| | 00:49 | connect to a professional-level mic.
| | 00:50 | Rich: Yeah, so we'll go ahead and make those
connections, which is great, and we can plug
| | 00:54 | that in, and it is very important that you
actually do monitor the headphones, because
| | 00:58 | without that, you don't
know what you're getting.
| | 01:00 | Robbie: And plus, I look
really good in headphones.
| | 01:02 | Rich: Oh, absolutely.
You're rocking the '70s style.
| | 01:04 | Now the thing is that you need to realize
about this is that there's different types
| | 01:08 | of cables, both manufacturers out there and
some that are line level and some that are
| | 01:13 | mic level, and that's really a
choice when you buy the cable.
| | 01:16 | So how do I know if I need
my line level or mic level?
| | 01:19 | Robbie: That's a great question, Rich, and it
really kind of depends on what your audio source is.
| | 01:23 | Rich: You mean I have to think before I record?
| | 01:25 | Robbie: Or at least ask a couple of questions.
Rich: Okay.
| | 01:27 | Robbie: So for example, if you're maybe at
a concert and you're recording audio coming
| | 01:30 | off a mixing board, typically
that's going to be line level, right?
| | 01:34 | If you plug in a microphone, guess
what, it's going to be mic level.
| | 01:37 | Rich: Unless of course it
might be a powered microphone.
| | 01:39 | Robbie: That's true.
| | 01:40 | Rich: And some mics have a choice. Really,
the solution here is buy both the line level
| | 01:45 | cable and the mic level cable and label your
cables because they look identical, because
| | 01:49 | I forgot to label mine and I still have to
go back and figure out which one is which.
| | 01:54 | I know I have them both in my bag, and
if one seems a little hot, I swap it out.
| | 01:58 | But when you have those cables connected,
that will allow you to actually go in, make
| | 02:02 | sure you're recording, hit the
record button, and you've got it.
| | 02:06 | And it's going in, you know the microphone
is actually feeding into this and this allows
| | 02:10 | us to get real levels.
| | 02:11 | Now in this here, I could see
the VU meter actually moving.
| | 02:15 | It looks like I've plugged in the line
level cable, which is indicated by the fact that
| | 02:19 | the mic is not getting as loud as it should.
| | 02:21 | But we can go ahead and either tweak that by
using the mixer or switching out the cables,
| | 02:26 | but you do get real VU meters and when
you're done, you end up with an actual audio file
| | 02:30 | that you could then pull off.
Robbie: Yeah absolutely.
| | 02:32 | And I just got to say, this is one of the
things, when you showed me this for the first
| | 02:36 | time I was just kind of blown away.
I mean, because think about it like this.
| | 02:39 | You have your phone on you all the time and
instead of lugging around another piece of
| | 02:43 | gear or something like that with a simple
and cheap--relatively cheap investment--and
| | 02:47 | a couple of different cables, you have essentially
a digital audio recorder in your pocket ready
| | 02:52 | to go for your next DSLR production.
| | 02:54 | Rich: And if you need an excuse to upgrade
your phone because maybe you weren't eligible,
| | 02:59 | but you know you did have that ability because
you were going to buy an audio recorder anyways,
| | 03:03 | hey look, it's an audio
recorder that has other purposes.
| | 03:06 | But even still, it works great.
| | 03:09 | This is going to allow you
that backup sense for recording.
| | 03:11 | Just make sure you pick up the two cables, both the mic
level and the line level so you have that flexibility.
| | 03:17 | Now on future episodes we're going to show you
how to put all of these pieces together in post.
| | 03:20 | But now that you know how to record proper audio and you've
got a backup plan, get out there and start shooting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
26. Why Does My Exposure Change with a Zoom Lens?Why does my exposure change with a zoom lens?| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Hi there, I am Robbie Carman.
Rich Harrington: And I am Richard Harrington.
| | 00:02 | Robbie: And Rich, this week we are going to
talk about something that we get asked about
| | 00:06 | a lot and that is, why when I zoom in on something
does my exposure seem to change?
| | 00:12 | Rich: Gremlins.
| | 00:13 | Robbie: Yeah, that must be what it is,
must be what it is, bring the camera back.
| | 00:16 | Rich: Yeah, actually people have returned
their cameras over this, like it doesn't work,
| | 00:20 | I zoom in and the shot changes.
| | 00:22 | Remember, when we are shooting video, we are
typically shooting manually, and we are balancing
| | 00:27 | out that exposure triangle,
which we have talked about before.
| | 00:30 | I am going to review here in just a second,
but what can happen is, is as you zoom the
| | 00:34 | lens to change your composition, you can
visibly notice the shot getting lighter or darker.
| | 00:39 | Robbie: Yeah, that's right, and that's
because not all lenses are created equal.
| | 00:43 | Typically, when you buy a very expensive lens,
like a prime lens or a high-end zoom, you
| | 00:48 | are going to have a continuous aperture
or f-stop through the entire zoom range.
| | 00:53 | However, a lot of the kit lenses that you
get that come with these cameras, the reason
| | 00:57 | that they are relatively cheap is because
it's less expensive to make a lens that has
| | 01:02 | a variable f-stop or a variable
exposure throughout that zoom range.
| | 01:07 | So as you zoom in, typically,
you are going to get darker.
| | 01:09 | Rich: So, now that you understand the
root of the problem, when we come back, we are
| | 01:13 | going to talk all about understanding f-stop
and making sure you know what type of lens
| | 01:17 | you're using, so you can avoid this problem.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| F-Stop reviewed| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: One of the most important numbers when
it comes to really getting to know your gear
| | 00:04 | is the f-stop number, and you could
typically find this right on the front of the lens.
| | 00:09 | Now, it's going to be expressed as
basically a decimal point, and on some prime lenses,
| | 00:15 | it's going to be down to 1.4, 1.2, but on a longer
lens, 2.4, 2.8, that's a really good high quality lens.
| | 00:23 | Robbie Carman: It is, yeah.
| | 00:24 | Basically, the way that f-stops work is that
the lower that number is, the more light that's
| | 00:28 | let into the camera.
It's a little counterintuitive.
| | 00:32 | You'd think that a bigger number would mean more
light, but no, it's actually quite the opposite of that.
| | 00:36 | So if you had a lens that had an f-stop of
say 2.8, you are letting in a lot more light
| | 00:40 | than say an f-stop of 5.6.
| | 00:41 | Rich: Yeah, so when we are looking at lenses,
this number is important, particularly when
| | 00:46 | shooting in a low light situation
or with a shallow depth of field.
| | 00:50 | But where people run into problems is
when they're using their cheaper lenses.
| | 00:54 | A lot of the kit lenses, what's going to happen
is they are going to express the f-stop in a range.
| | 00:59 | It's going to be say 3.5 to 5.6 and
it's going to all depend upon the zoom.
| | 01:05 | You can really tell this when you
look at the construction of the lens.
| | 01:08 | When we've got the kit lens attached here at
the T4i, perfectly reasonable lens if you're
| | 01:12 | shooting in bright outdoor light.
| | 01:14 | That's what they really designed for,
entry level, this, much heavier--
| | 01:18 | Robbie: Much more expensive, great.
Rich: This lens costs more than that camera.
| | 01:22 | Robbie: Exactly, and this is where the problem
of your exposure changing as you are zooming
| | 01:27 | through the range, the focal range comes in.
| | 01:29 | This kit lens that we have on this Canon
body is actually variable in its f-stop.
| | 01:34 | It starts on the wide end of things at 3.5,
but as you zoom in and get to the far end
| | 01:40 | of the focal range, guess what, it drops to 5.6, and
because we are letting in less light, what happens?
| | 01:45 | The image appears to get
darker that we are shooting.
| | 01:48 | Rich: Yeah, let's see that here.
| | 01:50 | So we're pulled all the way out here,
and you see that we're on the 3.5 setting.
| | 01:55 | Now as we zoom in, we'll go
ahead and take a look there.
| | 01:58 | You see it goes all the way to 5.6.
| | 02:01 | So as we're pulling through that, the image
is getting brighter and it's changing based
| | 02:07 | on the zoom, and that's all because of as
we zoom in and out, how things are behaving
| | 02:12 | differently with the actual length of the lens.
| | 02:15 | Robbie: Yeah, this is a really important thing,
because you might have exposed properly at
| | 02:20 | the short end of things, but then when you
zoom into something, uh-oh, everything is dark.
| | 02:25 | So this is something that you have to
consider when you're out there shooting.
| | 02:29 | The thing about the consideration that
really plays into most productions is cost.
| | 02:33 | Typically, the zoom lenses that have
variable apertures are going to be less expensive,
| | 02:39 | therefore more accessible by a lot of people.
| | 02:41 | However, sooner or later, this variable
aperture thing is going to drive you bonkers.
| | 02:46 | Rich: So, you are right, Rob.
This is a very big frustration.
| | 02:50 | When we come back, we're going to talk
about how to work around this with the existing
| | 02:53 | lens and when stepping up or
perhaps renting makes more sense.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Strategies for dealing with the problem| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: We've gone ahead and switched out to
the more expensive lens, but before we talk
| | 00:04 | about that, let's address a
couple of strategies for this.
| | 00:08 | Boy, that feels a lot less.
| | 00:09 | Robbie Carman: Well, lighter.
Rich: Three pounds, nothing.
| | 00:12 | Robbie: A couple of ounces, right.
Rich, you are absolutely right.
| | 00:16 | When talking about shooting with a lot of
these kit lenses that have sort of a variable
| | 00:20 | f-stop or the variable aperture, you do have to
go into your shoot with some strategies in mind.
| | 00:25 | The first strategy is not to zoom, right?
| | 00:29 | It's to sort of frame your shot up to the
focal length that you want, change your Exposure
| | 00:33 | triangle, your lighting, and everything like that
to match that particular focal reach that you have.
| | 00:39 | Now, I know that's not ideal, but sometimes,
especially if you are dealing with sort of
| | 00:43 | these variable apertures or variable f-stop
lenses, that's really your only choice, unless
| | 00:47 | you visibly want to see that exposure change.
| | 00:49 | Rich: Yeah, and to that end,
another thing is, is just add more light.
| | 00:54 | For example, what we can do here is make sure that we
set the lens, in this case, this lens ranges to 5.6.
| | 01:00 | I can just make sure that when I am pulled
all the way out, I set the f-stop to 5.6,
| | 01:05 | I'll need more light on set, but that way as
I zoom in and out, there won't be a change.
| | 01:09 | Now, we all like not having limitations,
and at 5.6, you are not going to get that sexy
| | 01:15 | shallow depth of field that
everyone loves about the DSLR.
| | 01:18 | Robbie: Well, no, And especially 5.6.
| | 01:19 | You know, inside, you don't have to throw a
lot of light onto the scene to have proper
| | 01:24 | exposure without having to sort of revert to
the idea of raising your ISO and introducing
| | 01:29 | noise into the image and that kind of thing.
| | 01:30 | Rich: Well, and to that end, before we talk
about stepping up on light, there is the novel
| | 01:34 | idea if the problem was when I zoomed in, it got
darker, you could actually just move the camera closer.
| | 01:41 | Robbie: The camera, yeah.
| | 01:42 | Rich: And not use the zoom, but actually
zoom with your feet, as we like to say.
| | 01:46 | Robbie: Yeah, absolutely.
| | 01:47 | So, when we step up to a better or sort of
bigger lens like this Canon's 24-70 that we
| | 01:52 | have here, one of the added benefits of
stepping up to that more expensive lens is that the
| | 01:57 | f-stop or the aperture is fixed
throughout the entire zoom range.
| | 02:01 | So, in this case, going from 24 millimeters
all the way up to 70 millimeters, we don't
| | 02:06 | actually change our f-stop.
It remains whatever we have it set at.
| | 02:09 | Now, this particular lens can go as low
as f/2.8, which lets in a lot of light.
| | 02:15 | Rich: Yeah, so let's take a look here.
We have got the camera itself.
| | 02:17 | We are at 3.5 there, and notice as we
are zooming in and out, it's not changing.
| | 02:21 | That 3.5 is constant, but as you mentioned,
we can actually open this up even more.
| | 02:27 | This particular lens goes to 2.8.
| | 02:28 | Now that's a lot of light, but the advantage here
is I could probably lower my ISO, taking that down.
| | 02:35 | I will just stop recording here.
| | 02:37 | That's not a change I make while it's running,
but I can go down to 200 there, and I still
| | 02:41 | have a properly exposed image.
| | 02:43 | So what's the advantage of
going say from 400 to 200?
| | 02:46 | Robbie: Well, there are a couple of advantages.
| | 02:48 | First, because you're not raising the
sensitivity of that sensor, you are going to have a cleaner
| | 02:53 | image, for the most part.
| | 02:54 | Lower ISOs generally mean that you are
going to have less noise in the image.
| | 02:58 | The other thing about stepping down to a
wider or lower f-stop is that you also can take
| | 03:03 | advantage of the creative
aspects of shooting with a fast lens.
| | 03:07 | What I really mean by that is that you can
get more background blur, sort of that nice
| | 03:11 | depth of field that DSLRs
have become really popular with.
| | 03:14 | Now the only thing I will mention about shooting with
an expensive lens is that they are expensive, right?
| | 03:21 | Rich: Yes.
| | 03:22 | Robbie: When you're out there on set and you
have a wide variety of situations that you
| | 03:27 | need to shoot with, adding a lot of
expensive zoom lenses can really add up.
| | 03:32 | Zoom lenses, for the most part, are more
expensive than their prime counterpart, simply because
| | 03:36 | there's more going on in the lens, right?
| | 03:38 | There is more pieces of glass, there is
the zoom mechanism, that kind of stuff.
| | 03:43 | So personally, I like to have maybe one or
two really nice zoom lenses in my kit and
| | 03:47 | I supplement them with prime lenses.
| | 03:49 | Now for me, a good zoom lens to have
would be something like this 24-70.
| | 03:53 | And then I also like the 70-200
millimeter range a lot of the manufacturers reach.
| | 03:59 | Now at 200 millimeters, you can
get a lot of reach into a scene.
| | 04:03 | Rich: Yeah, that's a good balance.
| | 04:04 | Both of those are going to be fairly
expensive if you get a constant aperture.
| | 04:08 | So I often find that for a DSLR shooter,
starting out, beginning with even used prime lenses
| | 04:13 | might be a good value, but save up, bypass
that cheaper kit lens, and maybe save your
| | 04:19 | money for a better zoom or even a used
zoom that's going to have a constant f-stop.
| | 04:24 | Don't worry about getting
tons of different coverage.
| | 04:27 | Go for better glass, and the nice thing is,
is that if I were to invest in say this lens,
| | 04:31 | this lens is going to work with
multiple camera bodies as I go forward.
| | 04:35 | A good lens is going to
last for a really long time.
| | 04:38 | I've got lenses that are a decade old that
look just as good as when I first got them.
| | 04:42 | Robbie: Yeah, don't forget, a lot of the lens
manufacturers will have multiple f-stop options
| | 04:46 | within a particular zoom lens.
| | 04:48 | So, for example on a Canon, which I have a
Canon body and I like Canon bodies, on the
| | 04:53 | 7200 millimeter lens, they actually have an f/4
option and then they have a more expensive
| | 04:58 | f/2.8 option and both lenses offer a fixed
f-stop or a fixed aperture, but obviously,
| | 05:03 | there is a big price difference.
| | 05:04 | So if you are doing a lot of outdoor shooting,
you might not need to go to that more expensive
| | 05:08 | fixed 2.8 lens, you can go with the f/4
lens and just be totally fine with any shooting
| | 05:13 | that you need to do with it.
| | 05:14 | Rich: And the last option to
strongly consider is rentals.
| | 05:16 | There are tons of lens companies out there
that'll ship you a lens for a one- or two-day
| | 05:21 | rental, a week-long rental, this is a very
affordable way to get the types of lenses
| | 05:26 | you need for a specific shoot.
| | 05:28 | We rent lenses all the time as we
have specific types of shooting come up.
| | 05:32 | Don't be afraid to rent a lens and try it
out or maybe even get into a lens sharing
| | 05:37 | pool with some of your colleagues.
| | 05:38 | Thanks a lot for joining
us this week, see you soon.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
27. How Can I Check My Focus?How can I check my focus?| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi, my name is Rich Harrington.
Robbie Carman: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:03 | Rich: Now, one of the things that
everybody gets bugged with is focus.
| | 00:06 | You know, people are like, can I
sharpen it in post, can I apply a filter?
| | 00:10 | Robbie: Well, and it's been made particularly
bad in the past few years with DSLR production,
| | 00:14 | simply because everything looks good
on the back of your LCD. Rich: Yeah.
| | 00:19 | Robbie: So, people just make the assumption of,
oh yeah, it kind of looks in focus, yeah,
| | 00:23 | I'll just run with it, and when they get
back to their studio, you will notice that, yes,
| | 00:26 | things are in fact a little soft and
they are not working as well as they should.
| | 00:31 | So, this week we are going to talk about some
practical strategies to help you check your focus.
| | 00:37 | Now, ideally your best solution would be
checking focus on something besides the back of your
| | 00:42 | camera, besides that little LCD, but all of
the sort of the techniques that we are going
| | 00:46 | to talk about are applicable if you are
using the LCD in the back of your camera as well
| | 00:49 | as other monitoring devices like external
monitors, EVFs, and even larger screen monitors.
| | 00:54 | Rich: On an earlier episode,
we talked all about using a loop.
| | 00:57 | I highly recommend you check that episode out.
| | 01:00 | Remember, a loop is going to make it a lot
easier for you to see what's going on with
| | 01:04 | a built-in monitor, that's going to
magnify the image, give you sharper focus.
| | 01:08 | For purposes of this week's episode, we are
going to talk about strategies that are going
| | 01:12 | to work regardless of your monitoring solution.
| | 01:15 | This is going to be things like punching in,
using a target, auto-focus, adjust auto-focus
| | 01:21 | the start, not continuous auto-focus.
| | 01:23 | Three practical strategies, and
when we come back, we'll jump right in.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Zooming in| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: You get the lens attached, you have
framed up the shot, you have focused by eye,
| | 00:05 | and you think you have it.
| | 00:06 | Robbie Carman: Everything is perfect.
Rich: But you probably don't, right?
| | 00:08 | Robbie: No, I mean, focus is one of those
things that unless you're paying perfect attention
| | 00:14 | to it and testing it and checking it, your
gut instinct about something being in focus
| | 00:19 | is usually going to be wrong.
| | 00:21 | So what we want to talk about today in this episode
is a couple of different ways of checking your focus.
| | 00:27 | We're going to begin with sort of a method
that I learned way back when, when I was in
| | 00:30 | school in sort of learning how to film and
that kind of stuff, was the idea of punching
| | 00:36 | in or zooming into your subject.
| | 00:38 | Now this is a practical technique that can
be used for any object, a person, something
| | 00:43 | sitting on a table, or whatever.
| | 00:44 | The basic idea is that you're going to zoom
into the object as close as you can get and
| | 00:50 | then adjust your focus to that object,
maybe the point of somebody's nose, if you're
| | 00:55 | doing an interview or hands or whatever it
may be, set focus there, and then zoom back out.
| | 01:01 | Fortunately, there's actually
two ways of approaching this.
| | 01:04 | You can actually physically zoom in with
the lens and then zoom back out, but a lot of
| | 01:08 | the DSLR cameras are going to provide us
sort of a sensor zoom function where we can go
| | 01:13 | one-to-one, the pixels on the sensor and actually
get a much closer view to be able to line up our focus.
| | 01:20 | Rich: Well, you know that there is the benefit
of physically zooming in the camera and checking
| | 01:25 | your focus, unless of course you're using a prime
lens or your f-stop is going to change with your zoom.
| | 01:31 | So let's do that zoom method first, and it
looks perfectly in focus, right? Robbie: Right.
| | 01:35 | Rich: Well, we can go ahead and zoom that in,
but I am at the end of my zoom reach here.
| | 01:41 | So while I'm trying to do that by eye--
| | 01:42 | Robbie: Yeah, it looks okay, I guess.
Rich: Yeah, but it's not necessarily perfect.
| | 01:47 | So zoom in as far as you can physically,
ideally so you're getting as close to the subject.
| | 01:53 | But in other words, you
still probably aren't far enough.
| | 01:56 | But fortunately, when we're recording with
the DSLR video to the sensor, we're not using
| | 02:00 | the whole sensor, right?
Robbie: No, absolute not.
| | 02:02 | And one of the benefits that these cameras
have, when we cut back in here is that if
| | 02:05 | we punch in a little bit by using sort of
these Plus and Minus buttons on the camera,
| | 02:09 | you'll notice that I can actually get a
much closer view of the actual object itself.
| | 02:14 | Rich: So, while we looked to be in focus before...
Robbie: I was slightly off.
| | 02:19 | And the thing about this is that because we're
zoomed in to that sensor, to one-to-one pixel
| | 02:22 | ratio there, we can get a much
more accurate method of focusing.
| | 02:27 | Rich: Now the thing is, is for example when
I hit Record, it automatically pops back out.
| | 02:32 | Robbie: That's a good point.
| | 02:33 | You're not going to actually be
recording your video sort of zoomed in this much.
| | 02:37 | This is just sort of a diagnostic way of
sort of checking your focus, and it's definitely
| | 02:42 | one that I think that everybody and every
camera user out there using a DSLR should
| | 02:46 | employ, simply because your eyes lie to you,
and what looks to be in focus on a small little
| | 02:51 | LCD screen might not be truly in sharp focus.
| | 02:54 | So it's always a good idea to use this sort of
function--sort of punching or sort of zoom-in
| | 02:59 | function to double check it.
Rich: Yeah, it is just a digital preview.
| | 03:02 | Now when we come back, we're going to talk
about strategies when you don't have a clear
| | 03:05 | subject to check focus with or perhaps you
need to use an object as a stand-in for your
| | 03:10 | subject, and that's all about using a target.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using a target| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: One of the things I like to bring on
set is a calibration target, which can also
| | 00:04 | be used as a focusing target.
Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 00:06 | Rich: Now, this really serves two
purposes here, right Rob?
| | 00:09 | Robbie: It does. So the first way that we can use
a target like this is for purposes of sort of white
| | 00:13 | balancing and black balancing a shot.
| | 00:15 | But you'll notice in the center of this
target, there is a little sort of cross-hair, sort
| | 00:18 | of bull's eye, and what this allows us to do is
zoom into that point to critically check focus.
| | 00:24 | Rich: Yeah, and that's going to be really
helpful here, because notice this actually
| | 00:27 | has a hook on it, so I can just put this
on a lighting stand or a C-stand, hang it in
| | 00:32 | place where my subject was going
to be, and this is really nice.
| | 00:35 | Now the flip side of this is literally the
flip side of this, and that is that it becomes
| | 00:39 | a reflector when you're on set, so you can
use this to bounce light, fill in the side
| | 00:44 | of the face, just take it to the side there,
fill in the shadows, works very nicely, and
| | 00:49 | of course, like most flexi fills,
very, very tiny, easy to store.
| | 00:53 | They even make ones that are small enough to
drop into your pocket, and this can come in handy.
| | 00:58 | Now another thing you could of course do is
actually use a calibration card or target,
| | 01:03 | and we've got one here to see.
