Gah, Again with this photographic neediness! Â đ
Nightly Photographic Neediness
Tag Archives: 7d
Magic Lantern (ML) for 7D and with that… CROPMARKS! :D
I’ve been shooting video with my 7D ever since I got one from the Marianne-shoot. But as with most people, there are a few things that have always bothered me with Canons stock-firmware. And it’s been ignored so far by their development team (in order to, it seems, protect their video-departments).
Enter Magic Lantern.
A firmware add-on that has been releasing the full power of Canon Cameras since the first hacks of the 5DmII. As of a couple of weeks ago the 7D’s infrastructure has been deemed unhackable by the developers because of the dual Digic CPU-system employed by Canon. But then, suddenly. Seemingly from out of nowhere. A user named g3gg0 posted that he cracked the code. And now… an Alpha firmware add-on is released.
If you’re wondering why I keep calling it a firmware add-on, well. It’s because it is. In order to use it. You have to update canons firmware to v2.0.3 and then load a file-structure into your CF-card and then for each time you power up the camera, you go into the menu and do the update again with the modified .fir file. This won’t actually write anything new to the cameras firmware-flash-memory. Instead it’s just a way for ML to launch it’s code into RAM. For more details about that… look up the site: http://www.magiclantern.fm/whats-new/104-releases/140-first-7d-alpha-released
Why am I excited? Well. Because, even while it is a limited feature release. It still has two of the main draws for me of the ML features. 1: Custom Crop-Marks and 2: Live View Contrast and Saturation adjustments.
I’ll explain:
- Custom Cropmarks. I love Cinemascope in all it’s forms. From the anamorphic origins on 35mm 4 perf film to the not so distortion-heavy simple Techniscope and Super35 crops. But shooting for a scope crop in mind has been quite a hassle. There are some workarounds. I have tried taping scotch-tape onto the display to mask out the top and bottom. But that backfires when playing back since the playback is off-set vertically from the recording. And another aproximation is to use the 4×4 grid, since it’s rather close to what a Scope-cropmark would be. But it disappears when recording and doesn’t show at all at playback. In other words… useless.
Then I installed Magic Lantern. It has the ability to load custom BMP files as cropmarks. And while the ones provided did have Scope variations. I wasn’t all happy with how they were made. Luckily at ML there’s guides how to make functional BMP-files yourself and following those guides I made a set of crop-marks that has solid blacks outside of what I want to frame. This lets me concentrate fully on what I’m filming and ignore everything outside of it. Because I’ll just crop it out later.
Added bonus: In the menu there’s the ability to show the cropmark in playback. I’m so happy! And it’s properly adjusted to match up with the playbacks vertical offset too! Wee!
I have however noticed that a few times. The cropmark won’t go back to proper vertical position when switched back to recording mode. But re-launching the cropmark usually remedies this.
- Live View Contrast and Saturation Adjustments Since a lot of us are shooting with Technicolors Cinestyle PictureStyle or other super-flat versions. A good preview of what the final image will look like is sometimes a hard job to do mentally. One workaround so far has been to have a second picture style set up that looks like a graded image and then switch to CineStyle manually before recording. While this works. It does create an opportunity for errors if you forget to switch styles. And you don’t get to see the contrasty image when recording
So in ML there’s a feature that allows us to adjust the contrast and saturation of the live-view feed. This means that we’ll get to see the image with more contrast and still shoot with the gradeable Cinestyle without having to switch between them all the time.
There’s also Zebras and Peaking. Though I haven’t had too much success using the Peaking in this version. I do however love the Zebra. Using the Luma-range and only showing what’s over 99% I get instant feedback of what’s blowing out.
Then there’s the Waveforms and histograms. Great features. Especially since I can even adjust it to show what channels are blowing out and how many pixels are blowing out in each channels. I keep these on constantly now.
I am not very fond of the option to hide menu-items using the menu-button. Mostly because the first dozen of times I pressed it it just went dark and things started dissapearing. Since I saw no indication that this was the intended behavior I was ready to report it as a bug. But I saw the tiny text. I still accidentally press it. But at least, now I know what it’s doing. I don’t like it. But according to the replies in the ML-forum they’re keeping this function.
