canon Archive

Time Lapse Notes

Being inspired by folks like Tom Lowe of Timescapes fame and Preston Kanak of, well, time lapse fame, I decided to venture into the world of time lapse cinematography. OK, I’ll admit it, I thought to myself, “You just point your camera at something for a long time, take lots of pictures of that something, throw it into After Effect (I’m an Adobe editor) and create a time lapse video that is the envy of my peers and friends. How hard can this be?” I like to call thoughts like these the A++++ moment, like the classroom scene from the movie “A Christmas Story.” You know, the scene where Ralphie is surrounded in the school room by his peers, hoisted onto their shoulders and paraded around the room like a victorious Roman conqueror coming back from battles in Gaul. (sound of needle being passed very quickly over an LP — scr-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ch) Reality breaks in.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this is the spirit of Phillip Bloom and his recent tongue-in-cheek blog post about shooting video, making all kinds of money and becoming instantly famous. So, if your naive as I was/am and think that time lapse is one of those “easy” disciplines, stop thinking that way. Time lapse takes alot of thought about your subject matter, your equipment, the process (production and post) and a willingness to spend lots of time alone in locations that most folks don’t want to go (mosquito infestations, mud, cold, and the list goes on). Let me share some of my experiences so far (I’m still very, very, very new to time lapse so I’m speaking from a novice’s standpoint) and maybe save you some pain.

Location:

Not all of us live in or have the opportunity to photograph in beautiful locations like Alaska, the Florida Keys, Northern California and the like. I live in Central West Texas. There is not a great deal of raw beauty in our landscapes. This area is often described by those of us who live here as flat and dry. Appropriate. Wherever you are or live, start out small and don’t get caught up in the grandeur of a location or event. You will be spending most of your time working through the technology and process in the beginning. Take a time lapse in your back yard of the sun setting over the house. Take a time lapse in your back yard of the sun coming up. Shoot a time lapse of cars passing up and down your street. Initially, you are trying to get your process down. You are not trying to make a time lapse that will be the envy of the world.

OK, I admit that every once in a while some child prodigy comes along and just nails it from the start and has this really great location and does, in fact, become the envy of his/her peers. But that is a rare, rare exception. Most of us will get there with hard work. Once you get your process figured out, then plan on reaching out beyond your immediate location. All that said, if Tom or Preston call you up today and ask you to go on a gig with them, do it, of course. But, since that seldom happens to anyone other than people they already work with and know, start where you are. Every place, even a place as flat and dry and Central West Texas, has things of beauty. Focus on these and you will stay motivated. For me and my location, it is the sunsets. They are nothing short of spectacular. So for now, I’m focusing on that until I have the chance to branch out.

Time:

The short of it is that this process takes time … and lots of it. On location, you have to be the kind of person that can sit, stand or lay for hours at a time. I suppose if you are in the right location you can just go to sleep and let the camera do its thing. For me and what I’ve shot thus far, I take along a chair, something to read and my iPhone loaded up with my favorite tunes. The Forrest Gump soundtrack kept me entertained the other day while I was out shooting. Take all of these items along with something to drink and something to snack on. Sun block and mosquito spray may come in handy as well.

I shot an image every 2 seconds, which is just about as my 5DM2 could process and write the raw files I was capturing. Also, I was using a 32GB card and it filled up about every 30 minutes. In a couple of places in the video, there is a noticeable jump in the video because I had to stop recording to switch cards every 30 minutes or so. Once the new card was in the camera and capturing images, I would off load the images on the previous card to my laptop, getting that card ready for the next set of images. I need to figure out a way to deal with this issue. The easiest way, I think, is to allow more time between images so that the 10 seconds needed for the switch out doesn’t show up as well. But, I may not always have the time between shots. Any ideas?

Once you get your images captured, get ready for alot more waiting on the editing process. I went out the other day and shot over 4600 RAW images on my Canon 5DM2. You have to offload those images onto a drive somewhere. I’m still working on my process but in this latest instance, I used Adobe Lightroom to edit and grade the final images. Adobe Bridge works well with its Camera Raw editor but I just feel more comfortable in Lightroom these days. There are other options out there as well. The primary thing you need to accomplish at this phase of the project is to edit at least one image in your set of images to get the look and feel you want for the images in your final sequence. As you can see from the example in this post, I tended to push the colors beyond what is natural because that is just what I like. You might like something more natural and that is fine. The artist in your will tell you where you want to land. There is no right or wrong decision here … unless someone else is paying you to do the work and then you have to do it the way they want it done.

