Pocket Light Meter– Free

This app by NuWaste measures reflected light and allows for reciprocity calculations.  In the newest version, logs can now be uploaded to Evernote.  This app provides a high degree of accuracy when measuring exposures, and you can spot meter by just tapping on the screen.  It also displays your light in kelvins so you can set it to the correct white balance.  You can even hold and save images with the values to refer to it later.  This app has a very simple design and does not offer as many features as some of the other apps on this list.

Luxi– Free/$22

This app by Extrasensory Devices is free to download and can be used as a spot meter and measure exposures without using any accessories.  However, you have to buy the $22 Luxi For All Smartphone Attachment in order to use the app as an incident meter and to measure ambient light levels.  This app gives very accurate light and color readings, and you can even use the Luxi For All attachment in conjunction with the Pocket Light Meter and Cine Meter II to measure light in different ways.  One drawback is that this app requires calibration, and since not every device is made the same, in many cases it will need adjustments.

Cine Meter II– $24

This app is very versatile in terms of its functionality and features, especially when used in conjunction with the Luxi for All attachment.  It is a very accurate spot meter, and when used with the Luxi For All attachment, the app can be used as an incident meter.  The Cine Meter II offers cool features such as the ability to set shutter angle, ND filter compensation, and arbitrary filter factors.  You can also use the front-facing camera to take “light meter selfies.”  Here you can check out the app’s creator, Adam Wilt’s test results of the accuracy of his color meter.

Lumu– Free/$299

Like Luxi, the Lumu app itself is free and can be used as a reflective light meter without any accessories.  However, for more professional spot and color metering, you need the Lumu Power attachment dome that costs $299 and is not compatible with any other light meter apps.  This app has an incredible amount of features, including the ability to measure exposure, ambient light, flashlight, color temperature, white balance, as well as illuminance.  The Lumu includes a Cine/Video meter in which the settings and features are based on those within the ambient light meter but is geared toward setting your aperture and ISO based on a fixed shutter speed.

The post Top Four Light Metering Apps For Your Smart Phone appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

The platform has given us a fantastic opportunity to connect with thousands of filmmakers that we may have never gotten the chance to otherwise. We’ve interviewed companies like Panasonic and DJI about new products, and we’ve tested out new cameras to see how they compare and contrast. Sometimes, we’ve even been able to lend clients gear to do awesome projects like this shoot in the desert at night using only moonlight for exposure!

Today, we have almost 5,000 subscribers and over 700,000 views! It’s been so much fun to watch our channel grow, and it’s been so rewarding to give a little back to the filmmaking community. If you’re new to our YouTube channel, we created this showcase of our most popular videos just for you!

10. Canon C300 vs Sony FS7

9. How To Wrap A BNC Audio Cable

8. Sony FS7 vs ARRI AMIRA vs URSA vs C300 Mark II Dynamic Range

7. Meet The ARRI ALEXA XT

6. How To Shoot With & Balance The MoVI M10

5. Canon C100 vs Canon C300

4. Basic Cinematography: How To Light An Interview

3. Sony FS700 Slow Motion Test

2. Cine Style Lenses vs Still Photography Lenses

1. How To Shoot A Fight Scene

If you enjoyed watching any of these filmmaking videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss a new one, and if there’s a gear demo or filmmaking tutorial you’d like to see, let us know!

The post Our Most Popular Filmmaking Videos appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

If you’re not familiar, the Sony A7s maxes out at ISO 409,600. But how far can you push ISO and still have a reasonably good-looking end-result? Far enough to get a decent exposure using moonlight? Alec did a number of camera tests with the A7s to try and figure out exactly that. You can see more details in the BTS video below, but he and his crew settled on ISO 24,000 – 32,000 as the sweet spot.

In the behind-the-scenes video, Alec covers several tips for shooting with A7s at night. He also talks a little about the post-process, including color grading and noise reduction.

Tips For Shooting With The Sony A7s At Night:

1. Plan around a full moon
2. Record at the highest bit depth possible
3. Don’t have on-camera subjects wear black
4. Don’t whip pan/don’t move the camera too fast
5. Don’t go overboard with noise reduction

For more information on how to rent the Sony Alpha A7s, email rentals@strayangel.com, give us a call or stop in for a demo. We’d love to see you!

