The Perfect Brew from Matthew Allard on Vimeo.

Sri Lanka’s tea is regarded as the world’s finest. It was also, for us, a way to illustrate the country’s developing economy, which is slowly recovering after decades of civil war and uncertainty. Correspondent Steve Chao and I were on assignment in Sri Lanka to cover the president’s inauguration but went further afield to capture the story of the tea industry, which once accounted for almost 60% of all export revenues.

It is grown in the western highlands, almost four hours drive from Colombo, and we had to leave at two in the morning as I wanted to be there for sunrise. Tea country is high in the mountains and you get great early morning mist mixed with sunshine. I set up on the side of a hill and waited till the sun came up over the mountains. The air and sky were very crisp and provided wonderful natural colours.

I didn’t have my matte box with me so I held two of my 5.6” x 4” 0.6ND graduated filters together upside-down hard against the glass. This basically cut down the light from the sky by 1.2 stops over the foreground. There was no use of Magic Bullet Looks or similar software throughout the story; I don’t like doing things in post. If I want to use a filter, I do it in the field.

The rolling hills and workers provided wonderful opportunities for fantastic visuals. Inside the tea factory it was quite dark and it was surrounded by large windows making it very contrasty. I tried to use this light to my advantage as the 5D handles these conditions pretty well. I tried using a recently purchased Steadicam Merlin but I wasn’t 100% happy with my results so I didn’t include any of the shots in the story. Most of it was shot on a Canon 16-35mm f2.8L, Canon 70-200 2.8L IS f2.8, Canon 50mm f1.2 and a Canon 100mm macro f2.8 (non IS version).

In the end I was happy with how the story turned out. It was all shot in one day and then edited in Final Cut Pro. If you have any other questions about it, please feel free to ask.

About Matthew Allard, Aljazeera Senior Field Cameraman, Kuala Lumpur:
Matt has been a Camera/Editor in TV news for 20 years, previously working for both Channel 9 and Channel 10 in Australia. Twice Network Ten Australia’s cameraman of the year as well as being a Walkley Finalist for outstanding camerawork in 2006 (for coverage of the Cronulla Race Riots) and a Logie Finalist for outstanding news coverage 2006 (Bali 9). He has covered news events in more than 30 countries, from major sporting events to terrorist bombings. Based out of the Kuala Lumpur broadcast centre in Malaysia he is an avid user and follower of new technology, shooting stories on HD broadcast cameras as well as new Canon DSLR’s.

Guest post by Andy, Sky News undercover cameraman in Burma. 

Aung Sang Suu Kyi after her release (screen Grab from Sky News HD video)

To bring Sky News viewers HD pictures from inside Burma for the release of Aung Sang Suu Kyi was a serious challenge. Foreign journalists and their broadcasting equipment are not welcome. Dodging the authorities was not our only problem. We were also filming rebel militias in the jungle, capturing gun battles – and fighting off the wildlife, like the army of black ants that overran my Macbook Pro as I was frantically editing a video one night.

Filming KNLA fighters with the 5DmkII (identity of cameraman withheld)

Nine months ago I started watching what The Guardian’s Dan Chung was doing with video from his DSLR in Beijing. I bought a Canon 5D mkII and spent many hours fine-tuning my newsgathering set up. Not easy with so much misleading nonsense on the internet.

If you want to short cut this article the summary is what you already know: the more control you have over your shoot, the greater your chance of DSLR video success. For random videos set to music the end product using a 5DmkII is often a wow. Failed and missed shots can be glossed over.
But with newsgathering there is often little or no control of your subject. For me the virtue of a 5DmkII is the possibility of a 35mm sensor and HD codec in a compact form. I know the ‘cons’, but in some cases the 5DmkII gives me a chance to shoot HD pictures in places my large Panasonic P2HD ENG camera cannot go. DSLRs are a compromise for video, but for Burma they were the key to getting the only HD pictures.