Once you have graded out a single image, you will need to apply those same settings to all the images you captured. In Adobe Lightroom (Adobe Bridge as well) you copy and paste the effects from this one image to all the other images in your set. For my purposes, this involved pasting the effects I had chosen to 4611 other images. That takes awhile. The good news: I was at home, could start that process and go do something else. This can take several hours to complete. Once the effects are applied, go to the first image in the set, hold down your right-arrow key and fly through all or a part of the pictures. You will get a sense of what you final time lapse video will look like. Initially, go fast to get a feel for the final product. But, then, as much as you can bare, go more slowly and look for anomalies in your images that make the time lapse look funny. This might include a bird or an insect that end up in front of the lens for one frame. There might be something else that causes a disruption in the flow of your video. You will want to take these out if you can. Be careful about taking out too many of these because they will cause a jump in your video. Ultimately, your hope for this video is that people will watch, enjoy it and will get lost in the flow of what you shot. One or a few jarring shots can ruin that effect.

Once all the images are graded and the evil ones deleted, you then export those images out of your photo editing software. These final images are the ones that will make up your time lapse sequence. By the way, be sure and rename all of your images as you export them (or before if that is how your software works). AE in particular and I suspect most software packages that you will use to create the sequence will want sequentially numbered images and only sequentially numbered sequences. If you have numbers that are skipped or missed in the filenames, then AE will bark at you. I won’t go into specifics about what to do in AE or another piece of software here. There are plenty of places that can teach you how to import photos as streams and create a composition (AE term) in that software. Once it is all in place and to your liking, you are ready to create the sequence that you will import into your NLE of choice. Once more, give yourself plenty of time for this step. My current project that is 2 minutes and 20 seconds in duration is taking almost 2 and 1/2 hours to render. I’m running on a 2011 Macbook Pro and suspect there are faster boxes out there to do this rendering work. There are also slower boxes. Just give yourself plenty of time while this is happening or do as I am doing, write a blog about your own experiences!

THE DREADED FLICKER!

Interruption here. When you shoot time lapse images with a modern DLSR, you will undoubtedly end up with flicker in your sequence. I’ve been working with my sequence to find the best way to reduce flicker. I tried the Color Stabilizer in After Effects and was able to remove flicker from some of the areas of my sequence but not all. I finally opted to purchase the GBDeflicker plug-in for AE and am very pleased with the results. Just taking a few defaults allowed me to clean up just about all the flicker in my video and get to the web. I suspect over time I will look more closely at the various options one can use in GBDeflicker and see if my time lapse videos are even cleaner.

Back to the main idea …

Equipment:

This is a big area to cover and I won’t say much other than what I have already said here … start small. Tom Lowe, Preston Kanak and others have lots of really sophisticated equipment to do their time lapse work and it shows. I have some of the equipment these guys have. I have a Kessler Pocket Dolly, a Oracle Controller (haven’t bought the camera controller yet), sticks and lots of other peripherals to make really cool stuff happen in my time lapse videos. But, I’m starting with what I can handle. I’m putting the camera on a pair of sticks and shooting static time lapse images (if that is the right term). There is enough to learn about the shot, the camera settings, the post product steps and all the rest of goes into this process without having to think about moving the camera during the shoot and all that entails. That will come for me, no doubt, but having the camera on a stationary tripod is enough for now. Again, start small and work your way into the more advanced stuff.

Conclusion:

In the end, we all have a little bit of Ralphie in us. I know I do. Ya, I daydream about being carried around a room by my peers. I dream of creating that video that goes viral because its just that good (and not because its something along the line of “stupid people doing stupid things”). At one level, that is what motivates us. And that is OK. But, we all need to do as the good book tells us, count the cost of our decisions, know what we’re getting ourselves into and stay the course. The truth is, I don’t know how many time lapse videos I will do in my life. I hope some more because I think they are a great way to set the location for whatever you are shooting. But, they do take time … and patience … and decent equipment … and passion … and time (ya, I said that twice). If handled well, the results can be astonishing.

