1DmkIV – Singapore night drive from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

This is my second shoot using the pre-production 1DmkIV on loan to me from Canon Singapore. I chose to make this one a bit more like a conventional piece you might find on a news website’s feature pages. Setting myself a one evening time limit on getting the shoot done we filmed everything in about 4 hours. The star of the show is 28 year old Marvin who spends all his money on a Mercedes SLK to drive around Singapore in, mostly cruising with his friends at night.

I enlisted the help of a small group of friends to assist me in getting it done quickly. I was joined by Wee Han Yeo who I met at the Cathay Photo workshop earlier in the week, Russell Boyce of Reuters and his young son Lewis, as well as local Reuters photographer Vivek.

The equipment was kept simple, unlike Vincent Laforet I don’t really have the access to the best gear for car shooting (gotta love the Gyros and stabilizer rigs Vincent!), instead all I had was a tripod, the new Genus DSLR bars fitted with a Redrock Micro follow focus, along with a Redrockmico Event rig. All the car to car and interior stuff was handheld. Lens wise I had a 14mm f2.8L, 16-35mm f2.8L, 70-200 f2.8L and 300mm f2.8L lenses. I shot in 1080p/25 with the shutter speed at 1/50th to match the streetlights, aperture was wide open at f2.8 the whole time. The amazing thing is that from the video you can’t tell just how dark it really was, it was pretty damn dark!

Edited as usual in Final Cut Pro there is a very light grade on the footage and a few bits of smoothcam to make up for the lack of a Gyro or Steadicam.

This time it was in virtually no light, shooting mostly in the 2000-6400 ASA range using streetlight with a Litepanels Micropro LED light for fill in. For the driving shots we put the Micropro on the dashboard pointing at Marvin to give his face is little glow.

Russell’s son Lewis did a lot of the audio separately using a Zoom H4n audio recorder. For the section where Marvin is talking in the car the Zoom was left in the car and synced later in post.

I was really happy with the quality of the images I was getting is such low light but please decide for yourself, there is a downloadable link for a 1080p version on Vimeo.

As I mentioned in my last post I have been in Singapore at a series of events hosted by local retailer Cathay Photo, Canon Singapore and Genus products. The idea was to give local news professionals and keen amateurs a taste of DSLR video and how they can improve the results they are getting. I gave a one day seminar for over a hundred participants, then a one day hands on workshop to a smaller group.

DSLR video is really beginning to take off in Asia, I’ve already run DSLR video workshops at two of China’s largest newspapers. In Singapore there are already ads on the local TV done by DP’s using the 5DmkII and most photographers I talked to saw video as the next big thing. People take photography gear seriously here and as you can see from the photos there was quite an array of kit.

The invite from Cathay Photo was a bit out of the blue, I fondly remembered the shop as the one where I bought some of my original Canon FD gear as a spotty teenager on visits to Singapore. Twenty years on and its still in the same place and run by the same family. David Toh and Charmaine Toh in particular helped me to set up and run the workshop which was held in the rather impressive Suntech centre. I was really impressed that they were so keen to learn more about DSLR video and pass it on to their customers.

My main message as always was that if you are a good photographer you stand a good chance of being a good videographer too. If you see the world in light and shade with good composition and an eye for detail then you should try extending you skills to video. There are some obvious big differences such as sound, narrative, movement etc. but if photographers are willing to learn then there is the potential to create new and interesting work. Not every one will succeed but I think photographers owe it to themselves to find out if they can do it – a “Yes we can” attitude will get you a long way. I had only shot home movies before getting serious about video four years ago, thanks to the DSLR revolution I would say now that video is over 75% of my workload.

Now I am no veteran videographer, nor do I profess to know everything about the subject, but luckily on hand also were former TV news shooter Steve Rushworth from Genus and Edwin Tan of the Canon Pro video department with some more expert knowledge. They helped me to demonstrate some of the latest products can really help to get a more “35mm” shallow depth of field look from the DSLRs. The Genus Mattebox, Fader ND filter and brand new soon to be launched follow focus were on show along with the Canon 5DmkII and 7D and other accessories from Litepanels, Manfrotto and Steadicam. Surprisingly no-one in the audience had a Fader filter for their DSLR video so I was glad to pass on how I use them to get shallow DOF in broad daylight. I really enjoyed the 2 days and it seemed like the participants did too.

After the Cathay event I stayed in Singapore and had a few days hands on with the 1DmkIV. I also got to present my videos at the Canon Experience, you can read more about these videos in the other posts here.

I also had a chance to catch up with my old buddy Russell Boyce from Reuters, we used to work together but he is now the company’s chief photographer in Asia. We talked over how I use DSLR video and he came out on a shoot with me to see how I worked. In my opinion it won’t be too long before you see big agencies like Reuters, the Associated Press and Getty Images embracing DSLR video for daily use. Times are a changing.

