Alright, so I can’t resist continually testing my DOF adapter under different requirements. This time I decided to keep the focus steady but move the camera using a simple pan. I used a chain link fence in front of my car to show the shallow depth of field. Also, if you notice, the background behind the car is also blurred. I’d never get that kind of shallow DOF using the stock lens on the Canon GL2. The footage was shot using the Canon FD 85mm lens (the footage is heavily compressed which makes it choppy):
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I got in a Canon FD 85mm f/1.8 lens late last night and decided to test it out on the DOF adapter during this morning’s golden hour. Here’s the results:
Doesn’t that look nice? This was actually shot without using the ND filter setting on the Canon GL2. However, it took quite a bit of tweaking to get a nice looking shot without grain coming from either the ground glass or the camcorder itself. The best way to avoid the grain is to make sure you frame your shot with a minimal contrast range. Like, do not shoot something that is dark with a bright background behind it. The background will be washed out yet the foreground will be dark and grainy caused by the camcorder.
Major rule of thumb: if you see grain on the LCD screen on the camcorder, you’ll really see grain on bigger screens. So when framing the shot, try to get rid of all grain on the LCD screen.
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I decided to fiddle around with the adapter outside to see if I can get it to work without the hideous grain. I found a nice combination of settings to get a halfway decent shot without resorting to ND filters. I set the 35mm lens aperture all the way open and put the Canon GL2 in ND filter mode. With some fiddling of the GL2′s aperture, I was able to get a nice image. Here’s the shot starring my dog:
This was shot using a Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 lens. As you can see, there’s some issues with this method. Any areas with high contrast get a bit blown out and get some chromatic aberrations (the blue haze). I’m not 100% sure what is causing this, but I suspect it is because there is just way too much light hitting the ground glass. As you can also tell, I shot it holding the camera. This really was not easy as the whole rig must way about 10lb and the center of gravity is totally off which makes any of the handles on the GL2 useless. I definitely recommend using a tripod or other form of stabilizing system with this kind of rig.
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I finally got the last and final part for my 35mm DOF adapter today. After messing with trying to position the ground glass in the exact proper spot, which was far from fun, I was able to test it out. My first major impression of it is that it works wonderfully in lower light conditions. Shooting indoors with some general lighting will be a breeze. However, shooting outdoors will be an issue. It seems if I close the lens’s aperture too much, I get some hideous grain coming from the ground glass. This of course should be eliminated with some neutral density filters, which will allow me to keep the aperture open wide. I’m going to have to look around to see if there is maybe a solution to this problem.
Here’s a test shot showing my antique camera collection:
I’ll post some more info on how I built the adapter tomorrow.
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With just a few weeks before my surgery, it seems my gallbladder decided to act up again. Luckily it has only been a small attack at this point, but it worries me greatly. I really don’t want a full blown attack again as it truly drained me for weeks after. The only good thing this round is that I have pain killers from the last attack ready to be used if it goes bad.
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A life changing event is in the air. Not sure what may happen, but whatever does happen, my life will change dramatically–for the good, too. More to come in the coming months.
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I finally sat down and watched the Michael Moore documentary, Sicko, today. And even though it may have been a bit unbalanced in its portrail of Canada’s, England’s, France’s, and Cuba’s health care system, it really does strike home a very hard point about our failing health care system. It’s really sad to see that Cuba can give better health care than we do if you don’t have insurance. It’s also sad to see the stuff the insurance companies try to pull so they don’t have to pay. I’ve seen it myself. For the years I was in college, I couldn’t get health insurance because I had an extremely common condition that was nowhere near life threatening. Instead of just refusing payment on anything related to this condition, they flat out denied me coverage for everything. Luckily I didn’t get sick during that time, and the condition I had disappeared on its own. It could have been bad. And then, fast forwarding a few years later, I finally do get health insurance. However, the first major thing they had to pay for (a head MRI), they cited some sort of pre-existing condition that was nothing with nothing and refused to pay. After fighting with them, they finally paid out. I personally hope they don’t try to wiggle out of paying for my gallbladder surgery, but then again, I have a $4,000 deductible, so I probably will be ending up paying for the whole thing anyway. Between this and everything else that is wrong with this country, it really makes me wonder if I really want to stay here and pay taxes to this government. Canada seems all the more inviting…
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After months of trying to get the doctors to align, I finally have the date set for my gallbladder surgery, which will be November 5th. My cardiologist (remember I have a heart condition which causes really low heart rate at times) will be on standby during the procedure to make sure nothing goes bad. Even though my gallbladder has calmed down these past few weeks, I’m glad I finally will be getting it out. On a side note, I really can’t believe how much the stock market has crashed. It dropped another almost 700 points today.
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Today, I’ve been messing around with my green screen studio as I prepare to use it for the first time for a commercial. It seems mini-dv cameras aren’t the best choice of cameras to use for green screen. Mini-dv cameras compress the video signal quite substantially which adds artifacts around edges. These artifacts are really difficult to to get around when keying out the green screen. Take a look at the frame grab of some video I shot. Look at the edges between my pants and the green screen background. You can see all the artifacting. There are ways to get around this but it’s messy. The best way is to use a camera that doesn’t do this type of compression. In the digital realm, the best ones are digibeta cameras made by Sony. There may also be hope for HD cameras that send uncompressed video to HDMI ports (however, HDV cameras that only record to tape will have the same problems). Pros also use real film cameras and then telecine the footage to an uncompressed video format. However, if you’re stuck with mini-dv like I am, there are ways to work around this to a point. Take a look at some of these tutorials at CreativeCow. To pull it off, you’ll need Apple Shake though. The keying tools in apps like Final Cut Suite are just not powerful enough.  I’ll be posting more information on what I did specifically for this shot tomorrow.
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