Want to learn more about working with 4K using Sony’s F5 or F55 cameras? Why not join me at a workshop being run by Advanced Media of Dubai where we will be fully exploring these remarkable new cameras from Sony and how to get the most from them. We will look at how to set them up, how to shoot with them and then how to handle you material in post production. We are still working out the final details of the event, but we may also have an F65 to play with too. I’ll also be in Dubai for the CabSat trade show a week later.
The PMW-F55 with the Fujinon Cabrio 19-90 PL servo zoom. What’s it like to work with?
I was lucky enough to go out and play with an F55 while in Singapore. There was no pressure, nothing specific to shoot, just play time. This meant I could try different frame rates, different frame sizes, basically I could experiment. I also had the use of one of the lovely (but very heavy) Fujinon Cabrio 19-90mm PL mount servo zooms. The F55 was configured with the LCD EVF (my choice, I could have used the OLED) R5 recorder and a couple of Olivine batteries. The camera was one of Sony’s early pre production models, so while most things did work there were some modes and functions that couldn’t be used together that will be available on the production cameras. Most of the time I shot at 25p recording 1920×1080 XAVC HD with S-Log2 in camera and 4K raw in the RAW. I did also shoot quite a bit of 4K XAVC at 25p and 4K raw at 50p.
The cameras menu system is well laid out and clear and easy to use. It’s different to the menu system used on the F3 and EX cameras, it’s actually much closer to the menu system used by the F65. The cameras key functions, things like ISO, shutter speed and white balanced are controlled using the 6 hot keys arranged around the camera function LCD on the left of the camera (Sony refer to these buttons as “switches” in the manual which is a little confusing). So much of the time there is no need to go in to the main menu. One thing I did miss was a dedicated white balance switch. There is a hot key button that allows you to choose between presets for tungsten, daylight or your own numerical colour temperature (just dial in the temp you want). But to do a white balance with a grey card, you have to go in to the menu and set the white balance from within the menu. Maybe on the production cameras you will be able to assign this to one of the assignable buttons. Of course with raw your not really changing the white balance in the traditional sense. What your changing is the white balance of the monitoring output and the white balance settings attached to the raw clips metadata.
The camera is simple to operate once you have it in the record mode you want. But the multitude of modes, frame sizes, frame rates, compressed, codecs and raw, EI or non-EI will I’m sure confuse some people. Currently the camera has to be in some quite specific modes in order to be able to make use of the R5 recorder for raw recording. If the camera is in the wrong mode the R5 doesn’t even come online. But this is a pre production camera with early firmware so I’m sure the range of modes that can be used together will increase. As it wasn’t possible to shoot 4K XAVC S-Log internally and 4K raw on the R5 at the same time, for most of the filming I did I shot internally in HD using XAVC and S-Log2 while recording 4K raw on the R5. I did also take some time to shoot similar shots in 4K XAVC to compare to the raw footage.
In the viewfinder you get the usual comprehensive information about the camera setup including the remaining record time on both the SxS cards and AXS card in the R5. The nice thing about the R5 is that it really does become a part of the camera and is controlled fully by the camera unlike many off-board recorders where you have to setup the recorder separately from the camera. The R5 has no buttons or switches on it’s exterior, just a couple of status LED’s, it’s all controlled from the F55’s menu.
VIEWING YOUR FOOTAGE.
For viewing and managing the raw footage Sony have a clip viewer application (which will be supplied with the camera or for free download) which is essentially the same as the F65 raw viewer. There are Mac and PC versions. Being realistic your going to need a fast computer with USB3 to be able to use this properly. I’ve just upgraded to a new Retina MacBook pro in anticipation of the arrival of my own F5. Transferring 250GB of raw data from the AXS card to a 2.5″ USB3 hard drive took about an hour. Thats not even real time. 250GB is about 30 mins of footage, some of which was 50p.
Of course 2.5″ hard drives are not the fastest of drives so I’m sure I will be able to speed this transfer process up, probably to just a little faster than real time. But even so, be prepared for a slower workflow when working with 4K raw than perhaps your used to right now with conventional HD cameras. The Raw Viewer software allows you to view and playback clips using different gamma curves and lookup tables, as well as applying a number of image adjustments and corrections. You can also use it to convert the raw files to DPX files, either with or without adjustments such as a gamma curve, so right out of the box you should be able to work with the material.
