I have read on 2 seperate site this week that Canon is rumoured to be making the 1DSIV with Raw video. Wow! That would seal the deal for Canon as the premier small camera platform. The biggest problem I have with the 5D is the h.264 compression. We all deal with it, but to have RAW, would be awesome, well not so awesome if you are the RED ONE company. Add to this that Zeiss anounced that will be releasing a set of cinema primes for for EOS/PL mounts, and you have a huge step forward in HDSLR film making. The speed at which these developments are arriving is stunning. It feels like something has tipped, as Malcom Gladwell would say.

The next thing I would love to see would be Canon releasing cinema lenses for their own cameras. They have the best technology out there, they just need to apply it. That Zeiss, with 20 year old technology can steal the show from them is a bit amusing. But, it is just a matter of time. Canon has fantastic IS, they have great autofocus, they make wonderful cinema lenses for super 16 ( The Hurt Locker was shot with them), they just need to make put all the pieces together and release some killer glass.

There is a wonderful part in Walter Murch’s book In the Blink of an Eye (written 1999), where he is discussing the future of cinema. He makes the prescent comparison of between change from fresco painting to oil painting to the then current state of cinema and what he was foreseeing as the future of cinema. Fresco painting was a very complex difficult time sensitive process that required a large highly skilled team to mix and prep the work while the artist had a very small window of time each day to apply the material. Only a limited amount could be done in any given day, or the plaster would crack. Before begining a project they would make a map, a plan for how they were going to proceed in the coming months to complete the work. This all changed with the advent of oil paint. Now one person could complete an entire work by themselves and they could proceed through the process in a much more spontaneous manner. This resulted in what we think of as painting today. An artist with a single vision sits in front of a canvas and makes a painting. Of course, there are plenty of painting assistants in the world, and the process of making paintings is just as ikely to be done by a directed team as by an individual. But the point is, if Murakami or Koons wanted to make those paintings by hand, by themselves, they could.

Which brings me to the 5D and what is happening in the world of the moving image today. There have been many times in my career when it has been suggested to me to make a film reel. I never was that interested because of what I saw was the complexity and logistics involved in the moving image making process. Too much stuff, too many people, too much time. It seemed like a constarint on my freedom, when in stills, I could just go out by myself and make pictures any time I felt like it. Which is exactly where we are with the 5D. I quite literally use the camera every day to make motion images, and often all by myself. I have some FC skills, so I can now edit and color correct the footage. Whenever I feel like it, I can post a film on the web. This is just fantastic, really amazing. I hear Shane Hurlbut is reducing his camera dept from 150 on Terminator, down to 5, that is incredable. When anyone who has the enthusiasm to study the workings of the camera for a short period of time can make a full res Hollywood 60ft screen quality film for basically no money, that is just mind boggling. I am old enough that to me this is extraordinary, but to someone who is 17 and just starting art school, this will be the only world they have known. I am so excited about where this is all going. I am also in awe of Walter Murch’s fortune telling abilities.

After a few unsuccessful tries at getting my Merlin/7D/Zeiss 12 combo balanced, I went out to visit the. experts at Steadycam USA in Glendale. Incredibly helpful nice folks out there. Dan spent an hour and a half with me. He balanced the rig in 5 minutes, then gave me a tutorial on how to move it. We spent the last half hour with me in vest/arm setup on a SteadyCam pilot. Great fun.

So this is the deal. It is far far easier than I had imagined. Forget about all the tables and measurements you find on the web which are like 10th grade physics class all over again. No need for that stuff. Get a light stand or a tripod out and mount an arm on it with an up facing stud. If you don’t have such a thing, Steadycam will sell you one for $45. I bought one. On your finger on a desk top, try to guess the approximate center of balance for the width and length of the camera. It will probably be just back of the lens, and towards the handle. Now take the mounting plate and line up the H hole over that point. Screw in the plate to the camera so that it more or less keeps that position. On mine it was either the M or N hole. It is helpful to put some gaff tape on the plate to give it some friction against the camera bottom. Weight the spare: middle position 1 finish, one standard; bottom position start weight, finish weight and 3 middle weights. Now put the plate on the Merlin and move it back and forth until it is in very rough balance. Don’t worry if it flops around, just put it somewhere that is about right. For me, it was back about to the -2 mark. Put the camera on the stand. Move the screws side to side and back and forth until you get close to static balance. Take the Merlin off the the stand and hold the handle at a 45 degree angle. Do a drop test. You want about 1 sec of drop time from side to bottom, but this is just a guide. The drop time will effect the technics you use to guide the camera in its moves, as you will see. The drop time is adjusted by moving the spare longer or shorter. The drop time adjustment has most likely messed up the static balance, so go back and redo the static balance. Then do another drop test, and back and forth until there is static balance and about 1 second of drop time. This sounds hard, I know, but it isn’t. I can do a new lens in about 5 minutes now after having about an hour of practice.

