alisterchapman

You were lucky it wasn't super cold as you could have ended up with frostbite. Chemical hand warmers are OK down to about -15c/5f but colder than that, while they will work in a pocket close to your body, in a bag they will stop working as there won't be enough moisture in the air. When you get down to -23c/-10f you really do need to take frostbite very seriously as it only takes 30 minutes of exposure for a frostbite injury to occur. at -30c/-22f you only have 15 mins and if there is a breeze you can halve those numbers.

My understanding is that AF Assist is only guaranteed to work with Sony lenses

I was chatting with some potential VENICE users last week and I became aware that they really weren't sure what X-OCN is. One particular comment that was made was "I'd rather have a raw camera than one that uses a codec" which made me think about whether some people really understand what codecs are and in particular what X-OCN is. A codec is a "Coder - Decoder". Basically any system that takes a signal, turns it into code that can be recorded and then at the other end de-codes the file so it can be played back again. Even uncompressed video will involve a codec as the codec defines the way the uncompressed video should be recorded and then played back. X-OCN is a codec, but then every other type of raw format uses a codec of some form. So in this regard X-OCN is not different from other types of raw. X-OCN stands for eXtended tonal range Original Camera Negative. A bit of a mouthful! But in essence X-OCN is little different to raw. It takes the output of the cameras sensor, encodes it in a 16 bit file preserving as much as possible of the original information from that sensor. The image is not processed in camera, instead just like other raw formats all the image processing including de-bayering is done in post production. Alongside the video data information about the cameras settings, things like the white balance, EI and ISO are saved as metadata and these values are used in post during the decoding to determine the brightness and colour temperature of the footage once it has been de-bayered. But, you can override this metadata in post to decode the material brighter or darker or with a different colour temperature using slider type controls for ISO and WB as well as controls for the sharpness, highlight and shadow ranges. So, the reality is that X-OCN behaves exactly the same as any other raw format, it is not different. There are 3 quality levels. X-OCN XT, ST and LT. All are suitable for mainstream production and offer exceptionally high quality. The standard version is X-OCN ST. XT offers less compression for the most demanding of applications and LT is more highly compressed for those times when storage space may be at a premium. When I've tried to find differences between them all I have really struggled. With highly detailed and highly textured images if you look hard enough with side by side content you might spot some very minor softening of X-OCN LT content compared to XT, but you really have to look hard and it's not nasty in any way. I don't think anyone would ever notice this in the final output and personally I find X-OCN LT to be a very nice format to work with, especially at higher frame rates or resolutions where storage space may be a concern. X-OCN files are very compact. For the same resolution, the 16 bit X-OCN ST files are a little smaller than 10 bit ProResHQ files. You can shoot 8K X-OCN LT and the files are no bigger than 4K ProRes 444XT. So those thinking of shooting 8K with VENICE 2 need not worry that the files will be unmanageable. X-OCN is also very easy to decode and work with in post production. I can edit and grade VENICE 2 8K content on my MacBook Pro laptop.

I'm not against LUT's, but I prefer not to use LUTs anywhere in my grading process if I can. It must be remembered that 3D LUT's break the image into a number of steps or ranges. Either 33 steps or 65 steps (if it is a camera LUT it may be as few as 17, but most camera LUT's are 33x). If you are not very careful these steps can become apparent in the image either as steps or bands across near flat surfaces or the sky or as minor posterisation on skin tones. Better quality grading tools will attempt to interpolate between the various steps in the LUT, so any issues shouldn't be visible, but this can never be guaranteed. A very important aspect of using a LUT such as a Lo-con LUT as a grading starting point is that you really must make all you additional corrections "under" the LUT if you want to work with everything that was captured rather than the limited range the LUT will convert the footage to. Doing any corrections after or on top of the LUT risks enhancing or exaggerating any imperfections in the LUT output and and addition you will be working with any range restrictions that the LUT has created. But the problem with grading before the LUT is that the LUT will include some form of toe or knee to move the 14+ stops of the S-Log3 material to the 6 stop Rec-709 viewing range. When you grade before the LUT, the LUT's fixed highlight and shadow roll off cannot be overridden, so you will often end having to make exaggerated corrections prior to the LUT if you want to make the highlights or shadows different from the way the LUT was designed. Because of these issues using a LUT that is some way from the way you want your final image to look is rarely a great way to work. It is much better to use a LUT that approaches more closely where you want to end up as then you can be more certain that the LUT is performing a more appropriate colourspace transform for the output you want and that the 33x or 65x steps are evenly distributed across the whole of the output.

