Ranmore Common in Spring (Surrey Hills Photography)

A couple of photos from a walk around Ranmore Common (near Dorking) in Surrey on the A7S. I'm no photographer so it is interesting getting used to the features and workings of the camera, in comparison to the 5D mark III which I've been using for a few years. I also shot some slow mo (50p) video in camera at 1080 so I'm sure I'll do something with it at some point!

By the way, if you can get out to a wooded area, please do as the bluebells are looking fantastic right now, and won't be around for long!!

I used the Metabones EF-E mk IV and Tamron 24-70mm F/2.8, but as most of the shots were landscape and with the super wonderfully large sensor of the A7S I shot between F/5.6 and F/14 while keeping the ISO low.

I never usually rely on Auto White Balance, setting a custom colour temperature for the lighting and subjects, so it was interesting to see that the camera shifts slightly to the cooler side in the shadows (presuming a darker scene perhaps) even if the natural sunlight is bright and warm. Please correct me if I'm doing something wrong here!

Not a bad try at a cinemagraph/GIF of Golf!

I was 'cadam' (caddie Adam) for a round of golf at Horton Golf Club with Sam, Matt, Louis and Glen. I took some photos on my iPhone of the guys on the first tee in burst mode as I didn't want to take the A7S. Tried the cinemagraph look but is much more like a GIF!

Out filming with the Sony A7S and Atomos Shogun in 4K!

I am still testing out the many brilliant features and benefits of the 4K combo I now have, one biggie was being able to grade the footage much more than what you're able to with internal camera recording.

I headed out to a local country park to catch some of the spring bluebells flowering, as well as to try out the dynamic range of the 4K Prores HQ footage and really push it in the grade.

A couple of photos while I was out and about, lovely day!

I took the Manfrotto 755CX-3 tripod with me as it is brilliantly lightweight, and despite the center column it can get pretty low to the ground for shots needing some perspective.

Still no Movcam cage yet, so I'm pretty nervous about having the Shogun on a ball mount, on the hot shoe, I did take care when moving around and took out the HDMI cable just in case.

I had 3 lenses with me, the Tamron 24-70, Sigma 70-200 and Canon 100mm L as I wanted to have a simple setup, one Manfrotto bag, essential kit, batteries etc.

After watching Philip Bloom's talk hosted by B&H a few months back, I set the camera settings to what he advised and went from there. Using PP7 for S-log increases the native ISO to 3200, so is not practical for bright scenes without ND filters, so here are my settings.

PP6 (allows ISO 200, practical for bright shoots) - Black Level 0, Gamma Cine 4, Color mode S-gamut, Saturation 0, Detail -7.

It was a bright sunny day and the Shogun was the perfect tool for the job. It's screen is very clear, unlike cheaper monitors which don't have a high contrast ratio or use LCD screens. Exposing for the highlights, I used the in-built Waveform monitor to gague exposure as well as the 2:1 crop in for getting critical focus - definitely needed for the wide landscape and macro shots.

You will not be surprised to see the HUGE file size of recording 4K in Prores HQ, averaging at about 2GB for 20 seconds.

View fullsize

It's less than 10 minutes worth of footage, in fact!

I did find this out while I was trying out the different outputs and recording formats.. For the PAL region the A7S has THREE HDMI output settings -

 - 1080 50p, 1080 50i, 4K 25p.

The Shogun will not record 25p footage from the camera when the HDMI output is set to 1080 50p, but you can record 1080 50p slow motion on the Shogun. Remember to set the A7S' recording format to 50p/50, instead of 25p for normal speed filming.

The Shogun will only record 1080 25p footage from the camera when the HDMI output is set to 1080 50i, with a 2:2 frame drop set. Remember to set the A7S' recording format to 25p/50.

You must set the '4K HDMI' setting in the A7S to output the 4K signal, and record in 4K 25p on the Shogun.

As part of the new 4K workflow, I am using Davinci Resolve Lite (FREE) for the colour grading process, but as this is a short video I tried out it's NLE which worked great. Similar look and feel to FCPX, but it gives you the ability to change edit points, manipulate scale, track and much more. It even has a keyer!

First Image - Editing interface, Second Image - Adjusting saturation in Color interface, Third Image - High contrast image BEFORE correction/grade, Fourth Image - High contrast image AFTER correction/grade, Fifth Image - Delivery interface.

Here is the ungraded version, with footage captured on the Shogun.

Here is a work-in-progress edit that is down-ressed to 1080 to upload it to Vimeo, the Youtube version in 4K (remember to change the resolution to 2160) is below!

I look forward to hearing your comments on the  videos I've put up!

Cat-pics from my break today

[gallery type="slideshow" ids="4191,4192,4193,4194,4195,4196"] Taken with the Canon 5D mkIII and Samyang 35mm T/1.5 cine lens and Sigma 70-200mm F/2.8 DG APO HSM telephoto lens while I took some time out from pre-production and drawing for another animation!

WORK

Spring in Surrey

I had a venture out of my workspace today, I'm quite lucky in where I live is surrounded by green. Just down the road there is Horton Country Park, further afield is Epsom Common and The Downs, where you have seen videos and photos from with Glen for Manfrotto. With sunshine beaming, I gathered by camera gear and took a walk into the wild.

Todays kit included the Canon 5DmkIII, Tamron 24-70 F/2.8 VC and Sigma 70-200 F/2.8 OS. I kept it simple for a change!

Here are a couple of photos from my walk, having the chance to take a RAW photo and a JPEG and then edit the CR2's in Photoshop makes me want RAW video so badly. You get lots more wiggle room, or latitude to work with in post processing to enhance the photos, please Magic Lantern help all of us 5DmkIII videographers out and get a stable RAW video release out soon!

[gallery columns="4" ids="4153,4154,4155,4156,4157,4158,4159,4160"]

Got your to do list?

I have. It is quite long too, and all the things on the 'to do' list have to be done before I start the next video production... Daunting! Easter holiday weekend as a lovely one, with warm sunshine glowing over the Surrey countryside I ventured into the great outdoors to Leith Hill for a day of walking and geo-caching . Of course, the camera came with me to capture the happenings.

(Photos copyright Adam Plowden 2014)

I am finalizing the details of the Recycling video for my council, on Friday I'm recording the voice over, the last component needed for me to complete the video! It has been a long project, but definitely worth the hard work animating. On Monday I went into Epsom with John from JHWF to film the ending shot from the DJI Phantom drone and the GoPro Hero 2. I decided to use an aerial shot as the last one, as this reinforces the community aspect of recycling to benefit our local area, as well as seeing all of the green land that surrounds Epsom.

Photo copyright Adam Plowden 2014.

I am getting a plan together for the new Manfrotto School of Excellence video series I'm going to produce, so please send over any questions on equipment, techniques, settings, videography or DSLR that I will answer in the video series on getting started with video.