BlackMagic already have the raw and XAVC codecs working within a soon to be released versions of Resolve (including the free Resolve Lite), this software will be released well before the cameras becomes available. There are also working plug-ins for Adobe Premiere Pro from Rovi that should be finalised before the cameras ship with other NLE’s like Edius and FCP-X promising support in the very near future. For Avid MC, there will be Sony Plug-Ins for both XAVC and RAW at the start of Feb. For FCP-X, Apple has a plan to support XAVC (both 4K & HD) soon (I don’t have an exact timescale I’m afraid) with a plug-in developed by Sony. Sony Vegas, will support XAVC at the start of Feb as well.
I’m looking at building a dedicated Linux based workstation for working with the F5/F55 4K material. I plan to use the HD internal recordings as proxies for the edit on my Macbook or iMac and then do the 4K finishing using Resolve running on a Linux machine with plenty of graphics processing grunt. It’s much cheaper to build a Linux workstation than a MacPro, in addition it’s much easier to add additional graphics cards to get more GPU cores. These days it’s the number and power of the GPU (Graphics Processor) rather than the normal CPU that counts.
Getting back to the shoot. The Fujinon Cabrio lens interfaces directly with the camera, so power is supplied to the lens for the servo zoom. Annoyingly the record button on the lens didn’t work, so I had to press the REC button on the camera body. I suspect this is just a camera firmware issue (UPDATE: According to Fuji this is a limitation of the Cooke i/Arri LDS lens connection protocols, in the future it may be possible to use either an adapted protocol or a cable between the lenses 20 pin connector and the cameras remote port). It behaves much like a traditional ENG lens, but it is a massive lump of glass making the camera extremely front heavy. I had a slight problem one morning coming from a nice air conditioned hotel out into the humidity of Singapore. The lens fogged up, as would any lens in those circumstances, as the front element is so big, it did take a very long time to get to the ambient temperature before I could use it. One small feature that is very nice is that the lens markings have been applied using glow-in-the-dark paint, rather like a watch face. So when shooting in the dark at night you could still easily see your focus markings. I wish camera manufacturers would do this with the camera button markings etc. The images produced by the Cabrio 19-90 are really very good. Lens flare is very well controlled, the images are sharp and free from any obvious defects. The bokeh is also very nice considering it is a relatively compact high ratio zoom lens. The Cabrio lens really makes the F55/F5 well suited to run and gun shooting. Stop the F55 down by an additional 2.5 stops and you’ll have approximately the same DoF on the F55 as you would have on a 2/3″ ENG camera. With such sensitive cameras as the F5/F55 this should be easy enough to do in most shooting situations.
The F55’s native ISO of 1250 meant I didn’t need to use any additional gain shooting around Singapore’s Marina Bay area at night. This is a well lit area, but even so the low light performance is impressive. Noise and grain at 1250 ISO is very hard to see, it’s a really, really clean camera. At higher ISO’s you do start to see noise and grain, but thanks to the 4K sensor this has a very fine film like look. I checked out the noise on the F5 at 20,000 ISO and it’s really not that bad, in fact during the workshop someone turned the camera to 20,000 ISO and most people looking at the monitor didn’t realise.
In S-Log2 the camera has an EI mode that keeps the recording ISO at 1250 but then adds gain to the monitor and viewing LUT’s as well as the clips metadata. I deliberately over exposed a number of S-Log2 shots to see how they would grade. The results were very impressive, not quite as forgiving as raw, but very good with lots of information preserved in the highlights. One concern I have with the F5 is that it may actually be a little bit too sensitive. The F5 we had in Singapore in S-Log2 was rated at 2500 ISO, that’s really sensitive and I do have a fear that I’m going to have to use a lot of external ND filtration in addition to the cameras internal ND’s when I want a shallow depth of field.
The camera really didn’t take long to get used to. I think new users will need to read through the manual to look at the various recording options, monitoring and look up table settings. For example the camera has to be in the correct base mode (EI or Custom) before you can setup the 4K raw recordings. But beyond that it is a very logical and straight forward camera to use.
