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The 5D


Adrian Sierkowski

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Hey everyone. I'm about to shoot on the 5D and before I go into the belly of the beast I was wondering what tips and tricks you all happen to have for her? At the time I'm planning on using super-flat, but getting as much of the look in camera as I can, nothing too major, higher contrast lighting situations, i don't suspect any major motion to content with in terms of rolling shutter and the like-- nor any long takes. We'll be using Canon glass, and rigging up with Z-Finder rods system, my MB16 a Chorziel follow focus amd I have some focus rings (red rocks) that I used to use in my Nikon lenses back when I had a Letus adapter. Noting fancy, but get's the job done.

Lenses will be:

50mm1.4 and will be renting a 24mm 1.4, 85mm 1.8 , 100mm 2.8 L Macro.

 

So yes, any tips, tricks, and advice would be wonderful. Oh, also I'l be bringing out a rinky-dink little monitor (SD) for running 'round, and also a 19" 1080p monitor for more controlled situations to find some focus.

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Hey everyone. I'm about to shoot on the 5D and before I go into the belly of the beast I was wondering what tips and tricks you all happen to have for her? At the time I'm planning on using super-flat, but getting as much of the look in camera as I can, nothing too major, higher contrast lighting situations, i don't suspect any major motion to content with in terms of rolling shutter and the like-- nor any long takes. We'll be using Canon glass, and rigging up with Z-Finder rods system, my MB16 a Chorziel follow focus amd I have some focus rings (red rocks) that I used to use in my Nikon lenses back when I had a Letus adapter. Noting fancy, but get's the job done.

Lenses will be:

50mm1.4 and will be renting a 24mm 1.4, 85mm 1.8 , 100mm 2.8 L Macro.

 

So yes, any tips, tricks, and advice would be wonderful. Oh, also I'l be bringing out a rinky-dink little monitor (SD) for running 'round, and also a 19" 1080p monitor for more controlled situations to find some focus.

 

I don't think the 5D sends out an HD signal to a monitor while the camera is recording, only in playback.

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please, PLEASE, before you anyone starts editing the footage, add source timecode to the .mov files.

 

It looks like you have a good understanding of what the camera can handle on set. Make sure the skin tones don't clip out, flat is the best thing to aim for but I wouldn't make any extreme adjustments to the image adjustment settings in camera, as you don't really gain anything in the lowlights of scenes except muddy blacks. I would try some tests with an ultracon filter if you'll be shooting in some uncontrollable lighting situations (outdoor, high contrast stuff).

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I believe you are right on the 480p David, but I figure 19" monitor might be at least a little easier to see on -v- my little 5" 'er.

And yep, elliot, I'm going to make sure editorial gets ProRes files; though still unsure If I should go Pro Res or ProResHQs. Any thoughts? I feel the ProRes might be ok enough for the Canon -v- the HQ qhich I don't see as getting me much of anything.

I certainly won't be "wonking" with the on-camera image adjustments, aside from some ASA (there is some run and gun night stuff on train platforms, so I might aim for ISO640... If memory serves it's the non "00" ASA, such as 160/320/640 which work best on the 5d? or do I have that reversed?) and white balance.

I'll look into the Lo-Con and I have a few ND Grads for day exts. Speaking of, how bad does IR get with NDs on the 5d? Should i put in for a NDIR Tiffen or two. I don't plan on going much about ND1.2 if needed, though I normally work around a .9 at most.

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So yes, any tips, tricks, and advice would be wonderful. Oh, also I'l be bringing out a rinky-dink little monitor (SD) for running 'round, and also a 19" 1080p monitor for more controlled situations to find some focus.

 

I've shot both the 5d and 7d with varying results. You need to take your time with these systems as focus is the biggest issue, at least it was for me! In "live view" there is only sd output so actually judging the image I found very frustrating at the start.

 

I've now shot with the 7d 4 times and of course the more you shoot the better you understand how to get the best results.

 

Don't be pushed into increasing ISO for the sake of time, use it like you would film stock and I find you get the best results.

 

I also used the Zacuto system and it's ok but I found the Zfinder very poor.

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I believe you are right on the 480p David, but I figure 19" monitor might be at least a little easier to see on -v- my little 5" 'er.

And yep, elliot, I'm going to make sure editorial gets ProRes files; though still unsure If I should go Pro Res or ProResHQs. Any thoughts? I feel the ProRes might be ok enough for the Canon -v- the HQ qhich I don't see as getting me much of anything.

I certainly won't be "wonking" with the on-camera image adjustments, aside from some ASA (there is some run and gun night stuff on train platforms, so I might aim for ISO640... If memory serves it's the non "00" ASA, such as 160/320/640 which work best on the 5d? or do I have that reversed?) and white balance.

I'll look into the Lo-Con and I have a few ND Grads for day exts. Speaking of, how bad does IR get with NDs on the 5d? Should i put in for a NDIR Tiffen or two. I don't plan on going much about ND1.2 if needed, though I normally work around a .9 at most.

 

I never noticed any IR problems with ND's on set and have had no negative feedback from colourists or editors.