Now this is the tricky part, actually using the Merlin. One hand holds the handle, the other hand gently pinches the control tab. What worked best for me was to tap tap tap squeeze it gently to control the motion when in a dynamic move. The hard part I found is that the my right arm gets tired, which for some reason makes my left hand squeeze more on the tab. This is where the Pilot, with its vest and arm is great. I found after 10 minutes on it I was able to do a decent job. The weight is fully taken by the vest/arm rig so there was not the brain confusion of trying to support with one hand and control with the other. Maybe it was just me, I don’t know. The other down side is the monitor screen on the Canons is hard to see if I move my arm to the side or down low. I am looking into a very light weight monitor, but have not found one yet.

All in all, the Merlin is sort of great. It is not something I am going to use all the time, but for what it does, for the its relatively light weight and lack of bulk, it is a pretty great thing. Let me know if anyone has any questions, I would be glad to share what I learned.

Absolutely the best chicken satay in the eastern hemisphere. And the locals loved the RedRock rig.

Before this current trip to Asia, I tested a number of ND filters with my Minolta Color Meter. I have 2,3,6,10 stop glass multi coated B+W neutral density filters in 58 and 78 mm sizes. I have step up/ down rings to 72, 67 and 55mm, which covers most of my lenses. For my beloved Zeiss 21 2.8, which is a 82mm front, I have a Hoya 3 stop ND and a Vari ND filter. My tests show that there is essentially no color shift with the B+W multicoated glass. I tested each of the BW filters, and the max color deflection was 100k, with most of them having no deflection at all. The Hoya was 400k and +2 green. The Fader ND was a shocking 1000k and +5 green. My 77mm SingRay showed 500k and +2 green. Bob at Singray explained that the 500k shift was intentional to offset the inherent blue cast in polarizers, which is something I had not heard of before.

The meter I use when shooting motion is the color meter, not an exposure meter. I check the exposure in the viewfinder, and only if I am unsure, do we pull out the light meter. The color however gets checked for each and every shot. I have found that color correction with h.264 is not something that is forgiving. We try as best we can to nail the look in camera. When I use the Singray, I have to compensate for the color shift by reading 500k up from where I want to be which adds an unnecessary layer of confusion that I would rather not have.

When shooting the Vari ND vs no filter, the color shift is strongly apparent. Ugly. The SingRay is not as bad, but the shift is still apparent. This says nothing of the flare that I get when shooting backlit, which completely obviates the Zeiss ability to hold shadow detail. Practically speaking, I find myself using the Singray on my 24-70 zoom only when I am in a situation of fast changing light conditions. After all, a yellowish green cast is better than not getting any shot at all. But, this is only when I have to work very fast, like today hand held on the back of a motorcycle racing down rice paddies. I think out of all the shots we did in 3 weeks, the SingRay was used maybe twice.

I have been having skippy jumpy footage issues with both my 5D and 7D. All the footage from Asia has skips in it. I can’t tell you how much angst this has caused. When I was opening the h264 files in Quicktime, they skipped, sometimes very badly. Converting to ProRes in StreamClip or Compresor and opening in Final Cut got the same results. I tried different card readers, a USB reader, different cards, different hard drives, everything short of an exorsism. I uploaded the h264 captures into Smug Mug and they were better, but there was still skipping, now in random places. I checked all 3 of my Macs, the skipping varied, but it was always there to some extent. No one had an idea what was going on, not Canon, not Apple, and I could find nothing on this on the web. Then on call number 3 to Apple, I was lucky enough to get a great tech support guy on the Final Cut line. The deal is that there is something slightly off in the CODEC of the files straight out of the camera. Why, I have no idea, especially since it is happening in every possible configuration. The solution is to open a new project in Final Cut. Open a new bin and place the clips into it. Then batch export the clips to a new folder on the hard drive. Close that project, open another new project and import the converted clips. I used ProRes 422 1920×1080 30p. They play just fine now. If anyone has any idea why this is happening out of the camera I would very much appreciate knowing.

