DIY LCD Sunshade for Canon 5D MkIII

I was excited to receive my Canon 5D MkIII a few weeks back. The first thing I did was set it up on my off-set shoulder rig. This rig worked well for me with the MkII as it was the perfect combination of stability and weight. The first thing I noticed was that the digi finder I was using on my 5D was no longer usable on the enlarged lcd screen of the mkIII. This is a good thing and the resolution is really nice. Having just forked out 5K for the mkIII I didn't want to spend much more money so I went about making a sunshade instead.



I wanted to make the sunshade strong enough to make full contact with my face giving me that fourth point of contact with the rig. I forgot to mention in the video that I added a couple of strips of sponge seal to the back edges of the sunshade for added comfort.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the result. hope this is of use to all you DIYers out there.

shutter speed test using Fader ND

I was extremely excited about the ND Fader, a variable neutral density fader that attaches to the front of the lens, because it offered an alternative using the iris or shutter speed to control the light / exposure. As we know shutter speed effects the blur or lack there of. Films have traditionally been shot at twice the frame rate, i.e. 1/48 sec if using 24 fps, giving a smooth look to the motion. This is what we are used to seeing and may seem like a natural look. Some movies and music videos, however, looking for a different look shoot at faster shutter speeds.

To achieve the desired shutter speed while maintaining a certain aperture speed (and iso) we use ND filters. Normally video cameras have these built in and film cameras use a matte box with slots for interchangeable filters. I don't yet have a matte box and am putting off getting one until I have to. So I have gone with the cheaper option - screw on nd filters. You can get various fixed ND filter i.e. 2,4,8 or you can get a variable ND fader that works like a circular polarizer - rotate to increase or decrease effect. 

I bought my ND Fader from trademe.co.nz and it isn't the genuine article from france but a cheap Chinese knock-off which is always a risky road to travel but also kinda adds to the excitement. So here I have done some very basic comparisons of video shot at 1/50th, 1/100th, and 1/500 of a second, (using an ND Fader to control the light).

The tests were done on a Canon 5D mk2 with a Canon 24-105mm L lens at f/4 and 25fps.

Note the difference in motion, colour temp, saturation, and flare from sun.

 

my complete shoulder rig for under NZD $1.4k

I have finally assembled my complete shoulder rig, which is more difficult than it seems if you are on a tight budget. My rig includes: Proaim Shoulder Rig, Fotga DP500 Follow Focus, Lilliput 5" HDMI Monitor, 2x batteries, 7" articulating arm.

I ordered the Proaim gear from www.cinecity.co.nz (though I later discovered that the .com site is cheaper). The kit actually includes components to be configured as an off-set shoulder mount to be used with an LCD Viewfinder / Loupe but I prefer to operate with a monitor so I have gone a straight configuration. I was pleased to find the rig was easily adaptable and I had a number of options to choose from.

I ordered the Fotga Follow Focus and Lilliput 5" monitor from www.dhgate.com. I found a seller by the name of Kennyzhu particularly helpful with my inquiries. I also ordered two batteries to power the monitor and an articulating arm and clamp to mount it with. The postage was free and there was no tax either.  The Proaim gear took about a week and a half the dhgate gear only a week.My initial impressions are good and very satisfied the considerable savings made.

 

Full assembled shoulder rig with follow focus, 5" monitor and rode video mic.


 

FOTGA DP500 Follow Focus. Nice all metal feel. Smooth action with very slight play. USD $145.72











One rubber lens belt included. (Additional belts available from USD $13.00)

Proaim sholder rig NZD$789.00 (including postage and tax)

Lilliput 5" HDMI &YPbPr monitor. 800x400 resolution. limited ratio options. Displays full screen but stretched image on record. Full screen correct aspect ratio playback. Goes blank for about 6 seconds before and after rec. USD $224.61











Rechargeable Lithium Battery 6600mAh + Charger. USD $42.75










7" Articulating arm plus clamp. USD $49.95
























Counter weight

Riser, Tripod base plate, Camera base plate,

























Extra parts that I am not using in this particular configuration.

