digitalphotopro032020

Inventive New Cinema Cameras From Sony & Blackmagic Design digitalphotopro.com

State Of The

Trends 5 For Producing Authentic Movies

Art Video

Seeking Truth When Filming False Narratives The Challenge Of Documenting Wildlife Abuse

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EDITORIAL WES PITTS Editorial Director TERRY SULLIVAN Editor KRISTAN ASHWORTH

MAY/JUNE 2020 Vol. 18 No. 3 digitalphotopro.com

Managing Editor

Contents

DANIEL BROCKETT, MARK EDWARD HARRIS, WILLIAM SAWALICH Contributing Editors

Departments

ART & PRODUCTION

8 EDITOR’S NOTE 12 NEW PRODUCTS 64 LOOKING FORWARD

Portfolios

SCOTT BRANDSGAARD Senior Designer

16

NICOLE POPMA Graphic Designer

16 FIVE TRENDS FOR CREATING VISUALLY AUTHENTIC MOVIES What methods and techniques are filmmakers and video creators using to produce memorable images for powerful films?

SALES & MARKETING (617) 706-9110, FA X (617) 536-0102 ALEXANDRA PICCIRILLI Senior Media Solutions Manager

By Daniel Brockett CLIENT SERVICES clientservices@madavor.com

22 CUTTING ‘TERMINATOR: DARK FATE’ What it takes to edit and cut film from a wellknown sci-fi franchise

By Mark Edward Harris

TIM DOOLAN Social Media and Marketing Manager TOMMY GOODALE Senior Marketing Associate ANTHONY BUZZEO

22

Content Marketing Supervisor

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MAY/JUNE 2020 Vol. 18 No. 3 digitalphotopro.com

Contents 28 MAKING DOCUMENTARIES WITH MISLEADING SUBJECTS In her most recent documentary, “The Kingmaker,” photographer and director Lauren Greenfield faced the challenge of filming Imelda Marcos, an infamous and unreliable subject who tells false narratives

By Terry Sullivan | Photography by Lauren Greenfield

OPERATIONS

28

JASON POMERANTZ VP, Circulation Strategy CHEYENNE CORLISS Operations Director ANDREA PALLI Client Services and Circulation Supervisor TONI EUNICE Operations and Front Desk Coordinator DARREN CORMIER Client Services Associate AMANDA JOYCE Accounting Director

50 RAISING THE RED FLAG ON WILDLIFE ABUSE How one wildlife cinematographer’s documentary might make a difference for Indonesian orangutans and other wildlife

By Mark Edward Harris Photography by Aaron Gekoski and Will Foster-Grundy

50

TINA MCDERMOTT Accounts Payable Associate WAYNE TUGGLE Accounts Receivable Associate

DIGITAL OPERATIONS LEZA OLMER Director of Digital RYAN GILLIS Audience Development Analyst MIKE DECKER Senior Digital Designer DAVID GLASSMAN WordPress Developer

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MAY/JUNE 2020 Vol. 18 No. 3 digitalphotopro.com

Contents Equipment 36 HANDS-ON REVIEW: SONY PXWFX9 DIGITAL CINEMA CAMERA

36

Where does Sony’s latest XDCAM fit in today’s cine market?

By Daniel Brockett

43 HANDS-ON REVIEW: BLACKMAGIC DESIGN’S POCKET CINEMA CAMERA 6K Redefining the inexpensive digital cinema camera

By Daniel Brockett

57 AUDIO ASSIST: WHAT MAKES 32-BIT FLOATING POINT AUDIO POWERFUL A new way of recording sound

By Daniel Brockett ON THE COVER: The photo—included in Lauren Greenfield’s retrospective photography monograph “Generation Wealth”—depicts Jackie Siegel, third wife of timeshare mogul, David Siegel. Both were also the main subjects for Greenfield’s 2012 documentary film, “The Queen of Versailles,” which, like her more recent film, “The Kingmaker,” is emblematic of Greenfield’s interest in documenting wealth, power and conspicuous consumption. Photo Credit: Lauren Greenfield/INSTITUTE

Learn more at

We’re here for you!

57

digitalphotopro.com

HDVideoPro Covers The Sundance Film Festival At this year's Sundance Film Festival, Simon Wakelin reported on some of the many premieres and presentations taking place, including a discussion with Director Tom McCarthy on what inspires him in film.

Wakelin also shot video of Taylor Swift taking selfies with her fans: hdvideopro.com/blog/sundance-2020-video-of-taylor-swift-arriving-atthe-miss-americana-premiere hdvideopro.com/blog/ sundance-2020-tom-mccarthy-and-the-importance-of-film-and-cinema

Ready Camera 1, Take 1

HDR at CES

“How often do you try something new in your work?” writes our Contributing Editor Daniel Brockett. “Recently, a friend who I’ve known for quite a few years approached me about helping him with a project he had going on. He’s in the live streaming business.” Find out Daniel’s take on streaming video and why he writes, “Streaming is a whole other ball game, so to speak.” You can read more here: hdvideopro.com/blog/ready-camera-1-take-1

Each year, attendees at the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, often come away with a sense of which trends may affect content creators. This year, Michael Guncheon writes, “high dynamic range (HDR) was…being shouted about from the rooftops. I saw a lot of HDR displays.” Find out more about HDR for cinematographers and videographers here: hdvideopro.com/blog/ hdr-at-ces

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SIGN UP: digitalphotopro.com/newsletter/ digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 7

Editor’s Note One of the many remarkable things you’ll learn in this issue, our “State of the Art Video” issue, is that the stillcamera and cine-camera industries are continuing to change rapidly in unexpected ways.

In part, it’s because there’s fierce competition in all markets—hardware, software, lighting, accessories and other markets—and companies both great and small are hard at work to adapt quickly to the needs of filmmakers, cinematographers, photographers and content creators. Here are a few examples from this issue that speak to these dramatic changes: • In our story on Julian Clarke, who was the editor on the movie “Terminator: Dark Fate,” you’ll learn that he used a prototype of a new version of Adobe Premiere Pro, which included a new feature set called Productions (which you can also read about in our New Products department).

8 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

The Sound Devices booth at the NAB Show New York this past October was demonstrating 32-bit floating point audio.

It’s great to hear how companies like Adobe are working with content creators in the field in order to produce digital tools that actually meet the needs of professionals.

• Daniel Brockett’s review of Sony’s latest XDCAM, the Sony PXW-FX9, not only covers his take on the new cine camera but also reveals how a company like Sony continues to stay competitive. For instance, Dan says that the FX9 has new color science called S-Cinetone color, which allows you to use the footage straight out of the camera. What’s fascinating is that Dan mentions how this color science was first used in Sony’s much pricier cine camera, Sony Venice. With the decision to add it to the FX9, Sony appears to be looking to please as wide an audience as possible

in the worlds of videography and cinematography.

• In our Audio Assist column, there’s a brand-new audio format—32-bit floating point audio—that will radically change how you record audio. It’s already being used in hardware created by companies like Sound Devices and Zoom, and is expected to appear on many more products and apps soon.

It’s incredibly exciting, although it’s not a panacea for every audio problem you’ll experience.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

So stay tuned for a lot more on these and other changes you’ll be seeing in the coming weeks and months.

Enjoy the issue.

— Terry Sullivan Editor editors@digitalphotopro.com

PORTRAIT CONTEST WINNERS C

ongratulations to the winners and finalists in Digital Photo Pro’s Portrait photo contest. Featured here are the first, second and third Prize winners.

FIRST PRIZE The Fashion Circus

By Angela Perez “I did all the makeup and wardrobe styling as well as retouching for this photo. For lighting, I used a 16-inch gridded beauty dish with a Flashpoint 600B monolight. And for the pink backdrop, I used Savage Seamless Paper.

“For this photo, which I shot in Orlando, Florida, I wanted to showcase the fun of using colors and textures creatively.

I felt the combination of the model’s dark skin paired with bright colors, and her awesome smile, really radiated joy and playfulness.”

Canon EOS 6D, Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 Di LD. Exposure: 1/160 sec., ƒ/5, ISO 100.

digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 9

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM. Exposure: 1/800 sec., ƒ/3.5, ISO 125.

SECOND PRIZE Alexa, 9 Years Old

By Cheryl Clegg “I have an ongoing series of portraits, titled Downeast Harborside, that I’ve been working on since 2015 focused on the lobster fishing community of Corea, Maine. Although only 9 years old, Alexa is most definitely one of the hardworking lobster fishing women of the harbor. In fact, she even has a fishing license to grant her a small number of traps.

“Alexa’s grandfather (Chris) drives the boat, but Alexa does all of the work, including pulling the trap, baiting the trap and banding the lobsters for the local co-op.

“What I wanted to capture in this image, which was shot in natural daylight, was to show that while Alexa might only have been young, she was serious about the work she did out on the water.”

10 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

PORTRAIT CONTEST WINNERS

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L. Exposure: 1/100 sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 200.

THIRD PRIZE One-Eyed Cat

By Darrin Van Gorder “The location for this photo was in the Jesus Wall Studio in downtown Los Angeles. It was selected for its unique and dramatic appearance that, in some ways, was the polar opposite to the subject of the photo shoot—the rock/electronic music band Gypsy Death Star.

“As we were planning the shoot, I spotted two cats that were roaming around the studio (perhaps to keep rodents out of it). When I noticed that one of the cats had only one eye, I indicated that we must use him in a shot.

Luckily, the lead singer of Gypsy Death Star, Wyatt Hull, loved the idea. So, we

photographed the cat during my shots with Wyatt Hull.

“I set up the lighting first: I used four Canon 580EX flashes—two with red gels set at 1/16 and 1/32. On the right side, I also had one flash gelled green at 1/16 and another flash in front (slightly right) with 1/4 CTO gel. The color temperature (K) was set to 4000.

“Once the lighting was set, I was ready to capture the portrait. At first, I took a few portraits of just Wyatt alone.

Then, when the time was right, I added the one-eyed cat.

“It’s by far one of my favorite portraits that I’ve ever taken.” digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 11

NewProducts

New Tools Of The Trade

>> Fujifilm Introduces X-T4 Mirrorless Camera And X100V Advanced Point-And-Shoot This past February, Fujifilm announced two new cameras photographers, videographers and content creators were highly anticipating: the X-T4 mirrorless camera and the X100V advanced point-and-shoot.

The X-T4 mirrorless camera is an update to the X-T3, popular with both photographers and cinematographers alike. The new model looks similar to its predecessor but has important updates, including: • In-body image stabilization (IBIS) system, for between 5 and 6.5 stops of IS with Fujifilm lenses.

• A new swiveling touchscreen LCD that swings out to the side.

• A new mechanical shutter unit, which the company says is quieter than on the X-T3 and allows for up to 15 frames per second, with autofocus and auto exposure.

• A new battery.

It still comes with Fujifilm’s 26.1-megapixel X-Trans CMOS 4 sensor and its X-Processor 4, which were on the X-T3. However, there are some other changes and additions as well, including changes to the Q menu feature, the addition of new film simulations, like the new Eterna Bleach Bypass Film Simulation, and an improved AF system for more accurate AF tracking, including eye- and face-detection. The Fujifilm X-T4 will be available in both black and silver.

The X100V advanced point-and-shoot is also an update, this time to Fujifilm’s popular X100 line of compact bridge cameras. It still keeps much of the vintage or retro styling as well as a 23mm f/2 fixed lens (35mm equivalent) and advanced optical viewfinder but comes with updated features, too: • A slightly higher megapixel count (a 26.1 megapixel X-Trans CMOS sensor, like on the X-T4).

• A two-way swiveling touchscreen LCD. • A control dial that allows you to set both the ISO and shutter speed (independently of each other).

• Video modes are also more robust, allowing the camera to capture 4K-resolution video (up to 30 frames per second).

Fujifilm X-T4 with the 16-80mm lens

Fujifilm X-T4 with the 16-55mm lens (top view)

Fujifilm X-T4 (body only) List Price: $1,699 Fujifilm X100V List Price: $1,399 Website: fujifilm.com Fujifilm X-T4 (back view)

12 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

Fujifilm X100V

>>

Sony’s new FE 20mm F1.8 G prime wide-angle lens includes a focus-hold button and a switch to select auto focus or manual focus.

Sony’s New FE 20mm F1.8 G Prime Lens

Sony introduced the new FE 20mm F1.8 G prime lens for both E-mount full-frame and APS-C Sony mirrorless cameras. Its new wide-angle prime has a small, compact and lightweight design and an f/1.8 aperture that the company says makes it ideal for many genres of photography, including travel, landscape, street, close-up and low-light photography as well as more specialized genres, like astrophotography. Notable features include: • A minimum focus distance of just 7.5 inches and up to 0.22x magnification for close-up photography.

• XD linear focus actuators with fast, precise and quiet AF tracking for still photography and video.

• An optical design that includes two advanced aspheric (AA) lens elements, three extra-low dispersion (ED) elements and a Nano AR coating • A manual focus ring, an aperture ring with click stops, a focus-mode switch, a focus-hold button and a nine-blade circular aperture mechanism.

• A dust- and moisture-resistant design According to Sony, the new lens has an optical formula (specifically two AA and three ED glass elements) that allow it to accurately reproduce point light sources with high contrast and a minimum of sagittal flare (which is an unnatural spreading of point light sources and is most common in largeaperture lenses).