Here is a list of the glass that I have on this Asia trip.

Zeiss 21 2.8: the sharpest lens I have ever used. Extraordinary ability to hold shadow detail when back lit flared. I use it on the 7D for action shots. Light years sharper than the Canon wide zooms. Love the Zeiss look here, and the focus throw is a joy to use.

Canon 24-70. For stills I love this lens, most of my book is shot with it. But for motion, the best I can say is that I tolerate it. I hear that an IS version is coming out soon, which will be nice.

Canon 35 1.4. I debated for some time between taking this lens and the Zeiss 35 2.0. Because the Canon focuses so well in low light for stills, it was the winner. But in retrospect, I think I would have prefered the Ziess, even though it is a stop slower.

Canon 45 TS. I sort of love vertically panning with this lens when the shift if full over. Something is always in focus. I use it to do a version of focus pull by tilting. Ok, it is a gimmick that I would never use in stills, but in motion I rather like it.

Nikon 50 1.2. Oh let me tell you how much I love this lens. A dream to use. I have it permanatly mounted on a Fotodiosc adapter, which makes it a $1000 lens. It is a bit less severe than the Zeiss 50, and the bokeh is way better. The Canon 50 1.2 is too soft for my taste. I understand some people love the look, sort of nostalgic, but it’s not for me. The Zeiss over 2.0 calms down, but the Nikon at 2.0 is singing. Not that I make a habit of 2.0 motion shots. I like this lens at 5.6 best. I simple small elegant gorgeous lens.

Canon 85 1.2. I great portrait lens, I shoot mine at 5.6 mostly, which out in the sun means a lot of ND. I need to be careful with backlight and this lens. If there is any sort of flare, even non-spectral flare, the lens will loose all its black details. I have not tested the Zeiss or the Nikon in 85mm, and I should.

Canon 100 macro IS. The IS is nice, but truth is that the thing is nearly impossible to focus with its short barrel throw. Feels cheap in the hand. But it is a macro, which is why I have it. Probably should have brought the Zeiss instead.

Canon 70-200 f4 IS. Great super sharp lens. I like it better than the 2.8 version, although I hear that Canon is making a new 2.8 which has 4 stop IS. Sweet. This lens gets used on the 7D for long slo mo action shots.

Zeiss 28 f 2.0. I didn’t bring it, and I miss it. Not as sharp as the 21, but then nothing is, however I just love the way it feels in my hand. Also great if flared.

I just learned that MOVING PHOTOGRAPH was the winner of the Living Art contest. A huge thanks to Alexx Henry, first for having the generosity to a hold a contest, and then for picking me. I am honored. Hearing Alexx and the other speakers at the Collision Conference changed the direction of my career. I can not express how lucky I was to be there. There is no way I would be working in motion today if not for having attended. By him having the contest, it really put a fire under me to make something special, and to get it out the door quickly. Thank you thank you thank you Alexx.

“David’s entry offered something unique that we wouldn’t get as a still or as traditional video. As a living portrait, it manages to elicit a reaction that evolves with the progression of the piece. Good stuff, David.”

The edit was done in Final Cut. By stacking the clips in the time line one on top of each other, and then using the Motion tab-Crop and animating it with key frames, I was able to get more than one dog in the frame. The time line ended up looking like a huge V, all right crops going down, then back up with all left crops. We did a bit of speed changing using Modify-Speed change, but not that much. Each clip had to be graded separately in Colorista for intensity and contrast, however we left the color alone. There are 3 sound tracks, the speaker, a close up of a dog panting, and then a track of the overall kennel noise. I would enjoy any comments or questions anyone may have.

This is my assistant Robert with the doorway dolly getting the timing of the move dialed in. I can’t reveal yet what we were shooting, as it has yet to be posted and published by the magazine, however I can tell you this was one of the most personally moving stories I have ever done- but more on that when I can show you the results.