Also. I think that it’s very confusing of them to sometimes use SET to enter sub-menus and sometimes I have to use Q-Menu (also making me accidentally hit Menu some more) for the same deal when it only shuts of the feature instead of letting me adjust it. Again. Judging from the ML-forum. This is unlikely to change. And I guess I’ll just have to live with it and relearn my button-habits for each and every menu item.
I might be sounding negative about those aspects. But overall I love this release! đ It’s not perfect… no… and it’ll improve greatly when they enable ML to load automatically during bootup. What are you waiting for?! Get it! (though remember that it probably isn’t covered in warranties).
The Importance of De-Noising for Grading 7D footage
Or, Letâs Follow JMalmsten As Heâs Trying
His Best To Look Like A Colorist
As I mentioned earlier. I have been not just a tiny bit impressed with what the NEAT denoiser can do for video. And looking through some footage I had in the archives I decided to see what I could do to make the, in many ways horribly shot, footage look a bit nicer. And the choice finally fell upon a clip I had shot almost at midnight here in the jamtlandish forest while a team from SyFy where here to try to find our own little loch ness monster.
Itâs in the land of the midnight sun, but still, I had only the f3.6-f6.5 zoom-lens and of course, the people where sitting in the shadow to not interfere with the filming that took place all around. So, since I have sworn to the allmighty noodily lord and his midgits that I would never use any shutter wider than 180 degrees I ended up shooting with very high ISO-gain on the 7D-sensor. And also, of course, the Technicolor CineStyle picture-style was brand-spanking-new so I was trying out that too.
All this meaning some great noise. đ
Anways… This is what I started out with.
Might not look so bad. But then again. Cropping to scope does tend to make most videos more cinematic, regardless of content (sarcasm). But nontheless. There are some pretty big issues abound in the image that even me with my simplistic monitor can spot.
First off. She’s blue… almost purple. And while there are a lot of Navi-fans out there I doubt they are enough to warrant me leaving her looking like an alien. So I had to focus on getting the skin-tones right. So after giving it the simple Neat-video with my noise-profile I had lying around and a slight sharpening on the Luminance I set to work.
The difference is slight. But if you pull it up to bigger view you will see that there’s some serious noise in the raw pic’s red jacket and in the image overall. And if I don’t pull out that noise right now it will only look worse when I’m pushing the colors around. As I will be doing rather severely.
So I drop in my trusty Colorista II and in the primary I simply ctrl-pick a part of the jackets white part as white-balance. That’s it. For starters I just want it neutralized. This was the “color-correction” bit of the process. Now let’s get “artistic”.
Since the skintones has actually started to look like skin with the simple adjustment I go in and do a simple warm-highlights and cool shadows-type of look in the master-section of Colorista.
Oddly enough. I rarely do this by actually touching the wheel for “shadows”. Because that tends to darken down the shadows far too much and tint the whole shot in the wrong way. Instead I go for the midtones. And I know this sounds crazy. Since this is where skintones is supposed to live. But if you look at the talent. Her skin is actually probably already some of the brightest parts of the image. Sometimes this reverse-tactic does backfire. But the result is still a standard push-pull to get it to look great. And while I’m at it I go into the curve-editor to bring in a custom contrast-curve.
A lot better. But still. Let’s do what I’ve been told women spend a lot of their time doing when they expect to be seen by a lot of people. I myself don’t think it’s always necessary. But hey. I’m practicing a little hollywood-style right now, so let’s go a bit shallow with what’s considered beautiful. Just for practice… ok.
So here’s where I found de-noising to really help out while grading. For comparison I took two screen-shots of using the same key sample-area on the same footage with and without the de-noising beforehand:
Now, while the un-de-noised version is useable if you do some blurring of the key it does feel rather wasteful and you are loosing a bit of definition of the edges in the process. So in my mind the denoised one is a clear winner. But then in this example I did end up blurring it allthewhile but I hope you see the potential here.
So back on topic here. Using a rather wide sample of the skin I got a nice key and went ahead to warm it up a bit further while also adding in a negative pop to even out her skin a bit and topping it off with a slight rasing in exposure. Since the key keeps the negative pop and warming where it should be without interfering with the details in the eyes and lips, I can be a bit agressive with those adjustments. -55 on the pop is probably a bit heavy-handed. But heh… it it’s already rendered… So what am I supposed to do? And it doesn’t seem to bother the guy in the back even.