The first part of Sky’s coverage was crossing illegally into Burma and reporting from inside a rebel army camp. The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) have been fighting the longest running military conflict in the world with the ruling Burmese military Junta. Jungle conditions were tough, hot, humid and dusty. I was relieved everything worked; even the 5DmkII bounced back after I dropped it. I teamed my 5DmkII with a Miller DS10 tripod which was silky smooth (though having no illuminated levelling bubble was a pain). I also packed a Kessler Pocket Dolly V2 which also the same length as the tripod when packed , this worked a treat when I had time to use it.

The size of my backpack determined the kit and it had to be easy to access. I had tested dozens of camreabags and the Thinktank Streetwalker hardrive bag turned out to be exactly what I needed.

My Kit includes:
5DmkII with 24-105mm F4L IS and fitted battery grip, 70-200mm F4L IS. Old Zeiss/Contax 25mm F2.8 and 50mm F1.4. Delkin dual battery charger, six Canon batteries, Juiced Link DT454 mixer and 9v batteries, headphones, Zacuto Z-finder, SmallHD DP6 Monitor and ball and socket connector, custom Redrockmicro gunstock rig, six CF cards, Genus Fader ND, Sonnet dual CF card reader, Schoeps shotgun mic and hot shoe bracket. Tram TR-50 lavalier mic, various XLR cables, small F&V light Z96 LED light and ball connector, reflector, 15inch MacBook pro and hard drives. (When I used this as my run bag, the Mac and drives were left at base camp).

The kit all fits in this Thinktankphoto Streetwalker Harddrive backpack

On location with the Redrockmicro custom rig, Juicedlink DT454 and Zacuto Z-Finder

I’d been lucky to try out lots of rig configurations with Dan in Beijing. He has so much DSLR gear that I could test and build my own shoulder brace with parts from many manufacturers. That said I sometimes favoured my large Gorillapod as a shoulder brace. All my kit is fitted with Manfrotto quick release plates to move quickly between set ups. My advice for news is to avoid ridiculous oversized DSLR rigs. The Christmas tree look isn’t practical and you want to be able to turn round in corridors.

I found for me there is little point in having lenses faster than F4. Image stabilizing is the essential factor and Canon lens Image Stabilization is amazing. I have faster Zeiss lenses from Contax; all de-clicked. The manual iris is easier to adjust, but without IS they are very bumpy when hand held. Having to change lenses is a tremendous pain, not just in dusty conditions. I suppose that is why snappers use multiple camera bodies. Still, my pair of Canon zooms covered things very well, though I did miss the longer range of my broadcast Canon HD lens. My least favourite thing was using the essential Canon 5DmkII focus assist and realising that the zoomed in shot I could see on the screen was the one that I wanted, but that I didn’t have the lens to shoot it!

In low light things swing back in favour of the 5D; at times I was pushing the ISO to 5000 and although the picture became grainy it was not noisy in the nasty video gain way. Shooting at F4 with longer lenses still gives an extremely narrow depth of field. Unless your subject is sitting in a Victorian photographer’s neck brace the chances of nailing a shot at F1.4 are slim. The 5DmkII’s LCD screen is good, but the Zacuto Z-Finder I found disappointing. Compared to using a proper ENG camera’s viewfinder, following focus and setting exposure are absurdly tricky. I also don’t understand why pro-photographers accept cameras that can only give a low level shot if you lie in the dirt or that require a step-ladder for an angled down top shot. The Zacuto finder doesn’t help here. I think it is over hyped and I’m looking for a better solution. The DP6 monitor is without any doubt the best monitor to use with DSLRs. I’ve tried a few and now use the DP6 on all sit-down interviews if time permits.  