Generally speaking 4:4:4 v 4:2:2 etc makes little difference to colour performance beyond the actual resolution in the individual colour channels, 4:4:4 won't normally be less grainy or have fewer artefacts than 4:2:2. The only thing that's changing is the chroma resolution. Noise, and luma resolution will be far more noticeable. I suspect the differences in the example you show are more to do with the noise and focus rather than chroma. Something that the XAVC-HS codec does is a lot of temporal noise reduction as this is a part of the H265 compression scheme and one of the ways better efficiency is achieved. Overall this is not such a bad thing, but it can reduce fine details and skin textures in some situations. The A1 is a very nice camera, but for professional video applications overheating although not something that happens all the time remains a concern is some situations, most notably when shooting 8K or when shooting at 50/60p in 4K. It's not a camera I would trust to always work for shooting long performances or interviews.

With winter well upon us I thought it would be good to share some of my arctic shooting experience. I’ve shot in temperatures down to -45c in the arctic in winter. Before considering the cold itself first we need to consider... Condensation: Condensation is the big deal breaker. When you take a cold camera inside into a warm house/hotel/car/tent you will get condensation. If the camera is very cold this can then freeze on the body of camera including the glass of the lens. If there is condensation on the outside of the camera, there will almost certainly also be condensation inside the camera and this can kill your camera. To prevent or at least reduce condensation issues you can place the camera in a large ziplock or other sealed bag BEFORE taking it inside, take the camera inside in the bag. Then allow the camera to warm up to the ambient temperature before removing it from the bag. Peli cases are another option, but the large volume of the pelicase means there will be more moisture inside the case to condense and the insulating properties of the case mean that it could take many, many hours to warm up. I don’t recommend storing a cold or damp camera in a Pelicase (or any other similar waterproof case) as there is nowhere for the moisture to go, so the camera will remain damp until the case is opened and everything dried out properly. LCD's. LCD displays will become slow and sluggish to respond in the cold. Your pictures may look blurry and smeary because of this. It doesn’t affect the recording, only what you see on the LCD. LCD panels freeze at between -30 to -40c. If you are using a camera in very cold conditions and you notice the edges of the LCD screen going blue or dark you should start thinking about warming up that LCD panel as it may be close to freezing. Watch your breath If your lens has and snow or ice on it, don’t be tempted to breath or blow on the lens to blow the ice off. Try not to breath on the lens when cleaning it as your warm breath will condense on the cold glass and freeze. Also try to avoid breathing out close to the viewfinder. When it is very cold and if you are warm in your nice thick winter clothes even standing close to the camera can lead to frost and ice building up on the camera. Small amounts of sweat from your body will evaporate and this moisture will find its way to the camera, even if you are a few feet (1 or 2m) from it. A small soft paint brush is good for keeping your lens clean as in very cold conditions you’ll simply be able to brush and snow or ice off. Otherwise a large lens cloth. Covers. Conventional plastic rain covers become brittle below about -15c and can even shatter like glass below -20c. The clear plastic panels in other covers can also suffer the same fate. So, if you use a cover use one made out of fabric. Special insulated cold weather covers often called “polar bears” can be used and these often have pockets inside for chemical heat packs. These are well worth getting if you are going to be doing a lot of arctic shooting and will help keep the camera warm. As an alternative wrap the camera in a scarf or cut the sleeves of an old sweater to make a tube you can slide over the camera. If you have a sewing machine you could make a simple cover out of some fleece type material. For cameras like the FX3 or FX30 a balaclava can be used to cover the camera body to provide some protection. However unheated covers don’t make a big difference when the camera is outside in very cold temperatures for extended periods, eventually the cold will get to it. Brittle Plastic. Plastics get brittle at low temperatures so be very gentle with anything plastic, especially things made from very hard, cheap plastic. The plastic Sony use appears to be pretty tough even at low temps. Wires and cables may become as rigid as a steel rod. Be gentle, bend then too much and the insulation may split and the cable break. I try to avoid bending any cable once it has become very cold. Other considerations are tripods. If outside in very low temps for more than 30mins or so the grease in the tripod will become very thick and may even freeze, so your fluid damping will become either very stiff or freeze up all together. If you are unsure put your tripod head in your deep freeze at home for a few hours and see if it still works when you take it out. Looking after yourself. I find that the best way to operate the camera is by wearing a pair of large top quality mittens (gloves are next to useless below -15c), Consider getting a pair of Army surplus arctic mittens, they are very cheap on ebay and from surplus stores and will normally have an additional “trigger finger”. This extra finger makes it easier to press the record button and things like that. I wear a pair of thin “thinsulate” fleece gloves that will fit inside the mittens, i can then slip my hands in and out of the mittens to operate the camera. If you can get gloves with finger tips compatible with touch screens this will allow you to use any touch functions on a camera or your phone. I keep a chemical hand warmer inside the mittens to warm my fingers back up after using the camera. The hardest thing to keep warm is your feet. If you’ll be standing in snow or standing on ice then conventional hiking boots etc will not keep your feet warm. A Scandinavian trick if standing outside for long periods is to get some small twigs and tree branches to stand on and help insulate your feet from the cold ground. If your feet get cold then you are at risk of frostbite or frost **bleep**. Invest in or hire some decent snow boots. There is almost nothing worse than having ice cold feet when working. Don’t forget that if you do get cold, moving around, running on the spot etc will help get your circulation going help warm you up.

