Different camera for my filming need. Recommendations? (moved)

J

JPaul

Moved this over from Cinematography...oops. Anyway, I'll try to make this as brief as possible.

I started off in still photography years ago. When I bought my last camera upgrade last year, I decided to get something that could perform at least modestly with video because I wanted to experiment. I got an EM5 Mark II and was pretty happy with it once I slapped the Olympus Pro lenses on it. It's now several months later and I hardly take stills anymore...my cohorts and I have started doing a lot of video work ever since we brought a guy on board who does 3D animation and SFX.

Our most recent event was MegaCon in orlando. It's the third convention of that type that I've shot, but the first since we nailed down what we were going for. I didn't want to do the 1000th convention music video on YouTube, so I went with filming "scenes" with the cosplayers. We're now keying backgrounds, adding SFX, foley, etc. Pretty fun. The problem is that by the end of the convention, my camera was trashed. The LCD screen fell off (Olympus only used 2 little screws to hold it on), the hot shoe came loose, and someone crashed into me and snapped the HDMI connection on the PC board in the camera, meaning my field monitor connection had to be held in place with gaffer tape for three days to get it to work at all.

I currently have the camera disassembled on my workbench while waiting for parts. There's a good chance that I'll be able to have it operational again, but I'm thinking I might want to go with a different setup anyway. It turns out that shooting what we're going for at the conventions was pretty much 8 hours a day of running, rushing, fighting with crowds, and praying that I could get the shots quickly. Half the time, when I used my follow focus to get nice racking effects, it didn't come out anyway because blocking is almost impossible...so it ended up being a waste of time. So I thought it might actually be better to ditch my shoulder rig (if I can't do cinematic focusing and shallow DOF in-camera, there's little reason to have it) and find something small, stabilized, and capable in bad indoor light. The DJI Osmo seemed like the perfect solution, especially since I could use it on a very simple jib without much trouble. From what I hear though, it positively sucks in poor lighting. What do you think? Can you recommend anything that's in that form factor that might work well for this particular shooting need?

On-camera audio isn't a big deal. I have external mics, wireless lavs, and a DAR, so if I actually need audio I can get it two system.

Thanks for reading this novella of a request. Your questions and suggestions are welcome.
 
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Pulling focus and better blocking aren't the rig's 'fault'.
With practise and experience you'll will learn to asses the situation better, so you will waste less time with shots that don't work. I also come home with shots that just don't work, but when I was shooting it, it looked great in my head.

Having said that: I don't think that shooting with a wide angle small sensor camera only will make the videos any better.
I think it is a pretty extreme step from trying to rack focus with fast lenses to shooting with what is in essence an action cam.

The best advice I can offer is to try the Osmo and see what the strong and weak points are and check that list with what your 'goals' are when shooting an event.
I never shot with an Osmo, so I can't give you any first had experiences.
 
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The a7sii is the camera I want.
It has an INSANE iso, looks good at 4 million iso and you can basically shoot in moonlight.

The great thing about that kind of ISO is that you can crank your aperture all the way down and get a really deep depth of field but still have a brightly lit image in bad indoor light.

But with this camera you'd still have the option of doing cool rack focus shots, 4k, etc.
 
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WalterB said:
Pulling focus and better blocking aren't the rig's 'fault'.
With practise and experience you'll will learn to asses the situation better, so you will waste less time with shots that don't work.
Click to expand...

Thanks, but I did have to chuckle at the first part. I never said it was the rig's fault. I said that the environment made it almost impossible in many cases, therefore having the larger rig for cinematic focus racking wasn't paying off.

The main environmental issue is crowds, but in that situation I'm also dealing with limited time in many cases. I can block a scene, but it's not quite so easy to execute it when hundreds of people are surging all around us while I'm giving direction. And I don't have time to lay down masking tape on the floor.

Maybe I should rephrase the question: I might want to switch to something stabilized for handheld that works well in poor indoor lighting and is compact enough to navigate these convention crowds. After reading where I'm using the camera, does a better option spring to mind?

It's not so much a dire need as it is curiosity about there being something more suitable that I could use.
 
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sfoster said:
The a7sii is the camera I want.
It has an INSANE iso, looks good at 4 million iso and you can basically shoot in moonlight.

The great thing about that kind of ISO is that you can crank your aperture all the way down and get a really deep depth of field but still have a brightly lit image in bad indoor light.

But with this camera you'd still have the option of doing cool rack focus shots, 4k, etc.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing just in terms of an all-around mirrorless upgrade, but I don't think it's in the budget since I'd need to buy all new glass (and everything else lol)
 
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IMO, you'd be better off with a GH4 than an A7s. GH4 is still very capable, though not as good at higher ISOs. No need to adapt glass etc.

The issue with adapting MFT glass to the A7s(ii) is that you're adapting lenses not designed for a full frame camera to a full frame camera. So you'll be forced into shooting in APS-C crop mode, and even then there'll probably still be vignetting depending on the lens.

Plenty of other options though, as well - you would have a better time adapting with Speedbooster to an a6300, or you could go for something like a Panasonic GX8..
 
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sfoster said:
I didn't have any noticeable vignetting.
I sent some footage to skycopland for practice color grading a7s, he could comment.
Click to expand...

I assume you were using full frame Canon glass :) MFT glass is, well, designed to cover a Micro Four Thirds sensor, which is 1/2 the size of a full frame sensor, so you'll definitely get vignetting in full frame mode, and it's possible/probable you still will in APS-C mode depending on the lenses you're using.

Speedboosters work in the opposite direction - i.e. taking a lens with larger coverage and focussing it to cover a smaller sensor size, in the process gaining an extra stop of light.
 
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I just spent a few days filming fast motorcycles at a racetrack. We had press passes and great positions but the issues were the same in that we were pushed from pillar to post and had some equipment failure. To give you an idea of the issues, try to imagine pulling focus (filming) with motorcycle travelling at 175mph 5 feet away while in a pack of press photographers all jostling for position.

However, the problems were nothing to do with the camera, rather lenses. With the right lens selection, it made life a lot easier depending on the situation. For example:

- Sweeping bend close up at 100mph: 35mm prime
- 175mph fast straight, bike coming straight at me: An old Canon 100mm - 400mm which turns in to 150mm - 600mm with the C100's crop (the one with the pull towards you type of focus thingy).
- Far / close / far very quickly? 18 - 200mm Canon did the trick.

Camera was C100, no shoulder rig necessary if you buy an eyepiece and just press it against your eye. You can also attach a ton of audio to it if you want. Equipment failure was two HDMI cables meaning we lost 4:2:2 10 bit which was a real pain.
 
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