In this talent feature we’re looking at the work of filmmaker Anders Lönnfeldt, who used a Canon 1D X Mark II to craft a creative portrait of a unique artist. His inspirational short Jarred & Displaced is a great example of how the use of sound, timing, shot ideas, black & white grading and music can come together to create something that transcends a camera’s specs. (Intro by Sebastian Wöber) This video was first posted on our user video platform. Please rate it here: VIDEOLOG It all started about a year ago when contemporary photographer Christoffer Relander contacted me and asked me if I wanted to do a behind the scenes video of his new photo project. I had never done a behind the scenes video before, so I got excited and hopped on board. Learning Black & White This was the first time I did a whole video in black & white, which was a demanding but at the same time a really interesting process. During the first days of shooting, I got a lot of footage that didn’t turn out very well. The footage would have worked well in colour, but not in monochrome. Since the contrast is so much harder after black & white processing, I had to choose locations where the background was a lot brighter than the elements I wanted to show, such as the main character. Screenshot from the Video about Christoffer Relander’s photography project “Jarred & Displaced” Shot on Canon 1D X Mark II + Atomos Shogun The video is shot on a Canon 1D X mark II, which is my favourite DSLR so far. It is super fast as a stills camera, but also has great video features. I had an Atomos Shogun connected to the the camera, which gave me the opportunity to record in ProRes or DNxHD. Being an Avid Media Composer user, I always shoot in DNxHD if I’m the one editing the footage. One of the most helpful features on the Atomos Shogun was being able to add a black & white LUT to it, allowing me to see a black & white image on the screen while shooting. Without this, the film would not have looked the way it does now. The Choice of Lenses I have always been a fan of the “film look” and I always strive to get rid of the clean digital look that these cameras produce. For this video, I used a set of retro lenses – “Flare Factory” by Richard Gale Optics. You can find out more about Richard Gale Lenses Here and Here. Richard, who lives in England, makes lenses with an incredible look that give a bit of a softer tone with beautiful lens flares and bokeh. In post, I added some film grain to give the video its final polish. Post – Stabilizing & Refining I didn’t want the video to have too many steady shots, so I shot everything handheld. Since we had no chance to rent any proper stabilizer, the footage turned out a bit too shaky, but stabilizing software helped me get rid of the biggest problems. The post process was one of the longest I have done on a video of this length, but there was also a lot of experimentation involved, trying things I had never done before. This project was definitely one of the most interesting ones in my career. One of the main goals for this video was to make people interested and get them to share it online. I feel we have succeeded at that, and it makes me very happy. Making the Film: A Process This was a film without any proper script. Of course, we knew the parts we wanted to shoot, but that was it. In a way, I shot the film as I would shoot a documentary – I captured the moments and put them together in post. That’s where I experimented with different ways to tell the story and where I came up with all the crucial ideas. Making the film during the edit was really satisfying, but certainly proved to be a slower process than if I had had a script. However, we would never have ended up with this result if we had followed a script in the first place.

After the really really enjoyable first episode of the Zacuto SCCE they have finally released the second of three episodes. Once again I cannot stress enough that if you’re a camera person you really shouldn’t miss the chance to see this beautifully edited piece of well done camera comparison! It is not only revealing to see how digital cinema (and analog film for that matter) cameras compare, and to hear industry professionals speak about their observations, but also a great great opportunity to learn about very imporant aspects of cinematpgraphy like signal to noise ratio, resolution, compression that is very elegantly explained in these tests. Episode 2, “Sensors & Sensitivity” of the three part series continues with tests covering sensitivity, resolution, compression and the relationship between them. It is striking to see how bad DSLRs performed in this par of the comparison. While they had some good performance in the dynamic range part of the last episode, this time around they fail hard and show their weaknesses. Not only does moire go crazy as we all very well know, but most importantly the images are literally destroyed at times by the line skipping characteristics of the current HDSLR sensors and their unhealthy compression pipeline. Here’s a list of all the cameras that were compared: – Arri Alexa – Sony F-35 – Sony F3 – Canon 5D Mark II – Canon 7D – Canon 1D Mark IV – Nikon D7000 – Weisscam HS-2 – Phantom Flex – Panasonic AG-AF100 – RED ONE M-X – 35mm Kodak 5213 and 5219 film Here are some quotes I felt were important: “(…) shocking in a way to see how the stills cameras don’t work at all (…)” “(…) wow, I thought the Canon would be more on than that (…)” “(…) this isn’t a test that advocates for one camera over another (…) you might have one camera that works really well for one situation and another camera might not (…)” “(…) as the budget changes we’ve had to (…) use the Canon’s cause we had to (…) seeing, especially the AF100 (…) and how it compared to the F3 and how they compare to the bigger cameras, that was the biggest surprise (…) a new option that we could do (…) that’s bringing the quality back up.” There’s one more episode coming out in August. Stay tuned!

