IBC 2014

So,
   I know that the king of the show will be the new Sony FS7 (more here: CINEMA 5D) and althought Sony declared it will not be in competition with the FS700 is far more of that (is in the same price league with better ergonomics, codec, resolution, EVF, continuosly 1080p at 180fps) is almost better than the mooore expensive F5! BUT once that I came accross the footage of the AJA CION I was blowed away AND IS STRAIGHT FROM THE CAMERA! No grading in post! The AJA CION will be little pricer compared to the F7S with no slomo (60p is not slomo...) but the cinematic feeling of the images that produces has no price!
AJA released the footage and here is an article of Cinema 5D.
Meanwhile I took the liberty to quick grading it and IMHO the results are even better: here you can find the footage graded.

See you next time!

Random Shots Vol.1

Had a spare afternoon so I decided to go in the beautiful city of Piacenza to take some shots of the tipical "passeggiata". Lens used were the Leica Summicron M 90mm plus the Vid-Atlantic Anamorph Filter, the Dog Shidt Optiks FF58 and the Sony SEL16F28 plus the Wide Angle Adapter.
Very very very different lenses but at the end I think that they can work well together. The Leica becomes a 135mm on the FS700 plus the Anamorph filter it is really a cinema-like lens! The FF58 is perfect for portraits and for it's bokhen effect meanwhile the Sony Sel16f28 is perfect for establishment shots but you have to set it at f8, wider is not sharp and for reduce the "video" image that this lens give it is useful to reduce the contrast in post (at least a 20% in PremierePro).
When you start shooting slowmo you cannot stop doing it! It's additive! Everything looks cooler in slomotion but it's ok when you capture detalis, so you have to use tele lens!
And here it is:

Grading was done with the presets of ImpulZ, I think that return you the perfect illusion to watch a film instead of a digital camera.

During the shots I didn't notice the highlights burns of the lanternpost at 1:01, I'm pretty sure that is due to the AVCHD compression, in the future I hope to afford a Odyssey7Q and record it in ProRes!

See you on the next post!

The First Round Of Drift Stars - My First TV Show

Quickpost: the long edit version of the Drift Stars Round 1, this time client needed a very long (at least 24 minutes) version to be broadcasted here in Italy. I went up 26 minutes long. The hardest part were the subtitles (more than 125...) to make it more suitable for international viewers!
Enjoy it!

Filmed with Sony Fs700, Hero2 and Sony Nex 5N

The Basics Part 1: Why Do You Need To Shoot at 1/48s.

Wait... What? 1/48s? What the hell does it means??
Well... A little prologue: every single image that you capture during shooting it's ruled by aperture (the amount of light that is gonna to impress your sensor, generally the values start from f1.4, f2.8 to f16 or f22) and the TIME that the sensor will receive the light. If we were talking about still, I wouldn't had any problem to say: "Hey, It's a still, use a time capture that does't make you blur your picture (faster than 1/125s usually) but it's a movie so you have to understand some basic rules.
Shooting at 1/48s (or at 1/50s if your camera does not have it and you live in PAL area) it's a standard created by cinema industry. Why? Simply, for get that "cinema" look you have to start as the cinema starts, recording at 24p (so check you camera settings and choose 24p if available or 25p).
Every second 24 frames are captured; from the early stage of cinema the shutter was netherless that a wheel:

Image courtesy of: surfacestudio.com

The wheel spin, it takes 1/24s to cover one lap, but the wheel (from now we'll call it with the real name: shutter) as you can see is not a proper one, it's shaped by and angle, that angle does the time of exposure of the frame, so with a shutter angle of 180° and a spin time of a 1/24s the frame is exposed for a 1/48s!

All clear? In modern camera we don't have fisical wheel that spins but the basics is the same, in order to get "that" filmic look you have to expose the images at a shutter of 1/48s.

The reason is to get that natural blur that your eyes see, you're getting an image after another and you have to get a smooth transition between them, with a time faster (1/100s or 1/200s) you will start to notice a some unnatural images:

Image courtesy of cinemashock.org

Let's say that the wheels above are spinning at the same speed, in real life which one you will see? I think surely not the last on the right (or you're Superman!), not the center one but the one on the left, your eyes naturally blur the movement, so the same happen in cinema. Shot at 24p with a shutter speed of 1/48s!

Welcome To NoProShooter

Hi,
   welcome to NoProShooter! This is intented to be a survival guide to consumer and semipro shooters out there, main goal is to master the art of film-making with the modern cameras, such like DSLR, Mirrorless and so on.
Let me introduce myself.
I'm Mattia Merli, from Italy, a 37 old shooter with the passion for motorsport, but I started as a wedding filmmaker. After a little Sony consumer camera (HC14) I switched to a Canon HV30 (good old days of 35mm adapters...), to Sony Nex VG10, 5N and now a FS700.
This is my first blogpost, NoProShooter wants to help you (as much as I can, of course) to better learn the use of this cameras from the field to post-production. I'm on Windows actually, and I edit with Premiere.

Stay in contact for future updates!

One of my first videos with a 35mm adapter, a Canon HV30 plus a 50mm Yashica 1.4 (lens that I use still today).