Here is the video. I hope you enjoy it.

Neat Video Plugin and MacOS Mountain Lion

I’ve noticed and verified an issue with the Neat Video plugin and Apple’s MacOS, Mountain Lion. When the Neat Video effect is applied to a clip or a series of clips in a sequence, the render and export times increase dramatically. In my current project that I am using the plugin with, I have two videos shot as a multicam sequence (2 cameras) of a speech that was shot with a HDV format camera (the Canon XHA1 to be exact). The lighting in the room wasn’t the best so I had to gain the camera up by +3db during the shoot. Thus, a little noise was introduced.

I’ve used the Neat Video plugin in the past with both the XHA1 and my 5DM2 when I had noise in the clips so I’m not new to the effect and have found it helpful. This time, however, I noticed my render times for one of the sequences was much longer than I expected. One of the sequences was rendered and exported not using the plugin and I saw nothing out of the ordinary. When I applied the effect to the second video, render and export times were very long. At first, I thought it was just me but, being curious, I started looking around. My first search was on Apples site because I wondered if I was having hardware issues or if the format of the disk needed to be changed with Mountain Lion. I didn’t turn up much there. I then wondered if the Neat Video plugin was the culprit because it was the one difference between the two videos. I went to the Neat Video forum (http://neatvideo.com) and discovered that other users were experiencing slowness issues with the plugin. After reading a few of the posts, I wondered how the render would go if I removed that effect. With a sequence of 48 minutes and some color grading in the clips, the render time was approaching 15 hours and the last render took 18 hours. Yuck. After removing the effect, my render times dropped to 3 hours. I’ll post an update here on the export times once I get that step completed.

I’ll continue to test and put additional information on this post. For now, if you use the Neat Video plugin, which I still thinks a great tool, be aware that this issue exists for MacOS Mountain Lion computers for both Premiere Pro and FCPX users.

More to come.

BlackMagic Cinema Camera – Why I Won’t Own One … Anytime Soon

This is a dangerous post to put on my blog because I have never touched a BlackMagic Cinema Camera, have not shot with one and probably won’t for some time, if at all. And, its too bad because there are some things that I find exciting about the BMCC such as the 2.5K res and the dynamic range it offers. I’d guess the need for a camera with such a broad dynamic range is obvious but for those of you that are unfamiliar with the term it simply means how much of the bright light can I capture and not lose the detail in that area of a scene as well as how much of the dark light or shadows I can capture without that area of the scene looking black. This range from the high or bright end to the low of dark end is the dynamic range of a camera. Well, that’s how I explain it to myself anyhow. The BMCC is already well noted for its dynamic range so its gets an “A” for that feature. I’m also interested in the 2.5K resolution the camera provides because its looks nicer and I sometimes find a need to enlarge a clip as a means to cut out background or bring the subject more to the front of the screen and that extra resolution would give me more ability to do that in post. Yes, I know I should get the shot I want in the field but I haven’t always been able to do that. When you shoot documentary, you sometimes take what you can get a deal with it in post. There is also the price of less then $3K, which is incredible for the what the camera offers.

But this is an article on why I won’t own the BMCC anytime soon. And here are my reasons.

The sensor is not as large as I would like but that is a fairly small issue based on the results the camera is giving those that are using it already. But, the distance between the lens and the sensor is shorter than I had hoped. This makes wide shots harder to get or requires a significantly wider lens than you would normally use to account for the lens to sensor distance. Lenses are, after all, quite expensive and I’m usually shooting for little or nothing. So, I need a camera that allows me to take advantage of the lenses I already have and I don’t need one that is going to hobble what I already own.

The lack of XLR inputs for audio is a concern for me. I have two primary sources of capturing audio when I shoot. One if a lab/wireless system. The other is a shotgun mic. They both have XLR connections. Yes, I could go buy something with a 1/4″ jack but that is just one more piece to put up with and to pay for.

And, as much as I stated earlier how exciting it is to shoot with a 2.5K resolution, especially when the file are RAW format, that means lots more diskspace and more power to process. And the fact that almost everything I do ends up on the web or DVD, I have to question whether there is enough gain to justify the pain.