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| (adding a negative doesn’t that result in zero?!) |
Then, I felt rather done with her. But the red jacket in the background did feel a bit obtrusive. So on a second adjustment-layer I added another colorista and went into its secondary keyer. Sampled the red jacket. And just pulled down its saturation and brightness a bit.
And while I was just about to call it done I found myself looking at the lips. And I wondered. Could I maybe do digital lipstick? It sounded a bit off. But I’m not one to shy away from what’s supposed to be stupid. So I simply added another adjustment layer and another colorista. This time with a big power-mask (the first time I used the powermask-feature in this “project”) over the lip-area. A simple key and color-adjustment later and suddenly she had a not too tasteless adding of lip-pigmentation (anyone who’s actually knowledgeable about makeup probably disagrees with my wording and estethics. But at least I tried. đ )
So in closing, don’t let me forget what the title was. Because now I’ve gone from this:
To this:
Without it ending up looking like this:
The difference might be slight. And probably even neglibe on the web as youtube and such. But trust me, in motion. You will be glad to not see that noise dance around, distracting you eyes from what’s important in the scene (I spent two hours in Oldenburg looking at grain-structure btw. It was booooooring… and the film wasn’t great either).
Here’s to the next english-language blog entry!
Cheerioh!
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Ut’ pĂ„ OskargĂ„rden igen
A first After Effects CS6-test
Off course, The first thing I would do is a 3D-track with some extruded text… I’m sorry okay!
Rumors for a 7D firmware update? I have some suggestions…
Out of the blue in the days of NAB we get rumors from Canon Rumors that the 7D will possibly be getting an “extensive” firmware upgrade. Since Canon and most other manufacturers has so far mostly treated firmwares as spelling-error-fixes (and fucking with hackers-upgrades) I’m not convinced about anything until we see the final outcome. But as the mill starts churning I’ll throw in my own suggestions in this here blog that no-one reads anyways.
Things I would like to see in a firmware update for the Canon 7D that rarely, if ever gets any mention (in no particular order):
- Oldschool film-trigger: In the olden days of small-gauge film (8 and 16mm) running time was expensive. So home-filming cameras were equipped with a very conservative feature. The camera would only record while the record-button was pressed. This made for short bursts of filming and never were we faced with the situations of people forgetting if they were recording or not. If your finger (or thumb) were pressing the button, it was filming. PERIOD. And while it’s not optimal for many occasions, I would like to see some camera manufacturer provide it as an experiment. I think we would waste far less recording space with this option.
- Funky Frame-sizes:
This might sound silly, but in todays day and age, we shouldn’t be shackled to the standard 16×9 format. And sometimes we would probably benefit from some other frame-sizes. Like:
3:4 full sensor-filming. When we want to capture the whole sensor for some reason. This would probably mean more line-kipping, but sometimes it could be useful.
2.4:1 cropped filming. I don’t know about many other people, but I find that only filming what I would get would be very intriguing.
4:3 full sensor-height filming. Why? Well, both for filming old school academy standard ratio like they did in the olden days and also for…
Anamorphic filming. Shoot with an anamorphic lens that with clever Pixel Aspect Ratio’s automatically maps out and uses all available pixels. Which brings me to
HOW?