We’d carried a lightweight generator into the rebel camp and our first news item I cut and fed overnight with the Mac Book Pro. The jungle insects decided my Mac screen and the light reflected in my face were the only party in town. At one point a black sea of ants erupted from the ground and overran the Mac. All credit to the Mac for not giving up under the insect invasion. Capture times to Prores LT with Final Cut Pro 7 are poor at more than twice real time. It’s fair to say I’m not an FCP fan as I have the misfortune to be regularly using it with my wonderful P2 camera, where again FCP is the least compatible NLE system. In contrast the Livewire M-link X system we use for compressing our footage is fantastic. Even using fast 4MB 2 pass encodes the resulting picture quality is extremely high and the file sizes manageable for transmission over our BGAN satellite dishes.

KNLA fighters check out the transmission gear

The live link setup for nightime shooting using a DV camcorder and Z96 LED light

I confess we used a regular DV camcorder to do our videophone lives; including in night vision mode after dark. The Streambox live software in our MacBook Pros requires the use of a firewire connector, which the Canon 5DmkII does not have.

Cameraman's identity disguised

We stayed on in the jungle camp, doing more candlelit live broadcasts and sleeping in hammocks. I shot a second package for the Sunday Burma elections. Then we got news of fighting breaking out at Myawaddy four hours to the South. We raced to the frontline and did more ‘lives’, taking cover under Friendship Bridge. I did a few excursions to record the gun battles on the other side of the river with the 5DmkII. In one of these the Juicedlink DTD454‘s output mini jack got knocked. I was monitoring with headphones and meters on the DT454, but sadly the output socket had broken and gave only intermittent sound to the 5DmkII. I was lucky we got a piece to camera out and some of the gun fight, but I could do nothing but weep when I later realised the entire sequence of thousands of refugees streaming away from the fighting was mute. Audio is the issue with the 5D and it’s no joke when things go wrong with rounds whizzing past your ears. (Robert Rozak of Juiced Link tells me the design is changing to make the minijack sockets more secure. For me I really want them to be bolted to the metal case of the unit to be one hundred percent safe.)

My trusty Tram 50 tie mic had been ripped in two by a heavy handed rebel commander, so I was down to my spare cheap Chinese tie mic on 5m of cable plugged directly into the camera. Manual sound was now seriously handicapped with no way to monitor sound at all.
Part two of our Burma assignment was the main event; teaming up with a second Sky crew for the release of Aung Sang Suu Kyi in Rangoon. Duncan, the other Sky cameraman, also used his Canon 5DmkII. In Rangoon all the international media were there illegally. It had been difficult getting in and everyone was on edge. All the other broadcasters were using mini-sized palmcorders and our 5DmkII’s were definitely going to give us better pictures if we could pull it off.  

Duncan and I posed as tourists with our cameras and dodged the military intelligence and plain clothes police who were on the streets in large numbers.  It was an extremely nervous wait. We changed hotels and guesthouses every day and sweated it out hiding in the backs of clapped-out taxis.

Sky is a 24 hour news channel and the newsroom wanted live broadcasts when ever we could pull them off. This meant a lot of skulking around at night and surreptitiously setting up rooftop BGAN satellite links so we could film our reporter live – in night vision mode.  We couldn’t name our reporters and were constantly aware of the risk of being caught and thrown out of the country ahead of Suu Kyi’s release.

The crowds trying to glimpse Aung Sang Suu Kyi at the NLD office

In the end we triumphed as Sky News was the only international news team to show in HD as thousands of Suu Kui supporters streamed through the streets of Rangoon and gathered in jubilation as she appeared at her gates for the first time. I had run with my gear three kilometres to her house with her supporters pushing past the police barricades. I was very glad I was holding a lightweight 5DmkII. As Suu Kyi stood up above her gate the crowd surged. I ramped up the ISO, switched on my Z96 LED and as Suu Kyi stood up I was literally lifted off my feet as the cheering crowd surged forward in euphoria. You could see the elation in Suu Kyi’s eyes as she calmly waved and smiled back at her adoring supporters. I thought to myself how amazing it was such a moment was lit by a small and inexpensive LED light! 
 