So, for now I will not buy the BMCC and probably won’t anytime soon. I love the entry price but concerns stated above will keep me from making the leap anytime soon. As stated earlier, I shoot documentaries and I’m often working alone. Having to bring extra equipment to make it work or having to buy more stuff just for one camera is not a good idea for me. By the way, I’ve really struggled with HDSLR shooting (I own and shoot with the 5dM2) recently for many of the same reasons I won’t buy the BMCC. On my last four projects I’ve dropped back to the Canon XH-A1 (Ya, that’s HDV — YUCK!) but in the field the camera just works. In the end, that is all this business is about, getting a story that you can share with others: clients, friends, the world.

Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: Here is a link to an article by One River Media on the BMCC. Their research really showcases one of the better aspects of the camera, its 2K raw format and what that brings to the equation. I’m still trying to figure out if this is a good path for me or not. Certainly, this article increases my interest in the camera. http://www.onerivermedia.com/blog/?p=750.

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM and Borrowlenses.com

For a recent family vacation to our favorite spot in the world, the Big Bend area of west Texas, I rented Canon’s EF 16-35mm f2.8L II USM lens from Borrowlenses.com. I decided to rent the lens because it is a relatively inexpensive way to try out a lens. The lens costs around $1600 new from B&H (bhphotovideo.com) and that is too much money to lay out for a lens I’ve never used. Even though the borrowlenses.com option wasn’t chicken feed at just over $200 for the lens, a variable ND filter and insurance (I consider the insurance a must when you are back-packing across rugged terrain, as was my case) on a 10-day rental but it makes more sense than dropping $1600 to find out the lens was not what you needed after all.

For context, I own the Canon 24-105mm f/4 L USM (the kit lens that came with the 5D MII when I bought it), a Canon nifty-fifty and the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 II USM lenses as well. I have found on a number of shoots for both video and photos that the 24-105mm didn’t quite give me all the field of view I was looking for. In each case it was a situation that if I only had a few more degrees on a lens then I could have what I needed. I also wanted to go fairly wide on the photos (didn’t shoot any video on this trip) because I knew I would be shooting primarily panoramas, nature and images like that. So, knowing what I was trying to shoot, I knew I wanted to have a fairly wide angle on a lens. I asked a few friends of mine that have more experience with different lenses, explaining to them what I wanted to shoot and the 16-35mm lens came up more than once in the conversations. I was also intrigued by the specifications of the lens on borrownleses.com that this new version of the lens “improves on its predecessor with more sharpness at the edges and corners which is most evident on a full-frame camera.” This seemed to fit well with the body I use for photos (and most of my video work as well), Canon’s 5D Mark II, which is a full-frame camera, as you probably know.

I ordered the lens for a delivery date of 6/8/2012, knowing that was the last FedEx delivery date at case mia before I left for my trip. It made me nervous to wait on the lens because I worried it would not arrive in time and that I would be on my trip while the lens sat in some FedEx office and the $200+ I spent renting it would be lost. To their credit, the folks at borrowlenses.com got the lens to me just when they said they would (along with the vari-nd filter) and I was set for my trip to the Big Bend.

I took along my other lenses but honestly was so pleased with the way the 16-35mm performed that I found myself not even taking the 70-200 or the 24-105 along on hikes. Admittedly, there were a few times when I was out with my 5DMII and the 16-35 and wished I had a little more reach (in one instance there was a huge, beautiful, black butterfly on some flowers over my head and I wasn’t able to get close enough with the 16-35) but I was able to compensate for the lack of reach by moving closer to the subject and most of the time found the wide angle of the lens allowed me to be more creative with some of the images. But again, many of the images were panorama’s or shots that required a wider lens so things worked out perfectly.

While I don’t consider myself any sort of “lens expert,” I was pleased with the quality of the images (even on the edges) and found the movement of the lens to be quiet, accurate and superb. I was pleased to see how close I was able to get to some of the objects (I was maybe 12 inches away from this wagon when I took this shot) before taking the picture with the lens cranked down to 16mm. This allowed me to be more creative with some of the shots.

Conclusion: I’m really pleased with the performance of Canon’s EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM lens. I’ll probably rent the lens again when I think its needed on a photo or video shoot. The $1600 price tag to purchase the lens is still a bunch of money. Anymore than one more rental and I’ll probably make the leap and purchase the lens. The good news: I’ll have confidence in the folks at borrownlenses.com’s ability to deliver the lens when needed.

