NAB 2012 – cinema5D coverage summary

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What gear was used for the cinema5D NAB 2012 videos?

The core of my setup was the camera on the left. A 5D mark III with the 24-105 kit lens (LINK)

I hate to overemphasize, but shooting coverage on this camera was a dream. I know many are disappointed by this camera, but it served me very well and I tell you why:

1. The low light capabilities were extraordinary. In the past I had to use a toplight to have sufficient lighting for the different light situations at the conventions. With the mark III I just went to ISO 1600-6400 (mostly the latter) without giving it a second thought. I had the 24-105 lens usually at around f5.6 and the depth of field felt great in most interview situations.

2. I think the images are very nice. My end format was 720p which felt sharp and brilliant and there was no moiré or aliasing involved.

3. I used a Sennheiser Wireless lavalier kit for the audio, and nothing else, no sound recorder, no cables. I just popped it onto my subject and could move around however I liked. You can see that performed in this video for example.
The battery wasn’t swapped throughout the show and there was no interference whatsoever. Maybe because the device I used was European. The Sennheiser receiver was hotshoe mounted onto the mark III and I could change mic levels on camera during recording when required. Nice, sound was perfect.

4. I could just pop the files right into Final Cut Pro on a MacBook 13″. I added a little sharpening and audio filtration to all clips. It was nice that there was no clip limit of 12 minutes. I used one 32GB CF card.

5. The Image Stabilization of the 24-105mm f4 kit lens was very nice, it made my job so much easier too.

I had the mark III on short 15mm rails and had an Arri MFF-1 follow focus attached to the zoom (!) ring of the lens. Yes to the zoom, so I could zoom smoothly throughout all shots, while maintaining focus with the other hand on the focus ring of the lens.
This was possible because this setup was held not by me but by the easyrig mini, so I had both hands free to operate the camera.
The y-Axis of the camera was locked because one of the rails was extended to my shoulder. This in conjunction with the images stabilization from the lens and the zoom gave me a very nice floaty-smooth shooting style as seen here for example.

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the setup. Many people took a picture of me at NAB, maybe one of those people could provide a photo. Thanks.

And that’s it, a very simple yet efficient rig that made it possible to cover NAB 2012 as a one man band, because flying in crew from Europe is expensive and the budget is thin. I hope you enjoyed it, but I’m open to suggestions and critique for IBC in September.

Looking back at NAB 2012

This is the last one of my NAB 2012 articles.
It was a very exciting show this year, almost 100,000 visitors. We saw a lot of new technology for filmmakers and HDSLR enthusiasts. Technology that seems to be more targeted at our needs than ever before. While there were lots of rigs, LED and focus solutions last year, they just didn’t fulfill the quality and ergonomic needs of HDSLR and large sensor filmmaking yet. It’s a different story this year and from lenses down to camera bodies it seems like the manufacturers are starting to listen and understand.
I feel this will be an exciting year for indie film and it won’t be long until cheap slow motion will knock on the door. I can already smell the flood of slow motion videos we’ll see over the next years with the FS700 to provide the first batch.

All our NAB 2012 coverage videos:

More…

NAB 2012 – Jody Eldred, David Leitner & the FS700 autofocus

We thank our sponsor B&H who
has made cinema5D’s news
coverage of NAB 2012 possible.

Get your gear through B&H to support this platform: www.bhphotovideo.com

The Sony FS700 due to be released by mid July has created a lot of buzz and is one of the most anticipated new camera bodies right alongside the Blackmagic Cinema Camera.

As reported multiple times it comes with tons of features meant to satisfy the needs of the modern HDSLR and Large Sensor filmmaker not to mention an extremely competitive pricepoint ($8000) and the introduction of affordable slow motion (240fps).

Jody Eldred had a chance to play with the Sony NEX-FS700 and likes it (video above). We haven’t been able to work with it, but the specs certainly scream to our filmmaking hearts.
Jody seems to be sold on the FS700, are you?

Autofocus
One thing we tried was the autofocus feature that is enabled when you use the LA/EA2 adapter with Sony Alpha Lenses. It is the first time autofocus is actually usable on a large sensor camera and something we’ve been anticipating for a long time.
Sony uses phase detection technology via a beamsplitter within the adapter.

DOP David Leitner had a chance to test this feature during and prior to NAB. Check out his extremely well made review on the matter (video below).

Pre-order the Sony NEX-FS700:

NAB 2012 – EasyRig mini – holds your HDSLR for you

We thank our sponsor B&H who
has made cinema5D’s news
coverage of NAB 2012 possible.

Get your gear through B&H to support this platform: www.bhphotovideo.com

Johan, the inventor of the easyrig developed a new version of his handheld camera stabilization backpack, the easyrig mini which is especially targeted at people like myself when I’m covering a convention like NAB. I was using the easyrig mini myself while making the video above by the way.

More…

NAB 2012: Canon’s Guido Krebs talking HDSLR, 1DC, 24p, FS700

We thank our sponsor B&H who
has made cinema5D’s news
coverage of NAB 2012 possible.

Get your gear through B&H to support this platform: www.bhphotovideo.com

In this video from NAB 2012 Johnnie Behiri has a discussion with Guido Krebs from Canon about HDSLR.

One of the points Guido Krebs talked about was the lack of 25p and 30p in the new Canon 1DC 4K cinema camera. The absence of these framerates is a particular problem to the European market which uses 25 frames on most professional movie shoots as shooting 24p and converting to 25 frames per second (50hz European television standard) is an unnecessary, time and money consuming process.

Guido says that the internal performance of the camera is currently limited to 24fps.
We also talked to Larry Thorpe (Canon, Senior Director, Professional Engineering and Solutions) and he confirmed that they don’t know if and when 25fps will become available, but that they’re working on it.

Guido also mentioned that we’ll see an entry level HDSLR with 5D mark III video capabilities this year, possibly at Photokina (Cologne, Sep. 18th 2012)

(photo on the left: Herman Chiew from Canon with his cool 24fps shirt)