Sony 18-105.....The Baby Sea Monster

I really like shooting Super 35.  But one of the challenges has to do with lenses.

It's like they multiply when you put two of them in a backpack together, and you

end up with a fast prime (50mm F1.4) a wide zoom (10-20mm F4.5) a 'normal'

zoom (17-50 F2.8) a 'normal/telephoto' (50-150 F2.8) a fast, wide zoom (18-35 F1.8)

a fast 'portrait' prime (85mm F1.4) and a 'superzoom' (18-200mm F3.5-6.3).  So

when shooting 'unpredictable' stuff, you have a decision to make.  My ideal scenario

would be to have 8 arms like the great Sea Monster, and switch lenses quickly and 

still get the shots I needed.  In the absence of this, I would often use the lens that 

came as a kit lens with my FS700....the 'superzoom' (soon to be renamed 'The Sea Monster').  

And there are lots of pluses with this lens, even if you don't hear about them online

from 'cinema' shooters who look down on it.  Native E-mount 'goodies' like: nice image
stabilization, great range!, auto focus, face detection, tap to focus, auto iris.  It makes it
into a decent run and gun lens.   I know you have heard about all the negatives......
focus 'by wire', extending lens barrel, and ramping iris......it seems cinema shooters just
don't appreciate Sea Monsters the way they should.  Now there are other Sea Monsters out
there.  But these other Sea Monsters are a bit elitist.  They will only show up if you have a lot

of money.  Like this one. or this one.

Enter Sony's 'Baby Sea Monster'.  This lens, attempts to address some of the concerns

that shooters had with the original.  No extending barrel...it's a total internal zoom from

18-105mm.  No ramping iris.  It's a constant F4 at any focal length.  It keeps the autofocus,

auto iris, face detection, tap screen to focus, and image stabilization (standard only, it

doesn't have the amazing 'active' mode of the original Sea Monster!)  But this is a Sea Monster

for everyone at just $599!  Yeah, the 'focus by wire' system is still there, but that wasn't 

really the worst problem.  The bigger problem was the 'pillow distortion'.  Yes it seems this Baby Sea Monster may have a bad tentacle or two.  Early reviews came out and showed just how bad it was.

I bought the lens before I saw the reviews.  After I got it, and confirmed that the distortion was indeed present and very, very bad, I called Sony Professional.  I had heard that the lens worked with 'in camera correction' that the Sony still cameras had....and I had heard rumors of a coming firmware fix, that would allow the cinema cameras to correct for the distortion as well.  Sony told me, that there was no firmware fix coming for the cinema cameras, and that it was meant for still cameras (which I found strange as it was a power zoom lens, but what do I know?)  It seems the extra pixels in a 16-24 megapixel still camera, allow for the distortion to be corrected.  So I returned the lens.  Imagine my surprise, when about 6 months later, I heard there WAS going to be a firmware fix after all.  It seems that the extra pixels in the 4K chip on the Sony FS700 and FS7, would also allow the distortion to be corrected.  But only in HD, (not 4k) and only up to 60fps.  So again, I ordered the lens.  After a quick firmware update to my FS700....I was in business.  With the firmware fix, this is a whole new Baby Sea Monster!  All tentacles are working properly.....there is none of the distortion that was previously there.! Here is a quick test video, showing some of the native E-mount goodies:

                                 

As you can see, the range, constant aperture, internal zoom, and auto functions make this an interesting lens.   Interesting enough that I put it to use on a job the day after I got it.

If you read my earlier blog posts, you can see one called 'Something for the Holidays'.

I was hired by the Governor's office to produce this video, and it was shot on the FS700 with the 18-105 lens.  Just in case you don't want to scroll down my blog....here is the video.

But alas, no way to use the high frame rates on my FS700 because the distortion would be back as the distortion compensation couldn't keep up with the high frame rates.  But I decided to try it anyways......and it seems that this Baby Sea Monster has a trick or two up it's sleeve.  See for yourself.

Yup, the high frame rates worked just fine, all the way up to 480fps!  Pretty cool!
It has some minuses, but really, it's a 'cracking' little lens.

Release the Kraken!!!

Pros

Small and light

Very nice range on Super 35 about a 6x zoom.....wide to moderate telephoto.

Constant F4 aperture

Internal zoom means no extending lens barrel

All the native E-mount goodies.  Great autofocus, face detection autofocus, standard image stabilization (good but not quite as good as the 'active' image stabilization on the 18-200), tap to focus on your LCD screen, and auto iris.

Works with zoom rocker and is pressure sensitive for 'feathered' zooms.

