[Steve Crow]

Have you thought about the Sony A7S II which only recently came out? The folks over at the “Our Week in Video” podcast just had a fellow come on the show to talk about his experiences with the camera.

https://www.facebook.com/ourweekinvideo

Unless the client is specifically asking for 4K you really don’t need it frankly for web video or even tradeshow booth content – yes, it’s very nice to have but also places demand on your computer processing during editing, storage, backup and archiving. But in your budget don’t forget all the other bits and pieces – a great ND filter for getting shallow depth of field for any “artsy” shots outdoors on a bright day springs to mind – and maybe an external monitor to help getting that critical focus. I’ve only used a LCD loupe with my camera but the scopes etc on modern external monitors are hard to pass up, although you may need some kind of simple rig. And AUDIO,that’s going to be critical for you so don’t shortchange yourself there.

Bottom line, get the camera YOU are most comfortable with, it’s you who is going to be using it and these days it’s very hard to go very far wrong, 4K or not.

Steve Crow

[Steve Crow]

How about this, shoot at 24fps or 30fps and put into a regular matching timeline. Then blade the clip into two separate clips – the slow part and the regular part. For the “slow part” see if you can apply a negative “speed ramp” filter which will slow it down in post – then just place the second clip in normal speed right after it.

But as you point out, this is relying on software to “fake” the slow motion while your suggestion is more organic as no new frames have to be created.

Steve Crow

PS: Here’s what I am thinking of as demonstrated in Final Cut Pro X:

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/retiming_fcp_x_stone.html

[Steve Crow]

Just watch your depth of field if filming at the 1.8 aperture on your 50mm. At that Fstop, if you are 10 feet away from the subject, your depth of field is only .81 feet:

Subject distance 10 ft

Depth of field
Near limit 9.61 ft
Far limit 10.4 ft
Total 0.81 ft

In front of subject 0.39 ft (48%)
Behind subject 0.42 ft (52%)

Actor like to move and be expressive, of course – therefore I’d probably go for something like an aperture of 4.0

Steve Crow

[Steve Crow]

If you are going to be using a Glidecam for a substantial number of shots AND be filming in dark situations then I would tend towards the A7S because of:

* weight
* Unbelievable light sensitivity particularly when filming “flat” using their S-LOG profile which requires that you set the ISO to 3,200 at the LOWEST – obviously not great for daylight filming but in those cases you simply switch to another neutral profile.

I just happened to listen to an “Our Week in Video” podcast episode (#37) a couple of days ago with a very well known A7S shooter and Jeff Wood’s comments regarding picture profiles, shooting on Glidecams and so on may very well be of interest to you.

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-h4up7-593c8c

https://www.facebook.com/ourweekinvideo

Steve Crow

[Steve Crow]

No worries, that’s why we participate in this forum, to share our experiences. I’ve had this very thing happen myself and on the small LCD screen I didn’t notice it happening while we were filming. Perhaps if I had had a larger external monitor I could have caught it.

At least you now have a partial solution and you can always try adding a sharpness filter to the footage after the plugin has run, or maybe even before. Experiment and share with us how it goes.

Steve Crow

[Steve Crow]

I found this free alternative method online a few minutes ago I’m not necessarily recommending it because to my eye it really softens the image, but others were okay with it and it might be worth a shot in a crunch

https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/quick-trick-for-de-flickering-your-video-shots/

(be sure to read the comments about this method posted on the premium beat site) The plugins DE:Flicker and Flicker Free are not cheap but the results seem worth the expense. I researched just now the Denoiser II plugin from Red Giant and it doesn’t appear to me to have anything to do with video flicker removal but rather noise removal as the name suggests.

Steve Crow

[Steve Crow]

As you know there is too much light hitting the sensor so you have a few options. Besides using a more shut down f-stop (but yes, losing the shallow depth of field I know you want) you can:

1. move yourself to an area that isn’t so bright

2. If shooting a person or an object outside, diminish the light using a silk or other light diffusion material (typically held up with one more stands and housed in a frame) – not practical in all situations

OR

3. The easiest solution is to get yourself a variable ND to place in front of the lens. It’s job is to reduce the light by as much as 8 stops – this is what I do

Also you should get yourself an LCD loupe so that you can actually see the screen when filming outdoors on bright days – you can’t easily use the touch screen functions but everything is a tradeoff

Steve Crow

[Steve Crow]

The article from RED is helpful but it says basically the same thing, you shouldn’t have had an issue:

https://www.red.com/learn/red-101/flicker-free-video-tutorial

In both of the earlier threads/pages people talked about different plugins like Denoiser and Flicker Free that seemed helpful, check them out and see if it works, – I think I once used a filter in final cut pro, motion blur something or other to lessen the effect

Steve Crow

[Steve Crow]

by the way, just to be clear, the issue is the pain in the ass, not you! 🙂

Steve Crow

[Steve Crow]

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/280/7346#7361

Steve Crow