Well, I’m glad you asked. I imagine several ways. If the hardware is wired for 1920×1080 and refuses to budge for a compromise to give, like… 2232×929 2.4:1 video that has actually slightly less number of pixels per frame than a 1920×1080 frame that we now have to crop to obtain 1080×800 2.4:1 . or likewise 1660×1249 for 4:3, while still leaving us with far more pixels to work with in the final image. If something like that isn’t possible for technicalities, then maybe do: - Funky Pixel Aspect Ratio’s: In the middle ages of video the standard we had to live with was 4:3 and most of your widescreen DVD’s are actually only 4:3 when you count the pixels in each direction. The magic happens when we start to mess about with the shape of the pixel. A 4:3 image with 1.33:1 pixel aspect ratio widens it to full wide-screen. But nowadays the standard is already 16:9 (or 1.77) so why not sample the image from the sensor in 4:3 and store it using the full width of the 1080p-standard using 1:1.33 pixel aspect ratios? A cinemascope sample likewise could be stretched to fit the 16:9 format using the very same 1.33:1 PAR that the DVD’s used to use! Same datarates! Same everything! but in post we suddenly have quite a few more pixels to work with. We even get a slight vertical oversampling going on when we export to regular square pixels! Hooray! Or how about…
- Funky Framerates! Let’s just dump the old shackle between recording-speed and playback-speed. Sometimes we just want to mess with it a bit. Sometimes we want to film a fight-scene in 22 or 20 fps, and then play it back in 24fps for a slightly sped up look. It’s barely noticeable. But it can make a difference. And with the afformentioned stuff about frame-sizes I also want to put forward a proposition to crop frame to get higher framerates. Right now, the 7D is capped at 30fps in full HD mode. But what if we only shot a 1920x800p frame? Then maybe we could increase the frame-rate while keeping the data-rate in check? Maybe 1920x800p 48fps and using funky pixel aspect ratios, 1920x400p 96fps? Should look much nicer than a 1280×533 fps crop at least.
- Shutter in BOTH angles and fractions and make it lockable for projects!!!: Ok, the exclamation-marks might be uncalled for, but we have all had the problem of someone nudging the shutter and suddenly the dream-takes are unusable because it became a smeary mess or distractingly staccato for one shot. So this one is simple. Give us the option to lock the shutter at an angle in menu and then make the wheel do something else. And the greatest reason for making us able to shoot with degrees instead of fractions of seconds is that we need much less math on set to make the motion-blur match. Most of the time we want the 180degree rule. And if we lock that in the menu, that will look correct no matter what framerate we’re using. Right now it’s in seconds and we have to change it accordingly when we move from 24 to 60 fps recording-modes. It becomes one less thing to worry about on set. And it would make it much easier for the film-folks to just pick up the camera and shoot.
- Push-auto record button option: Now this one is a crazy one in the same vein as the old-timey film-button mentioned earlier. But hear me out. The usual manual way is normally preferred, but there are times when we just want to pull the camera out and shoot. But auto-settings tends to screw with us because as the shot progresses it will adjust accordingly. Closing aperture while panning over a window, messing with white-balance because a blue truck drove past the scene. All that fun stuff. It’s fixable in post, but very time-consuming. So my proposal is to have a functionality that samples the first images, adjusts the exposure and white-balancing parameters and then locks them until the next time I press record, when it goes over the calibration again. It should be done within a fraction of a second and since it’s probably in live-view already it should be able to do it while I’m not filming. Just lock it when I press the button. This would make it more suitable for run&gun-filming. And if it gets it wrong it’s a steady exposure and white-balance. It’s a quick fix instead of nudging keyframes to counteract the effects over time.
- Crop Marks: Just in case we don’t get the other frame-related features (pff, I wish). Then at least give us USEABLE crop-marks for video. Right now there are basically none. There are some sort of crop-marks that are all basically square and they rarely help. And when filming all that goes away. The 4×4 grid actually is pretty close to a scope-crop-mark. but again it goes away. We can tape the screen for recording but some a****** made it so that the recording image is off-set vertically compared to the playback-mode.
- USEABLE peaking: It’s the ultimate focus assist in my eyes. Just look at the Sony PD150’s… copy that. end of entry.
- LUT’s: A lot of people are using picture-profiles but find it hard to actually work with them on. Some even resort to flipping back and forth between CineStyle and a more graded look. This is unnecessary. Because, if the camera would just let us choose a style for recording and a different style for viewing it would make for far less mistakes and post-wrangling of colors.
- Project Setups: Why not have a feature that makes it so that when you want to start a new project you enter the parameters for that project. This would include shutter-settings, playback-speed, viewing and recording-styles (see LUTs above) and other stuff that is likely not to change during project. This could then be saved out to the CF-card and when a card is inserted and the Project Setup file isn’t present a dialog would appear to ask if you want to A. save current project setup as a file on the disk or B. set up a new project.
- USB-interface for keyboards and other funky things: Most cameras have USB-cables for interfacing with computers. But I have yet to see a camera that lets you hook up a keyboard to quickly input metadata. Why is this? With this we could have the camera assistant enter in current take and scene numbers as file-names or other things. Like controlling things with simple mouse-scroll-wheels. There’s a lot of possibilities here.