When Canon Singapore contacted me to see if I wanted to test drive a pre-productin shiny new Canon 1DmkIV I jumped at the chance. Up till now I’ve had to lay down my own cash to try the 5DmkII and 7D so this was a great opportunity to form an opinion about the camera without going bankrupt and I was due to be in Singapore anyway for an event at Cathay Photo. I had a few days to really put the camera through it paces shooting mainly at night to see if it lived up to the hype. I’m glad to say that the short answer is that it does and its low light video is truly stellar, easily beating my 5DmkII and 7D.

The film you see here was filmed in just one night of horse racing at the Singapore Turf Club. Shooting at between 1600 and 6400 ASA under just the floodlights I got results that were far cleaner than I’d expected. The rolling shutter effects seem to be improved over the 5DmkII too, its still there but you need to look much harder for it. The one thing that is still evident on the pre-production model I was testing is aliasing, personally I didn’t find it too distracting but make up your own mind.

Canon 1DmkIV _ The races from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

I had not one but two 1DmkIV bodies from Canon to play with along with a selection for lenses from a 14mm right up to a 300mm f2.8. I wanted to test not just the low light but the slow motion capability as well so I shot this whole film on 720p/60 and then slowed it down to 23.98 fps using Cinematools, before editing in Final Cut Pro. The final footage you see here is ungraded and pretty much straight from the camera. The picture profile was set to neutral with contrast and sharpness reduced to min. If I have time I will try and grade this piece later and re-post it.

I should mention that the LCD screen somehow seems to be better than that of the 5DmkII or 7D, it is the same resolution but I found it easier to focus with. Which brings me on to one of the other new gadgets I had to test. The LCDVF viewfinder from Estonia, although I am used to the more expensive Z-finder from Zacuto, this little gadget worked quite well. It doesn’t have a diopter adjustment but I didn’t find that to be a problem with my eyesight. I actually quite like the image it gave with the 1DmkIV, being slightly smaller than the Z-finder it was still a breeze to focus. I did have one annoying problem though, the magnetic frame that attaches to the back of the camera kept falling off, I didn’t have long to allow it to set on the back before shooting and it was damned hot so maybe that caused the fault. LCDVF recommend a certain way of applying the frame which I had no time to do so maybe I’m being a little unfair. It is also possible that the new LCD on the 1DmkIV has a slightly different coating to the 5DmkII that is less sticky, who knows? sadly I had to give the 1DmkIV back so someone else will have to figure that one out.

I also tested the camera with a new as yet unreleased prototype heavy duty slider by local Singaporean designer Lee Kang Swee, this is like my original Glidetrack slider but far more heavy duty and probably better suited to the weight of a fully loaded 1DmkIV. I used it for all the slider shot you see in this film, I’m going to keep in touch and see how this product develops.

Lastly, I couldn’t have done it without the help of Singaporean photographer and filmmaker Wee Han Yeo who organised the shoot and assisted me throughout, you can see his great work at www.tripeaksimagery.com

Based in London, I have now been shooting video on a Canon 5d Mark II DSLR regularly since the beginning of 2009 for the Guardian newspaper. Having managed with little more than the camera and a tripod to date, I have recently felt the time was right to start investing directly into the extra equipment. I’ve seen the demand for video rapidly increase from news and corporate clients over the last eighteen months and simply put, there are far more opportunities in having the skills to offer potential clients both options rather than simply stills these days.

So: having finally placing my order for a Redrock Micro rig it finally arrived the night before I was due to visit the Canon Pro Photo solutions event at the Islington Business Design Centre in London last month. I was going along to check out some of the latest Canon products (including the new Eos 1D Mark IV) but also many of the other manufacturers, whose gear I was keen to get my hands on to finally finish kitting out my rig for shooting video on DSLR’s. I duly spent an hour bolting it together watched by my bemused colleague from the Guardian Dan Chung, who was over from his base in Beijing. We were meeting for a quick drink and consultation session on my new gadget as he had been using the Redrock for sometime now, and was going to give me a few pointers on using it. Dan was scheduled to give several talks at the Expo over the following two days; talking about his experiences to date, he presented a “how to” on shooting video on a DSLR, beautifully illustrated to the audience with some short exerts from his work which demonstrated his increasing mastery over the video he shoots on DSLR’s. Along with my other colleague from the Guardian, Sean Smith, who also talked about his multimedia and video experiences, primarily from his recent “embed” trips in Afghanistan over the last couple of years; they both turned out to be one of the highlights out of the series of seminars presented at the Expo.

