I am trying to have a more attractive Zen outlook on life. So I am selling a load of my gear. Nowhere near most of it. Just a tiny fraction, but it’s time to do it and de-clutter my life, and that means regaining my house and avoiding being on hoarders.

There is nothing wrong with gear. Far from it. It’s all superb. I just never use a lot of it. So why take up space in a cupboard when I can give it to a good home and at same time help in my quest for a better life/ work balance? (You can read my incredibly important post about that here)

I have big plans…plans that I can’t talk about now. But I will soon. Until then, if there are any bits of gear you need…whether it’s cameras, lenses, monitors (tripods coming soon) and so much more to come, do check out my ebay store. Everything is an auction with no reserve. There are going to be some awesome bargains there!

Check it out here: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/PBs-Blooming-Bargains

*This is not strictly true

OK…a confusing title. Let me clarify. I would shoot raw and 4k on every single shoot if I could. It’s wonderful. I want everyone to shoot raw and 4k. There we go. BTW is is actually raw not RAW. It’s not an acronym. It’s a word. Raw data. Unprocessed. You know…raw! I hate unnecessary caps and there is nothing worse THAN WHEN PEOPLE WRITE EVERYTHING TO YOU IN CAPS BLAMING THE CAPS LOCK IS STUCK. I DON’T CARE I CANNOT READ IT SO PLEASE BUY A NEW COMPUTER NOW OR GET SOME WD40 PLEASE! Phew…that’s better!

I am not a negative nelly, poo-pooing raw or 4k. Far from it. I am just a cautious person by nature. When I see everyone clamouring for it, I have to ask the question “why do you want it?” which usually gets the obvious answer along the lines of they “want to be able to shoot the best images with the best latitude.” I then ask the more important question, “why do you need it?” Of course I get the same answer! That should not be the case. That is the key. What you want and what you need are two vastly different things.

Raw is brilliant. 4K is sexy as hell…BUT they both come with a number of quite severe headaches for the vast majority of people (including myself) who are clamouring for it. If those headaches were not there, then I would tell everyone to go for it, but as I am in somewhat of a position where people listen to me (still an utterly bewildering thing to me) and take what I do or advice I give as verbatim (which you should never do, mine is just one opinion so please feel free to ignore this or take my advice on board and listen to others too as you should never take one person’s opinion as gospel) then I must explain the issues we face. I am not being devil’s advocate either as I genuinely believe these issues are real and would be quite a problem for many. Not everyone though. Some people are perfectly kitted out to take this on and their work is ideal for it. So whilst my title of this article is essentially black and white, the actual arguments are not. Many shades of grey and most of us if not all of us fall into this grey area at some point. There absolutely is a use for both of these for SOME jobs…just not for all.

BELOW ARE PICS OF ME USING RED EPIC

Shooting and raw and 4k doesn’t make you fatter…even though it looks like it, especially standing next to rake thing Eric Kessler. The bad old porky days.

When I shot lots of RED Epic which was only ever raw and 4k/ 5k, the images I were getting looked so gorgeous and the flexibility in post was amazing. Truly eye opening. The problem I had was in post and in storage, and this is with R3D files which are way more manageable than other raw/ 4k formats floating out there. I ended up getting a very expensive Mobile RED Rocket card to make my post life more bearable. I still spent a small fortune on hard drives.

These Epic images were indeed epic, some of the finest looking images I have shot, technically, you know…in a pixel peeping kind of way (please do not pixel peep as it makes the palms of your hands go very hairy!) They were not my finest work creatively – that of course is nothing do with the camera. That comes down to me. An important point to make. One I have made countless times before…a better camera WILL NOT MAKE YOU A BETTER SHOOTER OR FILMMAKER. It will make your images look better compared to if you had shot on a lower end camera for sure. 4K and raw will not make your work any better. Although it may help you mask mistakes so the appearance of your work is better.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with making the appearance of your work better than it actually is. When I first shot tapeless using XDCAM discs, I used to erase shitty shots and make my rushes look better… but ONLY when I gave them to the client. Not if I was editing them myself, I didn’t care how clean they were. But I wanted my client to have clean rushes. It made me look way better than I actually was

That is the joy of raw, the ability to do so much with it in post is just incredible. You can fix so many in-camera issues, not all of them of course, but many. It can rescue shots due to lost detail in highlights and shadows, fix those white balance issues…. it can help make the most of difficult shooting situations when you can’t deal with the issue in-camera like you would normally, for whatever reason (as in different lighting). That is not the whole point of raw at all, it’s not there to fix things in post, it’s a big plus of it. It’s more for getting past the limitations of codecs giving limited dynamic range, so you get more creative choices in post. So couple raw with the stunning detailed high resolution images that 4k  give you, then you simply have the best images possible and the most flexibility in post. BRILLIANT. After all, that is what everyone wants!

Of course, all of this is utterly irrelevant if your content sucks. No point shooting on a high-end format like 4k and raw if your content is below par. It is not going to make it any better just because it’s raw and 4k. If that was the case I would shoot everything I did in 4k and raw, no matter what, so I could magically take even my most mediocre work and make it much better!

Until recently, 4k and raw video was pretty much exclusively RED. Without Jim’s visionary company, the high end cinema arm of camera companies would have rested on their laurels. RED gave them a massive wake up call. Good. Everyone needs a good kick up the backside every now and then. Blackmagic Design are another visionary company, but let’s talk about them later.

Turin Brakes: Chim Chim Che-ree. RED Epic from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Great Wooden Boats: RED EPIC from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Bangin’ n Clangin’: The Redneck Hippie from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

So which company was accidentally the main catalyst for everything changing? Canon of course. Not by design, by accident really. The 5DmkII revolution was not intended but a happy collection of circumstances that collided in an event of universal magnitude that rivalled the big bang in its significance to humanity. OK, maybe a wee bit of an exaggeration, but certainly for us filmmakers it kind of felt that way.

Canon never set out to change everything, but they did. As much as some corners may whinge that it has watered down the industry and created way too much competition, I for one am utterly grateful for what happened. Prior to this, I saw so many people get work because they had the gear, not the talent. Now the playing field is levelled, talent can shine. It’s not all great of course, as more competition means less work for some, and many saw a collapse in their amount of work and the amount they were able to charge. This sucks but it’s inevitable. It happened to the stills industry quite a long time ago after all.

In fact it was the coming of DSLRs that ironically made me move my career plans from being a photographer to a video cameraman. A photographer friend of my father took me aside and said “Philip, I know this is what you want to do, but everything is going to change in the coming years and the incredible time we are all having will come to an end. Digital will take over and with that will come a huge influx of people into the industry cheapening it and dropping the quality. It is inevitable. Have you ever thought about moving images? That’s where the future is”. Utterly true, and this was back in 1988. If he had said to me “but beware of the end of 2008, a French-American will come along and drop a New York based short on us, shot on a camera that will do the same for video that is going to happen to stills” then I would have laughed at him and just ignored him. Well, that happened

Of course we have lived with the issues these cameras gave us and of course the freedom too, but people want more now of course, especially with DSLRs being in a bit of rut at the moment. They are fed up with compressed codecs. So when RED brought out the Scarlet many people saw this as their way out of DSLRs and into the big league. Now of course this is utter nonsense. As I said before, no camera will actually make you better. Some cameras will help you get work though. C300s for example are massively popular right now and owner operators are reaping the benefits of this. Most of the people I know who bought Scarlets were gutted when this massive investment from their T2i didn’t pay off. For some it did, but for most no. Why? A CAMERA DOESN’T MAKE YOU ANY BETTER! I may have mentioned that to you already

Blackmagic Design in April last year dropped a bombshell on us. A $3000 raw shooting video camera (that also shoots on, the much ignored feature of the camera, ProRes HQ and Avid DNXHD modes which are damn fine). $3000? WHAT?! How is this possible? Well, mostly due to a lot of off the shelf components and a clever knowledge of how to deal with video due to their experience in the post production market. With limited R&D costs, they were able to bring out a camera with such high end features and low cost that it was probably the biggest kick up the backside we have had since the 5DmkII.

Ponte Tower from Philip Bloom on Vimeo  Shot on the Blackmagic in raw.  

Now, they have had huge supply issues which have marred things and now announced new cameras just a year later, and before most people who ordered the original camera received their orders. I have talked about the pros and cons of the Blackmagic camera through two in-depth reviews of both the EF and MFT versions. A lot of these issues are actually nothing to do with the raw, so I recommend watching them if you have not already. This is the main review and this is the MFT add on.

Now with the additional excitement of the new Magic Lantern hack which has quite incredibly brought raw video to the 5DmkIII, the raw clamour has reached unparalleled heights. Although this hack is still in a very early stage, it will undoubtedly reach a more stable level pretty soon, and everyone will be desperate to shoot everything in raw on the MKIII. Why? Because it’s raw…you know? It’s better. Yep. It is. A hell of a lot better. Not just that, but the image itself is better than the MkIII is able to give us normally. There is more detail, and with raw much more dynamic range of course. There are are a number of big caveats though which I will get to…but the achievement of these people is incredible and should be applauded hugely.

I am assuming most people know what raw is. I didn’t at first when I came across on DSLRS so if you don’t know, are too embarrassed to ask and haven’t yet googled it then here is a description

Anyone who shoots stills know how massively better raw photos are to manipulate than JPEGS. That’s the crux of the whole argument. It’s a digital negative.  This is the same that raw video offers us over codecs like MXF, ProRes and AVCHD. You may notice I am not using the word uncompressed. Uncompressed IS NOT raw. Please don’t get them confused. There is uncompressed raw. That is what the Blackmagic Cinema Camera gives us, and its files are massive. The RED for example shoots raw but is compressed. The amount is up to you when you use the camera, there are different levels of compression. R3D is for me probably one of the best formats I have ever used, not the simplest to use, but the most powerful yet workable. The user can decide the level of compression that works for them while still maintaing raw. Compression is our friend. Well lossless compression is our friend! Why? Money and time. Money, as our storage needs are slashed, both in cards/ SSDs/ hard drives. Time as the files are much smaller meaning they’re quicker to work with, and of course time is money, so really it all comes down to one thing…money. Money is why we should not shoot raw for everything. The same can be said of 4k.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE 4K VERSION OF THE ABOVE MUSIC VIDEO ON THE VIMEO PAGE LINKED HERE.

4K version: 576 Megapixels from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

4K of course doesn’t mean raw, it’s simply 4 times the resolution of HD. Does it look 4 times better? To me I would say no. It looks better, just not four times better. I currently own two 4K capable cameras. One I can’t use the 4K with yet as I don’t have the firmware update yet or the 4K recorder. That is the FS700. A strange beast of a camera. Terrific features and image combined with a form factor and intuitiveness that frustrates me every time I use it…but it’s a great camera and is 4K capable.

The other 4K camera I own is the Canon 1DC. This is my favourite 4K camera I have used. Is it because the image is better than the rest? Nope. Is it because the compression is efficient? Nope, quite the opposite. Then why? Because it’s small and it records internally and also shoots brilliant HD. There is no other 35mm video camera that size that can shoot 4K internally to that quality. The biggest issues for this camera are that it has all of the quirks of shooting video on a DSLR and most importantly the lack of decent compression.

Motion JPEG is about as efficient as a 10 man crew shooting an interview. We have long gone past Motion JPEG being a good codec. It is so inefficient it means we have a bit rate that often exceeds 400 MB/S (The internal 4k of the F55 is twice as efficient as the 1DC) My FS700 shoots 24-28 MB/S albeit in HD. AVCHD is an efficient codec. Not exactly super robust but not bad. It’s actually better than XDCAM EX which is 35mb/s. The higher the number the better, yes? Afraid not. It’s all about how it gets compressed, the efficiency.

So with this rather high bitrate, the cost of cards that can handle such a huge stream of data is very high. 30 minutes on my 1DC equals 128gb roughly. A 128gb branded 1000x speed card, the speed you need, is in excess of £600 generally. There are cheap ones out there, I use many Komputerbay ones which are a fraction of the cost. They scare me. They are not a known brand, but I couldn’t afford the branded cards I needed for the documentary shoots I do. I never offload during the day. I do use my NextoDI for on location secondary backup, but I never offload to the requisite 3 to 4 hard drives on location and reuse the same cards during the day. Why? Because I am shooting. Certain people have told me I am unprofessional for not having a DIT on set/ location to manage offloads. I think these people need to go out on a few documentary shoots with me to see this cosy ideal is utterly impractical most of the time, and of course not affordable for the majority. I ended up buying 13 cards. A big outlay yet only 6 and a half hours of recording time. Fine for most shoots. A little bit tight for interviews and I shoot all my interviews in 4K now, more on that later

With the Magic Lantern hack, I have heard of people having success with slightly slower cards. That’s great, but I am pretty certain their cards are going to stop fairly frequently. I don’t know about you, but I have no desire for my camera to ever stop rolling when I don’t want it to. 1000x cards are needed for the current Magic Lantern hack, which means a lot of money is needed for data acquisition and that is before we even get into offloading them.

I love my 1DC though. I can take it anywhere with me in a simple shoulder bag and shoot 4K stock footage whenever I want. I can shoot guerrilla style in 4K which is pretty lovely as the camera is so compact and of course I love the image. I just hate the format. Not just the cost in cards and in storage but in the time it takes for me to deal with it in the edit.

For so many years I have been editing full HD files on my laptops with no issues. None of this proxy nonsense. I don’t need that. I remember going into a production house about 6 years ago to check out an edit for a series I had done for Channel 4 in SD. They were editing in 15:1 as they didn’t have the storage capacity for the original DV tapes…yep DV, shot on the lovely DSR-450. I found this astonishing as I was editing XDCAM full HD on my macbook pro on 5400RPM USB 2 drives. Now though with my 1DC, I cannot edit without using proxies. My computer cannot cope with it and I need very fast drives to edit the files from. As I travel for around 10 months of the year, I edit the vast majority of my work on my Macbook Pro Retina. Powerful computer but not powerful enough. So even if Apple astonishingly did release new MacPros it would make little difference to me right now as I am never home!

So let’s go over the main pros and cons of raw.

Let’s start with raw

PROS: 

WAY better dynamic range than most cameras.

Huge flexibility in post.

Can help mistakes made on shoots or help us get past issues we couldn’t overcome.

It opens up many creative options in really hard shooting environments, making my life as DP easier often and this is not about laziness.

CONS: 

Generally cannot be edited natively, proxies are needed after going into software like DaVinci resolve to interpret the raw data and tweak them before exporting to the proxy format. This is very time consuming.

Much larger files than compressed codecs meaning lots and lots of cards. Though there are raw compressed options out there like R3d and cineform which I am expecting will be licensed and put into the new 4k BlackMagic Production Camera.

The huge cost in acquisition media and the enormous cost of storage on top of this.

You need to learn new skills. This is almost a pro actually. Working with raw is not as easy as many think. Education is key here.

It’s not magic. You still need to know how to expose properly and I actually think a light meter comes into its own here, knowing how many stops of light difference there are between the shadows and the highlights. STILL hold the highlights more than the shadows for most raw cameras as a rule.

People will want to shoot everything with it, then hit a massive bottleneck on their projects in dealing with files. It will be a hard but necessary lesson.

Now the pros and cons of 4k

PROS: 

Incredibly detailed images, 4 times that of HD but they are not obviously so.

Fantastic ability to crop in post. Something I do on all my interviews for docs now that I shoot 4k for them. I am not shooting 4k docs – just 4k talking heads. I can then go in for tights or back out whenever I want in the edit. Way better.

“Future proof” I am bit hesitant about this as I see very little need for future proofing most of my work. Now for high end drama and big docs then yes. Do it.

You have a higher end format to sell to clients. Sometimes an advantage. Not always though…see cons.

Scaling down to 2K in post often yields quite stunning results.