Shooting in 4K has it’s challenges. Focus is ultra critical, especially if you are shooting in 4K so that post production can crop into the image for re-framing. I found that I was using the focus-mag button on the viewfinder for every shot, checking and double checking focus. I was using the 3.5″ LCD EVF for the shoot but I did try the OLED too. When your viewfinder is “only” HD or maybe not even HD you are going to need to magnify the image to see that critical 4K focus.
As well as focus-mag you also have the usual peaking modes and settings (which can be assigned to the assignable buttons). But I really found that for 4k, while very useful, peaking alone was not enough to be 100% certain that your focus is spot on with any of the viewfinders, not even the OLED. I’m not saying that the viewfinders are sub standard, just that you really need a much bigger screen than 7″ to see 4K focus without zooming in to the image.
While the DVF-EL100 OLED EVF is rather nice the small size of it’s panel (0.7″) does mean that some of the sharpness advantage it has over the 3.5″ LCD DVF-L350 is lost. The bigger screen of the 3.5″ LCD is easier to see than the very small OLED. In addition the flip up monocular of the 3.5″ LCD does make it more versatile. For ENG type shoots, run and gun or documentary shoots, I think the 3.5″ finder is the better choice. If you shoot drama then you can use the higher resolution OLED EVF and then add a larger monitor/viewfinder as well. The F5/F55 has to separate HDSDI busses. The main bus can be used to output clean video while the sub bus can be used to feed video with camera data overlays added for external viewfinders etc. There are two HDSDI connections on each bus.
I really enjoyed shooting with the F55. It was easy to use and the key camera controls are well placed. With the right shoulder mount (including the Sony one) it will be reasonably well balanced with most prime lenses (I only had a generic base plate for the matte box rails). I do think that with many heavier lenses, rather than use the relatively light NP-FL75 batteries you will be better off with larger and heavier batteries to get better balance. One FL75 ran the camera for around 2 hours so a 150Wh battery would run it for about 4 hours.
The NP-FL75’s do charge very fast indeed, taking about 90 mins to fully charge from flat. You don’t have to use the new Sony batts. Any standard V mount battery will work. I’m going to be testing some of the new LiTH 150Wh batteries that are the same size as a typical 95Wh battery when I get my F5.
My next shoot with an F5 will be at the end of January when I will be taking one up to Arctic Norway to shoot the next part of my on-going Northern Lights film project. I’ll be shooting interviews with the local Sami people about the folklore and traditions that surround the Aurora as well as the Aurora itself. It will be interesting to see if I can shoot the Aurora in real time 4K using the F5’s 20,000 ISO rating. It should be possible as I managed with the F3 last year. I’ll be posting some sample clips from my Singapore shoot very soon (once I work out the best way to distribute a gig or more of material).
PMW-F5 and F55, which to choose, which EVF? OLED or LCD.
One of the most commonly asked questions for me right now is which camera do I choose out of the PMW-F5 and F55. The price difference isn’t huge, around $10k USD. If you have the budget, if money is not a major concern then the choice is actually quite simple. Buy the PMW-F55. The F55 has a slightly better sensor, it uses a global shutter, so unlike most CMOS cameras there is no problem with image skew or flash banding. This alone is probably worth the $10k USD extra. The other major extra features that the F55 offers is the ability to record compressed 4K footage and it can shoot at up to 240fps while the F5 only manages 120fps. The F5 can only record HD and 2K internally, it can’t record 4K internally. If you want to record 4K with the F5 you have to get the add on R5 raw recorder and shoot 4K raw.
If you are on a tight budget (like me) then choosing between them is a little more complicated. You see I have two options, I can afford either the F5 plus R5 or I can afford the F55 on it’s own. Either way I can shot 4K. With the F55 it would be 4K XAVC compressed recorded internally to the SxS cards. With the F5/R5 I can shoot 4K raw recording to the AXS media. Raw will be better for grading, overexposure and high dynamic range shots will be handled much better than the compressed log recordings that the F55 records internally. It’s a tough decision. I’ve actually ordered an F5/R5 but having shot with an F55 using S-Log2 XAVC I have to admit that I’m questioning that decision. The S-Log2 material is very impressive, it copes very well with a couple of stops of overexposure and grades easily and nicely. The files size is quite reasonable with an hour of footage taking about 100GB. The 4K raw footage on the other hand is 5 times the size with an hour of material taking 512GB. That’s a lot of data.
