Saturday, February 20, 2016

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.

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