First efforts with a C100 (ho ho ho...)

[Ben Giles]

Here goes.

There's one interview with an American guy in the middle, shot separately by our assistant on a JVC HM600, with the highlights completely shot to smithereens, for which he was given several whithering looks and wasn't talked to for a few minutes. But the rest are my first numpty efforts with the C100, which arrived on the Monday and we hit the ground running two days later.

Lenses - most stuff on the 24-105/4 and 70-200/2.8, with bits and bobs with on the Tokina 11-16/2.8.

All shot in a hurry over a 3 day period - and I scraped the barrel for cutaways, as we just didn't shoot enough - or what we did shoot then wasn't relevant, as the focus of the script in the edit took various sharp turns, with the whiff of burning rubber... always the issue...

Have a laugh at my expense at the interview with the older lady, on which I used an old Nikkor 50/1.4. I was trying to be clever with razor-sharp minimal DOF. Which, as anyone who is actually clever, will know is not clever at all. Well at least one of her eyes is in focus. I'll leave that lens behind next time. Ahem...

I'm not offering this as any kind of "portfolio" piece. In fact, I feel a bit of a dick - but, hey, others put their efforts out there for discussion and I'm on a steep learning curve with camera work, having escaped the confines of 25 years in the cutting room... this is much more fun.

Thanks to everyone so far for the lens and camera buying advice.

Ben.

Lancashire Superfast Broadband promo May 2013 on Vimeo

[Drew Curran]

I lol-ed a lot at your report. Apart from the shame of the blown highlights ;) I thought it was excellent. The detail and sharpeness are staggering. What profile did you use?

I can't wait to get my hands on the c100. Not yours of course!

[Tim Bakland]

I'm starting to REALLY love the Cine Log (on the topic of watching out for blown highlights). What great latitude it gives you.

[Ben Giles]

Yes, the blown highlights were from a different camera - and purely down to operator error.

I'm using the WDR profile - I haven't been brave enough to play with C Log yet, as there hasn't been time. But I've seen some nice stuff, so I definitely plan to do some tests and work out the boundaries.

One of the issues we had with this film was the fact that we were effectively still in winter here in the UK at the end of April - driving rain, howling wind and shite light.

Oh, how I envy our American cousins for the quality of light they get - we have such a short window over here and this year has been shocking so far in terms of sunlight.

We're escaping to our bolthole in Virginia and the Carolinas in August - can't wait, it's so f@ckin cold here at the moment.

Ben.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Ben Giles

I used an old Nikkor 50/1.4. I was trying to be clever with razor-sharp minimal DOF. Which, as anyone who is actually clever, will know is not clever at all. Well at least one of her eyes is in focus. I'll leave that lens behind next time. Ahem...

LOL! Yes, there's a huge yawning chasm between the 'Philip Bloom' style of work, with time to build trust and rapport with the interviewees (so you can say 'just hold STILL!') and the world of corporate 'voxpop talking heads' where nobody really wants to contribute, and you have all 15 seconds setup to yank your journo into the right place so the interviewee's looking the right way and whack a mic on them.

And the first fraught shoot with a new camera - I bet there's some tales to tell for all of us. At least you've really taken to shallow DOF like the proverbial duck. And again, sharing your B-Roll pain. How to make something dull look interesting, rinse, repeat. But imagine how that video would look if shot on a Z1 or even a DSR570 a few years ago...