So what's that here, Rob?
| | 01:06 | Robbie: Well, this is sort of a focus shot,
and you'll look at it and you'll think that
| | 01:10 | maybe you are like inside of a
fun house, you're like, wooh!
| | 01:13 | Everything is spinning.
| | 01:14 | But what this is used
for is to check your focus.
| | 01:18 | You'll notice as you sort of focus in and
out, what's going to happen is that the lines
| | 01:23 | between concentric lines that are going
into the center, become blurry or more sharp.
| | 01:28 | And this pattern is very
useful to check very critical focus.
| | 01:32 | And you'll notice that the pattern
actually gets smaller towards the center.
| | 01:36 | Well, that's very, very, very critical focus,
if you can get that center bit to be extremely
| | 01:42 | sharp and in line with each other.
| | 01:43 | Rich: So notice here as we rack through
that, that's as focused as it's going to get.
| | 01:49 | Now, in some cases, the compression is
going to make some of those sharpest details get
| | 01:53 | lost, but it's still good to start, and you
could see maybe a little bit of an optical
| | 01:58 | illusion there, people at home,
a little bit of motion sickness.
| | 02:00 | But you could see that there is a very big
difference, and if we say I'm pretty sure
| | 02:05 | I'm in focus there, and we
punch out, it looks in focus.
| | 02:08 | But again, employing that digital zoom, getting
all the way in and letting that find the focus
| | 02:14 | point--there we go, almost--and
it just resolves to a strong image.
| | 02:20 | Robbie: Yeah, now the thing about these focus cards
is that you made a good really interesting point.
| | 02:24 | I have found that on some camera sensors,
especially DSLR camera sensors, due to the
| | 02:29 | sensor technology themselves, due to the
compression, that kind of stuff, sometimes you are going
| | 02:33 | to get some weird aliasing there in the way
that it resolves those details in the focus
| | 02:37 | chart, but they can be used to hang up in
somebody's face, in front of their face, in
| | 02:40 | front of their nose, that kind of stuff.
| | 02:42 | I'm of the mind-set that I don't like to use
these as sort of the sole method of checking my focus.
| | 02:47 | Yes, they seem very scientific and sort of,
oh, well, it can't get better than this.
| | 02:52 | But actually, it can be kind of dangerous.
| | 02:54 | If you go on the internet and go, oh, I'm just
going to play out this focus chart, well, guess what.
| | 02:58 | It's not on the right kind of paper, perhaps the
pattern was a little skewed, something like that.
| | 03:02 | So it can actually throw off
your camera, rather than help you.
| | 03:05 | Rich: Yeah, this is not printed
out on an inkjet or consumer paper.
| | 03:08 | This is actually a purchased one, and it's
got a nice flat finish to cut down on reflection
| | 03:13 | and it's very high resolution printing, like
if you're printing on a typical inkjet printer,
| | 03:18 | it's pretty hard to get critical focus.
| | 03:20 | So either way, a target with the printed target
on it, this--if you can't do this, some people
| | 03:25 | will even just set up a book with printing
in it and go in and focus on the letters.
| | 03:30 | You just want something small and
tight that you could check focus on.
| | 03:33 | Now, there is one more strategy and that is
to actually let the camera do the thinking for you.
| | 03:38 | And when we come back, we'll talk about
when auto-focus is not actually cheating.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using AutoFocus at the start| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: You'll talk to pros and
they'll say never use the autofocus.
| | 00:02 | Robbie Carman: It's like a dirty word, like autofocus?
I know how to focus.
| | 00:06 | Rich: Yeah, yeah, and we are not saying use
the continuous autofocus because that could
| | 00:11 | really mess things up as things move around
your scene, but let's face it, just like I
| | 00:15 | use the calculator on my computer or my phone,
I can do the math in my head but sometimes
| | 00:20 | it's easier to just give
certain tasks to the computer.
| | 00:23 | Robbie: Yeah, you know, focusing is a tricky
thing, and obviously there's people who do
| | 00:26 | it professionally, focus pullers on big, you
know, movie sets and that kind of stuff, but
| | 00:30 | one thing that you can really do to sort
of help yourself out to at least set initial
| | 00:35 | focus--now things might change as objects
move through the scene, but to set initial
| | 00:39 | focus I am a big fan of
using the autofocus function.
| | 00:42 | Believe me, these camera manufacturers have
put a lot of thought into autofocus and how
| | 00:47 | it works and how accurate it is.
| | 00:49 | So at least initially when starting off trying
to sort of get focus on something, it's okay
| | 00:53 | to cheat a little bit.
| | 00:55 | Let the camera help you out and
then you can refine from there.
| | 00:58 | Rich: Now if you're using a prime type lens,
an older one or even a cinema-style prime,
| | 01:03 | you'll find that the focus ring on the camera
has a wide range of turning, you have almost
| | 01:07 | like you know 270 degrees, 320 degrees,
to turn makes it really easy to find that.
| | 01:13 | But if we cut to the camera here, and I use
the ring manually, what you're going to notice
| | 01:17 | is that the ring does not
have that wide of a turn.
| | 01:21 | So there I hit the end, and I turn it back to the other
way and that's only about 30 degrees of rotation.
| | 01:28 | Robbie: Yeah, remember Rich, that these
lenses that are used on DSLRs for the most part,
| | 01:33 | people are using their photo
lenses, right? Rich: Yeah.
| | 01:35 | Robbie: You know, these lenses were not made to
do extreme rack focuses and that kind of stuff.
| | 01:40 | Rich: They are designed to focus quickly,
and if it only has to turn a very small amount,
| | 01:44 | for still shooting that's awesome, because you hold
down the trigger and it's going to lock in real quick.
| | 01:48 | Robbie: Exactly, but for you know, videography and
you know, filming purposes, it is a little limiting.
| | 01:53 | However, the autofocus can be our friend, right?
Rich: Yeah.
| | 01:57 | Robbie: We can sort of get over some of these limitations
of the actual lenses by themselves by using autofocus.
| | 02:02 | Rich: Yeah, let's punch in there, and I'll
just push that down and it racks through and
| | 02:07 | it goes green, indicating that it auto-focused and I
could see those fine details here in this wax figure.
| | 02:14 | Notice there as it locks in.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 02:15 | Rich: Now as we punch back out, because
we are at 2.8, our subject in the foreground
| | 02:22 | is in focus and our subject in
the background is out of focus.
| | 02:25 | So you have to decide what's in focus, and a
lot of times you can move that target around.
| | 02:30 | Robbie: Yeah, and different camera manufacturers are
going to have different ways of showing this on screen.
| | 02:34 | Some will be boxes, some will be circles,
but that little target that's square in this
| | 02:37 | case is the area that
you are trying to focus on.
| | 02:40 | Rich: Yeah, when it locks in and
it goes green, you know you have it.
| | 02:45 | Don't just wait for a while, usually you'll get
some indication, it might be a short beep, something.
| | 02:50 | You could still of course punch in and that
will let you check it and cycle in and notice
| | 02:55 | that that that's a very different focus, and
let's go ahead and pan over here towards the
| | 02:59 | front, see as that's getting shallower and
shallower and as we look at that foreground
| | 03:04 | subject, in this case because we are
shooting at 2.8, these things are about,
| | 03:09 | what would you say, a foot and a half apart?
Robbie: Yeah, something like that.
| | 03:12 | Rich: So that's enough at 2.8.
| | 03:14 | Now if we change that, notice here we'll go
ahead and increase the depth of field by taking
| | 03:21 | the f-stop down, and we'll go
ahead and pop back out here.
| | 03:26 | Let's just autofocus, there we go, and
now everything is better and focused.
| | 03:32 | Of course, we will need to adjust the
sensitivity either by increasing the ISO or the light
| | 03:38 | and that's your exposure triangle coming back
to visit you there, but notice there in this
| | 03:42 | case because we're at a smaller f-stop, we
have a greater depth of field and we can actually
| | 03:48 | have both the foreground
and background in focus.
| | 03:51 | Robbie: Right, well, that's what we were
shooting first, and when we just shot we sort of raised
| | 03:54 | the f-stop so we actually have more in focus.
| | 03:56 | And this is actually--well, two
important points that you raised.
| | 03:59 | The first one is that when you are using autofocus,
especially if you're shooting at a very shallow
| | 04:04 | depth of field, you can sometimes trick the
camera, right? Unless, you know--unless you're
| | 04:09 | having something really close to the lens,
I've found that autofocus sometimes at a shallow
| | 04:12 | depth of field and low number f-stop 2.8,
1.4 or whatever, it can be a little tricky.
| | 04:18 | The second thing that I think is important
to sort of, you know, note about what you
| | 04:21 | just said there is that you don't
always have to have things out of focus.
| | 04:25 | It's sort of one of these things that's
come up in DSLRs, sort of the encyclopedia.
| | 04:29 | Rich: Yeah, people love bokeh.
| | 04:30 | Robbie: Yeah, you know, it's one of those things
that you know if you are shooting a landscape,
| | 04:35 | it's weird if only you know the one flower
in the front of the scene is in focus and
| | 04:40 | everything else is out of focus, so.
Rich: People overdo this, so make sure, yeah.
| | 04:45 | And if you haven't watched our episode on the
exposure triangle, go back and check that out.
| | 04:49 | If you don't understand the exposure
triangle, you won't understand focus.
| | 04:53 | All of these things tie together,
but great point there.
| | 04:56 | Make sure that you actually verify the
autofocus and that you set your f-stop properly so you
| | 05:02 | have the depth of field you need, either a
very deep depth of field, or a very shallow
| | 05:06 | depth of field, and that's going to be
directly related to the f-stop that you choose.
| | 05:10 | Robbie: Absolutely.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
28. How Many Batteries Do I Need?How many batteries do I need?| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi, My name is Rich Harrington.
Robbie Carman: And I'm Robbie Carman.
| | 00:02 | Rich: And today we're talking all about power.
| | 00:05 | Now the thing is, is that without
battery power, you are kind of screwed.
| | 00:10 | Robbie: Yeah, the world really stops spinning
if our batteries just kind of stop working,
| | 00:15 | and this is particularly true when
you are out in the field and shooting.
| | 00:19 | Very rarely are you going to be
tethered to an actual outlet and plugged in.
| | 00:23 | Now you might have that capability
if you are in a studio situation.
| | 00:26 | But in the real world, on set and on location,
power is going to become a principal concern of yours.
| | 00:32 | That power's mainly going to come from
batteries, but we can also, if available, plug in to
| | 00:37 | things, and that's exactly what we are
going to talk about today, Rich, is this idea of
| | 00:40 | how to sort of properly manage the power
that we have, sometimes when situations where we
| | 00:44 | can plug in and sometimes not.
Rich: Yeah, you really nailed it.
| | 00:48 | It's all about management and strategy.
| | 00:51 | One of the things I like to emphasize is that
if you don't have power, the whole shoot could
| | 00:55 | grind to an absolute halt.
Imagine not getting that sunset.
| | 00:58 | You have to come back the next day, or you
had no spare battery to go to, and now you're
| | 01:04 | running around trying to find a battery you
can get charged up, put it back in the camera.
| | 01:08 | It's not that simple.
| | 01:09 | We've all experienced a dead battery
before, and it's incredibly frustrating.
| | 01:14 | So what we're going to look at today are
strategies for when you do or do not have the option
| | 01:19 | to plug in, as well as some very practical tips, things
you could employ to preserve or lengthen the battery life.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Power or no power| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Now Rich, let's start off
talking about some essentials of power.
[00:00:003.35]
Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:04 | Robbie: You know, when we have
power and when we don't have power.
| | 00:06 | Now obviously, when we don't have power, that
meaning that we're not plugging in to somewhere,
| | 00:10 | we're going to be running
off of a camera battery.
| | 00:13 | So the first thing I always tell people is
get a lot of batteries, because you never
| | 00:18 | know when you're going to need one, and of
course it's sort of Murphy's law that the
| | 00:22 | second that you need one, you're
not going to have one available.
| | 00:24 | Rich: Okay, so I just want to do a completely
blind, this part we have not rehearsed behind
| | 00:30 | your back with your hands, indicate the number of
batteries you travel with in a standard location.
| | 00:35 | All right, and at the count of
three we'll show the camera, 1, 2, 3.
| | 00:39 | Robbie: Oh, that's cheating.
Rich: We've been friends for a long time.
| | 00:43 | Robbie: Yeah, exactly.
Rich: Yeah, five, you mean five batteries?
| | 00:46 | That's a lot of batteries.
Robbie: No, it's true.
| | 00:48 | Rich: One in the camera. I often use a grip,
so there is two in the camera.
| | 00:51 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 00:53 | Rich: One in my pocket, and then the
rest are on chargers getting ready to use.
| | 00:56 | Robbie: Yeah, and so speaking of chargers, you
know, it's easy to sometimes you know--should
| | 01:00 | be easy to remember to bring the batteries.
Rich: Yeah.
| | 01:02 | Robbie: But sometimes it's hard
to remember to bring this guy.
| | 01:05 | It's just this block of plastic.
| | 01:07 | And this is--I've seen this, you know, sort
of screw up more productions than not, when
| | 01:11 | you have these batteries but you have no way
of actually repowering them, so be sure to
| | 01:16 | actually bring along your battery
charger, that's an important one.
| | 01:20 | Rich: Yeah, and to that end
I actually bring along two.
| | 01:22 | My standard configuration is
to go with two into the field.
| | 01:25 | So with five batteries, I've always got one
in the camera, two that are completely ready,
| | 01:31 | and two charging, because as one goes, it's
possible to drain a battery faster than you
| | 01:37 | could recharge a battery.
Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 01:38 | Rich: And so what I'll have is, oh, I
just got two batteries, one in the camera,
| | 01:41 | one in the charger, I am fine.
| | 01:42 | No, if you're doing something that's very
live-action driven, concerts, events, long
| | 01:48 | runtimes, you could drain it.
| | 01:49 | Now if you're doing short form commercial
or cinematic with lots of little takes, you
| | 01:54 | might be able to milk it
longer, but you nailed it.
| | 01:57 | Bring the charger, in fact, not only should you
have one charger, I always say bring two chargers.
| | 02:03 | Now an interesting thing with chargers is
that this whole OEM, the Original Equipment
| | 02:08 | Manufacturer versus third-party ones.
| | 02:10 | I have run into situations, particularly with
Canon batteries, where Canon batteries will only
| | 02:15 | charge official Canon batteries
on an actual Canon charger.
| | 02:19 | Robbie: Yeah, I've found that too.
| | 02:20 | And one of the things that this brings up is
that when you're going out there and trying
| | 02:24 | to buy more batteries, you just quickly
realize the batteries are not the cheapest in the
| | 02:28 | world, and so if you have to buy five, six,
seven, eight batteries, your gut instinct
| | 02:32 | might be to go find those ones from a no-name
company that are on the Amazon that are like,
| | 02:37 | you know, a quarter of the
price of the OEM batteries.
| | 02:40 | Buyer beware, I think they are fine to buy
and try it out, but put them to the test before
| | 02:45 | you actually go out in the field.
| | 02:47 | Make sure that they do in fact start up
your camera and you don't get an error message
| | 02:51 | on the camera when you put the battery in.
| | 02:53 | Make sure that they actually do take a
charge and that they take repetitive charges.
| | 02:57 | I actually purchased some batteries not
too long ago that after about 10, 12 charges,
| | 03:02 | they started taking about
half the amount of charge.
| | 03:05 | So I had half the amount of
the actually usable battery.
| | 03:08 | And then I think, Rich, the last thing to
consider is that when you have real power,
| | 03:13 | plug-in power available,
why waste your batteries?
| | 03:15 | Because after all, these
batteries have sort of a finite life.
| | 03:18 | And then what I mean by that is that you can
only charge them, you know, X amount of times
| | 03:22 | before they start losing charge.
| | 03:24 | So in those situations, I always find it useful--
especially if I am in a studio situation like this--to
| | 03:28 | get my AC power adapter, plug in to an
extension cord or a power strip and run the camera that
| | 03:34 | way instead of using the batteries.
| | 03:37 | Rich: And nobody said you
have to run off of batteries.
| | 03:39 | Just like for example if you have a laptop,
sure you will run that laptop off of the built-in
| | 03:44 | battery, but I know people who run
the laptop battery down all the time.
| | 03:47 | It's like, you know, that thing only has
so many charges before it has to be replaced
| | 03:51 | and that's not a cheap replacement.
Robbie: No, it's not at all.
| | 03:53 | Rich: So, plugging into a wall when
a wall is available, not a bad idea.
| | 03:57 | Now when we come back, we're going to talk
about another type of battery and that's not
| | 04:01 | the camera batteries, but all of the batteries you are
going to need for some of the accessories you take on set.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Other batteries to consider| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So Rich, when we go on set or out on
a location, we tend to bring a lot of gadgets
| | 00:04 | with us besides just the
camera bodies themselves, right?
| | 00:07 | We have little portable lights, we have
audio recorders, we have little gizmos like this
| | 00:12 | that allow us to do panoramic photos.
| | 00:14 | I mean, my bag is full of little gadgets,
and they seemingly all take batteries.
| | 00:19 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, it's very
easy to run out of batteries.
| | 00:22 | So to that end, I always want to make an
assessment, both of what type of batteries something takes
| | 00:27 | before I buy it and what I need to bring with.
| | 00:30 | For example, most of the shock on external
type microphones like this that you are going
| | 00:35 | to use run off a 9-volt battery.
| | 00:37 | So you are going to want to
make sure you have a couple.
| | 00:39 | I always keep one in the microphone,
one in my pocket, one in the bag.
| | 00:43 | That way if I run out, it's easy.
| | 00:45 | With three batteries I could deal with the
fact that it was a good chance I am going
| | 00:48 | to pack this away and forget to turn it off before I
pack it so I am going to take it out and it's dead.
| | 00:52 | Well, now I got two to get
me through the shoot date.
| | 00:55 | Other devices, like lights for example,
this is a little portable light panel one, this
| | 00:59 | one runs off of AA batteries, so does the Flash,
the off-camera flash for my still shooting.
| | 01:05 | Well, for this I am going to need lots of AAs.
I always carry at least eight with me.
| | 01:09 | Now these are easier batteries to get.
| | 01:11 | You know, you could run to a grocery store or
a convenience store, but I just get a simple
| | 01:16 | container, a waterproof
container to hold the batteries.
| | 01:19 | This way, you know, in case they were to
overheat or explode, acid doesn't get on my gear.
| | 01:24 | And more importantly, the elements, you know,
dampness won't get to the batteries themselves.
| | 01:27 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 01:29 | Rich: And what I do here is I take them out--
now real simple thing you'll see that I've got
| | 01:33 | them all facing in one direction.
| | 01:35 | I'm a big believer that I shouldn't
just discard used batteries carelessly.
| | 01:39 | When I put them back in, I'll flip
them the other way if they're dead.
| | 01:42 | Robbie: Right, yeah, that's a good point.
| | 01:44 | Now I am big a fan besides the regular sort
of AA batteries, you know, like you buy from
| | 01:47 | the groceries store or whatever, I
actually like rechargeable batteries.
| | 01:51 | I feel like I am getting better bang for the
buck out of them a lot of times, and the fact
| | 01:54 | that I can reuse them sort of makes me feel better
about myself and the environmental and all of that.
| | 01:59 | Now the thing about rechargeable batteries
is that not all rechargeable batteries are
| | 02:03 | created equal for all this
different gear that you might have.
| | 02:06 | In fact, some devices or gadgets that you
might have might actually have a switch inside
| | 02:12 | of them to determine whether they're
running off of rechargeables or non-rechargeables,
| | 02:16 | so you need to pay attention to that.
| | 02:17 | And then, Rich, you mentioned something I
think is really brilliant, is sort of taking
| | 02:20 | an idea of an inventory of
your gear and what you have.
| | 02:23 | Now I have been known to be
a little OCD about things.
| | 02:27 | Rich: He makes lists to keep his lists organized.
Robbie: Exactly.
| | 02:31 | And what I actually did not too long ago was I
just went into you know a spreadsheet program
| | 02:36 | and listed all of my gear and then I
listed some details about them, for example what
| | 02:40 | type of batteries did they take,
what type of AC power, whether it's--
| | 02:44 | Rich: How prone they are to fingerprints?
| | 02:45 | Robbie: Exactly, whether it's, you know, 9-volt
or 12-volt power adaptor, because I want
| | 02:48 | to be able to quickly in one snapshot go,
oh, you know, for this shoot I am going to
| | 02:53 | need 24 AA batteries, or I am going to
need to bring two different, you know, 12-volt
| | 02:57 | power adaptors that kind of thing
and I make it very easy to look at.
| | 03:00 | Rich: And that's a very good point, having more--
you know--a list of what you need to pack is essential.
| | 03:05 | I'm also a big fan a lot of bringing iOS or
Android devices on set to help with things
| | 03:11 | like sun path calculations, weather details.
| | 03:14 | So I'll bring an external USB rechargeable
battery that I could plug in a standard USB
| | 03:19 | cord to power a lot of these devices.
| | 03:21 | But a lot of times you get into specialty
situations, and I got a case in point.
| | 03:24 | Robbie: Yeah.
| | 03:25 | Rich: For example here, this is the GigaPan
head, and it's a really cool head for doing
| | 03:29 | robotic movement, for large panoramic
photography, it also has some time lapse applications.
| | 03:34 | Well, the great news is that it's got its
own internal battery, and with this internal
| | 03:39 | battery you can go ahead and run it off it--
I'll just hold it up there, it's in there really
| | 03:44 | well, let's just unlock it, there we go--and
I could go ahead and run off of this battery
| | 03:50 | or I could plug this
battery into the wall and run.
| | 03:53 | But like a lot of these devices, we made a
critical mistake that I see happen all the time.
| | 03:59 | We ran the battery down to below 20% and then
it gave us a battery, oh, I don't have enough
| | 04:04 | power, I am going into you know shutdown mode.
Robbie: Yeah, right.
| | 04:06 | Rich: Well, the thing was even, oh,
I'll plug in the external power supply.
| | 04:10 | No, is still had to get over that 20% threshold.
| | 04:13 | So I really emphasize having more than one
battery because you're going to want to have
| | 04:18 | two batteries for each device, because you
could run into problems, and a battery problem
| | 04:22 | is going to completely lock
you out of that production.
| | 04:25 | Robbie: Now Rich, while we don't have it here
on the table, I want to mention one more sort
| | 04:29 | of battery power related thing.
You drive a car, right?
| | 04:32 | Rich: Yeah.
| | 04:33 | Robbie: And that's usually how you
get from location A to location B.
| | 04:35 | Rich: Well, I tried teleportation,
but I failed miserably.
| | 04:38 | Robbie: That transporter
thing, that hasn't worked out.
| | 04:40 | One of the things I am also a big fan of is
going to, you know, your local electronics
| | 04:44 | store, you know, a big-box retailer and
getting a cigarette power adapter or sort of that
| | 04:49 | 12-volt power adaptor for your car.
And this comes in handy in a lot of reasons.
| | 04:53 | You need to run a quick charge, you got it.
| | 04:55 | Need to run something off of the
actual battery in your car, you got it.
| | 04:58 | Now every device might not have this capability,
but it's another piece of sort of power equipment
| | 05:03 | to have handy, because from time to time you
might be in a situation where you don't have
| | 05:07 | access to batteries, you don't have access
to sort of, you know, a plug in the wall,
| | 05:12 | but you do have your car sitting right there
in the parking lot with the rest of your gear.
| | 05:15 | And so buying these power convertors just gives you
another way of potentially powering some of your gear.
| | 05:21 | Rich: Yeah, essentially in that case what
you've done is you've given yourself a portable
| | 05:25 | charging station when you drive from one
location to the other, or a gas-powered generator.
| | 05:31 | Robbie: There you go.
Rich: Yeah, don't want to sit there running it.
| | 05:33 | Now the important thing is
just unplug that inverter.
| | 05:36 | More than one time have I seen a crew
member leave a inverter plugged into the car and
| | 05:41 | they just drained their car battery.
| | 05:43 | Robbie: Well, another important point about
using some of these convertors is you want
| | 05:46 | to first make sure that you turn the
car on first before plugging your gear in.
| | 05:52 | Some of the convertors don't actually have
sort of the capacitors or the technology built
| | 05:56 | into them to sort of regulate actual signal,
so when you start that car, it sends a big
| | 06:01 | jolt of energy through the inverter into your
gear, potentially frying that piece of equipment.
| | 06:06 | So I always find it a better situation to
first start the car with nothing attached
| | 06:09 | to the inverter and then plug in your gear,
which greatly reduces the risk of injury to your gear.
| | 06:15 | Rich: Okay, so we've told you about all
these great batteries and power-related devices
| | 06:19 | that you need to buy, and you're
probably going, great, more money to spend.
| | 06:23 | But when we come back, we've got one more
module to talk about, and in this case we
| | 06:27 | are going to give you some practical strategies
to milk the maximum life out of your batteries
| | 06:31 | so you can get the most
from what you've already bought.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Strategies for lengthening battery life| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: When it comes to getting the most out
of batteries, there is a couple important strategies.
| | 00:04 | Let's start with the initial charge.
Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 00:07 | Rich: You buy a new battery and a lot of
people are like I'll just plug it in and use it.
| | 00:12 | What do you do?
Robbie: Not a good idea.
| | 00:14 | Most of the batteries these days need to
be conditioned in one shape or another.
| | 00:18 | What I typically do is I'll plug the battery in,
let it get to full charge but then immediately
| | 00:22 | take it out of the charger and run it
in that camera or whatever device it is.
| | 00:26 | And the important thing is to let
it run all the way out until it dies.
| | 00:30 | A lot of these batteries are sort of going
to limit, sort of their overall life span
| | 00:34 | and capacity by continually charging them
when they're say 90% full, or you know, 100%
| | 00:41 | full or keeping the battery
on the actual charger itself.
| | 00:43 | It's a good idea in any battery, and I usually
try to do this once a month, once every other
| | 00:48 | month is get it to full capacity and
let it drain completely out until it dies.
| | 00:52 | Rich: Yeah, now batteries have gotten smarter, so that
advice may not be needed for every piece of electronics.
| | 00:58 | Robbie: That's true.
