As I mentioned in our previous post, we have a new camera that will impact our future video production courses here at Woodbridge.
For those that have not had an opportunity to work extensively with professional cameras, I just wanted to put up a teaser to get an idea of what this camera can do…at a minimum.
Just to make sure everything is working, I put everything together, slapped on a lens (Zeiss ZF.2 21mm) and recorded for about one minute.
Nothing glamorous. I did not set up the shot, just simply recorded what was near me.
Then, I did nothing in post-production except to white balance the still image I took form the RAW video.
Here is the result:
I should also state that the still I took was a TIFF, which is a format that is not friendly to this blog site, so I had to convert it to JPG instead. Then, because it was shot at 5K, I had to reduce the image size by 75% because of the file size.
So, above you will see a non-staged (no added lights, simply done under the fluorescents of the room), still taken from video that is converted to a worse picture format in JPG and the file size constricted by three-fourths and the image is still interesting to note the quality.
If the image is large enough on your computer, you can notice the scratches on top of the book case. You can see the texture of the wall behind it. You can notice the dust residue at the base of the paper holder (the small slotted blackish grey things between the stapler and tape dispenser). You can notice the teeth of the tape dispenser shining through the extended tape at the end of the roll. But I think the most telling part of this image is in the details of what is in focus: the pencil sharpener.
You can actually see the reflection of the hole punch in the base of the pencil sharpener, adding a highlight to the shine of the name of the sharpener. Also, and this is something very important I share with my students, you can see the detail in the “blacks.” The head of the pencil sharpener (round rotating disc with six different pencil size options) is the same dark black color as the supply cabinet in the background, yet they do not merge into a blob of darkness; rather you can see the entire shape of the pencil sharpener against this background, giving each black and shadowy area its own depth of “color.”
Now, just imagine what you can do with this professional equipment if you actually take the time to plan your shot and make sure you are using it to its fullest.
Hopefully, we will publish test shots we do in the near future and, also, look out for a promotional video we will be doing in the coming months.
EDIT: I just published this post and the picture looks even worse now that I have published it. I guess the Site has to compress the file even more in the process, so I apologize if a lot of the quality I have mentioned has been lost.
However, if you ever wish to stop by room 328 here on campus and talk about film and look at the original image, I would be more than happy to show you.