Here’s a great review of these two cameras.

Head-To-Head Review: Canon T3i Vs. Nikon D5100 | TechCrunch.

I’ve loved both Nikon and Canon for different reasons. These two cameras are closely enough matched so that you can make the choice based on your existing lenses or because you’re more familiar with one or the other.

Let me know what you think…

One question I get a lot is, “Which lens should I use to…”

I’m no expert but I am a life long student. So, in this post I’ll cover the basics and give you links to great tools for choosing the right lens. And, even though we’ll start with the basics, things can get interesting pretty quickly.

Here’s what I mean.

Let’s start with Field of View

Wide angle lenses are called that because they include a wide field of view or FOV. If you leave the camera in a fixed position and change from a 100mm lens to a 10mm lens the picture you see will be a wider shot of the subject.

Duh, I know this is very basic but stick with me a little bit more.

If you look at your shot and feel that there’s too much in the picture, you can either move the camera closer to the subject or change lenses for a tighter shot. If you’re shooting stills you can crop your images to tighten them up or reframe so they tend to shoot a little wider to be safe.

But, in general, there is no cropping or reframing in video.

If you want to crop and reframe in video you’ll need to shoot 1080 clips and edit on a 720 timeline. Depending on your intended distribution format, you may want to shoot “action safe”. That means shooting wide enough to keep the action away from the edges of the frame.

A great resource for getting a better grasp of the subject of basic lens function is Understanding Camera Lenses. This article includes a very cool calculator. You enter the distance to the subject, the size of the subject and chose a sensor size. It will show you the focal length of the lens you’ll need to get the shot.

There’s more to focal length than FOV

Different focal length lenses not only have different FOVs, the feel of the image they produce is different as well.

Wide angle lenses enhance perspective. Extreme wide angle lenses take perspective so far they bend straight lines producing a fish-eye effect.

Shoot a close up of a beautiful actress with an extreme wide angle lens and you may be looking for another job soon. Skylines and landscapes, on the other hand, usually look better with a wide angle lens as it opens the perspective up.

Telephoto lenses flatten perspective. Your beautiful actress may not be too happy with that result either. But if you’re shooting a person walking on a busy street a telephoto lens will make them look lost in the crowd.

Most portrait photographers like an 85mm lens because it treats the human face so well. And a 35mm lens is used for basic photography courses because it’s close to what the human eye sees.

So, besides thinking about the distance to your subject and the FOV you want, your choice of lenses starts to include thinking about the perspective you want to show your audience. We’re still talking about the basics, but now we’re moving into pro territory and working on production value.

Sensor Size Matters

Take an 85mm lens and put it on a Canon 5D Mark II. Take the same lens and put it on a Panasonic GH2 sitting right beside the 5D. You’ll get a different radically different shot.

The GH2 has a sensor half the size of the 5D. So it has a 2x crop of the image from the lens. An 85mm on a GH2 will have the same FOV as a 170mm lens on a 5D.

To get the same shot using the 85mm lens on a GH2 as on the 5D you’ll have to change the distance between the camera and the subject.

If you’re 5 feet from the subject with an 85mm lens on a Canon 5D MarkII, you’ll need to be 10 feet from the subject to get the same shot with the same lens on the Panasonic GH2.

Here’s a link to an online calculator at Abel Cine Tech where you can dial in the focal length on various sensors and see how sensor size affects FOV – http://www.abelcine.com/fov/. You won’t see all the effects of wide angle or telephoto lenses but you can see how the crop factor works. And all images in the calculator are formatted as 16×9 so it’s great for video.

Here’s the crazy thing about crop factors

The crop factor of a smaller sensor has the same effect on the FOV as increasing the focal length. But… it does not change the effects of the lens on the image.

No matter what size the sensor is, a wide angle lens will still enhance perspective. A telephoto lens will still flatten perspective. And an 85mm lens will still make people look great.

Now you see why keeping this discussion “basic” can still make things complex?

