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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

NATURAL HISTORY CINEMATOGRAPHY

Mauricio Handler said:
Well now we can have some fun...
There is only one lens that really covers 90% of what I need on land.
It is the one to have.

Canon 50-1000 PL

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1086799-REG/canon_0438c001_cine_servo_50_1000mm_t5_0_8_9_with.html
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I actually watched these a few weeks ago after finishing Seven Worlds, One Planet:

https://youtu.be/xpF_fV4Sm4g
https://youtu.be/oFr2CNkoPis

The zoom range as demonstrated near the start of the second one is incredible.

I don't think it has IS though.
 
Robert Hofmeyr said:
What's your long lens choice Rui? Assuming no budgetary restraints?
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I don't have an easy and quick answer, Mauricio :-)

Besides the one you mentioned, that's indeed a superb lens, (although a bit slow and only covers super-35, not full frame), I'll don't mind to own one of the following:

https://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/telephoto-lenses/200-500mm-f2-8-apo-ex-dg
https://www.canon.pt/lenses/ef-400mm-f-2-8l-is-iii-usm/
https://www.canon.pt/lenses/ef-800mm-f-5-6l-is-usm-lens/

Having said that, although a prime lens is (at least in general) superior to a zoom, the greater versatility and speed of working with a zoom, makes those a very appealing option. In a matter of seconds, one can do a close up, a medium and an establish shot of the same scene/subject. That will be impossible to do with prime lenses (and just on camera).
 
Rui Guerra said:
I don't have an easy and quick answer, Mauricio :-)

Besides the one you mentioned, that's indeed a superb lens, (although a bit slow and only covers super-35, not full frame), I'll don't mind to own one of the following:

https://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/telephoto-lenses/200-500mm-f2-8-apo-ex-dg
https://www.canon.pt/lenses/ef-400mm-f-2-8l-is-iii-usm/
https://www.canon.pt/lenses/ef-800mm-f-5-6l-is-usm-lens/

Having said that, although a prime lens is (at least in general) superior to a zoom, the greater versatility and speed of working with a zoom, makes those a very appealing option. In a matter of seconds, one can do a close up, a medium and an establish shot of the same scene/subject. That will be impossible to do with prime lenses (and just on camera).
Click to expand...

Yeah, the big primes are just too limiting for me. Even if the time to change lenses was not a factor, the cost of buying multiple lenses and hassle of travelling with them outweighs the benefits in my opinion. That Sigma 200-500 f2.8 is something else, but it weighs 16kg! As I mentioned above, I've been eying the Canon 200-400 for a while now. With the built in teleconverter you get 200-560mm, which is a pretty good range. And it's fast at f4 (f5.6 with the TC active). It is pretty expensive, but there are quite a lot of them about so they are available used.
 
Yes, Robert, not having to carry several focal lengths are very important factores in wildlife filming particularly with small film crews, like in most of the cases. I do tend to favor zooms over primes, even for underwater.
The Sigma 200-500 f2.8 is a very heavy beast, indeed.

Regarding cost, in my defense, I can only argue that those options were "assuming no budgetary restraints". ;-)
 
Thought I would chime in here, not shooting anything high end like you guys are. One day I hope haha. Right now I am loving the new Sigma 60-600mm Sport lens. Its been great but my go to lens for wildlife work is my Sigma 120-300 2.8 and even with a 1.4x on its really sharp. I love that it does not extend during zooming and has great weather sealing. Its crazy sharp wide open as well, and for how much they cost its a no brainer really I think.
 
Rui Guerra said:
Yes, Robert, not having to carry several focal lengths are very important factores in wildlife filming particularly with small film crews, like in most of the cases. I do tend to favor zooms over primes, even for underwater.
The Sigma 200-500 f2.8 is a very heavy beast, indeed.

Regarding cost, in my defense, I can only argue that those options were "assuming no budgetary restraints". ;-)
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Yeah, that Sigma is crazy. Would love to try it out. Here are some funny Amazon reviews: https://petapixel.com/2011/09/20/hilarious-customer-reviews-for-the-sigma-200-500mm-lens-on-amazon/

On the subject of zooms versus primes, I'm thinking of getting the Komodo when it is released, and because it is so small I could hang it off the back of a big lens and add/remove adapters quite quickly. So I could swap between native, 1.4x tele, and 0.71x speedbooster. Lets take the Canon 400 2.8 as an example: with 1.4x it would be 560mm f4, with the speedbooster it would be a 284mm f2. That's not a bad range, and you'd get the speed and sharpness of the prime with some of the flexibility of a zoom. Doubt I'd actually go this route but will likely get the metabones speedbooster to use with long zooms. My 300-800 f5.6, would become a 213-568mm f4 which would be very useful in low light situations.
 