Alternatively you could buy this Redrock Micro Kit from B&H for NZD $4531.00 (not including postage & packaging)

Camelion Batteries for Canon 5d mk2

I picked these after market batteries made by Camelion from E-Infotech for $40 each. They power the camera but do not accurately display their level of charge. A2Z stock a battery made by Swit for $70 that do, so I would suggest going with those. The Canon LP-E6 goes for $115 at the same store.

kingston Ultimate 16GB 266x CF cards

I picked up a couple of these cards from E-Infotech in Glenfield. They are selling them for NZD$100 each. I had seen them on B&H for about USD$34 or NZD$42. I asked The guys at E-Infotech about the huge price difference and they explained that bought them in NZ and they paid a high price for them too. They offered me a discount on my next purchase. E-Infotech has been usually around the cheapest in the NZ market but it shows that it always pays to shop around.

The cards work fine with my 5d mk2 and are still loads cheaper than the Scandisk CF cards. Stay away from the 133x as they will not allow you to record the maximum duration clips.

Proaim DSLR full kit (from India)

Proaim from what I can tell is a company based in India. Their DSLR accessories range closely mimic the much coveted but over-priced Zacuto products. My friend has just received his DSLR kit including shoulder mount / camera and tripod base plate / follow focus / lcd viewfinder loupe / matte box / 7 inch monitor. He paid something like USD $1400 from www.thecinecity.com which is cheaper than the www.cincity.co.nz website.  Unfortunately I had already placed my order for a shoulder mount rig unknowingly from the latter website which I will review shortly.

In general the gear is pretty solid. The engineering may not be as precise as the genuine article but fully functional never the less.



This is an off-set shoulder mount with counter-weight. It feels reasonably comfortable with the ff mounted on the right as most of the weight fall on the left hand grip. The tripod base plate / rails are not adjustable since the rails do not go through but is comprised of four pieces that screw into either end of the base plate. With the rails included we could not fit a zeiss zf 100mm without hitting the matte box.



The view finder looks very similar to the zacuto z-finder and is very well made (possibly the best value item in the kit).



The quick release system has been well designed though there is a bit of play between the connecting parts after tightening.  The follow focus is solid but lacks a quick release system taking longer to adjust. There is no play in the gears. 5 lens gears were included three of which were two big to fit on any of the zeiss zf lenses.



The matte box is attached from the bottom (not swing-away) and feels a bit flimsy. the filter trays are made of plastic.



The 7 inch monitor has 800 x 480 resolution. there are minimal display options comparable to monitors made by Liliput. it uses a standard sony battery mount with small sony battery included. HDMI input, in-built speaker and so on.

note. The packaging is rough and the rig comes with an alarming amount of dust and grime on it. after putting together my hands were thoroughly dirty. It's kinda gross but it I like the romantic picture it triggers in my mind of the industrious if slightly chaotic Indian factory where it was produced. I'm not a label basher and welcome alternative products at competitive prices. Go the Indians!

Time-lapse / Under-crank

In film & video speak cameras have the ability to over crank (slow motion) and under crank (fast motion). Top of the line film cameras have had this facility for a while while the technology is relatively new to video cameras. The Sony EX1, for example can record anything between 1 and 60 frames per second. The footage is always played back at 25 fps or 30fps depending on which standard your country conforms to (PAL or NTSC). Thus when something is recorded at 1 fps and then played back at 25 fps it will appear sped up. Footage recorded at 60 fps will have the opposite effect and appear much slower than real time.

The 5D can't over crank at his stage although users are optimistic about a firmware upgrade that will allow it in the future. The 7D can record up to 60 fps in 720p. Under cranking however is easy with the addition of an inexpensive shutter remote / timer like this.

I bought mine on trademe for NZ $65. It allows me to take a single exposure every 1 second - 100 hours. You can make it do this infinitely until the battery runs out which is approximately 2 months of constant use.

You can also use it as a Timer Delay which allows you to set the time between when you trigger the remote and when the the camera shoots - up to 10 hours.

You can also set the duration of the exposure when the camera is set to Bulb - up to 10 hours.

Here is an example of a time lapse I shot this morning at the Ports of Auuckland.



How I did it:

Obviously you will need to use a tripod if you want your movie to look steady. Set up your shot as you normally would keeping in mind that we as viewers are used to seeing a bit of motion blur which means keeping the shutter speed down in the 50-100th of a second range. On a bright sunny day this means closing down the iris.. a lot. But if this is giving an undesirable effect to your image then you may like to employ a ND filter to cut down the light coming in to your camera.

Set you remote timer appropriately. The above time lapse was set at one exposure per second. If the action is very slow such as the stars or a flower blooming you will want to make the interval a bit longer.

I usually set my picture quality to large jpeg and then snap away. I usually turn off the Live View mode saving the camera power and effort but in the instance above I left it on so I could review the shots as they came in, though this can also be done through the view finder.