Canon Firmware Update for Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Canon has released a firmware update for the EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR camera.

Affected Product
EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR

Firmware 
Firmware version 2.1.1 incorporates the following fixes and improvements.

Fixes a phenomenon where shooting stops after capturing one image when in continuous shooting or the Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) continuous shooting setting.
Corrects wording in the Dutch language menu screen.
The new Firmware Version 2.1.1 can be downloaded by clicking here.

Firmware Version 2.1.1 is for cameras with firmware up to Version 2.0.9. If the camera’s firmware is already Version 2.1.1, it is not necesary to update the firmware.

Gear Wars

A couple of nights ago, Phillip Bloom and Eric Kessler spent an hour on a video cast with Mitch on his Planet5D website. I wasn’t able to watch the video cast and I haven’t been able to watch the podcast of the interview yet. Later, @PhillipBloom related on his twitter account some good advice for those of us that are considering purchasing new gear: “Buying fancy gear won’t suddenly make your films amazing.” The implication is that there’s nothing wrong with new gear but to make great film takes practice, time and patience.

I try to keep that idea in my mind when I’m looking at a gear website or considering buying something new. I mean after all, I do like my toys. I have an iPhone4 but can’t wait for the release of the next iPhone. I’m in the process right now of convincing my wife of the virtues of the iPhone4 so I can use her credit to get myself the iPhone5. I have a maxed out iPad2 (3G and 64GB model). Why? Well, heck. Why not. I have a Mac editing computer with FCP7 (not ready for FCPX yet) and whole lots of other stuff. I just enjoy my toys.

But, the danger for a guy like me is buying something just because I can without thoughts of how it might actually improve my workflow or allow me to provide more value to my customers. To me, the customer value proposition is why I should be thinking about new gear but I have to be willing to take time to practice with it, learn when to use and when to leave it in the case and understand how it improves my product. This, by the way, is not just true for video work. It’s pretty much true for any discipline.

Not getting this figured out ahead of time can be expensive and time consuming. It can cause you to buy a piece of equipment that you never incorporate well into your processes and so ends up being money not well spent. Or, if you end up on the wrong path, it can mean wasting lots of valuable time figuring out how to force something into your workflow that isn’t really needed or just plain doesn’t fit.

Let me share a few recent purchases I’ve made as examples.

Canon 5DM2. I’ll give myself a B for a grade on this purchase. Before buying the 5D, I was shooting the Canon XH-A1. The A1 is a great camera but I always felt disappointed in the depth of field, using tapes and the bit rate as well. I had read about the 5D in many places, watched videos made with the 5D and knew that it had the stuff I was looking for: better bit rates, better glass (dof) and no pesky tapes. Where I misjudged the purchase was the amount of support gear it takes to shoot with one of these DSLRs (not unique to the 5D). The form factor is sooo different from a “real” video camera. I read some articles that talked about the form factor of the 5D but didn’t understand it until I used the 5D for the first time. Not “getting” that is why I give myself a B for this purchase. The grade is for me, not the camera. The camera is everything I wanted it to be, plus more. But, it does take some good supporting equipment to use well in the field. So what was the cost for me? Unexpected costs for the support equipment and more time than I anticipated getting used to the cam. By the way, I’m not done with money or time on this one. Yuck.

Kessler Pocket Dolly 2.0 and the KC-Lite 8′ Crane. So far, I’m giving myself an A on these two purchases but the jury is still out on the final grade. I got into these two items because when I looked at videos, I noticed when these devices were being used and really liked what the bring to a shot. My first crane usage went really well. I could almost immediately see the value of the device for the kind of shooting I do. Since most of my work involves slow moving objects like buildings and walls, the KC-Lite will work well because I can move the arm very slowly. This smaller, less expensive model works for me because of the nature of my video work and how I shoot. I don’t think it would work well in a situation that involved faster (and certainly not higher) crane shots. I’ll grade the Pocket Dolly at about an A- because it does feel harder to work than the crane and because to do it well, you really need additional support equipment. I only purchased the 38″ slider and nothing else. Looks like I’m back to Kessler to order a few more items.