Now let’s talk about the effects of the f-stop of the lens

Most people shooting video with a DSLR want a film-like image. One of the factors in getting this image is controlling the depth of focus or DOF. And the two factors that influence DOF most are the lens aperture (or f-stop) and sensor size.

Decreasing the sensor size has the same effect as increasing the f-stop. Doing either will increase the DOF giving your shot a wider area in focus and reducing the softness of the rest of the image.

While you may believe you want the razor sharp DOF of a Canon 5D Mark II with an f/1.2 prime lens, the truth is that you’ll lose focus so quickly that any movement by the subject will throw them out of focus.

On the other hand, shooting at high noon with the Panasonic GH2 and a lens set at f/16 will make almost everything in focus. This is why you’ll need to carry ND filters to shoot in daylight outside so you can get the f-stop back to a more workable range.

Most films are shot with an f-stop between 3.5 and 5.6. So, if you want a film-like image that is a good range to work in. Also, most lenses are not at their sharpest fully wide open. Inexpensive lenses often look much sharper closed down a couple of stops.

But the most important thing to consider about exposure is the effect of the image on the audience. Where do you want them to focus? What’s the right perspective to bring them into the shot completely?

Stu over at Prolost.com has created a couple of posts with a great series of stills that show the effects on DOF of various lenses, sensors and f-stops. He’s made it so the FOV is constant in all the shots so you can quickly see how the other factors change the feel of the shot. Here’s the main article http://prolost.com/blog/2011/1/9/the-shot-you-can-make.html. And here’s a follow up article with a link to more photos http://prolost.com/blog/2011/1/14/the-shot-you-can-make-gallery.html.

Okay, what about shutter speed and ISO

Still photographers have two other factors in the equation of choosing their lens. They can keep the exposure where they want it for DOF and adjust shutter speed to get a good shot and they can change the ISO of the camera.

While you can play around with different shutter speeds on a DSLR when shooting video, in general the shutter needs to be set twice as fast as the video frame rate. If your subject and camera are not moving – like shooting a landscape – you can drop the shutter speed and get more light into the shot. But if anything moves you’ll get motion blurring.

As for changing ISO, video seems to have a much more limited ISO range than stills. And, depending on your camera, you may not be able to dial in the ISO in small increments. A Canon T2i jumps ISO from 100 to 200 to 400 to 800 with no choice of anything in between. Those are big jumps when all you need is a bit more light hitting the shot.

Generally for video you’ll want to keep ISO at 400 or less to keep the noise out of your image. You’ll want to learn how to use shutter speed and ISO to help get great stills but don’t count on them when you’re shooting video.

The lens creates the image, the camera just records it

Professionals look at all these factors and choose their lens based on the effect they want the shot to create.

Read that last part again… that bit about “the effect they want the shot to create.”

Most of us are doing great when we can get a shot that is well lit, in focus and correctly framed. For a pro, it’s as more about what they want the audience to perceive and feel rather than just getting a decent shot.

When you read Stu’s post at Prolost.com, you’ll see that he has taken a shot from a film he did not shoot as the basis of his lens series. I was struck that he could deduce the lens and the camera just by looking at the still of the shot. That’s what a pro can do.

Take your shot composition and production value to a higher level. Go beyond getting a decent shot and choose your lens to move your audience deliberately where you want them to go.

Leave a comment below and let me know your experiences, favorite links or tools for choosing lenses.

Most of us dream of a better life.

And most of us do not do all the things we know would lead to that better life.

Even when we’re doing well, there are often goals that can seem unreachable.

That’s why I’m excited to offer you this gift.

Becoming Unstoppable is chapter zero of “Need to Know”, a great book by Paul Myers about creating an online business. But this chapter is not just about online business, it’s about finding out what’s stopping you from having whatever your goals are for success in life. And it’s about changing that so you become unstoppable.

I’ve followed Paul for quite a while and always find his writing right to the point and full of useful information. Plus, he’s knows how to entertain while teaching valuable perspectives and skills.

