Your GL2 advice at work...a new vid clip

[Robert Pflugfelder]

Hi All,
Although I got my GL2 about 3 weeks ago, I literally did not role tape with it until last weekend. I decided to shoot a colonial period reenactment along Battle Road in Concord, MA USA. I played around with ND filters, polarizer filters, auto/manual focus, exposure, and so on, base on the advice from all of you. My only regret was forgetting my tripod..oh, well.

I threw it together rather quickly into a two and a half minute movie just so I could watch the footage in some kind of format. I wish the battle sequence was longer, but it was difficult getting good footage while shooting around the hundreds of spectators. Overall it was a fun and valuable way to be introduced to the camera.

If you're interested, the address of the clip is: homepage.mac.com/pflug/iMovieTheater1.html

All the best...

Robert

[Ken Tanaka]

That's one fine "first effort"! Good narrative structure, good shot selections and framing, good music selection. I remained interested. Yes, it could use a longer battle sequence and perhaps an after-the-battle tail. But a fine effort, Robert. Bravo!

[Robin Davies-Rollinson]

Very good, Robert.
You may be new to the camera, but your certainly not new to cameras!
You achieved good compositions and some good camera movements when you tracked with the soldiers.
There was a fine pace to the editing - you've obviously got the "feel" for it. It's almost an instinctive thing and not everybody will achieve it.
Well done again.

Robin.

[Richard Lewis]

Looked nice. What stabiliser were you using?

[Robert Pflugfelder]

Hi again,
Thanks for the kind words. It was a great learning environment for shooting and seeing what the GL2 features could do. Richard, the GL2 spend the day on a Steadicam Jr. I didn't use it as a steadicam much, but it was perfect for all the marching shots. It was the first time I had used a steadicam at all, and although there was a big learning curve, I was reall happy with the initial results.
-Robert

[Richard Lewis]

Congrats. For a first time using the junior, it was looking good.

[Miguel Lombana]

Excellent work, I've only been able to view about the first 40% of the clip due to some streaming issues, however excellent work.

Woudl you share with the group the settigng that you used, mode, frame etc.

Miguel

[Graham Bernard]

Superb Robert! You are a natural! Framing and edit all had a sense of pace and drama. Please tell me your setting?

Best regards,

Grazie

[Robert Pflugfelder]

Ah, the settings! I think I went through just about every setting the camera had. Since it was the first time using the camera, I spent the day just playing around with settings. Unfortunately, I also lost track of which settings I used when.

There was a circular polarizer on the entire shoot and the neutral density filter was in and out. All of the shots in the colonial life section were generally in auto (not green box) The soldiers (not redcoats) marching and preping for battle was shot using Barry Goyette's suggested presets (-1 sharpness, +1 color gain, +1 setup) They seemed a little "hot" to me and I will need to take another look. All of the battle footage was shot in Frame mode. I like the look. I also made some comparison shots for myself (a woman spinning yarn on a wheel in both frame mode and standard mode to compare) Perhpas I can post them.

Believe it or not, I did not adjust exposure at all becuase I never found the exposure adjustment wheel while shooting. I later found it at home - that thing is well hidden. While recorded sound wasn't a big part of my posted edit, I switched between the camera mic and a Sennheiser MKE300 that I borrowed. (The sennheiser wins big time)

If I remember any other specific settings, I'll post them. I hope that helps a little.

-Robert

[Graham Bernard]

Thanks Robert! You are THE Man! I believe there IS a way to show some of the settings from what you've filmed after the event . . don't know how "deep" it ges, but I understand well worth the trouble. Did you do any colour correction in post? - I don't think you mentioned this - yeah?

Great stuff . . I'm really considering a type of stabilzer for my own work . . sometmes having a tripod just gets .. in the way?

So . . .what next? Re-inactments of . . . Bull Run? D-Day Landings? The Greeks siege of Troy? The great Battles of Klingons and the Federation? . .. . .

Grazie

[Miguel Lombana]

It's actually very easy, play your video and open the viewfinder, there is only 1 button on the inside of the compartment, press it and all settings as recorded are revealed. If the camera was at F8 and 1/60th it will tell you, I use it to guage what my cam is doing for night shots, I about freaked the other night when I shot some stuff and found it to be all grainy, the gain shot up to 18, killed my shot.

[Alan McCormick]

Miguel,

I bet you were in Auto exposure, bad move.

[Miguel Lombana]

I was shooting in auto mode (not green mode) and typically shoot with the exposure lock at my fingertips the view was looking great in the viewfinder and my 35w light was at about 20 watts so there was ample, however the sucker fooled me! I just haven't had much time to shoot at night since I got my gear and this time I lost the battle, just wish it wasn't the bringing home from the hospital of my new little one ... either way, it's watchable just grainy.

[Alan McCormick]

very true, better than nothing.
Good luck with the sleepless night ahead, at least you can do some editing etc ;)

[Clint Newman]

Looks good!

Well done