Canon HV series -- various sample clips

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

I completely re-cut and re-graded the video because the original was hopeless... For the footage I have, I think I did a better job this time.

[Peter Szilveszter]

Hi everyone

I couldn't help taking the camera for our Christmas do's and I put a clip together, all shot on HV20 and RNG35 adapter, this is my record for editing/grading speed clocked just under 3 hours.

Christmas Eve To Day on Vimeo

[Ken Diewert]

Hey Peter,

I noticed that you had this setup. I was watching on the RNG35 vimeo group.

I've just bought an hv20 to back-up my XLh1 and wanted to ask a couple of questions if you're keeping track of this thread. The footage is stunning btw. I've been looking into a 35mm adapter system and don't want to have a complex full time set-up.
How do you support the weight of your system, do you just hold the rig by the barrel of the adapter?
What do you do when it sits on a tripod?
can the same RNG unit be easily adapted adapted for a larger camera(A1 or H1)?
I saw a note somewhere that you had a brevis as well - how do they compare?

I'm sure I have more footage but that will get me started.

Thanks in advance

[Ken Diewert]

OK, I just read another post where you mentioned that you use the brevis flip with the rng.Another question was how are you monitoring? with the stock LCD monitor?

[Peter Szilveszter]

I use stock LCD and have the peaking function going (h1 should have it as well). As far as bigger camera I have only gone as far as the A1 which is not issue at all. (watch Samantha and Emir STD was shot on A1/RNG) I have rail support with the shoulder mount and the pistol grip attachment and it works quiet well all Cavision product. I have also ordered a steadystick to help the shot steadiness.

I am not sure with the H1 if you can get adapters that work with removing the h1 stock lens, maybe have a search in Alternative imaging Method section to see if how it works with the H1, as I remember vaguely that one of the adapter companies like Redrock have something for doing it like that (could be wrong). But besides that yo should be able to attach something on the normal lens, it would just make it extra long :P

[Ken Diewert]

Thanks Peter,

I'm thinking about just rigging one or the other with an adapter I think the hv20 may be simpler/cheaper - if it can be modded to fit the h1, that's a bonus. I know a lot of guys think the hd monitor is a necessity, but if you can get by with the stock lcd and peaking, it saves a lot of extra hassle (power supply, weight, cost).

I saw one of your mates down under had an adapter on his hv30 (i think). It looked pretty well suited to run n gun.

[Peter Szilveszter]

Originally Posted by Ken Diewert

Thanks Peter,

I'm thinking about just rigging one or the other with an adapter I think the hv20 may be simpler/cheaper - if it can be modded to fit the h1, that's a bonus. I know a lot of guys think the hd monitor is a necessity, but if you can get by with the stock lcd and peaking, it saves a lot of extra hassle (power supply, weight, cost).

I saw one of your mates down under had an adapter on his hv30 (i think). It looked pretty well suited to run n gun.

I think the monitor is great if you are shooting a a film/music clip etc where every shot can be set up as best as possible but run and gun its just too much hastle. Not all my shots are perfectly in focus but I think that's more to do with shooting real time so running out of time to get it perfect then anything else.

Yeah hv30/Adapter is a very good, lighter combo, I personally like the A1/Adapter combo as the rig is still fairly light and the achromat I use suits the A1 better then the HV but atm I can't afford to buy another A1.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

A video from our yesterday's visit to Santa Cruz's Beach Boardwalk. Unfortunately, no tripods were allowed, so all shots are either handheld or with the camera sitting on top of a trash can. Came out alright though, I think.
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on Vimeo

[Alain Lumina]

HI,

Thanks for posting your video, It really is lovely and moody. ( I know that's vague, but if we could say it all in words we wouldn't need cinema!)

I'm shopping for a compact. If you even know how to launch Color ,you know more than me!--you may able to help me- one of the things I don't quite get, is how to crush the noise out of the blacks? It is working in some parts of your video but not others.

I see two different situations in your video as examples:

When ( ~00:10) the man ( you?) are sitting with the black net drapes flowing in the breeze (nice poetic use of a small detail from environment)-- to the left of the frame I see some annoying noise, just to the left of where the holes in the drapes are visible.