You can download Becoming Unstoppable as a gift from Paul through me to you. No strings attached, just a desire to help you gain the life you want to live.

While reading it will no doubt help you become more unstoppable, the real value is in following Paul’s process.

I spent a few minutes yesterday using Paul’s process on my most significant goal for 2011. I found several significant points regarding my goal that I hadn’t seen before. It was clear that those points would sabotage my efforts. I kept moving through Paul’s process and felt something move. I became more unstoppable.

But what’s really interesting is how the process kept working in the back of my mind.

Today I suddenly realized another area where I was stopping myself from reaching my full potential. And that realization brought with it another key to reaching my goals. Cool!

I’m not sure what your goals are for 2011. If you’re an aspiring film maker hoping to mount a production, a professional photographer wanting to move into video, or a video professional looking to expand your technology into DSLR you’re sure to have projects that would make a big difference in your life. If you could just get them done…

Download Becoming Unstoppable. In less than one hour you can read it and work through the process. I’m betting it will prove to be one of the best investments in your future that you’ll make.

Thank you for your support this year, it’s been great. All the best to you and yours in the new year!

NOTE: the links in Becoming Unstoppable are affiliate links and I will benefit from any purchases you make resulting from clicking on those links.

Do you want to be excellent at video production?

I’m sure you want to be good at it. But how good do you want to be? And what would it take to reach excellence?

I just read an article from the Harvard Business Review titled, “Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything” by Tony Schwartz. It changed how I look at what I’m doing and how I want to work in this business.

I know a lot of people who are happy to just get by everyday. They want to do a good job but they are really just showing up enough to keep their jobs and feel okay about it.

I know a few people who pursue something much higher.

Sometimes I find myself looking at those striving to be excellent and put them down. I mean, really… who are they trying to fool? They’re just being cocky, strutting around with that “hey, look at me” attitude.

Then I realize what’s really going on. I’m taking them down to make it okay that I’m not operating at the same level as they are. Maybe I never will (sob, sob, sob…)

I remember turning 25 years old and feeling totally depressed because I wasn’t rich or famous yet. I was positive that I’d missed the window and it was all downhill from there.

That’s the same feeling as “maybe I never will”. Which is always followed by “so what’s the use of trying, who am I trying to fool?”

But I’ve had enough training in personal development to know that these feelings are a distraction designed to keep me from failing. Failure is painful and there’s a part of me that’s hell-bent to make sure I don’t feel that kind of pain every again.

Then I come across something like this article on excellence and another part of me remembers all the technologies I’ve mastered, all the productions that were voyages into the unknown that landed on safe shores.

And I know.

I know how to do this. I know how to be excellent at anything I choose. I just don’t always do what it takes.

Maybe that’s why this article caught my attention and why I’m passing it on to you.

That being said, here are the six keys from Tony Schwartz but I recommend reading the full article. He uses sports as a model for gaining excellence but I’m adding my own perspective using film and video production.

1. “Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance.” What do you love about this business? What fires your passion for it? Spend some time considering what you get from it when you do it well. Here’s a hint – it’s not just money.

2. “Do the hardest work first.” Who wants to spend the time to read all the manuals, scroll through all the menu items, try every combination, push hard for more innovative concepts, do all the pre-production, learn best practices for work flow at every phase, apprentice to people who know more than you do, take everything to heart all the time? Come on, that’s just too hard.

3. “Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break.” How does this apply to production? Ever tried to keep a crew inspired and productive hour after hour, day after day? How do you treat yourself when the crunch is on? Lots of studies show that you’ll get more done when you take short breaks every hour or so. It seems most people think that’s just not true for production people.

4. “Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses.” Who do you go to for expert feedback? Who do you trust to tell you the truth? High quality coaching is hard to find but worth it’s weight in gold.

5. “Take regular renewal breaks.” What do you do to relax? What renews you? If you don’t feed your body you’ll die. If you don’t feed your soul you’re as good as dead but you just don’t know it. This is a creative business so find out what gets your juices flowing that doesn’t involve a computer, the internet or any kind of camera.