CONS: 

Inefficient codec mean massive files. Even efficient ones are pretty big, which means expensive cards and lots of storage.

Inability to edit natively for the vast majority of people. Proxies are used which of course adds time.

Most production companies I have dealt with cannot take it.

Almost nobody can actually watch 4k. I can’t.

It can lead to lazy cinematography. Although I use the crop to help me in interviews, this is not due to being lazy but to give me options. You should never forget the tight shots because you can crop. The whole aesthetic changes. The depth of field remains the same so it doesn’t look like a true close up

You need to be even more skilled, as mistakes are easier to spot.

Incredibly unforgiving and harsh. Showing the flaws in everything, especially people. Fantastic for beauty shots etc..for drama it’s actually too detailed and causes the DP many issues.

Needs a really big screen to really see the difference.

Will it actually take off as a consumer format for the home? I am very pessimistic about this.

_________________________________________________________________________

That last point brings me onto how I judge things like whether consumers will go for it. I judge everything like this by using my friends and family.

For example. My sister has a lovely HD TV. A year ago I saw she had no HD sources, not even blu-ray. I asked why she hadn’t and her answer was “I can’t tell the difference”. Now SD to HD was huge in quality leaps. So I bought her a Blu-ray player and some movies. I said to her she must be thrilled by the massive increase in quality. Her response? “I can’t tell the difference”. That is my sister.

My parents came to BVE to see my 4K seminar for Canon. The projection screen at BVE was too small to really show off the 4K properly and only on close inspection could you really tell. People 2 rows back from the front would not have noticed any difference.

I showed mum and dad a live feed from a 4k camera into a 4k monitor on the show floor. I said, “This is 4 times better than your image at home on your TV”. The response? “Oh”…followed by my dad saying “Is it? Our TV looks better!”

Now I am not saying this is what everyone thinks, but I strongly believe that most consumers don’t want to be sold another format when HD looks fantastic anyway. It’s going to be hard to sell, especially when it really is harder to tell the difference than when we went from SD to HD.

On the topic of TVs, I have to mention how god damn awful they all look in TV showrooms. They all look like the 48p version of The Hobbit. I hated the 48p version of The Hobbit. It looked cheap. Simple as that.

Some say I am old school and it’s the future. That 24p is not enough for cinema. Maybe that is true. In fact I think it is. I just love the look of 24p and everything else looks wrong. I can’t even stand 30p, and interlaced is the devil!

Will this change with time? I am sure it will. I don’t actually know anyone who liked the 48p version of “The Hobbit”. I have heard that people do, especially the much younger generation as it “looks like my video games”. Will it take off? Not for now. In the future, quite possibly. Why? Because the public will get used to that awful look? How? Because of their TVs!

TVs are sold with all these whizz bang picture enhancements that all SUCK. I once was in a store with my parents and the salesman was selling a TV to my parents citing all these cool features that make the image look “better”. I had to interrupt. I said “it’s these features that make my work look like crap. They are not good. They are quite the opposite!”

Go into any TV showroom and you will see what I mean. I even saw a £35,000 85″ Samsung 4k TV in Selfridges the other day. It had all that crap on it. Looked like poo. I decided not to buy the TV because of that. Nothing to do with my total lack of £35,000

In fact, I hate these settings so much that at every opportunity I take all these settings off. Everytime I go round to a friend or relatives house they have all that stuff on. I ask if they like it, the answer is almost always no. They just thought that was what flat screen TVs look like. So I turn it all off.

I AM THE TV POLICE! 

So much so that I have been known to do this in actual stores! When nobody is looking I quickly access the menu and turn it all off. No point explaining it to the staff. They don’t care for the most part.

My wonderful TV’s god awful feature!

Iron Man deserves better than this!

Nor does Avatar although maybe James Cameron prefers it all smooth!

I must do something!

Is the coast clear?

Here we go!!

Getting into those menus!!

Trumotion you are the devil!!

JOB DONE!!

SO IN SUMMARY

High frame rate shooting (and 3D to be honest) are really not something I like at all…BUT…I adore raw, I adore 4K. I just don’t think most of us need either for the vast majority of our work. Great for people doing effects work, green screen etc. Great for fiction work for sure with a budget, as the gain at the post end is substantial. For most other work? Neither are really needed.. Do you want to shoot a wedding in 4K raw? Please do…I then want you to write me a blog post on what it was actually like.

I wish I could shoot everything in 4K and raw but until storage drops in price enormously and compression gets better AND computing power catches up (I have to edit 90% of my work on a laptop because I am travelling all the time) it must remain a tool to be used as and when, and those times will be rare for most. I am utterly guilty of shooting in 4K just because I can. I still find it astonishing that not one of my films on the Epic ever were mastered in 4k (actually I think “Host” may have been). I certainly have never seen any of my Epic stuff in 4k. In fact most of it went to either web or standard def amazingly!

Host (a Danny Lacey short film) from Danny Lacey on Vimeo SHOT ON RED EPIC IN 4K

If I was able to edit my 4k more easily, then I would shoot almost all of it in 4K as it does look better. I miss my RED Epic, it was fantastic but it actually was unnecessary for almost all my work. I wish I still had it in many ways, but it had to go.  I may have to cross over to the dark side and buy a big old PC tower soon so I can really kit it out to edit 4k natively. My brand new iMac freaks out at me when I try and edit, even with the nice Nvidia Cuda card in it. Although unless I am home more it won’t make a difference as it’s still laptop time! I know that it won’t end up as 4k and I also know I need to buy shares in Western Digital, as the demand for hard drives is going to sky rocket!

The same really goes for raw. With the Blackmagic having raw and the 5D3 now getting close to having raw in the magic lantern hack doesn’t mean you should use it all the time. This is not a dis on the Magic Lantern achievement at all. Far from it. I am shocked and blown away that they were able to do it. When it’s stable I am sure there will be times when I will find it useful but I doubt I will shoot a whole project on it for the same reasons why I choose to shoot ProResHQ on the Blackmagic instead of raw and would only occasionally shoot raw for key shots or moments. It’s a tool I use when needed. If Canon had actually put raw video into the 5Dmk3 themselves I would still only use it when I absolutely needed it for the same reasons. After all when I shoot stills I always shoot raw but when I shoot MASSIVE timelapse projects like the recent Las Vegas one which was 160 shots (a huge amount for time-lapse) I had to forget shooting raw (which pained me greatly) and shoot JPEG for the majority of the shots as it was just too impractical. Yes…there is a compromise but it was simply not workable for such a massive project with a very quick turnaround.

For now, the additional time needed to work with it in post is something I cannot deal with. Edits take long enough as they are…I am firm believer in keeping things economically feasible in post. I am also a firm believer in using lighing and composition to cope with the relatively limited dynamic range and relatively little push and pull you can do in post with these compressed codecs. Sometimes I actually want a window to be blow out you know? Otherwise I can always do the thing I have been doing for 25 years. I ND gel the window! I am a firm believer in nailing it in camera and only “fixing it in post” as a last resort. Raw is not a replacement for lighting properly or making less of an effort. Likewise, 4K is not a replacement for getting proper coverage. These are both tools that can really help us technically when making films. They just won’t make our films any better!

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I will try and rectify that. Trying to juggle everything has become tricky, and I am looking for a regular writer for the site who can cover different topics for me, sometimes the odd news piece but generally more interesting topics. If this is you, then write to me at the address at the bottom of this page. 

Above image courtesy of Kelly Alexandra Williams

EDIT May 2013: So how am I getting on? Well to be honest nt great. I am trying to catch up to get to this point. But I am being very proactive to reach this. It’s not as simple as it sounds. Life changes are great. One of them is to change the way you live. I live in a house full of gear and too much stuff. I am close to being on hoarders. So it was time to do a cleansing.

I am trying to have a more attractive Zen outlook on life. So I am selling a load of my gear. Nowhere near most of it. Just a tiny fraction but it’s time to do. With this money I will be able to do a number of things. First off NOT buy more gear. No need. I have what I need. I can do things I need to do with money. Invest in things that can help me get on the road to that life change. This money is not going to my drug dealer and pimp (AGAIN JOKE!!!) it’s going into an important fund.

There is nothing wrong with gear. Far from it. It’s all superb. I just never use it. So why take up space in a cupboard when I can give it to a good home and at same time help in my quest for a better life. 

I have big plans.plans that I can’t talk about now. But I will soon. Until then if there are any bits of gear. Whether it’s cameras, lenses, monitors (tripods coming soon) and so much more to come check out my ebay store. Everything is auction with no reserve. 

Check it out here: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/PBs-Blooming-Bargains

Things that are important to me. My newphew Dan and my niece Jaime below. Family. But not at the cost of work happiness and fulfillment. That is the balance. 

ORIGINAL POST:

I used to have a life. I gave it up 6 and a half years ago. What happened 6 and a half years ago? I went freelance. Do I regret this? Not at all. I am way more content in my work, I absolutely love my job, but it has come at a price. Is this price worth it though, to no longer have a balance in your life? That is what I want to discuss here. This is a quite different personal blog, quite emotional and very honest.

January the 1st 2013. An apt time for a post like this and no this is NOT a new year’s resolution type post…well it is kinda… Just something to get you thinking and figure out what matters to you and how you can manage your time better.

If you visit my site often, you will have noticed my lack of posts in December… I am really sorry for that. I try to do two a week if I can. It’s important for a number of reasons. It keeps the site alive and current, gives people a reason to keep checking in, and I really enjoy writing them even if my typos are frequent…David Kong (Thanks David!) does copy check them after a day or two, but early readers have to put up with much sloppiness!

So why nothing new last month? Well, I tried to take a truly relaxing time-off holiday in Hawaii just after Masters in Motion on the 6th of December. I needed it so much. My first holiday of this kind in a very long time. Due to awful personal reasons, it ended very abruptly after two days, and I had to rush to Australia. Whilst I was there, no work was really possible. I managed to get the Movember draw done and get the 180 emails or so done, but there simply was no time for posts, for shooting, for pretty much anything work related apart from 3 hours one evening doing a meet up/ shoot-out.  More important things took precedent.

Marko and I on his wedding day 12 years ago

Then on Christmas Eve morning whilst in Sydney, a bad month became an even more terrible month. I woke up to a message that devastated me. My best friend of 20+ years, Mark O’Leary, suddenly and unexpectedly lost his battle with cancer. When I say best friend, I mean it. Mark was like my brother for so many years. We went on holiday countless times together. Went on the pull constantly, never succeeding! We were simply the best of friends. Teenage girls would say we were like totally BFFs… but work got in the way of friendship, and in his last years we saw each other so little, even when I found out he had cancer. That time we could have spent together has now past, and I can never get it back. All I can do is treasure that summer afternoon last year when we sat for hours catching up, talking super hero, fantasy, SF movies and TV shows and promising to see much more of each other from then on. Not because he had just been diagnosed with cancer because we had missed each other. We didn’t. Work got in the way. Constantly travelling with barely a few days between gigs, I simply never found the time.

I was so happy though that he appeared to be doing so well in his battle against it. How wrong that turned out to be. Now Marko is gone and in just over a week’s time I will be speaking at his funeral about the man with whom I had the best times of my life with. Marko also was a great example of a man with a perfect work/ life balance. A great job, successful, with an amazing wife and two beautiful children. I aspired to him in so many ways.

So what has this got to do with work/ life balance? Well in simplistic terms, this is just an example of how I let my work get in the way of the important things in life, and for the past 6 years or so this has gotten worse and worse. So if ever there was a time to change it, it’s now. It was not that I didn’t have time to see Marko. I just spent more time in my edit suite when I really should have gotten my priorities straight. I could easily have done both. I am guilty as hell now he has gone, and if you are reading this, Marko, wherever you are, sorry bloke. Just know this has taught me a big lesson. It is time to stop putting off sorting out my work/ life balance. I will also promise to stop mocking Chelsea mate.

Filming Hamas militant in Gaza for Sky News

When I was staff at Sky News for 17 years, I had a life. A very nice  life, I worked hard but in a different way than now. Holiday pay, days off etc… Sky was a great place for me. I learnt so much there, and my experiences of my time there will stay with me forever. They took a chance on an 18 year old kid when every other broadcaster said sod off. I was lucky enough to be taught by some amazing cameramen.

When I moved to the documentary unit near the near end of my time at Sky News, I was often in the Avid suite editing until god knows what time whilst my girlfriend was alone in bed at home. Silly. But I always wanted my work to be the best possible, and I was and still am a true perfectionist so nothing was ever good enough. Sometimes I would work all the way through to the next day. I never was a clock in/ clock off kind of guy. I always said that the moment I was no longer challenged by my job was the time to leave.

Unfortunately in my last years at Sky, there were quite a few cameramen who really didn’t care anymore about shooting, and that was truly sad. They had no passion anymore, and for them it was purely a salary. I understood, they had families, but my love of filming made me terrified of getting to a point where I fell out of love with my passion. I never wanted that to happen to me. There were lots who did still care and love their job thankfully!

For the first 14 years or so, I did a lovely 5 days on 5 days off shift pattern. Truly lovely. I also had 6 weeks annual leave and, to get 2 weeks off with my shift pattern, all I needed to do was take 5 of my shift days off and there we go, 2 weeks. I also had sick pay! Hoorah! So when I had a terrible hangover it was OK (kidding!) I had a life. I had time to play around when I was younger, and I had time for a relationship or two when I was a bit older. I had time for XBOX, for movies, for family, for friends. In my last years at Sky, I moved from the shift pattern to do the doc unit which was 5 days a week. It was good though, as the work I did was so much better and way more satisfying than the previous stuff that it was a dream come true. Screw the having a life nonsense! Yes I ended up having less of a life, but compared to what I have now that was like 7 days off a week.

I do remember one day on the doc unit, an older cameraman came up to me very pissed off and said that all the extra hours I was doing were making him look bad. Yep. He said that. But, this was from a guy who had arranged for tickets on the London Eye for himself, wife and kids DURING his work hours one day and was going to slope off….somehow. When I needed him to go shoot some B-Roll as I was stuck editing he was VERY unhappy and got very angry with me as he wouldn’t be able to use the tickets. This guy was a great example for me, for everything I NEVER wanted to become. He also shot me some pretty shitty B-Roll!

Now you may feel at this point I am becoming a bit of a whiner. I am not. I regret nothing in regards to my work choices to do this, but I have not found the right balance yet, and this is what I hope to achieve this year. This post is therapeutic, I hope a blueprint for what I want to achieve and I hope a good read/ advice for you!

Let me ask you some questions and see if any of this sounds familiar. 

Your office is your home and you end up editing till stupid O’Clock as the computer is just THERE.

You lie in bed answering emails, making notes, drawing storyboards etc…at midnight whilst ignoring the gorgeous naked woman wearing stockings & suspenders with a little negligee (is there a male equivalent? Can men wear sexy underwear? I have tried and always failed!) or perhaps dressed up as Return of the Jedi Princess Leia next to you or, if you are a lady, maybe he is dressed as er…Han Solo?!

You talk about your work with your partner. All the time…when you don’t you show her your work!

You are on twitter/facebook etc for WORK reasons throughout the day, often between mouthfuls at dinner!

You wake up in the morning and check your emails, twitter etc BEFORE shower, brushing teeth, breakfast or morning rumpy pumpy!!

Weekends are just another day.

You are constantly late for things as you just need to render one more shot…

Friends stop asking you over to dinner or parties as you are always too busy/ away and they can’t be bothered asking anymore!

You chose NAB as your annual holiday as it combines both! Work and pleasure!

You are writing a blog post on this subject when you have a gazillion more fun things to do like watch your new Blu Ray Moonrise Kingdom!

The list goes on…

So…what is wrong here and is this the only way you can succeed?

