Archive for category Canon Eos7D
Shooting Bufori cars on the Canon 7D
Posted by Matthew Allard in Canon Eos7D, DSLR video news on March 7, 2010
I usually shoot news and long feature pieces, but sometimes I get the chance to shoot something different. Bufori is a custom car company that hand makes luxury saloons and sports cars. They unveiled their brand new Bufori “Geneva” at the 80th Geneva International Motor Show and approached me about making a short film to showcase it, to be shown on various screens at the show. I decided to shoot this on my Canon 7D and also used three GoPro Hero Cams. In the old days I would have had to take a big broadcast camera and all the accessories to shoot something like this. Now I can take a much smaller DSLR camera, a few lenses and accomplish what you could only dream about a few years ago.
Bufori Geneva from Matthew Allard on Vimeo.
I shot both stills and a video for the company that were played on screens at the motor show. I decided to shoot the video on my Canon 7D using the following lenses – Canon 16-35mm f2.8, Canon 50mm f1.2 and a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. For the on-board driving shots I utilized the GoPro HD Hero cams mounted on various parts of the car. I do have mounts and arms to put a full size DSLR on a car but decided against it (better to risk a $300 camera as opposed to a $1700 one!).
A GoPro HD ready to go
Inside the factory I shot various parts being manufactured and tried to concentrate on the detail of having almost every component made by hand. I cannot stress enough the importance of using good, fast glass when you shoot. Don’t let anyone tell you that it doesn’t matter as much which lenses you use when you’re shooting video, because it does. Would you put cheap tires on a Ferrari? In most cases you get what you pay for. My Canon 50mm f1.2 cost more than my camera but is worth every cent – the difference between the F1.2 and F1.4 is huge. My advice is to buy the most expensive lenses you can afford on your budget.
Dolly and 7D rig in action
For the shots of the car inside the factory I also utilized a broadcast jib and dolly. The Genus adapter plate is a fantastic piece of kit; it enables me to put my 7D straight onto my broadcast tripod or jib so you get rock-solid movement. I also used two Litepanels 1×1 LED lights to illuminate the car. I actually needed more light than I had but time constraints and the fact that I was doing this alone limited my options. The 7D was an absolute joy to use. It enabled me to work in low light with a small depth of field that allowed me to show incredible detail. I would not have been able to use a broadcast camera when shooting in the factory unless I used excessive light, something I try to stay away from.
7D ringlight rig
For the outside shots of the car I found a small road that had lots of twists and turns and plenty of character. By setting up in a variety of spots I was able to get plenty of different angles of the car without having to move around a lot. This was the first shoot that I used the Zacuto Z-Finder on. It is brilliant, but having said that I’m still waiting for someone to come out with an adjustable viewfinder so you can use it in whatever position you like. Coming from a broadcast background, I’m used to using cameras with viewfinders that move up and down so you can see what you’re doing regardless of where you put the camera. Someone needs to come up with one or take a leaf out of Sony’s Alpha range of DSLRs that have a moveable LCD screen on the back (are you listening Canon?). I spent a lot of time lying on the ground in the middle of the road to get some of the angles O wanted.
No matter how much I use the 7D, I’m continually blown away by the quality of the images. The DSLR has revolutionized the way I work. While it is not suitable for everything, it gives me a very useful addition to my arsenal of different cameras that I use on a daily basis.
Apart from the Hero cam vision all material is ungraded and shot on the standard camera settings. The entire video was shot in less than one day and I’d like to say thank you to Lee Ali, Mark Phillips and Felix Haller for all their help.
7D covers Sri Lankan Elections
Posted by Matthew Allard in Canon Eos7D, DSLR video news, Journalism, Regular HD cameras on February 1, 2010
I was sent recently on a two week assignment to cover the Presidential elections in Sri Lanka. This trip would take me from the far south of the country to Jaffna in the extreme north.
A soldier in Northern Sri Lanka
A destroyed building in Jaffna
Sri Lanka is not the easiest place to report or shoot in. The media is controlled heavily by the government and you need permission to do just about anything.