The lens is a 70-200 f4IS lens, set at f8-f16, depending on the color of the subject. I like that lens quite a bit. Sharp, fast focusing in autofocus mode, clearly not the case here, and light weight. We initially had a 2 stop ND on the lens, but decided we wanted the depth of field. The lights, which are out of frame are 1k, 650k and 150k tungsten frensels. There is a bit of fill coming from the light panel mounted on camera. Once we got going, we took the Marshal off the camera cheese plate and mounted it to the dolly. We found that balanced the camera better on the fluid head. One of the very tricky things on this set up, is that because we had very little room to work in, the camera is as close to the back wall as possible. Thus, all the focusing and framing are done in the Marshal, but the camera moves get reversed, which is a bit weird. I had wanted to do a pan plus a dolly move, but there no way I was going to attempt that from a reversed monitor.

When we were actually shooting, I walked with the dolly facing the subject and glanced at the monitor to check composition. We tried having me sit on the dolly and view the monitor, but we found that because I am pretty animated when working, the dolly shook, and thus the image was not stable.

We chose the doorway dolly, rather than lay track purely as a time savings. The floor was reasonably flat, of course the one dip was right in the middle of the dolly move, but rather than deal with track and all that ensues, we went with the simpler method. My feeling was that if I only had 6 hours to get footage, I would rather be spending it on running the camera than messing with dolly track. Whatever bump we hit seems to have been handled by the IS lens.

The subjects we were shooting were a bit twitchy, yea just a bit, so that focusing on the eyes became a real challange. We did some with the focus enhancement in the Marshal, but decided the safest way was with the 5x magnifier in the 5DII.

shutter 1/60
white balance 3300 as read from a hand held color meter
asa 650

Keep checking the blog, I should be able to post footage next week. If anyone has any questions please let me know, I would be happy to share.

This was one of the best feeling jobs I have done in years. Time Magazine was great about giving me all the support I could ask for. Feel great about the results, feel great about the dogs, feel great about the people I was working with. Here is the story of how these pictures came to be.

I received a call from Kira Pollack, photo editor at Time, whom I had often worked with when she was at The New York Times Magazine. She is one of the great ones, as anyone who comes out of the great Kathy Ryan photo dept. is. Kira says she has an interesting job and could I come in to talk about it. Rescued Fighting Dogs in St Louis, and the kicker, they need 75 portraits. Wow, a lot of pictures. My assistant and I immediately start doing light tests and background color tests on my Chihuahua, Nina. There were several issues to consider: What sort of background/lighting is going to look good on a grid of 75 dogs? The dogs being all different colors, what sort of lighting should we use? Having a potentially very dynamic subject, how should we light this so that motion is frozen and the light can be easily moved about to follow the dog? Most importantly, how can I show them with dignity? How can I bring their character into the photo?

The solution we came up with was a middle grey paper background. I had considered painting a wall and floor, fabric, or wood, but I figured we could get middle grey paper in St Louis, and if the dogs wreck it, we can pull down another section, and we wouldn’t be spending 1 entire day set building or set painting. A recent consideration to all travel jobs is the budget for the baggage. If it costs 50$ each way for a bag, and $100 each way for a heavy bag, times 5 bags, we are better off renting the gear on location. In St Louis, there is no way to get a Pro 7 pack. But we could get Dynalight 1000x packs, which I had last used 15 years ago. The issue for me was the flash duration, slow 1/600 sec and I knew we would be dealing with some active animals. Our solution was to use the Dynalights for some of the light, but the main light would come from a handheld overhead Canon 580EX attached to a Quantum and a Pocket Wizard that my assistant would hold in his hand and be able to harmonize with the dogs movement. The whole family of these Canon/ NIkon flashes emit their flash at super fast durations, and at a slightly cooler color temp than the studio flashes. I often use the pocket wizard/canon recipe outside with some gel when I need a portable backlit sun. Works great. As I read in Rob’s blog last week, ” A photographers job is problem solving” Exactly!