Rich: But it's still not a bad idea.
| | 01:00 | It used to be an absolute critical must.
| | 01:02 | Manufacturers are trying to alleviate this,
but I still find, if I take it out of the
| | 01:06 | package, I want to charge it up to full before I
take it in the field, because it's not very accurate.
| | 01:11 | Another thing that's kind of weird is you'll
often--especially early on in a battery--get
| | 01:15 | false reports about how
full it is or how empty it is.
| | 01:19 | You'll start getting that warning much
like the inkjet printer, it's almost empty.
| | 01:23 | It's almost empty. If you can, run it down.
| | 01:26 | Now the hard part is, is you're on set,
you don't want it to run out in the middle of
| | 01:29 | a take, because if it runs out in the middle
of a take, well, that kind of sucks because
| | 01:34 | you've lost that take.
Robbie: Yeah, it's true.
| | 01:35 | And I've actually found, especially early on
in life span of batteries, that the battery
| | 01:40 | meter on the actual camera itself
is not all that accurate sometimes.
| | 01:44 | Where I've actually found the most
accurate metering to be is on the charger itself.
| | 01:48 | I don't know why that is necessarily, but
I've gotten reports where the cameras tell
| | 01:53 | me that the battery is a quarter full.
| | 01:55 | I put it into the charger and
it's telling me that it's half full.
| | 01:58 | Rich: Yeah, and so that Nikon charter just
says charging or full, but the one we have
| | 02:02 | here from Canon does have a status indicator.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 02:05 | Rich: Different chargers
will have different options.
| | 02:07 | Now that's when you take the battery out of
the package and you want to sort of condition
| | 02:11 | it to get it used, if you need to on set,
if you have an extra camera body, you could
| | 02:15 | pop that almost empty battery in and drain
it all the way, then start to charge it up.
| | 02:20 | But when you're shooting, there are some important options
you could change to get things right.
| | 02:24 | Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 02:26 | Rich: For example, one of the things a
lot of people leave turned on is live view.
| | 02:29 | And you know, oh, I want to see it, I want
to be able to walk around on set and look
| | 02:32 | at the back of that camera.
| | 02:33 | I set this to power off
with 1 minute of inactivity.
| | 02:37 | I also do things like turn off the Auto
Image Review so when I'm shooting stills or video
| | 02:42 | it doesn't keep popping the last shot up.
| | 02:45 | Nothing says--especially if you're using an external
monitor--that you have to even use the live view monitor.
| | 02:50 | Robbie: That's a good point, Rich, and I'll
add one more thing to that is that a lot of
| | 02:53 | these cameras will actually turn off the
whole camera, not just the live view function, but
| | 02:58 | turn off the entire camera after
I used it a finite amount of time.
| | 03:02 | So if you're in the middle of say a set
change or a prop change or a wardrobe change, and
| | 03:07 | you're not actually using the camera, and if
you're anything like me you probably actually
| | 03:10 | forget to turn it off, after say 5 or 10
minutes you can say, hey, power down everything and
| | 03:16 | it will turn off the camera and
saving you some critical battery time.
| | 03:19 | Rich: Yeah, I actually tend to set mine
to a 1-minute auto shut off or a 2-minute.
| | 03:23 | It really depends on the style of shooting,
it's up to you, but you want to get that.
| | 03:27 | So make sure and even
consider turning down the brightness.
| | 03:30 | Remember, I do not trust the brightness
on the camera monitor for really anything.
| | 03:36 | I'll set my brightness to about mid-level
and then rely upon things like histograms
| | 03:41 | or putting the footage on an external display.
| | 03:44 | You want to just use that display on the
camera minimally, because that's really the thing
| | 03:47 | that sucks the most power.
| | 03:48 | Robbie: It does, I mean, there are some other
minor things, you know, sort of the top LCD
| | 03:52 | if you turn the light on, if you have a lens that
has, you know, IS sort of VR image stabilization
| | 03:58 | in it, that can suck a little bit of
battery life, but you are absolutely right, Rich,
| | 04:02 | the back of the LCD in live view mode
is going to be your biggest consumer.
| | 04:06 | Now the other thing to keep in mind, too,
I think it's a really good point that a lot
| | 04:08 | of people don't realize, and you brought up
just a second ago is that playback and review
| | 04:13 | does spend some power, because not only are
you using the back of the camera and the LCD
| | 04:18 | here, but you're also hitting that
memory card which requires some power as well.
| | 04:22 | So, yeah, I know you want to always go out
there and sort of get, you know, review and
| | 04:25 | sort of see what you've got, but don't spend,
you know, countless minutes and hours reviewing
| | 04:30 | stuff and then expect your
battery to be at full charge.
| | 04:34 | Oftentimes what we'll do on the set is sort
of take that memory card out, move it over
| | 04:38 | to a laptop station so we can ingest it and
review there, so we're not sucking out extra
| | 04:43 | battery power out of the camera itself.
Rich: So it's all in strategies to manage.
| | 04:48 | Remember, you can always plug the
camera in if there's an outlet available.
| | 04:52 | Make sure you have plenty of batteries
charging and on hand to replace, and make some menu
| | 04:58 | choices that are going to minimize
just how much power is being used.
| | 05:02 | With some intelligent decisions and workflow,
you could dramatically extend the life of
| | 05:06 | the camera, making sure that you actually
have power when it comes time to get the shot.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
29. What Adapters Should I Carry?What adapters should I carry?| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Hi there, I'm Robbie Carman.
Rich Harrington: And I'm Richard Harrington.
| | 00:02 | Robbie: And Rich, this week on DSLR tips,
we're going to talk a little about Adapters.
| | 00:07 | Now in my experience when you go out in the
field, sometimes you think you have everything,
| | 00:11 | but sure enough situations pop up where you say I
need to adapt by audio in somewhere or adapt by video.
| | 00:17 | And if you are not prepared with the
correct adapters, that can be a problem.
| | 00:21 | Rich: Yeah, what I generally find is that,
there's wealth of things that we have here
| | 00:24 | and I kind of came from a school
being slightly paranoid on a shoot.
| | 00:29 | You are there, you are on set, if you don't
have what you need then you are going to stop
| | 00:33 | shooting, and you might lose the moment.
| | 00:35 | So I come from a school of thought that you
generally want two of everything, if at all possible.
| | 00:40 | Of course, you know, that would be
like Noah's Ark sized proportions.
| | 00:43 | So it's not totally
practical of two of everything.
| | 00:46 | But two of every major cable, two of every major adapter,
we're going to want to bring that stuff out there.
| | 00:51 | So in this week's episode what we're going to
be looking at is all the major things, right?
| | 00:55 | Robbie: Yep, we're going to
talk about adapting audio.
| | 00:57 | Audio is one of those things that you never
will have to go from you know, Quarter-inch
| | 01:01 | to XLR or to RCA and so on and so forth.
| | 01:05 | So we'll first start talking about that, and
then we'll come back and start talking about
| | 01:08 | adapting video, which is equally important,
and then we'll wrap up talking about other
| | 01:13 | adaptations that we might need
to do such as power adaptations.
| | 01:15 | Rich: All right, so a lot
of things to talk about.
| | 01:17 | When we come right back, we'll
jump into the world of audio.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adapting audio| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Unlike video, where there's only a
couple of signal types, it seems like with audio
| | 00:04 | there's tons and tons of options,
and I never have the right one.
| | 00:08 | If show up at a location then I'm patching
into the soundboard, like, oh well, we are
| | 00:12 | using Photo Plug and then
you'll go back and they're like, oh!
| | 00:15 | It's quarter-inch, oh wait,
isn't that the same thing?
| | 00:17 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, exactly Rich.
I mean, it's just really kind of funny.
| | 00:19 | You know, when you go out in the field, you
think that you have all the Audio Adapters you need.
| | 00:23 | And I am just here to tell you that there's
never enough Audio Adapters that you carry
| | 00:27 | when we go out on set or on the field.
| | 00:30 | Audio is one of those things that often has
to get changed around from different types
| | 00:33 | of cables, different types
connectors and that kind of thing.
| | 00:37 | And so it's something that when you out the
in field, you want to make sure that you're
| | 00:40 | properly prepared, and here today, we have
some of the most common sort of the essential
| | 00:44 | ones to adapt to different types of
audio cables and signals to each other.
| | 00:48 | So why don't you start out
and show us a few of these.
| | 00:50 | Rich: Well, let's go with sort of a basic
idea here of getting audio into the camera.
| | 00:55 | In this case I'm going to start with an XLR,
so let's say I'm going with an XLR cable
| | 01:01 | and I'm going to patch this in.
| | 01:02 | Now this XLR could to go to the Microphone
and or to the soundboard, and that's great
| | 01:07 | and then I'm going run that over to the Mixer.
| | 01:10 | Well the Mixer is going to allow us to
cut that in, so let's just unhook this here.
| | 01:14 | And there we go, always lots of
cable, always get tangled invariably.
| | 01:21 | All rights so this end is
designed to go into my Mixer.
| | 01:24 | Robbie: Yeah, this is a portable Field Mixer
that we have, so eventually we are going to
| | 01:27 | get this signal going to the camera, but a
little portable field mixer is nice when you
| | 01:31 | need to combine multiple
Audio Signals in to your camera.
| | 01:34 | Rich: Yeah, especially since it will let
you adjust the volume and of course, incredibly
| | 01:38 | importantly plug in Headphones.
Robbie: So you can monitor, sure.
| | 01:41 | Rich: Yeah, so we've got that
in there so of course this is going to output.
| | 01:45 | Well, okay, but I want input so again first
mistake, unplug, go the other way and this
| | 01:50 | is what happens all the time.
| | 01:52 | People get confused, walk people
through this idea of in versus out.
| | 01:56 | Robbie: Well, I mean it sounds simple, right?
| | 01:58 | But 99% of problems that exist with
audio is that the Signal path is not correct.
| | 02:03 | I found that when you are out in the field--
I'm not getting audio, I can't hear anything,
| | 02:07 | the first thing to check
his how the signal path is.
| | 02:10 | And in this case When Rich plugged in the
XLR cable to the wrong side of Mixer, guess
| | 02:14 | what the result is going to be.
| | 02:15 | Rich: It's going to go the wrong
direction and you'll hear nothing.
| | 02:18 | Robbie: Well, hear nothing, exactly.
| | 02:19 | So when you are out there in the field that's
the first to check before you start breaking
| | 02:22 | out adapters and all kind of stuff, just make
sure your inputs and outputs are connected correctly.
| | 02:26 | Rich: Okay, so we've got the Microphone Cable that would
go to the how Sound or Microphone going into my Mixer.
| | 02:33 | And now I need to go out of the Mixer
and I want to go a couple of places.
| | 02:36 | Well, I can go from the Mixer right to
the Camera and maybe I'm recording that way.
| | 02:41 | Well, if I look at my camera, I see that
this one does have a MIC Jack, but it's a mini
| | 02:45 | plug much like a Headphone Jack.
| | 02:47 | Robbie: it is, it is.
Rich: So what would I do?
| | 02:49 | Robbie: Well, you're going to need to adapt
it in some way because you're not going to
| | 02:51 | get this plug into that
small little hole, I mean.
| | 02:55 | Rich: I could push really hard.
| | 02:56 | Robbie: I've tried, I've tried, so yeah, there's a
couple of different ways that we could adapt this.
| | 03:01 | Now, you see here, we have a whole bunch of
different ways, now just have to make a decision
| | 03:03 | what you kind want to do.
| | 03:05 | Now in my case Rich, where I know that we
have 8-inch jack and we have an XLR, maybe
| | 03:09 | one of the options that we try is an
XLR to 8-Inch Adaptor, but guess what?
| | 03:13 | Rich: This one will actually work.
Robbie: Okay!
| | 03:15 | Rich: So we've got our output here in this
case, so I could plug that in and take the
| | 03:20 | output of the Mixer. There we go.
| | 03:23 | Robbie: And then on this end.
Rich: We could take that right in.
| | 03:26 | Robbie: Yep, and the reason I was saying
guess what Rich, is because sometimes you got to
| | 03:30 | be careful about what
your output is going to be.
| | 03:33 | Now I just did a little mistake and I looked
at this and thought it was quarter-inch out
| | 03:36 | but on closer inspection obviously, it's XLR.
| | 03:38 | Rich: Well, we do actually have both because
you nailed it, because in this case, we could
| | 03:42 | go out of the Headphone Jack,
which is going to be quarter-inch.
| | 03:46 | And I have an Adapter here right, so as you
see, we've got a quarter-inch Adapter going
| | 03:51 | to just a small Headphone Jack.
| | 03:53 | So I could've gone out on either end,
maybe I didn't have the XLR output.
| | 03:58 | So plug in that into there, we can now go
from quarter-inch to Headphone and we have
| | 04:02 | a Headphone Cable, right?
| | 04:03 | Robbie: Yeah, exactly Rich, so we could take
just sort of an eighth-inch Jack right into the
| | 04:07 | Headphones other end right into
the Camera and we are good to go.
| | 04:09 | Rich: Yeah, but in this case, I going to use
the XLR Adapter just a higher-quality signal.
| | 04:14 | But that was just one example of a real-
world workflow problem, and it's going to vary,
| | 04:19 | right, because here I've got my
Zoom H4N and it's got XLR Adapters.
| | 04:25 | And here is a different
External Audio Recorder, and it's?
| | 04:28 | Robbie: About quarter-inch?
| | 04:29 | Rich: Yeah, so it really comes
down to having the right tool.
| | 04:33 | So you could really two ways, you can go with
cables--for example, I've got a quarter-inch
| | 04:39 | to Headphone Jack and this is specifically
designed in this case, so I can go out of
| | 04:43 | here into the Camera, and I know that
because it's my audio recorder, my Camera is using
| | 04:48 | those, I went for the
dedicated cable, less Adapters.
| | 04:51 | On the other hand, you got
giant box of Adapters there.
| | 04:54 | Robbie: This is my friend, the box of old
adaptors, they are not old being O-L-D but O-L-E, right?
| | 04:59 | And this is an essential thing that you
should have in your kit, just a box, a tackle box,
| | 05:03 | something like that, that you can carry with
you, and one of things that I like to carry
| | 05:07 | with me, are these guys that you see right here.
| | 05:10 | And these are all sort of gender
changers, if you will, or sort of adaptors.
| | 05:13 | And they do different things, these barrel
adaptors, you can see this one, I go from
| | 05:17 | an XLR female to quarter inch.
| | 05:19 | This actually lets me go from quarter-inch female to
XLR on the side, this one is actually really neat, Rich.
| | 05:27 | This one if you can see there, it
allows you to go from USB to XLR.
| | 05:31 | Rich: So if I needed to run the audio into my computer,
maybe I was using the computer as a Sync Sound Device.
| | 05:37 | I could adapt that and then record right to
a desktop application like Adobe Audition.
| | 05:42 | Robbie: Absolutely, and the best thing about
all of these adaptors is that they are not
| | 05:45 | going to break the bank.
| | 05:46 | You can go to a plethora of online retailers,
and find these adapters for sometimes just
| | 05:51 | a buck or two, same thing with the
cables, they are not very expensive.
| | 05:55 | So when you're gearing up to go on a shoot,
it's always a good idea to so go out there
| | 06:00 | and get a sort of a good collection, size and
sort of different types of adapters, because
| | 06:05 | you never know what you're going
to find on set and on location.
| | 06:08 | Rich: Yeah, one of the things that I
strongly recommend is that you give some thought to
| | 06:12 | the Logical Microphone Paths, so think about,
where's my audio coming from, do I need to
| | 06:17 | patch into any existing audio sources, maybe
you are an Event Videographer and you need
| | 06:22 | to patch in the audio at a
church or a concert venue.
| | 06:25 | But you want to ideally think about that,
and there's really two strategies, either
| | 06:29 | have one of everything, or novel idea go to
the venue ahead of time and check your audio.
| | 06:36 | Audio is one of those things you just can
not make up for. If you don't get good audio,
| | 06:40 | you're pretty much screwed.
| | 06:41 | Robbie: You are, and you made a really good
interesting point there about going to the
| | 06:43 | venue, especially if you are doing like
music or having to tap in to a mixing board, we
| | 06:47 | talked about this in a previous episode.
| | 06:49 | But another thing besides the actual adaptation
is the actual signal, whether you're working
| | 06:53 | with LINE level or MIC level and the Adapters
that you choose might play into what the
| | 06:59 | signal is actually being fed to
you and where it's being fed from.
| | 07:01 | Rich: All right, so that's the idea with
audio, we've covered audio in past episodes,
| | 07:05 | so be sure to check out some of
the other workflows we've discussed.
| | 07:09 | Let's go on to take a look
at Essential Video Adapters.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adapting video| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: We've covered on a previous episode
that trying to look to the live view monitor
| | 00:04 | really makes it difficult to do things like
focus and exposure. It's not ergonomic,
| | 00:09 | it's not in a good place.
Robbie Carman: Yeah.
| | 00:10 | Rich: Plus, a lot of times that when we're
on set we actually need to collaborate with
| | 00:14 | other people, share the video signal.
| | 00:16 | Robbie: That's right, I mean we've have talked
about this before where everything looks good
| | 00:18 | on the back of a 3-inch monitor.
| | 00:20 | So, oftentimes you want
to pipe out of the camera.
| | 00:22 | So, you know, something simple, maybe you'd
like an EVF, like an electronic viewfinder
| | 00:26 | like this, may be a larger monitor like this,
or maybe you might go even bigger you know.
| | 00:31 | Sometimes on set you might have something
like, you know, a plasma, or a big LCD, way
| | 00:35 | back offset where clients can be comfortable
of making it sit and watch what's going on.
| | 00:39 | But to do that, Rich, we need to be able to most
likely adapt the signal in some shape or fashion, right?
| | 00:45 | Rich: Yeah, I think the first thing you are
going to have to decide is what type of video
| | 00:49 | signal can I get out my camera?
Robbie: Right.
| | 00:51 | Rich: Now most DSLRs are going to have either an
HDMI or mini HDMI coming out of the camera body itself.
| | 00:59 | Robbie: That's right.
| | 01:00 | Rich: So we've seen these before, but
there's different types of cables, and in this case,
| | 01:04 | I have a mini HDMI to full-size HDMI, and I got a
specialty cable here that's designed to bend, which is good.
| | 01:11 | Because if your cables don't bend, your
gear tends to fall over or ports tend to break.
| | 01:16 | Robbie: That's--that's very true.
| | 01:17 | Rich: What happens if you
break a port on the camera?
| | 01:18 | Robbie: You got to send it
back into the manufacturer.
| | 01:21 | You'll be without a camera for a while and--
Rich: Out a couple of hundred bucks at least.
| | 01:25 | Robbie: Out a couple hundred
bucks, and you'll be very unhappy.
| | 01:27 | So yeah, this little--this
little swivel one is a nice one.
| | 01:30 | But you made an interesting point is that
most of the time on these cameras, generally
| | 01:33 | speaking there're going to be many mini HDMI
and mini HDMI is not something that you find
| | 01:38 | very often outside of the production market.
| | 01:40 | I am sure it may be some home theater receivers
and stuff like that have it, but you need
| | 01:44 | to go out and find
specialty mini HDMI to HDMI cables.
| | 01:47 | Now, if you don't have a mini HDMI cable,
this is a little guy that comes in very handy.
| | 01:53 | Now when you are going out to buy one of
these guys, this is a full-size HDMI on one side
| | 01:57 | to mini HDMI on the other
side, buy a bunch of these.
| | 02:01 | These things are very small and
they tend to go missing very quickly.
| | 02:05 | So I usually buy them in gross, you know, buy
a dozen or have a two dozen or so at a time.
| | 02:09 | Rich: As you say, packs of five, but since
I used to have five and that's the only one
| | 02:12 | I get find on my bag, it's time to buy gross.
| | 02:15 | Robbie: Right, so this is nice because, you
know, if don't have the specialty cable, you
| | 02:18 | can simply plug in the mini HDMI and then
a full-size HDMI cable to your side, run it
| | 02:22 | out to your monitoring and that kind of thing.
| | 02:24 | Rich: Yeah, and what's going to be helpful
here is that you're going to need to adapt.
| | 02:27 | So you mentioned earlier the electronic viewfinder.
Robbie: Yep.
| | 02:30 | Rich: I am a big fan of using the EVF.
What I have here though is the ability to go in.
| | 02:35 | So I could take a full-size
HDMI in, and then loop it back out.
| | 02:39 | So this is a better monitor for me.
| | 02:41 | It's high resolution, I
can mount it on the camera.
| | 02:43 | I could put it on an arm, and then I could
loop that signal coming out of there and for
| | 02:48 | that I've gone ahead and actually have
gotten an L bracket to convert it, so instead of
| | 02:53 | the cable sticking out the side here.
| | 02:56 | Robbie: Where somebody can bump it...
Rich: Yeah.
| | 02:57 | Robbie: ...or get pulled over, right?
| | 02:58 | Rich: I can just go ahead and put
that into the output there,
| | 03:01 | and now it runs straight backwards.
| | 03:03 | So you see there it's coming straight out
and now the cable can run away from the camera
| | 03:08 | as opposed to hanging out the side,
it makes it easier to drape on down.
| | 03:11 | Now once I have that HDMI looping out, I've
gone from my monitoring to sharing with others,
| | 03:17 | what can I do with that full HDMI out?
| | 03:19 | Robbie: Well, you could do
a lot of things with that.
| | 03:20 | I mean, you can go into a full-size monitor.
| | 03:23 | You could go into a recorder, that kind of
thing, but here is the one problem with HDMI,
| | 03:27 | Rich, is that it doesn't
run very long distances.
| | 03:30 | So it's great when you're sort of, you know,
in the self-contained kind of setup right
| | 03:34 | on set, but let's say you're monitoring this
40, 50 feet away or you're trying to do other
| | 03:40 | long cable links, HDMI is not
going to be the thing for you.
| | 03:45 | Professional videographers and professional
video post people have come to know and love
| | 03:50 | SDI video over the years, Serial Digital Interface, and the
beauty about SDI is that it carries an uncompressed signal
| | 03:55 | like HDMI, but it can run
for very, very long lengths.
| | 03:59 | So the other type of adaptation that we
often have to make in the field when working with
| | 04:03 | HDMI equipped cameras is that we sometimes need
to go HDMI to SDI or even maybe you go analog.
| | 04:10 | We would go SDI to say component analog and
fortunately, there's a lot of different ways
| | 04:15 | that we can adapt that, but one of the things that
I am really big fan of Rich, is this guy right here.
| | 04:20 | Now this one is made by AJA, but
Black Magic and others make these.
| | 04:23 | And what this allows you to do is plug in
an HDMI signal on this end, and then on the
| | 04:28 | other side, you actually have two SDI outputs.
| | 04:31 | So if you need to do a really long cable run
from HDMI from your camera to say a monitor
| | 04:35 | that's further away or a recorder that's
further away, these are a good investment to make.
| | 04:40 | Rich: Now before I get to that I do want
to say even though HDMI cables shouldn't be
| | 04:45 | run too far, this little
guy is going to save you.
| | 04:48 | What you see here is I can go from HDMI to
HDMI and this is essentially a coupler that
| | 04:53 | lets you plug two HDMI cables together.
So maybe I am going out the camera.
| | 04:58 | Well, I don't want to have to have
this box dangling with my camera body.
| | 05:01 | Robbie: Right, sure.
| | 05:02 | Rich: So by using an adapter here, I can
go from the camera cable to a full length
| | 05:06 | HDMI cable and then run this on out and
that's going to give me a little more reach.
| | 05:10 | Robbie: Absolutely, but you know, you can
also use multiple adapters if you need to.
| | 05:13 | Now I come from the sort of the attitude of
less adapters, the fewer problems that you're
| | 05:18 | probably going to have, but in this case, Rich,
you said, you have this adapter here in place,
| | 05:22 | I can simply plug this guy in right here,
plug my BNC over here on this end, so I have
| | 05:27 | an SDI signal and now I have a nice
signal path going out through all the monitors.
| | 05:31 | Rich: Look its cable soup, yeah.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 05:33 | Rich: You have to always be careful with
cables that you take the time to lay them down.
| | 05:36 | Actually, this is a good time to mention
though, because monitoring is critical what don't
| | 05:41 | I want to do with these cables
and say any power cables on set.
| | 05:44 | Robbie: Yeah, It's always a bad idea to sort
of run your power cables and video or audio
| | 05:49 | cables for that matter
in parallel to each other.
| | 05:51 | When you do that or you overlap them,
oftentimes you can get interference.
| | 05:54 | Now, good cables are often very well shielded.
| | 05:58 | So it's not nearly as problematic as it has
been in the past with the analog video and
| | 06:01 | analog audio signals, but just,
you know, be careful about.
| | 06:05 | You never want to sort of have whole
bird's nest of cables overlapping each other.
| | 06:09 | Now Rich, there is one more adapter or two
more adapters that I want to mention that
| | 06:12 | really come in handy and I think
are essential pieces to your kit.
| | 06:15 | Now this little guy.
