Just got a tweet that B&H has the “no-brainer video cam” in stock so being the impatient chap I am, I cancelled my Adorama order and promptly ordered from B&H. Should be here early next week.

I have a beta of something (I think) even cooler coming in a couple more weeks as well. Should be good times here for me with new gear, a couple new projects and super high-quality production for independents and non-profits.

Tags: cameras, cineform, hd-dslr, tools

I bit the bullet and decided to try a 35mm adapter cold on this latest shoot for Peacemaker Ministries. It’s for a new resource promo video and they wanted a very filmic, edgier look. We had some leftover budget from the production so I hollered at Justin O’Neill at HD Cinema Group (aka @obendega) for a 35mm rental for my Z7U. Since they had a Seattle office, it seemed to make sense until I saw the FedEx tracking that still sent everything to Memphis.

Regardless, he cut me a great deal renting an M2 for a couple of days. He did however forget to send the mattebox with it, so said after I told him I was shooting in broad, bright daylight and really needed the box, he was sending me his ARRI MB20IIs they use for their RED One. I was like “geeze, I don’t need THAT much!”, but it really is an amzing piece of matte box amazingness. HUGE props to Justin and HD Cinema Group for outstanding customer service. They’re going to be my regular go-tos since there are ZERO rental houses closer than Denver or Seattle.

So the Auto Focus Assist. I spent damned near an hour trying to get the thing to focus. I was about to pack it in when I found in a thread that Macro will only work when the AF Assist is ON. This is where the REAL issue is with the Z7U comes in here. Macro focus needs to be on. BUT you can only have it on when Auto Focus Assist is ON. Right, that’s bad. But, there’s no way around it. I had everything off and couldn’t get anything in focus, nor could I get macro fuctioning. If someone has a solution, please post up.

So during the shoot, the focus issue only showed up twice, seemingly out of nowhere (seems pretty good for 7 hours hours of shooting to me). But I still had a surprising amount of control without the AF Assist poking around- when it was an issue, it was a real issue. So I wouldn’t recommend doing a 35mm adapter on the Z7U for that reason. I have a friend with an EX1 I can get my hands on if I do this again (pending it doesn’t have that issue).

Aside from having to lug that beast up  a huge hill to get to the location (insurance is a good thing), the shoot went very, very smoothly and I got all the shots I was hoping for. I primarily used a 35mm F2 lens and a 50mm F1.4 lens; both Nikon. I wanted to sneak the 85mm F2 lens inthe mix, but really didn’t see the need after I got all my shots. I have two more shoots I was wanting to use the 50mm for tomorrow, but I may just opt for the 85mm since the 50MM is where I had all my focus problems. I’ll play it by ear.

So I know now why people just LOVE 35mm adapters. I think they’re fantastic. Setup, teardown and lug around is a bit of a pain though. If I can get similar goodies at higher bitrate out of the current crop of DSLRs and maybe the Scarlet, I might opt for that if I was buying. I don’t plan on ever running big, massive cinema lenses, but we’ll see…I never planned on doing video either…

Tags: 35mm, cameras, location, m2, Production, video, z7u

Cabela’s really has nothing to do with the weekend I just had. It only happens to be the place you’d buy stuff for such a weekend (and it started with “C”). The wife and dogs and I just took the holiday at the cabin in the “Crazies” or the Crazy Mountains as it’s known on official maps. It was beyond nice; no disasters, lots of relaxing, mutliple naps, wonderful weather, mountain lion spotting, and on and on.

In the processes this summer, I realized I know nothing about video (after a failed recording of our org’s president). And that’s fine. It’s a good place to be, it keeps me learning. That said, I tested out a variety of my camera’s picture profile settings, shutter speeds, aperture settings etc. Didn’t really come away nothing anything new except that if you use the Z7u, Picture Profile OFF is best (for coloring ability and just plain look- well, with X.V. color going). So I guess that’s something.

And I’m feeling that now is the plunge into a very, very, very busy fall of which I feel entirely unprepared for. So be looking for blogs, vlogs, and vids over the next four months from the following locations; Texas, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and France.

Tags: cameras, downtime, Production, travel, video