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:

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