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UPDATED 2/26/10: Red ONE RAW R3D Footage now ready for download at the bottom of the page. I have been talking about buying a camera for months. I am selling a house to buy it. A $65,000 investment. I have been looking at the Sony PDW-F800 and was nearly certain that would be the right choice for me. It is a broadcast camera and I work in broadcast television. So it is an easy decision? Right?? But then I shot with the RED. Everything changed. The RED camera is unlike anything I have ever used. Two of the most amazing things I learned about the RED is that the sensor is 5000 degrees kelvin and the ISO is 320. To adjust the ISO and COLOR TEMP you are simply changing metadata. These corrections can be done on location, for proper looking visuals or done in post with enormous freedom. The only thing you must be aware of is clipping the whites. Once you clip a white, no metadata adjustment in the world will save your detail in post. In fact, the RED camera laughs at you because the white clip is a ghostly green in the blown out area!
I rented a Nikon RED mount for this camera so i could use my old Nikon manual glass. The mount was very tight and worked very well, but if I do this right, I will buy RED lenses with PL mounts. I will not use any old Nikons. I also learned that you must set the viewfinder to REDSPACE so that you can see the ISO change on the screen. I was shooting in RAW viewfinder mode very confused for the entire first day. Nothing changed in my screen when I added ISO! But, thanks to Twitter, I got the help I needed. The color is amazing. I love color grading and you could spend months just grading a single shot. Plus, this camera works very well in low light with great detail. Then there is high speed shooting. I was so excited to shoot “overcrank” 60p on my PMW-EX1 when I first got it. But the resolution was just 720p and 60 FPS was not enough frames for me. A phantom is too expensive, but the RED ONE shoots 2k at 120 FPS, still not enough for me but much better.
Over the last few days, I have figured out this camera to be comfortable with it. I had to return it to my friend two days ago. I already miss it. I shot non-stop for three days without stopping to eat and with minimal sleep. Since using it, I have already landed a paid gig with a major production company shooting stuff at 120 frames per second 2k! I have clients asking me to run the RED before I even own it. So, second week of March, I will rent a RED for the gig because I am not quite ready to be a RED user (isn’t that a website?). I am very lucky to be in a position to be able to afford a camera and a very expensive kit of cine lenses at this stage of my life. I knew it would happen eventually, because television is my life, but I never thought I would buy into digital cinema. But as we all know, with the explosion of shallow depth of field HD SLRs converging into broadcast television, there is a place for this type of camera system in my craft. I am buying a RED because it will put me on a path to creative television. No more shooting sports from a fixed location, with limited responsibilities. Commercials, promos, live events, documentaries, natural history, experimental work are all possible with a RED camera.
This RED can lead to the MX sensor, allowing me to shoot up to 250 FPS. Then the RED path will take me to EPIC and all of its offspring (scarlet). The only problem is getting the RED to fit my ergonomic obsession for perfection. The thing is a pig. Plus, I only see a few more solid years with a strong back, so it is now or never. It may be a pain shooting with the rig, but when you sit down in post and work with the raw R3D files, it all makes sense. Take a look at this video blog I shot on the first day really using the camera. I have no idea how to operate the camera properly, but the more hours I put into it, the more easy it becomes. The key is to take notes on settings and look at them in post with a keen eye for improvement.
Also on Vimeo here: http://www.vimeo.com/9568996 This video was de-saturated because I was shooting in RAW viewing mode and unaware that I was clipping video information. I hated the “green clip” on the white snow. I was not using a matte box and will do so in the future to help control this. Plus now I look at the histogram! Oh, and I need a follow focus and an AC. I am currently working on a skateboarding short titled, “Boston Skate” to be edited shortly. This past weekend, I used the RED, Sony PMW-EX1/Letus Ultimate and Canon 5dmk2 to shoot a quick documentary about five Boston Skaters. Stay tuned for that. Here are a few shots from REDCINE-X (free download click here) to show you how much you can grade RED ONE RAW R3D files. Again, I am stunned that ISO and color temperature are metadata and can be manipulated freely in post.