The flood of appreciative emails from our viewers confirmed the decision to use 5DmkIIs had paid off. The image quality was outstanding, although I personally can’t ignore the flash banding, which, though it looked shocking in the viewfinder, wasn’t remarked on by our audience. Duncan cut our first piece in forty minutes and the clarity of the pictures took our viewers one step closer to being there and witnessing history as it happened.
 
The next day we waited for Suu Kyi’s first press conference. We’d got inside the National League for Democracy party offices and I fretted anxiously waiting for Suu Kyi’s arrival. She had to walk up a dark narrow staircase surrounded by supporters and we had to get her first words. At F4 with a Canon 5DmkII this was a moment to hold your nerve. Suu Kyi arrived and we pulled off a doorstep interview with her and followed her into her first meeting with foreign diplomats. Later her press conference was an unbelievable scrum of supporters and press. I got a good position and my correspondent held the tie mic close to Suu Kyi. About half way through the presser my mini jack cable was torn in half by the force of the scrum. I removed the minijack from the 5D and we recorded the remainder of the presser on top mic alone. Fortunately we’d done a piece to camera earlier among the crowds of supporters outside.

Saying shooting video on a stills camera is a compromise is a bit of an understatement. Duncan was using a Tascam DR-100 audio unit to record sound separately for voiceover and without it we would have been in trouble. I still want to record audio direct to the 5DmkII CF card so I can be better placed to do quick edits without the need to find and sync separately recorded SD audio files.  

      
The Canon 5DmkII has been a stick of dynamite to the broadcast manufacturers. Panasonic’s AF100 looks like my natural next stop and future offerings from Canon and the rest are eagerly anticipated. I still have a nagging feeling using a DSLR is like tweaking extra miles per gallon from a BMW diesel and perhaps I should be throwing myself into the future shooting 3D video. Just remind me: How do we guide our audiences eyes with 3D if everything is in focus from here to Mongolia?

Sony’s recently announced PMW-F3 has come with a lot of fanfare and an equal amount of criticism. A lot of people, particularly on DSLR websites, have complained about the price of this new Super 35mm sensor camera (it has roughly the same size sensor as a Red One). But this camera is not for the hobbyist or amateur: this is a professional camera aimed at professionals. The camera will retail for US$16,000 for the body alone or $23,000 with three F3 mount prime lenses (35, 50 and 85mm).

Is this too expensive? Well, yes and no. The camera is basically in this price range because of the large sensor, F3 mount and PL mount adapter as well as the number of high-end recording options that will be available. As standard it has a 10bit 4.2.2 HD-SDI output and an option available from April next year to move up to a full 10bit RGB uncompressed 4.4.4 dual HD-SDI output. Big companies including Sony protect their product lines by placing a variety of cameras in different configurations and price ranges. It’s no different to BMW or Mercedes Benz having dozens of models spanning the one series. Ultimately it doesn’t make any business sense to offer a camera that will stop people buying a more expensive model if it has the same features for a lot less money.

So let’s look at the camera in more detail. It’s equipped with an EXMOR Super 35mm sensor. It has a sensitivity of F11 (ISO 800) and a signal to noise ratio of 63db. This camera will produce images in very low light with very little noise. They are basically taking a 2.5k sensor and scaling it down to 1920×1080 but doing it with no line skipping.

This means that you won’t see moire or aliasing and will have about the same amount of rolling shutter that you would find with a Red One and way better than with any current DSLR.

The PMW-F3L camcorder offers a wide array of recording formats for multiple content creation applications. Scanning mode is switchable between 1920 x 1080, 1280 x 720, and 1440 x 1080 resolutions. Frame rate is also selectable from interlace and progressive – 59.94i, 50i, 29.97P, 25P, and native 23.98P*. The ability to record in both progressive and interlaced options is fantastic.