Watch the full Nocturnes Behind The Scenes video:

And check out the final Nocturnes production right here:

The post Want To Know How To Shoot With The Sony A7s At Night? appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

Our Outdoor Cinematography video highlights the gear and techniques you can use to get it right every time!

When shooting outside, you’re generally dealing with one main source of light: the sun. The sun can be so much brighter than any other light you could rig, so it’s essential to use simple control techniques available. The most common filters you might use outside are the polarizers and the ND filters. The polarizer will help you cut down glare and reflection. It can also be great for darkening the sky and making it bluer if that makes sense for the scene. If you’re losing the sky in the highlights, the polarizer will help darken it and bring everything closer to the correct exposure.

Once you have your camera set up and your filters the way you want them, it’s time to consider the other accessories to make things perfect, like bounce cards, nets, and diffusion (silks). It’s all about control to get the quality of light that you need for the scene. If your subject is too bright, you could position a net between the sun to cut down on the amount of light. If the sunlight is hitting your subject too harshly, you could put up the silk to soften the light on the subject.

Finally, if your subject is too dark, you can use a bounce card to shift some of the sunlight back onto them, and there are different kinds of bounce cards to consider. A standard white card is going to give you a more subtle bounce, while the metallic silver card will be stronger. There are also gold bounce cards that throw a softer, warmer light, too.

To summarize, make sure your outdoor shooting kit includes polarizers, ND filters, nets, silks, and bounce cards. You’ll be covered for virtually any scene under the sun!

The post Outdoor Cinematography Tips appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

We love how easy it is for new filmmakers to learn and decided to put together a list of what we think are some of the best free filmmaking tutorials available, today!

1. How To Control Lighting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AGVD482rbo

2. Who’s Who On A Movie Crew?

3. Lighting A Moving Actor

4. Light Meters & A DSLR

5. How To Shoot A Fight Scene

6. Sound Recording Tutorial

7. Crop Factor

8. Timelapse Tutorial

9. 180 Degree Rule Explained

10. Gels & Light Diffusion

If you’re interested in more compelling filmmaking tutorials, check out our YouTube channel!

The post Top 10 Best Free Filmmaking Tutorials appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

In layman’s terms, dynamic range is the distance between the lightest light a camera can see and the darkest dark it can see. What you’re getting with a camera that offers you good dynamic range, is the ability to go into a wide variety of lighting situations and get a decent looking shot.

For reference, we did a very simple comparison shot for the purpose of this test. We shot our model with a chip chart behind him and a really bright light bulb on his other shoulder.

Watch the video of our dynamic range test below:

Our thoughts after the test?

• The AMIRA performed really well, no surprise there. It is, after all, a $60,000 ARRI camera.
• We thought that the FS7 performed almost as good as the ARRI AMIRA. We haven’t had much time to shoot with the Sony FS7’s since they are so new, but this test made us very excited! Not bad a less than $10K camera! Stills from the Sony FS7:
• Even though the C300 is a few years old, it still holds up very well. It’s no wonder this camera has been an industry favorite since its release.
• The Blackmagic URSA was a little underwhelming when it comes to dynamic range. Of course, this was the most “budget-friendly” of all the cameras tested, but it really does start to fall apart after just a few stops over or under.

For more information on how to rent a Cinema Camera for your next project, email rentals@strayangel.com, give us a call or stop in for a demo. We’d love to see you!

The post Dynamic Range Test: Sony FS7 vs ARRI AMIRA vs URSA vs C300 appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

4K Capabilities & Image Quality

The Sony a7S does have a 4K sensor, but be aware that you will need an external recorder to capture the full 4K image. Internally, the a7S can record a beautifully sharp 1080p image.

