Just did a test shoot shoot with the Nikon D90 for the first time, experimenting with it’s HD video mode. I was asked to shoot some stills for my friend Cathy, who works for Mac Cosmetics, in Toronto, for their trend book for the upcoming season. Customers who walk into their store can see examples of the latest makeup trends for the fall/winter period.
I ended up coordinating and overseeing the shoot, so I could shoot some video, while my sister and her boyfriend shot the actual stills.
The D90 shoots 1280×720 video at 24fps but features no manual control of it’s shutter, ISO or aperture (aperture control if using a manual lens). This lack of control is rather frustrating and even more so because there’s no way to even tell what it’s setting itself to. There’s also a fair amount of compression on the image and you can see stair stepping and banding in certain areas and conditions. Regardless, I’m really impressed with the results considering the context of what the camera is. Under the right conditions and with some care, and especially if your target is the web, it could be a viable option for your project.
The video was shot with mainly a Nikon 50mm 1.4 AFS lens as well as a 18-200 3.5-5.6 VR lens. With the 50mm my process was to set the lens to 5.6, aim the camera at the white ceiling, where light from a softbox was leaking a little, hit AE-Lock and then open or close down the iris to control exposure from there. With the zoom I would AE-Lock onto a brightness that allowed me to get good exposure on what I was shooting, as there is no iris ring on that lens. Those shots are also grainier as it’s dialing in a higher ISO to make up for the lack of speed on that lens.
Overall it’s a really exciting time to see this kind of development with cameras - hits and misses - into something as compact as a DSLR and at the price point they’re selling these kinds of cameras for. This shooting style - short documentary/loose narrative - but with high end/high end looking cameras is something I’m becoming increasingly more interested in.
Thanks to Cliff Ramnauth for letting me borrow the camera for the shoot.
Just finished another music video for Umar Syed and artist Laddi A with the track Punjabi Number One. We shot at this amazing location in Oakville - a warehouse in behind GTA Exotics, who rent out high end sports cars, which also made it into the video.
Shot with the Brevis35 adapter, HVX200 and some Nikon glass. Lots of small tungsten lamps everywhere! Thanks to my crew - Gaffer Misha Petrenko, Key Grip Kiran Singh and AC Isaac.
Lighting and grip by barrycheong.com. Additional lighting by Mike Armstrong @ spark It rentals.
One of our performance setups for the above screen shot. Long 4 above keying talent. 6×6 Silk lighting the Red Viper to the right of the frame.
Lining up the shot. Key Grip Kiran Singh pushing me on our skateboard dolly.
I’ve been doing more shooting with my iphone 3GS. It’s doesn’t even remotely come close, quality wise, to a my DSLR or even a point and shoot but it’s exceptionally convenient to have it part of my cellphone without having to carry an extra device.
What’s been really interesting and rewarding has been using the Auto Stitch App that allows you to stitch together multiple images to create panoramic images. I’ve always been really interested in panoramic images. I remember back in the day flipping through location scout photos, film prints stitched together with scotch tape, before the advent of digital photography and really enjoying the images they made up, imperfections and all.
Panoramic images also solve for me the frustrating aspects I’ve always had with traditional imaging, which is field of view (or lack thereof) and it’s difficulty to represent grandeur, compared to the experience of looking through our own eyes. Human beings naturally experience the world in a panoramic way so it only makes sense that certain settings demand to be shot that way.
I just recently got back from New York City where I was surrounded by constant grandeur and I found myself shooting more and more with my iphone and less with my D300 as the trip progressed.
These are some of the results. All the images were shot with the built in iphone camera (3 megapixel) and stitched together with Auto Stitch in phone. All images are a combination of at least 5 separate images and many feature easily 10+. The images were then copied and pasted into an email and emailed out of the phone. Some basic tweaking of color, contrast and minor sharpening was done in photoshop.
