CANON 5D MrkII & 1D MrkIV HDR results for stills (time lapse) and moving image

[rosy]

high dynamic range for stills and moving image. gives you that painted look. all these large industrial places looked really poor in reality, lighting and art direction wise. weather and available light was horrible- lots of rain, dirty sodium lights, grey low contrast skies etc...

but with hdr, eventually we had great control of color (and contrast/tonemapping) and no problems with ambient lighting that couldn't be touched. minimal crew. 2 bodies with 3 lenses ( 2 x 24/70 and 70/200) only. shooting only during the slow hours of these companies with limited access.

lots of data, but apparently after some archiving problems, it worked out well. eventually over 40,000 stills. each shot had up to 5 different exposures, no longer than 8 seconds. sometimes by fast moving objects using a mirror 3D rig positioning 2 bodies for the same moment with different exposures.

final result for a commercial job:

CANON 5D MrkII & 1D MrkIV ABN AMRO commercial HDR & time lapse.	Small | Large

testing:

HDR testing Amsterdam Airport stop motion -CANON 5D MrkII & 1D MrkIV.	Small | Large

testing:
 

HDR testing Rotterdam Harbor ECT hdr & stop motion CANON 5D MrkII & 1D MrkIV.	Small | Large

thanks for watching.

cheers rosy.

[rosy]

here is an example of reality during shooting and the manipulated end result:

[sparda79]

Nice job...

[rosy]

  thanks.

[sublime LightWorks]

The base reality and post-processed shots posted show what you can do if you know how to use the tools you have.  Nice job.  My only pick is it's just a bit heavy-handed on the parked cars on the left side of the processed shot.  The rest of the image looks great, its the cars that just give away the fact that it's an HDR.

I kinda follow the path that, as Joel Grimes would say, "You're goal is to sell the fake" as he does composites on HDR backgrounds.  While I want the HDR tones, range, and elements, I personally don't want them done to the point where someone says "oh, that's an HDR".  It's one reason I'll combine an HDR with some work in Lucis Pro 6 (using channels), in various blend modes and opacity levels to get the effect I want without it being a telltale giveaway.

But make no mistake, just about everything in the final is terrific.  Well done, overall I like it.

[rosy]

thanks for the considered words lightworks.

i must say you are right on too much hdr effects visible on the left side of the shot although, there were a few important things to take in consideration. first the time available and above all very limited production budget. plus we had to respect a certain color code. colors required by the client- the bank, which were sometimes sort of forced into the shot when not available in front of the camera.

let's face it story telling with time lapse is in general not very favorable over all, and i'm sure most people wouldn't even consider to go there. but it was the only way to make the clients budget work.

so when time was rushing towards the deadline, little things started slipping late at night, or better said early morning; very very long days, sometimes straight till freshly shaven clients  stepped into the edit room for an approval the next morning.

after shooting, pretty jet-lagged after visiting texas china and amsterdam, we had only 6 days to finish off line, music and vo, color correct and on-line. the first days were mainly spend on uploading those huge files of thousands of stills ( only 1 was 29,3 mb) selecting and administrating and checking which of the available exposures created the best hdr effects. overall storing and selecting all that data was a hell of a job- we finished everything in 4 k. somewhat off an overkill, but anyhow... that quality looked really impressive though, with all that fine detail a hdr frame gives you. seeing that in 4K is a treat for the eye!

that made it so tempting to go for that sort of drawn non-realistic look - which if i'm honest i do like for certain things. for that very reason china looks great.

the plan was to continue and fine tune this type of production process (story telling with time-lapse shots with available lighting  finishing with hdr postprod), with shooting foreground separately against a key color and do a composit with the time-lapse background the next time in order to have more tools and better coverage for actors and story telling...

would have added extra costs for a studio day though, although because of simplicity with tiny crew too. but as usual in advertising, there was no next time :-(

one of the reasons to post this work here, looking for a client who would like to us to use this fine tuned process one more time and shoot the hell out of it.  Canon? :-)

anyhow thanks for the sweet words, appreciated.

regards, rosy.

[rosy]

The Pretty Reckless - You	Small | Large

a music video recently shot on canon 5D markII by a close friend dp of mine.

if you are looking for a 'filmic' look, a problem with hd in general is that it's often too sharp and determined.
therefore always looking to use 'older' and softening lenses for film like imagery. preferably produced before the 70ties.
although i like most of the canon lens range a lot, even the zooms which are great in their field, in general for a more filmic look the imagery is rather sharp most of the time. colors blend less than with exposure on film.

balthars, kowa's... superspeeds from the 60ties... angenieus...leicas. 
hawks V lites, although newer, also create a nice and soft image. preferably anamorphic

and then you can be lucky in russia finding those kind of 'home' made obscure lenses with a nice drop in depth of field.

another brand is rumored to work on a camera chip that will allow for a more 'filmic' look, not sure if i'm allowed to mention that brand name here... anyhow, thanks for watching and interesting times ahead.

cheers rosy.

[rosy]

more stop frame stuff on canon.

ever been to the burning man festival?

now you can. even in timelapse. these stop frame shots are not fantastic and rather basic, but entertaining as burning man is.

all on canons, cheers rosy.

Timelapse-icus Maximus 2 HD Burning Man 2011 by James Cole, Music by Elite Force/DISTRIKT	Small | Large

[Dim]

if you are looking for a 'filmic' look, a problem with hd in general is that it's often too sharp and determined.
therefore always looking to use 'older' and softening lenses for film like imagery. preferably produced before the 70ties.

Wow! I was sure I was only idiot who thought the same way))
I was working in small production and one director told me that the problem was not in lanses but in light (picture was toooooo sharp). We were arguing for an hour and decided to test some combinations. We'll do it.

although i like most of the canon lens range a lot, even the zooms which are great in their field, in general for a more filmic look the imagery is rather sharp most of the time. colors blend less than with exposure on film.

Canon lens are good for no art movies, I think. Or you should know how to use aperture right. Or how to change aperture and shutter speed at the same time and without step-effect.

preferably anamorphic

Yes! This is the only way to cinema.

and then you can be lucky in russia finding those kind of 'home' made obscure lenses with a nice drop in depth of field.

I have two soviet lenses, Gelios 44m & Industar 61 L/Z and Meyer-Optik Görlitz Orestor 135 mm f/ 2.8 («Bokeh King»); will show you how it works on 5D Mark III.