The a7S features:

• 12.2MP Full-Frame Exmor CMOS Sensor
• Sony E-mount
• Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 24, 30, 60 FPS
• Capable of 120 FPS at 720p
• Records to AVCHD, XAVC S and MP4 to SD, SDXC, SDHC, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO HG-Duo
• 4K (4240 x 2832) full-frame sensor is cropped to UHD 3840 x 2160 for recording via HDMI to external recorder only (8 bit, 4:2:2)

Dynamic Range

The a7S has an absolutely killer dynamic range for the price point and small body. This little guy will give you over 14 stops of dynamic range, up there with cameras like the ALEXA. Cinema5D did a dynamic range comparison between the Sony a7S and other popular cameras such as ARRI’s ALEXA and the Canon 5D. The only camera that beat out the a7S was the ALEXA and it will probably surprise you how close the results were between the two cameras.

Cinema5D Says:

“Here we tested usable dynamic range of the given cameras. With 14.1 stops the usable dynamic range of the A7S comes surprisingly close to the Arri Amira with its legendary Alexa sensor (see our full review here).

This is an extremely good dynamic range rating and is fascinating considering that the A7S is available at a fraction of the Amira’s price and is also in a completely different weight and size class. While the Amira will outperform the A7S in other tests, the dynamic range is a very important attribute to consider when working with a camera.

The Canon cameras come in at 11-12 stops of usable dynamic range. This is still a very strong dynamic range rating, but in comparison to the A7S the Canon’s are way behind.

The Panasonic GH4 had the worst dynamic range in our test. This is in line with the rather video’ish look and contrasty colors we can subjectively observe.”

James Drake did some testing of the a7S high ISO capabilities. Check out this frame that was shot in sLog at 409,600 ISO

Low Light Performance

The a7S also offers filmmakers amazing low light performance. This little camera can shoot all the way up to ISO 409,600!

 Affordable Price in a Small Package

The a7S is small, even smaller than a Canon 5D, and that makes its features all the more impressive. This is advantageous to filmmakers in situations where there isn’t room for a big camera set-up, traveling shows/documentaries, and times when you want your camera set-up to be low-key and discreet.

Combine the size of the a7S, it’s exceptional image quality, and the low price of under $2500 for the body, and you’ve got a camera that is a hit.

To prove it, Sony put out a video demonstrating the camera’s ISO settings: we’re impressed!

For more information on how to rent the latest Sony Cameras, email rentals@strayangel.com, give us a call or stop in for a demo. We’d love to see you!

The post Why Do Filmmakers Love The Sony a7S? appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

The main thing to keep in mind when shooting your fight scene is that your actors will not be making contact during their strikes. That is not necessary when shooting from the proper perspective. These techniques will place your actors entirely out of reach of each other, but to the camera, their hits are making brutal contact.

For example: if you place your actors face to face, at an arm’s length away from each other, but frame an over the shoulder medium shot, the visual distance between them collapses. From this position, one actor can safely perform a strike maneuver while the opposing actor sells the strike. In reality, the actors will never come in to contact.

Now that we’ve established a perspective that will frame your strikes, we need to ensure that your actors are playing to their strengths. Draw an imaginary vertical line in the center of the area where the strike will occur: this is your axis. Once you’re framed up, have your actors slowly rehearse the strike and make sure that whatever limb they are using entirely crosses that imaginary axis. The action will allow the intensity of the strike to carry effectively into the camera view and help sell the hit.

Unless you’re dealing with professional stuntpeople who have been executing complicated fight sequences for years, you’re most likely going to have to help sell the intensity with both speed and power from your actor’s strikes. To do this, we’re going to allow the camera to catalyze the strike. When your actor takes a particularly vicious blow, allow the camera to perform a controlled jerk in tandem with the strike. Audiences have been desensitized to harsh camera movement, having grown up watching television, which tends to stick to locked off or otherwise smooth shots. Because of this, the use of jarring handheld movements will help unnerve your audience to the violence.  It will also visually sell the speed of each hit while concealing the lack of contact. You want to keep this movement as controlled as possible. Too much camera movement will undersell the hit and cause the audience to lose the action.

Now that you understand the perspective,  you also need to think of the angle of your camera. Extreme high, low, and dutch (canted) angels tend to give the fight a very stylized big movie feeling. Level angles tend to give your audience a more real-world, brutal feel.

So you have your fight scene shot. Now you have to put it together! Editing is crucial in action sequences. One easy and very effective technique is to cut your shots on the strike. When Actor A swings at Actor B, keep the shot on Actor A until the very moment the strike connects. Cut to Actor B to see the hit land. When you cut on the strike, it takes the audience’s eyes a quick second to catch up with what just happened, effectively selling the shot without giving them time to analyze how close or far apart the talent was to each other.