Sony FE 20mm F1.8 G Lens List Price: $899 Website: sony.com

>> For the latest product news and

in-depth coverage of new a nnouncements, visit digitalphotopro.com/newswire

Sony’s FE 20mm also has an aperture ring with a click on/ off switch, which, when set in the off position, can be useful for shooting video.

NewProducts

New Tools Of The Trade

>>Olympus Unveils OM-D E-M1 Mark III And 12-45mm f4 PRO Lens Earlier this year, Olympus made the means you can quickly zoom between widesomewhat surprising decision to add angle and telephoto shots in an instant. a second top-of-the-line, or flagship, Olympus says it also features “supreme mirrorless camera to its lineup of Micro Four macro capabilities with a maximum Thirds cameras: The new 20.4-megapixel magnification of 0.5x (35mm equivalent) OM-D E-M1 Mark III joins its larger, heavier across the entire zoom range.” It has a MFT twin, the Olympus OM-D E-M1X, which close-focusing distance of 4.7 inches at the was announced a little over a year ago. In wide-angle end of the zoom and a little over addition to the new flagship, Olympus also 9 inches at the telephoto end, which makes introduced a new professional-level zoom it quite a versatile lens. The zoom has a lens lens, the 12-45mm f4 PRO lens. design of 12 elements in nine groups. Like The new E-M1 Mark III is targeted at many Olympus camera bodies, this lens is photographers looking for a camera-body also dustproof, splashproof and freezeproof that is more agile, since it’s more portable. (to -10°C), and weighs just under 9 pounds.

In fact, the size and weight of the E-M1 Mark III is much more in keeping with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III (black) compact, lightweight form factor many have List Price: $1,799 (body only), $2,499 (with come to expect from an MFT camera body. the M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm f2.8 PRO However, although more compact, the new kit lens) or $2,899 (with the M.Zuiko Digital model shares a number of qualities with its ED 12-100mm f4.0 IS PRO kit lens). larger brand sibling, including: • A robust 5-Axis image stabilization Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 12-45mm f4.0 PRO system with 7.5 shutter speed Lens (black) steps of compensation.

List Price: $649 • The ability to fire off 60 frames per Website: olympusamerica.com second with AF locked (using the silent electronic shutter).

• 18 fps for AF/AE-tracking sequential shooting (again, using the silent electronic shutter).

• Phase and contrast detection dual AF. • A 121-point all cross-type, on-chip phase detection AF sensor.

• The ability to shoot 4K video.

• Live ND mode.

• A 50MP Handheld Hi-Res Shot mode.

One feature found just on the E-M1 Mark III is its new Starry Sky AF mode, which is intended to make shooting photographs of stars much simpler and more effective. It also comes with an excellent viewfinder, a 2.36M-dot LCD EVF and a 3-inch swiveling touch LCD. The new M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-45mm Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 12-45mm f4.0 PRO lens is a high-performance f4.0 PRO Lens medium-range zoom—with a 35mm filmequivalent range of 24mm to 90mm, which

14 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III

Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III (top view)

Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III (back view)

>> Adobe Announces Productions Feature Set For Premiere Pro During the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Adobe introduced Productions, a new feature set in its Premiere Pro video-editing software.

According to the company, the Productions feature set is designed to help production teams “work more collaboratively and manage projects more efficiently…whether you’re working on your own or collaborating with a team.” Here are some of the key aspects of the new feature set: • Manage complex projects: Productions lets you divide them into smaller pieces. For instance, an editorial team might organize its workflow around reels and scenes, while an agency might set up a workflow based on each client, allowing for quick reference and access to relevant assets from the projects that relate to specific clients. Or an episodic show could be grouped by season, providing access to assets like title sequences or audio elements.

• Efficient, organized and synchronized: Productions lets you re-use assets without creating duplicates, keeping individual projects light and fast. Adobe says it will use the new Production panel in Premiere Pro to provide “a command center for managing multi-project workflows.” Adobe says that this allows you to add any project, and it will become part of the project. “Whether you are working on macOS or Windows, any changes you make on disk are reflected in Premiere Pro; changes in Premiere Pro are applied on disk.”

• Designed for collaboration: One key element is “Project Locking,” which “ensures that no one overwrites your work.” Adobe says others can access your project and copy content from it, “but they can’t make changes until you’ve completed your edit.”

Adobe says Productions will give you control of your content. “Your projects and assets can live entirely on your local storage. Nothing is on the cloud unless you put it there. If needed, you can do all your work without an internet connection.”

At press time, Productions had not been rolled out into Premiere Pro (and there was no indication if there are any changes in pricing to use the feature).

But Adobe said the feature is “coming soon.”

Website: adobe.com

>> For the latest product news and

in-depth coverage of new a nnouncements, visit digitalphotopro.com/newswire

New Productions feature set in Premiere Pro

®

Santa Cruz, California

Five Trends For Creating Visually Authentic Movies

By Daniel Brockett

What methods and techniques are filmmakers and video creators using to produce memorable images for powerful films?

W

hat does “visual authenticity” mean to a film or video maker? In 2020, the term can mean many things. But, in short, visual authenticity is a catchall term that reflects the looks filmmakers and videographers are striving to create to make their work stand out, look contemporary and current and, most significantly, bring a deeper level of meaning to their stories.

The following is a list of five trends visual storytellers are using right now in their quest for visual authenticity.

16 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

No matter what your subject matter is, if you’re behind the camera, the search for visual authenticity is one of the hottest topics for 2020.

Trend 1—A Return To Shooting Film The first is very interesting since it’s really a retro trend of sorts, technologically speaking: Many filmmakers have decided to go back to shooting film.

One reason it’s intriguing is that most digital cinema cameras today, with a few exceptions, have settings that attempt to emulate film, with film-like image knee and gamma curve response in how the image is presented; they’re capable of shooting digital video in 23.98 and 24 frames per second, which are standard frame rates for film cameras.

Here’s another example. The

most highly coveted digital cinema cameras for the past several years have been ARRI’s digital cinema cameras, which use ARRI’s ALEV III CMOS sensor technology. Most would agree the footage captured on these cameras most closely resembles film, almost more than any other sensor technology on the market.

So, if you’re seeking visual authenticity, shooting film removes all doubt about your attempt to present a more “authentic image” to tell your story.

Of course, actually shooting film (instead of digital, even on an ARRI camera) is more involved. It’s also

more limiting, technically speaking, and can be more expensive than if you shoot digitally. But for some award-winning filmmakers, it’s essential. In fact, at the Academy Awards this past year, five of the 10 films nominated for both Best Picture and Cinematography were shot (or partially shot) on 35mm film.

And while digital technology continues to progress with each technological advancement, the gold standard for visual authenticity seems to be either in shooting film or utilizing digital cinema cameras that best emulate film. digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 17

Director Steven Soderbergh shoots a scene for his Netflix NBA drama “High Flying Bird” with an Apple iPhone 8.

Trend 2— A Throwback To Shooting Anamorphic Shooting an anamorphic film began as a technique (in the 1950s) for capturing and projecting a wider aspect ratio on 35mm film. Today, cinematographers covet the unique characteristics anamorphic lenses bring to moving images. For instance, images shot in this format are presented in an ultrawide rectangular aspect ratio and feature long horizontal lens flares and oval background out-of-focus elements.

Regular (spherical) lenses project a circular image onto the camera sensor or film, while anamorphic lenses project an oval-shaped image into the sensor or film stock.

These lenses also squeeze more horizontal information from a given scene onto the image recorded. The resulting footage must then be stretched horizontally in postproduction or with an anamorphic lens fitted to the projector.

Anamorphic lenses also typically have a 2X “squeeze”—meaning that the lens captures twice the amount of horizontal 18 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

information as a spherical lens. So, when they’re stretched, a 2X anamorphic lens used with a standard S35 image sensor or film frame results in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. The ratio is often referred to as CinemaScope, a format that first appeared in the mid-to-late 1950s.

With digital, the ratios are a bit different: When shooting with a typical digital sensor, a 2X anamorphic lens produces a super-wide 3.55:1 ratio and, with a 1.5x anamorphic lens, will produce an aspect ratio of 2.66:1. To produce a traditional Cinemascope ratio with a 16:9 sensor, you need a 1.33x or 1.35x anamorphic lens.

But is it still popular? According to many who contribute to the cinema camera forums I comb through, it certainly seems to be. For instance, a common question that pops up on camera forums with the introduction of a new digital cinema camera is often, “Does it support anamorphic?” (What this means is does the camera have the capability to digitally squeeze the image for recording and de-squeeze the image

for monitoring?)

The trend is clearly a throwback to wide-screen spectacles like “Lawrence of Arabia,” which was shot and exhibited in widescreen formats. For others, it’s the generation of filmmakers like J.J. Abrams and Quentin Tarantino whose embrace of anamorphic shooting has served as inspiration to fuel their anamorphic obsession.

But if so much video content is now consumed on 4-inch phone screens, and filmmakers can even buy inexpensive anamorphic lenses for their phones, one might question the relevancy of how visually authentic anamorphic films can be. Of course, it depends on the filmmaker’s audience and subject matter, and also how the project will be seen.

It’s a fine line between a deliberate filmmaking technique intended for theatrical projection and an anamorphic style that becomes more of a cheap “effect.” For instance, does viewing content on a 4-inch phone display with heavy letterboxing for an ultra-widescreen look provide visual authenticity? It’s a

question that every artist should consider before committing to anamorphic.

Trend 3—Revisiting Lenses With ‘Character’ The most straightforward way to explore lens character is to think about what digital cinema and video lenses were in the past and what they’ve evolved into today. Previously, lenses used in filmmaking and television were categorized, generally by budget.

The Angenieux Optimo Anamorphic 30-72mm t/4.0 is an anamorphic zoom popular with filmmakers who prefer zooms instead of primes.

You had fully manual lenses used in filmmaking with manual focus, iris and zoom controls. These lenses were mounted on film cameras and typically adjusted and focused by a camera assistant or, in the case of documentary and 16mm filmmaking, more often the camera operator used the lens controls themselves.

With television cameras, the lenses were generally B4-mount servo-zoom lenses, where the camera operator would usually control at least the focus and focal range, with the iris control often relegated to an engineer who controlled this remotely, using a CCU (camera control unit). None of these paradigms have shifted radically in higher-end production, but what has shifted in the evolution of lenses is the quality of the lenses and images they reproduce. With the advent and popularity of first HD video, then 4K and currently 6K to 8K and eventually 12K to 16K digital video, lens manufacturers have had to up their game considerably as far as technical specifications and reducing lens defects.

Some of the most common defects in lenses have traditionally been:

Chromatic Aberration

The Canon K-35 25-120mm t/2.8 zoom is a popular vintage lens for those who seek “lens character” to their projects.

This refers to the failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same point and is caused by dispersion: The refractive index of the lens elements varies with the wavelength of light. The refractive index of most transparent materials decreases with increasing wavelength. Since the focal length of a lens depends on the refractive index, this variation in refractive index affects focusing. Chromatic aberration manifests itself as "fringes" of color along boundaries that separate dark and bright parts of the image.

Spherical Aberration

The ARRI ALEV III CMOS sensor is widely acknowledged by many to come closest to emulating the look and feel of film in digital cinema cameras.

This aberration occurs because a spherical lens refracts light that enters near the edge more than light that enters near the center. A point of light seen through a spherical aberration will have a fairly large halo effect, and the effect is

seen in the center as well as the edges of the image. As a result, the image cannot be focused to a sharp point.

Coma This complex aberration affects only light rays from a point that passes through the lens at an angle. With coma, the rays don’t refocus to a point; they flare out from the point. This makes a point of light look like a comet with a blurred tail, hence the name.

Distortion Images that deviate from rectilinear are considered distorted. Distortion doesn’t necessarily affect sharpness, but it can affect how straight lines appear in an image. The two most common types of distortion are barrel and pincushion distortion, both of which look like you’d imagine them to from their names.

Flare This defect manifests itself in two ways: as visible artifacts and as a haze across the image. The haze makes the image look "washed out" by reducing contrast and color saturation (adding light to dark image regions and adding white to saturated regions, reducing their saturation). Visible artifacts, usually in the shape of the lens iris, are formed when light follows a pathway through the lens that contains one or more reflections from the lens surfaces.

Flare is typically exacerbated by very bright light sources.

While this is by no means an exhaustive list of lens defects, it represents the most common ones the casual user will notice. But lens designers and manufacturers have upped their game in the past couple of decades, producing still lenses and television lenses that all look better than they ever have, with fewer and less-severe optical defects.

While these defects are still common, the amount of defects visible in newly designed lenses has slowly and steadily decreased. Plus, significant amounts of digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 19

new optics on the market are praised for having a “neutral” look and feel because these lenses have reduced or masked their optical defects well.

However, some filmmakers actually want these defects! For some users, neutral-looking lenses appear visually “boring and characterless.” So, for those filmmakers seeking visual authenticity, they’ve embraced lens defects and applied the term “lens character” to older lenses that are rife with optical defects or even modern lenses that have purposefully included what used to be considered lens defects in their new, modern designs. The common refrain is that modern lenses appear “too sterile, too neutral.” Rental houses and lens specialists have embraced the demand for these imperfections and regularly offer old, obscure and specialist lenses that they’ve rebuilt and rejuvenated for the rental market and for sale.

But lens character remains controversial for some and a norm for others.

Trend 4—The Emergence Of New LED Lighting So, finally, we have a relatively “new” trend that isn’t a renaissance or retro trend.

The emergence of LED lighting has coincided with the democratization of cameras. As new types of LED lighting (LED tubes, flexible LED mats,

RGBWW LED Lights like this Luxli Cello offer color flexibility and features never previously available.