Rich: It's a T.
| | 06:17 | Robbie: Well, it looks like a little T, right?
| | 06:19 | Now you might think to yourself,
well, what's the big deal with this?
| | 06:22 | Well, oftentimes, you'll need to be able to
feed signal to multiple places at the same time.
| | 06:26 | So you might want to be able to feed a signal,
say an SDI signal to one client monitor over
| | 06:30 | here, and may be the production
team over here has another one.
| | 06:33 | This little guy allows you to do that.
| | 06:35 | It has an input coming from say your HDMI to SDI
converter, and then you can run two signals off of it.
| | 06:40 | So you can split the
signal, which is really nice.
| | 06:42 | And then the other one I think that's an essential
piece to kit to have are barrel adapters like this.
| | 06:47 | Now this one allows me to go
BNC or an SDI signal to RCA.
| | 06:51 | So you might have an adapter that goes,
you know, HDMI out to component analog.
| | 06:56 | Well, what if your monitor only has, you know, sort
of consumer RCA inputs, you'd need something like this?
| | 07:01 | Rich: Yeah, and so to sort of break this
down for you, as you are trying to decide
| | 07:04 | what to pull off, I want you to realize
that this is really a spectrum.
| | 07:09 | For example, most folks would get by
just fine with a good HDMI monitor.
| | 07:14 | If it's just you shooting,
I can't recommend enough.
| | 07:16 | Go for something like an Electronic
Viewfinder so you have a higher resolution signal.
| | 07:21 | Then, if you need to collaborate with others, you could
take that HDMI signal out into another HDMI type monitor.
| | 07:27 | This could be a small portable one that runs
off of batteries for field use or even a consumer
| | 07:32 | grade television, just the
larger screen will go a long way.
| | 07:36 | Now the type of stuff we're talking abut
with HDMI to HDSDI, this is really when you're
| | 07:40 | going on professional video set, and if
you're on that set, HDSDI is just the standard that
| | 07:46 | everything is used for the monitors.
So those adapters come into play.
| | 07:51 | Remember, you're all at
different points in production.
| | 07:53 | Some of you are just
running and gunning one-man bands.
| | 07:56 | On the other hand, just last week I was on
a Pro video set and we were using two DSLRs,
| | 08:01 | but we absolutely needed that critical
monitoring and the one advantage of HDSDI is that you
| | 08:06 | start to get to be able to take advantage
of higher quality monitors with things like
| | 08:10 | built-in scopes as well.
| | 08:11 | Robbie: Absolutely, and I think, Rich, just like
adapting audio, it's essential that you be prepared.
| | 08:17 | You might not need to use all these adapters
and different cables on every single production,
| | 08:22 | but it's nice to have that in your kit.
| | 08:24 | So when the situation arises where you need to
adapt the video, you're prepared, instead of saying, hey!
| | 08:30 | PA run down to RadioShack or something,
something of that nature, you know?
| | 08:34 | So it's, it's always better to be prepared.
| | 08:36 | Rich: My 7-eleven carries HDMI.
Robbie: Oh! Of course, of course.
| | 08:39 | Yeah, always better to be prepared and be
ready for those situations when you need to
| | 08:44 | adapt the video or audio signal.
| | 08:45 | Rich: All right, so when we come back, we're
going to tackle two last things, that is, options
| | 08:49 | for connecting equipment as
well as some alternatives for power.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Power options| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: You know, Rich, both of us travel a
lot, and we're frequently in places where
| | 00:04 | power is very hard to come by.
| | 00:07 | Now you know, we've talked about it in
previous episodes and I'm sure we'll talk about in
| | 00:10 | future episodes, the ability to carry
obviously a lots of batteries and your camera chargers,
| | 00:16 | lots of chargers or potentially you
use AC adapters that come with cameras.
| | 00:20 | But one of the situations I found myself
all the time in is I literally cannot charge a
| | 00:24 | battery nor can I plug in, because I don't
have the right type of power adapter with
| | 00:30 | me for the particular place that I'm in.
| | 00:32 | Say maybe I'm traveling to Europe or
Australia or wherever, adapting power is a very big
| | 00:37 | concern that you need to be focused on.
| | 00:39 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, and one of the things you're
going to realize is you don't want to rely
| | 00:42 | upon the hotel to give you that adapter.
| | 00:45 | So if you are traveling internationally,
there's a whole range of things like you see here
| | 00:50 | that'll go from different types of
connections to allow you to plug in and it's going to
| | 00:54 | let you go ahead and adapt just some US ones.
Chances are, though, that's not going to be
| | 00:58 | grounded, so you're going to want to be
careful as you're thinking about that, but get some
| | 01:02 | sort of international kit before you travel
and make sure you've all the options that
| | 01:07 | you're going to need, so you're going
to adapt to whatever your country uses.
| | 01:09 | Robbie: Yeah, you made a
really interesting point.
| | 01:11 | A lot of these adapters, especially the
ones that you can buy, say like the airport or,
| | 01:15 | you know, book store and gadget shops, stuff like
that, they're not going to be actually grounded.
| | 01:20 | So you have to be careful when you're
plugging something in and I have made this mistake,
| | 01:23 | once or twice, I have plugged something
in and all of the sudden, it's a little zap.
| | 01:27 | They do make grounded adapters, they just
tend to be a little bit more expensive, so
| | 01:31 | especially if you're connecting camera gear and stuff
like that, having a grounded connection is very important.
| | 01:35 | Rich: Yeah, you're going to want to go
ahead and make sure you potentially invest in
| | 01:39 | a good one before you go abroad.
| | 01:41 | Even traveling domestically, I still run
into problems, which is the fact that people who
| | 01:45 | design hotel rooms, many hotel room seem to been designed
before the invention of personal electronic devices.
| | 01:52 | Robbie: This is true, and you often find
yourself in a place where, you know, you're on set
| | 01:56 | and you need to make that one call to that
one vendor or if the talent is running late
| | 02:00 | and all of a sudden your iPhone or your
Blackberry, whatever is not charged, not ready to go and
| | 02:05 | you know, if you don't have an external battery pack
or something like that it can become a little bit difficult.
| | 02:09 | Now we have an adaptor here that
I think is really kind of cool.
| | 02:12 | This one actually allows us to plug
in traditional type of plugs, right?
| | 02:16 | But then at the very top,
guess what it has.
| | 02:18 | Rich: USB.
Robbie: USB, right.
| | 02:19 | So you can plug in your phone, your iPad,
your tablet whatever it may be and, you know,
| | 02:24 | as we discussed in previous episodes, Rich,
these devices like iPhones and iPads have
| | 02:28 | actually became really important on set for
things like slates and the weather apps and
| | 02:32 | that kind of stuff and not having access to them,
because you don't have power can be a dangerous thing.
| | 02:36 | Rich: Well, I like to have the
ability to go ahead and multiply a port.
| | 02:40 | Now you have to be careful, but one of the
advantages of using something like this device,
| | 02:44 | this is just one from Belkin here, is that
you could take one outlet to three, you don't
| | 02:48 | want to go crazy, but a simple power strip, this is
small enough that it fits in my camera bag which is nice.
| | 02:54 | If not when you get on location, you can go
ahead and pick up a traditional power supply,
| | 02:58 | get a power strip at just your normal
electronic big-box store, but I can't emphasize enough,
| | 03:03 | the number of times that we get on set and
you can't reach the power, because it's behind
| | 03:07 | something, so this is just your typical hardware
store heavy duty shielded power supply. Why shielded?
| | 03:14 | Robbie: Right, well, shielded because we're
working with electronic equipment, right?
| | 03:17 | And we don't want that power in the interference
that might be causing the power cable interfering
| | 03:21 | with things like SDI cables, HDMI cables.
Rich: Audio.
| | 03:23 | Robbie: Yeah, audio and things of that nature.
| | 03:26 | Now actually, we don't have it here, but one
thing that's really nice too is you can buy
| | 03:29 | these extension cords in sort of spindle units,
right, where you can--they are easier to carry
| | 03:34 | and wrap up and a lot of times, those
spindle units will actually have a block of four or
| | 03:39 | five different power connectors
right in the center of the spindle.
| | 03:43 | So you can plug in a number of things
directly to the spindle, while still extending the
| | 03:47 | reach to whatever power source that you have.
| | 03:49 | Rich: So just make sure even when traveling in
your own country that you have port multiplier,
| | 03:52 | so you have enough ports and that's going
to really help, and then of course, go ahead
| | 03:57 | and get some shielded power supplies.
| | 03:59 | Now you can always buy these
locally, when you get on location.
| | 04:01 | Fortunately, this is the type of equipment
that just about everybody needs, so your local
| | 04:06 | hardware store could help you out.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Connecting gear| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: So it seems like besides power,
audio, and everything else, we always have gadgets.
| | 00:05 | Your DSLR kit is not complete unless you
at least hang two things off the camera.
| | 00:11 | Robbie Carman: Well, right, you know if you go on
Facebook and Twitter and places like that
| | 00:14 | it seems like all the pro DPs and cinematographers
out there, they have these gigantic rigs with
| | 00:20 | 14 bazillion things hanging off and they for
sure make for cool pictures, but to get all
| | 00:26 | of that stuff on the actual camera or the
camera rig itself, you're going to have to
| | 00:31 | have different adaptors and ways of getting stuff
to the camera or to a rail system or something like that.
| | 00:36 | Rich: And let's start with simplest one here. We have
a hot shoe on the camera, chances are that's covered up.
| | 00:41 | This is normally where the flash attaches
and the reason why it's called a hot shoe
| | 00:46 | is because there's actually a transfer point.
| | 00:47 | Now most of the devices we're going to use
for DSLR video are not going to take advantage
| | 00:51 | of that, but you could easily attach
things like your shotgun microphone.
| | 00:55 | Robbie: Yeah, and a lot of these DSLR-specific
microphones which are great for run-and-gun
| | 01:00 | situations are going to
attach right to that hot shoe.
| | 01:02 | Now granted, they're not going to sort of
pass off data to the camera through the hot
| | 01:06 | shoe, it's just literally a mounting point.
| | 01:08 | This is great for attaching things like
microphones, but what if I want to attach something else?
| | 01:12 | Maybe like on camera light, I mean,
I only have one hot shoe here.
| | 01:17 | How am I going to get
other stuff on to the camera?
| | 01:18 | Rich: Well, we just adapt it.
| | 01:20 | One of my favorite adapters is something like
this, and this is just a Y adapter that's going
| | 01:25 | to take me and notice it's got two
different heights, so they don't collide.
| | 01:29 | So I can now loosen that up, slide this in
and this was just find on Amazon.com, I just
| | 01:36 | typed in Y hot shoe adapter and there's lots
of different ones out there just slides in place.
| | 01:41 | Robbie: Amazing what you can find on Amazon.
| | 01:43 | Rich: Yeah, and we'll just tighten that down
and there's a top screw here, too, that I could
| | 01:48 | tighten, but this allows me to go
ahead and slide that into place.
| | 01:51 | Robbie: And then if you wanted to, you
could just put your light in right there.
| | 01:54 | Rich: Yeah, and let's
just tighten this down here.
| | 01:56 | Robbie: Okay, here we go, be careful that
your light is not all that secured yet.
| | 02:02 | Rich: That's right, go
ahead and tighten the light down.
| | 02:04 | Robbie: Okay, here we go.
| | 02:07 | Rich: Yep, so now we have both devices attached.
I have got a top light which is going to work well.
| | 02:14 | This of course will allow me to
adjust this here, except it's kind of fixed.
| | 02:18 | Now I could turn this and this one just simply
has the ability to then swivel and reposition.
| | 02:25 | So notice that the adapter in this case going
from hot shoe to light actually has a swivel
| | 02:29 | point making it easy to adjust the lights.
| | 02:31 | Robbie: In this setup, something like this
is a great thing for like, you know, ENG or
| | 02:35 | news gathering or something like that, where
you need to have a small sort of self-contained
| | 02:39 | package and you don't want to have the bulk of
say a rail system or cage or something like that.
| | 02:44 | Rich: Yeah, and this is
really sort of the minimal.
| | 02:47 | Two mounting points, a microphone and a
light that's really going to do if for most folks
| | 02:51 | if you are in run-and-gun situation.
| | 02:53 | I wouldn't call this ideal lighting or
ideal sound, but it's a lot better than what the
| | 02:58 | camera comes with, so you nailed it.
| | 03:01 | News, small documentary, running and gunning, I have
got this, I can go ahead and I have gotten on there.
| | 03:05 | We'll just tighten all that down, so it's
really firm and as you tighten those you see
| | 03:10 | you got a good solid rig, so now you can move
around, I could use my gorilla part here as a grip.
| | 03:15 | One of things I like is sort of flaying
that out, so now I have got two handles.
| | 03:19 | And I could run and use the camera, but
eventually you're going to run out of mounting points.
| | 03:24 | In this case, people
usually step up to a rail system.
| | 03:26 | Robbie: Right, you are not only mounting points,
too, Rich, but a setup like this also sort
| | 03:30 | of changes your center of gravity and how
ergonomic the kit is, and as you pointed out
| | 03:35 | a lot of people, after they sort of try to put
everything they can on the camera, eventually
| | 03:38 | come to a system like this, where I have a
set of rails on a tripod plate like this right
| | 03:44 | in here, the rail is right here and these rails
are going to come in different lengths, right?
| | 03:48 | You can get 8-inch rails, 6-inch rails,
foot long, 2-foot long rails, it just really
| | 03:52 | depends on how much stuff
that you're going to put on it.
| | 03:55 | Now in this case, we just
have a few simple items.
| | 03:57 | I have a mounting point for the actual
camera itself and then a mounting point down here,
| | 04:01 | so I could put this on the tripod, and if I
turn this around a little bit, you'll notice
| | 04:04 | that this system actually has a Follow Focus,
and we'll talk about Follow Focuses in future
| | 04:10 | episodes, but a Follow Focus is simply a way
of allowing you to adjust focus directly on
| | 04:14 | the camera without having your hand on the
actual lens and allows you to do much more
| | 04:19 | accurate and how you focus the camera.
| | 04:21 | Rich: And then going off of this rail
system here, we could easily do things like take
| | 04:25 | the electronic viewfinder and
put that on an arm to extend it.
| | 04:28 | Robbie: Absolutely, I mean, these things can
get really kind of beefy, you got a various
| | 04:32 | arms for monitors, audio recorders and then
sort of the next step up from the basic rail
| | 04:37 | system would be what a lot of people
are referring to these days as cages.
| | 04:40 | Now a cage is sort of a sort of a self-
contained unit that would go around the camera itself,
| | 04:45 | and it provides just a plethora of mounting
points and the cool thing that I really like
| | 04:50 | about cages is that they actually have power
options, too, on them and sometimes even audio options.
| | 04:55 | So instead of having to have various
adapters for power and that kind of stuff, you can
| | 04:58 | simply plug the camera directly into the cage
with an Anton Bauer or Sony battery, or whatever
| | 05:03 | and you have power right there to go, plus
you have the additional mounting points that
| | 05:07 | allow you to attach things very nicely and
it's all one sort of self contained unit.
| | 05:10 | Rich: Now a lot of people
grumble why do we need all this stuff?
| | 05:13 | The real reason is, is that the DSRL camera
was not exactly designed with all the video
| | 05:18 | accessories in mind, but even
pro-video cameras have adaptions.
| | 05:22 | We use rail systems on full-size video cameras,
we use cheese plates or mounting points on
| | 05:27 | the back to attach things,
external power supplies.
| | 05:30 | So the DSLR has it particularly bad, but this
is not unheard of and it has been used throughout
| | 05:35 | the traditional film and video industry.
| | 05:37 | So just get a kit that works for you, think
about the accessories need to add, and then
| | 05:41 | you can go ahead and build it and rig it,
and you are ideally going to want something
| | 05:45 | that you could break down, so it's easy to
carry and then quickly assemble, so you're
| | 05:49 | ready to go and start shooting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
30. What Type of Microphone Should I Use for Run-and-Gun Shooting?What type of microphone should I use for run-and-gun shooting?| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi, my name's Rich Harrington.
Robbie Carman: And I'm Robbie Carman.
| | 00:02 | Rich: And welcome to this week's episode.
| | 00:04 | We're going to be talking about audio, or more importantly,
really go in deep on how to not screw things up.
| | 00:10 | Robbie: Well, right, I mean when we are out
there in the field, especially in a run-and-gun
| | 00:13 | situation, audio can make
or break your production.
| | 00:18 | Now this is sort of germane to people like
News Reporters and ENG Style things, but even
| | 00:22 | if you're shooting sort of a documentary
style project where you need to make sure that you
| | 00:26 | get good audio, but you don't necessarily
have the equipment, the budget, or the team
| | 00:31 | to have a lot of your audio gear on
set and all the people running it.
| | 00:35 | So, this week we really want to focus on sort of
a run-and-gun approach and how we use microphones
| | 00:41 | and different pieces of gear in run-
and-gun setups to get good audio.
| | 00:45 | Rich: And one of the things I'd really like
to say is this, realize that run-and-gun sound,
| | 00:51 | one-person sound is not ideal, no matter how
you slice it, this is not the ideal workflow.
| | 00:58 | If you're trying to pay attention to the
performance of your subject, the focus, the quality of
| | 01:03 | the signal, the shot composition and
by the way, is the microphone working?
| | 01:08 | Does the audio sound good?
This is not ideal.
| | 01:11 | I think what we're really saying here, Rob,
is the only reason you're going to use these
| | 01:14 | techniques is because you have to.
| | 01:17 | You have no money, you have
no crew, you have no choice.
| | 01:20 | So we want to help you get the best out of it,
and to that end, we're going to be talking
| | 01:23 | about getting more from the built in mic,
using a shotgun mic, microphone pre-amps,
| | 01:29 | but I really cannot emphasize enough,
get another person if at all possible.
| | 01:34 | Robbie: Yeah, no, a dedicated audio person
is going to do wonders for your production.
| | 01:38 | With that said, though, if you just pay a
little bit more attention to how you're actually
| | 01:43 | working with audio when you're in a run-and-gun
situation, you can get some very usable good audio.
| | 01:48 | Fortunately, lot of the microphones, lot of
the other gear that's out there has made getting
| | 01:54 | good audio in run-and-gun situations even
easier, but I agree with Rich, is that when
| | 01:59 | you're in a run-and-gun situation, audio is
something that you really need to focus on
| | 02:03 | and it's always better if you have the time, the budget,
and the personnel to have a dedicated audio person on set.
| | 02:09 | Rich: With that in mind, when we come back
we're going to take a look at the worst microphone
| | 02:12 | you own, the built-in mic on the camera.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Built-in microphones| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Now, Rich, for years when I bought
a video camera, I was accustomed to getting
| | 00:04 | relatively good audio with that camera.
| | 00:07 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, lot of video cameras,
professional ones would have a shotgun mic,
| | 00:10 | and even consumer ones would have a mic.
| | 00:13 | Now, this microphone, the built-in one, was
just to get ambient noise, it really wasn't
| | 00:18 | good for dialogue unless you are
like right in that person's face.
| | 00:20 | Robbie: Yeah, sort of passable audio.
| | 00:21 | I mean, of course the thing that really got
these cameras into the forefront in the reason
| | 00:25 | that we're talking about them today, is
the beautiful HD picture that they produce.
| | 00:29 | However, when it comes to the audio side of
things especially in a run-and-gun situation,
| | 00:34 | your microphone built-in, mmm, not so much.
| | 00:37 | And you can visualize this pretty easily
when you simply look at the camera body itself.
| | 00:42 | Now, this is a Canon T4i and you can see my microphones,
probably you can't even see those microphones up there, right?
| | 00:48 | Just a couple little pin-pricks
in the top of the plastic.
| | 00:51 | Now, on this Nikon that you have...
| | 00:52 | Rich: It's even worse, yeah, it's a two little holes
at the front of the camera here, that's the built-in mic.
| | 00:58 | Robbie: Now I don't claim to be an audio
expert, but I'd have to think that having a couple
| | 01:04 | of pinpricks in a piece of
plastic on the camera body itself.
| | 01:06 | Rich: Right where my hand goes.
| | 01:07 | Robbie: Exactly, is not going to produce
amazing results, and that is in fact what we found
| | 01:12 | and what other users over
the past few years have found.
| | 01:15 | The built-in mic is good for a couple of things.
| | 01:18 | One, it's good for getting reference audio
if you're working with say, a digital audio
| | 01:22 | recorder or another recording system, and we'll talk about
reference audio and what that really means in the later episode.
| | 01:27 | Rich: But even there if you are using it
for reference, it's not perfect.
| | 01:30 | Robbie: Right.
| | 01:31 | Rich: I am a big fan of using that as the
fallback and then using an extra shotgun mic,
| | 01:37 | which we'll talk about in a second to get
better reference audio, but this is passable,
| | 01:41 | if you're in a quite situation.
| | 01:43 | Really, the bottom line is that that
built-in mic is better than no audio.
| | 01:47 | Robbie: And that's really what my point was.
| | 01:49 | The second point was that, this is a
situation when you have the built-in mic, if you have
| | 01:53 | no other options and you're in a run-and-gun
situation, having some audio and at least
| | 01:58 | getting being able to hear your subject, even
if it's noisy or sounds thin and hollow, it's
| | 02:03 | much better than having somebody
talk and you can't actually hear them.
| | 02:06 | So, just be for warn that the built-in
microphone on lot of these cameras is passable but by
| | 02:11 | no means is in an exceptional choice
for getting really high quality audio.
| | 02:16 | Rich: Now, what you are going to want to think about
with that built-in mic is minimizing vibration or rub.
| | 02:21 | So make sure you know where that mic is. In the case here,
it was on top so probably not going to be a touch point.
| | 02:26 | And the case here on the D600, it's kind of near a point
where I am going to be grabbing or making adjustments.
| | 02:31 | So I want to try to minimize touching
the camera body while I'm recording.
| | 02:35 | To this end, make sure you know what type of
sound you're going to get out of that microphone.
| | 02:40 | I recommend you do a little bit of test
shooting, take your camera out, try it in different
| | 02:44 | situations, also make sure that your camera's
firmware is up to date, so you can actually get some control.
| | 02:51 | Most of these built-in mics will be using
automatic gain control so it's going to adjust
| | 02:55 | up and down, that could
be really be problematic.
| | 02:58 | Generally speaking, I'll set the built-in
mic to either medium or high levels because
| | 03:02 | I'm just treating as reference, but Auto Gain
Control can wreak havoc when it comes time to sync.
| | 03:07 | Robbie: Yeah, and in some of the cameras you
can turn it off, but I think an even bigger
| | 03:10 | point with these microphones is to realize
that for most of the cameras, they are going
| | 03:14 | to be omnidirectional mics, which means that they are
going to pick up audio from everywhere around the camera.
| | 03:20 | And this can be problematic especially if
you are in a noisy situation and you are trying
| | 03:23 | to interview somebody or get some dialogue.
| | 03:25 | So in that situation, we're going to come
back in just a few minutes and talk about
| | 03:29 | another great option for run-and-gun shooting when it
comes to audio, and that's using an on-camera shotgun mic.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shotgun microphones| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: So, I think if you watched
our last movie, we've safely established
| | 00:04 | that the built-in microphone, not very useful.
| | 00:07 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, it's one of those things that
if you have no other choice in a run-and-gun
| | 00:10 | situation, it's better than nothing,
but I think a much better step up is going to
| | 00:15 | an on-camera shotgun mic.