After firmware update, lens is great with very little distortion and nice looking images.

Seems to be parfocal!
Price $599

*Surprise bonus.....distortion compensation works at high frame rates (at least on
the FS700).

Cons

'Fly by wire' focus and zoom rings can be annoying.  Hard to
'hit spots' with manual focus ring and no 'snap zoom' with zoom ring.

I haven't tested it but distortion compensation probably won't work in 4K

Gabe Strong

Cinematographer/Editor/Owner

G-Force Productions Digital Cinema

www.gforcevideo.com

www.facebook.com/gforceproductionsbusinesspage

Putting together a promo video part 3

Finally, I was tasked with one final video in the series.  (If you are just reading this for the first time, go back and read parts 1 and 2 first, it will make much more sense!)  This final video was to be aimed at high school administrators.  The University's Tech Prep Program had a few high schools in the region who were NOT participating in the partnership with the University.  Of course the University was hoping to persuade them to start participating by stressing that most of the work would be done by the university and so on.  So we created a client brief for this video as well.

Video 3) High school administrator

We need to show the support of important figureheads throughout the Southeast.  Governor

Bill Walker, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Senator Cathy Munoz, Chancellor John Pugh, etc...

We need to make the admin and school boards feel they are among important people in their field.  We want them to feel that by being involved in this program, they are leaders in education.  Again, all about bragging rights.  By being involved with this program, they will be considered elite among community members and they will ultimately actively recruit students into the program.  This video is all about outlining the educational values of this program.  Using 'buzz words' if you can include them.  The 'important figures' should help reinforce the idea that the Tech Prep programs are cutting edge and that all educators should be enthused to be involved in steering kids towards these programs.  The administrators should see that many of the top people in this state consider Tech Prep programs to be very important and feel that they should join these influential people in promoting Tech Prep programs to students.

Client brief above, video below.  Do they actually go together?  Hopefully.......

Gabe Strong

Cinematographer/Editor/Owner

G-Force Productions Digital Cinema

www.gforcevideo.com

www.facebook.com/gforceproductionsbusinesspage

Putting together a promo video part 2

So on to the next installment in my series of Putting together a promo video.  Which should
probably be called Putting together a series of promo videos.  If you haven't read it yet, look
through the first post before you read this one to better understand what is going on.

So, my second video in this series, was aimed at parents.  The idea being to get parents to
encourage their high school age students to enroll in Tech Prep Programs.  Again, this video
was aimed at a totally different audience, so it had a totally different objective and feel.
When coming up with the client brief for this video, we talked about what parents would
want.  Here is the client brief for this second video

Video 2 Parent)
We have to tug at the heartstrings of the parent.  Parents from our communities want, for
 the most part, for their kids to stay in Southeast or at least within Alaska.  They are proud 
of their kids, and want great things for them.  They have a great love of their family, 
traditions, and their communities.  We have to showcase each community throughout 
Southeast.  The Tech Prep Programs are strong here in Juneau, however the smaller 
communities don't necessarily feel a strong connection to Juneau.  The video can't be
based on footage of Juneau or most of the parents won't be able to relate to it.  They need 
to be able to see shots of their community, so they identify that this is a program for them. 
Parents would be proud of their kids for attending the University of Alaska in Juneau, but 
they really are in love with their own community and want their child to succeed there.  
Tech Prep, especially for the high school years is all about the student being successful 
in their own communities.  We want to show the impact of our Tech Prep programs on 
their community.  We want to be able to illustrate how their child could make them proud 
by working within their communities and giving back to the community.  We want to make
 this video a 'warm fuzzy' for the parent watching.  It's all about potential bragging rights. 
 Parents love to brag about their kids.  this video could be longer (than 2 minutes) 
because parents have more patience in watching informational videos, especially moms.  
Maybe use interviews with parents and students to highlight key issues??

So with the client brief in mind, here is what I produced for the second film.

Gabe Strong

Cinematographer/Editor/Owner

G-Force Productions Digital Cinema

www.gforcevideo.com

www.facebook.com/gforceproductionsbusinesspage

Something for the holidays.

I now interrupt the series on putting together promo videos for this holiday message.
Which is a holiday message about producing promo videos.  So honestly it's
not really an interruption.