20 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

Striving to emulate natural light utilizing the new LED lighting tools available has become a popular lighting style. Notice how this shot has no hair light, and the only rim is being provided by window light behind the talent.

single-source LED spot and Fresnel instruments) have become commonplace, the search for visual authenticity seems to have also had a hand in how these new tools are being deployed. And one reason LEDs have been so popular is that modern digital cameras are much more sensitive than most models were in the past.

What’s interesting is that DPs and gaffers are using LEDs much more subtly in how they design their lighting. New RGBWW LED instruments offer presets that emulate every lighting gel available, which can be applied to the scene in interesting and innovative ways. Light emulation modes with these lights easily reproduce flashing emergency vehicle lighting, lightning, TV flicker, campfire flicker and many other modes, including color cycling, as well. The newer generation of LED lighting, when paired with more light-sensitive sensors in cameras, allows more latitude and dynamic range in the image.

Consequently, hair and hard-rim lights appear to be less popular since they call attention to themselves in many situations. They also tend to make a scene look “lighted,” and it seems more content creators want to achieve a more naturalistic, low-key look.

At this point it’s become a widespread style, appearing in projects from small-budget wedding

videos all the way up to large-scale Hollywood features.

Trend 5—Embracing RAW And Log Video For Better Quality This last trend—which is really two technology trends grouped together— is definitely a non-retro trend since RAW video and log video rely on the very latest digital video technology.

When it comes to shooting RAW video, the best way to think of shooting in this format is to think of it as the digital equivalent of a film negative.

Shooting RAW is generally accepted as the “best” quality format, but it has stringent requirements. For example, RAW requires processing, and it shifts much of the processing of the image from the camera to the computer in working with the footage. This provides unprecedented flexibility in post.

But it can be a lot of work to produce.

The other trend is shooting log video: One of the reasons log recording has become so prevalent is that it’s often associated with the idea of better image quality. In short, recording using a log picture profile preserves more of the image’s dynamic range and tonality by redistributing the digital exposure value representations over the entire value set using a preset logarithmic function.

And that’s the reason I grouped RAW and log together—The goal in

Even relatively inexpensive cameras like this Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera 6K now offer RAW recording.

both is to produce better quality video.

But they’re not the same. Generally, RAW video takes up much more space on recording media and needs more processing power in post than log video does.

But the idea behind shooting RAW and log video is to preserve the most dynamic range and image latitude possible when the signal is converted to REC. 709 color space for mass distribution.

The quest for better image quality is evolving quickly: Look at ARRI cameras and Sony’s PXW-FX9. They can shoot in S-Cinetone Gamma, which has better dynamic range and provides more latitude when editing in post.

Using S-Cinetone Gamma on those cameras also allows you to record those signals to a high-quality internal codec.

That means your video will keep all of the latitude and dynamic range intact.

You’ll then only need a simple color correction and grading.

That’s why shooting RAW or log video are popular ways for those searching for visual authenticity—they can present a more natural, realistic and lifelike image. But remember—in

the upcoming years, as HDR displays become more common, we may be able to obtain just as much, if not more, visual authenticity by shooting and editing in newer color standards and workflows like HDR, ACES and REC. 2020.

The True Path To Authentic Storytelling The search for visual authenticity encompasses more than just the momentary, fleeting trends of digital cinema/video production.

It’s a search for a way to make your content special and extraordinary.

You’ll need the right tools, of course. And those that are presently being used in production continue to evolve at a dizzying pace while prices continue to spiral downward, as capability and features rise. But, in the end, visual authenticity goes beyond just finding the right tool. It’s a search that combines the right gear with techniques and mindset, which, when you put them together, let you express the stories you want to tell in the most engaging, interesting and innovative ways possible.

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Gabriel Luna stars as the most deadly Terminator ever created, the Rev9, in director Tim Miller’s action-packed “Terminator: Dark Fate.”

All photos courtesy Paramount Pictures Corporation

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Cutting

'Terminator: D a r k F at e '

By Mark Edward Harris

What it takes to edit and cut ďŹ lm from a well-known sci-ďŹ franchise

Grace (played by Mackenzie Davis) tries to protect future resistance leader Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) in “Terminator: Dark Fate.”

D

ecades after Sarah Connor (played by actress Linda Hamilton) helped prevent a catastrophic ending for humanity, a new and improved Terminator— a killing machine, Rev-9—is sent to eliminate the future leader of the resistance. In a fight to once again save mankind, Sarah teams up with an unexpected ally, Skynet’s synthetically intelligent model T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), and an enhanced super-soldier named Grace (Mackenzie Davis) to protect future resistance leader Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes).

While director Tim Miller was tasked to navigate us through this world teetering on the edge of extinction (at least for humans), it was editor Julian Clarke’s job to take the thousands of hours of “footage” and special effects and present them in a dramatic, spine-tingling cohesive manner in the 2019 film “Terminator: Dark Fate.”

Not only was humanity’s future hanging in the balance, so was a multi-billion dollar franchise.

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Digital Photo Pro: What was your workflow for the postproduction on “Terminator: Dark Fate?”

Julian Clarke: We encoded a ProRes offline version of the dailies that was not very compressed—it could be projected on the big screen, and it would look good. We cut those on iMac Pros.

Also, we were working in a proprietary version of Adobe Premiere: It’s actually an earlier prototype version of the new Productions feature set Adobe announced this past January.

On the film “Deadpool” [which Clarke also edited], we used an earlier version of Premiere and gave Adobe feedback, which they incorporated into what we used on “Terminator.”

The most notable request we and other editors had given was that we needed something that we had in Avid Nexis, where you could take multiple edit systems and network them so we could be in the same project file at the same time.

Sending projects back and forth to each other in a non-networked setup is

totally inefficient. I had four assistants and three VFX editors working in the project simultaneously. So, Adobe made it so we could all work in the same master project, essentially turning the projects into bins, like in an Avid.

You would say, “Here is Scene 12.”

The editor who opened up that project had read and write access. As soon as they closed it, then another user could enter that project. And all of this is visible through the new “Master Project” Adobe had created.

After Effects works seamlessly with Premiere, so that must have been a good fit as well.

Jon Carr, our VFX editor, did post-viz temps in-house using After Effects to make sure that the shots worked before sending them to the more costly visual effects vendors.

I think eventually the rest of the post-viz team, which was about 25 people, were using Nuke for that. It was an amazing way to work because we could quickly get this stuff out, see how the scenes would work and then

turn them over to the expensive VFX vendor world and have confidence that they would work because we had tested them out with the temps.

What were your biggest challenges in cutting the film?

Just managing the quantity of effects was extremely daunting. I’ve worked on plenty of VFX movies, but nothing on this level. We had more than 2,000 VFX shots.

How do you decide on which takes to go with for the liveaction scenes?

I watch the dailies, put a few selects on the timeline and start building it linearly forward. I watch the takes backwards because often the director’s suggestions after each take leads to the best material being in the latter ones.

Also, when I’m looking for the one take that’s better than the others, and the difference is often subtle, I think it’s a good idea to build string-outs so I can see them all in a row.

Paramount put out a DVD with bonus content, including play-by-play commentary by you and director Tim Miller.

It was fascinating to hear you both discuss the flashback scene when the T-800 emerges from the water. Arnold looked exactly like he did when the franchise started.

We had a much longer scene there originally, with more interaction between Sarah Connor and her son, John, before Arnold—the T-800—arrives.

These are pretty much the hardest VFX shots you could possibly create for yourself. You are trying to do photorealistic humans in full daylight doing emotional stuff, and they are also people that you know.

We kept working and working on them, and we got 90% there, but 90% is not good enough. It’s the difference between success and failure on those shots. Either the audience is immersed, or they’re out.

You can get away with other visual effects being less perfect, but when it comes to people, if you don’t believe they’re real, it’s just a failure. We had to make a difficult choice and go for a more impressionistic, slo-mo version of the scene where it’s more of a

shooting. The stuff funnels down to me, and I put it together really quickly.

I like to send it back to the director on PIX, our secure file sharing and streaming system, with temp music and sound effects, kind of dressed up so they can watch it at the end

We kept working and working on them, and we got 90% there, but 90% is not good enough. It’s the difference between success and failure on those shots. Either the audience is immersed, or they’re out. memory. I think it worked well and maybe lulled the audience into a false sense of security.

How did you make the adult actors look young to match the time the flashback was representing?

We found somebody who had the same build as 1990s Arnold and somebody who had the same body as 1990s Linda Hamilton. Then, we essentially did face replacements on them with CG hair and whatnot. Arnold was easier because his character is not emotive.

When do you get involved with the actual edit?

I try and stay one day behind the

of the next day. They can go “this is working” or “that’s not working.” It can give them feedback on how we might want to course-correct.

And possibly do some pick-up shots while they’re still in the same location.

Right. If they’re in one location on a scene they’re shooting over several days, they might think, “Oh, maybe we want to pick up an angle because it feels like we’re having a little trouble here.”

The idea with the editing keeping up is that the production is very forwardfocused. They’re always onto the next thing, and with editing, you can look backwards and say, “Wait, you didn’t

Clarke was able to use an early, proprietary version of Adobe Premiere, which included a prototype version of the new Productions feature set.

digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 25

That’s a battle you go through in a lot of action movies, striking the balance with CG, the right amount of jawdropping visuals while keeping it grounded and reality-based. get this!” or “We still need something here” or “This is going to be trouble.”

Sometimes you don’t even know what the solution is, but you know there’s a problem, and it’s good to be the squeaky wheel. You’re going to inherit all these problems eventually when the shooting wraps, so you can get ahead of them while the shooting’s happening and get the stuff you need…get options, then you’re in better shape.

Was the film shot somewhat sequentially?

We did more of the early stuff toward the beginning of the movie, shooting in Spain. Then, a lot of the very heavy visual effects stuff was saved for the very end. Most of the heavy visual effects were in the third act. That made it naturally a bit sequential, but it certainly wasn’t one scene after the other in order where the actors are getting that pure character continuity.

There was still a lot of jumping around in time.

What were the actors actually seeing in the shots when they were fighting, in essence, a special effect?

In a lot of cases, such as when the Rev-9 splits, the actor Gabriel Luna would play the skeleton version of his character. He would have a suit on with tracking markers performing that character, giving the other cast members something to react to and to 26 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

Top: Editor Julian Clarke at work on “Terminator: Dark Fate.” Bottom: Clarke says “the timeline was insane because we were stacking up all the VFX versions. The audio timeline was also enormous…”

have an eye line. Things can get very flat when you’re playing to nothing.

When it was animated, it might have changed slightly from what he was doing.

Eventually, the system does get a bit bogged down by the sheer amount that we’re throwing at it. We’re maxing our RAM out to give us the best chance of everything working properly.

With all the special effects, your timeline in Adobe Premiere must have looked insane.

By the end, the timeline was insane because we were stacking up all the VFX versions. The audio timeline was also enormous because I’m a little obsessive with sound, and we edit in 3.1 to get it more movie-sounding when we screen it.

We had tons of temp sound. So, we’re often working with 20 or 30 tracks of audio as well as all the video.

How does the collaboration work between you, the director and the composer in terms of the score?

The editor does all the stuff in terms of adding music, sound effects, temp graphics, but then all the work gets redone. The music gets redone by the composer, the sound gets redone by the sound designer. What I’m doing is more instructive of our intentions, the ballpark to play in. “This is the sort of emotion we want to create here with the music, and these are the things

Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s characters take on the Rev-9 in “Terminator: Dark Fate.”

Are you keeping the pre-viz in the edit that were created to map out the big VFX and CG scenes, then replacing it as those scenes are shot and created?

I’ll very much intercut the pre-viz as placeholders with what we’re shooting.

It gives a sense of, “Oh, we should still shoot something that covers this moment or this kind of angle.”

aspiration, to try and hold onto that sense of reality. That becomes inherently challenging with CG because you’re faking it and doing things that you couldn’t do practically. So there’s a temptation to keep doing more and more. It can get too larger than life.

Sometimes you have to steer it back to a place that’s not as over the top, simpler or messier, less perfect, and bring it closer to reality again.

That’s a battle you go through in a lot of action movies, striking the balance with CG, the right amount of jaw-dropping visuals while keeping it grounded and reality-based.

So, the key with this type of VFX-packed action film is to keep the audience in the film, in the moment, so to speak.

Editors are always into tone: “What is this movie trying to be?”

If you’re making a kind of Austin Powers movie, then the rules of how real or how cartoonish it has to be are different. When I think back to “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” what’s so impressive about it is that it feels very big, but it also feels very grounded and real. That’s always an

Part of what makes “Terminator: Dark Fate” a success is its infusion of humor and “human” moments, like the scene with Arnold’s character and his Terminator sunglasses.

It’s so funny, but real.

When you screen that for an audience, there’s always a segment that is disappointed that he doesn’t put on his sunglasses, but I think that would have gone too far. It’s the much smarter choice to not have him wear them because he’s not that killing machine

that are important to us to tell the story.” Then they go on and do their own thing, and I’m involved with giving them feedback.

anymore. It’s an acknowledgement of his humanity.

How does it get explained that he ages?

We didn’t delve into that one, but I think it’s alluded to in “Terminator 2” and “Terminator Genisys.”

Basically, it’s living tissue, it’s not simulated tissue, so it can age. We debated as to whether we needed to put that in, but there is so much already going on in the scene when Sarah first encounters him, all this complex emotional stuff between them, and what Arnold’s character has been up to and what they’re going to do next.

