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Mixing 5D mkII footage with other camera?


Ted Hinkle

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Has anyone succesfully mixed 5D footage with another camera format? I recently tried to do this with the Panasonic HMC150 (dumb idea!) I wound up with beautiful footage from the 5D mk II and really poor quality from the HMC150. Mostly I think because I was shooting in low light conditions. I am interested in trying to mix it with the Sony EX-1. Does anyone think that this is worth trying.

 

I like the idea of shooting with a "safe" camera to pick up sound and then mix in footage from the 5D mkII for artistic shots. I say "safe" in terms mostly of focus, sound, and clip length.

 

Would I be better to use a portable sound recorder such the Zoom H4N and then sync up sound later or is there a camera with xlr inputs that will give me footage I can mix with the 5D mkII???

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Yea that looks pretty cohesive! The rental house I used gave me a free upgrade for my next shoot to the hpx-170 so i'm hoping to get nice results like your friend got. Thanks for sharing. So far from my testing it seems as though the hpx-170 can handle color much better than the hmc 150 probably because it doesn't have to compress so much onto those little sdhc cards. The footage I was getting from the hmc150 was very washed out looking in low light, or at least dull in color.

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  • 1 month later...

Clearly one reason to mix footage of a vDSLR with another camera is to do things one can't with the vDSLRs, like over crank footage, or to shoot more run-and-gun stuff that the form factor of a conventional camcorder affords you. Powered zooms come to mind. If the goal is to seamlessly intercut footage then one has to find the right places to bring the look of the B camera into the world of what A camera is doing....

 

Where would you say these areas are? In other words, what are the most common situations where one might be tempted to attempt to blend a vDSLR's footage seamlessly with that of another camera? I'll give a couple of examples in order to further the discussion.

 

Shooting an indie feature on the Red One but using the vDSLRs for some low light work seems like a common enough idea. But then you get into a lot of work involving the post workflow....

 

Mixing vDSLR footage with HVX cameras also seems likely since they are simply in a similar budget range... and here you have two categories - cams with a LETUS style adaptor and ones without. The look of the lens is going to go a long way in helping to hide the differences.

 

Mixing vDSLR footage with 16mm or super 16mm footage seems less likely but on a long form documentary I can see it happening, or when you have a need to combine archival footage with new live action, say in a bio pic or some such where you are stealing shots from an earlier production and hoping to blend them into a sequence as establishing shots of background plates, etc.

 

Mixing vDSLR footage and archival SD television footage

 

Mixing vDSLR footage and 35mm film footage...

 

vDSLR footage that is shot anamorphic and any other anamorphic motion picture process

 

etc

 

I don't have a lot of observations to offer here but I did want to stir up some opinions. This sort of question is beginning to come up more and more often as vDSLRs get into the hands of creative people.

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I don't have a lot of observations to offer here but I did want to stir up some opinions. This sort of question is beginning to come up more and more often as vDSLRs get into the hands of creative people.

 

It's happening a lot in Australia. DSLR with the RED for Commercials, Virals and Music Videos.

 

Similar DOF but throwing the camera in hard to reach places. Inside cars to get quick CU's of people feet, faces etc - rigged on cars, bikes, paragliders, surfboards etc. Imagine the rig for a RED on a mountain bike - super clamp and a 7D for a quick 2 second shot. I'm not advocating mixing the two BUT there is a necessity out there to do it and it's only becoming more and more common.

 

Post issues? Not really - Render H264 straight to ProresHQ and that is your offline and online.

 

Latitude and Compression are unavoidable and if you cut straight from a beautiful red wide shot to a CU 5d and hold on it the game is given away.

 

It's something to embrace i think and the camera is offering people 35mm DOF in places they havent been able to put the camera beforehand.

 

Regards, James.

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It's happening a lot in Australia. DSLR with the RED for Commercials, Virals and Music Videos.

 

 

In Australia, What are they doing about the frame rate? Are they shooting both at 30p? I have a shoot coming up where we are considering mixing the two formats (Red and 5D). Its very action heavy (a boxer training) and we will be shooting at 24p. Still, there will a far amount of night time, natural light, running shots through downtown Los Angeles that I was considering using the 5D.