The last time i was in Sri lanka i spent more than a week with the Tamil Tigers during the middle of the civil war in a town called Killinochi. Most of the people i met and filmed are now dead. Killinochi itself is a virtual ghost town, having almost been completely destroyed during the Sri Lankan military’s main northern assault last year.
Young girl in an IDP camp
The majority who have suffered have been the Tamil people. Hundreds of thousands are now without a place to live or living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. For those who have left the camps they are now returning to find their houses and lively hoods have been completely destroyed by war.
Myself and correspondent Wayne Hay spent a week in Jaffna, a place that until recently had been impossible to go to. The army have controlled Jaffna for more than 10 years but it still bears the scars of more than 30 years of cival war. 98% of the population are Tamil and most of them are still living in terrible conditions with their houses either having been destroyed or been taken over by the military. Such is the level of censorship over the media that we were removed from Jaffna on the morning of the elections. At 4am in the morning four large explosions rocked the windows of the guest house we were staying in. The government had complained about a few of the stories we had done in the north of the country and had sent the military around to demand that we left and to escort us more than 200km away. We were not allowed to film any election activity that took place in the north of the country. Only 17% of voters turned out to vote in the north according to government figures. Were they intimidated? Were they free and fare? Who knows….with no media allowed to report in the area the outside world would just have to assume they were.
Sri Lanka Tamils from Matthew Allard on Vimeo.
I created this small short film of Tamils praying in a Hindu temple using my 7D. It was quite dark and very early in the morning meaning it was too difficult to shoot with my broadcast camera. The camera worked well for this situation. I would of liked to have used it more on my trip but due to time constraints and remote filing of stories using a BGAN satphone it was not possible. I hope in the future that conversion times and ease of use will improve on DSLR cameras as i love the images they produce and would use them a lot more. Still for most news gathering events such as this trip the broadcast cameras convenience and quick turn around time meant i had to use it on 90% of occasions. Aljazeera’s response to me using a DSLR continues to be fantastic and i am now blogging about it on the Aljazeera website. They will continue to post not only the stories but short films i shoot in various countries. I commend them on their forward thinking and hope other news networks jump on board the DSLR revolution.
This same film will be running on the Aljazeera website shortly. Here are some of the other stories that ran on Aljazeera from Sri Lanka:
My article on using DSLR cameras to shoot the news is also running on the Aljazeera website. Click this link
Janek Zdzarski reports for Polish TV news using the Canon Eos7D
Posted by Janek Zdzarski in Canon Eos7D, DSLR video news, Journalism on January 19, 2010
Out shooting with the Eos7D and LCDVF finder
I’ve always been a big fan of multimedia and am fascinated with the tools that make it easier to create a video report. I believe that very soon most newspapers will have a video content on their sites, not just the big ones. Below is one of my latest reports about the cancellation of the Mr Gay China event – shot entirely on the 7D, when broadcast it would have a Polish voice over track to explain everything, but I’ve left that off here.
Beijing police cancel China’s first gay pageant from Janek Zdzarski on Vimeo.
For most of my years in the media I’ve been a news photographer for daily newspapers and also writing articles. In 2004 I obtained an MA from Warsaw University, my major was TV and Photojournalism. Then 2 years ago, right before Beijing Olympics, I was being offered a freelance job for TV.
I was using regular video cameras, the Panasonic AG DVX100, Sony PD150 and Z1. For unobtrusive field work I was carrying my small Sanyo Xacti 1010HD. But then 7D appeared. The image quality, ability to shoot in low light and portability are the things that make this camera a dream tool for me. I usually equip mine with the a LCDVF LCD loupe to make viewing the back screen easier, a small stabilizing rig and sometimes a monopod. For audio I mount a Zoom H4N audio recorder to the camera and then sync it with the camera’s audio track using PluralEyes from Singular software.
Moving pictures are rapidly taking place of stills. Generally my view is that people are bored and fed up with stills, they don’t have time or will to scroll pages full of pictures online. The video format makes it easier, especially when you add some visual devices like timelapse or maybe some stills – this makes the story visually more attractive. That kind of moving news feature or report can reach a far broader audience and the new video DSLR’s are the perfect tool to make this thing happen. For me another good thing about 7d is its price: it’s a really affordable camera for the quality it offers and that gives it potential to change our industry. Here’s another example of the street shooting I’ve been doing.