Rich: Yeah.
| | 00:17 | Robbie: Now, if you're familiar with a
shotgun mic, a shotgun mic is something like this
| | 00:20 | guy, this one is made by RODE.
| | 00:21 | But a shotgun mic is a very directional
mic, and what that means is that it's going to
| | 00:26 | pick up sound mainly from what it's
pointed at, in the front of the mic.
| | 00:29 | And this is great for things like dialogue,
for interviews, and that kind of stuff.
| | 00:34 | Now, the thing about the shotgun mics is
that you can buy shotguns like Sennheisers and
| | 00:39 | other brands that are just shotgun mics, but
in that situation, you probably have to adapt
| | 00:44 | that microphone to work on your DSLR camera, because most
of those high-end shotguns are going to be XLR outputs.
| | 00:49 | In addition, they are probably also going
to need power, it's called Phantom Power.
| | 00:54 | However, companies like RODE and other manufacturers
are now making sort of DSLR-specific microphones
| | 01:00 | that can mount, just as we see here, right
on to the hot shoe of the camera and then
| | 01:04 | just take a line out, an eighth inch a
line out directly into the camera body itself.
| | 01:07 | Rich: And what's nice is that this
microphone will actually put out different levels.
| | 01:11 | You see here that it can go between 10 below
zero, or plus 20, so we have some flexibility
| | 01:17 | with the audio levels that
puts out, which is important.
| | 01:20 | Different camera bodies are going to
expect different levels of audio coming in.
| | 01:24 | The goal I find is to make sure that
I have a nice strong signal coming in.
| | 01:28 | Ideally, I don't want to have to crank up
the sensitivity of the camera because the
| | 01:31 | more we have to boost it there, the more likely you
are going to get hiss and noise and background sound.
| | 01:36 | Robbie: That's right, Rich, and another nice
thing about these microphones is that a lot
| | 01:39 | of them are battery-powered, because they are
high-quality microphones, they are typically
| | 01:43 | condenser microphones which means that they
need power of some sort, like phantom power
| | 01:47 | that I just mentioned a minute ago.
| | 01:48 | And it's really nice to just put in some Double-As
or rechargeables, and you have the necessary
| | 01:52 | power going to the microphone.
| | 01:54 | Rich: Now, this particular one is running
off of a 9-Volt and I could tell you, with
| | 01:58 | firsthand experience, always have two
spare batteries, because you're going to pop it
| | 02:02 | up into the camera and someone is going to
have left it on, like you'll forget to turn
| | 02:06 | it off, sort of get packed with it left on,
you'll take it out, you'll be all excited
| | 02:10 | like, you'll be like, oh, the battery is dead.
So then you put the spare battery in.
| | 02:14 | Well, if you only have one spare, you're hosed,
because with a normal shooting day, you will
| | 02:18 | easily go through a full
battery, if not two on set.
| | 02:21 | Robbie: That's right, and there's a couple
other distinguishing things about the sort
| | 02:25 | of on-camera shotguns that you should sort
of look at, and the first is sort of the reach
| | 02:29 | or the length of the actual shotgun itself.
| | 02:31 | Now, this one is relatively short, but you
can get ones that are even longer, and the
| | 02:36 | further the length of the shotgun, the further you're
going to be able to reach into the scene and pick up audio.
| | 02:41 | However, that length comes with one drawback,
it sort of alters sort of the ergonomics of
| | 02:46 | the actual camera body itself.
| | 02:47 | So, if you have a very long shotgun, you
might be a little bit more front heavy, especially
| | 02:51 | if you have a lighter lens on the
camera, so that's something to consider.
| | 02:55 | Rich: And if you are shooting wide, you may
not want to be so far in front that the lens
| | 02:58 | is picking it up, you've
got to find the balance.
| | 03:01 | The other thing to look for is this
particular one has the Wind Screen built-in, most of
| | 03:05 | these mics will have some sort of Wind
Screen on the top, you can also get what's often
| | 03:09 | referred to as a dead cat,
it's just the great fluffy thing.
| | 03:12 | Robbie: Little furry ball of
stuff on top of the camera, right?
| | 03:14 | Rich: And you wrap it around, that is a technical
term, we're not making that up, but it just
| | 03:18 | gives you additional wind protection that cut down on
the sound of the wind noise, but this is very directional.
| | 03:24 | Now, Rob, what's the real purpose for this microphone?
Are we going to be getting dialogue with this?
| | 03:29 | Robbie: Well, these microphones can be used
to get dialogue sort of in a pinch.
| | 03:34 | Typically on a movie set or a bigger production,
you'll actually see a shotgun being used in a boom
| | 03:38 | configuration where somebody is actually holding the mic
up and pointing it to the scene, that's a big consideration.
| | 03:44 | Shotguns work best when they can get into
the actual scene to pick up that dialogue.
| | 03:48 | Rich: So even though we are close to each
other, if I was sort of framed off-center,
| | 03:52 | you were off-center, this really wouldn't pick
you up, it really needs to be pointed right at you.
| | 03:56 | Robbie: Right, and it's typically, if
you're using a longer type of lens, you might be
| | 03:59 | set back quite a bit from the actual action that's going
on set or sort of the scene that you're trying to record.
| | 04:05 | So unless you're able to get up real close
and tight to the subject that you're trying
| | 04:08 | to record, these are not that much of a step up even
from, say, the built-in mic in that sort of situation.
| | 04:14 | So, when we come back in just a moment,
we're going to talk about another way of sort of
| | 04:18 | adapting higher end mics, that shotgun mic
on a boom pole or something like that to be
| | 04:22 | able to record audio in a run-and-gun
situation directly to our camera.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Microphone preamps| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: So we have established that you can
get good audio by using an external mic like
| | 00:04 | a Shotgun--okay, audio--barely passable
audio using the built-in for reference purposes.
| | 00:11 | But sometimes you want to plug in external mics.
| | 00:13 | Now we're going to explore different mic types on an
upcoming episode, but today let's talk about pre-amps.
| | 00:19 | The idea of getting audio from an
external mic right into the camera.
| | 00:22 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and I'd actually even throw in the idea,
not just of a pre-amp, but also of a dedicated mixer itself.
| | 00:28 | Now you can see here I have a little
portable field mixer by Sound Devices.
| | 00:32 | And this guy is kind of neat, because I can
plug in XLR, I can plug in a whole bunch of
| | 00:35 | different things, I can
control my level directly on it.
| | 00:38 | Rich: Runs out on battery
power so you're portable.
| | 00:40 | Robbie: Right, and the beauty about this is
that I can plug in professional level condenser
| | 00:44 | mics, dynamic mics, whatever it may be, and I can
actually feed this signal directly to my camera.
| | 00:48 | And this is essentially
what a mixer or a pre-amp does.
| | 00:51 | Now there is a lot of people that make these,
Sound Devices make them, the pre-amps that
| | 00:55 | screw directly on to the camera, some of the...
Rich: Beach-Tek.
| | 00:58 | Robbie: Beach-Tek, juiceLink, there is a
few out there, but essentially they all serve
| | 01:01 | the same purpose, allowing you to connect a
professional level mic directly to the pre-amp
| | 01:07 | or the mixer itself and then feed that signal
directly to the camera body, and this provides
| | 01:11 | you a whole lot more flexibility for interfacing
with better quality mics and different types of signals.
| | 01:16 | Rich: Now, what we can do
here is we could patch in.
| | 01:19 | So in this case I have got the ability on
the side here--you can go ahead, that's going
| | 01:23 | to be reference in, so I could take that,
that's going to feed that out, or we can go
| | 01:28 | ahead off the front, on the headphone port,
that's going to work, too, and plug that in
| | 01:32 | and then take it right into the camera body.
Now that works pretty well.
| | 01:35 | I just make sure I'd go into the mic, not the
headphone jack, there we go, and then set my levels.
| | 01:40 | Now, newer DSLRs are having better audio controls,
they are letting you get past the Auto Gain, and
| | 01:45 | in fact like this D600 has a 20-point audio level
control, so I could really make fine adjustments.
| | 01:51 | What you want to think about here is that
you want a nice constant signal coming out
| | 01:55 | from the mixer to the camera body itself.
| | 01:58 | Of course, we just have a potential problem
there, and that is just because the VU meters
| | 02:02 | look good there, it doesn't mean
that I am getting right levels here.
| | 02:05 | Robbie: Well, yes actually, two important things
to bring up there is that you might be thinking
| | 02:09 | to yourself, okay, well,
where do I set the levels?
| | 02:10 | Do I set the levels on the pre-amp or the mixer,
or do I set them on the camera?
| | 02:14 | Rich: Both?
Robbie: Yeah, exactly.
| | 02:16 | My personal opinion is that you always want to
sort to check wherever your audio is signaled,
| | 02:20 | in places that you can check it.
So place number one would be the pre-amp itself.
| | 02:23 | And you notice on this guy it actually does
have a couple of little VU, meters here, so
| | 02:27 | you plug it instead of headphones, listen to
the levels, look at the VU meters and check that.
| | 02:31 | However, because we are not recording
directly to this device and we are running out to the
| | 02:35 | camera body itself that's where
the audio is actually being recorded.
| | 02:38 | So it's also a good idea if you can to plug
in to your camera and listen to the audio.
| | 02:44 | Bad things happen when
nobody is listening to audio.
| | 02:47 | And as Rich mentioned, some of the newer
camera for more updates and some of the newer bodies
| | 02:51 | themselves actually allow you to see VU meters
and levels on the actual camera, so everything
| | 02:56 | might sound good here, but something might
be wrong with your cable or the adapter,
| | 03:00 | and by the time it gets the
camera you can have a bad audio.
| | 03:02 | Rich: Well, and let's start
to talk through the logic here.
| | 03:04 | You've got a couple of choices
that you're going to have to make.
| | 03:07 | First off, look at the camera body itself.
| | 03:09 | If it doesn't have a headphone jack, and many
of the earlier generations do not, that's tough.
| | 03:15 | You don't actually know
what audio you're getting here.
| | 03:18 | So in that case, you need
to go back to the source.
| | 03:21 | If you are going to be going out of the mixer or
perhaps out of your external audio recorder, that's okay.
| | 03:27 | What I would recommend in that case is,
let's say we were going into a Zoom H4n.
| | 03:31 | My primary audio is in here but I
could loop this out to the device.
| | 03:35 | Now, I only have one headphone jack, that's where
a device like what we have here can come in handy.
| | 03:41 | You see in this case I've got 8 outputs plus
1 plug, I could take that into the jack, just
| | 03:46 | simply plug that in, and now I
could run this out to multi-cameras.
| | 03:49 | So if I am on a multiple shoot with
several cameras I can go ahead and tap out,
| | 03:54 | let's see, we've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
so pretty good here.
| | 03:56 | Plug a pair of headphones into monitor and
I could run that out to four separate camera
| | 03:59 | angles to make sure that they
are getting good reference sound.
| | 04:02 | This is my primary source, but I could loop
that out to the camera bodies and feel reasonably
| | 04:07 | confident if I am recording it and listening
here that I'm sending good audio, but I would
| | 04:12 | still recommend you do a test and play back
the audio either off the card or pop the card
| | 04:17 | out and put it in a computer and look at it,
because just because you are sending good
| | 04:21 | audio does not mean you
are recording good audio.
| | 04:23 | Robbie: I mean, like I said before, unless you're monitoring,
you are never going to know what you're going to get.
| | 04:27 | You actually raised a really interesting
point about this recorder, Rich, is that typically
| | 04:31 | people are going to use a digital audio
recorder which we've talked about in previous episodes,
| | 04:34 | I am sure we'll talk about in future episodes as
well as the primary place to record your audio.
| | 04:38 | And of course that's what these audio recorders are good for,
but they are essentially microphone pre-amps and mixers themselves.
| | 04:45 | So if you're in run-and-gun situation and you
don't have the ability to be paying attention
| | 04:50 | to the digital audio recorder,
you just want to patch things in.
| | 04:52 | You can absolutely do that.
| | 04:54 | Plug your professional microphones into
the XLR inputs in here, use one of the little
| | 04:57 | adapters like this, or just the headphone
jack itself and then run out to the camera.
| | 05:01 | And essentially you can use this guy like
a microphone pre-amp or a mixer before you
| | 05:06 | feed the camera if you want to get
your audio directly to the camera.
| | 05:09 | Of course, though, you can record the audio
directly to this, which is another nice point.
| | 05:12 | You can have a back-up, right?
| | 05:13 | Rich: Well, even itself as a true back up
I've been on set and the cable gets ripped
| | 05:18 | down on the Lavalier microphone,
these do have built-in mics.
| | 05:21 | Now the thing is, you don't hold it this way,
the mics actually point so the person could
| | 05:25 | hold it out at camera like a stick
microphone and talk into it, this is going to sound
| | 05:29 | a lot better than the camera mic itself.
| | 05:32 | So all in all, pretty straight forward here, what you're
thinking about is, can I get better audio to the camera?
| | 05:38 | To do that make sure you have some sort of
splitter as well as the ability to plug in
| | 05:42 | headphones and properly monitor your sound.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
31. What Type of Microphone Should I Use for an Interview?What type of microphone should I use for an interview?| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi, my name is Rich Harrington.
Robbie Carman: And I'm Robbie Carman.
| | 00:03 | Rich: And this week we're going to be
talking about recording audio for interviews.
| | 00:06 | Now, we've looked at other types of microphones
on past episodes, and I think it's well established
| | 00:11 | that the built-in mic, not so good.
| | 00:14 | The shotgun mic, okay, but it's only
going to work in certain situations for audio.
| | 00:19 | If you're really close in a quiet
room, pointed right at the subject.
| | 00:23 | In this case, that doesn't always happen,
so we turn to other types of microphones.
| | 00:27 | Robbie: Yeah, recording the interview a lot
of times, especially for a documentary project
| | 00:32 | or a corporate project, is your key piece
of footage, and not getting good audio in
| | 00:37 | those situations can really sort of ruin
the quality of your project, and worse yet,
| | 00:41 | your client might be really unhappy if you're
doing say a corporate piece and even fire you.
| | 00:45 | So getting really good audio in interview
situations is something that's definitely key.
| | 00:49 | Rich: So we have here different types of
microphones for different situations, and
| | 00:53 | today we're going to explore
two primary types of workflows.
| | 00:56 | One easy workflow is going to
be using a Lavalier microphone.
| | 01:00 | You can barely see mine
here just out of the frame.
| | 01:02 | It's attached to the subject.
| | 01:03 | This works great for
getting the audio of the person.
| | 01:06 | I can actually make a small adjustment here.
| | 01:08 | Notice while it's moving, sounds like bad
audio, but we pin that on and that allows
| | 01:15 | it to be easier to get the subject's
audio about that far away from the mouth.
| | 01:20 | Another approach is to have a dedicated audio
operator and use a Boom mic to hold the microphone
| | 01:25 | over people while they're talking.
| | 01:27 | Because let's face it, in a situation like this,
it's perfectly okay to see the microphones.
| | 01:31 | We're in a talk show type format.
| | 01:33 | We're not trying to hide that there is microphones,
but if we were doing something like, oh, we're
| | 01:37 | all sitting around the family dinner table and we're
talking about the stress of how to do our income taxes.
| | 01:42 | Robbie: Your family doesn't
wear Lavs wherever they go?
| | 01:44 | Rich: Well, mine does.
| | 01:45 | Robbie: Oh, of course, right,
right, that's what I thought.
| | 01:47 | Rich: Yeah, so sometimes we need to hide
the microphone and not see it in the scene.
| | 01:51 | And one of those
strategies is the Boom microphone.
| | 01:54 | So when we come back we're going to take a
look at both of these and take an in depth
| | 01:57 | look at how they work and why
you would choose one over the other.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Lavaliere mic| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Now, Rich, one of the most tried and
true ways to record interviews is by using
| | 00:05 | a Lav, or a Lavalier microphone on your subject.
Rich Harrington: Yeah, this is a classic microphone.
| | 00:11 | Originally, this microphone was
actually worn around the neck.
| | 00:14 | If you look at early newscasts, they'd have
a rope necklace and the microphone would be
| | 00:18 | hanging and you actually see that, but this
is actually named after a type of jewelry.
| | 00:24 | So a Lavalier was a pendant that was worn
around the neck, often a teardrop shape,
| | 00:28 | and this is really where it comes from.
| | 00:29 | These days, you won't really see
people wearing microphone necklaces.
| | 00:34 | The Lavalier microphone has been adapted and it can be
attached several different ways to your subject.
| | 00:39 | Robbie: Yeah, the nice thing about Lavs is that
they're nice and small, like this guy right here,
| | 00:43 | and I'm actually wearing one on my shirt, and if I
tap it right here or move it around, you can hear it.
| | 00:48 | And the beauty about Lavs is
that they're pretty inconspicuous.
| | 00:51 | So if you want to make--you're recording an
interview or a scene where you want to make
| | 00:55 | it seem that it's kind of natural, that you don't
have a lot of gear on set, they're a good choice.
| | 01:00 | Now, Lavs come in a couple of different setups.
| | 01:03 | The one that you see right here is actually
a wired Lav and you can see it runs down a
| | 01:06 | microphone cable, down to a little barrel here,
and the end of the barrel there is an XLR adapter.
| | 01:11 | Now, the other thing about this particular
Lav is that it has a compartment here
| | 01:14 | in the middle to put in batteries.
| | 01:16 | Most Lavs are going to need to have power,
because they're condenser type microphones,
| | 01:20 | and you can power them
either if you have a battery.
| | 01:22 | Or if you're using a mixer or an audio recorder that
provides phantom power, you can also power it that way.
| | 01:28 | Rich: Now, one of the things to think
about with the Lavalier microphone is where that
| | 01:31 | power is going to come from, either
the battery that's inside, or the mixer.
| | 01:35 | I don't recommend that you
put both in at the same time.
| | 01:38 | You don't want to overload that mic.
| | 01:40 | Another thing though, too, is realize we're
talking about this mic being inconspicuous,
| | 01:44 | and some of you might be
thinking that doesn't look that small.
| | 01:46 | Well, this particular mic you see here,
we've already put on a windscreen to cut down on
| | 01:50 | noise and wind blowing or plosives,
pops with the mouth, that can come off.
| | 01:56 | And it's a pretty small
microphone inside of there.
| | 01:58 | Let's just should slide that off, you see just a
little tiny mic, and nothing says you have to use this.
| | 02:03 | This is your sort of standard
tie tack, works well on a lapel.
| | 02:07 | We actually can use other types of clips.
| | 02:09 | Like here I have a very small vampire clip,
two little fanged teeth, and this is designed
| | 02:14 | to be hooked on the inside of a shirt
lapel or maybe on the inside of clothing.
| | 02:19 | People will sometimes tape this inside of a
shirt with a band-aid on the inside of a T-shirt.
| | 02:24 | This is a small inconspicuous mic, and the
goal is to just make sure that it gets put
| | 02:29 | close to the subject's mouth.
| | 02:31 | Generally speaking, we say about that far away, and you
see there for my mic, that's about the distance.
| | 02:37 | You can go double that distance, but the farther it gets
away from the subject, the hollower it's going to sound.
| | 02:42 | Robbie: That's right, and you actually brought
up one other really important point and that's
| | 02:45 | sort of placement of the Lav itself, not just in distance,
but actual placement on the person's body or clothes.
| | 02:52 | One of the big problems that you potentially
get by using a Lav is clothing rub, on somebody's
| | 02:57 | lapel or their jacket or something, their shirt and they
move, you have to be very careful where you place that.
| | 03:03 | Now, typically in an interview setup, I'll
have the subject move around a little bit
| | 03:06 | before we actually start rolling, so I can
make sure that their natural body movement
| | 03:11 | is not going to disturb the mic and get
sort of that ruffling sound, because it's very
| | 03:15 | difficult to sort of remove in
postproduction, not impossible, but difficult.
| | 03:19 | Rich: Now, you're not saying like
jumping jacks or anything extreme, right?
| | 03:23 | Just move your shoulders, talk with your
hands a little bit, listen for that rub.
| | 03:27 | Another thing that's important about
placement that you bring up, which is actually a good
| | 03:31 | idea, see, we're both talking to
each other as well as folks at home.
| | 03:34 | I'm typically turning to this shoulder, so if
I was wearing a sport coat and I was attaching
| | 03:39 | this to the lapel, I wouldn't want to put
it on my outside shoulder, I'd put it on the
| | 03:42 | inside shoulder where I'm
looking, since this is center.
| | 03:45 | Even if I turn my head as I'm talking,
there's a little variation in the levels,
| | 03:50 | but it's picking up pretty well.
| | 03:51 | But you need to think about where is
that mic in relation to the subject's mouth.
| | 03:56 | Getting it nice and center, good idea.
| | 03:58 | Robbie: Absolutely, now there is one more
important thing when it comes to Lavs is that
| | 04:01 | you're going to have sort of two choices
in the Lav system that you use.
| | 04:05 | Sort of the old dependable way of doing it is
with a wired Lavalier system, which works great.
| | 04:10 | However, new Lav systems can go wireless.
| | 04:13 | Now, you might be thinking that wireless systems
are just the way to go, less wires, less problems.
| | 04:18 | You've got to be careful about this.
| | 04:20 | Wireless Lav systems can
be prone to interference.
| | 04:23 | So if you have a lot of electronics on set,
cell phones, iPads, whatever it may be, they
| | 04:27 | can be interfered with, and that signal from
the Lav can have noise in it and distortion
| | 04:33 | and that kind of stuff.
| | 04:34 | So when you go on set, it's always a great
idea if you're going to use Lav mics to have
| | 04:38 | both options available to you, a wireless
system, which might be your first choice,
| | 04:43 | but as a backup having a wired system if
that wireless version is not going to work out
| | 04:47 | in the particular location that you're in.
| | 04:49 | Rich: Yeah, tied to that location, you can
have interference from things like cell phone
| | 04:53 | towers, or radio broadcast towers,
lots of wireless microphones.
| | 04:58 | Another important thing is making sure you
have plenty of batteries, because wireless
| | 05:01 | mics will burn through them.
Typically these are AA.
| | 05:04 | There is one thing, though, that I want to
point out, be very careful when buying a wireless
| | 05:08 | mic system, particularly a used one.
| | 05:11 | If you're in the United States, the FCC, the
governing body that oversees communications
| | 05:16 | and electronics, actually switched standards a
few years back, and there's a lot of microphones
| | 05:20 | that are old that are not in compliance.
| | 05:23 | So you might find systems available in the
market, you need to go to the FCC website,
| | 05:27 | look up wireless microphones and make sure
that the frequencies they use are in compliance,
| | 05:32 | otherwise--and believe it or not--
there are actually laws for these things.
| | 05:35 | You could be breaking the law
using that microphone system.
| | 05:38 | So you want to make sure that it's a fully
compliant system before you drop down some money.
| | 05:42 | Robbie: Absolutely, I mean, the last thing
I'll mention about wireless Lavs is that you
| | 05:46 | often get what you pay for.
| | 05:48 | This is true about a lot of things in
production, but it's particularly true if you decide to
| | 05:52 | go with a wireless Lavalier system.
| | 05:55 | Typically the higher end systems are going
to give you more flexibility in your frequency
| | 05:58 | choice, have additional features that will
reduce the possibility of having interference
| | 06:03 | and noise brought into the system.
| | 06:05 | So just when you're going out there and
looking at different Lav systems, be aware that the
| | 06:08 | higher priced wireless systems often generally
perform a little bit better than say the
| | 06:13 | $99 special that you found online.
| | 06:15 | Rich: And to that end, when you're picking
out a Lav system, I always recommend get the
| | 06:19 | one that has the wireless Lav and the XLR
adapter, this will give you the flexibility
| | 06:23 | to patch into other systems and give you a
wireless throw for things like concerts and events.
| | 06:28 | When we come back, we're going to talk
about the other type of microphone that's great
| | 06:31 | for dialogue, and that is the Boom mic.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Boom mic| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Now Rich, a tried and true method
of recording audio for interviews as well as
| | 00:05 | other dialogue on set is the Boom mic.
| | 00:07 | Yes, are you getting me?
Are you getting this?
| | 00:09 | Rich Harrington: Yes, I'm getting it.
| | 00:10 | Robbie: Now, perhaps you've seen behind the
scenes production photos from big budget films
| | 00:13 | and you've seen that guy doing this, right?