6. “Ritualize practice.” Take the time to consider how you do your work. Get intensely interested in the process you use. How deliberate is it? How much is habit? What would happen if you changed your work flow with the intention of getting lots more done with lots less energy expended? What could you ritualize so it became invisible, effortless?

So that’s it. Six keys to being excellent at production. Interesting that it has nothing to do with which camera you’re shooting.

The article is worth the few minutes it takes to read. I believe Tony’s book is also likely to be worth the read. I’ve just downloaded the Kindle version to my phone. Here’s a link to check it out at Amazon.

The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance

So, what do you think? How do you plan to be excellent and what do you think will happen along the way?

I seemed to have stirred something up with that last post so let’s try it again.

I mean really… there are lots of productions where you should not shoot video with a DSLR.

Here’s another one.

Scenario

You get a call for a location photo shoot for a regular client. The concept is to follow a top executive through a series of interactions solving a problem with his team. They want you to capture real people, documentary style, with lots of human interest shots.

Near the end of the conversation they casually say, “Oh, you can shoot video of this at the same time, right?”

Question

Do you tell them you’ve never shot video before or do you rush out, buy a DSLR that shoots video and wing it?

Reality

I just talked with a local professional photographer with exactly this situation. From what I hear, he’s not alone.

Here’s my take on this.

I don’t believe you should be shooting video with a DSLR when you’re getting paid for the job and haven’t taken the time to shoot, transcode, edit, grade and render test footage…

using that camera…

those lenses…

in that lighting…

for this distribution channel.

I remember walking backstage at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and catching a glimpse of a team of acrobats going through their show. They played a troup of monkey’s in the Lion King live stage show.

I have no idea how many times they’d performed that act – several times a day for weeks, months, maybe years. Yet there they were, practicing, stretching, working on the timing, putting in the kind of great effort it takes to make their show look effortless.

If you’re a pro in this business you know that’s what it takes.

But then I see professional photographers with zero years of video experience deciding to take on video projects on the spur of the moment.

And I know professional video shooters with zero years of DSLR experience deciding to pick up a Canon 7D two days before a shoot.

Anyone can pick up a point-and-shoot camera these days and take a pretty good picture. Just like anyone can pick up an auto-everything video camcorder and take decent video.

But if you shoot either stills or video for a living you know there’s a lot of work between being able to push a button and delivering professional results.

One of the things I love about shooting video with a DSLR is that takes you back to the essence of capturing lightning in a jar. It’s not auto-anything.

You need to have a decent understanding of lenses, f-stops, focal length and all the other physics of light going through a lens to create an image.

And you need a decent understanding of the full video workflow from capture to distribution.

It’s time to go back to the “beginner mind” and learn experientially how this works for you, your equipment and your type of production.

Play with it all.

Set up the camera, try different lenses, light up different types of objects, try different types of fixtures. Use a light meter and learn to go old school while setting things up.

Move your footage into a computer and push it through the entire workflow. Work out what happens when you transcode the footage, when you apply effects, and especially when you grade the footage.

Test it through the compression and render phase to your intended distribution media.

If you’re delivering on DVD then burn a test and watch it on a variety of systems.

If you’re delivering on the web then post it to at test page and watch it through a variety of browsers and operating systems.

If you’re delivering on Blu-Ray disc to digital projectors lighting up a theater screen then find some way to test your footage in that environment.

Otherwise, you’re just monkeying around and shouldn’t be shooting video with a DSLR.

Leave your comments and tell me what you think.

The general buzz around custom presets for your DSLR camera is to go flat or even super-flat to increase the range for color correction in post. Shane Hurlbut took the approach of setting up his Canon 5D to capture images as close to the finished look as possible.

As Shane was shooting the Terminator webisodes to be released in the week before the release of “Terminator:Salvation” there was an established look that he needed to match. He went through a learning process to get his 5D to match the feature film look.