Keep in mind that these are just basic visual guidelines, as every scene will take on a unique character with the style of the fight. Always remember to practice scenes safely with a professional on hand to oversee your actors.

We hope our “How To Shoot A Fight Scene” tutorial helps get you started, and we can’t wait to see your fight scene in the Hollywood Blockbusters of the future!

The post How To Shoot A Fight Scene appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

Wondering what it’s like to shoot with a Digital Bolex? It’s not like any RAW-capable camera you’ve used before. It starts with the pistol grip: this thing is made to be handheld. When you wrap your fingers around that bad boy, you instantly picture yourself as a documentary filmmaker on the streets of New York in the seventies. Pull the trigger (yes, it has a functioning trigger) and without skipping a beat the camera’s fan quiets down and the D16 begins writing 24 individual .dng files per second to the camera’s internal SSD. When you’re ready to dump this footage, you can either transfer it to two CF cards (a feature that was broken for us while testing the camera) or connect the camera directly to your PC using USB 3.0.

It all sounds so simple, and it is…up to a point.

There’s no good way to monitor your footage using the tools built-in to the camera body. The monitor Digital Bolex included is on-par with a color cell phone screen from the ’90s. Incredibly low resolution, awful colors and small size make the camera look like a cheap buy from Toys ‘R Us rather than a precision cinema tool.

You’ll definitely want to use an EVF or an external monitor to view your image. The camera includes a full-size HDMI port on the left side, as well as two balanced XLR inputs (with level knobs – a very nice touch) and 4-pin XLR in and out for power to the camera and accessories. The Zacuto Z-Finder EVF is a great companion for this camera. Attach it to a Noga arm on one of the cold shoe mounts and position it anywhere comfortable for you.

Unfortunately at this point, there’s no way to playback your footage in-camera. One way to think of it is like you’re shooting on an old-school Bolex: you have to develop your footage before you can watch it. Of course, this is a digital camera and playback is expected these days. It’s up to you to decide whether not having it is a deal-breaker.

While the images produced by this camera look incredible, working with it has been complicated. You can edit and grade it in any program that supports CinemaDNG, but the LightPost software provided by Digital Bolex is total crap. It lacks basic features like an Undo button and is very limited when it comes to color correction. I like using it to copy the footage because it checks the integrity of the data for you. It’s also extremely quick at converting to ProRes, but without being able to color the footage it’s usefulness is limited.

The image quality is truly stunning, and it’s due to the CCD sensor in the D16. It’s a little more organic than a CMOS sensor, and the only reason CMOS is so popular is that it’s a lot cheaper to produce. So kudos to Digital Bolex for choosing a sensor that is reminiscent of film and the analog video we grew up with until the recent digital age. If you have an established CinemaDNG workflow (anyone coming from a Blackmagic camera should) you won’t have any trouble doing post with this camera; anyone else might need to do some research before shooting with it. Currently, there are no options for ProRes recording in-camera, although they might be coming soon.

Digital Bolex Production Diary Day 1

Today was the first day I got to use the Digital Bolex in any capacity. Here’s a quick run-down of my thoughts so far:

It’s definitely beautiful to look at, and when kitted out with a shotgun mic and an EVF it demands attention. However it doesn’t seem obtuse; it’s as if the shotgun and EVF were designed to be part of the camera (in essence, they were. The hotshoe mounts are perfectly placed for them.) The hotshoe mount would be great for an EVF when using a shoulder rig, too. I’d like a built-in high-res EVF more than the shitty screen on top, with ¼”-20 threads all over for a monitor.

It’s really limited internally at the moment. From the lens mount to the recording formats to the display, it’s got a long way to go before it will be popular. You can’t record anything that isn’t raw. While I understand Digital Bolex’s perspective of “image quality trumps all,” the people buying or renting this camera is more likely to be short on storage space and can’t afford the file sizes generated by raw footage. It would rent better once a ProRes codec is added.