I would also think about how film exposures are determined. When shooting on film you don't have the luxury of seeing the more or less final output on a monitor. You use a light meter to measure the light falling on the scene or reflected back from the scene and then you expose correctly for that. Incident light meters are normally calibrated for the average illumination of the scene and you would expose according to the light meters recommendation. Middle Grey has become a value synonymous with exposure because not only does this reflectivity of card sit roughly half way between what most would call "black" and the white of a white card but if you take the average light level of most scenes or shots the average illumination level will typically be the equivalent of middle grey. That's why this value has become the standard exposure reference level as it is the average for most scenes whether you expose via a grey card and waveform or use a light meter. This average value, not the highlight value, not the shadow value, the average value, is what has been used for almost the entire history of photography and film making as the reference for good exposure. And I struggle to believe that most cinematographers are now ignoring their light meters or middle grey and simply exposing everything darker than they used to. I strongly suspect that 99% of the dark look is a grading choice, not an exposure choice.

Originally TV exposures were bright because TV was generally watched on dim screens in bright rooms. Certainly many daytime TV shows continue that trend to this day, bright average levels that look good when watched during the day in a bright room. Cinema has always been a little different because films were projected in a dark theatre and the viewing environment was always made as dark as possible. A very important consideration is that brightness is a relative quantity. How bright something appears on a screen will depend on the environment the screen is in. The same image on the same screen will look bright in a dark room and dim when the room is much brighter. So a relatively dim image on a cinema screen will actually appear to be quite bright to a cinema audience but perhaps uncomfortably dim in a well lit living room. As more and more post production takes place in darkened rooms and studios there is a risk that we go down too far as not everyone will be watching in such dark surroundings. There has been a tremendous amount of fall out following several very high profile productions with very large budgets such as Game of Thrones that have gone so dark that viewers have felt they can no longer see what is going on and feel there really isn't any need for the images to be so dark. I don't understand why the producers of these shows felt they needed to go so dark, it rarely adds anything to the films, so the only thing I can think of is that is wanting to be "fashionably dark" or going so dark just because you can rather than because it tells the story better. And while not wanting to insult anyone I can't help but think that dark exposure is often the lazy way out of a difficult exposure situation. In the real world the range that matters the most to us are normally mid tones. People, plants, walls, structures all normally reside around the middle of the perceived brightness range. Deep shadows and bright highlights are rarely important to us. On a bright day many will put on sunglasses or drop down the sun visor on a car because bright skies can be uncomfortable and we really don't care about the sky. But in the recent contemporary world of cinematography great effort goes into avoiding clipping any highlights or retaining a super bright sky, often at the expense of decent mid range exposure. All too often resulting in noisy mids and shadows or shadows that can't be seen at all. Often the only part of the image correctly exposed is the sky or a window in the background. I don't think this is a good thing. The use of reflectors to help bring up the mid range when battling a bright sky seems to be going out of fashion, likewise the use of graduated ND filters. And many have forgotten or aren't aware of the old trick of using mild diffusion to soften highlights so they are no longer harsh. Even when everything was shot on film with it's supposedly huge dynamic range, these techniques were regularly used to help ensure the overall the exposure was sufficiently bright. While there is a place for "moody" footage, not everything needs to be or should be moody. We also seem to be forgetting that having one scene bright before going to a darker scene helps to make the scene change more impactful. Shoot or grade everything dark and you loose a valuable storytelling tool. I think we are heading ever darker and it's not good. Is it possible that seeing so much dark and frankly depressing looking content is helping fuel depression in the population? It is starting to feel like producing anything bright and colourful is wrong - there is a lot of "if it's bright it can't possibly be film like" what a load of nonsense, some of the greatest films ever made are surprisingly bright and colourful, Lawrence of Arabia, Days of Heaven, 2001 and more recently Top Gun Mavericks to name a few. When we start seeing shot after shot where everything in the foreground is in silhouette against a brighter but never really bright sky we may as well go back to when cameras had limited dynamic range and simply expose lower than we used to, just expose for the sky, the result will be the same, the sky not clipped but everything in the foreground a texture free darkness, this isn't difficult to achieve. It is harder to expose this more sympathetically but then we have far better cameras today than we have ever had, so why does everything need to be so dark today when in the past it didn't? We now have cameras with dynamic ranges I could only have dreamt of 20 years ago, but so many on screen images are now so dark that that dynamic range is completely wasted. If you do watch any of the great movies of the past they were rarely dim. Dim, dark movies is a recent trend and I'm not a fan.