These files are straight off the RED hard drive as recorded by the RED ONE camera. All I did was change the name of the file. These are native RAW files at RC36.
Last year, I directed the photography on a DVD concert project with the Dropkick Murphys – Live on Lansdowne. We shot the seven shows in six days around St. Patrick’s Day at the House of Blues, in Boston Massachusetts. We used Boston area freelance camera operators and rented six Sony PDW-355 XDCAM cameras from Rule Broadcast. We had an 18 foot jib camera with a wide angle lens and I wondered around with the Sony PMW-EX1 with Letus Ultimate 35mm lens adapter during the show. I was able to get some sweet fisheye shots with a Nikon 16mm f2.8 lens that showed how crazy the concert was at the House of Blues. All cameras recorded 35mbps XDCAM on dual layer 50GB disks. Torey Champage layered all camera angles on video tracks in Final Cut Pro and edited the project. You can read the blog post from last year by clicking here. Below are a few excerpts from the DVD to be released in the USA March 16th, then a few weeks later in Europe. In all, the distribution will include over 20 different countries all over the world.
Thanks to the hard work of Torey Champagne, TJ Powers and all the crew the DVD came out very well. This concert will also be available for download in HD off iTunes. Check out the Dropkicks website for more information. You can buy this DVD/CD set on Amazon.com by clicking here. I have a RED ONE for the weekend and I have been shooting non-stop since I got it. The sensor is heating up as I rip through 120 frames per second at 2k resolution. I tired to shoot 4.5k, but the RED hard drive wont support it! I will be shooting a skateboarding short Sunday and Monday in Boston using the RED at 120FPS, my Sony PMW-EX1 shooting sitdown interviews and the Canon 5dmk2 as a specialty camera. Right now, I need sleep. The RED batteries are charging and the sensor is cooling down. Take a look at a clip from tonight’s Boston University hockey game shot at 120 FPS. I used an old Nikon 105mm f2.5 lens and my Vinten Vision 10 AS tripod. It is much easier following the action with the RED bomb viewfinder mounted to the camera. I was running the RED rig without a follow focus, used only prime lenses and was alone. Quite a challenge following that hockey puck!
Some footy from the skate shoot:
Shot at sunset with a 16mm, 55mm and 105mm Nikon Nikkor manual lens at 120FPS. Um, no matte box or filters!
I will post RAW files in my next RED ONE blog post in the near future.
A lot of cameras can shoot “time lapse”, but few can shoot “time warp”. That is what the Discovery Channel people like to call it when using digital technology to slow down a high speed event and make the invisible, visible. I purchased a small Casio point and shoot camera to replace my beat up Panasonic Lumix camera. The $228 DMC-ZS3 Lumix is an awesome camera, and I will continue to use it, but it is tricky to frame and dial in the menu since i dropped it out of a window by mistake. The camera still works, but the four story fall to the ground below cracked the LCD.
I was very close to buying an exact replacement when a new camera caught my eye, the Casio EX FC150. The Casio took 10 MP stills, shot 720p video (.AVI files not AVCHD) and it was about the same size. But what really caught my eye was the fact that the “Exilim” FC150 was able to shoot high speed video.
I knew that the Casio EX F1 Camera was able to record at high frame rates, and I was not impressed. The F1 could shoot Hi-Speed video at 300FPS at 512×384. The video resolution was horrible. The F1 did shoot nice 720 60p video (from what I saw on the internet), but the high speed feature was quite lacking. The new FC150 is able to shoot high speed at 480 resolution, that is a first. But do not go any higher than 240 FPS, the quality is terrible after that. What is the point of shooting 1000 frames per second if the picture is the size of a thumb tack? You could never re-size a piece of video shot 224×64 into a 720p time line! But, as I read the specs on the new little Casio camera, I was surprised the see that it is able to record at 120 frames per second in 640×480 resolution. It would be possible to scale this footy to 720p with out the image degrading to the point of distraction. The camera also takes digital stills and has other features that I will not be testing in this blog. I will only be talking about the high speed video feature on the camera.