In addition, 59.94P and 50P progressive recording is available in 1280 x 720 mode. The SxS memory card it records to can simultaneously hold multiple files of any of these recording formats, allowing for flexible use of the memory card.

As already stated the camera comes with a PL mount adaptor that will enable the use of a wide range of 35mm cinema lenses. Sony has said it will also introduce a range of zoom lenses compatible with the F3 mount that will make this camera a proper hybrid film/video camera.

This will be ideal for people wanting to use a combination of film and video lenses depending on the project they are working on.

It also has over cranking and under cranking. In 720p mode it will capture between 1 to 60fps and in 1080p mode from 1 to 30fps. I would have loved to have seen 60fps in 1080p mode but I guess you can’t have everything. In DSLR cameras going to 720p to record 50 or 60fps produces extreme moire even on large lines, but the F3 has no such problem as it doesn’t use line skipping.

It records as standard in the Mpeg-2 Long GOP 4.2.0 which is the same codec used by Sony’s XDCAM HD and HDV cameras. It is only capturing at 35mb/s and while this may seem like a low bit rate it is a very good codec, much better than the 48mb/s H.264 codec in a Canon 5D mark II.

In the near future with the option of 4.4.4 dual HD-SDI uncompressed output you will be able to take full advantage of every bit of information the sensor has got – assuming you can afford a Sony recorder to record it.

As for viewfinders, it comes with a very high quality flip-out LCD screen that includes focus peaking, making it very easy to get things pin sharp. There is also a EVF on the back but the one Sony are currently showing isn’t the one that will be on the production model as Japan have said it will be improved before final release.

Audio features two XLR inputs with full adjustability and monitoring as you would expect in a pro camera.

The weight of the camera may surprise some people. It looks big and solid but the F3 body weighs no more than a Canon 5D mark II with a fast 50mm lens on it. The optional lenses probably weigh more than the whole camera. The menu layout and features are very good and very similar to what you would find in an EX3 – very easy for anyone who has previously used a Sony camcorder to pick up.

Another great feature of this camera is the ability to change gamma curves and matrixes as well as set up custom picture profiles, making this camera ideal for post grading.

Early indicators are that the preproduction cameras produce brilliant pictures with very little noise and have a high dynamic range. Hopefully the final model will be the same or better.

All in all I think this latest offering from Sony is brilliant. I will be getting one as soon as they come out. This camera is perfect for professional users who want ease of use, expansive recording options and a variety of frame rates and lenses. It’s not aimed at people who are using a DSLR as a hobby and nor is it direct competition against the Panasonic AG-100.

Check out this short film from Jason Wingrove (a freelance DOP) from Sydney who was very lucky to get to play with only one of three F3 cameras in the world.

compulsion – teaser from Jason Wingrove on Vimeo.

Below are a collection of photos shot by producer Aya Asakura at the camera’s launch at Interbee in Japan.

About Matthew Allard, Aljazeera Senior Field Cameraman, Kuala Lumpur:
Matt has been a Camera/Editor in TV news for 20 years, previously working for both Channel 9 and Channel 10 in Australia. Twice Network Ten Australia’s cameraman of the year as well as being a Walkley Finalist for outstanding camerawork in 2006 (for coverage of the Cronulla Race Riots) and a Logie Finalist for outstanding news coverage 2006 (Bali 9). He has covered news events in more than 30 countries, from major sporting events to terrorist bombings. Based out of the Kuala Lumpur broadcast centre in Malaysia he is an avid user and follower of new technology, shooting stories on HD broadcast cameras as well as new Canon DSLR’s.

The F&V Light Z96

A simple interview setup with a single Z96 LED light

I have had two cheap generic LED lights for the last year and normally carry one of them in my bag when on video assignments for China Daily. At first glance the F&V Light Z96 looked much like those, which are similar in size and also have the 16:9 shape. But with two months use I have discovered that the Z96 is a very different piece of kit.

