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02-07-2012, 05:54 AM   #1
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Jessops "The Shot" competition short on k-5

Hey,

I've shot quit a bit of video on Canon DSLRs but this was my first short with a Pentax k-5. I wanted to use the k-5 this time as it's my own camera, I was curious to see what sort of quality I could tease out of the excellent sensor, and since the competition was specifically for DSLR video I wanted to differentiate myself from all the 550d/600d/60d/7d/5dii videos in the competition (and the nikons).


General observations:

The lack of manual control was an issue. I got round it generally by using exposure compensation and AE lock, sometimes before framing so I could get the settings how I wanted. A monitor would have been helpful, as sometimes I clipped the whites.

I found the noise was quite bad sometimes as I had no ISO control and couldn't even see what it was on screen. I was using some older M lenses with aperture control, so could have some influence on iso, but occasionally didn't notice the noise til afterwards.

I sometimes used the user mode "trick" for getting manual video, where you turn the dial to user mode, aperutre priority, get your settings, then ae lock and very quickly go to video, which keeps the settings and ae lock.

Shot without any digital filters in camera, and with tungsten white balance. Afterwards I toned down saturation to give it a filmy look and also to reduce the effect of colour noise.

The in-built shake reduction was used a little, otherwise on tripod. SR was great, looks very smooth - not true when I've used those lenses with an adapter on a canon DSLR.

I shot using a 50mm smc-M, 100mm smc-A, 16-45mm DA, and one or two shots on a 24mm smc-A. The user mode trick above doesn't work with the M lens, so was limited slightly by that.

Editing was done on premiere pro cs4, with a morgan codec to make the 60 to 80 kbps mjpeg files playable (hence the little smilie face in the corner! should spend the £20 on the full version!)

What do you think? I'm very keen to hear tips for future video outings with the k-5.

02-18-2012, 10:13 AM   #2
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Good job with the K5.

Enjoyed your video and best of luck in the competition!
02-18-2012, 11:40 AM   #3
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Very nice camera work

You had me on the edge of my seat the entire time, nicely done.

Your extablishing shot was key in the end. You did a great job tying the SHOT back into your end result. Very interesting twist!!!

I like your positioning of the camera angles. The one above the fan was a nice touch. Was that easy to get? Shot of the glasses on the tray from above was also a nice touch.
For you video did you use multi camera or one camera? Very good use of Bokeh!!!! I also liked the film look, and almost sepia feel, which fit in nicely with your era!!!!

I would love to pick your brain on your camera settings. I am sure the Cannon does a nicer job for the 4000.00 ish more your pay for the body. You did a great job for a 1500.00 body and that should be considered in your contest as you are having to do work arounds with the cameras functionality.

I think you did a great job with your full, medium, close up and extreme closeups and your camera angles. The effort shows in your final product.

Audio was at times great, but other times you could hear the sounds of the room. I think there was a bit of a hum in the first 1min or so. What did you use for your audio mic? I think you might have mentioned this but was most of this done on a tripod? Any slider shots or use of dolly or steady cam?

Again, excellent work, loved the story line!!!! Excellent camera work!!!! Audio was it's only weakness, but not bad enough to effect the short!!!

Oh and you mentioned a monitor would have been nice, did you use any type of viewfinder eye cup to help with focus? Hoodman, Carryspeed vfinder etc...

Last edited by Lance C; 02-18-2012 at 11:43 AM. Reason: addition
02-18-2012, 11:45 AM   #4
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and....can you explain this a bit more? I don;t know enough about the video feature to figure this one out.

I sometimes used the user mode "trick" for getting manual video, where you turn the dial to user mode, aperutre priority, get your settings, then ae lock and very quickly go to video, which keeps the settings and ae lock.

02-21-2012, 03:47 PM   #5
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Thanks Lance for your detailed feedback. It is very much appreciated, and I'm glad you enjoyed the film.

QuoteQuote:
I sometimes used the user mode "trick" for getting manual video, where you turn the dial to user mode, aperture priority, get your settings, then ae lock and very quickly go to video, which keeps the settings and ae lock.


This post explains the trick to get control over ISO and shutter speed for video, which is necessary for proper control as the camera only has aperture control in video. This post is for the k-7, but it works in the same way for the k-5

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-video-hdslrs/104903-guide-manually-controlling-video-exposure-k-7-a.html

I use the trick to keep a 1/50 shutter speed, and then altered the light level to keep the ISO at something reasonable (below 800 preferably) at my desired aperture.

The above-the-fan shot was done from an upper level in the bar with a cardboard fan we’d made, on a stick! It was being spun by my co-director as I filmed through it.

We didn’t use a dolly, and predominantly shot on tripod. I can’t recall if we used any panning shots but I did a little handheld stuff for which the shake reduction came in very useful.


The audio is a little patchy and not as high quality as I would have liked. The audio person wasn’t used to the equipment and made a few errors with the levels. We used a zoom h4n recorder with in built mics (great for speech recording) and occasionally a rode ntg2 shotgun mic for the wides. Due to low levels we had to add gain, which brought out this hum from the venue (part of the heating system which we couldn't switch off) . The audio was not synced to the camera, I used a clapper board and a programme called Pluralise to sync it with the video for the edit.

Didn’t use an eyecup, which might have been useful to help with over exposure – but using liveview zoom to focus was useful.

Thanks.
02-22-2012, 10:44 PM   #6
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trick has never worked for me

Met
step 5 has never worked for me. I have tried this with my k7 and my k5. My AE-L Symbol does not stay on the screen. Am I doing something wrong. I am following the directions to the letter, or at least I think I am. I would love to see someone do a video Tutorial on this.