You must all understand that this camera cripples the resolution of the CMOS sensor when shooting in high speed. The reason for this is processing power, memory space and price tag. If this little camera could shoot 1000 frames per second at HD resolution, it would max out a 2GB card in a matter of seconds and it would cost a lot more than $350! I found that shooting at 120FPS was quite impressive. It is basically standard definition 480p 4:3 video. I set Final Cut to scale the videos 300 percent to work on my 720p timeline. The 240FPS videos had to be scaled to about 360 percent to fit the window. You do see quite a bit of artifacting when scaling this much. You will see it in the video blog below. But this camera is cheap and lets you shoot at high frames rates. No other camera lets you do this except a Red One or a Phantom and both of those are quite expensive. The FC150 also has a great little in-camera video editing feature. If you record a lot of extra stuff before or after the “high speed event” takes place, you can trim the in and out point of the file. This way, you can save space on your memory card and not have extra useless video date inside the camera. The lens on the Casio FC150 was not as wide as the lens on the Panasonic ZS3. The Casio has a 6.4mm lens and the Panny has a ultra wide 4.1mm lens. This is a big deal, because I really like shooting with a wide angle using my little point-and-shoots as “life-documenting cameras”. Often times, I point the camera back at myself to shoot video blogs or other adventures. A few other differences between the cameras is the default video picture profiles. The Lumix is very contrast heavy with deep blacks and bring colors while the Casio is very flat. This flat feature allows you to color grade in post much more easily with the Casio. But the Lumix has a better picture in low light and in auto mode. The Casio seems to struggle with focus and the manual mode is a bit fiddly. I tried to shoot mostly in manual mode, setting the ISO to 100 and shutter to 30, but the Casio camera was still drifting a bit. I will need more time with the camera to figure it all out for sure. There are ways to adjust sharpness, contrast and saturation inside the Casio, but I have not tested that yet. The sound on the two camera (internal mic only) is about the same and quite good when about 2-3 feet away from the sound source. They both record onto SD cards, but the format that the Casio camera uses is .AVI files for video. The Lumix used h.264 AVCHD files which always crashed my Final Cut Pro if not transcoded to Apple pro res. The .AVI files do need to render, but they work much better nativity on the time line (I can scrub in preview). A great use for this high speed pocket camera would be to bring it along to a RED ONE or Phantom site survey. You can learn real quick if a certain lighting source will flicker at high frame rates. Take a look at the video blog below. I have only had this camera for a few days and I have been busy working. I shot this real quick before I headed into Boston to cover a Bruins game. Thanks to all the guys I work with for helping me shoot high speed stuff on my lunch break. Please download the sample files at the bottom of the page and test them out with your computer. If you have any specific questions, please comment below the video.
Please download these original .AVI files taken directly off the Casio EX FC150 memory card and uploaded to the server. Have fun with them and see how they work with your NLE. You can also watch this video on Vimeo by clicking here. Below is some footage from a locked down shot of the goalie at the 2010 Beanpot Hockey Championships. All shot at 240 frames per second at the Boston Garden.
I am selling a house to buy a camera. Well, a second house I built with my friends in New Hampshire. I work way too much to enjoy it and find myself camping out under the stars more than under a roof! My clients are demanding gear and I am tired of renting a camera for a specific job. I own the PMW-EX1 and that gets used quite a bit, but it is not a true broadcast camera. High end clients want high end cameras, even though I can fool many people by shooting with inexpensive gear. Television is my life and I finally have enough contacts and work to justify this investment. I just need to figure out what type of camera system I want to purchase. The problem is, I work in broadcast television, use broadcast cameras but I don’t necessarily want a $60,000 broadcast camera. I must decide, art or commerce? Experimental or a sure bet? A new direction or the same one?
