We Have A Winner To Our “Where’s the 5D” Contest
The “Where’s the 5D” contest was so close that the winner Josh beat our runner-up Tim by a single shot. Josh will claim his prize this Wednesday when he visits me on the set for the day.
Where’s the 5D winner announced?
We decided to add a runner-up prize for Tim because he just only missed 2 shots of the entire sequence. Tim will have one hour of phone time to ask me any questions he would like.
Congratulations to both Josh and Tim!
A huge thank-you to everyone that participated for taking the time, giving your expertise in breaking down this sequence and making the contest so competitive. Don’t be discouraged if you didn’t win this time because we will have more contests in the future. I want to know your ideas for the grand prize!
Now, here are the answers:
Where’s the 5D?
00:00:00 – 00:00:14 // Wide shots of Yacht// Sony F950
00:00:15 – 00:1:00 // Girls on Yacht, underwater, girl next bell, girl walking down stairs with drink outside, girl walking down stairs in side yacht, girl walking into salon in yacht, guy getting shot from inside POV // Arri 235-Film
00:01:00 – 00:01:04 //Seals shoot bad guy from boat// Canon 5D MK II
00:01:04 – 00:01:06 //Wide shot of assault/ Overhead Helo// Sony F-950
00:01:06 – 00:01:10 //Seals assault yacht on boats// Canon 5D MK II
00:01:10 – 00:01:11 // Wide shot of Yacht and all the boats// Sony F950
00:01:11 – 00:01:18 // Seals approach yacht on boats and Helo// Canon 5D MK II
00:01:18 – 00:01:21 // Profile shot of Mark V going by Yacht// Sony F-950
00:01:21 – 00:01:24 //Seals in Boat, in Helo pushing rope out// Canon 5D MK II
00:01:24 – 00:01:25 // Helo to Helo shot of Seals fast roping// Sony F-950
00:01:25 – 00:01:27 // Looking up at Seal fast roping onto Yacht// Canon 5D MK II
00:01:27 – 00:01:30 // Wide shot from Helo watching Seals fast roping// Sony F950
00:01:30 – 00:01:31 //Seal lands on Yacht from Helo// Canon 5D MK II
00:01:31 – 00:01:32 //Profile of Mark V boat tracking on water// Sony F-950
00:01:32 – 00:01:38 // Seals move onto Yacht, moving with them// Canon 5D MK II
00:01:38 – 00:01:40 // Overhead shot of Zodiac offloading Seals// Sony F-950
00:01:40 – 00:01:50 // Seals assault the Yacht, they head down the side// Canon 5D MK II
00:01:50 – 00:01:51 // Wide Helo shot of 3 Seals heading downside of boat// Sony F-950
00:01:51 – 00:01:58 // Seals track down side of boat and shoot bad guy in head// Canon 5D MK II
That F950 sure looked great from the air! Congrats to the winners!
James, thank you so much for your support. Yeah, I thought the Sony F-950 held up well also.
Interesting. Not knowing the characteristics of the Arri or the Sony, this answer key is an eye opener for me. Most significant, I think, is that the Sony presents with more aliasing than I expected.
Congrats to the winner! Shane, thanks for doing this! It’s really great to have people from within the industry doing this kind of stuff!
Hank, it worked out great, Josh our winner got a 5:00am call time in San Diego, he will meet my elite team and be put to work immediately. Josh will be also operating camera for me on our big Funeral scene at the National Cemetery in San Diego in the afternoon. He is psyched, and is ready to get in it. Thank you for saying that Hank.
Shane,
First off, let me commend you on a great challenge … definitely pushed all of us and I think it has been very educational at the same time! Congratz to Josh, hope he had a great day on set with your crew and got you some good shots … awesome prize! (glad you took my suggestion to heart … who needs another crew t-shirt? lol)
I really felt the Sony pulled off a great look in the wide shots, it truly looked like film to me … was this processed differently than the other footage?
After reviewing the comments again, its amazing how many of us were guessing the “models on the boat” were shot with the 5d, when in fact they were on film with the Arri … I think you could achieve something close with the 5d if you had a proper steadicam (i.e. Glidecam X-22) and a good lens (like a Zeiss prime) … your thoughts, Shane?
Btw, great analysis by Josh. So was your choice for camera’s per shots based on functionality? (i.e. space or mag changes) And would you attempt to shoot this entire piece with 5d’s? Like Rodney Charters did with “Washington Field” (pilot for CBS) … he had five 5d’s in addition to his main camera’s which were RED’s (A and B) … just curious, or do you think there are some limitations to overcome?
Looking forward to seeing your final piece, hopefully I’ll get to see it on a big screen (like Vincent did at “Collision”). Thanks for the chance to weigh in … all the best, man.
‘J-dog
http://twitter.com/JDog23
Hi Shane,
If you get this, I wanted to thank you for launching your blog, the contest, and sharing your knowledge.
Can you post (or reply to my Email) with:
1) What it the best way to get a PL mount on a 5D?
2) What is the best way to get a Panavision mount on a 5D?
You mention your take on glass (although not Cooke), which is very helpful. But I wanted to know how you are getting these lenses to fit the camera body AND any other precautions or things one should consider.
Also, I wanted to mention that I appreciate you have brought up the 8 bit limitations of the camera (hence the need for better lenses to resolve the image on the big screen). No one seems to get this–aside from the hard core Red Users.
Thank you in advance,
Shawn
It is nice to see that a lot of people see this paradigm shift in this industry. It is even better when someone like you share this exciting time with people like us.
I would give anything to work with people like you guys. Keep working, and I will keep copying ;)
Thank you Shane!
