Monday 2 April 2012

550D shoot and a small rant

Few tests with 550D + Magic Lantern

Ok so I'm a little late on the DSLR uptake.....kind of but I'm nowhere near a total newbie. Been used to shooting with prosumer video cameras for a few years now, Sony Z1, couple of Panasonic P2 cameras and my own Sony EX1 which I LOVE! Anyway, like many I've always craved the elusive film look. I tried a million types of picture profiles on my EX1 and practice grading ALL the time and got some great results. You can view some stuff on my Vimeo account at https://vimeo.com/user5365958. I shot mainly corporate stuff at that time, still do occasionally so the film look isn't exactly essential.

 I was forever reading articles and reviews on DSLR's and following their progress pretty closely. The amount of footage on sites like Vimeo now is immense and its pretty clear how incredible an image can be got from them, so eventually I was always going to buy one.

Now I'm no Philip Bloom or Vincent Laforet so I'm not for now anyway gonna be posting load of reviews and documenting my ponderous adventures around the globe. I quite simply am not rich or known about in the film making community quite yet. That's not a dig at them, their 2 people I look up to and follow and I've learnt a massive amount from what they do. They strive to help people like me become better film makers and more importantly help develop a massive community of people who can share ideas and help each other. That whole ethos is something I really care about and love. I'm also a major geek so I'm not going to complain when someone posts a 20 minute video of how to rotoscope in After Effects. Having these kind of skills is a massive bonus, especially now in a digital age, the world and his hot wife can make a film. There's so much competition to get noticed, be appreciated and make money that you have to throw everything into it to get anywhere. It's great to see people sharing ideas and giving others advice.

So....cameras!

I got a 550D....yes I know its the baby of the range, the 7D is a great camera and the 5d mk2 is just incredible. Now the C300 is here and the 5d mk3 is out as well, things just keep getting better and better. Seems like I'm kissing some Canon ass here, course there's some awesome cameras out there from other companies, Nikon in-particular. I've actually shot a few photos with the D300 at work and it's great. But for now I'm sticking with the 550d.

Lens wise, I ended up with the 50mm 1.8 and so far I'm loving it. Plenty of reviews on that around so I wont go mad with detail but its a great lens for starting off. Got one for £70 n all. Buzzin! Next on the list is probably the Sigma 30mm as that's the standard for cropped sensor cameras. I also took the plunge and grabbed both the awesome Cinestyle profile and the Magic Lantern hack for the camera. Really glad I did. It's amazing having all the features and makes the camera so much more usable for film work. Here's a couple of photos I took with it straight off the bat. My girlfriend wont thank me for the first one but I'll buy her a cake to make up for it. You can see how beautiful she is anyway. My dog.....wont give a crap. I do have a much bigger (and better dog) but he wouldn't stand still for long enough.






So, ranted on a bit here I'll actually post a video. This is my first full shoot with the camera and I got lucky. It's a short documentary/making of music video for the band 'Fed To The Ocean' http://www.facebook.com/fedtotheoceanuk if you like a bit of headbanging metal, head on over and check them out.







And now for the final film....for the moment just on YouTube as my Vimeo upload is playing up.



Much love n all that jazz.

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