I was hired to make a video promoting the annual Alaska Governor's Christmas open house
event.  For those of you who have never been to it, it goes a little something like this.
Basically, a bunch of very friendly local elves make around 25,000 cookies and
almost 300 pounds of fudge.  Then people stand in line for an hour or so to get into
the Governor's mansion.  While standing in line, state commissioners will serve you hot
chocolate, cider and cookies.  Once you get inside, you get a chance to meet and shake
hands with the Governor and his family, and eat a bunch of cookies, fudge, and other
goodies, drink punch, check out festive gingerbread houses and traditional holiday
train sets, and listen to Christmas carols.  It's a very popular event in Alaska's capital
city, ESPECIALLY among the children.  Anyways, here is the video:

Gabe Strong

Cinematographer/Editor/Owner

G-Force Productions Digital Cinema

www.gforcevideo.com

www.facebook.com/gforceproductionsbusinesspage

Putting together a promo video part 1

One of my bigger projects this summer was working on a series of web
promo videos for the University of Alaska. I learned a lot from doing
this job, as it was one of the 'bigger' jobs I have undertaken. Now that I
have approval from the client to post the videos online, I thought it might make
for a good series of blog posts, showing what it is like to undertake a project like this.

It all started when my 'network'  let me know that there was a potential job which was to promote the University of Alaska's Tech Prep programs. As usual, I asked the potential client to view my demos and then set up an initial meeting with them.  I went into the meeting thinking they wanted a generic Tech Prep 'promo' video. So, I did a little research. First, I looked up 'UAS Tech Prep' online and didn't really find anything new or exciting. Just a normal University offering Tech Prep programs. Next I did a quick YouTube video search for 'Tech Prep Promo' videos.  Hmmm......now this is interesting. These videos TOTALLY, ABSOLUTELY STINK!  I apologize if someone out there has made one, maybe I didn't see your video.  But my goodness, the Tech Prep Promo videos I found online, are really about as exciting as watching the rocks dry off after a rainy day in SE Alaska. Now, I have something to go on. Not a lot, but I am guessing that this potential client also is not enthused by the prospect of the 'normal' Tech Prep films that I am seeing online from other Universities.

So into the meeting I go. I usually go armed with three main questions.

1. Who is your intended audience?
2. What feelings would you like them to feel while watching the video?
3. What action would you like them to take after viewing your video?

After asking these questions I usually ask one final question.
'Show me an example of a good promo film online.'

So at my meeting, I found out a few things. My potential client was relatively
new on the job and wanted to 'shake things up' a bit. As I suspected, she did
not like the current normal fare of 'Tech Prep Promo films'. But more than that,
she actually wanted a series of videos. Up to this point, I thought I would be making
one video. Now I found out that the project involved three different videos, each
intended for a different audience. So my questions above had to be 'portioned' out.

Video 1 was to be aimed at high school students. It needed to be 'hip' and
convince students that Tech Prep programs are cool. The client compared this to
a military recruiting video

Video 2 was to be aimed at parents of high school students throughout SE Alaska.
Parents in these small towns, have a lot of pride in their small, Alaskan communities.
In the past, most children had to move to one of the bigger cities to get work after
high school. But now, UAS is offering Tech Prep Programs to these high school
students, targeted at the kind of jobs they could get in their own community.
So this video aimed to tug on parent's pride in their community, and hope for their children to
be able to stay close to home after high school, It was obviously going to be more
'emotional'

Video 3 was to be aimed at administrators of high schools. UAS was hoping
for more participation from high schools in the area. Yet some were not
working with UAS to offer the Tech Prep classes. So this video was to
be filled with 'dignitaries in Alaska' talking about how important Tech Prep
programs were. The idea was, to convince school administrators that the 'movers
and shakers' in Alaska feel the program is important, and they should jump
onboard as well. Another minor theme was that there isn't really that much work,
for you, the high school administrator to do, so why not participate?

Now the University of Alaska Southeast has campuses in several communities.
Juneau, Sitka, and Ketchikan. The client wanted to make sure that I didn't
just stay in Juneau, as she wanted it to appeal to the parents and students in
the other towns as well. She also wanted me to go to a SE Alaska town which
did NOT have a UAS campus, but whose high school participated in the Tech
Prep Programs. So, I put together a bid, taking into account flights to three locations,
hotels, rental cars and so on. I was awarded the bid and finished the mounds of paperwork,
wrote out a contract and all the boring, but necessary business stuff that one must do.
Luckily, I specified 25% payment up front as the flights, hotels, rental cars and meal
expenses were not going to be cheap. I packed both both my cameras (Sony FS700 and Sony
VG20) a bag of lenses, a couple tripods. slider, lav mics, batteries, chargers, and lots of
SDHC cards and got onto the jet. Now I live in Alaska, but what many people don't realize,
is that the part of Alaska I live in is not particularly cold. But it is wet. It rains.
And rains. Usually about the time everyone is starting to quack, we will have a break from
the rain for a solid two hours. That's what we call a 'partly cloudy' day. So that made it
all the more amazing when I had pretty much solid sunshine for the whole week I was on the road.