Merry Christmas in Beijing from Janek Zdzarski on Vimeo.
A couple more things – for me after shooting news photographs for many years I am familiar with DSLR cameras. I understand how to move around with them and the whole philosophy of being a photographer. But not I’m shooting video, I just need to wait longer to capture not just 1/250th of a second, but let’s say 10 seconds. I also need to take care with the audio (as one of my friend said: in the film the good light means good sound). The other area a photographer coming to DSLR video needs to learn and manage is the editing. It evolves more senses and more dimensions than straight stills. Take time to learn all these things.
I still take photographs though, using the 7D and also sometimes a Mamiya 7. I’d like to take the opportunity here to really encourage photographers to learn how to edit and produce a video features. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that photography is about to die; for me video is another challenge and as said before – the video story can reach the broader audience.
Anybody interested in these kind of News/Documentary features from China, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.
I publish some of my stuff on my photoblog and here’s my picture’s portfolio: www.zdzarski.com
Below is CNN’s version of the Mr Gay China story – look closely and you’ll see it features Janek in action with his 7D.
Shooting on ice – 1DmkIV and 7D play nice together and get published
Posted by Dan Chung in Canon EOS-1D Mk IV, Canon Eos7D, DSLR video news on January 6, 2010
The 1DmkIV and 7D video featured on the front of the Guardian website
I’m back in Beijing after my travels and I’ve finally had a chance to get out and shoot a piece for my newspaper’s website with the 1DmkIV. It’s nothing too complicated but a good excuse to put the camera through its paces in bright daylight. I set it in 720p/60, put a 70-200 lens on it and ventured down to a frozen lake in Beijing to see how it performed in daylight.
1DmkIV and 7D on Ice – Winter fun on Beijing’s Houhai lake from Dan Chung on Vimeo.
When it came to editing the 1DmkIV footage was changed into slow motion by using Apple’s Cinematools to conform it to 25p. All the footage is graded using Magic Bullet looks.
Canon Eos7D ice cycle cam ready to roll
To get the moving shots I attached my 7D on the front of an ice-bike that I’d rented, using a super clamp. The camera was fitted with a Tokina 11-16mm lens and to get the exposure I wanted I fitted a Genus Fader ND filter to the front. I would have put the 1DmkIV on there but I didn’t really want to be the first person to write one off; imagine how embarrassing that would be. I got some strange looks as it was – and had some near misses.
This camera was set to shoot 1080p/30 and then conformed to 25p to give a very slight slowdown, then downsized to 720p in the final output.
The 7D was fitted with a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 and a Genus Fader ND filter
Sadly the ice was not as smooth as I’d expected and ideally I should have used some kind of stabilisation rig for the 7D. So the result was not perfect and needed a little help from Final Cut’s smoothcam filter to get rid of some of the worst wobbling. I guess a better solution might have been a gyro stabilizer and some kind of arm, but I have neither. Maybe I’ll treat myself later in the year.
Notes on a 7D shoot – Sam Morgan Moore
Posted by Sam Morgan Moore in Camera support systems, Canon Eos7D, Journalism on October 8, 2009
“Shooting video is easy”, was a quote on another post on this blog. Like many DSLR shooters, I’m from a stills background so just learning but this is what I know. Shooting video is engaging, challenging, testing, difficult and great great fun – anything but easy
Shooting 25p progressive is even harder than that because you need to be super smooth – a shocking leap from the 30p 5d or an interlaced video camera. The mind is busting with thought for every moment that you roll. Focus, pan speed, shooting angles that will cut, following the action or letting it move into the frame and of course composition, but as a DSLR shooter that is easy and has to be instant.
Shooting motion puts your thoughts under a microscope there is no doubt, I shot this for fun having shot stills of the gang for a magazine last month
Fight Club Truro – Canon 7d from Sam Morgan Moore on Vimeo.