When he got to post production, he discovered that footage from a Canon 5D must be treated a bit differently. His post has lots of details of the process and, from my read of it, makes the case for shooting as flat as possible to give yourself as much room in post as possible. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

One of the great things about shooting video with a DSLR camera is that you can capture great images in much lower light than regular video camcorders. That doesn’t mean you shoot in the dark just for fun, it means you can use more subtle light and create images that are more intriguing.

Here are some tips to help you learn to do this.

A recent article on dv.com documents a low budget shoot where the lighting shifted radically during the production in an apartment. The sun was up and flowing through the windows when they started but it was pretty dark outside by the time they were finished.

Unfortunately, the scene they were shooting was supposed to take place in a fairly short period of time. The lighting needed to be consistent through the entire scene.

It always takes longer to shoot a scene that the scene takes to watch in real life. If you’re shooting where the sun is a factor you have to find ways to deal with this situation. If you’re indoors, like in this example, it’s much easier to handle the changing light than if you’re on a full outdoor set.

The scene was being shot on a Canon 7D so shooting in low light was no problem. Simulating the sunlight was another issue.

As the article details, the most important thing is to have a clear idea of where the sun should be in all the shots. Sunlight is almost always the strongest light in the frame and everyone will notice if the sun suddenly shifts from one side to the other or if the color or angle of the sun light shifts between cuts.

You can always grab a quick still of the first setup and use that as a base line for the lighting. You can also make a lighting diagram or even play back a clip for comparison. The closer you get all the shots to match the same lighting, the easier time you’ll have in post production.

Another great thing about simulating sunlight indoors is that the light is rarely direct in the scene. The sun bounces off walls, floors and ceilings. It comes through drapes or curtains and gets filtered by plants and trees outside of windows.

Rather than a standard three-point lighting with the lights directly hitting the subject, you can simulate the effects of sunlight with bounce boards or by bouncing light off of existing walls.

Finally, there is always a color difference between sunlight and electric lights inside a room. You can use gels and filters on the lights to reproduce the difference in the color temperatures. But the interesting thing is to go against reality and make the sunlight warmer than the indoor light.

Subjectively we all think of sunlight as a warm golden glow when it’s actually much more blue than the typical light bulb. Notice the shot above, though, and you’ll see it look more like sunlight because it’s so warm. Remember, this is art, not a physics demonstration!

Take a moment and read the whole article, it’s worth absorbing how they solved the problem of fading daylight and turned it to their advantage.

http://www.dv.com/article/92462

Get Stu’s book – The DV Rebel’s Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap

Click here if you don’t know who Stu Macshwitz is.

Click here for Stu’s interview.

My first draft of this post quickly crossed 1,000 words as I tried to provide information about the reality of shooting and editing in 24p and other frame rates. It’s a subject that will take some work and maybe several posts to explore. I’ll spare you that now.

Here’s the bottom line from my perspective. As Stu said, people expect films to play at 24 fps. Video runs at 30 fps. Even if the audience couldn’t tell you why, most people would feel the differences between film and video.

My point is simple. The most obvious difference between film and video is not the frame rate!

The most obvious difference is ratio.

I had a program shot in SD that came to me for edit. It was a live presentation shot with two cameras – one on the presenter and one on the audience. When I looked at the footage I discovered that main camera had somehow been set to shoot a 16 x9 ratio. When I dropped the clips on the timeline there were black bars at the top and bottom.

I completed the edit then nested the entire timeline in a second timeline and applied a wide screen filter. The program now played as a 16 x 9 video with no letter-boxing.

When the client played the DVD at the premier several people mentioned how great it was that they had moved into high def. It wasn’t HD. It was SD with a 16 x9 ratio. Their perception was that all video with that ratio was HD.

In my post about the Indian wedding video “City of Lakes” I mentioned that they cropped the video much more horizontal than 16 x 9 so it feels even more like film. I would suggest that more people will view your film as shot on film when you crop to a ratio that looks like a feature film.