NO…you can succeed and have a life, and what I am going to suggest is hopefully a plan for how I get my life in balance. Because as much as my work means the world to me, my family, my friends are the most important thing to me and often get forsaken…you need to show them that work is NOT the most important thing and that you can be a great husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, father, mother etc…

When you are freelance, you do generally end up working more. You accept most jobs thrown your way as you are worried things could dry up. You stop taking holidays, as that is lost earnings. Insecurity needs to be worked on here and an acceptance that you MUST take breaks and breaks are not costing you money!

When I first started freelancing, I took everything thrown at me, sometimes 7 days a week. No matter what it was…I didn’t care! I was terrified work would dry up and I would not be able to pay the bills.

I am unfortunately a naturally very insecure person, so really I am a terrible person to be freelance! I eventually had to take chances with the nonstop bookings and stopped taking everything, as I was burning myself out. So I got some solid bread and butter work that guaranteed me 4 or so days work a week. Lovely, but not what I truly wanted as a freelancer, even though I enjoyed it and it did challenge me. I wasn’t able to do the really exciting jobs that usually came in at the last minute… often in genres I had always wanted to try out. The bread and butter was holding back my ambition in a way, I also wanted to do more projects that I had way more involvement in, from pitching, to pre-prod through to delivery. If I had zero ambition and no desire to stretch myself and push myself, I would never have left Sky! I would have just sat back and been the guy who clocked in and booked tickets for my family to go on the London Eye during my work hours! So after 3 years of doing this, I took another gamble and cut right back on them…a shame in a way, as that security and work that was over at the end of the day with nothing to think about afterwards gave me much more of a life. The most I have had as a freelancer to date.

That is the problem. One off 1 day shooting gigs are easy-peasy because of that. Take as many of those, as you want to pay the bills and cut back if you are working too much and not having enough time off…It’s when you take on more roles, producing, directing, editing that suddenly you go home and you are still working. You stop leaving work behind when you leave work! You are up all hours planning, writing emails, editing. That is what eats up your life, but often you have no choice. It comes down to managing this in a different way and most likely delegating. I know one man jobs are common. I do many of them myself, but sometimes bringing in extra help takes that strain off you and gives you a chance to recharge and be more productive. Bringing in a producer, an editor…someone who can take the pressure off…working your arse off won’t mean you will succeed, it will mean you will burn yourself out, end up hating your work and having no life still!

Working at home vs working away from home

There are strong arguments for both here. Renting office space, even for one-man operations costs dosh. BUT that separation could be key to maintaining that work/ life balance. You are more likely to stop working at a reasonable time if you have an office than if your office is at home. If you do have an edit suite at home, it’s quite likely you will go back into it after dinner and carry on until stupid o’clock. How likely is it after dinner for you to get back in the car or maybe even get on a train and go to your office to carry on? I have to be honest, though. I work from home. Why? I spend 90% of my year working abroad, and therefore office space would be a daft waste of money. BUT if I chose to do more UK based work I would absolutely rent office space. It’s a no-brainer for me. One of the best ways to separate work from your life. I actually want nothing more than to have children to be honest. There I said it. I envy all my friends with their beautiful kids…I know if that day comes everything will HAVE to change. There is no way I would carry on this way of working in that situation.

Dating/ marrying someone in the business

Bit of a cheeky one this, but utterly serious. I have been out with an indeterminate number of women in my life BUT the only ones I have had long term relationships with are ones in the business. Why? Partly because 17 years working for one broadcaster meant I did dip my wick in the company ink…BUT it was also mostly because they understood why I had to work so hard….but that is the problem! They GOT why I had to work so hard. If they were not in the business you would have to make concessions to them..also you would most likely not be talking about work the whole time. Which would be a nice respite!

Of course you can’t help who you fall in love with. When I eventually do marry Zooey Deschanel, I will try to not spend too much time at the in-laws asking her dad every question under the sun Seriously though PLEASE  do not dump your partner because of what I have said here (would people really take me that literally?) The point I am making is actually a lot simpler. Just because your partner is in the business don’t let that be an excuse. Treat them like they were not. Go home at a reasonable time. Take them to dinner, take them to the movies, take them away to Paris for the weekend, make proper couple time for them…for both of you! Romance them, make sweet unselfish love to them Late edits can mean quick shags or generally nothing at all. Quickies are fine but if that’s all you can offer then again you will suffer in the long run

Working abroad vs working near home

Another really tough one this. I am a TERRIBLE example of this. I work away from home as mentioned earlier, so much that I am pretty sure I can stop paying UK tax now! My cats don’t know me anymore. I don’t bother getting food for the fridge anymore, just the freezer and if it wasn’t for Debbie my neighbour, Bert, Percy and Noodle would be pretty damn skinny!!

So why do I work away from home so much? It’s where most of my work comes from…I do enjoy travelling. I don’t enjoy it as much as when I was 23. It isn’t glamorous I promise you…it truly rarely is. Even if you are flying biz class and put up in a nice hotel, which is of course really lovely. It’s just not home and very rarely, if ever, will a hotel be better than your home, although last year I stayed in 2 places in South Africa that I would happily never leave! A big part of the reason that it won’t be as nice as home, if you have a significant other or kids, is they won’t be there…then again maybe that’s why you like to travel! It is also damn lonely to be utterly frank, the amount of nights I have spent alone in a hotel room with just my laptop for company (fine if most hotels had decent internet! They don’t!)…if you are away with a crew then you can socialise with them, but often I go to places where the crew live there and they go home to their families in the evening. You go back to the hotel and the 24 hour room service menu! YUM!

This year already I am booked up until June more or less, and I have worked out that I will be home for around 33 days between now and mid June. Not a lot. I am sure that will decrease too! SO why am I accepting these jobs? Because it’s what I do and, as I said, I do love them! But, this will change…these jobs were taken in 2012 before my 2013 decision to change things up. Yes, I can’t really change much until mid 2013 BUT I will. I plan to take more UK jobs. I will take shorter and less foreign jobs. I will see my friends more. I will see my family more. I will make time for the people I love and get that balance back into my life that has been missing for years.

Jaime!

Above is a picture of myself and my beautiful niece Jaime. I adore her and her brother Dan. I saw them for 2 days in 2012. That is disgusting. These are two kids I would give up my own life for, yet I cannot find time to see them? They are only 2 and a half hours drive away. I see work friends on the other side of the world more often! It’s a similar thing I was talking about at the start with my late friend Marko. I am not saying stop working or totally change your life to spend time with your family and friends, but don’t let work take over to the point where you don’t see them at all. It’s all about balance. Finding it and maintaining it.

I love my family and friends, but if I gave up what I love to do because of them, then I would be a very unhappy person. You MUST still live your life and do what makes you happy! After all, happiness is what we are striving to achieve more of here. Happiness should bring better quality of work…but not necessarily. I have done some of my very best work whilst in a deep dark depression, seriously…I just wasn’t a pleasure to work with!

Friends and Family. I love them and time with them is so important…There is no such thing as too much time spent with friends and family but it’s utterly unrealistic…it truly is about balance.

A few hours ago I got off my 23 hour flight from Sydney. The 1st of January is my mum’s birthday. I was lucky enough to be home so I could see her and my dad. It was great not to miss it. My dad though? I have missed about 18 of the last 23 birthdays. Atrocious I know. Mainly because my mum’s birthday is around a time of year I don’t normally work! Does dad care? Not at all, he knows I love him and I do see them both whenever I can. A house actually came up for sale two doors from them recently….I joked I should move there. I got a very stern response. DON’T YOU DARE!!! Live your life where you are, don’t move here just because of us! Actually I think it was a concern I would get mum to do all my laundry and be round for dinner every night! It took them 18 years to get rid of me and get some peace and quiet!

My wonderful mum and I today on her birthday

Maintaining  your health

Incredibly important this. When I was staff at Sky I was fit as a fiddle. I went to the gym 4 times a week and felt and looked great. I was Brad Pitt’s body double in Fight Club and the number one underwear model for Calvin Klein (this may not be true). When I went freelance and started working all hours, I slowly got fatter and sicker. I had no time for the gym anymore and I ate late and I ate crap. Eating late is such a common thing in this business and a really bad thing to do for your health! So in February last year I decided enough was enough and I started a health kick. I do exercise more, but I still have no time for the gym, but I am more active and I eat a hell of a lot better and now look after myself. I feel a million times better! Don’t let work make you ill. I see friends and colleagues almost work themselves into an early grave. Don’t let that happen. Work/ life balance also means living a nice long healthy life!

Left November 2011 Right December 2012

I mentioned it earlier briefly, but a really bad work/ life balance can also bring about more than physical ill health. Depression and anxiety is common in so many people, not just workaholics. More common that you may think. I can vouch for that having had more than my fair share of this. I certainly am not the constantly super happy, charming, lovely chappy I was in my 20s…from the time when my staff job changed to the very long hours in the documentary unit to being freelance, I changed a lot and not for the better. Stress and exhaustion affects you in so many ways. If you find your personality changing due to your stressful workload and you have no release, it is imperative that you make urgent changes. Please take this advice from someone who has been through this. The simplest of changes could help you. It is not guaranteed of course and sometimes it can become so bad you need professional help. This goes for this and everything mentioned in this post. Never be embarrassed to ask for help or seek help!

So in summary…

If you are relatively new and not working much, a lot of what I am saying won’t mean much to you…YET…but it may. We need to work so we can live and have a life. Earning money is of course very important BUT it is not the most important thing! The more successful you get the more danger you will have of falling into this trap. I couldn’t cope with not doing what I am doing,  I love my work, I am not advocating giving up your passion, far from it…my work is a HUGE part of me and I adore it…please just make sure the rest doesn’t get forgotten about. One day you might just wake up alone and realise you let the most important people in your life slip away. Trust me. You don’t want to be there.

Marko’s death was not the reason I wanted to figure out a better way to live my life. I had been planning to do this since September when I realised where I was heading…but I hadn’t actually started. His sudden passing and other very hard things to deal with last month made me realise…enough talking…time to do it. So I am. No more pre-production, script re-writes etc…time for the cameras to roll!

A wise lady from a land far, far away once said to me “no one ever said on their death bed ‘I wish I spent more time at work.’” wise words…just ask Charles Foster Kane.

Shooting is my passion, but I am more passionate about my life.

So happy new year to you all. Hopefully 2013 will be a year we will all remember for the right reasons.

One last thing to leave you with. I made a short doco about a guy who had a life I envied. Is it a glamorous life? No. Is it a wealthy life? No. But it’s a truly happy fulfilled life. Please watch this below. I find him so inspiring.

Portrait of a Percussionist from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

It is unlikely that I will be able to put together the below “beach bum shootout” that I shot below due to what happened after I started shooting it. A real shame as I had some lovely content in there. It just needed more and I only had the cameras for a short time

Courtesy of Leo Reynolds

EDIT: I have decided to repost this as I have been getting many questions about “making it” and I think this post needs to be read by a lot of people who missed it the first time. 

WARNING: There will be adult language in this post. A lot. Sorry!

A bold title for a bold post. Of course it’s absolute nonsense! I see this sort of thing everywhere! 10 steps to losing weight, 10 steps to increasing your mental capacity, 10 steps to pleasing your woman! There is no magical list to follow, BUT there are many things that you should think about that will help you stand out from the crowd. I am not going to ask you to sign up for one of those annoying exclusive mailing lists to access this. Like everything on my site, the info is free for all…and of course most of this is actually pretty obvious!

Now, of course if you all follow my steps and for some reason all of you live in say Muncie, Indiana, we will have a problem as there may be some competition… But generally most of this really is common sense and you should know it already. If you don’t then please go to your nearest fishmongers and get someone to slap you with a wet kipper. Very invigorating but smelly. Then take the kipper home, smoke it and have it for breakfast. Lovely.

I will go through these points from personal experience. I have been lucky enough to have been doing this for over 23 years and have learnt a shit lot in that time, and my innumerable screw ups whilst learning may help you!

1: So, number one is: There are no top ten steps, and if someone tells you otherwise they are talking bollocks. There are COUNTLESS things you need to do to succeed. I will go through some of them based on personal experience.

2: The work will not come to you. Getting the big break while sitting around waiting is about as likely as winning the lottery. No matter how well your student film from film school was received, Adidas is NOT going to call you up to make their next spot. You will need to put in a lot of hard graft. Getting your name out there may never happen. I know countless talented directors and writers who are not doing what they should be doing, as there simply is not enough work in that field to support their families. They make corporate films, anything to bring in the money.

3: Don’t be a snob. Very little is beneath you. Even though you shot some fancy short film on the Epic last week, if someone offers you a gig to film a corporate event then unless you are rolling in cash take it. Why? It’s money. Money pays the bills, rather important. Also this client may be giving you a crappy job today, but next week may offer you something super cool. Act like the job is beneath you, and that 1 week in the Seychelles they were going to offer will go to someone else with less attitude.

4: ALWAYS give every single job your everything. Look at those wedding filmmakers. A potentially soul-destroying way of making a living in this business due to repetition and the damn hard work needed. But by making every one better than the last, your reputation will grow as will your skills as a filmmaker. Anyone can go and shoot a beauty film of the Alps. Not everyone can make a small, dull wedding into a beautiful film. That is talent and much of that can be learned. This can be applied to anything! Make that corporate film of the manufacture of ball cocks for toilets the greatest thing ever. Make it Paul Thomas Anderson good! Well, as good as a corporate film of ball cocks for toilets can be!

You see, one of my favourite challenges in filming 17 years for news was not making long form docs, or travelling the world. It was making something of nothing. Given a story with NO pictures, come up with a treatment on the day, film it, edit it and get it out by 5pm that day. Now that was tough but enormously satisfying. Another example is there is a lobby in the Westminster offices of the broadcasters in London. It’s not especially sexy. Large frosted daylight windows, tungsten light, a fair bit of space. The problem is, it is used around 9 times a day on the program. You can see package after package go out with the SAME background. Why? Lack of imagination and creativity. My biggest challenge was to be told to do an interview in this incredibly overused location, and my challenge to myself was to make it unique. Is it possible? Yep. Lighting, camera position and much more. Compress the background using the 2/3″ lens by positioning the camera a long way off. Use the daylight to bring in a nice blue-ish background whilst lighting for tungsten. There were hundreds of ways of making things look different. You just have to make an effort and think! I always said that the day I am no longer challenged by my job is the day I leave. The moment I leave my lights in the car and stick a camera light on the top of the camera is the moment I need to change jobs. Always put 100% into every job you do. That is what being a professional is.

5: Don’t do it all yourself, find a good team to work with. Whether it’s other cameramen, a good soundo, good editors. You name it, find a team you trust. You most likely won’t be able to use them a lot of the time. Often it’s just you, but ask their opinions on stuff. Find them and use them. A team you can trust is worth its weight in gold.

6: You WILL fuck up. Guaranteed. Accept it. Fucking up whilst in a staff job is better since, unless it’s pretty serious, you will still have a job. Fucking up as a freelance is tougher, as your client will need to be forgiving. Ideally you already have a relationship with them and they will understand. Don’t blame someone else. Take responsibility. It’s your mistake and you won’t make it again. That’s the great things about fuck ups. I fucked up SO many times in my news career. Mute sound, wrong colour, crossing the line, forgetting to hit record, handing over a blank tape and recording over the rushes. You name it and I have done it. But you know what? I only do each mistake once. The only way you will learn is by making mistakes, admitting them, and learning from them. Don’t go though life thinking you are perfect and never make mistakes. That doesn’t happen in the real world. Don’t make excuses. You fucked up. Take the blame and move on. I still fuck up to this day.

7: Love your job. Absolutely essential! Do you hate filming? Then do something different. I am lucky enough to be doing what I love. I never believed this was possible growing up with a father who hated his job. I assumed that was what was expected. I never realised you could do something you loved and get paid. This is a wonderful creative career, and if you are making money in it they you are damn lucky! Embrace that!