We arrived at nine and departed by eleven, my edit was done by 3am having shot another job in the afternoon. The majority is done with a 70-200 nikkor G lens with the aperture jammed open at f2.8 , stuck on a good Miller tripod which has a wide choice of panning frictions right down to nearly nothing. Follow focus with the lens was the main challenge of the day particularly the lack of monitor and the minute adjustments that the small sensor and DSLR AF lens implies, I used a home made Follow Focus.
Other shots are done on my shoulder rig (www.halfinchrails.com) using both a 14mm nikkor 2.8 and a 50 1.4 nikkor at 2.8. Slo mo reallys cheats handheld moves, but it just doesnt look good with my 14mm – I think I need to stop down a little to sharpen it up
The 50mm lens sings for both perspective and sharpness at f2.8
The edit is probably a bit weak, it starts a little slow and I should change my POV more in some of the cuts – I hope the video is fun
Oh ? the camera – 7d – my initial appraisal is you need a lot of light to keep the ISO down and give yourself some options with aperture to sustain focus, especially in 50FPS mode – Im loving the look of the camera having been initially scared of a ’small’ chip
I think what DSLR shooters can take away from this is the selection of shot angles and cut choices, Im trying to make an engaging sequence – not a moving slide show which is what I think a lot of DSLR shooters are tempted to do.
SMM
Sam Morgan Moore is a professional stills photographer who works for the ‘heavy’ newspapers and commercial clients in the south west of the uk
he is available to hire to create stills, motion or preferably both
www.sammorganmoore.com
Shooting China’s 60th anniversary parade with the 7D, 5DmkII and Nikon D700
Posted by Dan Chung in Canon Eos5DmkII, Canon Eos7D, Journalism on October 1, 2009
China’s 60th Anniversary national day – timelapse and slow motion – 7D and 5DmkII from Dan Chung on Vimeo.
This is my short film from China’s huge national day parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the people’s republic.
The challenge was to come up with something different with so many different Chinese and international media covering the event from every angle. After waiting half the previous night for a pass and then catching only 3 hours sleep in the press centre lobby, I got put on a stand with a hundred odd of my media collegues including the likes of the BBC, Reuters, AP and AFP so there was no point doing the same as they were.
Messing around waiting for the parade to start with my Rolleiflex next to the BBC's Quentin Sommerville
Chinese media with long lenses at the ready to shoot their leaders
I decided to shoot the whole video on D-SLRs using a combination of time lapse and slow motion. The 7D was equipped with an adapted Nikon 300mm f2.8 lens and a 1.4x convertor set at 720p/60 and then slowed down to 25fps in Final Cut Pro. The 5DmkII and Nikon D700 were both mounted remotely high up in the air, one atop a big studio light stand, the other in a Manfrotto super arm clamped to a lampost, both also had tilt and shift lenses fitted.
Shooting with my 7D, Zacuto Z-finder, Nikon 300mm f2.8 and 1.4x convertor and Sennheiser MKE400 mike.
It was a quite hot for an October day in Beijing and I think this coupled with my heavy use of the 720p movie mode caused my 7D to overheat a lot. The camera would flash a red warning on the LCD and three times the camera overheated so much that it decided to stop me filming. This is documented in the user manual which also states that overheating can also cause the image quality to degrade. In future I’m going to being more with me to protect the camera from the heat.
This said the footage I did get was amazing and is only lightly adjusted for colour and contrast, otherwise its pretty much how it came out the camera.
You can see video as it originally on the Guardian here
There is an great tutorial on timelapse processing from Eos-network here
To see some astounding Timelapse work check out the work of Tom at Timescapes[caption
TV Cameraman Matt Jasper unboxes and rigs up his new 7D
Posted by Dan Chung in Audio, Camera support systems, Canon Eos7D, Matteboxes and filters on September 27, 2009
Matt Jasper, a cameraman for the UK’s Channel 4 news, picked up his Canon Eos7D this weekend and promptly rigged it up with some cool toys so he can use it for ENG. He’s planning to blog here about the experience of changing from a big, heavy ENG camera to a 7D rig, stay tuned. Here’s a quick video we did as his first instalment.
Products from Canon, Redrockmicro, Genus, Zacuto, Zoom, Sony and Pinknoise systems.