Buying a Sony PDW-F800 would be a great camera for what I do. But, I do not necessarily want to keep shooting sports or sports features. I have the Letus Ultimate and b4 relay, so I could mount any prime lens to the XDCAM for the shallow depth of field. I would buy a Canon 21x lens and a Canon 4.5 wide angle lens. I would use Anton Bauer batteries and the super sweet Sony HDVF-20a high resolution viewfinder. I would try to push my gear and my talents to work on documentary or high end feature work with the Sony F800. This makes most sense to me. Plus, as far as I am concerned, the F800 is a real shoulder mounted camera.
Buying a RED ONE would be exciting. I have shot on RED and it is a futuristic, specialized creative tool that has a workflow that actually works for me. I like the free RED software for dealing with the r3d files. I shot a few things at 120 FPS and that alone was the reason I wanted to buy the camera. I could get into a different side of commercial television. The RED camera is only $17,500. However, to get it all fitted for my preferences, like shoulder mounted with bomb viewfinder and a full compliment of high end glass, would put me up to my budget cap. Plus, this camera purchase would be a stepping stone to the EPIC.
Finally, I could try something totally drastic and buy into a Phantom. This would require a business loan and all of my budget to get this to happen. There are very few people shooting at high frame rates with a Phantom camera in the Boston area and I could bite into the market. I wanted to know what the people on Twitter who follow my tweet stream thought about my potential camera purchase. I posted this on twitter a few hours ago: “Tweet your opinions now on: RED ONE, SONY F800, PHANTOM & be part of future blog debate on my site.” I had many people respond and I will post the tweets below.
Many people on twitter are pushing for the RED. Adam makes a good point about how the camera system can cost more than you think when you start buying high end glass and accessories. Also, a friend of mine owns the RED and he has been going though firmware updates since the day he bought the camera. Good or bad? I do not know, but if I buy a Sony F800, it will just work right out of the box and has been proven to be a workhouse in the field.
I have shot on HDCAM for many years. The format that the TV station I work for uses is 1080i. The HDW-730s shoots great looking HDCAM at 135mbps, but you need a deck to play it back and this is a weak point with all the moving parts. They are now moving over to master everything on 1080p and they are using all XDCAM optical disk. I was recently very surprised to find a HDW-730s HDCAM on eBay without a lens selling for under $16k! This tape-based camera a few years ago cost $70k! Christian, XDCAM 422 is here to stay, in my opinion. It is not a tape format, nor is it solid state. XDCAM optical disks are cheap and a great way to have the “videotape” in hand to store on a shelf. The format is very robust and has been accepted as a primary acquisition HD format by many television stations and networks. The workflow for XDCAM 50mbps 422 is wonderful and does not tax an edit system or storage because of the increased compression. But, even with this compression, the stuff looks great. In fact, a guy that works at the same television station I mentioned above thinks that XDCAM 50mpbs 422 looks better than HDCAM! I agree with him after shooting with the PDW-700 a few weeks ago and looking at the source footy. Rob, the RED footy looks much better than the 5dmk2 because of the color space and the aliasing issues found in current DLSR cmos chips. Plus, you can shoot at over 4k on a RED ONE and have much more creative control in post to manipulate the images. I hear, “it depends on your use” a lot when I post the question, “what camera should I buy?” I agree with this. But for me, that is a very difficult question because I am not certain what I want to do with the camera! I want to do it all, but cannot have it all. Tom, I know you shoot with the RED ONE on a regular basis. How have you dealt with the firmware updates? Have they put you out of work while the camera had to be serviced? Have you found any bugs in the system that caused you problems when in the field? How happy are you with the accessories and making the camera fit for your needs? As far as being obsolete in a year, I just look at the cameras we use at work today to cover professional sports in Boston. They were manufactured in 2002 and they are high definition. They are all Sony cameras and they have held their own over the years and worked though the abuse of field use. And yes, I have played with all three of these camera systems. I really love the F800 because it is what I know best. I can control it the best and feel the most comfortable with it. But it can’t shoot 4k or at high frame rates!