I think we’re just getting away with what we have there. You have to make these choices, especially in science fiction movies, where there’s often a lot of stuff that could be explained.

Intuitively you go with it. You have to figure out which ones you need.

The testing process is very helpful with determining that. You can find out where the sticking points are, then correct them. We do our best to address those ones that come up.

Nobody gives an award to the mostexplained movie.

DPP digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 27

By Terry Sullivan | Photography By Lauren Greenfield

In her most recent documentary, “The Kingmaker,” photographer and director Lauren Greenfield faced the challenge of filming Imelda Marcos, an infamous and unreliable subject who tells false narratives

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Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines and wife of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, seated in front of an original painting by Pablo Picasso and ones by other modern masters. These and other works of art are from the collection the dictator assembled years ago with money plundered from the Philippines government, estimated to be between $5 billion and $10 billion. Photo Credit for all photos in this article: Lauren Greenfield/INSTITUTE.

digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 29

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O

ur current political era seems characterized by a willingness of large groups of the population to believe fake news supported by “alternative” facts and false narratives. Such an environment can be treacherous because it allows dangerous politicians to rise to power by making almost any claim, no matter how untrue, as long as it strikes an emotional chord. It’s one reason political observers have referred to our present time as the “Post-Truth era.”

The 2019 documentary “The Kingmaker,” an ominously insightful film directed and written by photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield, could be considered a powerful case study of Post-Truthera politics. That’s because its primary subject is Imelda Marcos, the notorious former first lady of the Philippines and wife of the country’s former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos.

One scene in the film seems particularly symbolic: About threequarters of the way through the documentary, Greenfield captures a scene where Imelda Marcos sits in a beautifully decorated room wearing a stunning red dress and looking quite regal, almost stately in her demeanor. For the first five seconds of the scene, the viewer sees Marcos

Top: Lauren Greenfield says about Imelda Marcos, “From her point of view, she doesn't feel like she’s done anything wrong.” She’ll even stand in this room, which Greenfield says she calls “the gymnasium,” where she's set out all of the documents prosecutors have against her and her family. “Anybody else would think those documents are proof of your money laundering,” says Greenfield.

“But for her, they're proof of the wealth that she believes is rightfully hers.”

Bottom: The former first lady kisses the glass coffin of Ferdinand Marcos, who had remained unburied since his death in 1989.

During the film, Greenfield documents how the newly elected Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte allowed the body of the former dictator to finally be buried in the Heroes' Cemetery in Manila in 2016.

simply sitting there silently. She looks out from where she’s seated with a thousand-yard stare, appearing as a 90-year-old sage witness to the tumultuous history of her country.

She then states, with all the sincerity and weight of history in her voice, “Perception is real, and the truth is not.”

Interviewing A Notorious Subject: Imelda Marcos It’s not the only outrageous statement the former first lady makes in the film, and her behavior for making such surreal remarks seems to be the

“I think she really was marked by losing her own mother,” says Greenfield, “that’s important to her backstory as an orphan.” It’s also one of the reasons Marcos might be “so obsessed with the kind of mothering as a kind of philanthropic act of power,” says Greenfield. “She is addicted to this kind of love and attention of the people. And that’s probably what drove her to agree to do the movie…wanting that adoration.”

Greenfield admits that Imelda Marcos was a great subject to film, visually. “She was kind of a visual dream…She was a beauty queen,

“I thought it was going to be a symbolic story,” says Greenfield. “But it actually became a comeback story, and it forced me to really stretch myself and tell a story, which was a political story and election story.” Greenfield says the story is really about the fragility of democracy. rule rather than the exception. But one has to wonder why she chose to be in the documentary?

Greenfield explains that part of the motivation to be in the documentary may have been that Marcos wanted to express her side of her story the way she wanted to. The results are some rather remarkable scenes, politically and socially speaking. “She loves to talk,” says Greenfield. “There was an interview where she talked for about three hours, and I barely got in a question.” After decades of being forgotten, Marcos seemed to appreciate any exposure she received in the media. “I think she was eager to have the attention,” says Greenfield.

Another reason Marcos may have been willing to be interviewed relates to her family history. She lost her mother when she was just 8 years old.

for one, and she still has this kind of statuesque, queen-like quality.”

Counterbalancing False Narratives But in filming Marcos, Greenfield had to deal with the intrinsic problem of creating an entire film made up of footage of a notorious subject who creates a false narrative, which is a depiction or characterization of events that is inaccurate. Focusing only on the former first lady of the Philippines could be a distinct danger, in that her perception of events would become the only point of view in the film, which could slant the overall story.

That wasn’t Greenfield’s intent.

Knowing this, Greenfield included other voices in the film and spent a lot of time editing the project. “It was a two-year edit,” says Greenfield, “So I was working and reworking the structure for digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 31

“There was an interview where she talked for about three hours, and I barely got in a question.” After decades of being forgotten, Marcos seemed to appreciate any exposure she received in the media.

“I think she was eager to have the attention,” says Greenfield.

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a long time and trying to crack the narrative.”

An important aspect of the edit that helped was not making it a straight chronology. Instead, she followed the first part of the movie (which was mostly footage of Imelda Marcos) with interviews of those who were persecuted by the Marcos regime. Juxtaposing the footage of victims—including Pete Lacaba, a journalist; May Rodriguez, an activist; and Etta Rosales, a teacher and former congresswomen in the Philippines—next to the comments of Imelda Marcos changed the character of her remarks from an out-oftouch, elderly former queen to a sinister Machiavellian political strategist!

At this point in the film, each victim speaks of the horrendous injustices they witnessed and were subjected to, including torture and sexual assault. Greenfield cuts back and forth between the stories each victim tells, allowing the narratives

of injustice to echo and magnify each other. In doing so, Greenfield seems to make Rosales, Lacaba and Rodriguez the true moral center of the film.

Consider what Rosales talks about in the film: She begins by recalling that Ferdinand Marcos mobilized the military and the police “in order to perpetuate himself in power” and instituted martial law at this time.

After getting involved in the resistance, Rosales was arrested and tortured. “The electric shocks—they were really painful,” Rosales says in the film, “they increased the voltage every time you lied to them.”

Another form of torture was named after a famous bridge Marcos had built in the Philippines, called San Juanico Bridge, which was also nicknamed The Bridge of Love. Under martial law, there was a form of torture called by the same name. Rosales says, “Isn’t it cynical, The Bridge of Love for one set of people becomes a method of torture for another set of people, the

Opposite: In the film “The Kingmaker,” the former first lady often appears with assistants and helpers. This page: Photographer, writer and director Lauren Greenfield (center left) interviews Imelda Marcos for the documentary “The Kingmaker.”

so-called ‘enemies of the state?’” During her imprisonment, she says, she was burned with a wax candle. “I was sexually molested by agents of the state,” Rosales recalls. Some of those who tortured Rosales were students of hers, she says, “who were planted in the schools to spy on us.” She then says, “My body was traumatized. I had no control over the tremors.”

And then she recalls, “The agents, they came to me, and they said, ‘Ma’am can we continue with the history classes?’” and she laughs.

“So, what did I do? I taught them. I helped them. It helped me recover…”

The testimony of these three is heartbreaking and stands in stark contrast and in full relief to the dreadfully surreal statements Imelda Marcos makes in the movie.

Being Inspired By Arnold Newman’s Environmental Portraits There was one additional technique Greenfield used to compose the

victims’ interviews. She employed very plain, simple lighting. Plus, Greenfield set up very simple backgrounds for the victims.

In contrast, you see a more sophisticated style of lighting with Imelda Marcos, which includes a very ornate background composed of original master paintings from throughout the centuries. (Investigators in the Philippines claim these were purchased with money Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos stole from the country just before they were ousted from power.)

Greenfield’s model for both in integrating the backgrounds with the portrait subjects actually comes from photography. “I’ve always been influenced

by Arnold Newman's environmental portraits,” says Greenfield. She also felt it was important to carefully consider what was around the person she interviewed and integrate it into the visual tableaux behind each subject. In the interviews of Marcos, Greenfield tried to make that visual connection

between the art that appears all around Imelda Marcos and the subject herself “because she is such a strong and manipulative subject.”

But that sophistication falls flat when you look at the power of the interviews of the victims. “The survivors of martial law—and with even the victims of the drug war,” says Greenfield, “have a very pareddown interview look. It was really just about the raw emotion and truth of the story, without embellishment.

Nobody’s wearing makeup.”

Exploring Common Themes And Experiencing Some Surprises Greenfield’s focus on political themes in “The Kingmaker” seems like a departure from her earlier documentary films and photography projects. Movies like “The Queen of Versailles” and her 2017 retrospective photography monograph “Generation Wealth” (which is also a fine-art exhibition digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 33

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In the film, Lauren Greenfield includes a photograph of the closet where Imelda Marcos kept her alleged 3,000 pairs of shoes.

Trying Out New Gear And Letting The Film Evolve In The Field

lenses to make this film. However, she did use some more specialized gear for specific shots.

“We also used a drone,” Greenfield says, which is the first time she used one. She generally thinks drones are overused these days, but she felt it necessary for certain types of footage. “It was really helpful in establishing these different environments, particularly the kind of surreal, almost fantastical Jurassic Park world of the animal island [a wildlife sanctuary Ferdinand Marcos had built in the mid 1970s].” Greenfield also felt the drone was useful in shooting the poverty of Manila as well as showing the stark contrast between poverty and wealth.

“The drone helped establish that,” says Greenfield.

In a few scenes, Greenfield used a high-speed frame rate to capture slowmotion. “We used some slow motion, particularly with the animals,” says Greenfield, referring to the scenes of the African safari park, which is now completely fallen into a state of ruin.

“I think it contributed to that kind of fantastical feeling, especially with the giraffes fighting.”

She also incorporated quite a lot of her own still photography in the film.

“I didn’t go in thinking photography would necessarily be a part of it, although I’m always taking pictures when I’m shooting a film. But it ended up being a good way to punctuate, stop time and make you look a little harder in some of these environments.”

If there’s one lesson Greenfield learned from creating this documentary, it’s that films can take a new, unexpected direction. In short, films can evolve in the field as events unfold.

“I feel like that’s what I love about filmmaking and photography, and it’s kind of like the influence of [Henri] CartierBresson’s decisive moment—that idea that it’s in the moment that you make the connections.”

DPP

Greenfield, who’s a Canon Explorer of Light photographer and filmmaker, mostly relied on Canon DSLRs and

For more on Lauren Greenfield’s work, go to generation-wealth.com.

and documentary film) appear to primarily focus on the cultural aspects of money and wealth. But Greenfield says the film relates to her past work in other important ways. “It connects to my work in ‘Generation Wealth’…in looking at inequality, wealth, consumerism and materialism and our kind of addiction to accumulating things.

Marcos and her shoes was always a kind of iconic reference in my mind. I never dreamed I would actually get to meet her, let alone photograph her.”

It was a surprise to many, including Greenfield, that Marcos was not just allowed to return to the country she fled in disgrace but also become a congresswoman there…even with the knowledge that she had stolen $5 billion to $10 billion when leaving the country in 1986.

There were other surprises, as well, during the filming of this project. “I think another surprise was her candor,” says Greenfield. “How she would [speak about things] like spending the diamonds on the lawyers or that she had her money in 170 banks” around the world.

Greenfield also had to adjust her overall sense of the story, which was another surprise.

“I thought it was going to be a symbolic story,” says Greenfield. “But it actually became a comeback story, and it forced me to really stretch myself and tell a story, which was a political story and election story.” Greenfield says the story is really about the fragility of democracy. “It’s about the rise of authoritarian regimes and the way history is written and how, with enough wealth and power, you can actually rewrite history to your own advantage.”

digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 35

The Sony PXW-FX9 seems destined to be as successful as Sony’s PXW-FS7 and FS7 MKII.

HANDS-ON REVIEW:

Sony PXW-FX9 Digital Cinema Camera Where does Sony’s latest XDCAM fit in today’s cine market?

By Daniel Brockett

O

ne thing Sony tends to do better than many of its competitors in the pro cinema camera market is to read and respond to market segment demand. I know because I’ve owned several Sony cinema cameras over the years and watched how the company has reacted to new technologies and format changes. It’s why Sony has become a powerhouse in the market segment of event, corporate and reality shooting with two models—Sony’s PXW-FS7 and FS7 MKII. But just as times change, so does the technology. For at least the past year or so, the digital cinema camera

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market has become obsessed with full-frame sensors and using them to record a full-frame image using a 6K or 8K raster, which raises the question: Does anyone really need 6K or 8K acquisition? In my view, no, or at least, very few do. But like it or not, the digital cinema camera business has turned into a sensor- and rastersize arms race.

Sony’s answer to this entirely new obsession with sensor size is the new PXW-FX9 digital cinema camera, one of its latest XDCAMs, which Sony says is the first featuring “an advanced 6K full-frame sensor and

Fast Hybrid Auto Focus (AF) system.” But taking a look at the FX9’s design, layout and feature set, it’s hard to not see it as the heir apparent to the Sony’s PXW-FS7 and FS7 MKII. Of course, it’s too early to tell if the FX9 will actually replace the FS7 and FS7 MKII, or merely provide a full-frame 6K-resolution alternative to these two S35 cameras in the Sony lineup. As a point of reference, here’s how the models compare resolutionand size-wise: The FS7 models use a 4K native S35 sensor, which measures 24.0mm x 12.7mm. The FX9 uses the physically larger 6K native full-frame sensor, which measures 35.7mm x 18.8mm.