The first morning a problem came up. We only had one Quantum-580 EX setup. Dumb, but that is what super tight production budgets do. Something malfunctioned in the cord to EX connection and we had to have someone make a run to a local shop where thank god they had another exact setup. I have no excuse for why we didn’t dupe that set up, but we didn’t want to spend the extra $50/day. Everything else in my kit I have covered in duplicate as a minimum. Oh, well. Lost 2 very tense hours, but once we got the hand held synching properly we were on a roll. Dog moves right, Robert my assistant leans right. White dog, raise the light, black dog bring the light closer. Worked great.

I like using the 1DSIII for stills in studio. Very fast auto focus, solid dependable camera. I had it at 1/200 sec, f8-f16. For most of the shots we used a 70-200f4. I love that lens, excellent auto focus, and super sharp. When you have a revved up pit bull as a subject, it is all about speed of focus acquisition. Let me know if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer.

I was told about this a month ago at a meeting at Time Inc and now I can publish it. Expect Conde Nast to make a similar interface for all their magazines. This is why if you are a photographer and you are not doing motion, you are on the soon to be extinct list. Of course, if Apple or whoever brings this out at $2,000 a unit, that is another story. But if they can bring it out in the $500 range, this will be a game changer. Full motion content, full motion ads. What do you think is going to happen to the web sites. My guess is they are going to cut them back, if not turn them off for non paying customers. I expect an iTunes sort of deal for the tablet subscriptions. Thrilling to be alive to see all this happen around us.

The idea here was sort of a play on words, how moving can I make a photograph? I hired an actress who could cry on command, which is a talent that absolutely mystifies me. I wanted her to go through a range of emotion from happy to sad, but for reasons that became clear once we started shooting, it is impossible to go quickly from happy to sad, but rather easy to go from sad to happy. I guess if one is a complete sociopath ……. but then that would also be problematic. So I let her get into severe sadness, which took her about 2 minutes, then had her go to happy. We reversed the direction in Final Cut, which if you look at the blinks, you will notice that something is up. I rather like it, an extra added unsettling bit. The shot was done with a 90TS with the focus on the eyes. My experience is that in motion work, many lenses work great that I would never dream of using in stills work for seeming to gimmicky. The entire shooting process lasted about 2 hours, and about 15 takes, after which everyone on set was exhausted. It is really quite powerful to cause then witness up close emotions like this.

The light is a 4 tube dim-able Kino to the right and a dimmed Starlight to the left. The lights in the background are the kitchen fluorescence. ASA 640, 60sec, f 4, 5000k.

Gear:
Canon 5D II set at ASA 600
90 mm ST lens
3 stop BW ND filter
Manfrotto 3051 tripod w/503 fluid head
Kino Flo 4 bulb w/gel
Marshall V-LCD-70P-HDMI monitor hot shoe mounted
StarLites 1000w on dimmers
Mac G5
Glyph Raid
Final Cut Studio
Compressor
Sorrenson Squeeze

For some time I have been feeling queasy about the sort of photographer and film makers who “review” equipment, and then have it listed for sale on their web site. Or, are asked to speak, for a fee, at a conference where they “talk about their work flow”, and specifically how a certain brand of whatever is much loved. It may be that this person is getting their gear for free, or is being paid a fee by the manufacturer every time they speak about it. It makes me wonder what sort of business they are really in, is it the mining business or the shovel selling business? Some of these photographers really “work” that scene, and to the point that I wonder how they have anytime to do anything else, like maybe get paid to take pictures or make movies. At the same time, I read these blogs, and find them to be tremendously helpful.

I just read Philip Bloom’s personal blog on this exact topic, and I am really enjoy what he has to say. Previously, I admit to not having such a favorable view of Philip. Sorry buddy, its true. Reading this blog entry really changed my mind. At least in his case, I get it. Clearly he is fully aware of the conflicted position his blog puts him in, and is laying out as to how he is going to go forward. There are expenses associated with running the sort of blog/web site that he has going, and it only seems fair that he be allowed to recoup some of that from a vig on the sales of gear through his blog. No worries, I get it. The other sort of thing, the speaking circuit of “experts” who seem to have very close ties to certain manufacturers is still a bit murky for me. I will still read their blogs, and will still pay to see them speak, because they are that good. Perhaps what I am saying is that I am a bit jealous of how successful they have been at this so that they get gear for free, get paid to do the work they love, and get paid more to speak about it. Hummm, not so bad.