Rigging your Sony A6300

I’ve been shooting with Sony mirrorless/E mount systems since the release of the Sony NEX5. A lot has changed since then and there are so many more options available today. Over the past few years I’ve shot on many of those options including the Sony FS100 and FS700, the Sony A7 Series and even the Sony FS5.

Since the release of the Sony A6300 this little camera has become my goto camera for corporate doco work where I need to travel super lightweight. I thought I’d share how I rig this camera for that use as well as how it can be rigged for use on a gimbal, like the DJI Ronin.

The core of my rig is based around the Small Rig 1661 cage. As full disclosure, I was one of a few people who give Small Rig feedback on the original cage and some of my requests were included in the new cage. Small Rig supplied me with the new cage. I’m not paid by Small Rig and all other parts have been purchased, and are currently being used, by myself. I don’t recommend products I’m not happy to use myself.

I’ve created a shopping list with notes if you are looking to pick-up any of the parts:
View list on Amazon UK
View list on Amazon US

The parts are also available direct from Small Rig.

The monitor I’m using is the smallHD 501, the wooden handle is from Tilta, wireless follow forces is the Lenzhound from Motion Dogs and the bag is the LowePro ProTactic 350 AW which is perfect as a carry on bag even with regional / budget airlines.


Blackmagic Cinema Camera – Lowlight Test

A quick and dirty sensor stress test.
There had been a great deal of discussions on the Blackmagic forums about how the Blackmagic Cinema Camera performs when under exposed in lowlight conditions (http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4269). This test was based on those discussions.

We used the Sony NEX-FS100, recording to ProRes HQ via an Atomos Ninja 2, as known refrences for comparison. All shots were underexposed by over 2 stops.

No noise reduction was done in post and there is a rolling noise pattern in the BMCC footage but at over 2 stops under exposed I'd expect to see sensor take strain.

Light meter reading
ISO1600
180º Shutter (1/50th)
Aperture f/0.9

Camera Set-up
ISO1600, 25p, 180º Shutter (1/50th)

Sony NEX-FS100
Lens: Carl Zeiss ZF.2 Planar T* 1,4/50 @ f/5.6
Picture Profile: G-Log Ultimate 1.0
Recorded in ProRes HQ via an Atomos Ninja 2

Blackmagic Cinema Camera
Lens: Carl Zeiss ZF.2 Distagon T* 2/35 @ f/5.6
Shot in ProRes HQ - Film and 2.5K RAW

Sample DNGs can be downloaded here: dl.dropbox.com/u/6460491/Lowlight_DNG.zip


Blackmagic Cinema Camera - Hair and Skintone Test

A simple Hair and Skintone test.
We wanted to test the new Blackmagic Cinema Camera to see how it performed with skintones and hair. We used the Sony NEX-FS100 and Canon 5D MK2 as known refrences for comparison.

This test was done so we could find out how the BMCC could fit into out work flow. It was not a scientific lab test nor was it a test to see which camera was better.

The BMCC likes to be exposed to the right and the footage here is probably 1-2 stops under exposed.

Sample DNGs can be downloaded here:
dl.dropbox.com/u/6460491/BMCC_skintone_test.zip

Notes on workflow:
Canon 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon EF 100mm F2.8 L IS USM Macro @ f/5.6
Picture Profile: Technicolor's CineStyle Profile

Sony NEX-FS100
Lens: Carl Zeiss ZF.2 Planar T* 1,4/50 @ f/5.6
Picture Profile: G-Log Ultimate 1.0

Blackmagic Cinema Camera
Lens: Carl Zeiss ZF.2 Distagon T* 2/35 @ f/5.6
Shot in 2.5K RAW

Both the Sony NEX-FS100 and the Canon 5DMK2 footage was transcoded to ProRes HQ with 5DtoRGB. I then colour corrected the footage in Final Cut Pro X.
The Blackmagic footage was exported from Resolve in 3 ways as I wanted to test different work flows.
• 1st option I applied a Rec709 LUT to the RAW files and exported ProRes HQ 1080p.
• 2nd option I applied the BMC Film LUT to the RAW files and exported ProRes HQ 1080p.
Both methods involved not colour correction in Resolve. All that was do was a LUT was applied to the RAW files. I then colour corrected the footage in Final Cut Pro X.
• In the 3rd option I graded the footage in Resolve with a single node and exported ProRes HQ 1080p
All footage was then edited in ProRes HQ in Final Cut Pro X.


Quick Sony Alpha NEX-5 hands-on review

Sony recently gave me a Sony Alpha NEX-5 to shoot a short film that is currently in preproduction. I had approached them in the hope that they might loan me one of the new Alpha A55’s but they were keen to see what I could do with the NEX-5.

A week later an NEX-5 kit (with 18-55mm lens) arrived on my desk along with a 16mm f/2.8.

There are currently only 3 E-series lenses available for the NEX-5. The other lens is the 18-200mm. You also have the option of buying the Alpha A mount adapter that lets you connect various Sony Alpha lens. There is another 3rd party option from Lensbaby but I’ll cover that in another review.

Over the last month I’ve been getting my head around what it can and can’t do. Overall I’ve been pretty impressed. I’m not a fan of the ergonomics but then I’m used to shooting with my Nikon D700 which is much bigger and much heavier so the NEX-5 feels to small in my hand.

Shortly after it arrived I upgraded the firmware which included the ability to customize the soft buttons on the rear making it much easier to use in full manual mode as you can now access various settings much faster.

Image quality is great as you would expect from a DX size sensor. The sweep pano mode is also really nice tho it does have it’s limitations.

I’ve found the auto focus struggles in low light.

As a stills camera it can stand it’s ground against the entry and mid range DSLR’s but the real reason I had been given it was to shoot video... so time to do some tests.

It shoots in AVHD mode (H.264) at full HD (1920x1080) at 25 FPS. (The US version shoots at 60i) and the image quality is surprisingly good. The biggest downfall is that, while in Stills mode you have full manual control over the exposure, in Video mode it switches to Auto Gain and will often over or under expose a shot. This is most noticeable if you have a high contrast scene and your brightest area is on the edges of the frame.

As an example we used the camera to shoot some video for the Sony Photo Challenge which we shot in a black sound studio (See Vimeo clip below). We were going for a film noir look and wanted high contrast images. In one scene the presenter enters frame by stepping out of the darkness into the light. We set-up the focus and exposure for the when the presenter was in the light but as soon as he stepped out of the light the camera increased the gain (and noise) to try and expose the dark area. Not what we wanted. In the end we had to resort to fixing it in post. This should be easy to fix in a firmware update. Lets see if Sony is listening to it’s users.


Look what landed on my desk today - Sony NEX-5

So I got back from lunch today to find this waiting for me on my desk:
nex-5-arrives

The new Sony Alpha NEX-5 with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 and 16mm f/2.8. A little delivery from Sony that will be used to shoot a short film I'm working on. More details in the coming weeks.