But then in another shot at about 00:30 there is a large section of black in the frame in which the blacks seem nice and crushed-- really black.

As a film nut obsessed with Noir, I fracking love black, and wonder is some kind of threshold sensing noise reduction in software, besides upping contrast aggressively, which we can use to flatten out those blacks?

Thanks so much again, please don't take this as criticism, I am not near your level yet!

[Gerry Curtis]

Hi Alain,

Glad you liked the video. For starters, here's a slightly updated version on exposure room with an improved sound mix:

Fes Morning in July By Gerry Curtis On ExposureRoom

XR does a much nicer compression, but in both cases, compressing for the web greatly increases the noise in the blacks, and in this case I was more interested in optimizing for HD rather than people's computer monitors.

If I wanted to make this more web friendly I would play with curves and the trick would be to keep detail in the subject, which is also dark, while crushing the blacks. Or I could have put a power window over the left portion and just crushed that down.

Another alternative would be to crush the blacks (master pedestal) in the camera, which is what I did in the church scenes from my (old) demo reel. Since the scenes were nicely exposed I got very clean, noise free blacks with little work in post:

http://digitalkilnstudios.com/DEMOREEL.mov

My best piece of advice would be to just get out and shoot a lot and learn by trial and error! Play with photoshop and whatever NLE system you're working with.

Cheers,
Gerry

[Robert Morane]

Gerry , this is a very good job. I was in Fez few years ago and you have capture the feel of the place..really amazing, I really had tears in my eyes. As a traveler it is extremely inspiring to see this. I can't wait to be on the road to India with my HV30.
I have watch your video Moon over SF, can you tell me the reference for the song you used , I have it in french as Samba Saravah but I like the version you used.
Thank you Man, you made my day!

[Gerry Curtis]

Thanks Robert, I'm really glad you liked it, I spent a lot of time on it. Seeing the flock cross the hills was a very beautiful, tranquil moment for me. Such a great little camera, I have a tiny bit of regret for selling mine. The music from the moon time-lapse is Bebel Gilberto Samba da Bencao from the record Tanto Tempo.

Cheers,
Gerry

[Glenn Thomas]

Blood Brothers is a short film by my wife Lydia that we completed a few weeks ago. It was made for Tropfest, the most popular short film festival here in Australia. Unfortunately it didn't make it in though. I think Tropfest tend to favour comedy style happy movies, so this probably wasn't exactly their cup of tea. That said, another film I shot DID make it into the finals of Tropfest, but I'm not allowed to talk about that one of course. At least until it's been shown.

Blood Brothers was shot entirely in one day including the bluescreen shots (our downstairs living area), 3 external locations, plus the ADR dialogue recording in my little home studio here - because I didn't have a shotgun mic or anyone to do the sound on location. It was all shot on the HV20 with the SG Pro (R3) using Nikon lenses including all the bluescreen shots.

The total budget was less than $70 Australian (roughly $45 US), but about $50 of the budget was spent on lunch at the Thai restaurant up the road and snacks. The rest just paid for the toy gun, police hat and badge I got to use :) Speaking of which, both police are me. I used the deform tool in Vegas to make the one on the right look short and fat.

Pretty much the whole film was put together in Vegas 7. Including all the masking, compositing, chromakeying etc. The titles were done in a cheap Flash animation program called SwishMax and a couple of backgrounds I'd fixed up were done in Photoshop Elements 5.

The movie can be viewed at these locations -

Blood Brothers - A Lydia Kurnia Film By Lydia Kurnia On ExposureRoom (best quality streaming versions + original download)

Blood Brothers - a Sci-Fi short film on Vimeo (HD streaming version is good + original download)

It's a 6 minute film, but for some reason the file size ended up really small. It still looks fine though if you want to download it. I'll eventually upload it to YouTube and a few other sites and will also upload a before and after version sometime soon.

Comments welcome.

Glenn

[Bruce Foreman]

I think it was quite well done. Camera work, blue screen, editing and all.

Also the music helped re-inforce the mood to an amazing degree.

[Glenn Thomas]

Hi Bruce, thanks for having a look!