Due to an unprecedented number of cancellations and postponements I have a lot of open  slots in my diary between now and mid April. So, if you need training (one to one or groups), consultancy services or simply a good old fashioned DoP or Camera operator (2D or 3D) do get in touch. I’m very affordable!

I’ve had the C300 up side by side with the F3 today. So far, remarkably similar performance, although the colorimetry is very different. One interesting observation is that the C300 sensor appears to be about 10% larger than the F3’s sensor. Certainly with the same lens I get a wider FoV from the C300. C-Log and S-Log look quite different. Another observation is that the F3 appears to be slightly more sensitive at any given ISO, maybe by over half a stop.

More to follow as I evaluate my test results.

My Canon C300 has landed. First impressions are very good. I’ll be doing more tests in the coming days. Stay tuned!

I’ve just returned from a very enjoyable week shooting 3D with Geoff Boyle in the Swedish mountains. We were in Hemavan, running a 3D workshop using a wide range of cameras including Sony F3’s on a Hurricane Rig, a TD300 and an NEX3D1E. The shooting parts of the course took place up in the mountains where at times we had to deal with temperatures below -20c, howling winds and blizzard conditions. Our primary monitors were Transvideo 3D views, a 6″ Classic and a 10″ Evolution. These were the perfect monitors for this type of shoot where we needed portability, ruggedness and the superb 3D toolsets incorporated into these monitors.

One the first day of the shoot, all of the equipment had to be hand carried through snow that was waist deep, the second day our only transport was snow scooters. Bigger, bulkier monitors were out of the question. While the monitoring options on the built in LCD of the Sony TD300 are quite good, it’s just much too small to correctly see the disparity between the left and right views accurately. This is where the Transvideo’s excel. The Transvideo difference modes and zoom function, combined with the adjustable disparity grid makes accurate assessment of the stereoscopic image straight forward and easy. This was especially useful on this shoot as it was very easy to show the students exactly how different camera settings and interaxial’s affect the 3D image.

I’ve been lucky enough to have used a wide range of 3D monitors over the last few months from many manufacturers. They have ranged from un-useable to quite good, but none have come close to the Transvideo’s. Current monitors with small polarised screens (less than 20″) are completely useless as on set monitors because the resolution drop caused by using alternate lines for the left and right images makes accurate alignment very hard, in fact you can be 3 pixels out and it’s all but impossible to see.  Monitors that only have SD, low resolution or composite inputs are also of little use, as again you can’t see your alignment. So, while there may be cheaper 3D location monitors on the market, my recommendation will always be for a Transvideo monitor. They are in my mind simply the best tools for the job.

Those of you that may have been following my development of this adapter should know that Mike now has a good stock of them. There on his web site for order. Great news is that as well as the F3 it works really well with the Canon C300 and APS-C DSLR’s. If you buy the F3 kit you can remove the rear part and then the adapter will work on the C300 or 7D etc making it really versatile.

Just got the news that the Canon C300 I ordered back in December won’t be landing for a little while longer yet. Boo-hoo, I really want to start getting the picture profiles dialled in.

Just got back from helping Geoff Boyle run a 3D workshop in Hemavan, Sweden. It was a great week and I think everyone, me include learnt a great deal. We shot quite a few scenes of snow scooters, skiers and snowboarders in all kinds of weather from blizzard to beautiful sunshine. We also shot a local band at a ski party.

The TD300 performed very well, especially when conditions were extreme. We had one morning up on the mountain where it was -18c with a howling blizzard. The main TD300 issue was with the concentric control rings for the lens and rotary iris dial. All impossible to use with gloves and constantly getting bumped and knocked. The TD300 however was a bit of a disaster when we came to shoot the music gig as the sound pressure from the bass was making the vertical alignment vibrate up and down. Not pleasant to watch! The Hurricane Rig performed very well at the gig without any vibration issues. However when up on the mountain, keeping snow out of the mirror box in the blizzard was a bit of a pain. We also got completely buried by a blast of snow from a close pass by one of the snow scooters. The shot looks great as a wall of snow flies towards you.

I think everyones favourite camera though was the little NEX 3D1E. You could get this camera into all kinds of places. You could ski with it, do on stage handheld with it and the pictures are pretty good for such a small camera. Being so small it’s a hard to operate the tiny controls and we ended up resorting to using the auto set function to set up conversion and focus most of the time, but it generally did a good job.

Pictures and clips will follow when I have some more time. I have more workshops coming up soon for 3D, S-Log and grading. Watch this space.

Here’s a new video about my recent adventures in Norway. The video is all F3 S-Log. The time-lapse sequences were done with a Canon 550D and a Teletrack motorised pan and tilt head.

I was recently asked to clarify the exposure levels I use when shooting S-Log, especially why mid grey is set at 38IRE. Here’s my reply.

Exposure is not something that is set in stone. The idea behind setting reflected mid grey at 38 IRE is that you place the middle of your tonal range slightly below the mid point of your full latitude range. Reflected white should then come out around 68-70IRE. This then gives you further headroom for direct light sources such as lamps, the sky or specular reflections. In addition, video cameras tend to perform better in shadow and underexposure compared to highlights and over exposure, so it’s generally considered better to be slightly under rather than slightly over.

But, all this theory is based on shooting some imaginary generic scene and as a result is a generalisation and may not be optimum in many lighting conditions. You also need to consider how S-Log works. Each stop is getting allocated roughly the same amount of data as the next. But when you consider that each brighter stop is has twice the brightness range as the previous stop then you need to consider that to some degree, each brighter stop is being recorded more highly compressed than the previous. This means that you can stretch and pull the darker parts of the exposure range more effectively than the brighter part, so you don’t want your images to be too bright as this may not grade as well as the same scene exposed a little darker. Now on top of all this you need to consider noise. Underexpose too much and you will have issues with noise when you start lifting the shadow areas and darker parts of the image. So what I’m trying to say is that you don’t want to overexpose and you don’t want to underexpose, obvious perhaps, but where exactly you set your exposure will depend on the tonal range of the scene you are shooting. A dimly lit interior may have a much reduced range compared to a sunny exterior and this is where the skill of the operator comes in, knowing when it is desirable to push your exposure up or down.

Normally, mid grey at 38IRE works well and will put you in the right ball park. But if you don’t have any direct light sources then you can probably lift mid grey a little, but in my opinion you must always, always protect your highlights. Small specular highlights or a small bright cloud may not show up on a small monitor or VF and might not register on the histogram or zebras so often it’s good to have a bit of headroom in reserve.  A small area of overexposure can easily spoil an otherwise correctly exposed scene and it’s impossible to correct a blown out highlight in post production, once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Sadly I can’t say you should always expose “x” at “y” as it’s just not that simple. You have to judge for yourself depending on the scene you are shooting and the look you want to achieve. With S-Log, I would not get too hung up on white not reaching 100%, reflected white should only be at around 70%, it’s direct light sources you need to watch as these are what will give you your biggest exposure headaches.