I’m sure I come up with more as time goes on. But of course, I wouldn’t be mad at them if they implemented in-camera ProRes 4:4:4 too. đ
For now, we’ll all just wait and see.
Oh and PS…
Stop worrying about hackers customizing firmwares… if it bricks… then just refuse to fix it under the warranty. Let them do some crazy things. We will all benefit and you’ll sell more cameras. đ
DS
Dressman Museum of Modern Art?
Super8 IGEN(!)
Men ok, det Àr inte min super8 film den hÀr gÄngen. Jag var riktigt jÀvla sjuk nÀr rullarna delades ut och jag hade inte riktigt nÄgon idé att filma i tid ÀndÄ. SÄ istÀllet fick jag agera aktör samt teknisk rÄdgivare i Sulaymans noir-thriller. Inspelat pÄ svartvitt Kodak TriX blev det och som teknisk rÄdgivare fick jag vÀldigt mycket svÀngrum att leka Director of Photography genom ljussÀttningen. Vilket var en vÀldigt intressant uppgift.
Som vanligt Àr det nu dock en ordentlig mÀngd osÀkerhet om hur filmen exponerades. Jag har inte riktigt kunnat lova att det blir nÄgot annat Àn just "Noir", som i översÀttningen "svart". Men sÄ Àr det nÀr man tar sig lite vatten över huvudet. för varje nytt projekt.
NĂ„got jag ocksĂ„ gjorde var att fota en hel del stillbilder som, som sig bör, gjordes i kontrastrik svartvit med stundvis vĂ€ldigt grovkornig redigering. AlltifrĂ„n Tony Bergslids eminenta spel av en luffare som kommit över lite vĂ€l mycket pengar till TeamFX’s vapenarsenal fick jag bilder pĂ„. Riktigt spĂ€nnande Ă„terigen att se sen nĂ€r filmen kommit tillbaka frĂ„n framkallningen i maj ungefĂ€r.
Lite mer bilder
The Time-Lapse Interval Calculator
One of those times I wish I had gotten the timelapse-thingamajigg a lot sooner.
So I recently got my Chinese intervalometer for my Canon 7D and just as I was going to test it out, I started to think about what I wanted it to do. Or rather, how to calculate what I want. At what interval should I set it if I wanted a particular effect? So off I went to the trusted knowledge-source called Google knowing fully well that if it doesnât show up there, it doesnât exist. Or something like that.
I did find a couple of solutions, most of them centered around using the Iphone as a host. Now, I have been quite outspoken about my apple-policy, and therefore those were not for me. I can see the utility of that sort of an âappâ (in my days we called them âprogramsâ) but I just donât trust a company that donât know how to hold a mobile phoneâŠ
So I found three alternatives:
At first glance it seems to have what I want, but trying it out, I wasnât impressed, no 24fps playback setting, and the intervals often end up being decimals per second. Meaning that itâll say .5 times per second meaning 2 seconds per frame. This gets confusing fast when it says 0.0056 frames per second and your equipment asks for seconds per frame.
A web-based solution for iphones, which makes it useful for all platforms supporting html too. But again, the functionality isnât what Iâm after. It only calculates two of the three variables of time-lapse. Either the event time or the playback time when what I want to find out is the Interval, the actual number I need to enter into my intervalometer.
The Steele Chart. By far the best calculator I found for this type of things. At least when working in 24fps-formats. I printed it out and put it in my camera bag/backpack as soon as I read and understood the workings of it. But still I wasnât satisfied.
So I read the text in the bottom right corner of the Steele Chart and realized that the mathematics was actually quite simple:
FORMULA: Event duration in seconds divided by screen time in frames
equals the interval.
Then I went about and created an OpenOffice-calc-sheet (equivalent of an Excel-Sheet) that did exactly what I wanted. Sure itâs not perfect, and Iâd be the first one to say that itâs ugly-looking. But it does do it. You enter the event time, the desired playback-runtime and top it off with an fps of your choosing. And through the wizardry of these sheets, it automatically returns a number that is intelligible for both you and your intervalometer.