Another pain is that one of the important functions just straight-up didn’t work for me. Having never used the camera and only a cursory knowledge of its functions, I picked it up and started shooting with it. This is something a renter or new owner might do, even though someone lacking experience should always do prior research (you know how people are.)

I knew the camera could dump footage from its SSD to the CF cards, but also read online you could record directly to CF cards. I couldn’t find a menu function to enable CF card recording, but I did find Format and Transfer functionalities. I supposedly formatted the two CF cards (even though one was upside down…that’s another bullet point) after finagling the menu system. I had to back out of the stuck-yet-filled progress bar by pressing menu, and it would automatically empty and refill the progress bar before giving a completion notice.

I shot some random test footage and used up space on the SSD. I later attempted to transfer the footage from the SSD to the CF cards by using the appropriate menu items. I got a completion notice, and the SSD now read 0%. I inserted both CF cards into the card reader, and neither one was formatted. They were both labeled with 5D and 7D folders, and one still had all its images and videos on it. So now the test footage I shot was not only missing from the cards, but it had been removed from the internal SSD during the transfer process. What if I had been on a shoot and not had time to test this?

So about those CF cards. I had trouble inserting both of them, as the card slots were very tight. I inserted one right-side-up and got it in half-way, but that was it. So I turned it upside-down, and still only got it in half-way. I then tried the second card in the second slot, and it wouldn’t go in at all right-side-up. So I turned it upside-down, and it went in all the way with a little force. Nothing excessive, just normal card insertion force. Then I went back to the top card and tried it upside-down. No luck. Flipped it over, and tried again right-side-up. This time, with a little finagling, I was able to insert it all the way.

So at this point, my top card is right-side up and my bottom card is upside-down, but they’re both in all the way. I try to pull the bottom one out, and it doesn’t work. The top one is in there too. I give up and decide to see if the camera will tell me something’s wrong. That’s when I tried to format the cards, and both were supposedly successful.

Back to the live video display. At the top of this screen, one card is an outline and one is red with a small circled “x” in the center. I can’t tell if it’s something indicating a bad card or if it’s telling me which card it’s recording to. There are no instructions with this camera, either. So I go about shooting, knowing it’s shooting to the internal drive based on the percentage drop. I shoot for a while then leave it in my room and go to a bar. When I get back I try to dump the footage, to find it’s not there. It’s also wiped from the SSD, without me being asked if I wanted it to be.

-The mic and composite video ports are mislabeled in the printout included with the camera. It is supposed to tell me what everything on the body is, but obviously it got that wrong. I heard terrible static noise when I plugged into the “headphone port” and thought it was something to do with the XLR or the mic. I double-checked the printout and it confirmed I was plugged into the headphone port. On a whim, I decided to plug into the other port and suddenly heard a sound. Oops.

-The lens I got is a bit of the pain in the ass. It has a beautiful image as far as I can tell on the EVF, but it vignettes even at 1080 crop and the threads don’t quite match up with the Bolex C-mount. My lens screws on too far, so the image never focuses correctly. The interesting thing is if I unscrew the lens a bit, so the focus, iris, and zoom control markings are top-dead-center, the lens focuses perfectly (as far as I can tell, I haven’t done a distance test to confirm, or seen the footage enlarged.) So because the lens is unscrewed, it’s nearly impossible to focus, zoom, or change the aperture without moving the lens in its mount. I’ll have to tape it when I get to set.

– Holding the camera just feels right. It’s hefty but not excessive, in a way that will lend stability to your shots. Inertia is key here; it has enough mass that it doesn’t want to move without significant effort. So, it’s less shaky compared to a lightweight DSLR. The pistol grip is unreasonably comfortable and having a trigger to pull when you want to record just begs for this to be used as a run-and-gun, street-shooter camera that hasn’t been popular since the original Bolex film cameras.

– Many people will like this camera for different reasons. Soon there will be native, interchangeable lens mounts for Canon, M4/3, and PL glass. The sensor is designed by Kodak and the camera records totally uncompressed RAW, so it’s basically just direct pixel values from a high-quality CCD sensor. A talented colorist made this camera’s image look exactly like s16 film shot in the ’70s, and a talented DP made the same sensor shine like a modern film camera. The image has a unique quality afforded to it by the nature in which a CCD captures photons.

