Wheelock Graduation 2016

Pioneer Valley, Sony 4k, and Nutrition

Behind the B Cam (A7S w/Shogun)

A big thanks to Jon Brysh who brought me on as AC for his shoot with a college text publisher to produce videos for a nutrition course. This two location shoot brought me back to Massachussetts's Pioneer Valley where I spent my UMass days. It was nice to be back in Hadley for a visit and then over to Holyoke Community College. 

The pictures are from the first set up, with Canon cine 50mm and 85mm on two Sony A7Sii's. Recorded in 4k to Atomos Shoguns. Jon, the DP, sent me the screen grabs fresh from recorders, no tweaks in post. He wanted to get a good looking, edit ready image in camera and I think he did just that. 

Video Stills from Both Cameras, No Post Production

IFF Boston 2016

Pic from my station at the back of the house at Brattle Theater. 

I had the great opportunity to be a part of Independent Film Festival Boston this year. I operated a Canon XF 305 during the Q&A sessions of screenings from April 27-May 4.

Full interview video with the director and writer of Jahar.

Florida & RX10ii

As luck would have it, Sony announced the RX10iii weeks after I purchased a used RX10ii. But the results I've been able to get from the little bridge camera are impressive enough that I can hardly complain about the shorter zoom length compared to the updated version. The video above was shot (almost) entirely on the RX10ii, all of it "run and gun" while touring around Florida. I was surprised to find that the photo features of this camera are pretty satisfying as well. Compare it to a Canon Rebel like my t4i, and the Sony out performs it with built in stabilizer, built in ND, better noise performance and overall sharpness. And of course, there's the 4k video, 120 fps HD, and high frame rate modes.

I took every chance I could get to shoot in high frame rates. I'm convinced I can use the 120fps mode to "fake" some nice slider shots. I've been trying to put that to use in a few commercial shoots recently, with mostly good results. It's an excellent feature for b-roll gathering as well because you wind up with 4-5 times as much footage once you conform it down to 30p or 24p.

Slog2 has been interesting to work with. I know it's nothing new, but for a camera in this price range, it's suddenly accessible to a young blood like me. I've gotten the hang of exposing to the right, but my impression of the RX10ii's performance (internal recording, anyway) is that 4k is the way to go if you want to record Slog2. Honestly, 4k is the way to go if you want to shoot anything in standard frame rate. But 4k Slog2 downconverted to HD is the creme de la creme of this camera's video offerings. I recommend transcoding the 4k to a HD 422 codec to really take advantage of the downscaled pixel and color information.

Rx10ii "Caffeine" Sessions

Luke Adam's Glass Groupon Video

Hatch Makerspace at Watertown Free Public Library

Here it is, the final cut of the Hatch Makerspace web video. You can read more about the production process in my early blog post here. I added some shots using a Sony Rx10ii, specifically shots at the Watertown Library and all exterior shots.



Learn more about Hatch:
Hatch by WFPL on Facebook

Hatch Meetup

The Arsenal Project

Watertown Free Public Library

Groupon Video Shoot @ Martini's Bar and Grill

Nuvo Dance Competition

Spent the weekend operating EX3's for a national dance competition. Here's my view from the camera deck.

Hatch Community Makerspace

I started this project for Hatch Makerspace in Watertown, Massachusetts.

We shot most of the interviews on Canon Rebel DSLRs.

A screen grab from the T4i with 50mm f/1.8

 A wide view of the lighting and camera setup

Edwin, the camera operator, is an old friend from UMass Amherst.

Picture Profiles on the Rebels were set to STANDARD (-2,-2,-2,0)

A grab from the t3i with 55-250mm @ f/4.5

Here's where we ran into a bit of trouble. The t3i began to overheat (my guess) and would no longer turn on after 2.5 hours of interviews. Luckily, we had backup cameras on hand. At first, I put my PXW-X70 in place of the t3i. I knew it would be extra work to make the images match because of very different sensors and codecs. But, I went with it... at first. Below is a sample image from the X70 ungraded and another version that was adjusted with Davinci Resolve Lite 11. I'll have to take another pass on it to make the green background match the yellow/green in the DSLR footage.

Screenshot from Sony PXW-X70 ungraded

Adjustments to skin tone, slight softening, and darkened background via power windows

We had to take a break, and I decided to switch to a 5dmkii which, as luck would have it, was also on hand. It turned into a good experiment in testing the compatibility of all three cameras. The image below is from the 5dmkii with STANDARD PP to match the Rebels.

The 5d2 color, DOF and skin tones matched the Rebels much better than the Sony, as expected.

I felt confident swapping the cameras because I knew I had the consistent coverage I needed on the t4i. This one interview is a fraction of the scope of the project, and I could edit around any potential image compatibility problems. Next visit to HATCH will be to gather b-roll of the community space in action.