> Download the OpenOffice Document <> Download the Excel converted file <
(EDIT 2021-04-06: Apparently, I have misplaced these files… So the links have ended up becoming broken. Sorry about that. The Google Sites thing was a solution I had forgotten long about and now it’s gone)
As a bonus I added a couple of features to calculate other aspects of the timelapse. By adding the information of the average file-sizes of your RAWâs and JPEGâs you can see how much space the resulting stack of photoâs will occupy on your memory-card. And adding the free space on the card, you get the number of possible shots. Also, of course it calculates the X-speed if thatâs your thing.
The usage is fairly straight-forward. You put in the information needed for the calculations in the orange cells and the results appear in the blue cells when you commit the numbers entered.
Of course, it has itâs drawbacks too. For one thing, you need a .odt-viewer in order to use it, that means either a tricked out phone or a laptop for field use. Also, it calculate that one variable only. But since I made this mostly for my own use I sort of customized it to my needs and the equipment I use.
It was an interesting excersize that I thought others would like to have access to or improve and maybe make it a bit more user-friendly and platform-independent.
But until next time! (nature is calling as they sayâŠ)
Testar Tamron 18-270mm
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| 18 mm |
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| 270 mm |
Less is more sÀger folk, men ibland vill man ha mer oavsett. dÀrav fick jag i mÄndags tag pÄ en Tamron 18-270mm lins. NÄgot som dom gÀrna slÄr sig för bröstet och kallar vÀrldens största zoom-omfÄng. Och jag Àr imponerad, den Àr kanske inte perfekt. Men vad har man att vÀnta sig med en lins som ger 15x zoom till oss APS-C-kamera-Àgare.
SÄ som brukligt Àr har man gÄtt runt och tagit bilder pÄ det mesta och upptÀckt lite olika saker.
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| Min stökiga lÀgenhet. |
Till att börja med sÄ kommer jag nog vÀldigt sÀllan att ta av den hÀr linsen. För 18-270 Àr bra mycket mer Àn jag vanligtvis behöver i omfÄng. AlltifrÄn nÀstan Terry-Gilliam-vidvinkel till ordentlig telefoto. Men nÄgra nackdelar Àr att notera om man funderar pÄ att köpa den hÀr linsen för videofilmning.
För det första sÄ Àr visserligen zoomen helt mekanisk, inga servo-motorer som stÀller till det med 70tals-crash-zoomningarna. Men dÀremot uppför sig blÀndaren lite underligt för oss videofotografer. Man kan nÀmligen höra den justeras i fasta steg frÄn helt utzoomad till helt inzoomad. Det kan verka konstigt nÀr blÀndartalet inte Àndras i displayen. Dock har jag en teori om att iochmed att linsen blir lÀngre sÄ ökas blÀndartalet, kanske Äker blÀndaren lÀngre ifrÄn sensorn, vad vet jag? Och för att kompensera det ökade avstÄndet sÄ öppnas blÀndaren Ànnu mer. Det Àr en intressant lösning som jag undrar om den ocksÄ finns i andra linser och videokameror. Men problemet Àr inte sÄ mycket det som att det görs i fasta steg. Det gör att luminansen i videon ser ut att hoppa till nÄgra gÄnger frÄn helt in till utzoom och tillbaka. Sen sÄ har vi fokusringen som ocksÄ gÄr att stÀlla till helt mekanisk och manuell. Men Àr pÄ tok för kort frÄn nÀrmast till lÀngst borta. Extrem fingertoppskÀnsla behövs för att fÄ saker i fokus nÀr det zoomas. Kanske gÄr det hÀr att komma runt med en follow-fokus-annordning som har ordentlig utvÀxling.
OcksÄ sÄ klart bör det noteras Àven att filmning med rullande slutare med lÄng lins görs med sÄ stadig kamera som bara gÄr. Visst, det finns en optisk bildstabilisator som Àr extremt gra till stillbilderna, men Àr lÄngt ifrÄn optimerad för video och gör panoreringar ryckiga nÀr bilden kommer utanför stabiliserings-zonen och mÄste flyttas med. Och slÄr man av den och kör handhÄllet dyker bara rullande slutaren upp med sitt fladder.