8:If you are not getting creative satisfaction out of the work that pays, your bread and butter, what is stopping you making something that fires you up in your own free time? A huge amount of work on my site under films is just that. Personal films done to fulfill my creative urges. Doing these will make you happy and maybe you can bring some of that creativity into your mundane work? Trust me, without these personal outlets I would have felt stifled.

9: You don’t need a Red. You don’t need an Alexa, you don’t need a C300. Any camera will do, to a degree. Don’t listen to the chattering masses on the internet who say you MUST film on X camera as your Y camera is shit. X camera has .5 stops more dynamic range and Y camera has more noise than camera X, using camera Y would be INSANE!  That is nonsense. Yes, some cameras will make your life easier and some will make your life harder. I don’t subscribe to the idea of using the shittiest camera you have because you are an artist and you can make anything shine. Nonsense. Use the best camera you have access to. The camera is NOT the most important thing. You and your ideas are. But don’t be a camera martyr and say “my work is what is important hence, not the camera, I shall film this on my iPad!” Don’t be silly now!!

10: An expensive camera won’t make you a better cameraman. It will make you more broke! Want to upgrade your T2i to a Scarlet? Why? Skills are learnt with lesser tools. Not expensive ones.

11: Learn how to do EVERYTHING. Learn how to produce, to direct, to edit, to shoot, to do graphics etc . Why? It gives you a greater appreciation of what everyone does. Don’t do it all, but knowing what is needed to do a certain job will make what you do better.

12: If you really have no talent at all yet still enjoy shooting for fun, keep at it. Eventually you will get better, and if it makes YOU happy who gives a crap what the critics say?

13: Gear…do you need it to make yourself better? Of course not. It may lift your production but it won’t make the content any better. Remember if you polish a turd it will still always be a turd. Concentrate on content, that is where the value is. Then if you have some extra cash go buy some nice toys and bits of kit that can make your life easier!

14: Promote the crap out of yourself, make specs spots. Do people favours. Do anything you can (almost) to get the work. Share your work on Vimeo, ask for critiques, accept them. Make changes. Improve. The list goes on and on.

15: Don’t listen to the trolls. I myself have issues with listening to that advice. But it’s not worth it. Anyone who takes the time to be nasty online to you is not worth your time of day. Leave them to their mother’s basements and you go out and make your next film, whilst they eat their next bag of Cheesy Puffs whilst sitting their y-fronts.

16: Don’t listen to anyone, including me! Let me rephrase that. Don’t listen to just ONE person. You are your own person. Never believe one opinion. Have faith in yourself and it will pay off! Advice from others with more experience is essential. Just don’t let one person get you down. I was told I would never make it 20 years ago by one person senior in my company and was laid off. A few months later his replacement said, “you have something, I believe in you, come back.” That was my mentor and friend Gerry Williams.

17: Do not give up if the work isn’t coming in when you start. I had 17 years of a highly-paid, comfortable job that was still challenging me to a degree but not enough. I needed to spread my wings, so I had to give it all up to go into the scary world of freelance. I jumped straight into a network current affairs series, then had 3 months of almost nothing. Terrifying. Did I give up? Nope. I pushed harder, searched for more contacts and eventually the work came. Scary at the time but have faith in yourself. If you don’t nobody else will.

18: You NEVER stop learning. I learn something on every shoot, through a cock up or by seeing how someone else does something. Never believe you know it all, because if you do believe that then you neeed to urgently get yourself to the nearest hospital to have your head removed from your anus.

See. I got to 18 and I can keep on going, but I think you get the idea. I hope some of this was useful. I am going to be offline on and off for a while now for personal reasons. If you need to reach me urgently use my email as I won’t be checking twitter.

PEACE!

Below is a personal documentary I made. For fun, for passion and it remains one of my favourites. Shot on the NEX 5n. Go figure!

Download it, stick it on your iPod and enjoy!

EDIT: MP3 version for download here!

IN THIS EPISODE:

In this 44th episode of the NeedCreative Podcast, your host Paul Antico is joined regular correspondent Ben Consoli to interview very special returning guest, Philip Bloom. Hailing from the UK, Skype managed to make Philip sound very far and then extremely close as the show went on, which is just the way we felt as we went through a journey of fantastic subjects with Philip, who has been in this business for a very long time.

The NeedCreative Podcast is supported by Kessler (www.kesslercrane.com) and Rule Boston Camera (www.rule.com).

Topics Included:

• Additional background on him, most of it you can hear in Ep 31
• How Philip describes himself and what he does today, in 2013
• The value of starting your career in news shooting
• How Philip came into the education/evangelist role
• His advice for freelancers and the importance of work/life balance
• How he chooses what he posts on his site and why (little news, shoot stories, gear reviews, posts about living in the industry)
• How people connect with him on his site after he posts personal stories
• Working one-man-band vs with a team – specializing is important, but there are real world cost limitations
• Delineating certain situations that require just one to three people vs a larger crew
• Crew size considerations when you have one – smaller vs larger
• Directing and shooting – is it possible?
• When working in a crew: “Letting go” and focusing on your role
• Taking stills vs working in video
• The speed and pace of the release of new tech and plunging prices
• The obsession over cameras
• The obsession over raw video – why?
• The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and raw – the importance of budgeting time and money for the back end
• Is there “one good camera?” – depends on what you are working on & the merits of the C300 as an example. Will there ever be one camera that does it all?
• Looking at old footage taken – focusing on the value of the story and not tech
• Looking at the future – maybe there will be one camera that does it all? We dive into a little Science Fiction
• A generous 4K discussion – delivery & consumption: what’s the point? The limits of our eyes – will the audience notice or even care? How about streaming 4K?
• The acquisition benefits of 4K even when targeting 2K (e.g. framing for interviews)
• The realistic limits of broadband in homes
• “Showing off” by having a piece of gear – by producers and shooters both – what’s the reason?
• How do clients approach him about using certain cameras
• The owner/operator conundrum- renting vs buying in this day and age
• The downsides of large sensor cameras – A) the need for skill in focusing (and the plus side – not everyone can do it, it requires knowledge of the craft) & B) range limits on lenses
• When to use a large sensor camera vs a more ENG-style camera – example about a series filmed at a beach in Australia
• How the low cost filmmaker revolution had changed (or not) the value of talent vs gear- does cream rise to the top? Has talent flourished?
• Pricing challenges and why (& how) you should stick to your convictions
• The importance of enjoying what you do- what to do if you truly hate doing it
• The Need to be Creative – as per Philip Bloom
• And much more!

 • As always, please rate us in iTunes! Visit: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-needcreative-podcast/id539359582 - it will take you 1 minute of your time…..

And don’t remember you can ask questions, leave feedback (voice and otherwise) at anticipatemedia.com/podcast.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

ETHICS STATEMENT: Kessler Crane are my main site sponsor. They also make my pocket dolly. They are also my dear friends. This post takes a look at various low budget smaller jibs but mainly focuses on the new Pocket Jib Traveller from Kessler. It is the best, and yes I am biased…but I always strive to try and remove any bias from any reviews I have. Kessler simply make superior products and so they should, as they have been making cranes and jibs for many many years and therefore have enormous experience. 

It is important to never take one person’s opinion on a product before buying it. Take your time, check out the options, and check out what other people say and if you can, please try before you buy! I know it’s not always possible. 

This video takes a detailed look at the Kessler Pocket Jib Traveller, but a huge amount of the video is taken up with stuff that applies to all jibs and operating them. 

If you choose to buy the Kessler jib by clicking on the images or links, it goes through my affiliate which means I get a small percentage, which in turn helps keep this site afloat, as it’s becoming very expensive to host. It also can help fund my totally independent camera reviews. So if you do buy through my affiliate I thank you enormously!

Jibophobia: How I got over my fear of setting up and using a jib from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

Jib shots can be epic. Especially on the really big ones. I have seen some shots which are beyond amazing from enormous ones. But these require large crews and cost a fortune. Smaller jibs ARE capable of getting gorgeous shots too though, and the quest for an ultra-portable low cost jib for the new generation of lighter cameras has been going for about a year now. I have tried four different ones. First off, the DSLR Devices one, then the one from Lightcraft Workshop, then the one I backed on Kickstarter the Aviator Jib and now this one, The Kessler Pocket Jib Traveler.

Cranes and jibs are heavy, they ideally need to be. They battle the wind and need to NOT fall over! I have two other cranes from Kessler. The Pocket Jib and the KC Lite. Both are good. The Pocket Jib/ Pro are terrific, but they require someone to help you. A very solid base is also essential. This gives us extra weight, but we don’t want to go crazy here. No point getting an O’Connor, as we lose the whole point of a portable solution. After all, the holy grail is a jib that we can set up and use on our own, gives us great movement, is stable and doesn’t break the bank!

My favourite by far of all the smaller jibs is the Kessler Crane Pocket Jib Traveler, truly bias aside. It’s incredibly well made and designed. Solid. Clever. Neat. One Piece. It works great, though has its compromises as you would expect at this weight and price point. I explain in detail why I like this one the most in the video above. It’s worth watching…I hope you find it entertaining, too! It also goes over technique and things to remember when using jibs.

It’s in and out of stock as it’s so popular, so do keep an eye out for it here. I will try and tweet and facebook when it is in stock. You can order it from here. I really do recommend the bag. You must look after your gear. It’s essential. This bag, although a soft bag protects it well.

The attention to detail is also key. From the ease of attaching weights to the incredibly robust brakes on both axis. I honestly feel this jib can withstand the rigours of travelling with me…a big ask, as I am rough as hell with my gear! It’s also one piece. Incredibly simple to put together so that even a muppet like myself can do it.

Is this a jib for all cameras though? Absolutely not. Its weight capacity is 10lbs, but this is without a head. To be honest, even though I had my C300 on the jib, I would prefer to use it on the Pocket Jib, not the traveller. Although technically there is no reason not to. It’s just that I would like to put a nice ball head on the end of my jib for my C300 and other cameras like this. I would definitely put my 1DC on it though!

BUT, this is a lightweight tool, and I will take it on all my foreign trips. It’s 4,5lbs  so barely weighs anything and performs superbly. Just remember: practice makes your shots better. It is about control and the length of shots as well as composition and subtlety. NEVER over-use a jib! It gets boring very quickly, as you can see from my montage of shots from the Kessler Pocket Jib Below!

Establishing shots: Initial play with the Kessler Crane Pocket Jib Traveler! from Philip Bloom extras on Vimeo.

It’s great that I was able to operate the jib in Piccadilly circus without grief from authorities. Got a few looks, but that was to be expected!

DSLR DEVICES

For an overview of the other jibs, first up we have the DSLR Devices jib. James, who makes them, is a local to me. A lovely fella. I only have his first generation, and I believe he is up to generation 4. So it’s not possible for me to say what the new one’s like. The 1st one was fine, although a lot of improvements needed to be made. Do check it out though, and look out for any reviews. It still doesn’t look anywhere near as well designed or engineered as the Pocket Jib Traveler, but that is to be expected. It is dirt cheap though at £199.99 and occupies the bottom end of the market. The lack of brakes is an issue for me.

Lightcraft Workshop Trapezist jib

It’s quite basic and comes in two parts. I found it too stiff, and the lack of brakes on either axis put me off. It did come with a sand bag and slightly odd-fitting noga style arm for a monitor. Is it any good? Yes it works. I don’t like the movement or the operation. It has a lesser payload than the Kessler one and weighs around the same, give or take. It seems solid enough though, the problem is that, like the DSLR devices jib, it’s hard to compete with an incredibly well engineered beast like the Kessler one. It’s very cheap though at just $339. I have not used this enough to vouch for its stability though. I just worry about lack of brakes and the lack of smooth movement. Remember, buy cheap two or three times or buy well once. The Kessler is $599 and for me is lightyears ahead of this product.

I like Lightcraft Workshop, and their recent fader NDs are pretty good. They just need to work on this to improve on it…

I backed the Aviator Travel jib on Kickstarter, and it’s a really nice product. A nice design with some lovely touches.

It is SUPER light – at 2.75lbs for the carbon fibre one, it’s almost 2 lbs lighter than the Kessler one. The Aluminium one is 3.75lbs. For me though, the one that I bought, the carbon fibre one is easily the best one to get. The weight is its biggest selling point. It’s so light and can take a whole 1lb more weight than the alluminium one, 7.5lbs…this is 3/4 of what the Kessler one can take.

It’s the only other jib featured here that is one piece. No extras bits to lose and fall off. The way the weights are fixed on, though, is not great. Screwing them onto the back is not as neat a solution as the Kessler one.

The design is lovely. Both the centre section and camera section look great. The screw system to change the length and open the jib out, though, is not great and a little bit clunky. Although with the ultra light weight design it can be forgiven.

It’s the only jib featured here that I would consider if I had no access to the Kessler one. The one piece design, locks, design and weight are very attractive. It’s just the durability I am extremely worried by. The locks for the axis are incredibly flimsy and I can easily see snapping off with a bit of use. Just my opinion of course. I am sure the guys who make this will revise this soon for something way more heavy duty. It needs it. GEAR NEEDS TO BE ROBUST AND LAST…it shouldn’t need to be treated like an unhatched egg…It’s also not as smooth or feels as stable as the Kessler one. It is light after all, and the lighter we go the more unstable a jib will feel.

Really needs to be way more sturdy than this. I can see this breaking very easily

With some revisions, this jib could be really good. Right now it is disappointing. The design looks good, but in reality it’s not actually that practical as that way it looks down scares me a little. I could of course be wrong and have heard of nobody having this break on them. This is their first ever jib, and as a first one it’s incredibly good. It’s just up against very strong competition now, which is of course a great thing for the evolution of any product. Before the Kessler one came out, this would have been my recommendation. Now, it’s been surpassed. They need to make this more robust and sturdy on those joints. A jib MUST feel robust and the locks MUST be solid otherwise bad things will happen!!

I also found I was getting way more sway with this jib than the Kessler one. That’s the downside of being lighter. Try a beefier jib and the Kessler Traveler will have more sway. It’s the way jibs work.

SPEC COMPARISON

WEIGHT

DSLR DEVICES: 3.4lbs

TRAPEZIST: 4lbs

AVIATOR ALUMINIUM: 3.75lbs

AVIATOR CARBON: 2.75lbs

KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER: 5.5LBS

CAPACITY

DSLR DEVICES: 6.6lbs

TRAPEZIST: 7.8 lbs

AVIATOR ALUMINIUM: 6.5lbs

AVIATOR CARBON: 7.5lbs

KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER: 10lbs

REACH

DSLR DEVICES: 6.5 Feet

TRAPEZIST: 4foot 4 inches

AVIATOR ALUMINIUM: 6 FEET

AVIATOR CARBON: 6 FEET

KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER: 6 FEET

TRAVEL LENGTH

DSLR DEVICES: 35 inches

TRAPEZIST: 24 inches

AVIATOR ALUMINIUM: 24 inches

AVIATOR CARBON: 24 inches

KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER: 27 inches

PRICE

DSLR DEVICES: $300

TRAPEZIST: $339

AVIATOR ALUMINIUM: $497

AVIATOR CARBON $797

KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER: $595

FINAL THOUGHTS

So we have gone over bias, I know I am able to put it aside, and it’s always going to be hard to convince people who don’t know me of that. But the Kessler Pocket Jib Traveler is a breakthrough price wise. For the cost/ performance ratio it cannot be beaten, and for me is the single best piece of indie production gear on the market, bang for buck.

