My first short film with the BMCC! IMPROVED

I could not let Halloween 2012 pass by without giving my new BMCC a spin! Shot at ISO 800 in 2.5k RAW with a Nikon 28mm 2.8 AIS lens mostly wide open to f4. A battery fed LED panel was also used.

The Beautiful Crazy:

Biggest lessson learned: I should have used a tripod! (or stabilized lens) I used a target shooter style rig, but it was just not enough.

I just uploaded a new colorgraded and better output (from ProRes4444) version that I'm pretty sure looks better than what I had previously posted. Please let me know if you can see a difference. Thanks! Benton

Looks really nice, I didn't find it too shaky at all! Seems it was quite a large LED panel, right?

Lovely image/colors/DR the BMC has when handled correctly

Fun! The skin tones!

good stuff.

Very nice. How did you get your audio?

Looks really nice, I didn't find it too shaky at all! Seems it was quite a large LED panel, right?

I had to use the Warp Stabilize feature in CS6. It's a great band aid but is no substitute for steady footage to begin with. One down side in using Warp Stabilize is that it does not work on RAW files, only 1080p files. So after the stabilization is complete, some amount of cropping is done to hide the shaky edges that remain. This effectivly throws away resolution. I hope that Adobe will add dng.RAW support to Preimere at some point.

The LED panel has 876 LEDs and is 16"x9". I placed a 20"X20" soft box on the light to soften it up.

Very nice. How did you get your audio?

Thanks Marc. Built in mic. At the time I did'nt have the adapters/cables I needed for my Senhieser ME66 shotgun.

Interesting. Would IS have helped?

Interesting. Would IS have helped?

Probably, and Benton mentions this in his 1st post. (He didn't use a IS lens.)

Nice work, Benton, and thanks so much for sharing it.

If you have time, I'd love to see a short clip shot in ProRes "Video" mode (not "Film") @ 800 ISO in natural daylight (and on a tripod), with skin @ 75% zebras. I don't believe I've seen this particular combination yet myself (but I could be mistaken).

Cheers!

Thanks for posting this Benton.. the in-camera audio is a bit better than I thought.

Thanks for posting this Benton.. the in-camera audio is a bit better than I thought.

Much. I was quite surprised to hear that.

the only downside to the in-cam audio is the lack of isolation. it picks up every sound of the finger on the follow focus and the lens hitting its max/min stops and on some lenses, the iris 'click' as it opens or closes. there is also an annoying 'pop' about 2 frames into the start of the clip as well.

don't get me wrong, it's far better than, say, the in-built mic in a 5d. but once i stuck my NTG2 in an isolator and use the audio meter in the EVF, it's so much better.

the only downside to the in-cam audio is the lack of isolation. it picks up every sound of the finger on the follow focus and the lens hitting its max/min stops and on some lenses, the iris 'click' as it opens or closes. there is also an annoying 'pop' about 2 frames into the start of the clip as well.

don't get me wrong, it's far better than, say, the in-built mic in a 5d. but once i stuck my NTG2 in an isolator and use the audio meter in the EVF, it's so much better.

It's also located right next to the cooling fan on the bottom of the camera.

jb

Nice footage. I didn't notice big problems with this handheld footage, which means it wasn't that bad. Nice Res & Skin tones.

It's also located right next to the cooling fan on the bottom of the camera.

jb

ah... that explains the 'hum'...

the only downside to the in-cam audio is the lack of isolation. it picks up every sound of the finger on the follow focus and the lens hitting its max/min stops and on some lenses, the iris 'click' as it opens or closes. there is also an annoying 'pop' about 2 frames into the start of the clip as well.

don't get me wrong, it's far better than, say, the in-built mic in a 5d. but once i stuck my NTG2 in an isolator and use the audio meter in the EVF, it's so much better.

It's also located right next to the cooling fan on the bottom of the camera.

jb

And there was not another place to put the mic.... I mean directly pointing to the fan
It sounds better than I though...and images look great really awesome. It has that 16 mm look that I really like!!! And though it's not shaky footage I can detect some postproduction stabilization artifacts

Jesus

Downloaded the original and played it on 52inch tv. Looks fantastic. Thanks for sharing. The filmic quality of this camera still blows me away.

Absolutely marvellous and the camera loves people......

By the way, if you know someone with Adobe Audition....you can easily remove the hum.

Nice vid, is like every frame is a high quality stills photo, just love it.

the only downside to the in-cam audio is the lack of isolation. it picks up every sound of the finger on the follow focus and the lens hitting its max/min stops and on some lenses, the iris 'click' as it opens or closes. there is also an annoying 'pop' about 2 frames into the start of the clip as well.

don't get me wrong, it's far better than, say, the in-built mic in a 5d. but once i stuck my NTG2 in an isolator and use the audio meter in the EVF, it's so much better.

The audio meter in the EVF is a good idea.....thanks for the reminder.

the only downside to the in-cam audio is the lack of isolation. it picks up every sound of the finger on the follow focus and the lens hitting its max/min stops and on some lenses, the iris 'click' as it opens or closes. there is also an annoying 'pop' about 2 frames into the start of the clip as well.

don't get me wrong, it's far better than, say, the in-built mic in a 5d. but once i stuck my NTG2 in an isolator and use the audio meter in the EVF, it's so much better.

It's also located right next to the cooling fan on the bottom of the camera.

jb

Argh.. I wonder how a bottom mounted Switronix PB70-BMCC will affect the mic.

the only downside to the in-cam audio is the lack of isolation. it picks up every sound of the finger on the follow focus and the lens hitting its max/min stops and on some lenses, the iris 'click' as it opens or closes. there is also an annoying 'pop' about 2 frames into the start of the clip as well.

don't get me wrong, it's far better than, say, the in-built mic in a 5d. but once i stuck my NTG2 in an isolator and use the audio meter in the EVF, it's so much better.

It's also located right next to the cooling fan on the bottom of the camera.

jb

Argh.. I wonder how a bottom mounted Switronix PB70-BMCC will affect the mic.

If you're asking if the mic (or fan vents) are blocked when mounted on a tripod or other flat mounting plate: No, they aren't.

The BMCC bottom mounting surface is designed so it protrudes out slightly from the rest of the bottom of the camera, so the vents & mic aren't blocked. See attached photos.

bmcc bottom 1.jpg (35.29 KiB) Viewed 6153 times

bmcc bottom 2.jpg (55.89 KiB) Viewed 6153 times