I borrowed it just a couple of days before a trip to south western China, heading off into the hills on an assignment to look for a rare monkey. My camera backpack was already overloaded, but the Z96’s compact size meant I was able to squeeze it in.

As its name suggests, the light has 96 LEDs in a relatively compact unit. Mine had a large Sony-style lithium battery that I got with the light; it can be slipped off and replaced with 5 internally fitted AA batteries instead, making it lighter and smaller. It’s also about 40% brighter than my other lights and is fitted with a dimmer switch – and it seems to run for ages. The light quality is very good, not green as other cheaper lights often are. It also comes with two magnetic clip-on filters: a CTO and a diffuser.

The next evening I left my flash in the hotel room and mounted the Z96 onto my 5DmkII (the light comes with a hotshoe mount in the kit) and set off into the streets of the old town of Dali to photograph its fire festival. I was shooting stills for the paper and found the Z96 fitted with the orange (CTO) filter worked well as a fill-in to capture the festivities in the street, looking much more natural than a straight flash. I also found it stood up to having liquids and fire thrown on it as I mingled with the rowdy festival goers (not so my arm, which picked up a nasty burn).

Using the Z96 as a fill light for stills shooting at the Dali torch festival

For my type of work the Z96 has been most useful on assignments away from home. I have carried it with an extra small tripod to light interviews over the last month and either used it along with window light, for a little creativity, or on occasions just by itself in a darkened room. The pictures below are from a “behind the scenes” video I put together in a few hours last week after a five day multimedia workshop at the Orange International Photography festival. It’s a very simple set up to do at night in a large room without the need for backdrops. The diffusion filter combined with the adjustable clean light of the LED gives a strong effect without being too harsh.

Orange International Photography Festival Multimedia Workshop from D J Clark on Vimeo.

Another nice feature of the light that I have yet to test is that you can attach multiple Z96 lights together and power them off just one Sony style battery. As standard you can stack two with supplied clips, but the manufacturer sells a small bracket so you can stack four or even six or nine Z96 lights together to form a single big light source.

Four Z96 lights attached to form a single big light

I have been delaying this post for some weeks now, not out of laziness but purely because I don’t want to give the light back. It’s a step up from the generic cheaper LED lights I was using before and highly recommended for multi-taskers like myself, looking to lighten the camera bag.

There’s more info on the Z96 in this short infomercial.

Dr D J Clark is a leading photojournalist and educator, training students across the globe in the use of DSLR video for news reporting. He is also course leader of the new MA International Multimedia Journalism starting this year in Beijing,China run by the University of Bolton (UK). DJ has been working with World Press Photo foundation helping cover the news surrounding World Cup 2010. He also works with China Daily’s website.

Sony’s UK website now has full details of the company’s upcoming PMW-F3L compact 35mm camcorder. It certainly looks like a very complete feature set. Pricing is still to be announced.

http://www.sony.co.uk/biz/product/xdcamcamcorders/pmw-f3l/features

There is a PDF datasheet here.

Details are sketchy at the moment but it’s clear that Sony will launch their new PL mount ****edit – this is actually F3 mount with a PL mount adaptor*** 35mm sensor camera today. Sony claims it “brings cinematic image quality to DoPs and filmmakers working within tight budgets”.

My sources say it has dual link-HDSDI output and the same 35Mbps card based recording as the Sony EX-1R. Sources also say it should be available by February. This could be wrong so please take it with a pinch of salt, hopefully we should know later today.

There’s a little more info here. http://www.sony.co.uk/biz/content/name/ssw-bc-35mm-2010

***Edit Preliminary info is now available from Sony here

The camera will have a 10bit 4:2:2 HD-SDI output which should be perfect for recording into a Aja KiPro or Nanoflash at high bitrates.
There will be three high quality Sony 35mm lenses supplied as standard – a 35mm, 50mm and 85mm T2.0, further F3 mount lenses will be made available later.
There will also be a PL mount adapter included with the camera.