I shot the review on the Canon C300 and the jib shots were done on the Nikon D7100. I like it but don’t love it. The image is nice and it’s a very familiar camera to me as it operates in a similar way to my D800. It’s noisy at 3200 ISO which I had to use in Piccadilly Circus due to needing to stop down to get a deeper depth of field. I hate the lack of metering or histogram for video, and the inability to change aperture on a camera-controlled lens in live view mode is a bit of a joke. I had to come out of it, change iris and then go back. A huge pain on the end of a jib. The clean output though was great. Although it drops to 720p when you hit record. If you use an external recorder, then you can get clean 1080p uncompressed. Just don’t record on the card at the same time please!

Overall Nikon need to fix these quirks. They are daft as hell. They have lovely cameras. Let’s see them get better please!

There is a second opinion review from Johannes Schoutsen below and Preston Kanak’s official how to use it video for Kessler.

The First Take – Kessler Crane Pocket Jib Traveler from Johannes Schoutsen on Vimeo.

ETHICS STATEMENT: I am not in the employ of any camera manufacturer.  I have done jobs for Canon and Sony but these are one-off paid jobs. No inside track, no buy out. None of that stuff. I am independent and am proud of that. My integrity is everything. For more on my ethics statement please read more here. Remember, these are just my opinions and should NEVER be taken as gospel. I will never give you a black and white answer as to which camera to buy, as everyone has different needs and different budges, so please don’t ask!

WARNING! THIS IS A VERY LONG POST!! DO NOT READ THIS WHILST DRIVING!!! SIT DOWN, G&T IN HAND, CAT ON LAP AND ENJOY!!

Cameras are tools. Good tools make your job easier. I badly functioning tool makes your results worse. The wrong tool ever more so. Therefore deciding upon the right camera for what you do can only come down to you. We all do different work and it’s impossible to say use this over use this…I will be adding to this post soon, giving my ratings out of ten as to how I PERSONALLY rate them for each genre…

Documentary

News

Fiction

Corporate

Music Video

Broadcast

Sports

Events

(This section is coming very soon!)

This blog post is outdated…

A strange way to start an article, but it’s true. It was outdated the moment I started writing it. It is becoming more and more outdated the longer I type this sentence! Just in the time it took to type “outdated” it became very outdated!! So it is outdated by the time you are reading it and of course will be certainly outdated if you reading this a few weeks/ months/ years from now. Why? New cameras are coming out more frequently that the times I have been told, “it’s OK Phil, we can try again later” Cameras are being released so often it’s becoming next to impossible to keep up!

In fact it is so outdated this will not be a post consigned to history…I will update this as frequently as possible! This is the four revision!

We are now almost in a position where the choice is so enormous that it’s becoming like shopping in a department-store clothes section, with all the different labels and the hundreds of different options. The expensive ones, the cheap ones… figuring which suits you and your budget best. Is it as nice, sleek and sexy as the more expensive one in that other section….of course not. Will it cover you up and hide the extreme embarrassment of your not-in-the-best-of shape naked body (I am only judging people by my own standards, not saying you are not super toned and fit!)? Of course it will…will it look as good as that fella over there who has gone for the fancy Italian branded one? Possibly not…BUT if both of you are in a bar and you are better at the old chat up lines than he is, then we know who gets lucky that night don’t we? Yeah, probably him as he has a nice Aston Martin to go with it.

So that was my camera analogy. Did you like it? Bit shit I know It truly is getting to the point where, in 10 years’ time, people will be shooting on cameras I simply will know nothing about. Even now, Sony have so many new models out that I have hired a team of 140 people whose full-time job it is to keep me informed on what new cameras Sony have brought out, minute by minute….:)

So that’s the funny part done…well maybe. But I am trying to illustrate a serious point. There IS so much choice, and either for someone looking to take their first basic steps into shooting, or for someone who already has, say, a 5D MKII and wants something new and better, it’s actually becoming pretty hard. And there is no black and white answer SO PLEASE DO NOT ASK ME… What is actually better than your current camera (unless you own an Alexa, which I won’t cover as it’s way too pricey for this post. The Epic just squeezes in due to a price cut)? Well lots, but there seems to be a lot of confusion as to what the natural upgrade path should be from a DSLR…or even if you should stop using DSLRs…After all, my last mini doc (which is in edit) was shot on the 5DmkIII and the 1DX!

Now, most of us can make pretty quick decisions when it comes to ordering a drink at a bar – clearly it’s a Mai Tai or Sex On The Beach for most of us…but when your decision could cost you potentially thousands of dollars, your choice MUST be considered and thought through…thoroughly. Now with some incredibly powerful cameras costing between 2 and 3 thousand dollars, the choice isn’t as terrifying as for one that costs over $10,000. Make a mistake here, and what do you end up with? A camera that is out of date faster than a bag of pre-washed lettuce from a big supermarket? No…you generally end up with a great tool that may never have been the best thing on the market but can easily help you do your work and do it well. As long as you don’t get camera envy too much.

That is not always the case. There are times when the camera you choose is simply the only one you can afford, not the one you want. That’s fine! You build yourself up to that. If you suddenly find yourself with a client desperately in need for say…a Scarlet…well, rent one! If they are asking for it, pass the costs onto them.

The age of the owner operator is truly upon us, but also it has never been more fractured.  Even if you have a C300 for example, you will always come across jobs where you need a different camera. Different jobs, different clients who demand an Epic or an Alexa? This means you may have to leave your loved one at home and go hire something maybe sexier, sleeker that can do tricks for you …it will be an intense day, but then you go back to your loved one!!

A phrase that is bandied about by a lot people (including me) is ”it’s not the camera”…well yes to a point. There are times when you absolutely need an Epic or an Alexa or a C300, and there are times when a Canon 550d (T2i) will do. Why do you think Roger Deakins shot Skyfall on the Alexa and not say a Canon 60D from Walmart? Well it’s obvious! It’s a big movie, with big effects, big budget and to shoot it on a consumer DSLR would be nuttier than a fruit and nut bar that has decided to eat purely nuts whilst residing in the town of Nutty On The Would, in the country of Nuttinghamshire in the country of Great Nutland…also, if you have the budget, then damn well use it because the times when you don’t have the budget are more and more frequent. If someone gives you the chance to use a better camera, as long as you are skilled enough for it AND you have the backup staff if needed(a C500, Epic, Alexa, F5 etc all need DIT on set, or you will be in for a world of pain!), go for it.

A simple example is: I own an FS100 and a Canon C300. I would always use the better camera if it came down to which one should I use. It makes no sense to use a lesser camera if you have (or have access to) a better camera that doesn’t make your work harder. In fact, the C300 makes my life easier for reasons I will get into later. Also, if I have a broadcast client, of the cameras I own, I HAVE to use my C300 (or the F3 or FS100 with external recorder, but that is bulky and a pain). The C300 shoots broadcast approved HD in-camera. This is a big deal.

If I am shooting purely for the web, I would probably still use my C300 for the most part. It is the easiest camera to use that I own, shoots remarkable pictures, and is small. I personally don’t consider the internet to be an inferior medium anymore. Youtube can play 4K, streaming on Apple TV, Boxee, XBOX 360 etc is the norm. I hardly ever watch internet films/ videos on my laptop anymore.

NOW OUT! THE KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER! $599.95! Limited supply!

So what is the point of all this…well I am getting so many questions about which camera to buy…more than ever! Understandably, as it’s very confusing, so I thought that it was time to do a brief round up and explain what I consider the best uses for certain cameras and, if I have used them, my thoughts on them. If I have never used them, then it’s impossible to say if they are good or bad, any camera I had not reviewed will be marked in red. I don’t speculate and I never completely believe what other people say. I need to form my own opinion before sharing with others. I won’t be listing every camera. I will try and add as many as I can over time, but it’s a huge endeavor. If there are ones I have missed and you want me to add them, then say so in the comments. But, again if I have never used them, there is little I can say.

It’s incredibly time consuming to review cameras properly, and shooting and workshops get in the way. Also getting hold of cameras can be hard without buying them too!

DSLRs

CANON:-

Well Canon started all this with the MKII. Have they captilised on this? Yes and no. They were quick to bring out manual control…then a year of so later 24p and the 7D. The consumer cameras then came out, the T2i, T3i etc etc…but all of these are generation 1. Their video quality has not improved in any of them. The 7D for example looks the same in video mode to the T2i…it’s a massively better camera though, build quality and for stills…but for video, much the same APART from a full HD (but not clean) output.

Canon 5DmkIII

Earlier this year Canon, FINALLY brought out generation 2. The 5DmkIII. After initial reservations about the sharpness of the image, I found it was actually very easy to pull it out in post, as there were no visible moire and aliasing issues…something that plagues generation 1. We also had MUCH better low light, much better codec, a headphone jack, audio controls…still poor pre amps though. Full HD out but the LCD screen stills turns off, and it’s not clean, so no external recording. They have recently announced firmware to come in April 2013 that will give it clean output…we shall see!

Review of the Canon 5DmkIII from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

Canon 1DX

The super pro body the 1DX is everything video-wise that the 5DmkIII should have been. The image is just gorgeous and lovely and sharp…but it’s almost twice the price. It’s actually fewer megapixels, which also means it is better in low light…for some reason though, they left the headphone jack off this…why?!?! I love this camera enormously. Check out my Safari mini doc below where everything bar the main interviews and slow motion (shot on the FS700) was shot on the 1DX, and the “Portrait of a projectionist” mini doc which was shot entirely on the 1DX.

Portrait of a projectionist from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Canon 1DC

Canon also have a better version of this camera coming out soon. The 1DC. This is the same camera as the 1DX, but with headphone jack and new firmware to let it record 4k in motion jpeg APS-H crop but only 8bit. It looks good but I have not tested this. It’s also much more expensive.

EDIT: Test 1DC now…very impressive. Check out my review here! Video review is below but there is a lot more to it covered in the blog post.

Review of the Canon 1DC from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

Another camera I have not fully tested is the 6D. I have had a chance to use it for a day. Not enough to give any serious in depth thoughts but enough to give me a fair bit of an idea of what the camera is like..

It’sa cheaper full frame camera than the 5DmkIII. It has the same codec options…From my initial playing with it I found there to be substantial aliasing and more, like the mk2 but with way superior low light but no headphone jack!

Canon really need to bring out a generation 2 cheaper camera. A T5i, A 60DmkII…whatever it’s called. It is needed, or they will suffer with the competition. Even the relatively recent T4i is generation 1. I would love to see a flip out screen 60DmkII personally. I love the 60D, great bang for buck.

With regards to full frame…do you need it? Personally I love the full frame look. Yes you can get shallower depth of field, but it’s the whole quality and aesthetic of the image that changes. Downside? Long lens shots mean very expensive lenses. Same with the good wide angles.

NIKON:-

What on earth were Nikon doing? They had a wide open market for quite some time after the Canon MkII. I waited patiently. I even bought some, the Nikon D7000 and the 5100. Both as video cameras were enormously disappointing. Weak codecs, lack of full manual on the 5100 in video mode, and with both of these no exposure meter in live view.

Nikon D800

It literally took until early summer this year for the Nikon D800 to come out…almost 4 years since the Canon 5DmkII came out before we had a decent DSLR for video from Nikon. I have one, and as a stills camera, it is exceptional. It has a 36mp sensor made by Sony that it crazy detailed…but how does it translate to 1080p video? Well, pretty damn well. A little bit of aliasing and moire is present, nowhere near as bad as their previous cameras or generation 1 Canons, but definitely worse than the Canon 5D MkIII and 1DX.

Dynamic range is impressive. I had heard figures stating 12 stops. I have not tested that myself, but side by side with the Canon, I can see more in the shadows and highlights (this is without technicolor, which by the way works way better on the generation 2 due to the superior codec and sensor). Sharpness is way better than the MkIII. It also has a crop mode to go from full frame FX to crop sensor DX…nice in principle, shame in practice as it becomes soft. Disappointing. Also the 720p 50p/60p aliases and moires like it is out and proud about it. Unusable with the mosaic engineering filter. A real shame.

Nikon D4

I tested the Nikon D4 and had enormous hopes for this. After all, with around a 16mp sensor this would kill in low light. It does, but the camera I tested was SOFT in FX mode. SOFTER in DX mode BUT sharp in 1:1 sampling, shame it’s around a 2.7x crop. I asked other people who had tested the D4 and was told they had the same results. Can this be fixed in firmware? Who knows…I doubt it, and have heard nothing about it. As a stills camera? Amazing, but the Canon 1DX kicks sand in its face like it’s a puny nerd on the beach vs Arnold Schwarzenegger (around Conan time!)

Both of these cameras are capable of 4:2:0 8 bit uncompressed output. These will not get past aliasing, moire or sharpness but will help compression issues. It also won’t help banding as this is 8 bit not 10 bit, so those sky shots will still band away! At least the camera can have an HDMI monitor plugged in and keep the back screen on, even if you don’t want to record a clean output. If you do use something like a Ninja 2 DO NOT EVER HIT RECORD ON THE CAMERA!! If you do this when set to external recording, it drops down to 720p. So just hit record on your recorder. Yes, that means NO in-camera back up. Poo.

Nikon D600

A camera I have also not reviewed is the D600 and the D7100. It’s Nikon’s 6D equivalent. I haven’t seen it or seen any proper video from it yet BUT it also does have a clean output, although I hear it crops slightly…it also has an issue with Nikon lenses that you cannot change iris whilst in video mode. You have to have a truly manual lens with the contact disconnected or go out of live view and change it.

I have heard great things about the D7100 though so I am hoping to test this out as soon as I can!

Full Frame Shootout from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

PANASONIC:-

There is only one camera that people want right now, and that is the GH3. I was lucky enough to shoot a short film recently on a very early pre-production camera. Lots of issues with it as it was unfinished, so not possible to do a review. But I hope to get a production model soon so I can review it.

Panasonic GH3 launch film: Genesis from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Even the one I had bettered the GH2 in every way. Stronger construction. Better low light, detail, dynamic range, sound handling, clean output, great crop mode, immensely improved codec. Better than a hacked GH2? Yes in most areas. The hacked GH2 gives it a much less compressed codec but doesn’t fix all the other issues. I own 2 GH2s, one hacked and one not. The GH3 is simply much better.

I have one and although I have not a done a full review, purely down to time I have found it to be seriously impressive. All the problems in my preproduction one have gone and it really is a great step up.

SONY:-

Sony DSLRs have amazing innovations. OLED viewfinders, translucent mirrors. 1080p slow motion. The problem for me is simple. I bought a Sony A77. Loved these features then realised the flange distance (the distance from the sensor to the lens mount) was further than both the Nikons and the Canons, which meant I was stuck with Alpha or Minolta legacy lenses. Sorry, but I don’t want to buy new glass! I bought a fairly expensive Nikon to Alpha adaptor that has a focusing piece of glass in it so the lens can focus on the sensor correctly. Unfortunately way too soft. I put my super sharp 35mm F1.4 Zeiss ZF on it. SOFT! So I unfortunately returned it. The Sony A99 is the full frame version. Many similar features and lovely clean output AND you can record in-camera at the same time as a Ninja 2…problem is it’s the same flange distance. One really cool thing is Sony have brought out a proper XLR module for the camera with proper pre-amps in it and controls. Excellent. Now please can we remove that Alpha mount? I have not reviewed this camera.

Now their mirrorless cameras are very interesting. They use the E-Mount system which is also on their FS100 and FS700 camcorders. This means we can put on pretty much any lens we want with the right adaptor. The problem is the E-Mount is designed for crop sensors not full frame, so none of those lenses will work if they brought out a mirrorless E-Mount camera (there is a consumer full frame video camera but more on that later).

With adaptors though, we could cover the sensor. The opening is large enough…it’s just the E-Mount lenses won’t project an image big enough.

There are loads of these cameras out there now. I actually own 3 of them…don’t ask! I have the NEX5N, the NEX 7 (which I have not reviewed properly) and for a reason I cannot fathom I got the NEX 6 (again this has not been reviewed).