Canon 7D – TV cameraman Matt Jasper unboxes and rigs up his new 7D from Dan Chung on Vimeo.
You can see more about Matt and his work covering the Chinese earthquake on the Channel 4 news website here
Pinknoise systems 5DmkII and 7D audio cable
Posted by Dan Chung in Audio, Canon Eos7D on September 26, 2009
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the audio cable I use between my Eos7D and my ZoomH4n or Sony PCM-D50 audio recorders. It’s not as some have suggested just a 3.5mm jack to jack cable, but instead features a -25db PAD, it is essentially a carefully made cable with a resistor that attenuates the output. This reduces the output volume of the audio recorder to a more friendly mic level input that the 5DmkII or 7D can cope with. I had it specially made by John McCombie at Pinknoise systems in the UK, he specialises in audio bits and bobs. You can contact him at pinknoise1@gmail.com
Warning, it does NOT defeat the cameras in built AGC but it does give as good as the standard camera can give without using a hack like Magiclantern for 5DmkII from Tramm Hudson. You can of course record on the recorder as well and use the cable to provide a nice clean guide track for later syncing in your editing software. The amazing Pluraleyes software for Final Cut can of course be used to automate this.
Another thing, the Zoom H4n shares its line out with the headphone socket so there is no way to monitor with headphones when using this cable. Maybe someone can make a suitable y-splitter cable. The alternative is to use a recorder like the Sony PCM-D50 with its separate line out and headphones jacks, with this combo you can monitor too. Sadly the Sony does not have XLR sockets, seems you can’t have it all.
Dan
‘Another night in Beijing’ Production Canon Eos7D movie
Posted by Dan Chung in Canon Eos7D, DSLR video news, Matteboxes and filters on September 25, 2009
Canon 7D movie – Another night in Beijing from Dan Chung on Vimeo.
So here is my first attempt at filming with a production Canon Eos7D just one hour after receiving it from my local camera store. Starting at 10pm I spent about 2 hours in total filming this in the Nanluoguxiang Hutong in Beijing, mostly at around 1600 to 6400 ISO. At first I had a few problems re-adjusting my head to the different button layout to the 5DmkII but by the end of the shoot I was getting used to it. The camera feels great in the hand and I get round to doing more testing and analysis later. For now I’m happy that it is producing the kind of results I want and at 25p, all ready for broadcast. For the news shooter this is the last major hurdle to proper production, there are other issues like sound and aliasing, but this was the big one and so we can rejoice. Several of my broadcast TV collegues are now interested in using these cameras for news coverage.
In my unscientific gut feeling test I think the images from the 7D in low light are slightly noiser than the 5DmkII but still amazing considering Beijing’s dark streets and dim lighting. Its a shame this isn’t a full-frame sensor, but its not a deal breaker for me.
Picture style was set at neutral and the whole thing was edited in Final Cut Pro with no colour correction, the reduced from 1080p to 720p in MPEG streamclip with just a slight contrast and saturation tweak. I’ll try and make the 1080p version available soon on Smugmug.
7D with Genus d-slr bars and mattebox, z-finder and Zoom H4n
Lenses were the Canon 50mm f1.2L, 35mm f1.4L and the 70-200mm f4L IS. I shot mainly handheld attaching my Zacuto Z-finder straight to the camera, then added a prototype of the new Genus d-slr bars supporting their wide angle mattebox to prevent any excess lens flare. I also shot using a small Redrockmicro shoulder rig at times as well as on my fantastic Miller DS-20 tripod. Audio was from a Zoom H4n feeding the camera audio directly using a custom cable from Pinknoise systems (living with AGC to speed time in the edit).
When I shot the my original ‘One night in Beijing’ test reel on the Eos5DmkII ten months ago I new the whole video game had changed irreversibly. The 7D is the next logical evolution of the 5DmkII video capabilities, apart from the lack of a full frame sensor and the resulting low image noise, it does all things just that little bit better.
Canon EOS5DmkII, One night in Beijing. from Dan Chung on Vimeo.
My original 5DmkII movie also shot on the day of its shipping.