However, it’s very important to point out that at press time, the FX9 doesn’t record in 6K resolution.

Its highest setting is in UHD (3840 x 2160) at 16:9. There’s a possibility that it might in the future, but it’s uncertain if Sony will ever offer an upgrade for the FX9 to capture 6K resolution video.

A screencap from footage I shot with the FX9 paired with the Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 OSS G lens using the setting sun as a backlit source for the surfers in the foreground.

Features, Features, Features I won’t go in-depth on every feature and specification available on the FX9, but here are some of the headline features and what’s significant about them: Sony’s Exmor R CMOS Sensor Full-Frame Sensor: In actual use, the extra light-gathering ability of the FF sensor was handy when using the FE PZ 28-135mm f/4.0 G OSS lens for interiors and interviews. For these shots, the noise level of the FF sensor was great, even at the high base ISO of 4000.

When shooting surfers at a distance on a bright day, the ability to easily narrow the wider FF FOV to an S35 FOV helped me maximize the focal length of the FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 G OSS zoom for a bit of extra reach. In FF 4K mode, the FX9 maxes out at 30 fps. So you’ll have to switch to S35 FOV to obtain 4K 60p recording.

Many of us would like to shoot sports and action using 4K 60p, so it’s good that the FX9 can

The FX9 gives you several options for windowing the 6K full-frame sensor.

The Sony PXW-FX9 Exmor R CMOS sensor is a brand-new variant that's closer in color science to the Venice than the FS7 MKII.

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The Electronic Variable ND system on the FX9 is easy to use and works incredibly well.

The Sony PXW-FX9 utilizes the same Sony XQD card format as the FS7 and FS7 MKII.

accommodate this, but I was surprised that Sony couldn’t raise the bar a bit to give us 80 to 90 fps in 4K S35 mode and 60 fps with the FF sensor. Even with these limitations, I never thought I’d say it, but overall, the FF sensor is a distinct advantage over only having an S35 sensor.

6K, 4K, HD And Frame Rates: Although a headline feature, 6K isn’t really the showstopper you’d think it might be with the FX9. As I mentioned earlier, as of today, it records a 6K image but downsamples it to 4K (UHD). Now, I’m happy to say it gives the 4K footage tremendous detail and looks very good. But it’s not 6K. As of today, the FX9 only records in two raster sizes: FHD (1920x1080) and UHD (3840x2160).

What’s more is that the FX9 only shoots higher frame rates if you window the sensor down to S35 size.

(The max 6K full-frame rate is 30p.)

If you window the sensor to S35 size, you can shoot up to 59.94 fps, but you have to go down to HD resolution to achieve the camera’s maximum frame rate of 120 fps. (Note: 180 fps should be coming in the FX9 V2.0 firmware sometime in 2020.)

Dual ISO: Since the FX9 has dual base ISOs of 800 and 4000, I tested grain and noise by shooting ISO 800 base for exteriors and ISO base of 4000 for interiors. The lenses I used were fairly slow zooms—the FE PZ 28-135mm f/4.0 G OSS and the FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS. I was impressed, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how clean and low noise the ISO 4000 looks, particularly if you only have S35 camera experience with ISO 4000, whether with a dual base ISO camera or with just a fixed ISO camera with the gain turned up.

In real-world shooting conditions, I found the FX9 to be a solid performer. It was predictable and ergonomically sound, and, most importantly, my clients found the footage to be great for their needs.

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15 Stops Of Dynamic Range: In realworld shooting, most of us are satisfied with cameras that can record 12 stops of DR and up. Sony rates the FX9 at

An interview with a subject in a sunroom: Note the windows behind him, which were not tinted or ND gelled. The FX9’s dynamic range allowed me to hold a decent amount of detail in the windows while illuminating the subject with only two small LED panels and a diffusion disc.

15 stops, the same as the Canon C200 when shooting Cinema RAW Light in Clog 2. I believe that the Canon and this Sony are likely seeing about 13.5 usable stops, rather than the claimed 15 stops, but regardless of that, I did see a nice distribution of DR and latitude when I pushed the FX9 as hard as I possibly could shooting a couple of sunset scenes. Overall, I think you’ll find the DR of the FX9 to be very good, especially keeping in mind this is an $11k camera, not a $50k or $80K digital cinema camera.

Autofocus: The FX9’s AF was exceptional when tracking faces in interviews. It was also very good when shooting b-roll, landscapes and scenery. Additionally, I tried shooting one of the most difficult subjects for autofocus—birds in flight—shooting some brown pelicans dive-bombing from about 100 feet up into the water.

The FX9 AF held the pelicans isolated against a gray, featureless sky in sharp focus—a very high keeper rate.

I also found the FX9’s Face Detect feature flawless: When shooting three different interviews in three different lighting setups and locations, including a couple that appeared in a lowcontrast, moody type of lighting, the FX9 nailed focus on the constantly moving subjects every time.

Variable ND Filter System: Sony implemented an electronic variable ND filter into the FS7 MKII, and that same feature carries into the FX9. I found it’s by far the best, most innovative ND system in any pro digital cinema camera, rendering other competitors’ ND systems rather limited and primitive feeling, with clunky fixed stops and often not enough ND at just six stops.

Contrast this with the Sony, where you can dial in all of your shutter, ISO and aperture settings and then dial in the exact amount of the ND needed. Then, you can also set the ND to track the exposure and keep the same ISO, depth of field, etc.

S-Cinetone And SOOC Colors: In the past, clients have asked me to shoot with the SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) colors in mind.

So, what I shoot is what they get. But I’ve never been satisfied with the color science of the FS7 and FS7 MKII straight out of camera. To my eyes, skin tones in particular on both cameras have a specific blue/cyan quality, straight out of camera, that looks unflattering to me. But on the FX9, you’ll find a new gamma and look called S-Cinetone, which is straight out of camera, and its color that’s supposedly profiled to resemble the color digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 39

I was impressed at the painterly look I was able to achieve shooting this sunset on a local trail using the FX9’s Variable ND feature that allowed me to pan on and off the sunset while holding a similar overall exposure with smooth ramping of the ND to compensate.

science from the Sony Venice, which produces very nice, accurate, flattering skin tones.

My verdict? I shot three interviews with the FX9—and all were very flattering, SOOC. I felt the footage looked wonderful with saturated colors that look appealing without appearing cartoon-like.

How The FX9 Handled The Challenges Of Four Different Shoots To test the FX9, I shot in the field as much as possible instead of spending time shooting test charts and taking measurements. It’s generally how I can tell how these cameras behave on real-world shoots in paying, high pressure, one-take situations. Here are the results of my shoots: Shoot 1–Santa Rosa Trail: I’ve recently been in production on a project that has a spectacular sunset 40 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

in the script, which gave me an opportunity to see how portable the FX9 is.

For this shoot, I needed to hike to the top of some nearby cliffs, which, for me, wasn’t that far a hike, distance-wise. It was roughly 2.5 miles from the parking lot to the spot I chose. Now, I’ve hiked this trail dozens of times, and it’s pretty easy for me (since I’m an avid hiker).

But that’s when I’m not carrying an 18-pound camera in one hand, a 22-pound tripod on the opposite shoulder and a 15-pound backpack on my back. So, by the time I made it to the top of the cliffs, I had had a pretty good workout and needed to rest a couple of times.

It was a somewhat strenuous trek, but I was rewarded by a spectacular sunset, and the FX9 was a joy to shoot with. Technically speaking, the variable ND was extremely useful since I could pan on and off the incredibly

bright sun and some rock formations surrounding it, and the Variable ND on the FX9 would smoothly ramp up the exposure so I could keep the same ƒ-stop, ISO and shutter speed.

Shoot 2– Library Interviews: I shot three different interviews—all set in different locations of an LA library—for director Robert Bader.

For this shoot, it was the first time I had a chance to use the FX9’s face detect/autofocus, and the results were impressive. The AF box tracked the talent like glue and never wavered even once.

On the same shoot, I switched the camera from Slog3.Cine gamma to the S-Cinetone gamma—the producer requested that I achieve a usable look straight out of camera—and we both were happy with how the FX9 rendered skin tones on our talent.

Audio was excellent, too: I ran a Schoeps CMC641 Supercardioid

The FX9 S-Cinetone Gamma setting helped me to easily and quickly dial in an image straight out of camera that looks really good, like this interview shot at a post house screening room with a film restoration expert.

boom mic into channel one and a TRAM TR50B wired lavalier into channel two. I liked how the FX9 supported four audio channels, allowing me to duplicate my two inputs to channels three and four, and offset them to -10dB lower as my safety channels. Since I was handling the audio myself as well, I was happy the FX9 made that task easy.

Shoot 3– Screening Room Interviews: For our interview with a film restoration artist, we set up shop in the screening room at Post Haste Digital in Los Angeles, which would be a good test of the FX9’s dynamic range. Here’s why: We needed to achieve a flattering image, but it would have to be a low-light level on the talent since we needed to project images and footage from her work on various film projects, all from the silent film era, in back of her.

Most projection systems aren’t

very bright, especially in comparison to the lighting output you’ll use to light your talent. It means the camera needs to be able to handle a decent amount of dynamic range to expose the talent and the projection behind them evenly.

Here again, I used the FX9’s high ISO base of 4000, which looked good, even though I was using the relatively slow Sony FE 28-135mm f/4.0 OSS G lens. And I even tested the camera’s gain at +6dB, and I was pleasantly surprised at how little grain was visible running the camera at ISO 4000 and adding gain.

And once again, the face detect/ autofocus behaved flawlessly, even in low-light situations.

Shoot 4–Harbor Shoot: For my last day with the FX9, I decided to capture windsurfers. However, I was disappointed, since the weather and conditions just didn’t cooperate.

I even drove more than 100 miles up and down the Southern California coast at several spots that are popular with windsurfers. On the first day, we had light rain and no wind, and on the second day, the sky brightened up, but there was still no wind. So we didn’t see any regular surfers. I decided to take the camera to the harbor to shoot footage of whatever I could find there.

Fortunately, I saw a class of lifeguards on the beach, running in and out of the water and up and down the beach.

It allowed me to capture subjects with movement.

I positioned myself at the mouth of the harbor, up on a breakwater, where I also photographed pelicans, herons feeding and boats entering and exiting the harbor.

I used the Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 OSS G telephoto zoom lens, selecting a variety of frame rates and sensor sizes, and even shot some 120 fps footage of the subjects. In digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 41

I walked away from a week of shooting with the FX9 impressed by its performance.

my opinion, the footage looked good, and the FX9 behaved well in these extremely bright, contrastfilled conditions.

I did make one discovery while shooting: When you shoot S&Q (slow and quick) frame-rate footage, the FX9 is manual focus only, a challenge when shooting moving subjects at a 400m focal length. Overall, though, the FX9 behaved well, and the images are great.

Sony’s XDCA Extension And Shooting RAW If you want to capture RAW video, you may be disappointed to learn that the FX9 doesn’t (and probably never will) have the ability to record RAW internally. There’s an external solution, but it’s pricey: You’ll need Sony’s optional XDCA-FX9 extension unit, which costs $2,498 extra. It has a 16-bit RAW output on it via a BNC connector. You then need to buy additional hardware: A 42 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

future RAW-recording solution will likely require a separate third-party device, for an additional $1,500 to $2,500, to actually record the 16-bit output of the XDCA-FX9 back.

Aside from the expense, this hardware adds significant weight and cable clutter to the FX9, as well.

What this means is that if RAW recording capability is important to you, the PXW-FX9 may not be the right choice. However, I look at this issue a little differently and like what Sony has done with RAW and the FX9. The market segment that buys and uses the FS7 and FS7 MKII rarely would ever need RAW recording. With the FX9, Sony provides a potential option for RAW capture.

The Bottom Line The Sony PXW-FX9 is a very intelligently updated version of the FS7 MKII. In doing so, they’ve produced an excellent camera with

a very capable full-frame 6K sensor package. Also, I was impressed with Sony’s AF technology, which is probably the best in the business.

The FX9 isn’t the best camera for every user and application, but it’s a very good, solid, all-around, versatile digital cinema camera.

Also, for $11,000, it has a lot of quality and a robust feature set. And while it’s not a perfect cinema camera, when you go down its list of headline features, there’s a lot to get excited about.

In its segment, the FX9 is going to be hard to beat for working pros in the corporate, event and reality markets. If you’re in the market for this type of camera, you should borrow, rent or evaluate it because I think the FX9 will be a relevant camera in our extremely fast-changing market for years to come.

DPP For the entire expanded Sony PXW-FX9 review, visit HDVideoPro.com.

The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K is an extraordinary value for a digital cinema camera in this price range, although there are a few caveats.

HANDS-ON REVIEW:

Blackmagic Design’s Pocket Cinema Camera 6K RedeďŹ ning the inexpensive digital cinema camera

By Daniel Brockett

digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 43

T

here have been quite a few mirrorless cameras introduced over the past 10 months. However, one of the hottest cameras during this time in the world of cinema wasn’t a mirrorless camera or a traditional digital cinema camera. It was, in fact, a small, rectangular, 2-pound slab of carbon fiber polycarbonate composite known as the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K (or BMPCC6K), which was announced in August 2019 for $2,495.

But what’s a little tricky for some is that the BMPCC6K looks like a mirrorless hybrid. It may lack the mirror found on DSLRs, but it’s really a unique digital cinema camera in a category all its own.