Here’s an image from this video in the original format and one cropped to 4 x 3 format.

Another obvious difference is that all films are graded (color corrected) and most video is not.

Most of my projects require grading to correct for differences in color between cameras. Sometimes the lighting needs improvement as well. I normally use Apple Color and get great results.

Then I had a project that I knew would benefit from a ‘film look’ approach to grading. Magic Bullet Mojo had just been released so I grabbed a copy, watched the tutorial and started playing around with the footage. In seconds the whole project started to look like a it had been shot on film. All the footage was from a Nikon D90 so it already had that 24p feel to it but grading for the film look made a huge difference.

Watch this tutorial on using Magic Bullet Mojo from Stu. You’ll see what I mean instantly.

Intro To Magic Bullet Mojo from Red Giant Software on Vimeo.

The third difference is transcoding from an interlaced video format to progressive.

Whether you plan to distribute on DVD, web or as film the sooner you get your footage into progressive format rather than interlaced the better. Yes, you can edit interlaced video in Final Cut Pro. Take your clips and transcode to progressive format and watch how much better it plays in real time, how many more effects are rendered correctly in real time.

All computers, flat screen monitors and LCD projectors run as progressive natively along with all Blu-Ray players and most regular DVD players. Interlaced video on these devices will show up with horizontal tearing lines when paused. The images below show an interlaced frame from a video and the same frame de-interlaced.

The differences between 30p and 24p are more subtle than the differences in ratio, grading and progressive footage. All that being said, I believe shooting, editing, and rendering at 24p makes sense for most project if you can. And with so many low cost DSLR cameras on the market this is now a choice anyone can – and should – make.

Get Stu’s book – The DV Rebel’s Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap

Here’s another way of looking at all the Canon DSLR cameras – a brief feature chart comparing the four Canon DSLR cameras and the Panasonic Lumix GH1.

Click here for all the details.

Not every feature is compared between these cameras. But this ones that are listed are likely the most important for shooting HD video with a DSLR.

Let’s take a look at each feature on the list.

Sensor Size – While the ultimate image area of the video may be 720 pixels wide, the size of the sensor affects both the quality of that image and the way the lens on the camera images on the sensor. The effects of sensor size and pixel density are too deep a subject for this post but it’s something you may want to look into.

The most obvious effect of moving to a smaller sensor is that all your lenses are more telephoto. Or, going the other way, moving from to a larger sensor means your lenses are more wide angle.

The most important issue is that you can always use a full sensor lens on a camera with a smaller sensor with no problem. Putting a lens made for a small sensor camera on a full sensor will likely produce vignetting around the edges and in the corners of the image. If you plan to mix sensor sizes invest in full sensor lenses.

Resolution -This is another area of discussion concerning sensor size and pixel size or density. Here’s a link to an article with a decent explanation of pixel size, image quality and noise. Basically, the bigger the pixels the more light captured and the less noise you’ll get. This is especially true in low light, which is why a lot of film makers are interested in DSLR cameras. They shoot great video in low light.

All of this is partly why the Canon 1D shoots better video in extreme low light than the Canon 5D even though it has a smaller sensor and lower resolution.

Media Slot – Compact Flash cards (CF) cost more than Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) cards. You can get a Firewire CF card reader and pull files to your computer much faster than using a USB reader on an SDHC card. There’s no clear better or worse situation here. Unless you already have a big stash of one type and the camera you want to use is of the other type.

I’ve used all of them and my recommendation is buy the best you can get and immediately create a backup copy of all files. When we shoot tape and tape-less we use the tape for backup. But when all you’ve got of that one incredible shot is a digital file on a card then take no chances.

ISO Range – Higher ISO numbers mean better performance in low light. If you plan to shoot in daylight or with lots of great lighting gear then it doesn’t matter. But that’s not a realistic option for most of us. But you can shoot in normal light so much easier without your video getting noisy when you can crank up the ISO.