 

I'm not a big fan of action at 30p and I have yet to see a good 30p to 24p conversion.

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In Australia, What are they doing about the frame rate? Are they shooting both at 30p? I have a shoot coming up where we are considering mixing the two formats (Red and 5D). Its very action heavy (a boxer training) and we will be shooting at 24p. Still, there will a far amount of night time, natural light, running shots through downtown Los Angeles that I was considering using the 5D.

 

I'm not a big fan of action at 30p and I have yet to see a good 30p to 24p conversion.

 

Hi -

 

When mixing formats we have been doing a 30-25 Frame merge using Compressor and found good results. But this causes issues if you want to cut with avid with the 30p stuff for the offline. The only way around is to get your go takes - export to Prores HQ and then frame merge them. This is quite a time consuming process.

 

With quick pans you already have some motion blur / smear that is accentuated by the frame merge. I Haven't shot any fast moving action on the camera so i have never seen horrible results. Hanging for the 25 frame firmware to come out. Canon are sure taking their sweet ass time.

 

Regards, James.

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Has anyone succesfully mixed 5D footage with another camera format? I recently tried to do this with the Panasonic HMC150 (dumb idea!) I wound up with beautiful footage from the 5D mk II and really poor quality from the HMC150. Mostly I think because I was shooting in low light conditions. I am interested in trying to mix it with the Sony EX-1. Does anyone think that this is worth trying.

 

 

I worked recently on a cooking show that was shot using Panasonic 3000's. They wanted to use the 5D for some trickier shots, doing aerial flyovers over the food or for car interiors.

 

Well the first episode the camera was always out and we shot a great deal of footage with it. We also had a RED for certain scenes.

 

Once they cut it together and tried to grade it, the EOS only came out when there was no other way to get the shot. And this is what the EOS is great for doing.

 

There was no way they could get the EOS to grade anywhere near the Panasonic 3000's. It just didn't have the same dynamic range, couldn't handle the contrast and it just fell apart in the grade, not to mention the temporal mismatch from converting 30 FPS to 25.

 

The shooting style of the show favoured long lens work so the difference in DOF from the 2/3 A and B camera wasn't that apparent and might have matched if it weren't for the other issues. I was doing 2nd camera and usually the C camera too. The DP was an emmy nominated and very experienced TV shooter.

 

Given we were doing a reality / doco style show and maybe with drama you'd have more control and have a better chance....

 

The director and producers went very quiet after previously insisting we use the EOS as a genuine "C" camera. After the first ep it became the *trick* camera.

 

I seriously don't understand the logic of trying to make this camera do more than it's capable of.

 

Just yesterday at a rental house I saw a pimped up EOS with the zacutto rig, follow focus, viewfinder attachment, mattebox... It's like they've taken the worst features of film and video cameras and put them all together in one uncomfortable and awkward to use camera.

 

Suddenly it's not that cheap anymore, it's not easy to use or comfortable to operate and it's still recording a compressed and crippled image....

 

jb

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There was no way they could get the EOS to grade anywhere near the Panasonic 3000's. It just didn't have the same dynamic range, couldn't handle the contrast and it just fell apart in the grade, not to mention the temporal mismatch from converting 30 FPS to 25.

 

Shane Hurlbut ASC, in last month's AC, recommends getting the 5D mkII's picture as close to final on set for that same reason. Of course when you are inter cutting its pictures with other footage that is a moot point. But it does have a place in the production world. He and others have shot some good looking projects that couldn't have been shot otherwise for the reasons you mention ie. portability, size, weight, etc. Sort of "right tool for right job type situation," as you also allude to. Problem is when people (usually indies) want to use it as main camera for any project out there, well that may not be the smartest move all the time. I suppose those who do may learn soon enough that keeping the picture in focus without an experienced focus puller and proper equipment in low light - large apertures may be trickier than imagined.

Edited by Saul Rodgar
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