Here’s why there’s some confusion: The new model replaced its predecessor, the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K (BMPCC4K), which was a 4K-capable model that utilized a Micro Four Thirds sensor with an MFT lens mount. And while the new BMPCC6K takes some of its DNA from the original BMPCC4K (an HD-only, tiny, pocketable digital video camera popular among low-budget filmmakers), it differs significantly from the original in that the BMPCC6K uses an S35 sensor (instead of an MFT sensor) and comes with a Canon EF mount (instead of an MFT mount). Obviously, as the name of the camera implies, the new BMPCC6K is capable of shooting at a higher resolution (6144 x 3456) than its older 4K sibling.

But other than the size of the sensor, the lens mount and increased resolution, the BMPCC6K shares many of the same qualities as the Pocket 4K. For example, both interchangeablelens models have 13 stops of dynamic range, a 5-inch, 1080-resolution LCD capacitive touchscreen and an HDMI output. Each also uses Canon LP-E6 batteries, includes wireless Bluetooth control and has versatile media options—CFast 2.0 cards, SD/UHS II cards or capture to an external SSD via the camera’s USB-C output.

And each has the same inputs: A single Mini XLR audio input, a 3.5mm

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Stereo/Mic/Line input and a 3.5mm Timecode input (shared with 3.5mm Mic/Line input).

Here are some other features you’ll find on the new BMPCC6K: Dual Native ISO of 400 and 3200 and onetouch autofocus available using compatible lenses. And it has a variety of RAW capture capabilities—besides Blackmagic RAW, the camera can record in Apple ProRes, from ProRes Proxy up to HQ, but only up to DCI 4K resolution. You can only achieve 5.7K and 6K captures with Blackmagic RAW. Additionally, the BMPCC6K comes with a free copy of DaVinci Resolve Studio, Blackmagic Design’s excellent standalone edit suite of postproduction tools that retails for $299,

which is a very alluring extra to the whole package.

Unpacking And Setting Up The BMPCC6K After unpacking the BMPCC6K, I first mounted a Canon EF S 17-55mm f/2.8 USM IS lens and inserted a charged Canon LP-E6 battery. Right away, I noticed a difference with this camera’s predecessor: When you mount larger Canon EF or EFS lenses, the BMPCC6K is obviously far less pocketable than its predecessor.

But it’s still small in comparison to our main cameras, the Canon C200 and the Canon C300 Mark II. Also, it’s important to mention that this combo feels larger and heavier than our mirrorless hybrid Fujifilm

This Page: Top: The media format menu page contains a good selection of ProRes and Blackmagic RAW options, impressive for a camera in this price range.

Bottom: The Canon Image Stabilization feature on lenses like this EF 24-105mm f/4.0 IS II make optical IS lenses an optimal choice for the BMPCC6K since the camera has no in-camera image stabilization (or IBIS).

Opposite Page: Top: The BMPCC6K features a number of menu presets and conveniently placed control buttons on the grip. Note the ¼-inch 20-threaded socket, which is the perfect place to mount an external monitor or microphone.

Bottom: Top view of the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera 6K paired with the Canon EF S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens.

X-T3 with its XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4.0 OIS lens. The Fujifilm also utilizes an S35 sensor, but that was when it really struck me that the BMPCC6K isn’t a mirrorless hybrid, while the X-T3 is.

For instance, while the BMPCC6K can shoot stills, they’re more internal screen grabs or caps rather than the genuine RAW or JPEG still photos, which the X-T3 is capable of shooting. Also, the BMPCC6K only includes an LCD screen. It lacks an electronic viewfinder (EVF), while the X-T3 has both.

To my eyes, the BMPCC6K’s polycarbonate housing, card door and battery door appeared to be potentially a bit fragile, but I didn’t experience any mishaps while using it.

To test the shooting options on the BMPCC6K, I planned on capturing

some b-roll at a lake on a project we had already shot interviews for. I decided to mostly shoot Prores HQ footage since the rest of the project was already edited in FCP X and had been converted from RAW into Prores HQ. But after playing with the menus and reading the specs, I realized I couldn’t shoot any 6K footage in Prores HQ. So, I decided to shoot a few sequences in Blackmagic RAW to have some 6K footage to work with.

For many potential users of this camera, 6K is a desirable feature.

Based upon my experience in shooting 5K and 6K footage with the RED Epic, I find 6K footage to be great looking, but it also produces very large files that can bring an average editing computer to its knees. For storage, 6K files will eat up space quickly. But here’s

what’s interesting: The BMPCC6K, when set at its highest 6K resolution (6144 x 3456) and depending on the frame rate (23.98 to 50 fps max), shoots from 49 MB/s to 483 MB/s, which isn’t nearly as large as many other types of RAW. That’s because Blackmagic RAW is a 12-bit compressed RAW format. By comparison, our Canon C200, which shoots only up to DCI 4K resolution, captures at a fixed 1 Gb/s. And the Canon RAW file format is still a compressed RAW format. So, overall, Blackmagic’s RAW appears to be pretty efficient when shooting in 6K.

First Impressions It was a hot and sunny day, and the sun was shining brightly down upon the lake. Luckily, I brought all our ND digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 45

filters to the shoot. (We only have one camera that requires external ND filters, the Fujifilm X-T3.) The BMPCC6K, just like mirrorless hybrid cameras, has no internal ND filters. So, in bright conditions, you need external ND filters to expose the camera in its sweet spot as far as shutter speed, aperture and ISO. I opted to set the BMPCC6K menu for its lower native ISO of 400. Then, since I was alternating between our Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 IS II and the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II lenses, I set each around ƒ/5.6 to ƒ/7.1, their optimal ƒ-stops exposurewise. I then used B&W MRC ND6 filters for the lenses.

Here are a few notable aspects I focused on in my hands-on test: The LCD Touchscreen: The BMPCC6K lacks an EVF. It does have a 5-inch LCD touchscreen, which works well indoors, but it doesn’t swivel or tilt up or down.

On a tripod, that’s inconvenient, and in full daylight, it’s not really usable. So, I brought along a 5-inch high brightness monitor with a sunshade. Additionally, the BMPCC6K lacks a waveform monitor. And while the histogram it has is good for photos, it’s not something that’s useful for video. (With a histogram, you have no way of measuring the actual IRE levels of your image and, particularly, your subject’s skin tones.) I didn’t mind running an external monitor. However, attaching one definitely makes it less of a “pocket” cinema camera.

Testing Noise And Image Quality: I was curious to see how the Blackmagic RAW footage would look straight out of camera, if I’d notice any compression artifacts, and how it would hold up to color correction and grading. Once I got back to our office to download the footage from the shoot, I quickly reviewed it: The sharpness and color looked good. I then set up the BMPCC6K to shoot a noise test, using the camera’s various ISO settings to compare the amount and quality of the noise.

For the test, I used the camera’s base ISO and went all the way up to its maximum ISO setting in a controlled situation: I shot test charts, lighting them with a single Aputure LS-1S Light Storm 5600k LED panel. I also used Tiffen and B&W fixed ND filters to keep shutter speed and exposure roughly the same and employed a waveform monitor on my external camera monitor to try to match the levels shot to shot.

XLR Audio Connections: On the other hand, having an XLR audio connection on this camera is a big deal.

For a small, inexpensive camera, I really liked that the BMPCC6K has a single mini XLR connection that supports Phantom-powered microphones. All you need is a mini-XLR-to-full-size-XLR breakout (Continued on page 48) 46 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

The BMPCC6K display is very usable indoors, but the reflections and lack of brightness make it difficult to see when shooting in bright sunlight.

The audio menu page, where you select audio levels and inputs, and see larger audio meters to set nominal audio levels.

The BMPCC6K has a single Mini XLR audio input, which is unusual. It can supply power to phantom-powered mics and is a welcome feature on a camera of this size and budget.

ISO 400

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 25,600

Image Noise at Four ISO Settings In practice, I’ve found almost all dual ISO native cameras offer significantly more noise at the upper settings than in the lower settings, leading me to believe that dual ISO may be more marketing hype than a significant technical achievement. In my opinion, our main camera, the Canon C200 has less grain and better color fidelity at ISO 3200 or even 6400 than some dual native ISO cameras have at the same ISO (and which also claim a high base ISO of 4000 to 5500). So, I typically haven’t placed much importance on dual ISO as a feature.

For ISO 100, ISO 200 and ISO 400 (its native ISO setting): There was extremely low noise apparent at all three settings. The images were indistinguishable from each other. (Image shown is for ISO 400.)

ISO 1600: Some noise and grain appear in larger color patches on the Kodak chart, and there’s more noise in the blacks.

Overall image still looks good and is usable.

ISO 3200: There’s noticeably more noise in all areas, which is why I’d consider this the highest usable ISO.

ISO 25,600: The image resembles the amount of grain in an ASA400 or 640 S16mm film stock. There’s still a remarkable amount of luminance detail remaining, though, but colors are desaturated and soft.

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The BMPCC6K, when outfitted for digital cinema shooting, presents a capable and economical alternative to other digital cinema cameras in the $5k to $10k range.

(Continued from page 46) cable, and you can use almost any professional shotgun, cardioid or lavaliere to record quality sound.

The BMPCC6K’s built-in mics were adequate for scratch tracks for syncing externally recorded audio in editing, but I wouldn’t use them for much more. You also have a 3.5mm audio input.

Memory Cards: During shooting, I mostly captured video on CFast 2.0 cards, but I did try recording to SanDisk Extreme Pro SD card, and it worked fine for FHD and UHD recording up to Prores 422. For Prores HQ or Blackmagic RAW, the CFast 2.0 memory cards worked well. (You can also record to a bus-powered external SSD for external recording.)

The Highs, Lows And Bottom Line

Using LUTs And Bluetooth: I liked that you could load and apply 3D LUTs internally, and

After spending time capturing video with the BMPCC6K, here are some of what I liked and disliked about the camera:

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even though the BMPCC6K isn’t a mirrorless-hybrid still camera, you can press the dedicated stills button to record a 21.2 megapixel image as an uncompressed DNG frame, although you still face the same dilemma as every mirrorless hybrid shooter—a 180-degree shutter when shooting motion almost guarantees that any moving subject in a still will contain motion blur, making the usability of the stills questionable.

The built-in Bluetooth camera control from Blackmagic Camera Control App can come in handy for when you need to change settings or stop or start recording, but it’s no substitute for a video monitor.

The Highs: • It’s an extraordinary value at $2,495.

• Lightweight and relatively small.

• A great menu system that’s simple and easy to navigate.

• An impressive integrated 5-inch touchscreen (good for interior use).

• Blackmagic RAW with multiple compression ratios and ProRes Proxy, LT, 422, HQ. • Ability to record to an outboard SSD. • Beautiful natural image with great color science.

• Files were easy to edit and respond well to color correction and grading.

• Blackmagic Pocket Camera’s battery grip accessory gives you battery life (but it will cost you extra).

• Includes mini XLR and TC input jacks. Comes with a free copy of Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Studio.

The BMPCC6K’s card door and card compartment, for SD and CFast 2.0 memory card.

The Lows • No waveform monitor.

• 5.7K and 6K are for Blackmagic RAW only.

• No electronic viewfinder.

• Fixed (non-swiveling) 5-inch LCD touchscreen is limited when using outdoors.

• Camera’s wide body and offset ¼” 20-thread location makes using the BMPCC6K on smaller gimbals challenging.

• Mediocre in low light, with a maximum ISO of 3200 • No internal ND filters.

• Autofocus takes a long time to lock and focus, and lacks continuous AF, which is only good for shooting static subjects.

• Infrared pollution could be an issue. One might use an ND6 or ND3 without seeing IR pollution, but anything over a 1.2ND is going to need IR filtration, although you’d generally only need this much ND in ultra-bright conditions, like daylight snow.

The Bottom Line: Overall, I was impressed with the BMPCC6K in that it offers 6K RAW and image/sound quality of this level for under $2,500. However, it’s not a perfect camera. The polycarbonate body might not be adequate for those

The LUT page displays built-in choices, but you can load your own 3D LUTs as well.

who are tough on gear. Its form factor makes gimbal use and even handheld operation a challenge. Also, its daily usability factor with no waveform monitor, severely limited battery life without the accessory battery grip, fixed touchscreen and only the most basic AF functionality in the real world, in my mind, make the BMPCC6K ideal only as a tripod-mounted or handheld digital cinema camera.

When you have a crew and can manually focus, either yourself or with an AC, shooting scripted content with repeated takes, these limitations are easy to deal with. For narrative, commercials, music videos and this sort of content, it’s an amazingly capable and economical camera with solid results.

For run-and-gun or event shooting and documentary filmmaking, you can get by, but it’s not ideal. You’ll need to add a cage, external monitor, cabling, battery grip or external battery, side and top handles. That means you’ll end up with a medium-size camera package that costs more than $2,495.

But with accessories and rigging, the BMPCC6K makes impressive images; it just depends on your shooting style and the type of subjects you cover most often to decide if this is the best camera for your needs. If I was starting from scratch and didn’t own a camera and wanted to build a budget-conscious

yet serious quality small digital cinema camera rig, I’d definitely consider the BMPCC6K. That’s because for $4K to $5k, you can build an extremely capable rig that competes with cameras that cost a lot more. It’s why I’d say that all in all, the BMPCC6K is quite an achievement.