If you use Zebras to measure the levels of an S-Log3 image then you should consider using a narrower Zebra range or window than the normal default 10% (+5% / -5%). Zebras were originally conceived for use with Rec-709 and other normal gamma curves. With Rec-709 above middle grey each stop of exposure occupies around 16% of the recording range. So when using Zebras with a 10% or -5% to +5% window to measure a specific value, perhaps a white card or grey card on average you will be accurate to around +/- 1/3rd of a stop. On a grey card if you have set your zebras to 50% your zebras would start to appear at 45% and disappear at 55%, you will have an error of under half a stop at most. This is reasonable and when measuring something like skin tones which may cover a large range anyway works perfectly fine. But when using Zebras to measure the levels of S-Log3 you need to use a much narrower range to achieve the same accuracy. Between middle grey and white each stop of the S-Log3 curve only occupies approx 8.5% of the recording range. So, if you use the default 10% zebra range your accuracy will at best be +/- 3/4 of stop. With the default -5% to +5% range if you set your zebras to 41% to measure the level of a grey card Zebras will appear at 36% , almost a stop under exposed and go all the way up to 46%, almost 3/4 of a stop over. With a zebra window 1.2 stops wide thats a lot of potential for incorrect exposure. I would suggest that when using Zebras to measure S-Log3 you should reduce the range of the zebra window to -3% +3% to achieve a similar level of accuracy as you would have when measuring rec-709. If you are only using Zebras to determine the exposure of a white card or grey card you may want to go all the way down to -1% +1% if you want even better accuracy.

Here's a quick little tip. When using the CineEI mode on the FX6 or FX9 and monitoring via a LUT a quick way to look at highlights and shadows is via the L/M/H gain switch. Put your chosen shooting EI in the M position then have the lowest EI in the L position and highest in the H position. Shoot with the switch in M. Want to see the highlight range - switch to L, the LUT is darkened allowing you to see what is going on in the highlights. Want to see the shadow range- switch to H, the LUT becomes brighter allowing you to see the shadow range. Just remember to go back to M when you shoot. The FS7/F5/F55/Venice have a function called Hi/Low Key which does something very similar allowing you to step through normal range, highlight range, shadow range.

I'd really like to know his views on acquiring at resolutions higher than 4K.

The softness at f22 is most likely due to diffraction. The diffraction limit for 4K and Full Frame is around f11, stop down smaller than f11 and the image will soften with any lens.

