Monday, March 8, 2010

Initial thoughts after 48 hours...

Good stuff
"Images so good you can lick the screen!" Yes, it's compressed. Yes, the rolling shutter can cause problems. But most of the time it blows away what I'm used to shooting on. For anyone in the DVCPROHD / HDV world, this is a big step up in image control. I'm really liking the potential.
I'm also liking the overall ergonomics of the camera. It's small enough I'm going to take it everywhere, but not too small. I'm used to shooting with an HV30, so this isn't too different, control-wise. Stick it on a monopod, and you can do amazing things with it.

Bad Stuff
Viewfinder, or lack thereof. You'll notice that I haven't uploaded any more clips yet - Most of the shots are pretty bad. Pulling good focus is impossible without a viewfinder. So far, the Zacuto Z-Finder seems like a must-have for daytime shooting.
Also, unless you like all your motion to have that high-shutter, "Ridley Scott Battle Sequence" look, invest in some good quality neutral density filters. Trying to shoot at f/1.8 or even 2.0 in daylight pushes the shutter speed up into the 1/250 range. You need to be able to step that down. Chris Fenwick recommends a dial-a-range ND filter on his blog.

Nice Stuff
As you may know, I work for Adobe, and I'm testing out some new, experimental software for Premiere Pro. It's called the Adobe Mercury Engine, and it's lightning-fast in all kinds of ways - check my other blog for details. Anyways, I'm editing the footage right off the camera with no transcoding, several layers, real-time color correction, and more. Stay tuned for more details, but what I see so far, Mercury + Rebel T2i = WOW.

More thoughts forthcoming, as well as additional clips. I've scripted a short film I hope to shoot in the upcoming weekends, called "Hyperspace." Anyone remember the video game "Defender"? :-)

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