Right now 4K is only really being used for high end productions and if you are working on a high end production then in my opinion, raw is the way to go, so where does that leave 4K XAVC? Well, consider this. Your working on a big production and for your key scenes you would shoot using raw. But what about some location shots, maybe in a remote place where you only have limited access to recording media or back up and archive systems? This is where you would use 4K XAVC. I’m thinking about some of my storm chasing or Northern Lights expeditions, 4K XAVC would be a great candidate. On some of my storm chasing trips I might shoot 10 hours of material in just a few day. With 4K raw that would be 5TB of data to manage and backup. With XAVC that’s just 1TB which will go on a single 2.5″ USB3 hard drive (or at least a pair of them, one being a backup). Even over USB3 it can take an hour or more to make a single copy of a 512GB AXS card, so backups could be a long and slow process.
One thing the F5 does do better than the F55 is low light performance. In S-log2 the F5’s native ISO is 2500 ISO while the F55 is 1250 ISO. Both are impressive figures, but the 2500 ISO of the F5 for me at least will be a fantastic asset when shooting storms etc where the light levels are low. However the flip side to that is that with so much sensitivity I’m going to need to use a lot of ND for many conventional shoots. I will add that both the F5 and F55 are remarkably noise free. Even at 20,000 ISO the F5 noise is really not all that bad.
Basically though, the F55 is the better camera of the two and as I said at the start, I think you should strive to afford the F55. It’s likely to hold it’s value better than the F5 so is probably a better long term investment. I’m still undecided about my pre-order for the F5, maybe I will ditch the R5 for now and strive to get an F55. I can always add an R5 later, while trying to swap from an F5 to an F55 is going to be harder and more expensive. I have to admit that the one thing that’s really hurting my budget right now is the way the resale value of the F3 has fallen through the floor. It’s all but impossible to sell an F3 right now and I have two of them.
So that’s the camera body what about the viewfinders. There are 3 to choose from. The 3.5″ LCD, the OLED EVF and a DVF-L700 7″ viewfinder. All 3 are very nice. The 7″ is more of an on camera monitor than a viewfinder, so really the choice is between the LCD or the OLED. I know there has been quite a bit of excitement about the OLED, it was only the other day that I first got to try one. To be honest I found it rather underwhelming. I’m not saying that it’s bad, but it really doesn’t seem to be that much better than the LCD. The LCD is using a new 960 x 540 lcd panel (is this another iphone screen?). This is higher resolution than the now familiar EX1/F3 LCD panel and I really struggle to see the pixels with the new 3.5″ LCD. The LCD is sharp and clear and has a 1000:1 contrast ratio, it’s a good viewfinder. It also has the flexibility of being a monocular viewfinder or by flipping up the mirror assembly becoming a small LCD monitor. You can’t do this with the OLED finder. The OLED finder is marginally sharper and does have a higher contrast range with true black blacks. But, for me at least I prefer the flexibility of the 3.5″ over the very small image quality advantage of the OLED finder. If you have the budget then the best solution is probably to have both the OLED and the 7″ LCD. You can use both together by plugging the OLED into the dedicated EVF socket (which sticks straight out from the side of the camera and is vulnerable to damage) and then use the main or sub HDSDI outputs to feed the 7″ LCD. The F5/F55 outputs can be split so you can get a clean output on the Main HDSDI’s and video with camera data overlay on the Sub HDSDI’s. Even if the OLED and the LCD EVF’s were the same price I would still get the LCD for it’s flexibility on location. Someone that does more larger crewed film type shoots may prefer the OLED EVF and then add on an on camera monitor.
Sound Devices Pix-240 Gets Free Upgrade to 3G 444 Recording. Perfect for the F3!
