[Fries]

Seeing al those legitimate concerns about the video quality that Pentax camera's are delivering I do feel the strange urge to share with you all what is possible with our equipment. With two weeks of production time and almost no budget I was tasked with portraying a island of the coast of the province of Fryslân in the Netherlands. The landscape and nature should be highlighted and I had one week in early summer and one week in the fall to complete the task. Local rangers provided help, information and accommodation. The first week I camped in my small tent and the second week I first slept in the office of the rangers and later on in a small hut. Apart from some trips with the rangers I had to carry everything on foot ore bicycle. On arrival I had a backpack with about 40-45 kilo's of stuff.

Name of the island is Vlieland and I tried to tell a story by shooting at locations in the landcape where people and birds concentrate because there is reason why they are at that spot and those spots define the island. I got the spots mostly from the rangers but I also asked two seasoned visitors camping. I wanted wireless audio for the interviews and time was to short to work out a solution with my Pentax camera's. So I used a Sony PMW100 for the interviews and some grab shots in between. But most of the material was shot with a K-3 with a external microphone. I used a heavy Gitzo tripod with a ball head for the long shots (a wimberley is on my wish list) and a videohead for the normal shots. I had a K-5 for backup. Lenses used are: the DA*16-50, DA12-24, DA*300 and the DFA150-450. The long glass mostly in combination with the Pentax 1.4 rear converter.

And here it is: Fiel de dei fan 24 desimber 2016 17:00 | Omrop Fryslân. It is in the Dutch and Frisian languages. The response from the people who helped with the project and the wider audience was wonderful. But there is definitely room for improvement!

Cheers,

Remco

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Last edited by Fries; 01-09-2017 at 02:35 PM.

[mohb]

Excellent piece of work, it does make me wonder about all those complaints about the terrible quality of Pentax video

[bobbotron]

Thanks for sharing!

[wissink]

Well done. I'll send this over to my dad. He misses his homeland.

[honey bo bo]

20 minute nature&landscape feature; broadcasted last month

I watched the video on my 15" Lap top with sound and on my 42" Samsung smart T V through Chromecast both mediums rendering an excellent reproduction. Well done!!
I believe the Myth of Pentax K3 & K5 Video and Sound as inadequate or Sub Standard is busted and we are back to that old problem of OPERATER MALFEASANCE & INADEQUACIES which is usually 100.2% of most of the problems with anything.

[Caver]

Thanks for sharing, and congratulations on making it!

[pinholecam]

Well done work! Really nice.

I think your work shows off a point that conscious work on whatever equipment and knowing how to execute it is more important that fussing over the gear which at this point is really good enough for most people.

I often see this obsession/arguing over this and that in DSLR doing video just so that these folks can shoot their version of "America's funniest videos".

[Alnjpn]

Thanks for sharing your video, it looks great. What settings did you use on your K3? Did you change much in post processing at all?

[johnsmith07]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing!

[Fries]

Excellent piece of work, it does make me wonder about all those complaints about the terrible quality of Pentax video

Well, on paper Pentax is lagging the competition. But if you work within those limitations by limiting camera movement and eliminating the need for shake reduction with a good tripod you basically end up with the same functionality as the Sony camera's my employer provides us. With some caveats off course. Without spending some extra money you only have one (stereo) audio channel instead of four. And the depth of field is smaller witch makes it harder to accurately focus the camera. Continues autofocus in filming is more of a hinderance than a blessing in my experience. But the flexibility of a camera you can mount different lenses on is wonderful and the quality of the files is good especially considering the low bitrate. And with the lenses I use the sharpness is better than my 'company' camera. But for straight news reporting I do prefer using a dedicated videocamera.

Thanks for sharing!

Your welcome!

Well done. I'll send this over to my dad. He misses his homeland.

Thanks! I hope he likes it and I take it he knows he is welcome to visit us any time.

I watched the video on my 15" Lap top with sound and on my 42" Samsung smart T V through Chromecast both mediums rendering an excellent reproduction. Well done!!
I believe the Myth of Pentax K3 & K5 Video and Sound as inadequate or Sub Standard is busted and we are back to that old problem of OPERATER MALFEASANCE & INADEQUACIES which is usually 100.2% of most of the problems with anything.