In summary, I’ve made the purchases I did because I knew what I wanted. I knew how I wanted my video to look. I don’t think I’ve always understood what the total costs were going to be and I have some more workflow challenges ahead that will require time and patience to resolve. In the end, I think I’ve made good purchases and to get back to Phillip Bloom’s message, I don’t think I’ve bought gear simply because it was cool. I bought things I thought would allow me to produce a higher quality product for my customers. I did underestimate the amount of support equipment it takes to use this better equipment. In time, I hope to get caught up and will have a few more lessons under my belt that I can share with all of you. When you get the urge to buy, think about how it will help you deliver better video, how it will impact your work and what are all the costs associated with that new piece of gear.

Sony Entering DSLR Market?

I noticed a post by Phillip Bloom on Google+ the other day that Sony has entered the DSLR market with their introduction of the A77. Bloom goes into more detail about the release on his blog. The article makes me wonder if it will lead Canon and Nikon to react to this new offering by Sony so that they can maintain the gap that already exists between these two DSLR leaders and Sony. Will there be a 5DMarkIII? Will the MarkII get a much needed firmware update? Will they release another model?

What would I like to see in an update? Something akin to the Magic Lantern updates, more on screen control or viewing of audio levels, use of the middle part of the sensor to help with some of the moire affect that is so prevalent in the DLSRs.

Time will tell.

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Kessler KC-Lite 8′ Crane – First Impressions

Today, I received a couple of items that I have been thinking about for a very long time. UPS delivered to my house a crane and a slider. I’ve been watching people use these items via the internet for a very long time. I’m thinking two years or more. My interest is simply that many of the high quality videos, films, movies you see use one or both of these at various points in their stories. And sometimes on a shoot, I can see where I would want to use a device like these.

But, I’m always kind of cash strapped so I had to take it easy on the purchase of a crane and a slider. To get myself into the game and not end up sending my family into debtors prison, I purchased the Kessler KC-Lite 8′ crane with the Davis & Sanford tripod and dolly as well as the Kessler Pocket Dolly 2.0, the 38″ version. No doubt there are more feature rich cranes and sliders out there than the ones I purchased. But, I feel confident these two items are going to be a real win for me and allow me to get some of the shots that are rolling around in my brain cells.

This article is about the crane since that is the only one of these two items I was able to get out, set up and take for an initial drive. I’ll do the same for the slider later this weekend and write another post to talk about my initial experiences with that device.

The crane came in one large box (the brown box on the bottom of the stack in this picture).

The box contained the KC-Lite 8′ crane and supporting equipment. The crane is in two pieces: the part that mounts to the tripod that came with the system and the extension that attaches to this first part and is where the camera is mounted. These two pieces mount together on slide rods and stay together using the provided screws. This crane arm mounts on a set of Davis & Sanford 7518 sticks (always wanted to use that term) that came with the order. Also in the package was a Davis & Sanford W3 Dolly for rolling the crane around on smooth surfaces. I was in my backyard trying out the crane tonight so I didn’t even try to use these. The legs for the tripod have the really cool, center mounted knob underneath that allows you to set the tripod head level with one hand.


My current Manfrotto tripod doesn’t have that feature so I’m really glad to see that. I may end up using this Davis & Sanford tripod for more of my shooting since I’m often on the run. And it has one of those quick lock, quick release things in the middle of the tripod that make opening and closing the legs alot faster. The only surprised with the tripod is how light is was. I’m used to my Manfrotto legs, which are heavier but give me a sense that it is more stable. On the other hand, knowing that I will be moving around a bit with this crane might make the lighter sticks better in the long run. This is one of those things that only time will tell. I like the tripod over all so if I feel like I need more weight, I may try to find a way to add weight to via sandbags for something else. Either way, the crane arm mounted very easily to the tripod and I was ready to go.

The setup was easy and only took 10 minutes to figure out how to do. I think there was supposed to be some instructions but they were left out. No big deal. I figured it out.

The only word of caution here is to be careful about loosening the tension on any of the points of the tripod once the camera and weights are on board. That can cause the camera to get away from you or the whole assembly to tip over. I had that issue on my first setup. I loosened the level pole at the bottom of the head after it was loaded up and had to have my wife help me get the weights and camera off the crane before the whole thing went over on me. In short, get everything level and ready for your shoot before you load the camera or the weights. The one piece of paper that came with the crane states that you really need to practice setting this thing up, tearing it down and adjusting it before using in the field. I think that is very good advice.