DPP

RAISING THE

Orphaned orangutans in a wheelbarrow on the path to the Forest School at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: Aaron Gekoski

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RED FLAG on

WILDLIFE ABUSE How one wildlife cinematographer’s documentary might make a difference for Indonesian orangutans and other wildlife

By Mark Edward Harris | Photography by Aaron Gekoski and Will Foster-Grundy

I

first met Raise The Red Flag creator Aaron Gekoski, cinematographer Will FosterGrundy and director Chris Scarffe in the Kalimantan jungle in Indonesia as they filmed a segment for a series at several Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS Foundation) sites, in Borneo. The series was typical of their mission: The three filmmakers have combined forces to help save or at least improve living conditions for fellow creatures, such as orangutans, that share our planet.

For example, at the BOS Foundation facility in Nyaru Menteng, we encountered many orphaned orangutans. The orangutan mothers are often killed when they trespass onto palm oil plantations in search of food or when poachers attempt to take their infants to sell on the illegal wildlife trade market.

My interview with Foster-Grundy, whose clients include Discovery Channel, National Geographic and Smithsonian Channel, took place at his home base of Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian section of Borneo.

Digital Photo Pro: What’s The Raise the Red Flag project about?

Will Foster-Grundy: Aaron Gekoski came up with the concept of Raise the Red Flag. He’s an awardwinning environmental photojournalist, filmmaker and TV presenter. I had met Aaron at the start of 2015 in Borneo when we both worked for the underwater natural history production company Scubazoo and instantly hit it off.

It started out as an online app that allows users to flag wildlife tourism operators with poor practices by taking pictures and writing reports and submitting them. It’s sort of like a TripAdvisor for bad wildlife tourism attractions.

To create additional awareness about the topic, Aaron asked me to be the director of photography and brought in

director/producer Chris Scarffe and editor Damian Antochewicz to produce a documentary about the abuses of the wildlife tourism industry while hopefully creating real, tangible change.

How did you become a filmmaker?

My route into filmmaking wasn’t particularly conventional. I studied zoology at university and have always had a fascination with the natural world.

But every time I’d try to explain the mesmeric beauty and amazing animal behavior I had seen or read about, I just couldn’t do it justice. Ultimately, I decided the best way to communicate my awe of the natural world was by picking up a camera and telling stories through film.

Sadly, it doesn’t take one long to digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 51

Elephants cross a palm oil plantation in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The image was the winner in the Photojournalism category for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017 competition. Photo: Aaron Gekoski

realize that our natural world and wildlife, in general, is in peril, globally. So, it was a natural progression to point the lens in this direction.

While I think the likes of the BBC and National Geographic do a great job through their landmark natural history productions, inspiring people to care about the untouched and beautiful places left on our planet, I find it more fulfilling to cast light on the conflict between people and wildlife in a bid to encourage individuals to perhaps question some of their lifestyle choices that are having direct and indirect negative impacts on the natural world.

How did you learn the technical aspects of the medium?

I was very lucky while I worked at Scubazoo in Borneo to be given many opportunities to get hands-on with camera gear in real working environments. In fact, the first time 52 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

I shot on a professional camera system was on a professional shoot.

It’s certainly trial by fire, but you learn extremely fast in that sort of environment. Coupled with that, I took advantage of the amazing online resources now available for free, like YouTube as well as paid services like MZed Pro. What equipment are you working with to tell the complex stories of both animals in the wild and in captivity?

It’s a case of horses for courses. For most of the broadcast work I do and for documentaries, I’ll use a Sony PXW-FS7, with a Metabones Ultra 0.71x Speed Booster, which provides an almost full-frame aesthetic. I pair this with either the tack-sharp Canon L-series photo lenses—mostly the 24-70mm f/2.8 II and 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II, or, if the budget permits, some sexier EF mount cinema primes,

including the Canon CN-E and Sigma and Tokina cine primes.

I also recently converted a set of old Canon FD glass from the 1980s into my own set of mini-cine primes by declicking the aperture, swapping out the FD for an EF mount, adding a follow focus gear and a standardized step-up ring for fixing a clip-on matte box. The vintage glass really helps to soften up the often overly sharp digital look that modern lenses and sensors can produce.

In the rare instances I shoot fiction work, my camera of choice is the ARRI ALEXA Mini. It produces imagery as close to the beauty of celluloid as I have seen from any digital camera. Put a set of Zeiss Super Speed lenses on the front, and you’re ready to shoot a movie.

I’ve yet to give anamorphic lenses, like a set of vintage Kowa lenses, a whirl, but I’m desperate to shoot at least a short doc in this format.

In the case of Raise the Red Flag, the focus is on the conflict between mankind’s desire to be entertained and the exploitation of wildlife to achieve this. While ultimately the solution may not be easy, it is fairly simple— do not visit wildlife tourism attractions that exploit wild animals.

What's your setup for the times you have to shoot covertly to expose wildlife abuse?

If I’m working undercover, then I’ll usually use the Panasonic DC-GH5 or, more recently, the S edition when the light gets really low. The clever trick inside the DC-GH5S is a combination of low pixel depth compared to sensor size and the innovative dual native ISO technology borrowed from the Panasonic Varicam cinema camera.

Firstly, by lowering the number of megapixels on the sensor but maintaining the physical size, the GH5S has a much cleaner signal-tonoise ratio compared to the GH5, an

improvement of around 1.5 stops.

Secondly, the dual ISO allows for two base ISO settings for the same sensor.

In theory, this puts the noise level for the base ISO of 400—non-LOG profiles—the same as the second base ISO of 2500—non-LOG profiles. In theory, perceivable noise for 400 and 2500 ISO is the same, which is quite remarkable.

I’ve used this camera for a while now and would say that it really does work, although at the higher base ISO of 2500, there’s some noise-reduction software in-camera at play, so there’s a minor softening of detail rendered.

All in all, what it means is that I’ve shot very usable video in a linear

profile, such as CineD at ISO 6400.

Also, I throw a Metabones XL 0.64x Speed Booster to bring it to a 1.28x crop on full frame. So, when I stick the same EF glass on the front, it gives me some really nice-looking imagery from a tiny setup, especially if it’s captured in 4K 10-bit, using the All-Intra 400 Mbps codec.

This simple setup can be passed off as a prosumer DSLR, which means if I’m doing some gnarly stories, I can shoot undetected, often posing as a tourist while still capturing cinemaready footage. In these environments, the option to shoot V-LogL super-flat profile and have an in-body stabilized sensor is extremely useful.

Do you often light on-location when you’re not shooting covertly?

As I predominantly shoot documentaries, I’m usually reliant on natural light to get the look I need. I try and pack two reflectors so I can at least shape light in more controlled environments using negative fill and a bit of bounce or diffusion. When I have the luxury

Twice a day at Safari World in Bangkok, orangutans stolen from the wild are forced to perform for crowds in staged boxing matches. Photo: Will Foster-Grundy

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of lighting things, I’ll opt for the Aputure 120D or 300D with a pack of gels and the softbox and grid accessory.

How are you shooting underwater?

I like the Panasonic DC-GH5S because of its relative portability (including when I’m using an underwater housing). I also like the fact that it has a dual native ISO function and 10-bit 4:2:2 internal recording.

This means I can keep a deep depth of field from ƒ/8 and narrower to get a nice, sharp image, even in the corners of the underwater housing dome, which is tricky with wider apertures or cheaper housings, and still get a very clean image from ISO 2500.

I almost exclusively use Nauticam housings. For larger cinema setups, I opt for a more modular Gates housing. Regardless of what camera I’m using underwater, I’ll run a feed to my SmallHD 502 Bright external monitor to help with composition, critical focus and correct white balance. This is also housed in a Nauticam.

What are your go-to lenses underwater?

Generally, with underwater cinematography you need two main lenses: an ultra-wide-angle zoom and a macro prime.

This way, you can capture the beautiful seascapes and larger animals or schooling fish and also the amazing miniature

If I’m working undercover, then I’ll usually use the Panasonic DC-GH5 or, more recently, the S edition….This simple setup can be passed off as a prosumer DSLR, which means if I’m doing some gnarly stories, I can shoot undetected….

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critters found on the reef or in the muck.

I like the look of around 18mm for full frame. But wider than that, I think the rectilinear distortion amidst the fluidity of the ocean feels a bit uncomfortable on video.

As for macro, definitely 90mm and above to get some really nice close-ups of the bizarre tiny creatures. But dedicated wide-angle and macro lenses aside, what a lot of people don’t know is arguably the best way to get the best imagery underwater is to opt for a wet contact wide-angle converter lens.

These act as a separate lens in front of the one attached to your camera, often providing as much as a 0.3x crop.

Nauticam makes two brilliant pieces of glass—the WACP and WWL-1.

Will Foster-Grundy illuminates a manta ray with Keldan Luna 4x lights and records the moment with a Sony EX1R in a Gates underwater housing during a production of “Indonesia from Below” for ScubazooTV. Photo: Aaron Gekoski/Scubazoo

Coral reefs were among the subjects recorded for “Timor-Leste from Below.”

Photo: Aaron Gekoski

The latter used on a Panasonic GH5S with the Panasonic 14-42mm PZ will give you a 130-degree FOV with corner-to-corner sharpness.

It’s not quite fish-eye and not quite rectilinear, but it feels very natural underwater. You can also zoom through and focus on the end of the dome, allowing you to pick off mid-size macro without having to swap lenses.

What about lighting underwater?

That’s perhaps the hardest part of underwater cinematography: When you descend into the ocean, light is lost but not all at the same time. Because red light has the longest wavelength and blue the shortest, you lose red first, which is why the ocean looks blue.

But for underwater imagery, what it means is that it’s a constant battle to add the red light back into your frame. In order to combat this, underwater DPs must constantly perform custom white balances as we descend, every meter at least. This way, the camera can amplify the red signal and pull down the green to give nice-looking results.

However, depending on your camera sensor and the visibility of the water and amount of available light, success at performing correct custom white balances can differ.

Generally, I can still get decent color at 15 meters on a clear day in good visibility, but deeper than that is a struggle. This is where shooting on a camera like the Red DSMC2 with their Monstro VV or Helium sensor in REDcode RAW will provide tremendous flexibility in post.

When it comes to artificial lighting, I swear by Keldan lights. Their purple tube lights have an exceptionally high CRI rating, are daylight balanced, have a nice wide-angle beam with soft falloff and are incredibly bright. The entry-level models are 6,000 lumens, but they go up beyond 20,000.

In addition, Keldan has developed a set of filters that help cinematographers achieve perfect white balance between natural and artificial light.

The system works by first affixing a red filter to your taking lens; this helps to bring back the red signal that is lost underwater. They make three

strengths for different depths, but the weakest strength is normally enough.

However, if you’re deeper or need fill lighting for high-contrast environments, such as lighting up sharks’ bellies or shooting large overhanging coral bombies, then, when you turn on your daylight-balanced lights, the subject will be interpreted as red by your camera because of the filter. To counteract this, Keldan has a set of filters for the lights as well, but this time they’re blue in differing strengths. So when you turn them on, your ambient light and your natural light are interpreted by the camera as a similar wavelength. The filters cut the light by a couple of stops. So, you’ll need a higher ISO or wider aperture.

Underwater cinematography is all about compromise.

What are a couple of examples of the most intense situations you’ve found yourself in, both in terms of animal encounters and with the people that are trying to exploit them?

Aaron and I were documenting

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This video screengrab shows an angry bull elephant during a translocation operation in Borneo, taken during the production of “Borneo Wildlife Warriors” for ScubazooTV. Photo: Will Foster-Grundy/Scubazoo

a team of wildlife rangers for the online channel SZTV. They were rescuing and relocating Borneo’s endangered species when they came into close contact with humans, most often when they had strayed into palm oil plantations.

In this case, a large bull Bornean elephant had been sighted in a plantation feeding on the young and extremely valuable palm oil saplings, and the rangers were tasked with tracking,

a standstill.

While it was only partially asleep, the rangers moved in to secure the elephant’s leg to a tree. I continued filming.

All of a sudden, something startled the drowsy elephant, which turned straight towards me.

I was determined to get the shot as a game of chicken unfolded as the elephant charged.

I held the shot as long as I could before

I find it more fulfilling to cast light on the conflict between people and wildlife in a bid to encourage individuals to perhaps question some of their lifestyle choices that are having direct and indirect negative impacts on the natural world. darting and relocating this 8-foot elephant back to a protected forest reserve.

After several days of trekking through the forest, we had managed to catch up with the elephant, and the vet was able to fire a couple of sedatives from a dart gun into its hind leg, bringing the elephant to 56 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

trying to run backward through the jungle undergrowth. Just as the elephant was no more than 2 meters from me and I was about to leap to what might be safety, the rope tethering the elephant to a small nearby tree pulled taut, saving me from a likely trip to the hospital or cemetery.

What can individuals do to make a positive impact on these realities?

Human-animal conflict is a multifaceted issue.

It ranges from direct interaction between people living in rural communities coming into contact with wildlife, either both inhabiting the same place or competing for the same resources, to less-direct conflict, such as how plastic pollution has a negative impact on marine life.

In the case of Raise the Red Flag, the focus is on the conflict between mankind’s desire to be entertained and the exploitation of wildlife to achieve this. While ultimately the solution may not be easy, it’s fairly simple—don’t visit wildlife tourism attractions that exploit wild animals. Not visiting these sorts of venues or making your opinions heard on social media or in the press will create positive change and help reduce conflict.

DPP

For more on Will Foster-Grundy and Aaron Gekoski, go to willfostergrundy. com and aarongekoski.com. You can learn more about Raise the Red Flag at gofundme.com/f/wildlife-tourism.