Thanks, but I would not go that far. Perhaps it is a case of different expectations? If you expect a DSLR to work like a consumer grade video camera with lots of handheld shooting without a rig I don't expect very good results. But I am not a expert on this. I have read here that the K-5 with its mechanical stabilization does a relatively good job but I have alway's felt more comfortable with using a tripod.

Thanks for sharing, and congratulations on making it!

Thank you! It was quite a opportunity and to be honest a bit nerve wracking to when your boss invests two weeks of pay in a project of which the scale is beyond my previous experiences. You have to deliver!

Well done work! Really nice.

I think your work shows off a point that conscious work on whatever equipment and knowing how to execute it is more important that fussing over the gear which at this point is really good enough for most people.

I often see this obsession/arguing over this and that in DSLR doing video just so that these folks can shoot their version of "America's funniest videos".

Thanks! I think one of the reasons people complain about the video functions on our Pentax camera's is that other brands are better. On the spec sheet at least. But if you invest time and some money in making a K-3 work for videography you do get a good return on investment. Provided you also invest the time and knowledge in the production of your project. Before shooting I was up to date on the biology of the main species I was covering, had some basic knowledge about stalking birds, knew what the tides were doing, secured me some expert help from the rangers and had a story line to work with. You can have the best and the latest in video equipment but if you don't have those bases covered you will fail.

Thanks for sharing your video, it looks great. What settings did you use on your K3? Did you change much in post processing at all?

You are most welcome! I was using the 'bright' setting (I don't know exactly how this JPG setting in the Dutch menu translates to English) but I have been using the natural color profile in other projects. Post processing lasted about five day's. Three day's preparations and doing the rough editing by me and two day's with a professional video editor. He did work on a lot of shots. Mainly tweeking the contrast. The blacks do clip a bit easily. But in some shots, like one of ducks on the North Sea with a fishing vessel he upped the contrast a lot. Generally the files where easy to work with and easier than some Sony A-7 files from a cameraman shooting a related project on the island. The cameraman sometimes used a 'flat' profile which needed a lot of attention to get it up to par. But to be honest; the guy did have some great shots. His main job was to shoot to people talking so he didn't have the opportunities I had. They used rather a lot of my material for that show!

Very nice! Thanks for sharing!

And thank you (and all the others) for taking the time to watch this project of mine!

Cheers,

Remco

[Steve.Ledger]

Excellent story telling and editing (even though I don't understand Dutch!).

[Fries]

Excellent story telling and editing (even though I don't understand Dutch!).

Thanks Steve! Much appreciated. I have learned in editing to start with combining the images (and quotes) and only then start writing the voice over. That way the images carry the story and the writing is complementary. And even if you don't speak the language, the images should still work somewhat.

Today they told me because of another documentary destined for national tv ran into trouble (because the one quote they needed didn't come trough in time) they want my feature for that time slot. Only problem is that I have to add 6 minutes and I only have a very limited time to shoot some extra material. Editing is scheduled for next week... So I have been pulled of other work and will be on the island again. The weather will be atrocious. I hope my equipment pulls trough. The first broadcast was on regional television.

[TaoMaas]

I have learned in editing to start with combining the images (and quotes) and only then start writing the voice over. That way the images carry the story and the writing is complementary.

I've been doing video for almost 40 years and I want to say that you're exactly right! The v/o should simply compliment everything else. Watch some stories by Steve Hartman and see how well he writes to the holes.

[wissink]

Thanks! I hope he likes it and I take it he knows he is welcome to visit us any time.

He went a few years ago for the first time since the 75 I think. I loved it and keeps talking about moving.

[biz-engineer]

Great montage video. When you don't know what camera was used; you think it's a good video. With regards to folks saying that Pentax is weak in video, most of them have never mounted any video, and they aren't able to explain and describe what is lacking and needed in video. Free criticism against the Pentax brand, just for the sake of criticism.