Holding the microphone above the scene.
| | 00:18 | Rich: Hopefully not in the shot.
| | 00:20 | Robbie: Exactly, holding the microphone
above the scene and recording the audio.
| | 00:23 | Now, a Boom mic consists of
a couple of different parts.
| | 00:26 | The whole package is generally called a Boom, but
let's break down the various parts that we have here.
| | 00:31 | Rich: Well, pretty straightforward,
first off is the microphone itself.
| | 00:34 | What you're seeing here is typically a shotgun
microphone, very directional, so you point
| | 00:39 | it at the subject itself with the windscreen
to cut down on any noise that's happening.
| | 00:45 | Then the cable runs through and
essentially goes through the pole.
| | 00:48 | The pole itself can be adjusted.
| | 00:50 | So as you're looking here, I've got the ability to
telescope this, and this is going to extend my reach.
| | 00:55 | Typically, it's going to give you some good
distance, and this allows you to get closer
| | 00:59 | to the camera and you just twist these so
they unlock and then you can slide it forward.
| | 01:03 | Robbie: Yeah, the other nice thing about
a lot of the Boom mounts on the actual Boom
| | 01:07 | pole is that they have a little bit of
a sort of shock absorbing cage on them.
| | 01:14 | So as you're moving around and the Boom operator
is moving the mic, it's not going to rumble
| | 01:18 | through the microphone and pick that up.
| | 01:19 | Rich: Yeah, this has a
little bit of give and play.
| | 01:21 | So it's got some rubber there, so as you're
turning, and what typically happens is that
| | 01:26 | the Boom operator, with that extended and
locked, has the ability to hold it out to
| | 01:30 | the subject, so over the subject's head,
and then they would move it across the scene.
| | 01:34 | Robbie: You can also rotate it a little bit to sort
of point more directionally at the person that's talking.
| | 01:38 | Rich: Yeah, if you have two people talking,
let's go to a lower here, pretend that we
| | 01:41 | were over the people, I could just rotate
that slowly in my hand, and at the bottom
| | 01:46 | of the pole here you
actually have XLR connection.
| | 01:49 | And as you can see here at the bottom,
just an XLR port, that's going to allow people
| | 01:53 | to plug in a regular XLR cable
and go out where it needs to.
| | 01:56 | But you do obviously need to
be careful with this on set.
| | 01:59 | You don't want to wave it
around, hit a light, et cetera.
| | 02:02 | But this works really,
really well for getting dialogue.
| | 02:04 | Now, the thing is, is that this is work, so
you'll see the Boom pole operator, they almost
| | 02:09 | always seem to have those really buff arms.
| | 02:10 | Robbie: Well, they do, they're sort of
bigger guys or girls, and one of the things that
| | 02:15 | happens when you're recording with a Boom
mic is that it can become a little tiring
| | 02:19 | to hold this thing day in and day out all day.
| | 02:22 | So a lot of times when you've seen Boom operators,
they also have additional gear on, maybe like
| | 02:26 | a vest, or if you've seen somebody who's
carrying a flag, little waistband where the actual
| | 02:31 | Boom pole can go into and
provide a little bit more support.
| | 02:35 | Now, of course when you're holding a Boom
pole, you need to hold it right, so one of
| | 02:40 | the problems with using a Boom microphone,
especially for interviews and other dialogue,
| | 02:43 | is that it's going to require you to have additional
personnel on set, somebody to actually hold the Boom.
| | 02:49 | Now, I know you're thinking to yourself,
what if I don't have the ability to have other
| | 02:53 | people on set but I don't want to use a Lav,
or I don't have a Lav and I want to get sort
| | 02:57 | of all the benefits out of using a Boom?
Well, there's a really easy solution.
| | 03:01 | Rich: And that's what we
have here, just a simple clamp.
| | 03:03 | This is your standard C-stand, and we've got
a Boom mic clamp here that's just going into
| | 03:07 | the knuckle, and what it allows me to do is
to basically slip this in, and the tension
| | 03:13 | allows that to sort of hold it in place.
| | 03:15 | You could then adjust its position, set it
where you need to, and then adjust the angle
| | 03:20 | of the knuckle and the height, and this allows
you to put this over your subject in the scene.
| | 03:25 | Now, the key here is you'll
typically rise this very high.
| | 03:27 | You don't want this as much of an angle, rather it
would be more straight and out over your subject.
| | 03:33 | But we just have it here so you
could see the whole thing on set.
| | 03:36 | But this does give you that benefit of allowing
you to use a Boom microphone without necessarily
| | 03:41 | having to have a Boom operator.
| | 03:43 | It's always a good idea because that Boom
operator will be able to adjust the mic, but
| | 03:46 | if you're just doing a sit-down interview and
you don't want the person to be seen wearing
| | 03:50 | a Lavalier microphone, particularly for sort
of natural documentary style, this is a good
| | 03:54 | match and sometimes we actually do both, right?
A Lav and a Boom for safety?
| | 03:59 | Robbie: Yeah, it's a perfect thing, because
one of the things that you get out of recording
| | 04:02 | with a Lav is that it's very sort of dry
sound, and that's sort of the purpose if it.
| | 04:07 | You're getting very clean, crisp dialogue,
but you don't necessarily get sort of the
| | 04:11 | feeling of the room and that kind of stuff.
| | 04:14 | Besides that, what happens if your batteries
on your Lav dies, or the phantom power from
| | 04:18 | your mixer to the Lav goes out, or worse yet, the wireless
system that you got doesn't operate, there's interference?
| | 04:24 | So it's always a good idea, I think, in my
opinion, to run both of these sort of systems
| | 04:28 | in tandem with each other, and later on in
postproduction, you can choose which one you
| | 04:32 | like better, or better yet, you can even sort
of mix the two together to get a more composite
| | 04:37 | sound of good sounding audio coming from the
person that you're interviewing, as well as
| | 04:41 | a little bit of room sound that puts your audience
into the actual environment that you're recording in.
| | 04:47 | Rich: And remember, those dedicated
external audio recorders you're using do come with
| | 04:51 | two inputs, so you can put the Lav into
one of them and the Boom mic into the other.
| | 04:55 | All right, that's some practical tips on
how to record better sound for interviews.
| | 04:59 | Thanks for joining us for this week.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
32. Why Do I Need a Fluid Head?Why do I need a fluid head?| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi, my name is Rich Harrington.
Robbie Carman: And I'm Robbie Carman.
| | 00:02 | Rich: And today we are in a forest of tripods here.
Robbie: Where am I?
| | 00:06 | Rich: Yes, lots of tripods, lots of
choices, and that's actually the focus here.
| | 00:11 | Now a lot of folks are like, I have
a tripod, I don't need a new tripod.
| | 00:14 | Robbie: Well, that's true, Rich, but the thing
about tripods and the heads of these tripods
| | 00:18 | use is that they dramatically sort of affect the
quality of your shoots and the shots that you get.
| | 00:24 | Now you might be thinking to yourself, well,
that's what the camera body and the glass is about.
| | 00:28 | Well, you're right, but the tripod and the
head that you use dramatically affect sort
| | 00:32 | of the quality and the stability of the
shots that you can get, and different tripods and
| | 00:36 | different style heads are going to be useful
for different types of shooting situations.
| | 00:40 | Rich: Yeah, if you break it down, there
are really two major components to the tripod
| | 00:45 | at which people think of it as a single unit.
| | 00:46 | There are the legs itself and a wide range,
you've got everything from carbon fiber to
| | 00:51 | heavy duty and steel and aluminum, lots
of choices, and then there's the head.
| | 00:57 | The type of head that works well for still
shooting is not necessarily the type of head
| | 01:01 | that works well for video shooting.
| | 01:02 | So we are going to look at comparing the two
as well as talk about adapting the equipment.
| | 01:07 | Now the bigger thing to think about here, too,
is how much weight can your tripod support?
| | 01:12 | You might have already invested in a
photo tripod and it's perfect, right?
| | 01:16 | Right weight, this is going to hold it.
| | 01:18 | Now for example, I've got a lighter weight
one here, but as we start to add accessories
| | 01:22 | like follow focus and a rail system and onboard
monitor and an audio recorder, all of a sudden
| | 01:28 | you've doubled or maybe even tripled the
weight of the camera body and your body might overdo
| | 01:34 | what the tripod is ready to hold.
| | 01:36 | Robbie: That's right, Rich, and you know,
when it comes to tripods and heads,
| | 01:40 | I'm of the mind-set that bigger is actually better.
| | 01:43 | Now I don't mean bigger necessarily in physical
size, but the beefier the quality of the components
| | 01:49 | and sort of the strength of the legs and the
strength of the head--because the worst thing
| | 01:54 | that you want to have happen is that that
you are out there on set and all of a sudden
| | 01:57 | your camera and your tripod
just kind of goes plop, right?
| | 02:00 | And then everything is on the ground.
| | 02:02 | My attitude is I always sort of go about
twice to three times what I potentially need
| | 02:07 | for my tripod and the support
and that's the one I go for.
| | 02:10 | Rich: Fortunately, the
gear keeps getting better.
| | 02:13 | For example, what we are seeing again and
again is the use of materials like carbon fiber.
| | 02:18 | That's making for really light-weight
tripods that are easy to carry, lift, do what you
| | 02:22 | need to here, and the benefit is that these are going
to be easier as you have to lug them onto location.
| | 02:28 | But, really, you got to get a good balance between having
a stable platform, a rock steady shot, and the portability.
| | 02:35 | Remember, you have the ability to hire
additional crew to help you out or you can make more
| | 02:41 | than one trip to get from
the car to your location.
| | 02:44 | I always love--and I am guilty of this, the
backpack with the extra pieces.
| | 02:47 | Robbie: Right.
| | 02:48 | Rich: You're holding something in one hand
and in the other arm and then you're biting
| | 02:51 | something in your mouth trying not to drop it.
Go for that stable tripod.
| | 02:55 | Now when we come back, we are going to look
at some of the standard photo tripod options
| | 03:00 | and what you need to consider if this
is going to be enough for video shooting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Standard photo head drawbacks| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So, Rich, you know one of the things
that we get asked a lot is, is my photo tripod
| | 00:05 | good enough to go out there
and start shooting video?
| | 00:08 | And it's a kind of a
difficult question to answer.
| | 00:10 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, well, I think the easier
thing to answer is to start with the bottom
| | 00:14 | and that is, is the legs itself.
| | 00:16 | You know, are those legs sturdy
enough to actually hold the weight?
| | 00:20 | And as long as you went on the beefier
side of the tripod, you're probably okay.
| | 00:24 | There are different things to look at.
| | 00:25 | A lot of times with photo tripods--you know, this
is a good example of one, we have twisty types here.
| | 00:30 | Robbie: Yep.
| | 00:31 | Rich: That allows you to lock that in but
this type is prone to drooping when you put
| | 00:36 | a lot of weight on it.
| | 00:37 | Robbie: Yeah, now that's
really a good point Rich.
| | 00:39 | One thing that I'm a big fan of on tripods
is sort of the lock off mechanism, sort of
| | 00:43 | the clip off mechanism that
you can get on the actual legs.
| | 00:46 | The twist mechanisms tend to--if they are
not very high quality as Rich mentioned--sort
| | 00:51 | of tend to droop a little bit and shift a
little bit and they also tend to wear out
| | 00:54 | a little faster in my opinion.
| | 00:56 | So you'll still find them on pro-level
tripod basis, but just you know, buyer be warned
| | 01:00 | with those kinds of things.
| | 01:02 | I am a bigger fan of sort of the
clip-in or lock-off kind of ones.
| | 01:04 | Rich: Now in this particular
tripod, this is one from Induro.
| | 01:07 | I bought it as primarily a photo tripod, but
I've absolutely used it for DSLR video, and
| | 01:12 | it's the heavier duty one.
| | 01:14 | Good strong platform here, really stable, has
its own built-in ball level, which is helpful.
| | 01:19 | Robbie: Yep.
| | 01:20 | Rich: I like a tripod base that has its own ball
level so I can know if this is level.
| | 01:24 | Robbie: Correct.
| | 01:25 | Rich: But then we are dealing
with your typical photo type.
| | 01:27 | Now this is great here
because it's a quick release.
| | 01:29 | I'm using a Really Right Stuff head, that's fine.
| | 01:33 | A typical camera body, I've got the Swiss-Arca
plate on the bottom or perhaps using an L-plate here.
| | 01:40 | This is just attached to the battery grip
so you could see it better, but this would
| | 01:43 | allow you to easily switch from portrait
to landscape on a camera body.
| | 01:46 | Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 01:48 | Rich: Great for still shooting,
but not needed for video shooting.
| | 01:52 | Robbie: Well, right, I mean the other thing
about this is that you'll notice that this
| | 01:55 | actual tripod is a ball type head, right?
Rich: Yeah.
| | 01:57 | Robbie: So while we can reposition the ball,
sort of get it into the right place, the right
| | 02:02 | angle for shooting a photograph, one thing
it's not particularly good at, though, is
| | 02:07 | that when you need to sort of start tracking shots
and moving and panning and tilting with the subject.
| | 02:13 | You will notice as Rich is moving on
along here, it's not exactly stable.
| | 02:17 | Rich: Look, it's a pan head
and I'm really pinching my finger.
| | 02:21 | Robbie: And, Rich, don't really do this, but
what would happen if you took your hand off
| | 02:24 | the camera with the ball head loose?
| | 02:25 | Rich: Sacrilegio, yeah.
Robbie: There you go.
| | 02:27 | Rich: It's going to fall over, not good for the
shot, not good for the camera, not good for the gear.
| | 02:31 | So while this type of ball head is great for
still photos, you know, I want to frame up,
| | 02:36 | I'm getting the shot, okay, I got
it and lock it down.
| | 02:39 | Robbie: Right.
| | 02:41 | Rich: Well, that works great for still
shooting where you are getting it locked off.
| | 02:45 | And if you're shooting video
with locked off, you can use this.
| | 02:49 | I freely admit there's times when we're putting a
camera on the wide shot, we just grab a photo type tripod.
| | 02:55 | Robbie: Just get me something, right?
| | 02:56 | Rich: Tighten it all down, get a stable
platform, you know, we could actually--not ideal--
| | 03:01 | but could raise that up on the center column.
| | 03:03 | Robbie: But you bring up one really
interesting point, you can make do in a pinch but you
| | 03:06 | have also a very simple rig up here.
| | 03:09 | You have a camera body itself, a very
small lens, a little microphone, I'm willing to
| | 03:13 | bet if you put, you know, maybe a 7200-mm
lens on there, some other gear, a bigger camera
| | 03:19 | body, your battery grip, even though this
clamp on the ball head is pretty tight, it's
| | 03:24 | probably going to start drooping or
drifting a little bit due to the weight of that.
| | 03:28 | So when you couple all of these sort of
drawbacks with the photo head, you know, sort of the
| | 03:32 | weight capacity that they can stand, sort
of the stability of moving around, they're
| | 03:36 | not often the best choice for
shooting video with your DSLR camera.
| | 03:40 | However, when we come back, we'll talk
about another type of head that we can use with
| | 03:45 | a standard tripod base
and that's the fluid head.
| | 03:47 | And the fluid head is going to allow you to
get much better shots because you have much
| | 03:51 | better stability and you have things like
drag and sort of fluid rigidity in your movements
| | 03:57 | as you move the camera, thus
allowing you to get much better shots.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Why use a fluid head?| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So, Rich, we've talked about some of
the drawbacks of sort of the traditional ball
| | 00:04 | head style, photo head, and tripod combo.
Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:07 | Robbie: Now, when we get into sort of the professional
world of video production, we don't really
| | 00:12 | see people using photo ball heads, right?
| | 00:14 | If you did, you might get a
couple snickers on set, right?
| | 00:18 | Rich: Yeah, I mean they're only really used
in a pan shore to lock down the camera on
| | 00:22 | a wide shot, but people really want
to get to a fluid head.
| | 00:25 | Robbie: Right.
| | 00:26 | Rich: Now there's a huge
difference in quality here.
| | 00:29 | If you go with a cheaper fluid head, it's
going to make it really easy to quickly adjust
| | 00:34 | and recompose the shot, but you're still
going to need to actually lock the camera off.
| | 00:39 | The benefit of the fluid head is that
you could pan and tilt and lock it down.
| | 00:44 | The higher quality fluid heads are
going to let you do on-camera movements.
| | 00:47 | In other words, this is going to make it
easier to pan and tilt while you're recording the
| | 00:52 | shot if you want to follow the action.
| | 00:55 | It's really a matter of budget and the
heavier the duty, the bigger the price.
| | 00:59 | Robbie: Well, yeah, when it comes to sort of
tripod heads and as well as the actual tripod
| | 01:04 | bases themselves, as you step into the
professional level side of things and you start getting
| | 01:08 | those heavy duty bases and tripod heads--especially
the very nice fluid heads--you can spend a lot of money.
| | 01:15 | You can spend much money sometimes as you
know a used car, if not, even in a brand-new car.
| | 01:21 | You know some of the high-end manufacturers
like O'Connor and Miller and some of these
| | 01:25 | other manufacturers, they sell very, very nice
products that are very stable, very adaptable,
| | 01:30 | and very sort of versatile,
but they do come at a price.
| | 01:33 | It's one of those things that you sort of
decide, hey, I'm doing this full time as a
| | 01:36 | living and I always have to have the best
quality shots that I can get, then you might
| | 01:41 | want to invest in the nicer
heads and the nicer tripod bases.
| | 01:44 | Rich: Yeah, this is really going to be a
matter if you are doing DP, national spot,
| | 01:50 | digital cinema, high-end uses.
| | 01:52 | Of course, those price points really start
to kick in when you get to the super heavy
| | 01:56 | duty ones that are being designed to hold 30,
40, 60, 80, 100 pounds of gear, you know
| | 02:02 | you're putting an Alexa on there, you're putting a
high-end RED, you're going to need beefier sticks.
| | 02:07 | But you can often get by, you know,
here we have a very entry level one.
| | 02:10 | And what you are seeing is I've got the
ability to pan, so I could follow the action.
| | 02:15 | I can loosen up the tension knob here and
that gives the ability to have it freeform.
| | 02:22 | As I tighten that, I can get to the point
where it's not totally locked, but I could
| | 02:26 | still make small adjustments and let go.
| | 02:28 | You have to be very careful that you get
that tension correct, but if you do, you can get
| | 02:32 | it so you could frame the shot and then you know essentially
let go and it holds or apply very little pressure.
| | 02:38 | This will allow you to do things like pan
across the action or start down and tilt up
| | 02:43 | and then reveal something.
| | 02:46 | Maybe you want to show something rising,
or go across an architectural building.
| | 02:50 | But ultimately, still here, what we are going
to do is lock that down and get it where we want.
| | 02:54 | Now you can adjust tension and knobs and
there's a bubble level to help you here, but this is
| | 02:59 | really an entry-level tripod head.
| | 03:02 | It does give you the nice arm that you can
use for control, but this is really bare-bones
| | 03:07 | basic sort of the minimum you could spend.
| | 03:09 | Robbie: Yeah, and what I have here, Rich, is
the upper mid-level approaching the higher-end
| | 03:15 | type situation, this is from Miller.
| | 03:17 | Rich: For the record, we
flipped a coin and I lost.
| | 03:20 | Robbie: This is a nice set of carbon fiber
legs, pretty light-weight, but what you'll
| | 03:24 | notice here is this sort of real beefy head.
| | 03:26 | There's a couple distinguishing factors
about this head that I want to show you.
| | 03:30 | First, if you look at the back of it,
you'll notice that there's actually some numbers
| | 03:33 | back here in several different rings.
| | 03:35 | What these allow you to adjust is the fluidity
or the tension for various types of movement.
| | 03:40 | So, this ring right here adjusts how much tension or
sort of drag I have as I'm panning from side to side.
| | 03:47 | So higher the number, it gets harder to move.
It's like a workout, right?
| | 03:51 | If I go to a lower number, it
becomes very easy to move, very quickly.
| | 03:55 | And the same thing was
forward tilt and reverse tilt.
| | 03:58 | I can dial in different numbers
here to get different amounts of drag.
| | 04:02 | This is really nice for a couple of reasons.
| | 04:04 | First, it allows you to balance
out your particular camera rig.
| | 04:08 | Depending on how much stuff you have on a cage
or with rod systems and that kind of
| | 04:12 | stuff, it can get you balanced out.
| | 04:14 | The other thing is that it gives you even more
control for the type of shot that you're trying to get.
| | 04:19 | If you are trying to do a nice, slow, very
dramatic pan, you need to dial the drag on that.
| | 04:25 | This kind of setup really
allows you to do that very well.
| | 04:27 | Rich: Yeah, there's one more cool
thing about this type of tripod head.
| | 04:31 | If this tripod in my case is not level, I
got to adjust the height of the legs, I got
| | 04:35 | to do a little tilt here, I could
try to do things, open a leg up more.
| | 04:39 | This one has an ability to be easily adjusted.
Robbie: This is a ball type situation here.
| | 04:45 | This is just a 75-millimeter ball.
| | 04:47 | Some of the bigger tripods might be 100-millimeter
balls, but this allows you to very quickly
| | 04:52 | level off the shot, and this
particular one is just a couple of screws in.
| | 04:55 | They get it tight again.
| | 04:57 | If you are not in a perfectly level situation
and adjusting the legs, it's going to be difficult,
| | 05:02 | or you have got them as level as you can,
this allows you to further refine that level
| | 05:06 | giving you another layer of
flexibility and adjustability.
| | 05:09 | Rich: It also opens up the option for those
of you who have access to things like a jib,
| | 05:14 | which is a large crane type material,
or maybe you are using a slider.
| | 05:18 | A lot of times, the tripod head could be
detached from the tripod and moved over.
| | 05:23 | The same could be said for this tripod, this
is just a standard thread mount and that can
| | 05:26 | often attach to a slider, but this higher-end
one is more common when you are dealing with
| | 05:31 | a jib arm and you want to have
those rising crane type shots.
| | 05:35 | This is a system you are investing in.
| | 05:37 | The good news is, is a good
tripod is going to last a long time.
| | 05:41 | I've got tripods I first bought when I started
in the industry, coming upon 20 years old
| | 05:45 | at this point, works just fine.
| | 05:47 | If you take care of the tripod, keep it dry,
make sure if it needs to be lubricated for
| | 05:52 | certain systems you get it serviced,
these will last for a very, very long time.
| | 05:58 | So make sure you invest in something that
you are happy with, and if you need to, when
| | 06:02 | we come back, we are going to talk about how
to transition from a photo tripod to
| | 06:06 | a video tripod as an intermediate step.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting a photo tripod| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: So, Rob, if you already have an investment
in gear--I think you and I share the same belief--
| | 00:04 | maximize that investment, right?
| | 00:06 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, I mean the thing about gear is that
it costs money, and over time the money can add up.
| | 00:12 | If you spend, let's say 500 bucks on a
nice set of carbon fiber legs, well, why--
| | 00:18 | am I going to go out and spend another $5 hundred thousand
on a set of legs when it just says video not photo?
| | 00:24 | Rich: Right, these things can be adapted.
| | 00:27 | Here I have a lighter
weight tripod, perfectly fine.
| | 00:30 | This would be one that I would
use in a backpacking type situation.
| | 00:33 | This is one that I prefer more on set
when transportation isn't as much an issue.
| | 00:37 | Well, the good news is, is I can carry
both heads with me as I go into the field.
| | 00:41 | Now, what I recommend is don't attach and
detach heads with the camera bodies attached.
| | 00:46 | That's a recipe for disaster.
You turn things around and pop!
| | 00:49 | Drop the camera body.
Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 00:50 | Rich: So we'll just unhook this first, I've
got a good hand on the camera, push the button
| | 00:54 | there to release it from the plate.
| | 00:56 | Here we go, and we'll just
take that off and set it down.
| | 00:59 | Robbie: Yep, and I'll do the
same thing over on this end.
| | 01:01 | Rich: You notice here, this
is just a standard thread mount.
| | 01:05 | You see there, very easy, super fine to attach.
| | 01:08 | You'll sometimes see step up threads on
there if you're using a smaller quality tripod,
| | 01:12 | but that's a pretty standard head.
| | 01:14 | I'll go ahead and just lock this down so it
doesn't spin freely and then with a little
| | 01:18 | bit of a turn, that will start to come off.
There we go, and we just detach it.
| | 01:28 | Robbie: There we go, and then we'll swap it
out, put it over here on this end and in a
| | 01:33 | few twists, we'll have this guy back on here,
and voila, we've converted our ball head that
| | 01:39 | we had on this guy earlier into a nice
fluid head that I can use and have a nice fluid
| | 01:46 | action on the camera body itself.
| | 01:48 | Rich: This is going to give us--if we unlock
that--the pans and tilts that we might need
| | 01:52 | for that movement, easy conversion.
| | 01:55 | And that's the thing, you
can carry both heads with you.
| | 01:58 | If you've already invested for still photography,
I invest in, for example, Really Right Stuff.
| | 02:02 | There's lots of different brands out there,
this is a good solid system that works for
| | 02:06 | my photo work, but it doesn't work for video.
| | 02:08 | So, the fact that I could pop that off and
switch it over, kind of like, I know you are
| | 02:12 | a bag junky, I got tons of gears bags.
