Guess which camera !

[Papiskokuji]

Hi !

I recently shot a web ad for Wakaze, a japanese saké company in Paris. The morning of the first day of shooting, my camera mysteriously died on me 😕 So I had to use my first AC cam as a back up (he had it with him by chance !). The day before, one of the location (the appartment) wasn't available anymore, a nerve wracking start ! I then got another camera of mine for the rest of this two day shoot. So there are two cameras involved. Try to guess which camera shot what !

P.S. I had no say for the music... I'd rather have some good old rock music on a shorter edit to match the shooting style but they went with an electro vibe...

 

Here is the video : 

 

[kye]

On 9/11/2021 at 12:28 AM, Papiskokuji said:

Hi !

I recently shot a web ad for Wakaze, a japanese saké company in Paris. The morning of the first day of shooting, my camera mysteriously died on me 😕 So I had to use my first AC cam as a back up (he had it with him by chance !). The day before, one of the location (the appartment) wasn't available anymore, a nerve wracking start ! I then got another camera of mine for the rest of this two day shoot. So there are two cameras involved. Try to guess which camera shot what !

P.S. I had no say for the music... I'd rather have some good old rock music on a shorter edit to match the shooting style but they went with an electro vibe...

 

Here is the video : 

 

Well done for pulling the off the shoot with various challenges along the way!

I have no idea what the camera is, but the results looked pretty good.  I must say though, when the guy at the bar takes a sip of the product it looks like he's already had a bottle or two already!  Of course, it's fitting for the style of the piece 🙂 

[Mr. Freeze]

I guess it is a sensor somewhere around Super35, or speedboosted to around that FOV. 

Colorwise I don´t expect it to be a Blackmagic, Arri or a Red, as the Highlights in the sky are harsh in a couple of shots.

It seems to be a smaller camera, some of the movements appear that way to me at least.

So maybe a GH5/G9 with a speedbooster? Could be an FS5 aswell... 

[nickname]

Pocket and GH5? 

[Papiskokuji]

Time to reveal the cameras that we used ! 🙂

So I was planning on shooting the commercial on a small camera. It was the BMPCC4K that died on us ! The touchscreen went crazy, all over the place, like there were ghost fingers touching everywhere.

By the way I contacted Blackmagic about it and although they are quite prompt to respond, it's always sad to behold a certain hypocrisy in their reply. I explained them that my pocket was from the very first batch of cameras (known to have touchscreen issues that led to the replacement of the touchscreen for the following units produced...). I also told them in good faith that I used the camera only for a handful of jobs in three years. And they told me like it is not a hidden defect from my unit but it is maybe from a normal use... I personnally have a dozen of devices having a touchscreen that I use WAY more extensively than the one on the pocket. Not one in my life has ever failed me yet. And if it is normal that in three years, Blackmagic touchscreens don't work anymore, then I'll pass for future cameras...

 

Anyway, rant over ! So for the first morning we used the Canon R5 of my AC. First time using it for me. We shot in 4K HQ mode (with the dreadful overheating threat). It was all the shots in the kitchen and the appartment (bad last minute location, not planned). Then the rest of the video is shot with my A7S III (outdoors and bar).

So what I can say about it. I'm not used to colorgrade Canon log footage anymore. Definitely there's a lack of DR compared to the A7S III which I find very easy to grade (although I was limited to Premiere color grading tools. I couldn't use Resolve for technical reasons here). The blacks on the A7S III, the roll off to shadows, never crushed, lots of lattitude. The R5 on the other hand, I was struggling with contrast, losing details in the shadows very quickly. Colorwise I wasn't especially blown away by the R5. But again, I'm more used to colorgrade Sony cameras. The image of the R5 has a bit of an orange tint to it. The Sony seems more balanced. Don't get me wrong, you can get great footage with the R5 of course.

To answer the comment above about harsh highlights. There's only one shot with blown out highlights if I remember correctly : it's in the appartment when the man with the hat is pouring wine and there's a window in the back. The rest of the video has zero blown out highlights (I'm kind of a freak about it) except for a few specular highlights maybe. If the sky seems white and harsh at times, it's because of this "wonderful" summer we had in Paris, and the sky was litterally white with no substance in it (when riding the bicycle for instance).

And for the depth of field question. Eventhough I initially wanted to shoot with the bmpcc4K for its smaller sensor to vaguely simulate super16mm film, we ended up shooting everything on a full frame sensor, at F4 for the R5 and almost everything else at F2.8 with the Sony. Mostly 35mm focal lenght except for the crash zooms.

So that's pretty much it ! If you have any questions, don't hesitate ! I could have made a much better color grade in Resolve, the edit is too long and the music not punchy enough. But it was an ok outcome for the little prep we had.

[UncleBobsPhotography]

Did you use clog3? From my experience it either has to be overexposed or noise reduction has to be applied in the shadows (which kills details) because of the 800 native ISO.

I like the indoor scenes more than the outdoor scenes. The contrast in the outdoor scenes looks sunny, but the brightness is almost the same as the indoor scenes, which makes it look a bit odd. I like the mood in the clip, and the overall results are good.