Cheers,
Michael

Digital Bolex Production Diary Days 3-5

It rained all day on Saturday (Day 2) but I still shot a couple of test clips. Sunday was a good day for usability tests, so I went around set shooting handheld video of random events. I also put the camera on a tripod and shot some test clips with pans and tilts.

Not having rolling shutter is actually a novelty these days, as so much of what we see on TV and in theaters is shot using CMOS jello-cams like the EPIC and Alexa. Purely based on the physical nature of the chips, CCD never has a rolling shutter while CMOS does. So I shot some clips of pans and whip pans, trying to coax a weird effect out of the camera. I failed.

The image held up completely under the quickest pans, and it was a delight to watch. It harkens back to the film days exquisitely, by maintaining the same physical properties that film had. It’s genius to dump RAW DNG files into a folder because it means true 24p, just like film. Combine true 24 with global shutter, and what you get are thousands of sharp, clean still images. Any of these images could be used on its own as a still frame.

Speaking of still frames, that’s how I prefer to manipulate the images that come from this camera. I open the .dng files in Adobe Camera Raw and grade just one, copying its settings to all of the other frames. Doing this allows my old laptop (mid-2009 MacBook Pro) to grade CinemaDNG quickly and painlessly, using proven tools that I am already familiar with. I can apply similar “looks” to what I have used in my still photography, and don’t need to learn a complex new color grading software to create a one-light grade.

Once I grade a .dng from the folder of .dng frames, I use Bridge to copy its settings to all the other images in the folder. I do this a few hundred frames at a time to speed up this process. A faster computer could handle 10,000+ frames simultaneously but not mine. It works, albeit slowly.

My overall workflow is still being refined, but it goes something like this:

Open LightPost (included with camera purchase, free trial on their website) software. Enter “Copy” room. Scan the SSD (it mounts like a regular USB 3.0 drive) and it will find all the clips I haven’t imported yet.

Copy the clips to a folder on my computer. The software compares the copied data to the original to ensure a proper backup. When you get the green checkmark, you can unmount the camera.

Open Bridge and navigate to the desired shot. Open a clip in Camera Raw and grade as desired. Close Photoshop and go back to Bridge. Select the graded frame and right-click, go to Develop Settings>Copy. Select a group of frames and right-click, go to Develop Settings>Paste and make sure everything is checked. This might take a while if you select too many frames for your computer to handle.

Once the Develop Settings are copied to every .dng file in that folder, you can go back to LightPost. This time go to the “Organize” room and find the clip you want to export as a ProRes or h.264 file.

After you’ve selected the desired clip, go to the “Export” room. Even though the window on the left returns to the top, your desired clip is still selected. Use the tools on the right to select the appropriate export format for your video. Everything from ProRes 4444 at 2k down to downsampled iPhone-ready h.264 files are possible. I’ve been using ProRes 422 (Proxy) to preview my files, and the exports happen fairly rapidly. A 30-second clip takes about 3 minutes to export. I haven’t experimented with other formats yet.

That’s it! You now have an edit proxy or post-production ready ProRes file you can play with! It’s been colored once, the same way FIlm receives a one-light color pass at the time of development. Different film stocks have different characteristics which are corrected for, and the D16 is no different.

So about those characters that need correcting… The D16 has a tendency to run magenta, and it can be a pain to time it out. The files come into Camera Raw with a high color temperature and up to +30 magenta already applied. I take the magenta down to 0 immediately but sometimes it needs more massaging.

I’ve also taken red out of the highlights, and if I crush the shadows sometimes they get blocky magenta patches. That’s when I add some green to the shadows, and so far doing that has successfully returned the shadows to a deep, inky black.

The look of this camera really does approach film. I created a batch action in Photoshop CC to apply a Kodak film LUT to the .dng files, and there are a lot of LUTs to choose from. It’s a little too perfect for this application, and can really make this footage look like it was shot on film. If I didn’t tell you it was digital, I bet you wouldn’t know.

This camera is perfect for BTS interviews!! It’s not a good low-light camera, so you need a powerful source to illuminate your subjects. Lucky for me, working on a film set means there are powerful lights just lying around unused at certain times of the day. I took a 1.2 HMI and bounced it into a 4×4 showcard, mixing it with daylight fill or a daylight kicker and 4×4 bounce fill.