I really enjoyed the little NEX5N and it was better in low light than the NEX 7 but the 7 has way better controls and a built in amazing OLED viewfinder, much like the 6. They also have 1080p slow motion but these are region locked. Not world cameras like the DSLRs. So it’s 24p or 25p and 60p or 50p…This mini doc below is shot on the little NEX5N.

Booths & Bodies: The life and work of Anthony Vizzari from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

The codec is AVCHD…it’s ok..but not very robust. I do like these cameras but can’t see me currently replacing a Canon or Nikon D800 with one…not yet.

So, there are other cameras out there that shoot video, Olympus, the new Lecia M and a myriad of others but these are the main contenders. Which one for you? Well it’s tough. The innovations are coming in slowly…It’s the video camera market that is moving forward fast and aggressively.

Intro to the VBAG Philip Bloom Edition from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

LARGE SENSOR CAMCORDERS

THE BLACKMAGIC CINEMA CAMERA:-

EDIT: Since this post was originally done at the end of 2102, I have shot and tested the MFT version and two more cameras have been announced…a 4k S35 version and a pocket one. I have not used them so it’s just speculation for now. I hope to get my hands on them soon so keep your fingers croseed!

FANBOYS: Please do not jump on me for saying this camera is not perfect. I love it but know it’s limitations and issues. Never be blinkered by obsession.

This will be the longest written part of the blog post, for the same reason the video review is the longest one I have done. It’s a camera of contradictions and  a lot of people want it. As of the 19th November 2012, it still has not properly shipped. So frustrating for many.

So why contradictions? Well, for what it does this is really cheap but it’s at a cost …it will simply cost potentially a fair old whack! I will explain further…

Clearly this camera is being targeted at Canon users looking to move up a notch. With an EF mount as standard (a passive MTF mount which makes more sense is in the works) they told me that was their target.

The problem is this is a world away from the ease of a DSLR. If you don’t know what you are getting yourself into, you are in for a world of potential pain…you must be prepared for a whole new way of shooting and post work. If you understand what you are getting into, then you will be prepared…best advice I can give is watch my review below…

So…what is the good and the bad?

THIS CAMERA SHOOTS RAW!! Yes raw, and for a camera retailing at around $3000, that is astonishing. What is raw? Well if you don’t know look it up. Ideally it’s how we would shoot everything. No baked in codecs, we can have enormous options in post to change your exposure and much more. It’s lovely. BUT it’s also HUNGRY…it reminds me of the show/ movie “Little Shop Of Horrors!”…”feed me Seymour, feed me!” as man is it hungry on SSDs…

The raw is uncompressed Cinema DNG. Yes you can have compressed raw. Red have it, Cineform has it. Uncompressed raw on paper sounds ideal but in practice is far too time consuming and far too expensive. In uncompressed raw, 30 minutes of footage will fill up a 240GB SSD. Yep…240GB. You can record in ProRes HQ or Avid DNXHD which is way more efficient BUT it’s not raw so the options that raw give us are gone. You have to make decisions in-camera and adjust lighting to compensate. For my mini doc below “Ponte Tower” I used up close to 600GB of data for around around 1 hour and ten minutes of rushes. On a Mk3 this would be around 48gb in its ALL-I 90mb/s codec. So archiving is incredibly expensive, time consuming. You don’t offload to one hard drive, ideally you offload to 3 maybe 4…that will add up! It takes longer to offload from this camera than the Red Epic as the Epic uses compressed raw.

Ponte Tower from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Blackmagic needs to license or invent its own compressed raw codec.

The sensor is also too small for an EF mount. The size of sensor compared to the flange distance means so much is lost of the Canon lens…it’s a crop of around 2.3x so your 50mm with give you an angle of view of around 115mm…telephoto…GREAT for long lens shots but sucks for wide angles. Also you are only using the centre of the lens, not all of it, so optically not great either. EF mount for this is simply the wrong mount in my opinion…you can make it work, but MFT really makes more sense as I said earlier. I bought an average quality lens to get my much-needed wide and it works, the Sigma 8-16mm….non fish eye but quite slow and with the crop giving me a field of view of around 18.4mm…so, wide but not wide wide. It’s pretty good and is used a lot in the above mini doc…Anything that looks wide…that’s the Sigma! I just really need a fast 35mm equivalent…like a 14mm F1.4…pretty hard to find that!

EDIT: You can now see my review of the MFT camera below…it’s better in some ways…not all. Check it out below!

Form factor is not good either. It’s big and heavy with a big reflective touch screen on it. The software is still very much a work in progress. The Canon lens can be controlled via the camera on-screen controls but no f-stop is displayed (IS is supported by the way). Also audio is via quarter inch jacks, balanced, but no phantom power. There is a headphone jack but with no meters on the screen currently, I have yet to record sound in camera properly on a job.

Yes, it has a 90 minute internal battery. Not ideal but to be honest, due to its form factor you simply MUST have a rig and it’s damn front heavy as it is, so a nice chunky V-lock or Anton Bauer will run this puppy for many hours, and when it runs out and you swap batteries the Blackmagic stays on due to its internal battery being there. So not all bad.

So I used this for a documentary. For me, this is not a documentary camera (unless we are talking just talking heads and reconstructions, not an evolving, actuality doc). Ponte Tower was all tripod… Handheld is so tricky with this, a really good rig is essential and it does have poor rolling shutter issues. It’s rated as 800 ISO but doesn’t like being pushed much more than a couple of stops..at 3200 ISO it can be quite noisy, but the noise is actually quite pleasing. One thing I found though is the noise is so fine, compressing for H264 for vimeo was really really hard in the noisy shots…

So what can this camera be used for? Weddings? Please don’t! Or events unless you own G-Tech or Seagate! The raw is incredibly powerful and the image is gorgeous, detailed and rather filmic. This is a special effect camera, a camera for commercials…a low budget fiction camera? Sure…you just need DIT for all of these! It’s not great in low light, so it’s a camera that really needs lighting. Not a problem for most genres that I have mentioned above but not for documentaries where often you have to go with available light, which is what I did for “Ponte Tower”.

For a first camera, this is mind blowing. Having raw, prores HQ, Avid DNxHD and a dynamic range (in raw) of around 13 stops, this is mightily impressive. With firmware tweaks this will be much more usable. BUT, this is simply not a step up from a DSLR, it’s a totally different tool and as long as you go into this with open eyes, you will have a great time!  I would say this is a hand saw whilst the MK3 is an jigsaw…do you get my analogy? Both do the same job, but one is way more efficient and damn faster than the other, but with the other one you can be really careful and slow, getting it perfect. I have one and will use it for certain jobs. I adore the image and I love mucking about with the raw in the included DaVinci Resolve. It’s so powerful and eye opening.

This is generation one. I am certain what Blackmagic show us next will blow our socks off and probably our trousers and probably our underwear which would be very embarrassing if they did this at NAB 2012 at a presser!!

Sorry for all the detail on this camera, but it really is damn tricky one and I need people to understand what owning one and shooting with one entails.

Review of Blackmagic Cinema Camera from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

Review of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera Micro Four Thirds from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

Mad Cat Lady: Rather cute test footage from the Blackmagic MFT Cinema Camera from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

B&H Photo Video Affiliate Link Below

B&H Photo Video Link Below

CVP LINK BELOW

CVP LINK BELOW

RED:-

EDIT: Since this post was originally done we now have new sensors announced. As soon as I know more about them it’s worth checking their site for ino…

Red suddenly dropped the prices of all their cameras at the same time as Sony announced their new F5 and F55….R&D had been covered and now they could drop prices. Great for new customers. Sucks for older customers who had bought one two or more months previously.

Red Scarlet brain

I like the Scarlet…it’s a cheaper version of the Epic but without most of the cool features, but retains the 4k in-camera recording in compressed raw R3D. Much better than Cinema DNG and a lovely codec to work with. It’s not cheap, even with the price cuts as it needs a fair bit of stuff to kit it out properly…but still it’s an amazing camera and would I like one? Sure…but again this is a Cinema Camera. Can it be used in docs? Of course, like the Blackmagic one, but I would not chose this due to its official native ISO of 320 ISO so it is a camera that needs lighting…not a problem for most fiction gigs. Not ideal for docs.  So nice camera and if they can find a way to get that upcoming Dragon sensor in it – then it will become a much better camera for me.

Shooting “Host” on the Red Epic

I owned an EPIC for a while. My favourite camera ever. But due to a series of unfortunate events that I have gone into previously, I don’t have it anymore. In a way with the price drop I feel lucky. But the image out of that camera is mind blowing. The detail…wow! The slow motion. Wonderful. It’s an amazing movie camera. Prometheus, Hobbit and countless others are shot on it. It’s just not the camera for me, right now. It’s a big movie camera that needs a decent support network, mine went wrong on 6 consecutive shoots and as an owner operator I was kind of screwed. A rental one makes way more sense. Also with the new Sony F cameras coming out with insane sensitivity, they have a real challenge on their hands. If they can get that Dragon sensor in the camera soon, the fight will be on. Let’s hope Jim and the team don’t take too long!! The camera really is Epic and I hope Red, who really have been at the forefront of digital cinema since the Red One, keep on pushing and don’t let the giants take over. We all love competition. It simply makes the cameras better for all of us.

Turin Brakes: Chim Chim Che-ree. RED Epic from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Bangin’ n Clangin’: The Redneck Hippie shot on Epic and Phantom FLEX from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Great Wooden Boats: RED EPIC from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

PANASONIC:-

AF100/ AF101

Where are you, Panasonic? Two years since the AF100 and nothing. What is going on? Is there something amazing in the works? For a company that ruled the indie scene for years with the DVX100 and HVX200, the lack of anything is very odd. The AF100is fine. It’s totally usable put utterly surpassed by the competition. A shame as ergonomics and feature wise it’s actually pretty damn good! COME ON CHAPS!

They did recently announce the AF100a. It’s the same camera with better audio, digital punch in for focus and now 422 10 bit external out put…after two years and seeing what the others have done, this is not enough.

Turin Brakes: Ascension Day SHOT ON AF101 from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

CANON:-

Canon C300

Canon entered the serious camcorder market with the Canon C300. Am not talking about the 1/3” sensor cameras which are great but not what we are talking about here. The C300 on paper when announced last year was met with lots of disinterest….BUT as soon as I got my hands on it, I fell in love with it. A form factor that worked straight out of the box…no rigs. That records a codec that HD broadcasters accept out of the box. With fantastic sensitivity, amazing detail, amazing handling, terrific battery life…I simply love this camera. It is my number one go-to camera these days. YES it is not cheap but you don’t need to spend money on loads of stuff to make it work. No rigs, works with CF cards, takes Canon lenses (or PL NOT both, which to be honest SUCKS!) and no external recorders needed for HD broadcaster.

It has a 12 stop dynamic range and a lovely log mode. Not Alexa or F3 dynamic range but pretty damn good.

This camera is enormously in demand in the industry and rightly so. Its biggest let down? 720p slow motion?! Come on Canon! It’s 2012!!! Below is my music documentary shot on the C300 (with a few FS700 lens whacking shots).

If not now when: The documentary from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

The Canon C500

A camera I have not reviewed yet is the C500the big 4k outputting brother of the C300…it’s actually the same camera apart from the side grip has gone (WHAT?! that grip is amazing) and replaced with lots of connectors. Now, 4K…is it the future? Sure…for now but is it the present? Certainly not for me, and as the camera needs a beast of an external recorder to get this 4k and it’s incredibly data hungry, then currently it’s not for me. I will stick with my lovely C300 for now…it’s also not out yet and the F Series from Sony may well have come along and kicked it in the privates by the time it does…

Canon C100

Another camera I have review yet is the baby brother the C100It looks cool, is way cheaper than the C300, has the lovely C-Log mode but loses the quite wonderful EVF from the C300, has lost the SDI, the screen isn’t as good and the codec is just AVCHD…also it has NO slow motion ability. WHAT!?! A shame, as this camera is small and lovely…but without the EVF the no-rig advantage has been scuppered. It needs a Zacuto EVF. I hope to get my hands on it at some point to see what it is like to use and if it better than its specs suggest…

SONY:-

A camera I have not yet reviewed but have played with briefly is the Sony NEX-VG900. It’s a full frame consumer camcorder. In fact the first full frame camcorder ever! It’s E-Mount (but using E-mount means Super 35 only) but with other lens mounts can be used full frame. Be careful with the Metabones as it may vignette…I need to try that out.

It has proper audio inputs with the same add-on the A99 uses. The menus are a bit fiddly from first impression but it’s cheap…It is region locked so 24p or 25p…Until I test it out there is little to add. I hope a pro version comes out though!!

Sony F3

The Sony F3 was their first large sensor affordable camcorder. A lovely camera based on the EX1, so records in XDCAM EX but can output 444 10 bit via the external outputs and an external box. The S-LOG gives it a native sensitivity of 1600 and a dynamic range of almost 14 stops. This is an amazing camera BUT needs to be used with an external box. The 35mb/s  XDCAM EX codec is old and inefficient. The ergonomics suck. The EVF is useless… but just the image is one of the nicest images I have seen from any digital camcorder.

It needs a rig, an EVF, counterweight, external recorder…so it’s not small and I love small…

One of its coolest features (that I wish Canon had done with the C300 and its siblings) is a removable mount, not a fixed one. Nice.

Insipiens from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Sony F5 and F55

 The new Sony F series, the F5 and F55 have only just been announced so obviously I have not reviewed these yet.

What do they do? Well they are modular cameras with quite a spec list that impresses even the most jaded DP. 4K, raw, 120 FPS 4K raw on the F5 with external recorder and 240 FPS with the F55 and raw recorder. 14 stops of latitude. The F55 even has no rolling shutter issues as it has a global shutter. Amazing!

Without their external recorder that costs a lot of dosh and connects to the back of the camera, you can record in SxS Pro+ which is 50MBS 422…and loads of others including SR codec, H264 (if you must!).

Both are beasts of a movie cameras…Price? Still not confirmed for either. When I am certain I will post it. Both are modular, but by the time you build them up with one of their EVFs, large batteries, raw recorder, you have a big camera. Nothing like a C300. BUT in the broadcast world I can see this being a hit…although I have still to test it, so all this is theoretical…

Also, like the F3, it has swappable mounts.

Shooting with the FS100

The Sony FS100 is still the best bang for buck. A lovely Super 35mm sensor, a relatively cheap price. Lovely detail, no moire or aliasing. Amazing low light sensitivity, proper audio inputs…it’s the first affordable Super 35mm camcorder.

It’s not without its faults…AWFUL ergonomics. No NDs (The C300, FS700 and F3 have them) I really dislike the LCD screen as you can’t turn it to the side and tilt it…it’s utterly in the wrong place, and this causes issues with the loup…also the buttons are all over the place.

It needs a rig and an EVF BUT the image really is lovely. If you need a proper video camera and are moving up from a DSLR AND you are on a budget this should be your first port of call.

I just don’t like how it operates. So fiddly! I curse it every single time. BUT image fidelity is paramount, and this camera has a lovely image. If you are on a budget and want to move to a super 35mm camcorder…currently this should be your number one choice. Below is Portrait of a Boxer shot on the FS100,

Portrait of a boxer from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Sony FS700

The Sony FS700 has the same problems in operation. The same crappy screen and loup. The same poor ergonomics, slightly better but still fiddly buttons…

BUT it has NDs, SD and depending on whether you are shooting 24p or 25p can shoot amazing full quality super slow motion without losing resolution…25p can go up to 200 FPS, 24p up to 240 FPS. It can also, at some point, record 4k…with an external recorder. Again, unless it can record internally like a 1DC or Red then I am not that interested in 4k. I hate big rigs and big external boxes.