Chris is right, it is a matter of art vs. commerce. I really want to take the plunge and spend all my money to start shooting at high frames rates. But for all that cash, using a camera that is so new and constantly improved (low light, more fps, less noise) I need to be sure that I can trade up if I buy in. Lots of people say go RED, but will this camera open up new doors for me or will I struggle to get clients who will let me experiment and shoot outside the box. I do really want to experiment.
The thought of using a NANOflash is a interesting one. I could buy an inexpensive camera and capture high bit rates with the nanoflash for clients who want more picture info for stuff like green screen. Yes, the most important thing is what will bring in the most income. But a close second would be “what camera will stoke the fire in me to get out and shoot for fun?” I love shooting on my days off and experimenting with ideas. Buying a RED ONE now, will help me get into very interesting digital cinema technology down the road.
If I buy the Sony F800, I am all set to accept the workflow and edit the footy. Final Cut Pro works with XDCAM files nativity and easily. I have the Sony PDW-U1 USB deck and it is a great tool for the money. You can even write-back to an XDCAM disk and use for data archiving. The F800 is a beautiful camera for broadcast television. I shot with the 700 a few weeks ago with the Boston Celtics and was blown away by the sharpness, color and image. I mostly do run-and-gun, but high end commercial work could be in my future as well. Plus, television stations I work for latched onto the 35mm lens adapter “film-look.” I have made a lot of money with the Sony PMW-EX1 and the Letus Ultimate. I still make money with the camera system. These same clients would be willing to hire me to shoot specialized footy for promos and features at high frame rate and in insane resolution. The creative services departments would have a field day! I can always rent whatever I don’t buy for those specific jobs. But my biggest fear will be buying into a camera that will not pay off and will turn into a dead format. I am staying away from videotape, so I should be ok! I will be spending sixty plus thousand dollars in the next few months on a camera system. I will probably wait until NAB this spring to chat with Sony and look for some sort of a show deal. Thank you for all your help. The information in your comments are tweets are helping me to decide what to buy. These are three totally different cameras. I must find the balance between art and income. Please post more comments below to further the debate. As of right now, I want a full sized PDW-F800 XDCAM. But then I see footy shot at night with the new updated Mysterium X sensor and my swing back over to RED! What would you buy? I am a professional broadcast sports television camera operator. That is what pays the bills and I enjoy it. Most of the time. I am about 80 percent television technology guru and 20 percent sports fan at the moment. I love using the top of the line high definition camera equipment that costs more than my house. I get pulled deeper into the job when a newer camera is given to me or I see a Phantom high-speed or 3D camera entering the game. Sports is a breeding ground for new television tech and I am on the top of the wave. The problem is, I’m shooting the wrong subject matter! I want to be 50 percent television technology and 50 percent natural history documentary creator. I’m not complaining, but I’m defiantly not living my dream! I work atop the left field roof at Fenway Park covering the Boston Red Sox. The perch is on the fifth level and it is the most exposed position in the entire ball park. I track a mating pair of red tailed hawks as they search for food and build a nest. I watch storms move in from the West. I am the first to see lightning and the first to run from the roof when I witness the buildings around me getting struck. That part is fun. But I am at Fenway to cover a baseball game, not in Africa waiting for an animal to appear at a water hole. I am one of 10 cameras inside the ballpark that bring the action into your living room and we are documenting sports history. I am paid to track the ball through the play and lock onto players in the dugout or on the field as the announcers talk about them. I have shot nearly 800 games. Take a look at this ten minute video blog I shot over the summer of 2009 from the $100,000 Sony HDC-910 broadcast HDTV camera with 75x Canon telephoto zoom lens. You will understand why I often stand behind the camera at the ball park wishing I were covering wildlife in the middle of nowhere… with the same camera. My director, Mike, gives me a lot of freedom as a camera operator as I shoot the game. I must thank him for letting me try new things and shoot stuff other than what is happening on the field.