The latest free firmware release for the Sound Devices Pix240, called “Aurora” adds the ability to record 10 bit or even 12 bit ProRes444 RGB or YCbCr. Using the Pix240’s 3G HDSDI input this means that you can record the full 10 bit S-log RGB output of the Sony PMW-F3 (or the F5 if you want ProRes or DNxHD). This makes the PIX240 the cheapest portable recorder that can record the RGB output, previously the cheapest option was the Convergent design Gemini. Of course you must have the RGB option on your F3 for this to work, but with the prices of used F3’s at rock bottom (I’m looking for £5.5k for mine) a used F3 plus a PIX240 works out at about £8k ($13K) which really is a bargain for this quality of image. Full details on the firmware update are on the Sound Devices website. 
The Pix240 is a good, solid and robust external recorder with a high quality monitor, XLR audio inputs and the ability to record to compact flash cards or SSD’s making it very versatile. It really is quite incredible how little you need to pay these days for top end image quality, more than good enough even for cinema release. I’ve shot several cinema commercials with my F3’s and they have always looked excellent when projected on a big screen.
Tips for shooting in very cold weather.
(Updated 12/2023)
With winter well upon us I thought it would be good to share some of my arctic shooting experience. I’ve shot in temperatures down to -45c in the arctic in winter.
Overall modern tapeless cameras do OK in extreme cold. The most reliable cameras are generally larger solid state cameras. Larger cameras cool slower than small ones and larger cameras will hold on to heat generated internally better than small ones. Cameras and electronics with lots of cooling vents can sometimes also be troublesome as the vents allow them to cool more quickly. But cold is not necessarily going to be the biggest problem.
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is EXTREMELY dangerous to charge normal lithium batteries that are below freezing. Below freezing the lithium in the battery migrates to the anode of the battery cell. This cuase permanent damage to the battery shortening its life and if enough builds up around the anode it can short the battery out causing a sudden fire/explosion. Each time you charge a very cold lithium battery more lithium builds up. It is possible for a lithium battery that has been charged when very cold to suddenly burst into flames some weeks/months/years later if bumped or knocked causing the lithium build around the anode to shift. Always warm up any lithium batteries before attempting to charge them.
Condensation:
Condensation is the big deal breaker. When you take the very cold camera inside into a warm house/hotel/car/tent you will get condensation. If the camera is very cold this can then freeze on the body of camera including the glass of the lens. If there is condensation on the outside of the camera, there will almost certainly also be condensation inside the camera and this can kill your camera.
To prevent or at least reduce the condensation you can place the camera in a large ziplock or other sealed bag BEFORE taking it inside, take the camera inside in the bag. Then allow the camera to warm up to the ambient temperature before removing it from the bag. Peli cases are another option, but the large volume of the pelicase means there will be more moisture inside the case to condense and the insulating properties of the case mean that it could take many, many hours to warm up.
I don’t recommend storing a cold or damp camera in a Pelicase (or any other similar waterproof case) as there is nowhere for the moisture to go, so the camera will remain damp until the case is opened and everything dried out properly.
Rather than moving a camera repeatedly from outside to inside and repeatedly generating risky condensation you should consider leaving the camera outside. You can leave the camera outside provided it does not get below -30c. Below -30c you risk the LCD panel freezing and cracking. LCD panels freeze at between -30 to -40c. If you are using a camera in very cold conditions and you notice the edges of the LCD screen going blue or dark you should start thinking about warming up that LCD panel as it may be close to freezing.
LCD displays will become slow and sluggish to respond in the cold. Your pictures may look blurry and smeary because of this. It doesn’t affect the recording, only what you see on the LCD.
Very often in cold regions houses will have an unheated reception room or porch. This is a good place to store your camera rather than taking it inside into the warm. Repeatedly taking a camera from cold to warm without taking precautions against condensation will shorten the life of your camera.
If you can, leave the camera on between shots. The camera generates some heat internally and this will prevent many issues.
BATTERY LIFE:
Li-Ion batteries are effected by the cold but they are not nearly as bad as Nicads or NiMh batteries which are all but useless below freezing. li-Ion battery life gets reduced by between 25 and 50% depending on how cold it is and the quality of the battery (very cheap cells may have a higher water content which can freeze causing the cell to dramatically lose capacity and the ability to deliver power).