It doesn’t have the dynamic range of the C300 or the log mode….but it is cheaper. Problem is internally it’s just 24mb/s so for any broadcast work you HAVE to have an external recorder.

The parents at 240 from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Sony FS700 Review Part 1 from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

Sony FS700 Review Part 2 from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

So have I helped you? Maybe…there are so many options. Check out the pros and cons and look at the work you do. If you have the work that can pay, then get a camera that makes your life easy…after all they are just tools to help us tell stories!!

I am sure you are going to say “what about…” and “but you didn’t mention the..” There is of course no mention of the Digital Bolex. I am an investor and am still patiently waiting. Until I have seen even a pre-production model, there is little to say about it…It is rather late now! Hope it comes soon. I haven’t mentioned any small chip cameras like the Sony PMW 200 or the Canon XF series. I have reviewed them on this site so do check them out…under camera reviews. There is a camera the excels for every different shot, finding that right one means knowing what each camera does and knowing your needs. For example if I had to shoot long speeches at a conference? Give me an XF300 or PMW 200 thanks very much…there no “perfect” camera.

Oh and if you asked me “if you could only have one camera and not any other” it would be my 1DX. Why? Great video and amazing stills. I love both and this does both so well!

I hope this was of use to you and if it was then I would ask you to perhaps add to the massive Movember fundraiser? $25 will get you an entry to a chance of winning AMAZING gear and you help a great cause. Battling Prostate and Testicular cancer. 

I am sure there are other great rigs for the camera. I can only talk about what I have used. I hope to get some Letus stuff soon…

First off, I need to make one thing clear. Despite having lots of gear, I prefer to shoot with minimal equipment. It’s generally faster, but there are some jobs where pimping up your gear is needed. It’s not for show but for practicality. When doing narrative work, you generally need more stuff on your camera than doco work which is my main area. There are a number of mentions of my site sponsor Zacuto’s gear as mentioned in the above Ethics Statement. 

FRAME GRABS COPYRIGHT: PHILIP BLOOM/ DANNY LACEY

BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTOS COPYRIGHT: JULIAN HOLTOM

BEHIND THE SCENES iPhone PHOTOS COPYRIGHT: PHILIP BLOOM

EDIT MARCH 2012: Behind the scene video now up! 

EDIT April 2013 Danny has finally released the film online. Hurrah! I have only shot one fiction piece since then, Genesis for the GH3 launch…I am itching to do more as its easily my least experienced genre and I have a lot to learn. I would also specially love to direct some…

NOW OUT! THE KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER! $599.95! Limited supply!

Peck ally

That Day (a Danny Lacey short film) from Danny Lacey on Vimeo.

Making ‘That Day’ (Behind the Scenes) from Danny Lacey on Vimeo.

A fly-on-the-wall style look at how we made That Day, a short sci-fi film shot over 3 days on an incredibly low budget.

10 actors, 15+ crew, 3 locations, 11 page screenplay

Written, produced and directed by Danny Lacey

The short film will be released in Summer 2012.

www.facebook.com/thatdayfilm
www.dannylaceyfilm.co.uk

Making of videography by Tom Chapman
www.twitter.com/tommychappersII

Screen Grab 120mm F2 ISO 850

Before heading off to Australia and New Zealand for 5 weeks, I had a substantial period of time (for me!) at home in England. A whole month! Of course I was working, but it was nice to be home. When I knew I had this time, I got in touch with Danny Lacey, for whom I shot the short film Host on the Epic,and I asked him last month if he was up for anything else…He said “Absolutely! Let me write something!” That something turned out to be “That Day.” A sci-fi mystery film set in the past and in the present day.

My good friend Ronald Vonk who acted as 1st or 2nd for me. Depending on how I felt!

With such a short turnaround, it was a hell of a challenge for Danny. Not just writing it, but producing and directing it. Getting the locations, props, actors. A huge task even though the end film will only be 10 minutes or so long. The logistics for one person are huge.

So for my part as DP, I had to decide which camera I was going to shoot this on, how to shoot it, and what I needed to achieve this.

I decided upon the C300…why the C300? Well first off it is my newest camera and I really wanted to see it pushed in this situation. I was looking at the F3 which would have worked great, but for me this camera made more sense. Especially as it’s the EF version and there would be some hand-held work. Those IS lenses are a dream for that.

Anyway…I am already rambling so let’s go through day by day what we did and why.

Screen Grab 70-200 F2.8 II ISO 6400

Testing out the handheld rig for the C300 from Zacuto

First off prep of gear. 

David Beaumont was my lighting chap and he got hold of some of the lights we needed. A 2.5k HMI and a 4 foot 2 bank Kino Flo Diva. My assistant James Miller brought 3 x 800 watt lights and just as a backup, his 2k. I brought 3 x Dedo 150s and 2 x Kino Flo Divas. We also used a lot of practical lights for the Attic scene and some bounce boards and reflectors for day 1 in the woods. More on the lighting setups later.

We had 3 days of shooting and 3 locations. The woods, the attic and the office. For the woods we had originally planned to shoot with a Steadicam, but our guy was unable to make it so it had to be handheld. This was not ideal as I wanted more movement in the woods. Handheld is a totally different look, and doing the amount of movement I wanted handheld would look very ugly compared to the fluid beauty of Steadicam. To make the handheld as good as possible, I needed a decent hand held rig. The camera is relatively ok to use with the built in EVF but it really needs a rig, especially as we would need to have a follow focus on there and other bits and pieces. My favourite doco rig for the C300 is based upon the Gorilla rigs by Zacuto, very simple and light. If you already have one for your DSLR you just need the C300 gorilla plate and away you go ($150 from the Zacuto store). This rig was no good for this project though as it needed to be bigger and have stuff attached to it… for my other stuff it’s perfect though.

the $510 target shooter gorilla rig

The more expensive Target Shooter.

Zacuto, sent me their C300 baseplate. This was essential for me, as due to the slightly odd design of the camera, the base plates I currently owned were too low for the follow focus really. The baseplate is clever in its design as it puts the rods on top of the plate, meaning the follow focus and matte box will fit on perfectly. The rods are held in securely. For anyone using a C300 with any of the above mentioned gear, this is an essential purchase. It also gave me the ability to put 15mm rods into the side for easy mounting of monitors and other stuff. Even if you use other rigs, this plate is essential, as long as your rig works off of 15mm rods it will be compatible. It really is the dog’s bollocks!

The essential Zacuto Z300 base plate

The rest of the rig was trickier. I am 6’2″ and the kids we were shooting handheld in the woods were mostly under 4 foot. The camera needed to be the same height as them. The handheld rig I have is essentially the C300 Stinger.The same rig I use for other cameras with counterweight for the shoulder but with the above base plate.

This rig is great for on the shoulder but too high for what I needed. In hindsight, I should have used their DSLR rig the Scorpion with a modified lower front end but I didn’t. Holding it under my arm without the counterweight seemed the best compromise solution.

The last of the Zacuto mentions, as I am talking about their C300 stuff, the RECOIL is probably their best rig. I have all the bits to make it up, that is the joy of Zacuto stuff…it’s great as it sits exactly where a camera should be. On your shoulder. Zacuto are doing a spring special on it at the moment…What I like about it is that the position of the camera negates the need for a counterweight. This makes the whole rig much lighter and its position makes it super steady.

James Miller checking out the lenses

Lens wise, I brought a large amount of lenses with me. Mostly because I brought my Sony F3 with me as backup. Why? Paranoia! After our Epic nightmares on Host, I wanted another large sensor camcorder JUST IN CASE. I didn’t want to put Danny through that stress again. Of course the C300 is a different beast entirely and has no reported reliability issues. As I have no decent EF adaptor for my F3, I brought my Nikon lenses with me and my Zeiss ZFs (which I used on the C300 too with a simple adaptor).

Although I brought many lenses with me, I can list the ones I actually used on the shoot here.

Tokina 11-16 F2.8

Canon 17-55 F2.8 IS (VERY useful for handheld but the focus is fiddly)

Canon 50mm F1.2

Canon 100mm Macro IS F2.8

Canon 135mm F2

Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS II

Zeiss ZF 35mm F1.4

Zeiss ZF 85mm F1.4

I had two monitors with me. The 5.6″ TV Logic and the 7″ TV Logic LVM-074W which acted as a Director’s monitor. Both excellent quality with SDI/ HDMI inputs. Very good waveforms, vectorscopes, peaking, audio and the ability (not needed here) to convert HDMI to SDI. I bloody LOVE these monitors. Best I have used. Pin sharp with great features and wonderful image.

My assistant Ronald checking out the director’s monitor

Ronald on the camera mounted 5.6″ TV Logic monitor

They were lovely to have around, with barely a complaint about the cold…unlike me!

For the most part I was handheld with the camera under my shoulder to keep their height. There were very few walking shots. Mostly static with pans. For the real statics I put the rig on my shoulder and kneeled down on my cinesaddle. Perfect height and way more comfortable!

Screen Grab 17-55 F2.8 850 ISO

Sound recordist Johan Maertens

All sound was recorded dual system, timecode was locked in via Johan’s wireless TC sync box. I did also record reference audio. Why not record in camera? Well the C300 can only record 2 tracks and at times we had more than that. It’s way better to keep things unmixed. Hence the majority of narrative is recorded dual system.

The 17-55mm Canon IS lens is great for handheld with one caveat. The focus throw is quite short meaning focus pulls are very fiddly. Jamie was my focus puller for the shoot, but there were times when it was easier for me to pull off the barrel of the lens, like this one. Especially when the difference was so small.

Screen Grab 17-55 F5.6 850 ISO

I had a pretty small team. There was myself, Jamie, James Miller, Ronald Vonk and of course David working the lights. There were times when we really needed one or two more people. There were also times when it would have been quicker without all the extra stuff, and I just got on with it. That is the documentary filmmaker in me who operates alone!

Make up trailer!

Ronald with script supervisor Henrik

Despite all my layers it was freezing. Here with director Danny

I friggin love this monitor!

My focus puller Jamie behind to the right…you can’t pull from there Jamie!!

We used no extra light for the day light scenes. Occasionally a reflector was used but not often. The light was very flat and even, making it pretty easy to deal with. It was nice when the sun came out, streaming through the trees. The problem with that was clouds and branches. When exposing for the sun it was damn tricky with it going in and out and moving take to take, causing branches to shadow our actors when they hit their marks…very time consuming, but when it worked it made all the difference rather that the flat lighting.

What this camera excels at is the detail off the sensor. It loves fine details, so often I was shooting quite stopped down to see all the details in the woods. This not being a DSLR meant there would be no image issues, so I felt comfortable and safe shooting this way. The camera’s image really is exceptional and this came through will the daylight filming. The ability to hold highlights and shadow detail using the cinema lock mode and C-Log, giving us 12 stops of dynamic range camera was really handy when we were shooting out of the woods. Inside the woods…not needed so much!

Screen Grab 17-55 F2.8 850 ISO

Our last “daylight” scene we barely scraped in. Light was dropping fast and we were behind. This is where another joy of the C300 came in. With barely any light left, I pumped up the camera to a ridiculous 10,000 ISO. Unsable on most cameras. Not here. Yes there was noise, but incredibly easy to clean up with Magic Bullet Denoiser or Neat Video with just a few clicks. Incredible. Even without doing this, the noise is remarkable grain-like. Still, cleaner the better.

I was able to knock off a tight shot of one of young actor’s eyes as well as tight shot of his face. The 100mm Macro with IS was used at F2.8 for his eye and the 50mm F1.2 for the tight shot of his face as the light had all gone and we were in the woods. VERY DARK!!

I won’t talk about the nighttime shots here as I don’t want to give any spoilers. But there are two frame grabs from the HMI scene. The hand holding and the down the line shot.

Screen Grab 120mm F2 iSO 6400

Screen Grab 50mm F1.2 6400 ISO

Screen Grab 100mm Macro F2.8 10000 ISO

Screen Grab 120mm F2 ISO 850

Day two: The Attic

This was immensely more complicated than day one. An intricate lighting set up was needed and 58 set ups to rattle off. That’s a LOT of shots.

The location was above a storage locker in Batley, Yorkshire…again…ABSOLUTELY freezing.

Screen Grab 18-55 F2.8

Screen Grab 70-200 F2.8 II ISO 6400

The attic location at lunchtime…

Danny did immensely well getting our talented adult cast. Matt Sutton, Julia Mallam, Holly Matthews, George Banks and John Guilor.

Going over the script with script supervisor Henrik

The main lighting set up consistied of a 15 watt domestic bulb hanging from a light fitting. A Dedo 150 watt to replicate it stuck onto a beam pointing down, various other kinos, and dedos lighting up different areas and giving extra light to our actors for the close ups. David used a reflector at times to bounce the light into the actors but all of it was pretty dark to the eye and the camera. Quite a different way to light and very fun and creative. I have never shot like this before, so it was a lot of fun. Generally I light for 640-800 ISO indoors…Shooting at high ISOs of 6400 on this camera meant candles made a huge difference to the light, so there was no need to fake the flickering, we were seeing it clearly on camera. The downside to using very subtle lighting was the room didn’t heat up (which normally is an upside but not in this freezing location!) This was a really freeing experience, and the camera really comes into its own here.

The majority of these shots were shot underexposed by around one stop deliberately. This does give you more visible noise, as the sensors copes great with high ISOs as long as the shot is exposed. But with a very quick pass of magic bullet/ neat video de-noiser it vanished (I tend to leave some as it’s aesthetically pleasing) The reason why it was underexposed was to give the feeling over a very dark room…the only time shots were exposed were when characters came more into the light.

Loads of stuff on the tripod/ camera using the C300 Zacuto plate again

The above 17-55 lens was used less here. The main lens was the 70-200mm F2.8 for tight shots of actors with compressed backgrounds. This was VERY fiddly for focus on the end of the lenses. I often stopped down to F5.6 but the throw on the focus at this point is so tiny it meant that keeping focus was very hard. In the end, we switched to the Zeiss ZF 85mm as the throw was huge in comparison, meaning getting focus was much easier. Although it meant a change in perspective as we had more background, less compression due to it being wider and me having to move closer.

Screen Grab 70-200 F4 6400ISO

Screen Grab 17-55 F2.8 6400 ISO

Screen Grab 50mm F1.2 3200 ISO

There was a dolly shot needed, and I used my lightweight and simple to use Wally Dolly for this big track-in. Ideally, I could have done with a heavier duty dolly that someone could have pushed with me on it. But this was all we had, and it did the trick.

We got all the shots done and the C300 did a smashing job again. An absolute joy to work with.

DAY 3: The Office

The office set up was a lot simpler. We had 3 setups and around 2 shots needed for each one. The main one being the opening of the film which was a wide dolly left going past an object to naturally wipe to a tighter shot of one of characters asleep at his desk.

David set up the HMI to light the building opposite through the window. Dedos were used the most here, to replicate light from the computer screen. The below screen grab is coloured to represent approximately what the final image would look like (Perhaps a bit too dark!)

Screen Grab 70-200 F2.8 850 ISO

Screen Grab 17-55 F2.8

So now the film is out of my hands and into Danny’s. This will hopefully be entered into festivals before being shown online, much like Host. I don’t know the timescale, but keep tuned to the Facebook page for more info!

The camera turned out to be the perfect camera for the job. Everything about it worked perfectly. For a camera that I will mostly be shooting documentaries with, it excels at narrative work too.

Huge thanks to all the cast and crew for making this pretty painless. Especially to Danny Lacey of course and my team.