AUDIO ASSIST:

What Makes 32-Bit Floating Point Audio Powerful A new way of recording sound

By Daniel Brockett

The new Zoom F6 MultiTrack Recorder was the first audio recorder to hit the market that supports 32-bit floating point audio recording.

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Sound mixing today means setting your recording levels correctly. This is an older mixer with large LED VU meters. With 32-bit floating point audio, manually setting levels is becoming less important than it used to be.

For this Audio Assist column, I’ll explore a relatively new technology called 32-bit floating point audio, which is a new way of recording sound and processing it in post.

Common Problems But before delving into this new technology, I’d like to discuss some common problems you’ll often encounter when recording audio. since the main benefits of 32-bit floating point audio is to overcome certain audio recording problems.

Up until now, when it came to recording audio, there’s an axiom often used by many who work in production: If you capture bad quality audio, generally you’re out of luck.

It’s a statement that seems odd in an era when there are so many great postproduction sound tools, plug-ins and technologies.

However, what exactly does this axiom mean? What’s actually meant by “poorly recorded location sound?”

To me, it can mean many things.

Consider the following list I’ve compiled of recording problems due to poorly recorded location sound and 58 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

their effects on the audio file: 1. Incorrect Microphone Placement: Low signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), echo, reverb, too much ambient noise, clothing/facial hair/jewelry rubbing on lavalier, etc.

2. Ambient Noise Issues: Sound recorded in any environment with your dialog that’s not the desired sound—wind, AC hum, air conditioning/heating noise, elevators, air or street traffic, lawn mower, leaf blower, dogs barking, birds chirping, construction noise, trash trucks, insects buzzing, etc.

3. Excess Reverb/Echo: The result of recording talent in a reverberant room or environment.

4. Bad Microphone Choice: Each type, model and brand of microphone reproduces a voice or sound in its own unique way.

5. Defective Equipment Noise or Bad-Quality Recording: Such unwanted audio can be due to a variety of causes, including cable noise, intermittent or shorting connection points with the gear

and or cables, RF noise issues with wireless microphone systems, moisture/humidity levels with certain microphones, dirty pots on recorders or mixers, etc.

However, the ones I just listed aren’t really the most common problems.

In my experience, the two most common are recording levels that are either too low or too high.

Recording Levels That Are Too Low If you record your audio signal at too low of a level, here’s what will happen: You—or the video editor or sound mixer (whoever is responsible for the soundtrack of your project)— will have to raise the audio levels to a standardized level in post to distribute the edited project. But when you raise those low audio levels from a very minimal nominal level to a much higher, corrected level of, say, -12dB or -6dB peak, you also increase all of the corresponding noise in the recording.

The end result is that the increased noise will often mask the dialog that

you need to hear. So, the only choice is to raise the nominal audio levels and apply judicious dialog editing and noise reduction.

Modern noise reduction tools are amazing and have improved tremendously over the past decade, but even the best of them tend to noticeably alter the tone and quality of the remaining audio that you want. I use an audio repair toolkit called iZotope RX 7. It’s a good tool, but it can’t perform miracles. When you apply software like iZotope to a low-level recording, the end result is louder and somewhat cleaner, but the voices tend to sound metallic, with compressed dynamic range and often a honky-mid-range enhanced sound that isn’t natural.

Recording Levels That Are Too High Conversely, if you record your audio levels too high, you’ll over-modulate—or “distort” or “clip”—the audio waveform. In my experience, this can happen even with the most competent of location sound recorders. If you set your recording levels on your talent and they’re changing the level of their voice in the performance, generally the sound mixer will attempt to ride the gain levels on the recording device, whether the sound recorder is a camera, sound recorder or portable recorder placed on the talent.

But if the talent laughs, screams, yells or makes any kind of loud sound, the resulting recording will often be distorted.

A commonly used strategy to mitigate this problem is to use a duplicate input second channel and set the recording levels on the second channel a pre-determined amount lower than the main recording channel.

This is often referred to as a “safety” channel and can help to reduce the over-modulation or distortion.

But then you have to dedicate two channels/tracks on your recorder to each microphone.

Often in scenes with more than

Above: The three new models in the Sound Devices MixPre-3 II lineup, which all support 32-bit floating point audio recording. The Sound Devices MixPre-3 II (top) offers three microphone preamps and can record up to five tracks. The Sound Devices MixPre-6 II (middle) comes with four microphone preamps and can record up to eight tracks. The top-of-the-line Sound Devices MixPre-10 II (bottom) has eight microphone preamps and can record up to 12 tracks.

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one or two talent, you simply run out of channels to record each talent with a safety channel.

The Benefits Of 32-Bit Floating Point Audio However, when it comes to the two most common recording problems— recording levels that are either too low or too high—there’s a powerful solution: 32-bit floating point audio.

And here’s why—it has greater dynamic range than either 24- or 16-bit audio files.

Now, it’s important to point out that at this moment, in 2020, the most widely-used file format in the pro audio world is a 24-bit, 48 kHz WAV file, which has a dynamic range of 144.5 dB. (By comparison, a 16-bit file has a dynamic range of 96.3 dB.) But the dynamic range that can be represented by a 32-bit (floating point) file is 1,528 dB, which seems unreal when you consider that the greatest difference in sound pressure on earth can theoretically be only about 210 dB—everything from the extreme quiet of an anechoic chamber to a massive shockwave. This

means that recording even gunshots, explosions, the loudest screams to the faintest whisper can all be recorded at the “correct” audio level, regardless of where you have set your gain levels on your recorder!

I'll let that sink in...

It almost defies logic for how most of us were taught to record audio levels correctly.

Here’s how it generally works: When a DAW or audio editor first reads a 32-bit file, signals that are greater than 0 dBFS may first appear clipped since, by default, files are read in with 0 dB of gain applied.

But that’s just how it looks. When you apply attenuation to the file in the DAW or editor, signals above 0 dBFS can be brought below 0 dBFS, undistorted, and used just like any 24- or 16-bit file.

In short, for 32-bit float recording, exact settings of the trim and fader gain while recording is no longer a worry, from a fidelity standpoint.

The recorded levels may appear to be either very low or very high while recording, but they can easily be scaled after recording by the DAW software with no additional noise or distortion.

Limitations And Drawbacks Of 32-Bit Floating Point Audio While 32-bit floating point audio is very impressive in terms of fixing audio with levels too high or too low, it can’t fix all problems or issues. Here are some instances it won’t repair: Microphone Distortion: Even though audio recorders that utilize this technology can theoretically record basically any sound without distortion, it’s important to remember that sound enters a recorder through a microphone, and any mic can distort. In fact, it’s still relatively easy to distort the diaphragm of a microphone.

If you’re recording exceptionally loud sounds, you still need to choose the right type and 60 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

specification of the microphone carefully. It’s also important to know where you place the microphone in relation to the sound so that it’s capable of actually capturing the sounds you want to without distorting the microphone’s diaphragm itself.

It Doesn’t Apply To Outputs: One common question regarding this new technology is, “Does 32-bit floating point output from a recorder/mixer mean that the audio signal coming into my camera from the mixer/recorder is also 32-bit floating point?”

In a nutshell, no. If you utilize a 32-bit floating point-capable recorder/mixer and run the output to any camera, the audio that the camera records will be affected by your gain choices, and you’ll record your audio either too low or too high. The only way to solve this problem is to take the 32-bit floating point files from the audio recorder and set their levels in a DAW or editing app that supports the same 32-bit floating point audio and import them into the video editor or use the video editor itself if it supports 32-bit floating point files natively.

Everything Else: Using 32-bit floating point audio won’t prevent any of the audio problems we listed at the beginning of the article—for instance, if a lavalier is placed on talent and rubs on skin or material or if the lavalier has cable noise, RF noise or shorts. Or, say there are ambient sound issues or you made a poor microphone choice or didn’t place it correctly—32-bit floating point does nothing to save, fix or repair these and many other issues.

So, you still need to apply skill and experience to every other aspect of the location sound challenge.

Final Cut Pro is one of the few video editing tools that currently support 32-bit floating point audio files.

Increased File Size: One downside of 32-bit floating point audio is that the file sizes are 100% larger than 16-bit files and 50% larger than 24-bit files. So, be sure to note any long takes for your project that you plan to record using 32-bit floating point technology.

Recorders, DAWs & Video Editors Supporting 32-Bit Float Audio Although 32-bit floating audio is still a new technology, there are already some products on the market that support this new specification. At press time, I found the following audio mixer/recorders available, although most professional audio recorders that are designed from here on out will most likely support 32-bit floating point audio.

Additionally, most modern Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and some video-editing software suites can read 32-bit float files.

Here’s what’s currently available: Audio Mixers & Recorders: • Zoom F6 Six Input, 14-Track MultiTrack Field Recorder • Sound Devices MixPre-3 II 3-preamp 5-track recorder

• Sound Devices MixPre-6 II 4-preamp 8-track recorder • Sound Devices Mix-Pre-10 II 8-preamp 12-track recorder • Tentacle Sync Track E Recorder (product will ship later this year) Digital Audio Tools: • Adobe Audition 2015.2.1 • Audacity 2.02 • Boom Recorder 8.7.3 • iZotope RX 7 • Pro Tools HD 10 (Pro Tools 2019.12) • Reaper 64 v6.01 • Steinberg Cubase LE 9.5 • Steinberg Nuendo 10.2 Video Editing Software • Apple FCPX 10.4.6 – Yes • Adobe Premiere Pro 2020 (partial support: waveform displays and outputs appear to be 24-bit, outputs will clip if signal is > 0dBFS ) At press time, AVID Media Composer 2020 and DaVinci Resolve 16 didn’t yet support 32-bit float files, but keep in mind that 32-bit floating point recorders only just hit the market last year. That’s why more digital audio tools (like DAWs) support it than video

editing tools as of today. Also keep in mind that you can record 32-bit floating point audio files and just use an audio tool to export “rescued” audio files when and where needed to import into your video editing software.

Lastly, it’s very likely that upcoming updates from all of the popular videoediting applications will soon integrate support for 32-bit floating point audio.

Final Thoughts On 32-Bit Floating Point Audio We should be excited by 32-bit floating point audio recording because it represents a totally new way to think about audio levels during recording.

To be practical, though, at press time, there are only four professional audio recorder/mixers that implement this technology. If you need a new audio recorder/mixer, I highly advise at least trying it out before you buy to see if this is something that’s important to your workflow.

But also ask yourself: Do you shoot then deliver footage and sound files at the end of a shoot to a client, agency or editor? Are they utilizing a workflow and software that support 32-bit floating point audio? If so, will they be expecting 32-bit floating point audio files? digitalphotopro.com May/June 2020 | 61

The Tentacle Sync Track E will be a powerful tool for recording clean 32-bit floating point audio for solo shooters.

The company has stated the Track E will ship later in 2020.

62 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

If you’re your own editor or sound mixer, are you using software that supports it? Keep in mind that all of the recorders currently available can also be used for regular 24-bit fixed point recording, so it may be that for your normal, day-to-day workflow, utilizing 24-bit is better. Reserving the 32-bit floating point audio for the times when you may need its capabilities is more practical at this point.

If you’re a solo video shooter, a sound mixer who sometimes has to do bag drops where you leave your sound bag unattended to record, for instance, for car scenes where you cannot be in the back seat to monitor, this technology is great and will help you do a better job.

If you’re a sound designer or someone who records sound design elements, 32-bit floating point audio will change how you record your work. Recording extremely loud or dynamic sounds will become easier, although microphone selection and gain staging in certain scenarios will

still be important.

It seems that with the advent of this technology, there’s a good chance that future recorders and even camera audio may eventually implement 32-bit floating point audio.

But for now, you’ll have to determine if this is technology that you want to buy and begin using today or if it’s an exciting preview of what may become commonplace soon. Either way, it’s an amazing tool that holds great promise to increase the quality of audio in many situations.

But remember that this technology doesn’t in any way negate how important it is to hire a professional sound mixer whenever you have the budget to do so. Recording good-quality sound relies on much more than just setting correct recording levels. In my view, a sound pro is worth his or her weight in gold.

But for those situations where it’s not possible, 32-bit floating point audio could be a key technology for you to investigate.

DPP

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LookingForward

Travel & Photojournalism Issue

Text and Photography By Terry Sullivan

A pair of white-faced, or capuchin, monkeys photographed in Costa Rica with the new Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III.

I recently joined Olympus on a hot and humid photography trip to Costa Rica to try out its new OM-D E-M1 Mark III mirrorless camera.

Our party traveled to a variety of beautiful locations, including a trek through a national park. I’ll be including my hands-on review of the camera in our next issue, which is our Travel & Photojournalism issue.

It’s a great camera to talk about in this upcoming issue: I’ll discuss how the model is designed for a variety of pro photographers, but because of its lightweight and compact camera body, it’s ideal for many travel shooters. For example, I captured the image on this page of a pair of white-faced, or capuchin, monkeys, 64 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

who were incredibly expressive, using the E-M1 and was struck by the camera’s speed and quick autofocus but also how the camera felt in my hands. In short, it had a very comfortable feel.

Plus, because it has a smaller Micro Four Thirds sensor, you can use, and, equally important, travel with Olympus lenses that are lighter and more compact than those of brands that are compatible with camera bodies that include APS-C or full-size sensors. So, for those who love to travel, we’re sure you’re going to enjoy the next issue.

But wait—there’s more. In addition to travel photography, we’ll also include articles and photos on photojournalism. So stay tuned! DPP

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