I recently spent some time testing the FX30 and I have to say I was genuinely impressed. So impressed I went out and purchased one. I'll primarily be using it with the Sony 18-105 G f4 power zoom. For me this is a great little combination, a high quality camera with a compact and lightweight almost 6x power zoom. Throw in the clear image zoom (and because the FX30 over samples from 6K the clear image zoom is pretty much invisible) and you have 18mm to the equivalent of 157mm or almost 9x. This is going to be very difficult to ever achieve in such a small and lightweight package with full frame. This makes it really handy for a lot of travel, journalistic or documentary type productions. I did dig into the FX30's image quality in great depth, I was keen to measure the dynamic range, noise and sensitivity in some meaningful way, so I compared it to both an FS7 and an FX6. I chose the FS7 as the FS7 is also a super 35mm camera and I think a lot of people looking for a cheap camera may be looking at both the FX30 as well as used FS7's or FS5's. In terms of dynamic range I measured a good 14 stops. The FX30 has finer and less coloured noise than the FS7 and the lower noise means the useable shadow range of the FX30 exceeds that of the FS7. In fact I was unable to measure any difference in DR between the FX30 and the FX6 at 800 ISO. At the FX30's second base ISO of 2500 ISO the FX30 remains less noisy than the FS7 (at its base of 2000 ISO) and is a fair bit less noisy than the FX6 is at it's high base of 12,800. So for low light the FX30 performs a lot better than the FS7. As a side note - often I find the very wide base ISO separation of the FX6/FX30 too large. For most normal productions 3200 ISO would me my preference over 12,800. But what about shooting in very low light? I also did some under exposure recovery tests to compare all 3 and the FX30 did very well. I think oversampling from 6K of pixels to 4K really helps keep the image quite clean. Based on my tests I feel the FX30 at high base comes out about 1.5 stops behind the FX6. So the FX30 at the equivalent of around 5000 ISO (2500 base + post production gain) performs similarly to the FX6 (12,800 base shooting at 5000 EI). Overall the FX6 (and FX3/A7S3) remain the kings of low light but the FX30 is not all that far behind. At the equivalent of 5000 ISO the FS7 was really struggling and noisier than both the FX6 and FX30. The one image defect I did observe with the FX30 was a noticeable amount of highlight smear. When I did the DR test with my home made DR test device the brightest stop which is set right at the cameras clip point caused a noticeable smear band. But the FX6 also showed a small amount of smear. Smear from CMOS sensors isn't completely unusual and while of course I would prefer it if the FX30 didn't smear, I feel the amount of smear is manageable and given the cost of the camera I'm not too concerned by it. It only occurs when a significant highlight is very close to or actually clipping and you'll only see it the parts of the image either side of the highlight are relatively dark. It does have more rolling shutter than the FX6/FX30, but its not at all bad, not that much different to the FS7. The 6K oversampling produces really sharp and detailed images, colours are great and well matched to the FX6/FX9. I do need to re-test in this area because although very well matched I did notice some very slight differences when I was pixel peeping, but I'm not sure whether this was a slight white balance error or a genuine difference. Again though, if the difference is real, it's very slight and not something I'm worried about as for most applications 2 cameras shooting 2 different angles will always look very slightly different anyway. I do like full frame, but there is definitely a place for super 35mm, the FX30 isn't replacing anything. But it is nice to have an oversampled super 35mm camera. I have a lot of lenses I can use with the FX30 including some Sirui s35 1.35x Anamorphics. I can use it on a gimbal or crane with the 18-105 power zoom and remotely control the zoom. I'll be taking it up to the Arctic for my Northern Lights shoots as it will fit in a large pocket when we are off exploring by snow scooter. And who knows, if I can get decent internet perhaps I'll be able to use the FX30's webcam function to stream the Northern Lights live (or maybe I'll take an FR7 for that).

I see the square, but the only option I get is to use the built in avatars.

Lots of good information in this post. Personally I prefer to use silicon grease rather than vaseline to help seal suction cups as it won't degrade the rubber components or damage paint work. Silicon grease is also a good lubricant for the O rings in the pumps of the suction mounts which will improve their operation and sealing. When using suction mounts on expensive cars or just to generally protect the paintwork I recommend applying a good quality ceramic polish, preferably the day before the shoot. This will also help your suction mounts seal. Safety straps must be very short. I've seen suction mount cameras come loose but then bouncing off the ground, flying up in the air battering the car and smashing the windows as it flies around on the end of the tether. A long safety strap may be more dangerous than no safety strap. I would just add that you should also make sure that you are not breaking any laws with cameras that extend beyond the normal extents of the car, could increase the likelihood of injury to anyone in an accident, obstruct the drivers vision or could deemed to be a distraction to other road users. Plus check that your liability insurance covers this kind of work.