Video footage courtesy of New England Sports Network.
I was hired by a good client of mine out of Rhode Island, Cox Communications, to DP a short spot for the Newport Skating Center. I had a few rough storyboard emailed to me and I was asked to shoot the project using my EX1, Letus Ultimate and my PVC skateboard dolly system. We shot outdoors at a skating rink and I used all natural light. I knew the job was going to be a fast shoot, so with the help of two Cox interns, we were able to knock out each shot very quickly. I am mastering the use of the PVC pipe dolly and it works effectively with little setup time. The entire commercial was shot within two hours. Very simply spot, nothing flashy here. I enjoy directing kids. The secret is to give them hot chocolate, tell them to act natural and never look at the lens. When the hot chocolate runs out, the problems begin!
One thing that helped me rush through the setups was a bit of insight from one of the Cox people. I was told that the “Digi” costume was designed only to be worn for ten minutes. Apparently, the white bubbly-headed mascot did not have any air holes for breathing! Just a little obstacle you can sometimes run into on location. I used the Letus Ultimate and the Sony PMW-EX1 because the client likes the XDCAM EX work flow. I just transferred the footage at the end of the day using my Mac Book Pro onto a Cox external USB hard drive. The producers took the drive back to the station and dumped the footy into their NLE system. I had a backup of all the files on my external drive and held on to it for a few weeks, just in case.
I could have shot this using the Canon 5dmk2, but I am still making a lot of money using my XDCAM and the Letus 35mm lens adapter. Plus, I love the look of the old Nikon Nikkor lenses and the Letus Ultimate! I mostly used the fast Nikon 55mm f1.2 and the super sharp Nikon 105mm f2.5. I shot on my Vinten Vision 10 AS tripod and used ten foot spans of PVC pipe under my skateboard dolly. I also used a set of Vinten babylegs on the dolly for the low sliding moves. All the stuff shot on the ice was done handheld. Antony Finucane at Cox Communications edited the spot using Final Cut Pro. I found it interesting that he decided to use two-frame dissolves instead of cuts for all the transitions. Softens up the look I suppose. I really liked the use of a wipe when the white cups of hot chocolate sweep out of focus across the frame. That was not part of the storyboards. I was hoping the editor would pick up on that! Special thanks to John Parris for sending me this video file to post.
UPDATE: January 6, 2010 – Download 1080p version of “One Week at Newfound Lake” at bottom of this page. The winters in New Hampshire are brutal and many people die each year from exposure. They get lost hiking or their car breaks down on a lonely mountain road. I have been experiencing the raw power of mother nature in this neck of the woods working on a time lapse project of epic proportions (for me anyway…). I am amazed at how fast the weather changes in New England. The old saying goes, “If you don’t like it, just wait a minute.” I wanted to see just how much the weather would change over the period of one week. So I found a safe place on Newfound Lake to set up a fixed position time lapse.
I set up the Canon 5dmk2 in Bridgewater, New Hampshire on December 24th at 6:59pm. I set the DSLR to snap a 21.1 MP full resolution .jpg still image every two minutes using a Canon remote timer (intervalometer). I used a super sweet Canon 24mm f1.4 mk2 L series lens and a 32GB CF memory card. The camera would shoot night and day from a Vinten Vision 3 tripod out a second story window in an empty summer lake house. I was able to plug the camera into an electrical plug and the temperature inside the home was kept just above freezing.
I was shooting through a double paned picture window facing due north towards the lake. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the lens right up to the window, the result of this was ugly reflections. This was obvious at the time, but I thought that if I shut off all the lights in the house, I would not need to wrap black fabric around the lens. The guy behind me in the reflection photo below is my buddy Dave. His family owns this house and they gave me permission to shoot the time lapse over Christmas and New Years.