The results are incredible. I’ve never seen BTS footage that looked as good as the actual production, yet with a completely unique quality. It was a simple as putting the actors in an unused set on our location and lighting it with an unused light. I had a shotgun mic mounted on-camera, but you could use a wireless lav and a boom mic on a C-stand if you have the resources. You can plug both directly into the camera with +48v out and independent, physical controls for levels. Take that, BMCC!

Shooting in daylight means protecting the highlights at all costs. I have a Vari-ND filter which works wonders for my image. The camera does not handle highlights well at all, and again this is because it’s a CCD sensor and the photons are literally spilling over into neighboring photosites and causing ugly artifacts. However, if you protect the highlights, you’ll see some of the richest colors and finest detail of any digital cinema camera. I was shocked at how blue my skies looked! It was that blue in real life, a day after a rainstorm, and the camera represented it immaculately.

In truth, the Vari-ND could be adding a color cast to my image, so shooting a grey card will be necessary with accessories like that. I should have done that before, but I just thought of it now >.<

By shooting a grey card I can auto white balance my image in post, using the tool available in Camera Raw (or almost any grading software). I don’t know if the results will be perfect, but it’s worth attempting. It would be prudent to shoot a color chart but I don’t have one, unfortunately.

This has been a lot of fun to play with and I look forward to using it more in the future. I’m still figuring out the best workflow, but the method I described works fairly well so far. Different raw processing software interprets the footage differently, so sometimes I can get a look I like with one software but it’s not displayed in another. Or in one instance, I just liked how Finder was previewing the .dng files, but when I opened them in any other software it looked ugly! I couldn’t figure out how to get that exact look Finder was showing me, but I did grade those files into something I liked.

Best,
Michael

The post Digital Bolex D16 Shooting Tips & Production Diary appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

The MoVI is a 3-axis gimbal stabilizer. This means it stabilizes the camera in the tilt, yaw, and roll axes. Unlike a Steadicam, the MoVI is not attached to an operator’s body. This gives you more freedom in movement, and even allows you to pass the camera off to another operator through something like a window (like Burton did) or even drop it down over a ledge (like Vincent Laforet).

You can use the MoVI Pro with either a single operator or with two operators. If you’re using the MoVI in dual operator mode, one person will carry the MoVI rig itself while another operator will wirelessly control the pan and tilt of the camera via remote control. In single operator mode, the gimbal takes the operator’s movements and intelligently converts them into stabilized pan and tilt movements.

Our lead gear tech, Sean, has shot with the MoVI on several productions already. He knows the system extremely well and wanted to put together the video below to give a more in-depth look at how you shoot with and balance the MoVI Pro.

If you’re interested in renting the MoVI, we’ve built a complete shooter’s kit. Our MoVI rental includes:

• MoVI Pro 3-Axis Stabilizer
• DX-7 Remote Control with Tray and Back Harness
• Redrock Wireless Follow Focus
• SmallHD DP4 Monitor
• IKAN Monitor
• IDX Wireless Video System
• Android Tablet
• (4) MoVI Batteries
• 15mm Lightweight Rod Adapter
• Side Mount Battery Plate For RED Epic

For more information on how to rent the MoVI Pro, email rentals@strayangel.com, give us a call or stop in for a demo. We’d love to see you!

The post How To Shoot With & Balance The MoVI Pro appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

Watch and learn how to properly wrap BNC and XLR cables. If you’re just starting out in the film industry or want to be a PA, this is a great video to learn a bit of set etiquette.

And if there are any filmmaking tutorials you’d like to see, please let us know in the video comments:

The post Tutorial: How To Wrap A BNC Or XLR Cable appeared first on Stray Angel Films.

Our newest video is about how to use waveform on a monitor. Our Lead Gear Tech, Sean, briefly goes over what waveform is, how to read it, and how it can be useful to you when shooting.

If there are any filmmaking how-to or tutorial videos that you would like to see, please let us know in the video comments:

The post How To Use Waveform On A Monitor appeared first on Stray Angel Films.