II. Setting the exposure.

4. Setting the shutter setting is rather trickier, it involves aiming the camera at or away at a light source till you see the shutter speed at your desired value, ie 30, 60, etc and then hit the AE-L button.
5. Turn the dial to video mode and hit the shutter button, you will immediately see the AE-L symbol is still on the screen and your exposure is locked as said above this only appears to work in Av mode in USER and no others.
02-23-2012, 04:33 AM   #7
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Had a quick search but can't find a video tutorial.

The key is speed. Once you hit the Ae-L button you have to turn the dial to video immediately and hit the shutter button immediately after - as fast as you can. I took a few attempts before I could do it fast enough. If it has worked you will see the asterisk for Ae-L is still there on the video screen.

And also make sure it is Av mode in USER mode, it doesn't seem to work otherwise.

(also, as the sticky post says, there are unknown upper limits to ISO and shutter speed you can set.)

Best of luck getting it to work! Although even when you do, it's a pain compared to having actual manual control. I'm shooting a music video on Sunday and am using a Canon 7D rather than my K-5 - I'll use that for production stills I think. It's good at those!

02-25-2012, 10:08 AM   #8
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settings

I would love to see you final music video when you are done.

Getting back to the User settings...
Here is what I am doing.
spinning the top dial to USER
screen comes up as P user one
I spin the back dial to say Av User1 Hyper
turn to live view.
Point camera to light as to get a preferred shutter speed either 30 or 60 second SS.
Hit the AE-L button to lock to SS (60)
I then quickly turn the top dial to movie mode and push the top shutter botton down. It has yet to keep my *AE-L symbol on the screen.
My movie settings in the menu are set to factory specs? Is this ok or do I need to change anything?
I have the most current firmware upgrade on both my k7 and k5
I haven't ever had the *symbol.

HELP I have my camera set to manual focus as well.
02-25-2012, 10:18 AM   #9
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I got it figured out...And I will have to go re read the directions as it probably says go into menu and make the change from P to AV.
so
I had to go into the menu mode
in screen one
go down to exposure mode which is defaulted every time to P
Change it here to AV
Once I did that everything worked like a charm.
My question now is how do we truely know it keeps the SS?
02-27-2012, 06:38 AM   #10
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QuoteQuote:
My question now is how do we truely know it keeps the SS?
We don't but we have hope

There are indications that it does, at least within a certain range, such as artificial light flicker. Whern I set the shutter speed high (say 1/500s) using the User mode trick fluorescent lights flicker, and they don't at 1/50s.
03-08-2012, 10:38 AM   #11
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Nicely done, I enjoyed this Good luck!
03-09-2012, 11:09 AM   #12
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Thanks alstauffer
03-10-2012, 04:47 PM   #13
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QuoteOriginally posted by metaphiston Quote
[COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]
. We used a zoom h4n recorder with in built mics (great for speech recording) and occasionally a rode ntg2 shotgun mic for the wides. Due to low levels we had to add gain, which brought out this hum from the venue (part of the heating system which we couldn't switch off) .
I was going to ask you about the audio. Do you think that perhaps some of the hum (and some of the roomy sound) was actually because you used a shotgun mic indoors instead of a hypercardioid?
03-12-2012, 03:55 AM   #14
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QuoteQuote:
I was going to ask you about the audio. Do you think that perhaps some of the hum (and some of the roomy sound) was actually because you used a shotgun mic indoors instead of a hypercardioid?
Hi Montoya, I wouldn't have thought so, partly because we only used the shotgun microphone for a couple of wides and the hum is bad throughout, but also the directionality of the shotgun microphone would help pick up voice at a distance and minimise the background hum. Admittedly though, sound is not my specialty so I am not sure. I personally think if the levels had been higher and if the sound recordist had been closer (which would generally have been possible) we would not have had such issues.

As I say though, I'm not a sound recordist.
03-13-2012, 12:12 AM   #15
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QuoteOriginally posted by metaphiston Quote
Hi Montoya, I wouldn't have thought so, partly because we only used the shotgun microphone for a couple of wides and the hum is bad throughout, but also the directionality of the shotgun microphone would help pick up voice at a distance and minimise the background hum. Admittedly though, sound is not my specialty so I am not sure. I personally think if the levels had been higher and if the sound recordist had been closer (which would generally have been possible) we would not have had such issues.

As I say though, I'm not a sound recordist.
You're probobly right about the sound levels. Though...

I've been researching this stuff a bit for a project I'm planning. What i have been learning (I'm also not a sound person, so i'm probably butchering these explanations) is that shotgun mics are poor for indoors. Due to the supercardiod polar pattern in the shotgun mic, there is apparently sound pickup directly behind the mic as well.

Youtube video showing this:


And another YT video showing a lot of diffrent Polar patterns and how they deal with room noise:


Outdoors, the sound being picked up via the rear of the mic is not an issue because normally all it would get is the sky (though air planes could be a problem). Indoors, the mic is going to pick up loads of echos and what not. This post off site will explain things better than I ever could.

From my research over at dvxuser.com, that wide shot probably would have benifted from lavalier mics. Which of course means money. I'm currently saving up for an Oktava mk-012 with a hypercardioid capsule for my first budget mic. I'm fast learning that sound might end being more painful on the pocketbook than the camera.

And now someone will post and make what i said seem moronic in 3....2......1 ;-)


-M

Last edited by Montoya; 03-13-2012 at 12:21 AM.
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