Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Learning My Video Gear Thoughts

Been playing with my Blackmagic pocket cameras the last two nights, and been doing some editing in Premiere. Some thoughts:

- There is a big difference when use a lens with IS (stabilization). When I hand hold my 24mm f1.4 I get all kinds of bouncy movement in the picture but with the 24-105 f 4 with stabilization I get a much smoother image. If I am not shooting in low light, the IS 24-105mm will be my lens of choice.

- My refurbished 64GB Scandisk 95mg/s card ($20 USD a piece) seem to work as well as the non refurbished I got in the EBay sale. I have a 128GB card coming as well, if that works properly I will probably by a second one of thse. This testing was when the camera was set at ProRes HQ. I still need to test the cards in the RAW setting.

- My bigger Chinese Sirui mono pod with larger feet seems more stable and easy to use than the Manfrotto mono pod I got in the EBay sale. The larger Sirui made of carbon fiber is also lighter than the aluminum Manfrotto.

- Love the combination of the Zacuto viewfinder and the focus peaking (image has green highlights when in focus), this allows for precise fast focusing even in lower light.

- Zebras are a nice feature. I had to learn what it is but basically as I understand it Zebras are black lines on overexposed white areas of a image. When I see the zebras in my viewfinder I close down the lens to allow less light in. This feature might work great in teh dump where there are lots of bright white bags reflecting sunlight.

- My 24mm lens are wide but not quite wide enough for every shot I want to shoot! They are probably about 30-35mm lens (35mm equivalent on the BMPCC size sensor). I will need a wider lens. I am looking at 2, a 11-16mm f2.8 Tokina and a 7.5mm f3.5 prime fisheye Rokinon. Both lens would give quite a bit wider point of view. I want to use my wide lens inside the dump shacks filming family life. I need to have this wide option for certain filming situations.