[rmalbers]

Sweet deal, maybe I should start checking the paper for a camera club sale! I also like taking things apart, always have, it's getting them back together, that's sometimes a problem, LOL! BTW: that looks like one busy waterway!

[PiDicus Rex]

Busy,... Mmm, sort of.
(Time to open your Google/Bing Maps boys and girls)

The yachts in the foreground are moored at Williamstown, suburb of Melbourne, Australia.
The Tug is over in the channel leading out of the Yarra River. The channel gets a fair bit of traffic getting ships in and out of the main port area a couple of kilometers inside the river mouth.
The buildings in the background behind the Tug are in the suburbs of Port Melbourne and Middle Park.
The swan(s) walked up behind me while I was filming the city, they were just outside of the minimum focal distance of the lens.

The focus pull following the Toyota pulling a boat is Nelson Place in Williamstown. (The pub meals at Customs House, just out of frame to the left, are worth recommending).

And the dirt road, from where the city is filmed with the 400mm on the 2x teleconvertor, for the shot at 56 seconds, is about 35 to 40 minutes drive along the freeway at 100kph (62mph), out to the west of Melbourne. In a straight line, the giant Ferris Wheel is close enough to 30 kilometers ( a bit under 19 miles) away from where I was filming from.

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the lens.

[johncarlgalang]

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

I only get to practice once a year, haha. But it's my best so far. Used a Samyang 35mm 1.4 the whole time. Had lots of fun working with the kids here.

[PiDicus Rex]

Niiice!!
Pretty straightforward, camera work is appropriate for the use, needs a few pointers on production though, which hopefully everyone can make use of.

'Appropriate camerawork' - this is actually a pretty damn good example of the right camera style to match the subject material.
Too often people try to do too much with special angles and camera effects, which often don't match the subject or story. Here you've used simple set-ups, let the subjects speak, and haven't overdone things.
(Well done)

The Audio - it sounds like the voices are being clipped, as if the record level for the microphone is set too high. On a camera with level displays, it's easy to check the recording while it's being done. The K-01 doesn't let us do that, nor does it allow external monitoring during recording - the AV output audio gets switched off when you press the record button.
The best way to solve this sort of thing from happening next time, is to use an external mixer/recorder with headphones and displays.
If that hardware is not available, what you can do, is make a first test recording, then play it back in the PC and listen to the sound, and then adjust the levels for the external mic, and repeat until you get a good quality recording. Once you know what works between the camera and the microphone, you'll be able to judge by experience when to expect the sound will be good or distorted.
Good sound is just as important for storytelling as good visuals are. You can get away with deliberate b-grade camera work if the sound is spot on. But if the sound sucks, even the best camerawork will go to waste.

Graphics - Nice use of the physical surrounds to place the name tags for the staff members. It's clear and it's unobtrusive, it respects the speaker without distracting the viewer.
The opening graphic - try shifting the whole video further down the timeline, starting with the background in black and fading up the vision behind the title, or fading up the title from black and then bringing the vision in.
It's only a little change, but it makes the start of a video a little less jarring.
Also, and I don't expect most people to know this, but white title cards work best with a thin black or grey outline or drop shadow - watch how the title disappears when the camera shows a light or white object behind the title. Even a single pixel outline can help separate the title from such a background, making it easier for the viewer to read.

Editing & Duration - Tip for beginners everywhere. Play your edited piece with the sound off, if it gets boring, it's too long. This feels about right, not too long, not too short.
Another is to play transitions backwards, if they look 'right' in both directions, they usually are. If they jar to your eye in one direction, they probably aren't.
At 3:10 - 3:14 there's an exterior shot where the camera moves during the transition.
This is pretty common for a lot of non-professional videographers. When shooting, take the camera through the move to an endpoint, then count to three or five slowly before you move the camera again, this will give you enough time for a nice smooth transition in the final edit.
Or,.. keep the camera moving, so the transition starts and finishes while the camera is tracking through a smooth action.

Overall, for a 'once a year' effort, that's pretty damn good work John.

[johncarlgalang]

Niiice!!
Pretty straightforward, camera work is appropriate for the use, needs a few pointers on production though, which hopefully everyone can make use of.
...................
......................
Overall, for a 'once a year' effort, that's pretty damn good work John.

Thanks for the kind words. Making videos is a happy hobby.

Audio is the weakest link in this video. Since I only get to play around with my K-01's not as often as I want, I look for ways to cut on cost. For this I tried a pair of wireless laveliers I got for $29USD on ebay. And it pretty much sucks the way it is, straight to the cam. Just a bit better than relying on the cam's mic I guess. Its hard to find the sweet spot, as the mic overmod's when its a bit close and just too low on the volume when a bit far. A case of you get what you pay for.