Down to about -10c there is only a very marginal loss of capacity. Down to -25c you will lose about 20%-30% below -25c the capacity will fall away further and it becomes impossible to use the full capacity of the battery.
Keep your spare batteries in a pocket inside your coat or jacket until you need them. After use let the battery warm up before you charge it if you can. Charging a very cold battery will reduce the lifespan of the battery and it won’t fully charge (see note above – DO NOT CHARGE a battery that is below freezing, it is very dangerous). One top tip for shooting outside for extended periods is to get a cool box. Get some chemical hand warmers or better still electric rechargeable handwarmers and place them in the cool box with your batteries to keep them warm. If you don’t have hand warmers you can also use a hot water bottle. Chemical hand warms typically use an iron powder mixed with salts. The heat comes from the iron rapidly rusting. This process needs moisture to work. A chemical handwarmer will work great in a pocket close to your body moisture but when it is very cold there isn’t enough moisture in the air for a chemical warmer to work when it is away from your body moisture. As a result chemical warmers inside camera covers or in a cool box might not actually produce any heat.
Watch your breath
If your lens has and snow or ice on it, don’t be tempted to breath or blow on the lens to blow the ice off. Do not to breath on the lens when cleaning it as your warm breath will condense on the cold glass and freeze. Also try to avoid breathing out close to the viewfinder. When it is very cold and if you are warm in your nice thick winter clothes even standing close to the camera can lead to frost and ice building up on it. Small amounts of sweat from your body will evaporate and this moisture will find its way to the camera, even if you are a few feet (1 or 2m) from it. If doing a timelapse of the Northern Lights, once the camera is running you should move away from the camera.
A small soft paint brush is good for keeping your lens clean as in very cold conditions you’ll simply be able to brush and snow or ice off. Otherwise a large lens cloth.
Your lens will get cold and in some conditions you will get frost on the front element. To help combat this wrap some insulating fabric around the body of the lens. Wrist sweat bands are quite good for this or an old sock with the toes cut off. For time-lapse long sessions in very cold weather you might want to get a lens heater for the lens. These are normally 12 volt or USB powered and wrap around the lens. They don’t use lots of power but they do warm the lens just enough to keep the worst of the condensation, dew and frost off the lens. They are sometimes also called “dew heaters” and are sold by most good telescope suppliers.
Covers.
Conventional plastic rain covers become brittle below about -15c and can even shatter like glass below -20c. The clear plastic panels in other covers can also suffer the same fate. So use if you use a cover use one made out of fabric. Special insulated cold weather covers often called “polar bears” can be used and these often have pockets inside for chemical heat packs (although when very cold these don’t work, use a USB hand warmer instead). These are well worth getting if you are going to be doing a lot of arctic shooting with a larger camera and will help keep the camera warm. But for very small cameras the bulk of a thick cover can make it almost impossible to use. As an alternative wrap the camera in a scarf or cut the sleeves of an old sweater to make a tube you can slide over the camera. If you have a sewing machine you could make a simple cover out of some fleece type material.
For DSLR’s and stills cameras a balaclava can be used to cover the camera body to provide some protection. However unheated covers don’t make a big difference when the camera is outside in very cold temperatures for extended periods unless it is always left turned on, eventually the cold will get to it.
Brittle Plastic.
Plastics get brittle at low temperatures so be very gentle with anything plastic, especially things made from very hard, cheap plastic. The plastic Sony use appears to be pretty tough even at low temps. Wires and cables may become as rigid as a steel rod. Be gentle, bend then too much and the insulation may split and the cable break. I try to avoid bending any cable once it has become very cold.
Other considerations are tripods. If outside in very low temps for more than 30mins or so the grease in the tripod will become very thick and may even freeze, so your fluid damping will become either very stiff or freeze up all together. Contact your tripod manufacturer to see what temperatures their greases can be used over. Vinten and some of the other tripod companies can winterise the tripod and replace the normal grease with arctic grease. If you are unsure put your tripod head in your deep freeze at home for a few hours and see if it still works when you take it out.
Looking after yourself.
