Wildlife and red

[Michael Dalton]

I noticed that there are a lot of wildlife filmmakers on these boards, and thought I would try to gather a lot of the knowledge in one area. As our field has special needs over the cinema, I was wondering if there are any red one wildlife shooter that can share knowledge of the camera and lenses. What + and - of the work flow, work arounds, and usefull knowledge you can share. I plan to film mainly terrestrial stuff. I'm unlikely to do underwater.

I plan to go with a couple of scarlets, but have yet to figure out which model and lens option will work best with my kind of shooting.

My environments are usually hard, expedition type where weight is an issue and I am also with out power sources. I shot primarily in Africa, but am also shooting a series on active volcanos in the coming year. R1 just seamed too heavy for me. Scarlet is looking promising. I'm concidering both 2/3, use the fixed for close up action and people, and then get either an 2/3, s35 or FF with a series of lenses. Primes are out, too short and too heavy for my very fast paced world. I see there are a bunch of various 35mm mounts for SLR lenses. This seems like my best bet. I need something with great reach 1200m and beyond.

Should I go s35, and shoot 2 or 3 k to use the mag ratio to get my reach, or should I be thinking lenses?

I'm interested in the red electronic lenses, as they have reach, and could work well.

Any thoughts.

 

[mike holding]

There's quite a useful thread between myself, Gibby and others on the ENG forum

 

[Chris Parker]

Steve Gibby is a great resource for this type of thing. He is going to be releasing some videos on www.DigitalCinemaLessons.com in a month or so explaining answers to these questions. He is very generous on here and if you searched some of his threads, you'd find all kinds of good info......

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Primes are out, too short and too heavy for my very fast paced world. I see there are a bunch of various 35mm mounts for SLR lenses. This seems like my best bet. I need something with great reach 1200m and beyond.

It is usually the other way around. All things being equal: zooms are heavier and choice of long lenses is limited. They are, however, more convinient, because you do not need as many lens changes.

I love primes, but it is not everyone's cup of tea for wildlife. What I like about primes is contrast, low geometric distortions and speed.

 

[Steve G]

Flagship nature series like "Planet Earth" made by the bbc, which I suppose you could call the bench mark for nature programming at the moment, are shot on the Varicam. Has all been tape but they are moving over to P2. They like the canon hd lenses like the HJ18ex28B and the
HJ40x14B IASD-V as they give you a great focal length and flexibility when shooting. They often have to wait for weeks for a particular event to happen, and it may only last for 5 mins or so, so they can't risk using primes or very heavy and big 35mm zooms.

I m sure that they are looking with interest at the epic, with it's high frame rates, but for them, they will need a large supply of good long zoom lenses, and at the moment, there isn't really a great choice in comparison with what is available for the 2/3" hd camcorders. Hopefully the 2/3" red will work well with the hi end canon hd zooms. The adaptor that makes them work with the Red 1 is not really that great a solution, from what I hear.

 

[David Rasberry]

Hopefully the 2/3" red will work well with the hi end canon hd zooms. The adaptor that makes them work with the Red 1 is not really that great a solution, from what I hear.

The OLPF on a RED 1 is optimized for 4k and 35mm lenses. There are some softness issues at 2k that have been discussed. Scarlet 2/3" should be much better in this regard.

 

[Steve Gibby]

Thanks for the kind words Chris. Yes, I’ll be making some short instructional videos on the mobile hybrid and non-hardlined EFP style of shooting and camera setups – and most nature and wildlife production with RED falls within those styles and setups.

Michael:

The “Wildlife feature in Africa” thread Mike referred to does have a lot of info on what you’re asking.
Link: http://205.234.135.241/forum/showthread.php?t=30756

Since you’ve also expressed interest in Scarlet for wildlife production, there’s an active thread on that with some good info.
Link: http://205.234.135.241/forum/showthread.php?t=35343

Among a lot of other genres, I produce, direct, and shoot a lot of wildlife and nature programs. Last year I was happy to be one of the Executive Producers on an Alaska wildlife program (“Icy Killers”) that used cutting edge technology to get production values easily on a par with "Planet Earth". The program aired on National Geographic, and is now airing in various areas of the world. We combined technology, shooting with a custom-adapted CineFlex V14 system rotated between a large boat, small boat, and a helicopter. Inside the CineFlex was a Sony HDC1500 camera shooting 1080p/60fps in a 4:4:4 profile. Nearly all the underwater sequences were shot with RED One in custom housings. Many of the land-based sequences were also shot with RED One.