Of course, high ISO comes at a price so there’s always a balance to be had that’s right for you and your project.

PL Mount Compatible – This feature is only important to film makers. They’re likely the only ones with a set of PL mount prime lenses sitting around. Yes, there are adapters but the most successful require sending your camera in for physical modification. They need to modify the hardware by doing things like removing the mirror that flips up and down in DSLR’s because the PL lenses stick inside the camera body too far.

The thing about real cinema PL lenses is that they come in set that are extremely consistent in look from one lens to the next. And they have accurate markings for f-stop and focus distance. And the focus and f-stop rings are large and easy for a focus puller to move during a shot consistently. And they can be rented by the day in most major cities.

So aspiring film makers will do well to try them on a project sometime and see if all that is worth the bother.

Monitor Output – This is another sign that this feature list comes from a film guy. Not only is it difficult to accurately focus a DSLR camera using the built-in LCD monitor, no one else can take a look. And on a film set there are lots of people who need to see what’s happening in the camera in real time and for playback.

In fact, most sets will have whole little network for distributing audio and video to various people. If your camera doesn’t have monitor out, it will not be used on a set like this. If you’re shooting by yourself you still need to use a good external monitor sometime and see how much easier it is to focus.

Recording Formats – More is better. A particularly useful feature is shooting at twice the frame rate of the final program. 60 frames a second played back at 30 frames a second gives you a beautiful 2-to-1 slow motion effect with every frame perfectly captured. Taking a 30 fps video and using a function in your editor does not produce the same result. You will get slo-mo but it will not look nearly as good. It may actually have so many artifacts that it’s unusable. In the film world this is called overcranking and all pro film cameras have variable frame rates.

Slow motion is like way-short depth of focus. It’s nice to have that trick in your bag but it’s not something you want to use all the time. From one perspective, just have the option to shoot double the rate is barely enough to make the camera useful. Sometimes you want just a little overcranking, sometimes a lot more than double.

Like I said, it’s clearly a list from a guy who knows a thing or two about making films. And if you’re intent on using a DSLR to shoot your film you’d do well to spend some time thinking about what’s important to you. You may even decide to pick up two different cameras so you can take advantage of their different strengths.

For instance, one set of lenses will produce significant changes in the frame when switched from the full sensor Canon 5D and 7D. Your full sensor 50mm lens on a 7D will be ‘zoomed in’ more than on a 5D. That may be just the effect you’re looking for. Working with a smaller set of great lenses and two camera bodies is likely a good idea.

-a-

This is the third part of the tutorial on video production budgeting. Actually, this is a bonus section. As I was creating the first two segments I kept thinking about what I’ve learned in the 35+ years I have in this industry.

And what kept coming up to me was the importance of a basic business fundamental. How do you make sure you get paid?

One of the things I’ve learned is that successful producers, directors, cinematographers and others in this business have to learn to balance their art and their craft.

Part of the craft is handling their business like a business. I’ve met more successful people that were great at business and just above average on the creativity level than the reverse. That’s why we have the stereotype of the starving artist.

I remember a story a friend of mine told me. He is a very successful oil painter. But back in the days when he was struggling to pay the rent he showed up at an opening of his work in a new gallery.

He overheard an older couple talking about one of his paintings. She wanted it. He wasn’t too sure.

He gathered himself together and headed over to introduce himself. People are always more likely to buy art if they have a personal interaction with the artist.

He glanced at the price tag on the painting as he came up behind the couple and noticed that the price was $3,000. It was supposed to be $300. He was about to interrupt their discussion and let them know about the mistake when he heard the man say, “Well, it must be worth it or they couldn’t charge that much money.”

Not only did that couple buy the painting, he sold the same number of paintings that night as he did at an average gallery opening. But he made ten times as much. It was a defining moment in his career.

I’ve had moments like that myself when I realized the truth of the sign on the wall in my studio.

This is not a rehearsal.

We are professionals.

This is the big time.