I would never recommend removing screws from Sony cameras, but sometimes it becomes necessary, perhaps for example to remove the mic holder from the handle of an FX6. The cross head screws that Sony use are NOT Philips screws, they are JIS screws. This is important to know because if you try to use a Philips screwdriver on a JIS screw very often the screwdriver will damage the screw head and you may not be able to undo the screw. So, in case you do ever need to remove any of the smaller screws from a Sony camera I would invest in a good quality set of JIS standard screwdrivers. You will need size +0 and +00 for most of the smaller screws. Don't use a Philips screw driver, because even though it might appear to be a good fit the angle of the Philips blades is wrong and they only contact a very small part of the screw head and will damage the screw if it is tight (as they very often are).

The FR7 allows you to get otherwise impossible angles and it is very responsive to the control inputs. But you still don't quite have that direct connection that you get with a traditional directly operated camera. I would still prefer a directly operated camera where possible. But it's not often that you can put a camera man up on a lighting truss or at the very front of a stage, so this is where the FR7 really comes into its own and I would have no hesitation in using the FR7 whenever something like this is needed. I will probably add one to my own kit for use as a B camera for things like this as well as interviews and all those other situations where traditionally I would have used a locked off camera. At least with the FR7 you can remotely re-frame if the talent shifts position. You can even control it from a phone if you connect the FR7 to a router with WiFi. When I went up the big ladder to change cards between performances I was able to use my phone to format the cards and check everything was working as expected before coming down and putting the ladder away.

I will be posting some videos in due course. You have a tremendous amount of focus control. If using the IP500 control panel you have a focus dial to manually focus or you can use AF and there is a push auto button. If you have a tablet or computer as I did you can use touch to focus (via the track pad or mouse if you don't have a touch screen). You have the same touch tracking, face and eye AF and all the same zones and response settings as on the FX6. These can be set very quickly and easily from the web interface.

I think the significant impact of lenses on the final image is often overlooked, although if you start with a pristine image many optical characteristics can be reproduced fairly convincingly in post. A big part of the appeal of anamorphic is all the imperfections that the cylinder lens adds. And defining the film look is next to impossible. The colour sections of Wizard of Oz like many 3 strip technicolour productions looks sharp, vibrant and colourful, dare I say video like. Some of this probably stems from the use of a prism in the optical path similar to that used on 3 chip video cameras. Vista Vision films have an immense amount of detail and very little grain. That combined with low distortion levels thanks to the use of spherical lenses tends to lead to Vistavision films lacking any obvious "character". Then in the 80's super 35mm became popular as it was relatively low cost and films became are more grainy and "crunchy". But the things that generally separate feature films and other big budget film productions from everything else is attention to detail, carefully considered framing and composition, good lighting and great care over exposure.

Great bit of information, thanks for sharing.

I've just spent the weekend shooting at a large travelling circus with the FR7. The circus is a contemporary travelling circus that tours around the southwest of the UK between February and November every year. They perform in a traditional Big Top tent and have 2 different shows. Funtasia is a family oriented show with comedy acts, dance acts, a very impressive laser show, fire, stunts and some high wire and rope acts. On Saturday evenings there is an adults only show with cocktails, wine and beer called Cirque Du Vulgar that starts as soon as the doors open with the cast secretly mingling with the audience so well that the audience no longer knows who is a guest that might of had a bit too much to drink and who is part of the show. In the main part of show there are risqué acts including a beautiful aerial ballet full of romance and passion. Plus many staged interruptions from seemingly drunken audience members that are cast members that have been hiding in plain sight in the audience since the doors opened, some of these are hilariously funny as the audience no longer know whats part of the show and what is not. I've filmed circus before and it can be challenging to cover well. Being a travelling circus performing in a tent the main acts happen in a ground level ring. So a cameraman and tripod anywhere near the ring is going to spoil the view of some of the audience. The FR7 however is so small and compact that it can be placed on the ground at the front of the ring without getting in anyones way. After covering the show from this position I moved the FR7 up above the ring and hung it from the lighting truss. This allowed me to get a very different view of the acts, especially the high wire and rope acts. There are some great shots of the aerial artists swinging towards the camera and screaming at it. I ran the FR7 off a battery pack to save running power cables across the ground. Like most of the Cinema Line cameras it needs 19.5v so I made up a power adapter to go from a 14.4v D-tap to 19.5v You can't use the adapters designed for the FX9 etc as the FR7 takes quite a bit more power if you pan or tilt rapidly, you need 19.5v at a peak of around 4 amps. Using a single thin CAT5 cable I was able to control the camera and see a low latency live feed on my laptop. There is a bit of delay in the video feed over the CAT5 cable, maybe 3 or 4 frames and this did make following fast moving action a bit of a challenge. In retrospect I should have either taken a direct SDI or HDMI feed from the FR7 to a monitor or used a very low latency wireless link. However I am still delighted by the footage I got, as were the circus who have never seen their own acts from these different perspectives and in such high quality. I shot using S-Log3 and CineEI using the 28-135mm power zoom.