I find that the best way to operate the camera is by wearing a pair of large top quality mittens (gloves are next to useless below -15c), Consider getting a pair of Army surplus arctic mittens, they are very cheap on ebay and from surplus stores and will normally have an additional “trigger finger”. This extra finger makes it easier to press the record button and things like that. If you can get Swedish or Finnish military winter mittens, these are amongst the best. I wear a pair of thin “thinsulate” fleece gloves that will fit inside the mittens, i can then slip my hands in and out of the mittens to operate the camera. If you can get gloves with finger tips compatible with touch screens this will allow you to use any touch functions on a camera or your phone. Get extra large mittens, then it is easier to slip your hand in and out.
I keep a chemical hand warmer inside the mittens to warm my fingers back up after using the camera (or use heated mittens powered by a USB battery pack).
The hardest thing to keep warm is your feet. If you’ll be standing in snow or standing on ice then conventional hiking boots etc will not keep your feet warm. A Scandinavian trick if standing outside for long periods is to get some small twigs and tree branches to stand on and help insulate your feet from the cold ground. If your feet get cold then you are at risk of frostbite or frost nip. Invest in or hire some decent snow boots like Baffin’s. There is almost nothing worse than having ice cold feet when working. Don’t forget that if you do get cold, moving around, running on the spot etc will help get your circulation going and help you to warm up. Also consider some high energy food and snacks, you will burn a lot more calories in the cold than you would do normally. Also a flask with a hot drink is always welcome. I have an arctic clothing guide here; Arctic Clothing Guide |
One place available for on my Norway Northern Lights Expeditions, Feb 2013.
Due to a short notice cancellation I have a spare place on either of my February 2013 Northern Lights expeditions. If your interested please use the contact form to get in touch asap. I expect these places will go quite quickly. There is ONE place open on each of the tours: https://www.xdcam-user.com/northern-lights-expeditions-to-norway/
The picture below is from my Northern Lights expedition earlier this month and gives you an idea of the kind of pictures you too can hope to get.
Edit with Premiere and disappearing disc space.
I’ve just ordered a new MacBook Pro. It’s a Retina MBP, so has a 512GB SSD. Upgrading this is difficult and extremely expensive. So in preparation for the new machines arrival I started freeing up disc space on my current MacBook Pro. I used a useful piece of free software called “GrandPerspective” to visualise what’s using up my disc space. While searching around I came across a bunch of files eating up a huge amount of disc space. These are Adobe Premiere’s cache files. These never get deleted unless you do some house keeping. Even if your projects and media are saved on external drives, these cache files will slowly fill up your system drive unless you select the tick box to “save media cache files next to originals where possible” under the “preferences”, “media” tab. While your there you can also “clean” your cache database to remove older cache files.
December 2012 Northern Lights Expedition.
Well the picture says it all really. The December Northern Lights expedition to Tromso and Karasjok in Norway was a big success. Everyone went away with some excellent pictures and great time-lapse. I shot the picture below with one of my NEX5n cameras with the 16mm f2.8 pancake lens. I also got some great time-lapse with the FS700 which I will cut together and post when I get back home.
Training, Education and the DoP.
One of the things that’s struck me on my travels is the different attitudes to training, education and accreditation around the world.
Lets face it, these days anyone can call themselves a DoP, I do! But what is a DoP? What does it mean? It means a lot less today than it did 10 years ago. When I started in the industry there was a kind of unofficial apprenticeship system. You started as an assistant, became a camera operator, learnt how to light, becoming a lighting cameraman and worked your way up. If you tried to sell yourself as a lighting cameraman without having the skills to back that up, word of mouth would mean no one would hire you. Today however it seems that almost anyone can pick up a camera and call themselves a DoP, Director of Photography, a very grand sounding title. There is no requirement to have actually had any training or real world experience before you can call yourself a camera operator, DoP, colourist or whatever you fancy.
The problem for production companies is working out who really does have the skills and experience to back up their job title. I’ve spent many days helping production companies train their staff and frankly it’s quite scary sometimes as I’ve met many so called DoP’s and camera operators that have huge holes in their basic skills and knowledge that really shouldn’t be there.