Robbie: Yep.
| | 02:14 | Rich: I got four tripods at this point.
| | 02:16 | It's all like, oh, this is the one that's
small enough to fit into my airline carry on bag.
| | 02:20 | Robbie: And it is funny, I found myself
spending the big money on--at least initially--
| | 02:26 | the big money on the sticks, the base themselves.
| | 02:29 | And then as my budgets have grown over the
years, or my needs have changed over the years,
| | 02:35 | I'm not swapping out legs all the time.
| | 02:37 | I have a pretty good set of legs
that will work for most situations.
| | 02:39 | What I'm really upgrading
most of the time is the head.
| | 02:43 | System like this, especially with the thread
mounts, it can make it very easy to go from
| | 02:47 | when I'm shooting photographs, from a ball
style head to when I'm shooting video
| | 02:51 | and go into a fluid style of head.
| | 02:52 | Rich: It just makes it easy for you to
adapt to the situation, this way you don't have
| | 02:57 | to make a choice if you want to go from, say,
that head can get adapted to a monopod if
| | 03:01 | I'm in a very low profile situation where I
don't have room for a tripod, or maybe I'm
| | 03:06 | shooting in public spaces
where tripods aren't allowed.
| | 03:09 | I could take that same head and adapt it.
| | 03:11 | If I'm just going out to shoot time-lapse, I
don't want a fluid head, I want a head like
| | 03:15 | this where I could easily lock down the
shot and the camera is not going to move.
| | 03:19 | You are investing in a tripod system, and
the good news is, is that the major components,
| | 03:24 | the legs and the heads, are
generally fully interchangeable.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
33. Why Should I Use a Slate? Why should I use a slate?| 00:00 |
Rich: Hi, my name is Rich Harrington.
Robbie: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:02 |
Rich: And today we are talking about slates.
| | 00:04 |
Now we've brought slates up before in purposes
of sync sound, but there is this whole world,
| | 00:10 |
it's a big word, a lot of
people get scared by it, metadata.
| | 00:13 |
Robbie: Yeah, metadata or data about data
is essentially just information about what's
| | 00:17 |
going on with your shoot, and the cool thing
about having all this metadata or information
| | 00:23 |
on a slate, Rich, is that hopefully later on you
can use it to your advantage in post-production
| | 00:27 |
to easily find shots, the scene, the take
number, who is running the camera and so on.
| | 00:32 |
Rich: A lot of times we are going to get
notes back from the field, I like this particular
| | 00:36 |
take or maybe the time of day, we decide to
combine two shots together and you are looking
| | 00:41 |
at me and you go, those shots just don't match.
| | 00:44 |
Well, sometimes you are going to have
information about when was it shot or where was it shot,
| | 00:49 |
if you have to go back and do it again.
| | 00:50 |
Robbie: Yeah, and my personal attitude
is that more information, the better.
| | 00:55 |
Documenting your shoot about what's going
on and having this information can't really
| | 00:59 |
hurt you later on in post-production, so I
am a big fan of gathering as much information
| | 01:04 |
about the location, the equipment that was
being used, the personnel that was on set
| | 01:08 |
or on location, because after all
having more data is usually a good thing.
| | 01:12 |
Rich: Yeah, and to that point, we've got two
types of slates here as well as an audio recorder,
| | 01:17 |
a smart phone, a lot of people are
like, oh, I'll just go digital, right.
| | 01:21 |
Digital is awesome, we've got digital
slates, we've got audio recorders on our phone.
| | 01:26 |
The only bad part about digital...
Robbie: Batteries die.
| | 01:29 |
Rich: Batteries die, exactly, which is why
we have a real physical slate here in case
| | 01:34 |
this technology fails or somebody forgets
to charge it or you get out there and you
| | 01:39 |
realize, oh, we're running
out of battery juice.
| | 01:40 |
So it's always good to
have that physical fallback.
| | 01:43 |
So we are going to explore how
all these things work together.
| | 01:46 |
We are going to take a look at the analog
slate, the digital slate, we are going to
| | 01:50 |
talk about the use of a megaphone or as well
as a smartphone, there is lots of pieces here,
| | 01:54 |
they all work really, really well.
| | 01:56 |
So when we come back,
we'll start with the digital.
| | 02:01 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using a digital slate| 00:00 |
Robbie: All right, Rich, so our first exploration
into information in slates, let's go digital.
| | 00:05 |
After all, I am not a big fan of analog.
I got rid of my record player a long time ago,
| | 00:08 |
and it's just amazing to me with all the
devices that we have, like iPads and
| | 00:13 |
iPhones and various phones and slates and
that kind of stuff, the applications and tools
| | 00:18 |
that are out there to really help you get a lot
of information when you are on set and on location.
| | 00:22 |
Rich: I have got an app called DSLR Slate,
there is another one called Movie Slate that
| | 00:27 |
has a lot more features with audio
recording, but it's pretty straightforward.
| | 00:31 |
You see there we have a lot of metadata,
and the big deal here is you want to populate
| | 00:35 |
these, each of these are a field.
| | 00:37 |
So it's asking for things,
and let's just walk through.
| | 00:39 |
Robbie: Sure.
| | 00:40 |
Rich: ISO speed, so you know what the
sensitivity level, the aperture, the shutter speed, well,
| | 00:44 |
all of these things are going to give you
information about how the shot was made.
| | 00:48 |
And, well, you are often in a color situation.
| | 00:51 |
How do you use this information about the
acquisition side to really affect your judgment
| | 00:56 |
when you start mixing shots together?
| | 00:57 |
Robbie: Yeah, well, it lets me sort of know things
like what the exposure was of the original shot.
| | 01:02 |
If I am seeing noise in the shot,
I'm going why, why am I seeing noise?
| | 01:06 |
I can look at the slate information and go, oh ,it's
because they shot at ISO 3200 or something similar like that.
| | 01:12 |
So having that information is good.
| | 01:13 |
The other thing that I really like about
sort of the slates here, the digital slates is
| | 01:17 |
that I can also look at
information about things like the camera.
| | 01:21 |
So for example if somebody shot with a
camera that was shot Log for example or shot Raw
| | 01:26 |
or something like that, I can be informed
about what's going on in the creative decisions
| | 01:30 |
that I need to make.
| | 01:31 |
Rich: And one of the things we got to do
is we look through this is we want to fill
| | 01:34 |
in as much information as possible, making sure
you actually get the scene name, the take number.
| | 01:39 |
Now people think this is going to really slow
things down, having to do all that, but once
| | 01:44 |
the slate is open, these slates are intelligent,
there's little lock icon right below there,
| | 01:48 |
if I unlock that, I could easily just push
the up arrow to advance through the different
| | 01:53 |
take numbers and you see there that it's
going to go to the next take or I could unlock the
| | 01:58 |
scene, we'll just close the slate, go back to the
scene number, tap on it, and it's fully editable.
| | 02:03 |
So I could just go back, but the take numbers
are very easy to enumerate, and that's important.
| | 02:08 |
You want to get a unique
take number wherever possible.
| | 02:11 |
Robbie: And I think you made an interesting
point, the DSLR slate does this as well as
| | 02:14 |
some of the other apps that are out there
could help you with this is that they can
| | 02:17 |
sort of automate the process for you.
| | 02:19 |
So if you call a scene take 1, the next
time you open the slate, guess what, it's going
| | 02:24 |
to be take 2 and so on and so forth.
| | 02:25 |
So it is important to kind of get to a sort
of common naming scheme, of how you are going
| | 02:30 |
to call things, what you are going to call
the camera, what you are going to call
| | 02:32 |
the scene, the take, and so on.
| | 02:33 |
But a lot these tools will sort
of help you automate that process.
| | 02:36 |
Rich: One of the things I like about this
is some of the extra metadata that's actually
| | 02:40 |
generated by the device itself.
| | 02:42 |
Remember, in this particular case,
I have a satellite connection.
| | 02:46 |
If you are going to pick up a slate, an iPad,
a tablet of any sort, spring the extra money
| | 02:51 |
to have the cell data connection because what's nice
is, is that the clock on this is set by the satellite.
| | 02:57 |
So theoretically, even if you've got
multiple people shooting and they can't all see the
| | 03:01 |
same slate, if they take out their device
and they're on the same cell network or really
| | 03:05 |
any cell network, there's a really good chance you
are going to have a perfectly accurate way of shooting.
| | 03:11 |
So maybe multi-camera shoot, not everyone
could see the slate, but they can hold up
| | 03:15 |
their own slate on their
phone and get it synched.
| | 03:18 |
Plus we've got great fields
here for things like GPS data.
| | 03:21 |
I'd love having that info.
| | 03:23 |
So when we go ahead and I'll just open
this slate, I'll hit Start and let's just turn
| | 03:28 |
the volume up for a second,
so you hear the beep.
| | 03:31 |
Rich: Counts it through and does the flash.
| | 03:34 |
Well, you probably couldn't see all of
that info, but during the editorial stage, you
| | 03:38 |
just advanced through with your left and right arrow
and you could see all that by parking on the frame.
| | 03:43 |
Robbie: And Rich, one of my favorite features
about these slates is the time of day, time
| | 03:47 |
code functionality, really makes it easy to
figure out what time of day you are shooting.
| | 03:52 |
Rich: And just make sure you take the
time to set the device up correctly, along the
| | 03:55 |
bottom or in your user preferences are
going to be the frame rate that you're using,
| | 03:59 |
so you are going to want to choose that, so
the frame rate of the slate matches the frame
| | 04:03 |
rate of the camera and that will
just make it that much more accurate.
| | 04:06 |
Now this is really just a fallback position,
but synchronicity is important, knowing when
| | 04:12 |
a shot was shot is important,
knowing where it was shot.
| | 04:15 |
The big thing at the end of the day is what
happens if you have to go back and reshoot?
| | 04:18 |
Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 04:19 |
Rich: Or what happens when you take shots
from two different days and need to combine them?
| | 04:24 |
Knowing time of day is a huge help when
it comes to things like color balance.
| | 04:28 |
So I can't emphasize enough, get it for this, you
have got it on your phone, I have got it on my phone.
| | 04:33 |
Robbie: Yeah, and that's a great point is
that there is a lot of different slate apps out
| | 04:37 |
there, you need to sort of experiment and try
different ones to figure out which ones you like best.
| | 04:42 |
Some of them are free, some of them are few
dollars, some of them are maybe $15 to $20,
| | 04:47 |
and I found in my own personal toolkit I have
pretty much every one that's out there,
| | 04:52 |
at least available for iOS.
| | 04:53 |
And I like certain ones, I like certain features
of other ones, so depending on what I am doing,
| | 04:58 |
I might use one or the other, but it's
good to experiment with the different options.
| | 05:01 |
Rich: When we come back, we are going to
take a look at analog slates and talk about
| | 05:05 |
the fallback method and we still have up to
come some alternate strategies on synching
| | 05:10 |
for those of you doing a sync sound workflow.
| | 05:15 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using a physical slate| 00:00 |
Robbie: So, Rich, we just talked about using
digital slates and digital slates are great, right?
| | 00:03 |
Rich: Yeah.
| | 00:04 |
Robbie: I mean, they are really cool, but they
do require that you have a device to run them on.
| | 00:08 |
Sometimes having a device to run the slates on
can be problematic for a couple of reasons.
| | 00:12 |
One, you have to make sure that the device
is charged and it has power or batteries,
| | 00:16 |
and then the second thing is...
| | 00:18 |
Rich: You didn't forget it in the airport
screening line on your way through TSA.
| | 00:21 |
Robbie: Right, and the second thing is this is a
little bit of sob story, I've actually been out on
| | 00:25 |
set before with an iPad and guess what, it
was in a bag, somebody threw it across the set,
| | 00:30 |
the next thing to know, I opened up the iPad, and I got
a big crack across the middle of the screen, right?
| | 00:35 |
Rich: That's a sad day.
| | 00:37 |
Robbie: It is, so one of the good things to have,
even if you are using digital slates is a fallback
| | 00:41 |
plan and that comes in the form of
an analog slate, something like this.
| | 00:46 |
Rich: You know, this is a real slate.
| | 00:48 |
It's not super expensive, it's about 40 bucks for a
good one here, and it does give you a lot of control.
| | 00:53 |
Robbie: Yeah, it's funny, you make the point
of I think a lot of people see these and like
| | 00:57 |
behind the scenes parts of DVDs and stuff
like that, they really have a real purpose.
| | 01:02 |
And the anatomy of one of
these slates is pretty simple.
| | 01:05 |
Down here, in the bottom section of the slate,
this is where we can put in the information
| | 01:09 |
about our shot, the scene, the take, the
director, the camera that was being used,
| | 01:16 |
and there's a couple of ways of doing this.
| | 01:17 |
On this particular slate, you can see that we
actually have some pieces of tape that are put on here.
| | 01:20 |
Rich: Yeah, and that's a real good idea.
| | 01:23 |
The reason why we've done that there is that,
that information isn't going to change from
| | 01:27 |
take to take, it's still the same producer,
it's still the same director on set here today.
| | 01:31 |
And because that's not changing, we've just
put masking tape on there and written on it,
| | 01:36 |
and then the rest is written with a special
type of either a marker, or a china marker
| | 01:40 |
that takes a little bit like a grease
pencil, it's a little harder to erase.
| | 01:43 |
Robbie: Now Rich, this is a very good
point about choosing a marker for your slate.
| | 01:49 |
We both have been in situations where we've gone
to write something on the slate with say a Sharpie.
| | 01:54 |
And guess what, Sharpies are called
permanent markers for a reason, right?
| | 01:57 |
Rich: Yeah.
| | 01:58 |
Robbie: So just be careful
about what marker that you choose.
| | 02:01 |
You mentioned a china marker or some other
sort of water-soluble marker, goes a long
| | 02:06 |
way, so that you don't ruin the actual
slate that you just paid good money for.
| | 02:10 |
Rich: In this case, we're just using your
typical Expo dry erase marker, having a paper
| | 02:15 |
towel on set will let you
wipe that down in between takes.
| | 02:18 |
Sometimes people do use china markers, those
take a little bit more elbow grease to get out.
| | 02:22 |
Now the best thing about this, the speaker
here on the iPad is pretty loud, but this
| | 02:26 |
can really make some good noise.
| | 02:28 |
Now this particular one has a magnet, so
it doesn't accidentally come up, but if I've
| | 02:31 |
got that, that's a really loud sync point,
much louder than the speaker on the iPad.
| | 02:37 |
Robbie: Yeah, some of the different slates out there
will give you also all sort of different features.
| | 02:40 |
You might find slates that
have chip charts on them.
| | 02:43 |
So the tonal range is represented from black
to white, or they might have color chips for
| | 02:47 |
the primary and the secondary
colors that are used in video.
| | 02:50 |
Now obviously, the more things that you
start getting on a slate, the more expensive they
| | 02:53 |
are, but a basic slate like this, you can
find pretty much anywhere, any reputable place
| | 02:59 |
that does photo and video
equipment for the most part.
| | 03:01 |
Rich: Yes, so add this to your kit.
| | 03:03 |
And if your clients love these things, swing
by the toy store, get a few of the prop ones
| | 03:07 |
and then just have the crew sign
them and hand those to the client.
| | 03:10 |
But you are going to want to get a real
slate on your set, even if it's just a fallback
| | 03:14 |
for the digital slate.
| | 03:16 |
All right, up next, we're going to be
talking about some other sync strategies and ways
| | 03:20 |
to get metadata when you are on a large
set with great distances, and I'll give you a
| | 03:25 |
secret, it has something to do with this.
| | 03:27 |
I didn't push the button
because he would have been really mad.
| | 03:29 |
Robbie: I am scared.
Rich: We'll be right back.
| | 03:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Alternate metadata| 00:00 |
Rich: So, I wanted to talk about the part
that everybody tends to forget with the slate.
| | 00:04 |
They hold it up, they clap it down, but they
actually forget to call out the key information
| | 00:10 |
on the slate because, that's great that
you got a sync point but you get one of these
| | 00:14 |
audio recorders and you don't have a good
filename, you don't have time codes,
| | 00:19 |
so if you don't actually call out the roll number
or the scene number or the take number,
| | 00:23 |
if you are doing a sync sound
workflow, you are kind of screwed.
| | 00:25 |
Robbie: Oh yeah, and it
happens all the time, right?
| | 00:27 |
You have all this great information on
your analogue slate or your digital slate,
| | 00:31 |
but you know, in the case of a multi-camera shoot,
you might have not positioned the slate so
| | 00:35 |
where the other camera could see
it, might be something like this.
| | 00:37 |
So you know in our case, our center camera
here can see it just fine, but the camera
| | 00:41 |
that's on me, tied on me
can't really see it, right?
| | 00:45 |
So calling out that information is definitely
sort of a thing that you have to do in combination
| | 00:51 |
with all the information that
you put on the actual slate itself.
| | 00:54 |
Rich: Now, when I go on
locations, I don't always bring this.
| | 00:58 |
It makes you feel powerful.
| | 00:59 |
Robbie: You have to--everybody has to know that
Rich is the boss, we have already gone over that.
| | 01:03 |
Rich: Yeah, so but what actually happens
if I am on a large set, like a commercial
| | 01:07 |
set and we are spread out and there is crews,
the ability to just take this off, keep it
| | 01:11 |
mounted on you while you have this over the
shoulder, you could actually call out information,
| | 01:16 |
so everybody gets it.
| | 01:17 |
There are times that it's very difficult to
get that information to each camera or very
| | 01:21 |
difficult to get a sync point.
| | 01:22 |
I could just go ahead and say, you know, we are
going to just going to take this right here, marker.
| | 01:29 |
Everyone picks that up, it gets really
easy to have that, I can make a whistle noise,
| | 01:33 |
I click, I can snap my fingers and even those
cameras that are far, far away are going to get that.
| | 01:38 |
You have to realize when it comes to synching,
you want that extra information, you want
| | 01:42 |
every single camera to capture the metadata,
hopefully visually and with audio data, because
| | 01:47 |
if you don't, you are going to have a really hard
time down the line, because cameras become separated.
| | 01:53 |
Maybe it's a project, somebody open up the sequence,
they copy that clip, they don't have it,
| | 01:57 |
you need it on every single take.
| | 02:00 |
Now there is one other thing I'd like to
suggest, I'll actually use my smartphone, I have
| | 02:05 |
a little app called PANASCOUT from Panavision.
| | 02:06 |
Robbie: It's very cool.
| | 02:07 |
Rich: I try to remember to take photos on set, it's
going to give me the time of day stamp, the geo location.
| | 02:12 |
The more metadata you capture on
location, the happier you are down the road.
| | 02:16 |
Robbie: Yeah, I mean, we started off this discussion
today about having more metadata, the better.
| | 02:23 |
Sometimes it can become a little bit of a
burden to capture all of these things, but
| | 02:27 |
if you sort of develop your own system and
the things that you know that you'll need
| | 02:30 |
later on in post, having more of
this data is never a bad thing.
| | 02:35 |
Rich: So what we are talking about here is
not a lot of money, a couple of bucks to add
| | 02:38 |
some apps to the tablet or smartphone you
already have, less than 100 bucks to
| | 02:42 |
get a good high-quality slate,
if you don't go digital.
| | 02:45 |
For lynda.com, my name is Richard Harrington.
| | 02:46 |
Robbie: And I am Robbie Carman.
Rich: Thanks for joining us.
| | 02:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
34. Why are there Record Time Limits?DSLR recording time limits| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi, my name is Richard Harrington.
Robbie Carman: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:02 | Rich: And today we are going to talk about
record limits, which if you are not familiar
| | 00:06 | with them, really can turn around
and just bite you.
| | 00:10 | Robbie: Yeah, you know it's one of the things where I
think for a long time people using traditional video
| | 00:15 | cameras, where you put a tape in or even nowadays
a card in have never realized this issue of record limits.
| | 00:23 | Your record limits was only limited by how
long your tape was or how the capacity of
| | 00:29 | your car, what that was, but with DSLRs, even
though you might have a 32-gig card or
| | 00:35 | a 64-gig card, depending on the camera, the
actual camera itself, also depending on the
| | 00:40 | manufacturer, there are different
recording length limitations imposed.
| | 00:44 | Rich: Yeah, and where this is going to
really affect you is how long you can record,
| | 00:48 | and that time can also vary
for a wide range of reasons.
| | 00:51 | We are going to talk about the technical
and some of the legal aspects in a moment,
| | 00:55 | but let's just talk about how this
affects when you're out there shooting.
| | 00:58 | Now first off, one of the things I want
you to realize is that different cameras from
| | 01:03 | the same manufacturer or even different
firmware versions can have this limit set to different
| | 01:08 | times, and one of the things that's weird
is if I am on a Nikon camera by default,
| | 01:13 | it counts down, it starts with the limit that
you have and then starts counting backwards
| | 01:17 | as to how much you have.
| | 01:19 | Some of the new one icons, you could turn
that off, it's a menu setting, you can tweak it.
| | 01:23 | On the other hand, Canons will
count up, but it may not warn you.
| | 01:26 | They finally started doing things like
putting a little red indicator, but the deal here
| | 01:30 | is that you have to plan for these,
when are you going to take breaks?
| | 01:33 | For example, you and I have shot some concerts
together, big issue here, describe the workaround.
| | 01:38 | Robbie: Well, the workaround is sort
of staggering your coverage, right?
| | 01:41 | If you're shooting a concert for example,
knowing when to stop the camera,
| | 01:46 | while other people are still recording.
| | 01:48 | Now to be clear, this is not
something that takes a lot of time, right?
| | 01:52 | It's literally stop record, press record
again and you sort of reset that limit.
| | 01:58 | So, when you are shooting by yourself with
a single camera, it can be just a matter of
| | 02:01 | a second or so. With multiple cameras, you
sort of need to play in inside of that coverage.
| | 02:05 | Now Rich brings up the idea of a concert.
| | 02:07 | I also find this challenging
for example for interviews.
| | 02:11 | If you're recording an interview with the
CEO of a company or a one-time only interview
| | 02:16 | with a key subject, you need to sort of
plan this and one of the ways that I have
| | 02:19 | gotten around it is in between questions,
real quick, stop, start and you sort of reset
| | 02:24 | that counter, but it's something
you definitely need to consider.
| | 02:26 | Rich: Well, and that's a very valid point
with an interview type workflow one of the
| | 02:30 | benefits of doing that start/stop is that
it's easier to find each question in the bin
| | 02:34 | because what you don't want to do is, oh,
oh, wait, hold that thought. You want to make
| | 02:39 | the technology invisible to your subject,
so they are not being affected by it, but
| | 02:43 | you do need to plan for this, you do need
to figure out what are the limits and let's
| | 02:48 | just for a second also talk about this concept.
| | 02:51 | I think it was DV tape where people sort of
got this mentality of just let it roll, storage
| | 02:57 | is cheap, it's a cheap
hard drive, just let it roll.
| | 03:01 | I love short takes because when I go to work
with my project, I work natively in Premiere Pro
| | 03:06 | a lot, media management you really
can't media manage camera native material.
| | 03:11 | You can't just say, oh, trim this out, get
rid of this. It's whatever was shot and so
| | 03:16 | if you have these incredibly long takes,
they take longer to look through, longer to find
| | 03:21 | your clips, longer to locate things.
| | 03:23 | So if anything, there's times that I think
the shorter record limits actually come in handy.
| | 03:28 | I just want to make sure that people
think about having just what they need
| | 03:32 | and not more than they need.
| | 03:33 | Robbie: Yeah, and this might be something
that's sounds a little funny, but depending on what
| | 03:38 | you're shooting, a DSLR
might not be your best bet.
| | 03:42 | If you need to record for 24 hours simultaneously
for say a natural history or a nature film
| | 03:49 | that you're doing, putting the DSLR in the
field might not be your best bet.
| | 03:53 | You might need to go for some
other recording technologies.
| | 03:56 | So with that said, though Rich, I think that
in the next couple of movies, we will give
| | 03:59 | you some workarounds and we also tell you
both sort of the legal aspects of this and
| | 04:05 | sort of the technical aspect of why these
recording length limitations exist in the first place.
| | 04:09 | Rich: You mean it's not just to mess with me?
| | 04:11 | Robbie: Well, with you it is, yes.