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

I ordered a portable audio interface on amazon which I could attach to my android phone via OTG so I can play around with the volume and monitor the audio while recording, but it will arrive 20 days after I needed it.

[PiDicus Rex]

Low priced is okay, they seemed clear enough when they weren't overdriving the input of the camera, or if the input was set too high, It did sound like clipping.
Have a close look at them, a lot of wireless mics have a gain control on the body of the transmitter, and other an output level control on the receiver - it might not be a normal button or knob, but a recessed screw under a cover.

Some of the phone/tablet interfaces can be pretty good too, depending on the processing power of the device they're attached too.

---------- Post added 05-04-14 at 12:46 AM ----------

Videos , Benjamin Kanarek

Checking them out now,... Have you had any issues mixing K-01 footage with K3 footage?

[PiDicus Rex]

Benjikhan : Okay, LOVE them. So very good to see K-01 footage getting a highly processed look, Frederique's editing choices have a natural flow to them that makes it very easy to get in to the pieces and enjoy them.

I am curious about the choice of Dailymotion as a host? - I'm migrating away from Youtube towards Vimeo, all the linking or accounts and rule changes since Google took over have been annoying.

[Steve.Ledger]

.....all the linking or accounts and rule changes since Google took over have been annoying.

Tell me about it! Really irritating.
Trouble with Vimeo is I can never get a video to stream in one go, it's always stopping and buffering. For years it's been the same no matter which ISP I've used or which PC.
I wish there was a better alternative to YT...

[PiDicus Rex]

Ah, okay, buffering.
I'm too far from the nearest Exchange to get any speed advantage from ADSL, so still stuck with Dial Up. ( And so very glad the National Broadband Network is being set up in our area,..)
Every video site buffers for me, so I use DownloadHelper in Firefox to save the mp4 streams locally and then play them in VLC.

I just prefer the interface and client experience on Vimeo, and not having to have a Google account to have a Youtube page - I'm close to deleting both my Youtubes and unlinking all the accounts.

[PiDicus Rex]

Compressed as hell, first draft of a favour for a mate-ette.
Constructive criticism accepted

Password is " Splatter ",.. and please keep it to the forum.

[rmalbers]

Compressed as hell, first draft of a favour for a mate-ette.
Constructive criticism accepted

Password is " Splatter ",.. and please keep it to the forum.

Wow, just great work you do, what's a guess as to how many hours you have into that video?

[PiDicus Rex]

As Edius users go, I'm pretty slow, so at the poiint that draft was exported, there was about six hours work, but that includes coffee stops - you don't want to be looking at CRT screens ( or LCD's) for too many hours without resting the eyes.
Final version, which I'll chuck up on vimeo after the project is submitted, has about another two or three hours work, with the sequence order flipped, wasted time trimmed out, and a 'hospital' room scene added, plus some colour matchinging to bring the Ixus footage ( the stop motion sequence ) and the JVC cameras shots to a closer match to the K-01 footage, and some tweaks to match the colour differences between a couple of my lenses.

[rmalbers]

That's interesting, I actually thought it would take a lot longer than that. Is there any cheap (cheaper than Edius) software that you would recommend?

[RonHendriks1966]

Compressed as hell, first draft of a favour for a mate-ette.
Constructive criticism accepted

Password is " Splatter ",.. and please keep it to the forum.

That is absolutely great!

[PiDicus Rex]

Submission version.



Mal: VirtualDub is free and is a good place to start with cut-editing - no fancy transitions.

It's also a fantastic tool for re-compressing video - the HD 'HQX' CoDec from Canopus that I use as my working and export CoDec, runs to about 1.5GB for this video, compared to resizing and recompressing in VirtualDub to the x264 CoDec at 1024x576 (Standard Def Widescreen square pixels) at about 60MB.

Lightworks has a free version for Windows, Mac, and Linux. I haven't had too much experience with it but it does look pretty powerful.

There used to be an application that shipped with USB based video recording dongles called 'Cyberlink Movie Director' ( I think! ) that was a reasonably good starting point too.

Windows users can also download the Windows Live package, with the Windows Live Movie Maker app.

I actually thought it would take a lot longer than that.

I could be a wiseass and suggest it would take longer in FCP and Premiere,...

Unfortunately, anything worth using,.... Ka ching! $$


Ron: Thanks! The Hair n Make-Up girls are happy with it - they're supposed to submit it tomorrow, and have promptly shared it online today while I was at another shoot.