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| Bokkake-nÄgon? |
Men om man vĂ€nder pĂ„ steken vill jag nĂ€mna ocksĂ„ att jag fick positiva överraskningar ocksĂ„. Saker som att jag missat att tĂ€nka pĂ„ att nĂ€rgrĂ€nsen för linsen (49 cm) rĂ€knas frĂ„n sensorn i kameran, inte frĂ„n linsens front-element. DĂ„ linsen i sig sjĂ€lv sticker ut runt 30 cm helt inzoomad sĂ„ kan man vara sĂ„ nĂ€ra som 15-20 cm frĂ„n motivet. Det kanske inte lĂ„ter sĂ„ nĂ€ra, men med en lins pĂ„ 270mm sĂ„ blir det ganska stort ska man tillĂ€gga. Och för er “bokkakeh”-Ă€lskare dĂ€rute som vill klaga pĂ„ den snĂ„lt tilltagna blĂ€ndaröppningen sĂ„ kan jag lugna med att pĂ„ det avstĂ„ndet blir skĂ€rpedjupet tillrĂ€ckligt svĂ„rt att ha Ă„ göra med pĂ„ f6.3 .
Sen bar det ivÀg ut pÄ förÀldragÄrden igen och dÀr skulle det rullas rundbalar. Och medan man vÀntar pÄ att vagnen ska fyllas till bredden med hoprullat foder sÄ ser jag det gamla vindkraftverks-projektet mot den klarblÄ himlen. Kameran Äker Äter fram.
Sen skulle jag vilja slĂ„ ett slag för att underexponera och fel-vitbalansera bilder. Ăr det korrekt? inte för fem öre, men det Ă€r nĂ„got med de hĂ€r bilderna som gör att jag tror dom inte skulle vara alls lika intressanta om jag vitbalansera enligt regelboken. Att ladugĂ„rden jag fotade i ser ut som stundvis som en grotta Ă€r bara ett plus ocksĂ„.
Efter en dag pÄ lanne
Ăgnade igenom senaste tidens bilder och sĂ„g lite olika jag kĂ€nde för att besvĂ€ra allmĂ€nheten med. Det finns lite av allt möjligt. Först frĂ„n en locationscout-trip innan Marianne-inspelningen satte igĂ„ng pĂ„ allvar. Karln i sista bilden dĂ€r Ă€r regissören som dragit ihop hela produktionen.
Sedan var detett par bilder pÄ en lampa som jag tyckte sken sÄ skönt. Visst Àr vitbalansen Ät helvete fel, men utan den vÀrmen blir bilden tÀmligen tam i dessa fall.
Sen till sist nÄgra bilder frÄn idag dÄ jag var ute och plöjde Äker pÄ familjegÄrden. Denna Äker Àr alldeles ut mot Storsjön. Och med det strÄlande vÀdret och nÀstan spegelblanka vattnet var det alldeles för svÄrt att inte skutta ur traktorn och ta lite bilder.
SĂ„ det var allt för denna gĂ„ng… synes!
Lite fler bilder och sÄnt.
Tiden gÄr och inget bestÄr eller nÄgot sÄdant. Lite saker har man att skriva om.
Till att börja med, lÄngfilmsfotograf-ryktet verkar bestÄ. En vecka frÄn första stora inspelningsperiodens tvÄ veckor och jag har inte hört att jag Àr kickad eller nÄgot. Lite ovant kÀnns det med ett sÄ stort Ätagande pÄ ingÄng som en kinesisk Volvo-lastbil dundrande pÄ motorvÀg mot en förvirrad gnagare.
Sen har ju stillbildsfotandet ocksÄ fortsatt med kameran som jag fÄtt ut iochmed den ovan nÀmnda inspelningen. Fortfarande inte min egentligen. Men regissör/producent/manusförfattaren har generöst lÄtit mig anvÀnda den före starten för sjÀlvstÀndig inskolnings skull.
inom ramen för dessa tester fick jag Àven igÄr Àntligen chansen att fÄ till en hyffsad bild pÄ mÄnen nÀr alla tillfÀlligheter nu till slut gick min vÀg. Det Àr bilden ovan, en sÄ-kallad full-size crop. Med det menar jag att jag tog bilden med Canon EOS 7D kopplad till min zoom-lins som i sitt lÀngsta lÀge ligger pÄ 200mm. Bilden som blir av det Àr visserligen sÄ inzoomat jag bara kan fÄ till det, men mÄnen Àr fortfarande vÀldigt liten i bild. SÄ för att komma runt detta har jag helt enkelt beskurit bilden till lagom komponering och laddat upp hÀr i sin pixel-för-pixel storlek.