Dave and I set up the time lapse quickly, we had beers to drink. The above photo shows the time lapse room with the lights on. I was almost certain that there wouldn’t be any reflections when we turned out all the lights, but I was wrong. So I made a few mistakes, and I was going to try to fix them in post, but I thought that this blog might help you if you try this stuff. I left the stills and resulting time lapse video untreated. The process has been a learning experience for sure.
Another mistake I made was not covering the infrared LED on the front of the Canon 5dmk2. It reflected in the double paned glass back into the camera lens. I noticed these two red eyes in my test photographs as I set up, but I could not figure out where they were coming from. I though it would “just go away” and I really wanted another cold beer in a warmer location. A few days later, driving 120 miles back to my house south of Boston, I figured out what was causing the red reflections. But it was too late, I had to work in the city the entire week. I would not get back up to New Hampshire until after the first of the year. In my experimenting for my astro-timelapse project, I learned how to expose for day and night in a 24 hour time lapse. The secret was simple, drop the little dial at the top of the camera into AUTO (as indicated by the green square). This DSLR was not like any video camera I have ever used. Who would think that a camera could be left in auto and be able to expose stars at night and bright sunny conditions during the day? I was amazed at the results, and I did not use any ND or color correction filters. If you don’t own a Canon 5dmk2, get one. I learned that the camera will take long exposures at night and real quick ones during the day set in AUTO dial mode. The 5dmk2 also seems to open and close the aperture and bring up the ISO levels automatically depending on light.
Not everything was automatic on the camera. I manually set the focus, taking a few test pictures on the first night. I had to pull back just a bit from infinity for the sharpest image. My lens markings at infinity is not true, so I always must check this. In the photo above, you can see the reflection of the doorway in the back of the room as I tested focus. I really wish I had wrapped the front of the lens with black fabric and taped the fabric to the window. Next time.
I also set the camera’s white balance to manual at 5600K. This daylight setting turns the moon bright orange at night. I really like this and sometimes it is hard to figure out what is day and what is night, other than the stars sliding around a setting moon..or is that the setting sun? I got a phone call from Dave and he told me the lake had frozen over. I headed North to go skiing. I picked up the Canon 5dmk2 on January 5th 2010 at 3pm and looked forward to seeing the results. But the memory card had filled up and the last picture in the image sequence was snapped on January 1st at 5:38am. I was not happy when I learned this! Total shutter clicks: 6106 (totally full 32GB San Disk Extreme III card at 21.1 .jpg only resolution). I think it is time for a 64GB CF card! Fortunately, I JUST managed to catch the lake freezing over before the card reached its limit. There is no exact science to the freeze up process. Wind and temperature play a big role, but no one really knows for sure when the lake will ice-in. I got lucky. I want to thank Nancy, Jim, Dave and Ellen for their help and hospitality while I set up this camera to capture one week at Newfound Lake. You can watch the entire 6,000 plus digital still images in the video below. UPDATE: January 6, 2010: I fixed the red dots and added new sound to the video below.
This video is also on Vimeo. You can find it here: http://www.vimeo.com/8575000
The 2010 NHL Winter Classic is finally over. Time to thaw out. Strike was just under three hours, not that bad. The Bruins beat the Flyers in overtime at Fenway Park today 2-1. Not the best hockey, but a storybook ending for the Bruins and all the hockey fans that packed the ballpark.
I had a great day shooting for the CBC (Canada). The weather was perfect, just below freezing. My camera was a Sony HDC-1500 with a great viewfinder and nice 21x lens. I had a nice little spot on the right side at ice level with a clean piece of glass and a chair to sit on. My utilities worked hard and helped to manage my cable when I was asked to move around to get different shots. I followed the Bruins off and on the ice and shot interviews ice side. The video guys and truck engineers were very helpful and worked hard to make my job easier!