It's often tempting to rely on white balance presets as generally these will be in the right ball park for most things. On previous generations of cameras you had to use presets when shooting Log. But the latest cameras have the ability to take a white balance off a white or grey card even when shooting log. Presets cannot compensate for differences in lenses and there can be some minor variations between any 2 cameras, they will not always be identical at the same preset white balance. So when shooting with multiple cameras you will often get a better colour match if you take a white balance from a white/grey card and this can save a lot of time in post production. It can be surprising how big a difference having all cameras correctly balanced will make to the colours in your images. To get an accurate white balance the card should be large enough to fill at least 75% of the frame for the FX6 and FX9. It can be smaller for the FX3 and FX30. Use a good quality card and place it in the center of the scene you are shooting and angle it half way between the scenes main light source and the camera. But you don't want and shiny reflections. Expose it so that it is bright but not over exposed in any way (typically the exposure for the card will be no different to the exposure for the scene). If the card isn't large enough in the frame, don't move the card out of the scene or away from the light illuminating the scene, instead move the camera closer to the card. Try to white balance all your cameras at the same time and once you have set the white balance don't change it unless you re-white balance all the cameras again.

White balancing off a white/grey card rather than relying on presets will greatly reduce differences like this and ensure cameras are better colour matched than they will be by just relying on presets.

There is an error in the table above for the the FX30 High base ISO. Here is a corrected table.

A white card will always be more "accurate" than skin tones if you always want to hit a very specific brightness for white. But when we look at an image we don't tend to be looking to check whether a white card has been exposed at exactly the right level but rather whether the image looks balanced. This is why incident light meters have always used the average illumination for a scene as the reference, not just white or black, but more importantly the average of everything in between. For me what is more important with a "what you see is what you get" gamma like S-Cinetone is whether faces look bright enough to be seen well, but not so bright that they look over exposed and equally not so dark as to look dim/underexposed. If I'm shooting a darker face then I might expose a touch brighter, when shooting a very bright, pale face it may be better to expose a touch darker. A white card will get me in the ball park for the scene, but what really matters is the subject and I will ignore my white value if my talents faces look better exposed brighter or darker. If I have scene with multiple faces then I will likely take the best compromise that makes all the faces look as good as possible and generally if that is a mix of bright pale to dark browns there will be an average value. 60% zebras for faces is a guide and most people are well aware that even across one individuals face there will be a wide variation in tone. Generally there isn't as much brightness variation between different skin tones as one might expect, the biggest difference tends to be saturation. But using zebras at a certain level for "average" skin tones is widely adopted because faces are often the most important part of a shot and if those faces are too bright or too dark they become unpleasant to view, regardless or skin colour. Even in countries where darker skin tones make up the majority of the populace the same zebra values are used as in northern countries where pale skin is predominant as on a very limited range Rec-709 display these values represent a sensible brightness for a face, generally 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way up the brightness range, not too dark, not too bright. And don't forget that the usual 10% zebra window will mean that in reality Zebras at 60 will encompass 55-65% which is a pretty big range that's going to mean that if you have a light skinned and dark skinned person side by side, in the majority of cases zebras will appear on both. But I would hope that most people appreciate that faces come in many shades and have sufficient sense to adjust how they expose faces to both the face and the environment it is in.