Dock blev det inte sĂ„ lĂ€tt att ta bilden som jag hade hoppats… för dels kan inte min lins riktigt fokusera pĂ„ oĂ€ndligt avstĂ„nd, eller iallafall inte pĂ„ 384,403 km iallafall. Enda vĂ€gen runt det för mig var att sĂ€tta blĂ€ndaren pĂ„ sĂ„ högt som möjligt, F32, och sedan kompensera med en slutare pĂ„ 1/10 och ISO400. Med andra ord var Ă€ven stativ och tidsutlösning nödvĂ€ndig för att jag inte skulle skaka sönder exponeringen.
Ăr det optimalt? nĂ€dĂ„, med oĂ€ndlig budget hade jag nog valt en Canon 800mm lins. Men med lite finurlighet kan jag nog anvĂ€nda de exponeringar jag fick för kanske en compositbild i HD dĂ€r kĂ€llbilden anvĂ€nder en vidare lins. Det blir nog skarpt nog i det fallet och storleken blir nog imponerande Ă€n vad den skulle blivit med vidvinkeln.
Jaja, dĂ„ slĂ€nger jag vĂ€l in tvĂ„ andra bilder jag tog utanför förĂ€ldrahemmet, första var bara lite underexponerad sĂ„ det fixades i Photoshops RAW-verktyg, andra var nĂ€stan skrattretande dĂ„ligt exponerad. MĂ„nga fler tricks tog jag till dĂ€r men resultatet blev nog iallafall acceptabelt för webb-visning. NĂ„gon gĂ„ng ska jag nog fĂ„ till en bild jag fĂ„r för mig att printa ut som affisch… jaja… men fram till dess hinner jag nog posta fler inlĂ€gg i min halvsovande blogg som ingen lĂ€ser.
Ă , jajustja… Fotobloggen min lĂ€gger jag ner helt. Allt sĂ„nt har förts över hit och bloggen kommer tas bort om nĂ„gra veckor.
DÄ slutar jag med en hÀlsning frÄn en personlig favorit i Är:
HUUUUUUUUUUYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Provar Canon 7D Stillbilder
Som jag nĂ€mnde förut kan jag nog börja titulera mig som “DoP” snart. I samband med det fick jag ut ett exemplar av de beryktade Canon 7D-kamerorna just under den ökĂ€nda dagen 1a april. Inga offer att fota dock sĂ„ det blev en promenad ner pĂ„ stan under pĂ„skveckan dĂ„ man kastbytte mellan de gamla 70-80-talslinserna jag har sedan förut. Tre stycken gluggar med Nikon-fattning.
Lite o-ortodoxt, ja, jag vet. Men det var dom linserna jag hade som överhuvudtaget skulle gÄ att anvÀnda till kameran, medelst endast en adapterring frÄn Scandinavian Photo.
En sak jag insÄg snabbt var dock att jag antingen mÄste fÄ tag i Canon-linser eller tvÄ till adapter-ringar. För det hÀr med att lyfta runt min enda adapterring mellan gluggarna Àr ett tidsödande extra moment nÀr man ser svanarna i fjÀrran göra sig redo att lyfta och jag sjÀlv ju har vidvinkeln med 0.66 adaptern pÄ kameran.
Alla bilder tagna med RAW och gĂ„tt igenom enklare fĂ€rgkorrigering i konverteringsprocessen till jpeg-format. Ibland lite vĂ€l mycket gissar jag. Men pĂ„ det stora hela Ă€r jag ganska nöjd med resultaten i dessa testbilder, Jag kan nog fota med 7D’n som stillbilldskamera ocksĂ„ nĂ€r jag inte anvĂ€nder den för video… Vem hade kunna tro’t?!
Förresten, har jag nÀmnt att undersidan av Frösöbron Àr fan underskattad rent visuellt?