Education and accreditation are what’s needed. I don’t just mean education through college and university courses, but real world, hands on education. Out in the field with more experienced camera operators. That’s hard to get these days as few productions have the budgets for camera assistants and even fewer have the time for mentoring and one to one teaching. You also tend to find that a production, depending on the budget will use either more expensive, skilled and experienced operators or low cost self shooting AP’s and the two rarely come together on the same project at the same time. In addition we need certification or recognised accreditation. We need industry standard recognition of skills and experience, not just for those new to the industry but also for those of us that have long term practical experience. The IOV (Institute of Videographers) has the right idea. You can gain different levels of accreditation through assessment of your skills by a panel of IOV members. However this accreditation is not widely acknowledged outside of the IOV and is not always relevant to some areas of broadcast television.
A further issue we have here in the UK is that we don’t like paying for training. In the USA and Asia for example that attitude is quite different. I know many Asian freelancers that consider it normal to spend significant sums of money to attend week long, peer led, practical workshops. Why? Because at the end of the workshop they know they will have new or improved skills and they will have a certificate to back that up. That certificate will help them get more work or better paid work. Because the workshop is run by working industry experts, not just college lecturers, the knowledge gained goes beyond just the “how to” but also includes the “why’s” and “when’s” and practical how to run a business experience that is often lacking in traditional schooling. Because many here in the UK either can’t afford to pay for training or simply think it’s not worth the investment they will turn to the internet for help. That’s a whole can of worms in itself because absolutely anybody can set up a web site and write anything they want. While there is a lot of very good information on the internet, there is also a lot of incorrect information and if you don’t know any better how do you know whether what your reading is right or wrong?
This isn’t something that can be fixed overnight. Our attitude to training and education needs to change, especially as the rate of technology change continues to increase. There are new concepts to grasp almost every day these days. Great cameras do not, on their own make great pictures. It also takes a skilled operator. We need a formal way of recognising different ability levels to make it easier for production companies to find the right people for the job. I’ve been in this industry for over 20 years, but I’m still learning and many of the most useful things I’ve learnt have been from those more experienced than me. So we need more peer based training and it needs to be accessible to freelancers, not just those with staff jobs. We also need to think of education as an investment. People are prepared to invest £1000’s in a camera that may have a working life of just a couple of years, but are much more reluctant to invest a few hundred in a workshop that might give them skills and knowledge that might last a lifetime.
Finally, what is a DoP anyway? It used to mean Director of Photography. The person that directed the camera operator, chose the lenses and film stock. The DoP did not normally operate the camera. The DoP would normally be the most experienced person in the camera department, typically with many years of experience as an assistant then camera operator. Today it appears to mean anyone that can operate a camera and make a YouTube video.
Official European List Pricing for the F5/F55 released, very attractive!
So here’s the offical list pricing for the F5 and F55. Looks very attractive indeed. Some dealers are already listing the F5 body for just a little under £10.5K GBP + VAT and the F55 for around £18K + VAT.The 512gb AXS Access card at €1.5k Euro’s is not as expensive as I thought it might be. Still a pretty big investment though if you ned 3 or 4 of them. The Olivine batteries are really rather expensive. You can get similar capacity V-Lock batteries from other manufacturers for quite a lot less. OK you can’t charge them super fast but do you really need ultra fast charging?
PMW-F5 €15.340 Euro
PMW-F55 €27.804 Euro
AXS-R5 S35mm F-series External RAW Recorder €5.206 Euro
AXS-CR1 Access Card Reader €549 Euro
AXS-512S24 Access Card 512GB for AXS-R5 External Recorder €1.535 Euro
SCL-PK6/F CineAlta PL Lens Pack (6 lenses) €19.895 Euro
SCL-PK3/F CineAlta PL Lens Pack (3 lenses) €11.118 Euro
DVF-L700 7″ LCD Viewfinder for F-series €4.113 Euro
DVF-L350 3.5″ LCD Viewfinder for F-series €2.925 Euro
DVF-EL100 0.7″ OLED Viewfinder for F-series €4.113 Euro
BP-FL75 Olivine Battery for F-series €470 Euro
BP-L90 Olivine Battery Charger for F-series €766 Euro