Anyways, after a week full of 14 hour work days, I came home with about 200 gigs of footage.  As this was for the web, and I had to be fairly mobile, I shot this all to internal AVCHD on the cameras, which honestly looks way better than it has any right to. Being on the road, it was perfect to be able to carry 8 32 gig SDHC cards in a case about the size of a pack of cards. And the SDHC cards cost about $35 each and will hold 3 hours of video. Once I was home, I started working on the postproduction.  Because of the client's stated desire for something that high school students would think was 'cool', I made
extensive use of the slow motion mode of the Sony FS700 for this first video.  Now each on of these three videos in the series
was different.  Obviously, there would be a lot of similar footage, but each video
was aimed at a different audience.  For this blog, I am going to include a 'client brief'
which is a short summary of what I wrote down for each video after meeting with the client.
Most of the stuff in these briefs are DIRECTLY from the client.  A filmmaker may have
their own ideas how to do a commissioned film, but as always, the client is the one paying the
bills so it's good to have a short brief down in writing to explain what it should look like.

The client brief for the first video is as follows:

Video 1)Student
Totally directed toward the high school student.  It should outline some of the programs 
offered but has to have an amazing 'wow' factor in the way the video and music are put 
together.  Students want to be involved in programs they can be proud of.  It's all about 
bragging rights.  Probably no longer than 3 minutes, they don't have a long attention span. Teenagers, especially those who don't enjoy traditional schooling, don't feel as young as
they are.  They have a mindset that they are more mature and advanced than their peers.  
They don't want to be talked down to or listen to explanations. 'Shock and awe' works well 
with this group.  Listening to other teens talk about their experiences won't work, unless 
the other teen is deemed to be as 'cool' as they are (and no one is as cool as they are).  
The self-esteem of young people is generally pretty low.  We want to show them what they 
could become.  We have to present the information in the future tense.  Maybe a bit with
students doing awesome hands on work, but also clips of actual work in the field.  Young
people sign up for the military many times because of their recruiting films that showcase 
troops in the field 'The Few, The Proud, The Marines'.  Students wouldn't sign up if they saw
boot camp videos!! 

So there is the client brief.  This necessitated some 'staging'.  I didn't want to just show what
kids may actually do in these classes (although I wanted to show some of that as well) but
to show what it may be POSSIBLE that they could become if they kept following the career
paths these classes would lead them towards.  So, as you can see in the video, the CNA
student probably would not be performing CAT scans on patients or scanning through
X-rays.  The EMT and fire trainees, would not be responding to a fire, and so on.  But the
client brief directed the course that I took in the video....which really is the most important
thing.  If the client likes the video, then they hire you again, say good things about working
with you and all that stuff which is very important if you like eating actual food and paying your mortgage.

Anyways, take a look at the completed film below after reading the client brief.  Hopefully you can see how the two of them go together.






If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.

Gabe Strong

Cinematographer/Editor/Owner

G-Force Productions Digital Cinema

www.gforcevideo.com

www.facebook.com/gforceproductionsbusinesspage

Outdated??

Earlier this summer I got a call from cinematographer Robert Howell from Texas.  I had
worked with him a year or two before, on a shoot in Juneau, and he was wondering if I
would like to fly to Sitka to help him on another shoot.  This one was for a nationwide
social media contest....Good Neighbor Pharmacy of the Year.  An national agency needed promo videos made of each of the top 3 Good Neighbor Pharmacies.  Then the videos would go up on social media, and people all over the nation would view the videos and vote for their favorite.  So it was for the web, but being a national ad agency, they wanted high quality video.  Robert brought his F3 along.  We rigged it up to record Pro Res to an external recorder.  I gave it the nickname 'Megatron 6000'

Robert is totally chill and a fun guy to work with.  We spent a couple days running around
Sitka, shooting interviews

And B-Roll

The video we were shooting, was a promo video for Harry Race Pharmacy in Sitka.
After the videos were posted,  people all over the nation began viewing and voting for their favorite one to win Good Neighbor Pharmacy of the year.  In late August, the winner was announced....
and it was Harry Race Pharmacy!  Here is the video itself:

Just a couple days ago, Sony announced yet another big sensor camera the Sony FS7.

It looks like it will be a very good one!  4k, 10 bit internal recording, and so on.  But it's nice to remember that good cameras from the past....like the F3, can still put out really nice looking work, and make you money.  For a lot of clients, even a national ad agency, an 'outdated' camera like the F3 will do the job just fine!!