Once completed I ingest my photos via Adobe Lightroom  >  Make any adjustments to one the images in the Develop section  >  Apply a 16:9 crop factor to that same image  >  Control click (right click PC) the image and under Develop Setting select Copy Settings  >  Select all the images of the time lapse  >  Control click and paste settings  >  With all images still selected Control click and select Export  >  Make a new folder and resize the image with a longest edge of 1920 pixels (1080 HD)  > exit Lightroom and open QuickTime Player 7

Note: QuickTime Player 7 is included with Final Cut Studio HD.

In QT7 click File and select Import Image Sequence  >  navigate to the folder containing the images exported from Lightroom and select the first image file hit open. You should see your time lapse. Then export it is any format you choose.

Note: This is the way that I have done it and may be one of many ways to create time lapses.

Blackbird Camera Stabilizer

The Blackbird is a lightweight hand-held steadicam.

I bought my Blackbird Camera Stabilizer Kit off B&H's online store for US$669.95 not including P&P.

I had to import myself as there are no distributors yet in New Zealand. The cost of postage were rather hefty and I had to pay G.S.T. as it came through customs. The package arrived at my doorstep in less than two weeks.

after roughly assembling the small rig I immediately mounted my 5d. It was easy to work out and didn't take long to get it roughly balanced.

As with all camera stabilizers a lot depends on the skill of the user. it took me roughly a week to really get the hang of it.

Whereas previous semi-pro cameras were too heavy on top of hand-held stabilizers the 5d and other DSLRs are perfect for these light weight rigs. Wide angle lenses such as a 24mm on a full frame camera work best with steadicams. Here is a look at my test footage.



The Blackbird is made by CMR - a relatively small American company. The Steadicam Merlin is a more popular unit. It is more compact than the Blackbird. It is also slightly more expensive. The extra length of the Blackbird also restricts how very low to the ground action.

I decided to chance my arm at the blackbird, besides I had gotten the impression from reviews that the Merlin was more difficult to find the equilibrium. So far I have been very happy with the Blackbird. It is a well designed, solid piece of equipment. It is quick and affordable solution to giving movement to your shots.

Hands on - the new Sony F3

I am in Rotovegas at the moment helping my friend Mahanga shoot a 30min doco for Te Waka Huia.

We are shooting on sony's latest PMW F3 with an Angenieux 16-44mm zoom and a Zeiss 60mm prime and recording to a NanoFlash external recorder.  Paul from Nutshell also threw in an Oconner matt box and follow focus.

This is the first time we have used an F3 but the menus are external button are very similar to the EX cameras with which we are familiar. There has been some hype about the F3 due to its Super 35mm sensor, its PL lens mount and its comparatively low price. The Super 35mm sensor is significantly larger than those of the  EX series cameras but smaller than those of full frame cameras such as the 5D. This means a crop factor to 35mm lenses so the effective focal length of our 60mm is 83.something mm.

The NanoFlash is a cool little device that allows us to up the bit-rate of our 1080 HD video from 35 to 100 Megabits per second (or higher) allowing 4:2:2 sub-sampling. learn more about the NanoFlash.

The Angenieux and Zeiss lenses are both superb in picture quality and design and the follow focus really does make a difference. Check out these pix.

The doco will consist mainly of interviews and controlled cut aways. We are using my 5d and prime lens kit as a B kit. Also squeezed into our rental car is a Kino Flow Diva, 2 Blondes, 2 Arri 650's, 5 stands plus 2 C stands, a light dolly system, a couple of macbook pro's and some sound gear.

Setting up and Packing down we felt we were short a couple of crew members but all was forgiven when I discovered my motel room had a spa bath. =)

Eg-S Focus Screen

I was in Melbourne last weekend photographing my cousins wedding. I was keen on buying an new focus screen for my 5D mk2. I decided to go with the Eg-S Super Precision Matte Focus Screen.

It cost me AU$35 from a local camera shop. It was easy enough to install and wow what a difference it makes when using apertures faster than 2.8. Now I can use my Nikon manual focus lenses, which I prefer to use for video, with confidence as I can actually see what my lens is doing through the view finder. At  apertures faster than 2.8 when the depth of field becomes very shallow the Eg-S focus screen allows more information than the standard Eg-A focus screens. As reported the screen does get darker when stopped down to 5.6 and above. This is something I can live with as I normally check exposure in the lcd screen anyway.

This is a good investment for anyone who uses fast lenses and prefers to manually focus their shots. Plus reasonably priced.