Jdog, Thank you for all your kind words, and I am glad you liked the challenge. Knowing what I know now and having my picture style cocktail on lock, I would have shot the whole thing 5D. At the time the camera had only been out 3 months, with all auto. So that was a challenge in its own right. But that Yacht take down that everyone saw was 1.5 minutes longer and we shot that in one day. With all the girls, the helo work, etc. I had a crew of 16 people, which was grip, electric and camera. 4 operators and 8 cameras. I think this speaks to the power of this platform. But the 5D glass was Canon EF and not that sharp. What I am doing now on this movie is a 180 degrees from this Yacht take down. I will post the trailer once it comes available. On the Sony F950 footage, it was just a raw LUT on the camera and then we color corrected. Thanks again, more contests are coming. Love having you comments.
Shawn, On the PL mount front, you can not mount any PL mount lenses on the 5D, the lens sits too deep in the body and hits the mirror which disables the camera. To get a Panavision mount you need to go to Panavision/Hollywood. They are the only ones making the mounts. They take your camera and then shim there mount so that all the focus distances are correct. Each 5D & 7D body are a little different and that throws the focus off. So when I roll out with 15 cameras I have a mounted designated for each specific camera. I feel the best glass helps so much once you get into color correction.
Franklin, thank you so much. I appreciate your words so much and it makes me try harder in educating everyone with what I have learned. I love giving back, holding stuff close to the chest gets you nowhere. I respect all of you and will continue to push forward the paradigm shift.
Shane,
Thanks for answering my question about the mounts. Very helpful. A quick follow up:
Since you write about Zeiss as well on this blog–which traditionally use PL for Arri–how did you test these on the 5D?
Like were they the Panavision/Zeiss hybrid lenses that Panavsion rents for its cameras OR were they the Zeiss SLR lenses with EF mounts?
And for the Panavision mounts that you use, are these totally removable AND do they not have to modify your 5D permanently ? Like do they only have to modify the Pani-mount so when you take off the mount, the camera body is pretty much the same as before putting on the lens mount?
Again, thanks in advance.
Shawn
Shawn, The Zeiss lenses I talk about are the new ZE and ZF SLR lenses that Zeiss just came out with. They have more of a cine focus throw then a still focus throw, which is very difficult for a focus puller. On the Panavision mount, they are totally removable. They are just adjusted per your body, but can come off and you can use whatever lens you want. It is just like the fotodiox mounts that I use for my Zeiss ZF lenses. The camera is not altered in anyway.
Hi Shane
Very educational stuff you have in your blog and on your site in general. It really shows superabundance.
Have you ever tried using sigma lenses on your 5D’s? Personally I have only used sigma because they were really cheap compared to canon glass. I only have zooms though covering 12 to 200mm. My next investment will definitely be primes.
Did you do any frame rate conversion on your navy seals project, or did you just use the 30p frames? Seems like its 30p.
How was your lighting setup on this project? Was it all natural lighting and bouncing that?
If you ever come to denmark for a project, dont hesitate emailing me if you need an ekstra operator.
Thank you very much
Anders
Anders, Thank you very much, no I have never used Sigma lenses. The Navy Seal project was shot 30p and then put through the Twixtor 30-24 pull up conversion. There logarithm is the best. It was all natural light on exteriors of the Yacht take down sequence. I used lights in the interior to bring up the interior so that I could hold the beautiful ocean outside. I would buy the Zeiss ZE primes, they are the sharpest and are cheaper than the Canon glass. They are all adapted with a Canon mount and talk to the camera. They resolve the best for HD video. I will definitely give you a shout when I am heading to your neck of the woods.
Thanks for the insight and advice. Stills blows my mind that a cinematographer on your level takes the time to write and answer questions like this. It’s awesome….
I used mpeg streamclip and it worked fine. It had a hard time dealing with paning shoots, but the H.264 files suffered from that already..so what can you expect!
Could you have ND’ed the windows as well, or would that have been to difficult?
Did you use large light sources to balance out the exterior? Tungsten / HMI?
Anders,When you ND the windows the beautiful natural light is compromised. I like to take what is there and then finesse it to work for the story and the scene. The interior would have gotten incredibly contrasty when you restrict all the natural light coming in the windows. No lights were used outside, that was all natural light , shooting right place, right time. Your problem with the panning shots, what cards are you recording onto? They have to be Extreme IV UDMA 45mb/s. Anything less than that and you are going to get rolling shutter issues. The camera processes at 45mb/s, when you use a card that is less than that it has to guess what the next frame is. This is why you get propellor blades that bend, or panning shots that chatter.
Anders, thank you for noticing that I am addressing each person and taking the time. You guys ROCK out there. Keep it coming
I see…that makes sense with the ND. What ISO were you shooting at? I use the lexar 45mb/s 300X Extreme IV UDMA cards that you mention, and a transend with same specs. I recall it wasn’t a rolling shutter isuse, but it had a little bit too much stutter. Have you had any rolling shutter issues?
Have you heard any rumors about a raw module? Do you think it’s possible with the 5D?
Thank you for explaining how you handled the natural light.
Anders, no we have not had any rolling shutter issues other than when we shoot guns at camera, the muzzle flash coming out of M4 rifles, when we were up close we went to a 1/30 sec shutter to help the black band that we were getting when we were at 1/50 sec. I have not heard any rumors of that, I have asked Canon to build it, but have not heard back. You can go into the inner workings of your firmware and create you own raw file. I tried it. It is not bad, but I still like the neutral setting because I can light off of my HP monitor.