                                                                       Gabe Strong

    G-Force Productions

       Digital Cinema | Websites | Consulting |  Multimedia

      www.gforcevideo.com

       http://www.facebook.com/GForceProductionsbusinesspage

Metabones.....are we friends or not?

I did a blog post about the Metabones adapter awhile ago.  It worked great, and allowed
me to use Canon lenses on my Sony cinema cameras (Sony FS100, Sony FS700 and
Sony VG20). Everything was cool......until it wasn't.  Now I don't know exactly what is
going on.  But here is a cautionary tale.

Now I'm a one person shop....which means I have to be smart about what I spend money
on.  I started my video business with a PD150, and an Apple Powerbook (yeah, the black
G4 400mhz one with a copy of FCP 2).  And I stayed with that camera for about 8 years.
When I finally had enough clients who wanted HD, I upgraded.....to a FS100.  Yup,
the Sony FS100 was out before I upgraded to HD.  In a way, it was kind of neat, because
I skipped right over all the small sensor HDV cameras and never spent money on them.
But when I got the FS100, all I got with it was the kit lens.  As my business continued, I
bought some faster lenses.  A 'B-Stock' Sigma 50-150 F2.8 (an absolutely fantastic lens!)
A 17-50 Tamron F2.8.  A Tamron 28-105 F2.8.  A Sigma 10-20 F4.5.  And recently a
Sigma 18-35 F1.8.  I also have some vintage FD mount primes, but for this blog post I
want to talk about the third party Canon mount zooms.

After using them for awhile, I realized that although the Tamron lenses worked just great
there were issues with the Sigma lenses.  I would randomly lose contact with the lens.
The Fstop reading would read '--' and I could not change it with the dial on the camera.

Sometimes, disconnecting the lens and reconnecting it would get it to work.  Sometimes disconnecting the Metabones and reconnecting it would work.  Sometimes, turning the 

camera off would work.  Sometimes, none of the above would work.  Very frustrating.  

Now I have an early Metabones Smart Adapter Mark II.  I emailed Metabones and they 

had me send the adapter back to them (I paid $25 for shipping) and they updated the firmware.  

Got it back and it worked perfectly with the Sigma's.  I was happy, my old friend was back....or 

so I thought.  Soon I noticed it started doing with the Tamron's what it had been doing with the Sigma's.  Losing contact with the lens.....giving the dreaded '--' in the Fstop column.  Again, disconnecting and reconnecting the lens or the adapter would fix it sometimes....but then 

there was a sign this was different.  When disconnecting didn't work, I powered the camera 

down.  And I noticed something a little funny.

If you look closely, you can see.....the switch is turned off.....but the camera
literally refuses to shut down!  The Sony symbol stayed up, even though the
camera was powered down!!!  I literally had to pull the battery out to get the
camera to turn off.  Soon afterwards, the Tamron lenses quit working entirely
with the Metabones adapter.  I get the dreaded F-- every time I use the Tamron
lenses.  The lenses will also no longer work with any still camera, somehow the
iris control has been literally broken inside the lenses.  The good news is, they
are stuck wide open, so with use of my built in ND filters (I now have the Sony FS700)
I can almost always make them work.  But still....uncool.  More good news, the Sigmas
continue to work just great with the Metabones adapters.  So here is some of my assumptions.

Assumption 1) The Metabones is made to work with Canon lenses.....less so with
third party 'Canon mount' lenses.

Assumption 2) Tamron and Sigma have some kind of different protocols and
somehow the Metabones could only work with one or the other.

Now realize, that I had my Metabones adapter for a year and a half before
issues started.  Also realize to this day, it works flawlessly with the Sigma
lenses after the firmware update.  I'm not knocking Metabones and in fact
the adapter is a crucial part of my kit.  And there are new versions out that
may deal with this issue much better.  But I've heard too many stories out there
from people having similar issues.  So I wanted to get this story out there.
You must realize, translating one type of lenses 'electrical signals' into
a competing cameras 'language' is not easy.  And despite the raves
Metabones has rightfully earned......there ARE issues with certain
third party lenses.  Also, I didn't like having to return my adapter, and
be without it, not to mention paying for the shipping for a firmware update.
I felt like that should be something an end user should be allowed to do at
their home computer.  From what I hear, with the newer Metabones adapters,
this may be possible.

Gabe Strong

Cinematographer/Editor/Owner

G-Force Productions Digital Cinema

www.gforcevideo.com

www.facebook.com/gforceproductionsbusinesspage