Early on, in fact clear back in September 2007 I was the very first RED owner to test out B4 2/3” HD EFP/ENG zooms on RED One. I own a RED B4 adaptor. The lenses I tested were the Canon HJ40x14, Fujinon 42x9.7, Fujinon 22x7.3, Fujinon 16x6.5, and Fujinon 13x4.5. If you search the EFP/ENG for RED forum here on RED User you’ll find many old (and new) threads with pics of those camera setups – which I used for non-hardlined EFP (Electronic Field Production), not ENG (Electronic News Gathering). The setups look similar - but the usage techniques are different.

Obviously 2k is the limiting factor – with B4 lenses you have to shoot 2k on RED One. But almost all of my wildlife and nature production calls for 3k and 4k. Only cine lenses and 35mm stills lenses will cover those resolutions.

IMO because of the need to use matte boxes and follow focus units, and their extra weight, cine lenses are next to useless in mobile non-hardlined EFP production. They are much too bulky and heavy for their focal lengths to achieve any degree of mobility – a critical factor for wildlife production. Secondly, zooms are the best lens choice for most motion media wildlife production. Cine zooms are gigantic, heavy, and immobile. Case in point: Optimo 12x weighs 26 pounds and is 24-290mm. Great lens, and I’ve used it a lot for non-wildlife production, but totally impractical for most wildlife work.

So my lens solution for wildlife shooting with RED One has been 35mm stills lenses. They’re relatively small and lightweight for their focal lengths (thus mobile), have very good optics, cover 3k and 4k (and most FF lenses will also cover 5k), and the footage results have been exceptional. For lightness I use them without matte boxes and follow focus – I eye focus with them racking the lens barrel and use screw-on filters. I use mostly zooms for wildlife work, because its impossible or dangerous to walk to each new framing. I use the zooms as variable primes. Sure, 35mm stills zooms don’t have the focal length range of 2/3” HD EFP/ENG zooms, but the stills zooms enable me to shoot in the beautiful 3k and 4k resolutions I want to shoot in.

What long 35mm stills lenses are in my wildlife and sports lens kits for RED One? Zooms are Canon FD 150-600 f5.6L with Century PL mount conversion, Nikon 50-300 f4.5 AIS, and Nikon 80-200 f2.8 AF. My long primes for wildlife and sports work are Canon FD 800 f5.6L with Century PL mount conversion, Nikon 400 f3.5 AIS, and Nikon 180 f2.8 AIS.

Looking forward to Epic and Scarlet, I’m really looking forward to the increased frame rates for the wildlife and sports work I do. On the removable lens models I’ll still be using the same 35mm stills lenses listed above. I’m way interested in the new RED Electronic Lenses though. When they are available, assuming they check out well, I’ll probably sell off my Nikon and Canon lenses of similar focal lengths and just go with the RELs – but if RED doesn’t make super long focal length RELs, I’ll still need to keep my long focal length Canon and Nikon lenses.

Lastly. I think the Scarlet fixed, with a good 2x extender and wide converter lens may have great use in certain mobile non-hardlined EFP production (docs, wildlife, sports, etc.). An 8x lens with a 2x on it (16x) would do pretty well for all but the longest focal length wildlife work, which would then call for a the use of S35 or FF35 model of R1, Epic, or Scarlet and 35mm stills long lenses for mobility.

Hope this info helps you Michael…

 

[Lauri Kettunen]

I was wondering if there are any red one wildlife shooter that can share knowledge of the camera and lenses. What + and - of the work flow, work arounds, and usefull knowledge you can share.

My perspective as a wildlife shooter

Pros:
- Image quality
- 2K and 3K modes with higher framerates
- Raw-files, gamma curves etc. are not baked to the file
- Birger mount & Impero
- LCD
- Histograms & focus assistance
- 4 audio channels
- Prerecord buffer
- RedUserNet
- Power consumption is akward but heat make life easier in the winter time
- Adobe workflow

Cons:
- Power consumptiom
- Long boot up time
- Weight

 

[Denis Buhot]

1200m and beyond..

1200m and beyond..

I need something with great reach 1200m and beyond.

is quite a distance... You would need an unusually still atmospheres
and virtually no heat shimmer... not very likely. I don't quite see what you can reasonably expect here. Shooting 2k is no real solution. It only makes things worse... Besides, you will experience a painful loss in image quality.

Lauri's pros and cons... are just mine, including the benefit of being able to dry your wet socks/fry eggs on the top of your red in the cold winter

 

[Michael Dalton]

hello,

Thanks very much for the response and pointing to me to Mike's Questions. Seems like your right, much is answered there. It also gives me some great knowledge on lenses. The filming senerios described are similar to what I find myself in. So I know I am in good company.

I'm certainly the new kid here, and hats off to the group of you. I've been blown away by some your work. Although I have manage to get my work on National Geographic, Animal Plant and Discovey, I am sure my budgets are a far cry from yours. Thankfully red is helping level the playing feild.

Many thanks!

MD