Filmmakers around the world have mentioned the Great Camera Shootout 2011, hosted by Zacuto many times this year, and while some people got the chance to see the resulting footage in full resolution in a theatre the rest of us has been waiting for Zacuto to publish it on the web. And finally, the first episode is here and I cannot stress enough that if you’re a camera person you really shouldn’t miss the chance to see this beautifully edited piece of well done camera comparison! Not only is it a very scientific and accurate comparison of the current most important large sensor cinema cameras (DSLRs among them), but it also has comments by many DOPs with different backgrounds nicely woven into it to give you a great scope of observations and opinions. This first episode is all about Dynamic Range. The second and third episodes will be published in July and August of this year. The first screengrab on the left shows the people involved in the project. Professional DOP Robert Primes, ASC, designed and administered the full series of tests. Here’s a list of all the cameras that were compared: – Arri Alexa – Sony F-35 – Sony F3 – Canon 5D Mark II – Canon 7D – Canon 1D Mark IV – Nikon D7000 – Weisscam HS-2 – Phantom Flex – Panasonic AG-AF100 – RED ONE M-X – 35mm Kodak 5213 and 5219 film It is very interesting to see how well the DSLRs performed with measured 11,2 stops of exposure latitude and to see the differences and similarities of the Canon DSLRs to other large sensor cinema cameras. I think it’s great to get a feel of what the different cameras will do for you and where they’re missing out. The highly anticipated Sony NEX-FS100 was not part of the test, but it’s brother that shares exactly the same sensor, the F3 showed some very strong lowlight capabilities. In the next episodes the cameras will face an analysis in regard to it’s sharpness, color quality, flesh tone reproduction, compression losses and shutter artifacts. Jump to the article by Zacuto and the embedded video: Single Chip Camera Evaluation – Episode 1 I’m eager to hear what you guys think about the test, please share in the comments. Personally I must send a lot of respect to the people involved. Thanks for this great and enriching watch!

Redrock Micro has announced a new electronic viewfinder for HDSLR cameras. This is the EVF we have been waiting for for some time. The RRM EVF was designed from the ground up with the HDSLR shooter in mind. It is quite heavy at eight ounces with a 15mm rod mount system that will work with all existing RRM rigs. The EVF LCD will have more resolution than the LCD on the back of the camera. There will also be options to have frame lines and audio monitor levels right in the EVF. The RRM EVF will retail for around $600 US. **UPDATE: The Redrock Micro EVF works just great. The LCD is bright and crisp. It has a diopter adjustment for the EVF. The EVF version that I used ran on one nine volt battery. It has a power switch and one HDMI input. A HDMI splitter is needed for use with an on board monitor or director’s monitor. I will try to get a release date this week if possible. Thanks for all the comments.

Canon announced the release of the 1D Mark IV. The latest HDSLR to hit the streets could be the best yet. The 1D Mark IV has an APS-H sensor with a 1.3 crop factor, similar to the size of Super 35mm motion picture film. The ability to shoot video at 12,800 ISO in 24, 25, 30, 50, and 60 FPS.