This is my 6th NAB in a row (and ever!) and if you have ever been it’s a monstrous show. Just enormous and to even attempt to see everything is insane. You make a list of the key things you want to see…you plan a route that doesn’t see you zig zagging back and forth. I realised this quite quickly and now I go to a small fraction of the stands I used to. Why? Part of the reason is the internet. A lot of stuff at the show won’t be new or will already be announced. Often you just go to a stand to either see the product in person or to meet the people behind it. Very rarely do we get big product announcements these days, especially cameras. Manufacturers don’t want to announce an exciting new camera at a time when a rival might do. They want the limelight on themselves, understandably, so that’s why they generally announce them separately from major shows now. The exception to this is Blackmagic. Prior to April 2012 they had never made a camera, then on the morning of the first day they dropped the bombshell of the Cinema Camera coming out for $3k.

This really took everyone by surprise and gave the big manufacturers a kick up the backside, implementing features at an unheard of price point. Everyone ordered one, including myself. The problem is many people who ordered that day have still not received their cameras, and today Blackmagic may well have made their current camera obsolete already. My order for my one came through in February, and I placed the order the day it was announced! The vast majority still have not received cameras. Blackmagic have had some serious issues with supplying the cameras in any quantity.

I got one to review back in September. I made a very in depth video review which you can watch by clicking here and shot my first project in October with it in South Africa which you can read about and watch here. The camera itself with its awkwardly-sized sensor never sat well with the Canon EF mount, that was why at IBC last year they announced a micro four thirds versions. I actually just got one of those to review and you can watch that here!

The Blackmagic 2.5k camera offers a lot of bang for your buck, it’s far from perfect, but there is a lot in there that is terrific. Many people said they liked it but would wait for version 2. Well here it is, version 2. Just a year since the first announcement, they have unveiled a 4K super 35mm version and pocket S16 one.

Both of these cameras look terrific in their own way. The pocket S16 one is further along in development according to John Brawley whose in-depth blog post about it here. It’s really small and looks a lot like a Sony NEX6, just without an EVF

Pictures all courtesy of John Brawley

The 4k Super 35mm version will be of huge interest for a lot of people for a number of reasons:

4K super-35 Cmos sensor

Global Shutter!?

12 stops of DR

compressed CinemaDNG RAW and ProRes recording, Thunderbolt and EF lens compatibility

Includes DaVinci Resolve and UltraScopes

The specs of the S16 pocket one are:

13 stops of dynamic range.

Super 16 sized 1080p HD sensor

SD card recording

ProRes and Lossless CinemaDNG RAW recording

Active Micro Four Thirds lens compatibility

NOW OUT! THE KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER! $599.95! Limited supply!

So the 4k version is priced at £2700+VAT and the pocket one at £699+VAT. Both incredible prices for what they do, but they do raise a number of questions.

With the announcement of these cameras, have they made the current two for sale obsolete? John Brawlsey says no. I am more hesitant. Here are the my thoughts both for and against the obsolete statement…just my opinion, so feel free to disagree! This is for the 4k camera not the pocket one, which for me seems a no brainer spec and price wise (although as I always say the proof is in the pudding. Once I have tried it then I can actually give a proper opinion, until then it’s pure speculation)

4k or 2.5k?

4k is way more useful that 2.5k is, 2.5k is great for scaling down to the 1080p but 4k is the new acquisition medium. 4k wins. One thing I don’t know is if the camera can do scaled down 1080p or is it cropped or can it do it at all!

S35 or the 2.3x crop sensor?

Super 35mm is way more desirable than the 2.3x crop of the original Blackmagic sensor which is not one thing or the other. S35 is the industry standard and is hugely desirable. It apparently has inferior dynamic range and less sensitivity. So there is a cost. Not a massive one though. They say 1 stop less dynamic range. Again, until this is tested, it’s hard to say. S35mm wins for me. I am still waiting for official word on if its a ccd or CMOS sensor. If its CMOS Sensor with global shutter that is impressive!

Lossless compressed raw vs compressed raw

This is a no-brainer. Lossless compressed is enormously desirable. The raw in the current camera is way too inefficient. Although this lossless compressed raw won’t be in the 4k camera from day one. Prores only, at first. It’s a “future firmware upgrade”. If this firmware comes out not long after the camera, then great! If it doesn’t…well let’s just see!

Now for me, if I was deciding between the 4k and 2.5k version now and they were both available in the shops now, I would get the 4k one. It makes way more sense. But the unknown ability about full hd from the 4k is important to know…

I would love them to bring out a camera more designed for docs and run and gun…neither of the new ones really fit that bill …we need better ergonomics and audio….more like a proper camcorder.

Now Blackmagic have a PR issue to sort out here too. They have all these people who ordered the EF mount version and have waited patiently (and some not so patiently) for them to ship, the vast majority still don’t have cameras, even though they ordered them a year ago. A lot of people also switched their orders to the MFT version when that was announced in September….this is also still not shipping. I only just tested a BETA version the other day. Now they have announced an effectively better camera with the 4k version for a comparatively small amount more money. I am sure many will now switch again, and for some this would be their 3rd Blackmagic camera order without seeing any of them! Then there are the people who have only just received theirs, and suddenly their camera is almost obsolete. It’s technically not though, as the camera is no worse today than it was yesterday just because new models have been announced. I don’t even know if the current ones are being discontinued. If they were, then yes, the obsolete argument could be used. If you buy a camera one day and the next day the camera has been dropped then that is an obsolete camera!

To announce new cameras before coming even slightly close to supplying their pre-orders is not necessarily good PR. It is great to have innovation and features at this price point, but with a shipping announcement of July for the new cameras, how many people will be worried as to when they will actually get them. If you ordered the EF version in April last year and have not got yours yet and are about to change it to the 4k version, you could be looking at a hell of a long time waiting to get your Blackmagic camera from that first order! If you have been refusing to buy any other camera (or worse, sold you camera to pay for this) because you kept on thinking yours would arrive soon, that’s not great.

I am a big fan of announcing your new product on the same day as you can order it. RED pissed off a lot of people with the Scarlet debacle. Finally, shipping cameras hugely late that resembled the originally-announced cameras in nothing but the name. They learnt their lesson from that and change their whole marketing. This whole announcing stuff and not bringing it out for months and months I hate.

BUT lets not forget how truly great what Blackmagic are doing and how they are pushing so hard and so aggressively at that price point. They have to be careful though. They need to deliver on their promises and get these cameras to customers soon. I also think they should not announce any more cameras at next year’s NAB….let’s catch a breath can we please?

In fact this is a thought…after this, can we not have any new cameras come out for three years please? I would say 5 ideally but that may be too long for some people. So with that thought here is my open letter to all camera manufacturers! (Now some people don’t get my sense of humour so I have now added these words…this is TONGUE IN CHEEK!)

Dear Sony, Panasonic, Canon, Blackmagic, Red and everyone else who is making a camera,

Please just stop! Please stop bringing out new cameras and stop announcing them. Just go back into your top secret bunkers and concentrate on refining and perfecting your current ones and ideas for your future ones. Let us filmmakers have a chance to really enjoy our purchases, really get the best out of them…because you know what? The cameras out there today are incredible and there’s one for every budget. We don’t need anything new. Not yet. There was something special about owning a camera for years that was wonderful and wasn’t replaced a year later! Look at the Panasonic DVX100…a marvellous camera that for years was the darling of the no budget filmmaker, or for the broadcast the ever reliable Digi Beta. A lovely camera that for almost 10 years was the main camera for the industry.

In 3 years time, it would be incredible for you to all reveal what you have been working on AND have them ready to ship. I know you would blow us all away. For now, can we just be happy in our current relationships? It’s nice to be monogamous for a while, you know?

Yours Sincerely,

The filmmaking community

P.S. My accountant has asked me to write this!

P.P.S. I pre-ordered both of the new Blackmagics…any high speed Canon cameras coming out soon?!

Please remember specs tell us only part of the story…never trust them. The proof is always in the shooting and working with them!

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So there we go. NAB day one. I won’t be doing much posting here but I will be talking! You can catch me at these times:

Monday 1pm KESSLER/ ZACUTO booth: Keeping the passion alive…how to stay creative and not fall out of love with filming.

Monday 5pm KESSLER/ ZACUTO booth: A general Q&A session where I will answer all the questions I can in the allotted time! A chance to get advice, ask those burning questions and much more!

Tuesday 1:30PM Live online at the TERADEK booth: You can watch that online here and here. I will be talking about new tech and will be discussing with my good friend Dan Chung.

Tuesday 5PM MILLER TRIPODS stand: “How to make it overnight!” A tongue in cheek title for a talk Q&A about how I got to where I am today and how what I did can help you!

WEDNESDAY 1pm KESSLER/ ZACUTO booth: A general Q&A session where I will answer all the questions I can in the allotted time! A chance to get advice, ask those burning questions and much more!

For more info on the two new blackmagic cameras here are the official brochures. Enjoy and remember…they are just tools!

NOW OUT! THE KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER! $599.95! Limited supply!

It’s NAB time again. The big show in Las Vegas where sometimes exciting new gear is announced and sometimes not! You just never know. Blackmagic surprised us last year with their camera. We had a glimpse of the new Movi handheld gyro stabiliser a few days ago that I can’t wait to check out there. Honestly I don’t know what to expect or see.

MōVI BTS from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

I will be keeping this post updated when I see or hear about something new, but I won’t be providing full news coverage. There are loads of sites like Nofilmschool.com and newsshooter.com who will be doing a fine job on that!

Whilst at NAB I will be doing 4 shortish talks and 1 live broadcast. All the talks are free and on some interesting topics! Here is the timetable (am not sure where the locations of these actually are yet, but I am sure you can find them!)

Monday 1pm KESSLER/ ZACUTO booth: Keeping the passion alive…how to stay creative and not fall out of love with filming.

Monday 5pm KESSLER/ ZACUTO booth: A general Q&A session where I will answer all the questions I can in the allotted time! A chance to get advice, ask those burning questions and much more!

Tuesday 1:30PM Live online at the TERADEK booth: You can watch that online here and here. I will be talking about new tech and will be discussing with my good friend Dan Chung.

Tuesday 5PM MILLER TRIPODS stand: “How to make it overnight!” A tongue in cheek title for a talk Q&A about how I got to where I am today and how what I did can help you!

WEDNESDAY 1pm KESSLER/ ZACUTO booth: A general Q&A session where I will answer all the questions I can in the allotted time! A chance to get advice, ask those burning questions and much more!

So lots of nice talks. and if you see me do say hello…I don’t bite!

Whilst here I am also doing an epic timelapse/ real time film for The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. It’s got a high concept and I hope it works. It involves 7 DSLRs shooting timelapse and a Canon 1DC shooting 4K video. The film will be 4K, but I can’t say any more that that. You can catch a sneak glimpse of the set up below and some frames from my 7 day master frame shot on the Nikon D800! Also a little frame from the 1DC that I captured today which makes me chuckle!

USA Las Vegas mini video blog: The Timelapse from Philip Bloom extras on Vimeo.

Here is the first Vegas Timelpase I did two years ago at the MGM signature balcony

NOW OUT! THE KESSLER POCKET JIB TRAVELLER! $599.95! Limited supply!

A note for anyone looking to pixel peep you are watching a highly compressed version from around 220mb/s down to my upload of around 14mb/s and the vimeo stream of 5mb/s. This will add compression artefacts especially on any shots with the BMD fine noise like the shots lit by one candle light of the cats. I will try and upload a higher bit rate version of that soon, but not the original. It’s too damn big!

I reviewed the EF version back in September. You can read about it and watch the very in depth review of the camera here.  There were many pros and cons. Which outweighed which depended upon the indiviual needs, hence I just listed them. One of the biggest issues for me by far was the choice of lens mount. I love Canon glass and have a lot of it, but they are designed for way bigger sensors than the small BMD sensor. This resulted in a large 2.3x crop of the image, but worse than that, the only light hitting the BMD sensor was from the centre part of the glass, not the whole thing, meaning the image was compromised straight off because of that.

With with that version also being a fixed mount, you were stuck with the Canon mount. Micro Four Thirds always made more sense to me as the BMD sensor is just a bit smaller than the Gh2/ 3 so they would be a great match. Blackmagic thought so too, so just after I put out my epic review on the first day of IBC last year, they announced an MFT (Micro Four Thirds) version.

Yesterday I received the MFT version from Blackmagic to BETA test. So yes, this is not the final version, so anything I pick up on here could change when it is released. When that is I don’t know. The trickle of EF cameras has been painful. My order, which I put in back in April when it was announced, came into stock mid February! So hopefully production has ramped up a lot and will continue to because personally, I think this is a better camera than the EF version. Why? Watch my review below! After the video there are some additional thoughts from me. 

Glass used for the test shooting was the Voigtlander 25 and 17mmm F0.95 (links below) and the SLR MAGIC  35mm F1.4 and 50mm F0.95.

Review was shot on the MFT BlackMagic with the Voigtlander 25mm Lens. Shots of the cameras were done on the Canon 1DC in S35 mode using the Canon 100mm L macro and the 24-70 F2.8 V2 Canon

B&H Photo Video Affiliate Link Below

Review of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera Micro Four Thirds from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

Mad Cat Lady: Rather cute test footage from the Blackmagic MFT Cinema Camera from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Review of Blackmagic Cinema Camera from Philip Bloom Reviews & Tutorials on Vimeo.

So…I recommend the MFT over the EF BUT is this a blanket recommendation? No. Everyone’s needs and circumstances are different. When I say I recommend it, I mean it is my choice of the two…if you own no MFT glass at all and lots of Canon glass it’s hard to justify going that route. The only reason would be if you wanted to use the MFT with the Metabones Speedbooster giving it effectively an S35 look. The problem is that Blackmagic did not make this MFT mount active. This means no power for the metabones which means no iris control, no is and on some glass no focus. This is a huge issue. I don’t know the decision behind the lack of active mount but it’s a problem. I own lots of MFT glass as I have been a GH user since the GH1 but even here my lovely Olympus F2 zooms and Lumix glass are useless. They need power to control the iris, IS and focus. This means manual MFT glass only like the ones I used above or adding say a Leica mount, PL mount or something else.

The main reason I recommend this version is not a financial reason, that would be harder to justify as most would be forced into buying lots of MFT manual glass and there isn’t that much around and buying glass for just ONE type of mount is always risky* (see below) Certainly no zooms I know of. It’s just the flange distance makes way more sense for that sensor size and the image of the Blackmagic MFT with my Voigtlander glass is just damn gorgeous as it’s using more of less the whole lens.

Image fidelity is paramount and with this camera with the right glass we can get great images which with the EF version was much harder due to being locked into that mount.

So remember before buying decide what works best for you. It may well not be this camera, but for many it won’t. If you are dead set on a Blackmagic camera then PLEASE weigh up the pros and cons of both versions. For me, this makes the camera way better….I just wish it had power on that mount. DAMMIT! Maybe on the release version. Did I say i wished the MFT mount was active?!

*Oh yeah…the other massive caveat that you must remember if you are getting tthe MFT version and spending money on glass for it. Please remember this glass will only ever cover a micro four thirds sensor size max, so if you decided to go S35 at some point and if BMD bring our an S35 version this investment in MFT glass won’t be much of an investment. You will have to sell them. I do advise to buy glass that work across all cameras, normally that recommendation is Nikon glass. It works on almost anything. So remember that last caveat. Don’t spend a fortune on glass if you don’t think you will stay in the micro four thirds camp for quite a long time!!

I really hope production will ramp up soon as the trickle of cameras has been painful to watch and I know a lot of frustrated people out there! By the time they get their cameras Blackmagic may well have just announced V2…who knows!

Final note….I wish I could do more reviews…there are so many I haven not covered. These reviews are made with no financial support the so number i can do is severely limited. Please just be happy that I am able to do any Please remember when I do these I cannot work on paid gigs. In an ideal world I would find a sponsor to help get these made. I cannot accept money from manfuacturers. I do have a tip jar on the vimeo page which helps…but if you are interested in sponsoring these please get in touch with me…thanks! I would love to do more and if it were more financially viable I would do.

CVP LINK BELOW