One problem I had was a frozen cap on a SMPTE fiber cable. I unplugged my camera and ran to grab a shot of the Dropkick Murphy’s on stage, but my stage cable was useless. I had a separate cable run for the performance because the set was far away from the rink. I could not get the protective metal cap off the thing to save my life. Quick thinking and with the help of two utilities, I was able to get my ice cable (game position) run out and just managed to reach the stage as the band turned toward me. This adaptation only delayed me about two minutes…live television can be stressful when an issue like this pops up. I then shot the Canadian and US national anthem as James Taylor delivered a great rendition. If you watched the game in Canada, you saw my neck breaking tilting twist as I tracked the bomber jet as it ripped through the Boston sky as James left the stage. During the game, I got a few replays and the director liked to cut in the low camera, so I was very busy. I was distracted all night by the thoughts that other camera guys where capturing the action in 3D and at very high frames rates. I was only shooting 1080i HDTV!
The 3ality Digital folks where shooting for NHL Network with a single over/under (pictured above) rig from four different locations. They positioned a O’Connor film tripod at the right back corner at ice level, at the blue line right side, at the bench for player shots, and right near the crowd. They also had a second 3D camera at the high first baseball position. Not sure if they had a third 3D setup somewhere else, I was too busy with my own stuff.
As I shot the action at 30 frames per second, just a few feet away from me the NHL Network was also capturing the game at very high frames rates. They were using this super sick Phantom HD GOLD camera with a Angenieux Optimo 21x 24mm-290mm f2.8 film zoom lens. The operator had a follow focus and a servo zoom demand mounted to a rear pan handle. The viewfinder was a Sony color hi res. They were using a drive mounted on the top of the camera body to capture the data. The entire thing was powered by Anton Bauer lunch box brick batteries. NHL Network also had a RED ONE on the other side of the rink. The footage from these cameras will be used in high-end projects like commercials and promos for the NHL. But this is also just an experiment and I look forward to working with the NHL as they begin to implement this exciting digital technology into the sport of hockey. Real nice people over at the NHL Network. Patrick and I wandered out onto the ice at the end of the game. I pulled out my Panasonic Lumix camera and shot a quick video while standing on the Fenway Park ice with my broadcast camera on my shoulder. Wish I had brought my skates! Sorry this blog was rushed, I can’t stop to take pictures when other people are working for me! This was a wild sports broadcast. You can read more about the set day for this production and a video blog I shot early in the process by clicking here.
I just got back from Fenway Park and threw together a quick video blog from earlier today. I only shot video when it was snowing during a break in the setup. The day was long and the Canadian CBC show I am working on is quite large. We ran a bunch of cable today, some of it not working properly. We then had to run more cable. I have no idea how all this stuff will make it back to the truck when we tear out after the show. The hockey game being played tomorrow in Boston is like the “Superbowl of Hockey” as far as television goes. I did not capture how much equipment is currently inside the ballpark because I was caught in the Fenway Magic as the snow began to fall and the Bruins took the ice for the first time. It was just awesome. I wished that I had the day all to myself…just me, a camera and a lens with shallow depth of field …and maybe some dolly tracks… I am looking forward to covering the event tomorrow from the low right ice level hand held position for the Canadian broadcast feed. I will have the NBC shooter on my right and a Phantom high speed 12.1 camera on my left. I will be using the Sony HDC-1500 30FPS HDTV camera, but I wish I was doing puck follows at 1000 FPS with the Phantom! Plus, about thirty feet to my right will be two HDC-1500 optical block T-cameras mounted over/under using a prism to capture stereo 3D high definition television. Look at this blog if you are interested in reading more about 3D cameras for broadcast and the innovative company, 3ality Digital by clicking here. Lets hope the weather holds off and the stuff falling from the sky is snow, not rain. Thanks to Patrick, Pizza, Tom, Bob and Andre for making this video blog a cinematic success. |
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