A colour meter would be very handy Adrian if you have one. you can just dial it in!

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hi

 

the 5d output 1080p and when you push record it's drop to 480p (which the 7d doesn't it stays at 1080p)

 

you can use z-finder only if you are not using external monitors because when you do the screen go's black!

 

i am SUPER highly recommend you to work with manual focus lenses like the zeiss zf or the best if you can put your hand on a set of compact prime with EF mount

there are the best to Handel focus pulling

the canon are very fast but

1- almost impossible to pull focus with(very very small travel)

2- don't have start/ stop they will turn and turn and turn

 

also it's not recommend with this full sensor to work with such small f/stop because keep the object in focus will be impossible or possible only if it's total still

 

as for picture style i am not recommending going with the flat setup it make the skin tone ugly and flat and very hard to fix in post

i work with natural, sharpness-4 contrast-4 saturation -2 and colorshift 0

this will give you good ground to work with

i recommend you to work all the time with histogram and keep eye on the high lights

look at it like a riversal stock

 

as for post

the better codc you transfer it the better it will look

if you work with FCP try also this decoder http://rarevision.com/5dtorgb/ it's free

 

good luck

ram

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very nice thing is if you have a laptop with the canon eos utility you can control the cam from far

include all parameters and start stop

and when you connect it with the usb the camera screen stays on which is very nice

there is a very small delay but for reference it will work fine

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Yeah, you are right - 160s/320s etc. are the cleanest.

Make sure you have a heavy tripod with a good good head! Just wrapped a two-day doc shoot on capoeira - a lot of people dancing/fighting in rooms with wooden floors. And lightweight tripods supplied by the production did not help - as the camera is so light - the whole thing was shaking, especially on longer lenses.

 

Also, for a "safe" focus would suggest shooting 5.6 minimum on 5D with Canon glass - judging focus off a small monitor is hard.

19'' will help, I guess.

And double-check the gear/gear ring sizes so they fit the chosen lenses - had a problem where the focus ring did not fit 28-105 zoom.

 

Good luck!

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Thanks Ram. I know about the issues with stop, I'd like to keep it round a 4/5.6 a opposed to a 2 or 2.8! As far as I know we'll be on all manual lenses. I'd love compact primes; but I'm not sure if there's budget for that-- pitty too as I really love Zeiss glass!

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canon lenses are not consider manual focus lenses this why they have a very short travel and no start/stop

 

the zeiss zf are full manual still lenses so they have something like 200 degree of travel and the compact prime have 300 degree

 

if you plane to go with 4/5.6 why not work with 7D?

 

it's more like 35mm and has 1080p out even when you push rec and has vari speed option

 

or even the d1 mark 4 which is the "prince of darkness"

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I would go with the 7D, but alas this is what production has told me we're using. It has a lot to do with the house owning the 5D proper, as opposed to the 7 which I'd rather go with as I'm a lot more familiat with that size DoF. If anything should be interesting. I also don't want to go about a 5.6 too much else run the risk of breaking the compression with all the detail resolving.

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i work with natural, sharpness-4 contrast-4 saturation -2 and colorshift 0

Seconded. Use natural or - what's it called - faithful? The default setup is absolutely hideous, with clipped whites all over the place. What Mr Shani is recommending is one of a number of ways to avoid this without it becoming too flat and pasty. I share his disdain for all this "super flat" stuff. It isn't an F35 and it does not output S-log (and given how often I see s-log mishandled, that may be a good thing...).

I will also second the recommendation to look at other cameras. People blast on about the 5D and super-short depth of field without actually having shot anything on it. Focus pulling is murder. Let me say that again, because I really mean it: focus pulling is murder on a full-frame 35 sensor.

P

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Oh it's pretty tiny! We made due with the Canon lenses for this day, and my 1AC did a good job keeping things sharp, with a few buzzes, quickly remedied, but it's certainly a camera which screams for CP lenses, which thankfully I'm told I'll have for other days.

I didn't use any of my charts for DoF, but rather a calculator for my droid phone, which got pretty close to the results, for those wondering.

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Dom, it's luck, planning, luck, marking, and a good follow focus. Also, I think that a lot of people got used to stills lenses from the DoF Adapters. Also, I had geared rings on the lenses to a chroziel follow focus, which worked pretty ok. We had a hodge podged rails system set up, from a Brevis adapter, which got my MB on the camera (precariously!) as well as the follow focus unit and was pretty sturdy, pared with a solid 50D head/tripod combo we had a steady enough base and camera position that I feel it helped me hit my moves, and in turn, the puller hit her marks. How she did it, I don't know, but she did. Thankfully too, A lot of the shots on this night were proscenium based, little motion in the frame to follow with, so we got lucky for that. Later on we'll have more movement, and as mentioned the compact primes, one hopes.

You know, the worst part of the canon glass was that the ft marker was dark green on the lens! Forget about seeing where the lens is actually hitting unless you have a flashlight on it! Also, when the camera turns off, because the lenses have no hard stops on it's focus ring, it would spin and spin and of course, tied to the follow focus, screw up the marks. So, I learned that fast and made sure once the camera was off, no one touched the damned lens.

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