Pro video blog…Produced by Philip Johnston DoP/Editor

The Rig v2

Next week will be very interesting indeed as I am the DoP for a small film to be shot near Pitlochry, thats as much as I can tell you but I have permission to blog about the technical side of this shoot depending on a Wi-Fi connection and having the time and energy to do it.

look down

I initially bought a Metabones speed booster but Production Gear told me that certain people were having problems using the Speed Booster with the Sony FS7 so they steered me towards the Metabones EF to E mount adapter. My Director, Rory asked me if there was anything we should hire for the shoot and since its in glorious 4K, I leaped at the chance of Canon 4K EF primes

Lens box

As you can see above 6 cracking Canon 4K primes hired from ProCam who have an office in Glasgow, we also ordered 2 Rotolight Anova LED lights as well as a ton of grip and lighting accessories.

Cambo

I also have my trusty Cambo pull focus with end stops, this works a dream with proper cine lenses.

RED REC button

My faithful RED REC button will be very useful and stops false shots or missed shots.

Small HD 502

On the back of the FS7 will be my Small HD 502 full HD monitor though the picture is down-converted from 4K 25p to HD for monitoring purposes. My faithful Sony 9″ 740 will also come in handy for the director to view.

Scene 1

On Wednesday I took a trip with Rory, to recce the site high in the hills of Pitlochry. Its very exciting producing a feature with actors, crew and catering laid on, I can’t show you any rushes for copyright reasons but we will be documenting behind the scenes for you as we go along. Meantime why don’t you watch Canons explanation behind their superb 4K glass.

author

Having been working in the video business since 1988 I have amassed a great amount of knowledge of both the kit and production values over the last 30 years.

5 thoughts on “The Rig for my 7 day shoot next week

  1. Best wishes. Thank you for your post.

    HDW : Thank you…its exciting.

  2. I just shot a short movie with the FS7 with a Canon Cine Zoom 30-105 T2.8 (plus a set of Rokinon primes, which can match the canons pretty well) and was pretty pleased the results. I did like the camera so much that I am probably going to get one soon (I am currently selling my trusted C300). I did use the Canon primes on the Red Epic Dragon for a shoot last september (at that time, they were the only primes available for me to rent that could cover the whole 6K sensor) but I must say I was pretty let down by them: most notably, there were some nasty chromatic aberrations (I was shooting a bunch of supercars from the likes of Ferrari and the lenses where erring on the highlights of the red bodies) and
    I did notice that the sharpness was even through the whole kit (most notably, the 85mm turned out to be damn soft). The Rokinon VDSLR lenses (which I had as a last-resort backup for the darkest shots – since most of them can go full wide at T1.5) did produce better results, despite being much cheaper. I am a huge fan of Canon Cine Zooms (they are just as good as the Angenieux Optimos if you ask me), but I do believe they didn’t do their homework properly when it comes to primes. The fact that each of them costs about 1500 euros (sorry, I am from Italy and that’s the currency I am used to refer to) less than the Zeiss CPs, which are supposed to be their direct competitor, leads me to believe they overlooked some features in order to cheapen them…ok, this comment is way to lenghty…and, eventually, while glass is very important, is not the axis of a movie, even on a visual level. I wish you good luck on your shoot.

  3. Congratulations! Sounds like an interesting gig. Hope we get to see the end result one day.

  4. It would be far more practical to rent Angenioeux 16-42 and 30-80.

    HDW : Not if you need a wide shot the 14mm (21mm Super 35mm 1.5x crop) is far more practical for a shoot like this.

  5. I am sure you know Angie makes 0.75 Practical Wide adapter for their 16-42 zoom lens, this makes it in s35 about 18mm.

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