For purposes of this initial test, I used my Canon XH-A1 on the crane simply because it was easier to mount than my 5D. With the large battery in the back of the A1, it weighs in at around 6 lbs. I had to put 18 lbs. of weights on the other end of the crane to get the arm to stay level. A 3-to-1 ratio.

Not sure if that ratio is a constant but time will tell. Once the weight was right, the crane was very easy to move and felt really good. This KC-Lite 8-footer is a single-arm crane so there is some potential to get side-to-side wiggle as you move up and down. I can tell, however, that you can learn to avoid most of that with some practice so it shouldn’t be a big deal.

I went up and down, and up and down, and to the right and to the left, and to the right and up at the same time and so forth. I followed the dog around the yard. It all seemed to work fine. The one challenge I had in my initial setup was that I was trying to use the flip-out LCD screen on the side of the XH-A1 and was, for the most part, guessing at what I was shooting. A month or two ago, my sister gave to my wife, who sells all kinds of stuff in a store we call a flea market (why fleas, I have no idea), a cheap little 7″ monitor that my sister had purchased at Target for $49. I am sure that it in now way compares to a Marshall or a SmallHD monitor but the bottom line is that I can use it to tell what I am shooting.

The quality is not great but at least I’m not shooting in the blind. I attached the monitor to the anchor point for the crane with a couple of large rubber bands. Seems to work fine.


This is a comparison of the cameras LCD and this Haier (Danish or German Company?) monitor. Not great for sure but I can see what I’m shooting and that’s what counts. Anyhow, I figure when a client sees my cheap monitor stuck to my crane by rubber bands, they will feel sorry for me and say, “This poor man needs more money” and do just that. Ya think!? Nope. I will never use this monitor to judge whether or not I have the levels for a shot. I will only use it to help me frame. So, it should do what I need for it to do rather well.

This weekend, I hope to take the crane out for a sure-enough, bonafide shoot and see what I can do with it. I have a couple of projects I am working on. I didn’t actually hit the record button tonight but I will later this weekend and will upload some of the footage to this blog or to Vimeo. And maybe using the crane will help me to begin to answer the questions I have asked in another post: Why Do You Slide or Jib?

As mentioned earlier, I’ll also do a “First Impressions” blog for the slider once I have a chance to play with it a bit.

Happy Shooting.

Fort Phantom Hill Video

This is my first video shot with the Canon 5D MarkII. I recently purchased the camera, have shot a few images and a few other clips but this movie represents the first real attempt to shoot video with the camera.

I also used the Zacuto Z-finder to shoot the clips in this movie. Can’t imagine doing it without the z-finder. Being able to clearly see what you are shooting and being able to focus are critical to the success of any shoot. The z-finder allows the camera operator to focus and frame to a higher degree than can be done without a device like the z-finder.

There was no color correction or other effects used in this video.

Shot with Canon 5D Mark ii
Canon 24-105 f4 lens
Zacuto Z-finder 3X
Bogen 301 tripod head on Manfrotto sticks

A bit about the fort:

Located in present-day Jones County, Fort Phantom Hill is one of the most pristine historic sites in Texas. It was one of the second line of forts laid out in the early 1850′s to protect the westward-moving frontier of Texas settlement.

Today Fort Phantom Hill is part of the Texas Forts Trail, a 650-mile highway tour of historic Texas forts in West Central Texas. Originally known as the “Post on the Clear Fork of the Brazos,” the fort was occupied by the U.S. Army from 1851 until 1854. Shortly after the army abandoned Fort Phantom Hill, fire destroyed most of the log walls and thatched roofs of the post’s buildings. However, much remains for visitors to the old fort to explore, inspect and study, including three original stone buildings (an intact stone powder magazine, a stone guardhouse and an almost-intact commissary or warehouse), more than a dozen stone chimneys, and stone foundations from the original fort.

Melting Snow Video

We don’t see snow very often here in Abilene, Texas. And certainly nothing like we had last week. While we enjoyed the arrival of the snow, we are more glad to see it go, to see it melt.

Watching the snow melt inspired me to create this video about the melting snow and its path to the lake.

Shot with Canon 5d Mark II and the 24-205 f4 L-Series lens.

Music: Dawn of Splendor