Rich: Okay, we will be right back.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Legal limits| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: Believe it or not, there are a couple
of reasons for why recording length limitations
| | 00:05 | exist on DSLRs, and the first one is something that
you would say to yourself, really? They really did that?
| | 00:12 | And that first one is sort
of a legal limitation, right?
| | 00:15 | In lots of different markets across the world,
devices, electronic devices such as cameras
| | 00:21 | are classified for tax reasons, right?
| | 00:24 | So if you have a camera that is a photo camera,
it's taxed differently than say a video camera.
| | 00:31 | And in a lot of regions across the world,
that demarcation line is how much video or
| | 00:35 | the length of video that a camera can record.
| | 00:38 | So in certain markets, manufactures like
Nikon and Canon, Sony and that kind of stuff have
| | 00:43 | purposely handicapped and purposely
limited the recording length for tax reasons.
| | 00:48 | So they can make more money is
basically what it comes down to.
| | 00:51 | Rich Harrington: Well, and the thing that you have to
realize is that finally enough people gave
| | 00:55 | them feedback that they are
starting to make this a choice.
| | 00:58 | Now the issue here is if the camera gets
classified one way or another it's going
| | 01:03 | to affect import taxes, it's going to affect the
fees that they have to pay to get that in the country.
| | 01:08 | Now this is a valid reason because the video
features initially on a lot of these cameras
| | 01:13 | were sort of a, oh, well we could throw that
in or the associated press is asking us to
| | 01:18 | add video record capacity so their news
photographers out there could get short clips
| | 01:23 | to put on the website.
| | 01:25 | Video on DSLRs was really an accident. It was
driven by consumer demand and the low-end of the market.
| | 01:32 | Now what was surprising is how the high-end
of the market and the mid-range of the market
| | 01:36 | embraced it as a creative tool to empower them.
| | 01:39 | Robbie: That's right.
| | 01:39 | Rich: I am not saying that this is going
to replace the need for an ALEXA or RED, but
| | 01:43 | this is a highly disposable camera that
gets used on lots of film sets, lots of TV sets,
| | 01:48 | and for a lot of folks on budgets doing
things like music videos or spots,
| | 01:52 | this opens up new paths for creativity.
| | 01:54 | So fortunately, manufacturers have responded.
Yes, you actually may pay a little bit more
| | 02:00 | for that camera and keep in mind we are not
talking like, 30 bucks it's like, oh, it added
| | 02:04 | $2 in taxes, so it adds
$10 to the street price.
| | 02:07 | But they are making that an option
that you can get longer record times.
| | 02:12 | But even though you can get longer record
times, there is still--you say, well,
| | 02:16 | why can't I record forever?
| | 02:17 | Well, there is still a limit
for some technical reasons, right?
| | 02:20 | Robbie: Yeah, totally, and these technical
reasons are actually multifaceted.
| | 02:25 | The first one is really the simplest, and that
is sort of the file system that the camera card,
| | 02:30 | that's being employed in the card, uses,
so whether it's FAT32 or some other sort
| | 02:37 | of format for the card.
| | 02:38 | Now, a lot of manufactures for a long time
used sort of the FAT32 file system and what
| | 02:44 | this did was it meant hat you could only have a file
that was 4 gigabytes in total size or duration, right?
| | 02:52 | And because it was 4 gigabytes, depending
on the camera that you were shooting, that
| | 02:55 | might have only been 10, 12 minutes, maybe
13 minutes, something like that, and recently
| | 03:00 | a lot of the camera manufacturers have switched
away from FAT32 or they are doing other things
| | 03:05 | in the camera to sort of
remove that 4-gigabyte limit.
| | 03:07 | Rich: You are right, Rob.
| | 03:08 | And to keep things simple, one of the
things that's important to realize is that as you
| | 03:12 | change different frame rates and
frame sizes, that affects how much data.
| | 03:17 | So you would think naturally, oh, I am
shooting 720p/24, I will get a longer limit.
| | 03:21 | Well, it was easier for the manufacturer
to not have to do that dynamic math and say,
| | 03:26 | oh, this is the frame rate, this is the record limit,
this is this. They just said, oh, what is the maximum record time
| | 03:31 | if somebody is doing 1080p, 30 frames a second
or 60 frames per second and they set the cap.
| | 03:37 | Well, it also varies upon the subject matter.
| | 03:40 | If it's a real simple locked off shot, like
something like this, interview on a simple
| | 03:44 | background, it's a lower data rate, but they
just simplified it and because the worst thing
| | 03:49 | that would happen would be for you to
hit that limit and then you would have
| | 03:53 | a corrupt clip and lose everything.
Robbie: Right, that's a good point, Rich.
| | 03:56 | And then another technical reason that this
happened is because a lot of the camera manufacturers
| | 04:00 | realize sort of the
limitations of actually recording video.
| | 04:03 | What I mean by that is that these camera
bodies are nice and small, they are compact,
| | 04:08 | they don't have huge heat sinks, or fans and things
of that nature, so early on one of the reasons
| | 04:14 | that these recording length limitations were
put into place is because the camera simply
| | 04:17 | could not stand up to lengthy recording.
The cameras got too hot.
| | 04:22 | I had a Canon 7D for a long time, but every
once in a while recording continuously for
| | 04:27 | a long time, even if I stopped and started,
I'd get this sort of heat warning, right?
| | 04:32 | It was getting too hot and I should stop
recording and turn the camera off and let it sit.
| | 04:36 | And I have actually even read stories online
of people doing things like wrapping icepacks
| | 04:41 | around their camera and that kind of stuff.
| | 04:43 | So another technical reason besides sort of
the file formatting on the card itself was
| | 04:47 | that the manufacturers wanted to try to
give the user the best experience and that best
| | 04:51 | experience often meant limiting that recording
length time so the camera didn't do things like overheat.
| | 04:56 | Rich: So the good news is, is that as you
upgrade firmware or as you look at newer cameras,
| | 05:01 | the record times in general have been pushed out.
Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 05:04 | Rich: Nikon started doing this, Canon stared
doing this, it's not uncommon to find record
| | 05:08 | lengths easily in the 20-minute mark,
although I would say for the same reasons we talked
| | 05:13 | about earlier, don't record for 20 minutes
if you don't have to. It's just hard on the camera,
| | 05:17 | you increase the chances of a corrupted clip,
and you make it that much harder when you get into post.
| | 05:23 | So I think some very good straightforward
things here, understands the limits of your camera.
| | 05:26 | This might mean taking out the manual.
| | 05:28 | I highly recommend that you do actually
try some test shooting where you run the
| | 05:32 | camera all the way up to that limit and see
what happens, does it stop, does it shut down,
| | 05:36 | does it corrupt the clip?
| | 05:37 | Robbie: Yeah, and I mean the other thing I
just want to point out again--and this might not
| | 05:41 | be a popular thing to say on a DSLR show--
but just keep in mind when you do need those
| | 05:46 | really lengthy record times, you might consider
a different recording device that's not a DSLR.
| | 05:53 | Rich: Or you could attach an external recorder
to some of the newer DSLRs because for example
| | 05:57 | some of my newer Nikons, I could take a clean
HDMI out and I can go to an external record device.
| | 06:03 | But, yeah, not every camera is the right one.
| | 06:05 | Sometimes I am using the GoPro, sometimes I
am using a RED, it depends on the budget,
| | 06:09 | it depends on the shoot.
| | 06:10 | Now we love these cameras, these cameras
and many others do have record limitations.
| | 06:14 | A lot of times the way they are getting around
that is they are now starting to write multiple
| | 06:18 | files, but then it gets
stitched back together when you import.
| | 06:21 | So make sure you get familiar
with the tech that you have.
| | 06:24 | My name is Richard Harrington.
Robbie: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 06:25 | Rich: And we'd like to
thank you for joining us.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
35. Is the Canon 6D Right for Me?Is the Canon 6D right for me?| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: Hi, my name is Richard Harrington.
Robbie Carman: And I am Robbie Carman.
| | 00:02 | Rich: And today, we're talking specifically about
one of the hot new cameras out there, the Canon 6D.
| | 00:07 | There's a lot of confusion because if you
look, well, it's not the 7D, it's not 5D,
| | 00:11 | it must be exactly in the middle between
those two, and it's interesting, right?
| | 00:15 | Like this camera is kind of that
happy medium for a lot of folks.
| | 00:19 | Robbie: Yeah, it's true, Rich, and the Canon 6D
is a camera that a lot of people including
| | 00:23 | myself have been waiting for.
| | 00:25 | And the principal reason that I have been
waiting for Canon to release a camera like
| | 00:28 | this, is because it's an
affordable full-frame camera.
| | 00:33 | Now in previous episodes, we've talked about
the difference between cropped image sensors
| | 00:37 | and full-frame image sensors, and there are a lot of
advantages to going with a full-frame image sensor.
| | 00:43 | Now for me in particular where I sort of
shoot a hybrid of photos and videos, on the photo
| | 00:48 | side of thing, I love the full-frame sensor,
I'm getting a better noise reproduction, less
| | 00:53 | noise in the photos that I'm talking.
| | 00:55 | Rich: More control over shallow depth of
field because it's easier if you are looking
| | 00:58 | for bokeh with the large sensor,
better low-light performance.
| | 01:01 | So there are certainly benefits, but in the
past I was always of the standpoint that, well,
| | 01:06 | you know, look at the huge price
difference between the 5D Mark III and the 7D.
| | 01:11 | If you do shoot video, I would've gone for
two 7Ds and had two cameras for coverage rather
| | 01:16 | than one more expensive camera, if you
were looking at it from a video standpoint.
| | 01:19 | I have kind of amended my opinion.
I really like this camera too.
| | 01:23 | Robbie: Yeah, I love this camera, and you
know, Canon has done something that I would say
| | 01:27 | is a little aggravating but yet shrewd.
| | 01:29 | They really distinguished these cameras,
the 7D, the 5D Mark III, now the 6D, primarily
| | 01:35 | on their sort of stills performance, in
there autofocus systems for still shooting
| | 01:40 | further their burst rates for still shooting
and that kind of stuff, where the 7D is kind
| | 01:44 | of positioned as sort of the everyday man,
sorts of sport shooter camera because it has
| | 01:50 | a high burst rate and stuff like that, where
the 5D Mark III sort of the creme de la creme
| | 01:55 | of autofocus, it's full frame.
| | 01:57 | I think you're right, Rich, that the 6D kind
of fits in the middle both for photos, but
| | 02:05 | for videos, they are kind of all abut the same.
| | 02:08 | Rich: Yeah, I've actually used both cameras,
and what I found is that the performance of
| | 02:13 | this from a video shooter standpoint is very
desirable, great level of control, we're going
| | 02:18 | to talk about what's not good about this camera,
what is good about this camera, but I think
| | 02:22 | if you've been sitting on the fence or
you are a 7D owner, this is a great upgrade.
| | 02:28 | Of course, and we're going to dig into this
more in just a second, stepping up to a full-frame
| | 02:32 | sensor might mean the need to
upgrade all of your equipment.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Beneficial features of the Canon 6D| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: All right, Rich, let's begin our
discussion about the 6D with some of the most notable
| | 00:04 | features that this camera has, and to me, the
most noticeable feature is that it's a full-
| | 00:09 | frame camera at a relatively affordable price.
I was just looking online.
| | 00:14 | You can get the body only for
actually a little less than $2,000 now.
| | 00:17 | Rich Harrington: Yeah, this is a great thing.
| | 00:19 | There's about a $1400 price difference between
this and the 5D Mark III, which may have contributed
| | 00:25 | to your decision to sell your 5D Mark III.
| | 00:26 | Robbie: You know, it was one of those things.
I had a 5D Mark III for a long time, and I
| | 00:29 | felt like the coolest guy in town, walking
around with my big fancy Mark III, and then
| | 00:34 | I sort of realized that I'm not going out
and shooting weddings and events.
| | 00:38 | I don't make my living by shooting photos and one
of things I was really paying for, for that
| | 00:44 | 5D Mark III was its advanced photo capabilities,
specifically, the autofocus system and things of that nature.
| | 00:51 | So to me, the 6D represents awesome compromise.
| | 00:55 | I didn't want to go back to a 7D, because I
really wanted to go to a full-frame sensor,
| | 00:59 | nor did I need all the super higher-end
photo capabilities that the 5D Mark III had.
| | 01:05 | So, when I found that the 6D was
coming out, jumped on the opportunity.
| | 01:08 | Rich: Yeah, the big difference here is
things like the 5D Mark III has a slightly faster
| | 01:13 | shutter speed from a 4000 to 8000.
In a video world, absolutely useless.
| | 01:19 | We're shooting at a sixtieth, so that sort
of shutter speed is not going to be used.
| | 01:22 | The still performance on this camera
is in line with the 5D Mark II.
| | 01:27 | It's almost like they took the 5D Mark II.
| | 01:29 | Sensor-wise, it's very
similar, great performance.
| | 01:32 | One of the things that I actually like, though,
is that this camera has a very sensitive sensor.
| | 01:37 | I found myself bumping the ISO up well above
1600 when shooting at night and I got great
| | 01:43 | footage with very little noise.
| | 01:45 | So I was very surprised at how well
it performed in low-light shooting.
| | 01:48 | Robbie: Yeah, and that's right, Rich. The
full-frame sensor I've been pretty amazed with
| | 01:51 | both for stills as well as video.
| | 01:55 | Couple mega-pixels less than the 5D Mark III,
but those couple less mega-pixels in my opinion
| | 02:00 | actually help you with noise reproduction,
because those photos sites can be a little
| | 02:03 | bigger on the actual sensor itself, gathering
more light at less noise, and I've been very impressed
| | 02:09 | especially with video, going up to ISOs of
1600, 2000, maybe even as high as 3200, that
| | 02:16 | are still actually usable whereas, say in a crop camera,
guess what, you go to 3200, it's just noise central.
| | 02:22 | Rich: Yeah, and this is good stuff.
I really do like that performance.
| | 02:27 | It's not a big difference
in still size, 22 versus 20.
| | 02:30 | Now stepping aside for a moment, there are
a couple of things built into this camera
| | 02:34 | that are useful if you're going to be
using it for location scouting tool.
| | 02:38 | You actually have the ability to do
GPS on the camera so you can geo-tag.
| | 02:42 | Now movies often don't support that metadata,
so what you are going to want to do is make
| | 02:47 | sure that you shoot a still but this will
tag it with GPS data and unlike other cameras
| | 02:52 | that's actually built into the body.
| | 02:54 | You don't have to add on a third-party sensor.
There's also built-in Wi-Fi.
| | 02:57 | Again when shooting video, you have to
disable that feature, but you can use this if you
| | 03:02 | just want to look through the lens, you could
actually trigger it to your iOS device, Android
| | 03:06 | Apps are in the works of my understanding, and
you can look through the camera and see things.
| | 03:10 | So if you're setting up multiple cameras for
coverage, you just want to look at them, get
| | 03:14 | an idea of what it's going to look like.
| | 03:15 | I'm on the location, standing in front of the
camera, tweaking the lights, I could take out
| | 03:19 | my device and look through a virtual viewfinder and
see what the camera sees, which is really kind of cool.
| | 03:25 | So in this particular camera just a single SD
Card, now that's one of several small limitations
| | 03:31 | that you are can't be mindful of.
| | 03:32 | When come back, we're going to tell you some
things that might annoy you with this camera
| | 03:36 | and might affect your decision whether
or not you want to rent it or purchase it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawbacks of the Canon 6D| 00:00 | Robbie Carman: So, Rich, in the last movie we talk about
some of the great new features on the Canon 6D.
| | 00:05 | However, like any camera there is
no perfect device or perfect camera.
| | 00:09 | A couple of things on this camera that are
just worth your consideration, not necessarily
| | 00:13 | cons but things to sort of be aware of right.
Rich Harrington: Yeah.
| | 00:17 | Robbie: And the two most noticeable things
for me especially when we are talking about
| | 00:20 | shooting video is that Canon actually
decided unlike a lot of the newer cameras that are
| | 00:25 | coming out from, even Canons and Nikons.
| | 00:28 | They decided not to put an actual
headphone jack on the camera body itself.
| | 00:32 | Now you can still monitor audio, but you can't actually
listen to that audio, you can visually see it and stuff.
| | 00:38 | But that's a big con me because I know a lot
of people especially in run-and-gun situations
| | 00:42 | want be able to just plug in set of headphones
and be able to record and hear the audio that
| | 00:48 | they have going to the camera.
Rich: And that's a real shame.
| | 00:50 | I mean the comparable cameras from Nikon
have that the ability to adjust with 20 points
| | 00:56 | of control for audio record.
| | 00:58 | Canon in my opinion, particularly with this
camera does need to catch up, and I had a chance
| | 01:03 | to talk with Canon a little bit about this last
NAB, and I said why do I have all these features
| | 01:08 | and I don't have them on the DSLR?
| | 01:10 | Well, that's why there is a C300
and the C530 and C100.
| | 01:13 | Robbie: Right.
Rich: This camera is not for you.
| | 01:15 | Well, they've kind of soften that stance a
little bit, because they finally for example
| | 01:19 | announced with the 5D Mark III that
they are going to put clean HDMI on it.
| | 01:24 | Now at the time of this recording that
hadn't shipped yet, but it's the same thing they
| | 01:27 | could do clean HDMI out on this.
| | 01:29 | Robbie: There's a headphone
jack on the Mark III as well.
| | 01:31 | Rich: Yeah, this one doesn't have
clean output, that hopefully it will.
| | 01:35 | The fact that they left the headphone jack
out, it was like they were saying, oh, you
| | 01:38 | really want to do video? You still need to
at least buy the 5D Mark III, the only reason
| | 01:43 | I can come up with that they left it off was to save,
I don't know 79 cents in the cost of production.
| | 01:49 | Robbie: Well, I think it was that, but I also
think you know a little bit with this particular
| | 01:52 | camera it's the one of the latest
DSLR full-frame cameras on the market.
| | 01:57 | So, you know adding a little board or little
jack does add a couple of grams or 510 grams
| | 02:03 | to the weight of the camera.
| | 02:04 | Now the other thing, Rich, there are a couple
of other things to consider about this camera
| | 02:07 | that I think are important.
| | 02:08 | As a pro level camera, you would think that
it's completely rugged and the construction
| | 02:13 | is completely weather proof, that kind of stuff.
| | 02:16 | Well one of the things Canon did on this
camera is that the top section here is not actually
| | 02:22 | sort of that magnesium alloy
that you find on other cameras.
| | 02:24 | It's actually plastic, and this for a
technical reason with the GPS and Wi-Fi built in.
| | 02:29 | Rich: They couldn't get the sensors out.
| | 02:30 | Robbie: Yeah, those antennas didn't
communicate very well through this.
| | 02:33 | So it's not quite as rugged.
| | 02:34 | Rich: So, don't purposely drop your
camera on the ground, not that you would do that
| | 02:38 | anyways, but yet it feels good, it's a
very sturdy camera, it's got the steel body.
| | 02:44 | But yeah this top cap absolutely, they
couldn't get those devices to work, which is why in
| | 02:48 | other cameras you start bolting those as
attachments on the top and on the side.
| | 02:52 | Now I'm going to say SD Cards love them or
hate them, they are becoming the new standard.
| | 02:59 | Getting a compact flash card
is getting increasingly hard.
| | 03:01 | So, you may need to get new cards to shoot with.
There are steel cards out there from
| | 03:07 | companies like Hoodman if you want the
stability, otherwise invest in a good card wallet,
| | 03:12 | and make sure you upgrade your cards.
| | 03:14 | The SDHC class 10 are enough, but you might have some
older SD cards or see cheaper ones that don't work.
| | 03:19 | But the other area you're probably going to
have to upgrade if you are coming from
| | 03:23 | a 7D is the glass, right Rob?
| | 03:24 | Robbie: And this was my second thing about
this camera is that you know if you're shooting
| | 03:28 | on a crop frame camera like a Digital Rebel,
a 7D, you might have invested in EFS Lenses
| | 03:35 | and those are cropped lenses that work only on
cropped image sensors, and you'll be unable
| | 03:39 | to use them on a full-frame sensor.
| | 03:43 | Now you might also have regular full-frame
lenses, L series lenses, or anything that's not
| | 03:48 | EFS those will work of course.
| | 03:50 | So, you might have to consider, now that
sounds like a con but there is also a benefit
| | 03:54 | of course to the full-frame
sensor in your lenses. Guess what.
| | 03:57 | 50 mm is 50 mm, unlike a cropped image sensor where
you are having to do so this crop-multiplication
| | 04:03 | math, you put a lens on the camera, the lens in
the focal length that the lens has is as advertised.
| | 04:09 | Rich: Very good, I think this gives you a good idea
of the strengths and potential weaknesses of the camera.
| | 04:14 | In our last movie when we come back we're
going to take a look at the menu system and
| | 04:17 | walk you through some of the
major controls that this camera offers.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Menu options of the Canon 6D| 00:00 | Rich Harrington: One of the ways that people often
judge their cameras is the menu system, because
| | 00:04 | it makes it really clear
what are the core features.
| | 00:06 | Now I normally shoot Nikon, but I must say
that I do think Canon has a better approach
| | 00:12 | to menus, not scrolling up, scrolling left
and right, it's just like when you hit the
| | 00:16 | bottom of the page, you've
ended that menu, you go to the next.
| | 00:19 | Robbie Carman: Yeah, and you know, I think that
Canon in particular has really, over the past few
| | 00:23 | years as the popularity of their DSLRs has
soared with non-photo people, they've really
| | 00:28 | got into a simplified
approach for the menus.
| | 00:31 | Rich: Yeah.
| | 00:32 | Robbie: That makes it pretty easy
to navigate and find the options.
| | 00:36 | Now Rich, I know you're a Nikon guy, and we'll
talk about a new Nikon camera in another set
| | 00:42 | of movies, but Nikon
menus kind of drive me crazy.
| | 00:45 | Rich: Yeah, they take some getting used to.
| | 00:47 | You definitely end up using the custom menu
feature where you put all of the things
| | 00:50 | you want on your own page.
Robbie: Yeah.
| | 00:52 | Rich: But let's take a look here at
some of the major features of this Canon.
| | 00:55 | Now the first couple of pages you are
looking at are basically going to be the mode for
| | 00:59 | photo shooting, so we're not going to talk
too long about it, but I do want to review
| | 01:02 | one here that I think is useful, that is
the fact that you could turn off the beep.
| | 01:08 | There a lot of times that people are
shooting stills on a set with a video set, turn that
| | 01:13 | dang thing off, you don't want to hear the beeping,
you don't want to hear that audio feedback.
| | 01:17 | It gets recorded on the video set.
Robbie: Absolutely.
| | 01:19 | Rich: So turn that off and then you might
want to even consider turning Image review
| | 01:23 | off to cut down your battery usage
to get the longer life.
| | 01:26 | Robbie: Yep.
| | 01:28 | Rich: Now, over here we've got some ability
here for Mirror lockup, that's going to come
| | 01:30 | in handy if you want to
actually clean the sensor.
| | 01:33 | Robbie: Yep.
| | 01:34 | Rich: And then our next area here is really
more shooting things, but notice you do have
| | 01:39 | the ability to adjust the White balance
here, and this is still important when shooting
| | 01:44 | video, getting the right setting there or
taking advantage of the custom setting which
| | 01:49 | we'll cover more in future episodes,
how you do a custom white balance.
| | 01:52 | But I think that's incredibly important, and
I do like this, the ability to exactly dial
| | 01:56 | in when using something like a light meter.
Robbie: I love this.
| | 01:59 | If you are working with a gaffer on set and
they are gelling lights or they're adjusting
| | 02:04 | the color temperature of the scene to a specific
value, getting your camera tweaked to that specific
| | 02:09 | value, piece of cake to them.
| | 02:10 | Rich: Yeah, I mean and keep in mind Rob makes a
good chunk of his living as a professional colorist.
| | 02:14 | You would think, oh good, more work for me.
| | 02:16 | No, you are the same belief, now could you please
just get the right balance white at time of acquisition.
| | 02:20 | Robbie: Just white balance the
camera, it really helps, yeah.
| | 02:21 | Rich: Yeah, it does make a big difference.
| | 02:23 | Alright, so our next category here, one of
the things that is nice is the ability to
| | 02:27 | adjust the Color space if needed and there
are some third-party spaces we're seeing.
| | 02:32 | Picture Styles, now you can load third-party
Picture Styles, more controls here for
| | 02:38 | Picture Styles, a lot of User Defined
ones which I think are helpful.
| | 02:40 | Robbie: Yeah, I always use the User Defined
menu options to sort of create that flat shooting
| | 02:46 | situation that you hear a lot of people talking
about, a little lower contrast, a little lower
| | 02:50 | saturation, so I have a little more flexibility.
| | 02:53 | I've found that the built-in camera Picture
Styles are pretty good, but I often
| | 02:58 | go in and adjust all of my settings, save
it as a predefined user setting, so that way
| | 03:03 | I can be sure that I am getting
the settings that I want.
| | 03:05 | Rich: Yeah.
| | 03:06 | And other things in here, notice that we
do have noise reduction for shooting at high ISO,
| | 03:10 | that's more for still shooting.
But I do like this here, Dust Delete Data.
| | 03:16 | <
|
|