Overnight I was presented with my first opportunity to try the Redrock out when I received a call from the Guardian newspaper and asked to shoot an aerial video the following day of the latest developments at the Olympic site over in east London. On finding out how small the helicopter for the trip sounded, and realising how little equipment I was going to be able to take with me, I realised I’d need to re-think my approach. The door on my side of the helicopter was going to be removed, leaving nothing between me and the great outdoors but a seat belt, to allow me an unobstructed shooting area, so balancing a large-ish rig like the Redrock, changing lenses mid-flight, and everything else that might need juggling with, sounded like a nightmare, if not downright impossible. This proved a good guess as when it came to getting into the chopper and strapping in, the pilot made me go through all of my equipment that was either strapped around me or inside a host of pouches and zip pockets to take only really essential gear. He then wanted a complete demonstration of exactly how I proposed to change lenses, data cards and batteries in mid-air without dropping anything and killing someone 1500 ft or so below us.

Before I left the Expo to get to the airfield in north London, I passed by a stand showing off some of the latest Zacuto gear, rigs and viewfinders which I had noticed earlier on that day. I got chatting to Den Lennie from F-Stop Academy who was there talking to visitors, amongst other things, about the latest addition to his DVD guide series, how to shoot video on a Canon 7D. I told him where I was headed off to and he suggested I try out his Zacuto Tactical Shooter rig and the Zacuto Z-Finder as a solution to the space problem I was anticipating in the helicopter. This was an unexpected opportunity to checkout a direct rival to my rig, which I reckoned was worth postponing the Redrock experience for. As I’d not yet invested in a viewfinder, (I’m also considering the LCDVF viewfinder which is just coming onto the market and is considerably cheaper) I took both and headed up to the north London aerodrome.

Once the pilot had finished instructing me about safety with my gear we took off and headed over northeast London. We had a perfect day for it. The sun had come out after a cloudy, overcast morning and the light was soft, if slightly hazy. I had two Canon 5D Mark II’s with me (the second to grab the odd still on the way to the Olympic site) and the first sporting the very light-weight, but solidly built Zacuto rig, at the ready. The gun grip meant I could tuck the support tightly into my shoulder, which as I found out immediately, was essential to cut down on the vibrations and turbulence buffeting us. As the helicopter was so small, smaller than previous aircraft I’ve shot stills from before, motion and turbulence was going to be a problem I was simply going to have to live with. It was impossible to omit it completely, even from the final result despite the worst being edited out. Only a gyroscopic camera stabiliser would deliver perfectly smooth footage, a little out of budget for this assignment. From my confined and semi-restrained position in my seat, I found the compact size of the rig perfect for the job. It felt strong and solid, and handled intuitively. I could imagine having a similar set-up (with an added top mic attached, something like a Rode VideoMic or similar from Sennheiser) slung over one shoulder when covering a news event that looked as if it might warrant video. It would be easy to carry, would never notice knocks or scrapes and could be pulled straight to the eye and provide immediate stability for short bursts of footage – the photographers natural instinct of stills over video is always a conflict, particularly with something major unfolding in front of you, but I could have done with this set-up when covering the G20 protest in London back in April of this year (the Guardian wanted stills and video from all the photographers covering events that day). You can see the results of that day here:

Although not all of this video was shot on DSLR’s (the early footage is from a standard video camera) the latter footage when things got heated between protestors and the police, shows what is possible, especially in these types of situations, with video on a DSLR, and hand held too.

Finally, my first experience of the Zacuto Z-Finder. A piece of kit essential to judge a decent exposure in bright daylight at the minimum, something I’ve struggled with in the past for lack of one. I found an immediate problem in that my left eye is my “viewing” eye and is also much stronger than the right. Using digital DSLR’s for video requires you to view with your right eye, essentially if you are going to see where you are going and what is happening around you as you film, but also so as you don’t have to crane your neck into the side of the camera. Sports photographers will have an advantage here as many of those who have the same problem as I do now, have trained themselves to use their right eye (so as they can see over the very large lenses and follow the action of a football match or similar fast moving events). Apparently it takes years I’m told and not sure if I have the patience for that! So it’s either learn the correct way or make do with a slightly twisted, partially sited filming experience. You can at least mount the cup upside down or roll the rubber surround down to make it entirely usable if this is the situation for you too.
It also took me a while to see past the pixilation caused by looking through the Z-Finder magnifying a small screen so close, but once I’d adjusted to that it felt quite natural. Although, compared to the early days of strapping a makeshift viewfinder or even the Mark I Zacuto Z-Finder to the body of the camera with tape or rubber bands, string etc., there is now a magnetic surround that holds it in place. I did find I knocked it off a little too easily, but then I was in a confined space with a lot of equipment strapped around me, which probably exacerbated this, and there is a lanyard you can attach to either your camera strap or have around your neck to keep it flying off at the wrong moment – and in my case 1500 ft to the ground below. Overall a viewfinder is an essential piece of kit for video and I’m keen to compare it to the LCDVF version soon.
You can see the results of the video here: