Camera Labs

Hi fellows:

After many weeks of satisfying work, I finally published a video dedicated to the Swiss trains. You can watch the video here:

Rolling Clockwork (HD on Vimeo)

I would be delighted if you could watch it and give me your feedback. This clip was entirely shot on the Canon 7D, processed on FCP (which I am still learning to use) and color grading was done using Magic Bullet Looks.

Enjoy,
Luis.

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Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L

I really enjoyed it - a very nice study of the trains and great editing in time with the music. I especially liked the part with the acceleration on the tracks.

My only criticism would be the handheld footage stood out a bit and would have looked better - in my opinion - if mounted on a tripod.

I'd love to learn more about how you filmed the video. Which lenses did you use, were the accelerated scenes shot as timelapse or simply sped up in editing, were the tilt-shift effects optical or digital, and did you need permission to film? (This may answer why some of the clips were handheld!)

Once again, really nice work!

Gordon

Hi murdockcrc,

Beautifully done! I think that the music you chose - from the Peer Gynt Suite by the Norwegian composer Edward Grieg if I recall - suited that piece nicely.

Many crisp and clear scenes and the out-of-focus bokeh shots were great too!

Thank you for sharing.

Cheers

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Nikon stuff and other stuff, but not nearly as much stuff as I really want!

Hi Gordon

Thank you very much for your comment and feedback.

It is true, the handheld footage could have been better. I now have a LCDVF viewfinder, and so slightly pressing the camera against your face really adds stability to the image. But for most of these shots, I didn't have that VF yet, so they were basically handheld as is. I would really love to filming with a stabilization rig, but my backpack is already extremely heavy to add such a thing

All low-light conditions shots were filmed with the Canon 50mm f/1.4, at between f/1.4-2.0. The rest were filmed with the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8. The last scene was filmed with the Sigma 120-400mm telephoto lens at 400mm.

All accelerated scenes are 15min HD videos sped up with FCP, and the TS effects were done using the Magic Bullet Looks filter.

As for permission, I do not think it is necessary when you film on train stations, there is a myriad of tourists taking pictures at people on the busiest stations and pictures of trains, so I was just one more of them. As for the people, some even approached me and asked with a lot of interest what I was doing, I really did not expect a simple camera to draw so much attention!

Regards,
Luis.

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Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L

Hi LahLahSr

Thank you very much for the kind comments. That is correct, that is a piece by Edward Grieg.

Nice to hear you enjoyed watching it.

Kind regards,
Luis.

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Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L

Good video! I'm also doing a station movie...what are the chances!? I only have to color correct it though....

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Thank for the compliment Citrus.

Cool to know you are also doing a piece on this topic. Please, let us know when you are done!

BTW, what are you using for color correction?

Regards,
Luis.

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Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L

It's cool, since we both kind of use the same style (speedups). For color correction I've used the magic bullet suite in the past, but right now I want to go a bt more manual and use After Effects for the color correction.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Never used AE before, let us know the result and your experience with this software, in comparison with MBL.

Regards.

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Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L

I, too have never used After Effects before, just Premiere pro. Adobe's video workflow basically has 2 stages: Editing/cutting (Premiere pro) and Colour correction/FX (After effects).

This is just my 3rd time using premiere, but once you get used to it it's a good program!

What's MBL?

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Magic Bullet Looks. In this case, I use the plug-in for Final Cut Pro.

I've never used any Adobe editing software for video, just CS4 for photographs. I guess most of the market is crowded by the Apple suite of products....

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Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L

I don't know, I don't have a mac. Nominal choices for pro editing are, indeed, final cut pro, premiere, and avid.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Great video! Loved the way you matched video to music, it worked beautifully.

- Bjorn -

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Street and documentary photographer | Google+ | Twitter | Blog | Tumblr

Leica M9-P (my article on Camera Labs) | Leica D-Lux 5 | 50mm Summilux

Thanks Bjorn, I'm glad you liked the video.

Kind regards.

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Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-105mm f/4.0 L

I really enjoyed this video, especially the scene where the elderly woman is waiting for friends. She seems impatient, looking left and right (facing the camera, so you got lucky there) and then she finally meets them with a big smile. It actually made me smile too.
Great stuff, its really something I want to start doing whenever I can get a camera body with recording abilities.

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Quentin

Hey, I told you I was going to get my pro account someday!

My blog (in French!)