Russell M Johnston said:
Thought I would chime in here, not shooting anything high end like you guys are. One day I hope haha. Right now I am loving the new Sigma 60-600mm Sport lens. Its been great but my go to lens for wildlife work is my Sigma 120-300 2.8 and even with a 1.4x on its really sharp. I love that it does not extend during zooming and has great weather sealing. Its crazy sharp wide open as well, and for how much they cost its a no brainer really I think.
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Thanks Russel. I have not used the 60-600 but it looks like a great single lens to cover almost anything. BTW, check out the Atamos Lockdown Safari competition that Rand posted about here: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?181365-Atomos-Lockdown-Safari-Competition. Only a few days left, but thinking it may be fun to pull my camera out over the weekend and film some garden critters.
 
Not Red related, but I just found out about GoPro Labs (https://gopro.com/en/us/news/gopro-labs-launch) and it looks like it may be really useful for wildlife/nature work. You install the labs firmware on the GoPro Hero 8, then you can create QR codes on a website to activate special features, or set custom settings. Particularly interested in the motion detection option and delayed recording. As an example, you could create a QR code (and print it out or save it on your phone for later) that will tell the GoPro to start recording a timelapse 10 minutes before sunrise. So you can set up the camera in the evening, and collect it after sunrise the following morning. And the camera will turn off till it's time to record, so it won't run out of batteries. Pretty neat.
 
Good trick to know about, Robert. Thanks for sharing.

Think a function like that could be built into Komodo firmware? I'd guess it just needs to use internal power management and some low-power mode to keep track of the time.
 
Sean Solowiej said:
Good trick to know about, Robert. Thanks for sharing.

Think a function like that could be built into Komodo firmware? I'd guess it just needs to use internal power management and some low-power mode to keep track of the time.
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It would be great if it was possible. The QR thing is really neat for multicam work as well: do all the settings in one place then just point each camera at the code to apply the settings. There's even a QR code for accurately setting the camera timecode and one that activates recording when the camera reaches a preset speed. Great for a crash cam.

Here's a video that goes over some of the features: https://youtu.be/nfnCpCtaRas
 
Just keeping this thread alive. Did an Ursa 12K shoot in Botswana recently, so I thought I'd post my thoughts on the Ursa for wildlife:

PROS
- Internal NDs are great.
- Resolution and frame rates are incredible.
- Love being able to go to lower res/higher fps without cropping.
- It's big, but it feels a lot lighter than DSMC2.
- Nice to have decent audio inputs.
- Boot time and general interface snappiness much better than DSMC2.
- Files are huge of course but playback is pretty decent in Resolve.
- Battery life seems very good.

CONS
- NO PRE-RECORD (this really sucks).
- Record buttons are too small. I kept pressing the wrong buttons.
- Built-in LCD is not great.

I have a Komodo now, so I'm going to try do my next shoot on that, then I will decide which camera suits me best.

I won't comment on colour and dynamic range, because I would need to do side-by-side tests, but the images look lovely to me.

DKcCu6L.jpg
 
Yes, beautiful image! Thanks for sharing other details about Ursa usability. I'm super happy with Komodo, interested to hear your take.
 
Sean Solowiej said:
Yes, beautiful image! Thanks for sharing other details about Ursa usability. I'm super happy with Komodo, interested to hear your take.
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Thanks Sean, good to hear you are happy with Komodo. I'm very keen to test mine out properly. I have a 10 day wildlife shoot from Friday. Unfortunately it will be Ursa again, but I have a couple off days in Kruger National Park, so I'll use those to try out the Komodo and report back on my return.
 
Hi all. I've spent a few days with Komodo filming wildlife and documentary stuff. Some thoughts:

PROS
- So small and light! It's really fantastic to be able to carry a Red plus telephoto easily in one hand. I've been hanging the camera off the back of my telephoto lens without support, so it's really quick to change lenses.
- Boot time much better than DSMC2 (though still an eternity compared to Ursa).
- Battery life is great. I'm using the BP batteries and they last for ages. Plus the chargers are small and can run off a 12V cig socket. Flying with, charging and lugging around heavy V-locks can be a real hassle.
- Haven't spent much time looking closely at the images, but colour and dynamic range looks great.

CONS
- Cables suck. Especially since I've added an SDI isolator. I've run everything as neatly as I could, but I still ended up catching cables on things.
- SDI issues. Even with the isolator, I was still concerned about blowing my port in the field.
- Pre-record is much shorter than on DSMC2 (not sure why, but it seems to be limited to 2.5sec in HQ/MQ or 4sec in LQ).
- No custom buttons on camera, and very few physical buttons at all. I would love a handle with a bunch of customisable buttons and wheels. This would be particularly nice for pre-record. At the moment you have to remember to hit record twice when it is active. It would also be nice if pre-record was indicated by a different colour than finalising clip. They are both yellow at the moment.
- No menu feedback on SDI monitor. So you have to be able to see the top screen to change settings. This is sometimes not possible when you are in a difficult position. Hopefully Red will add visual menu feedback over SDI. I have ordered a monitor with camera control meanwhile.
- Record button placement. Really miss a record button I can easily reach with my left hand.
- One of the biggest drawcards of this camera for me was wifi monitoring. Many claimed it was really usable with only a small delay. It looked fantastic on various Youtube videos. But my experience is that it is totally unusable. I've tried ad hoc and infrastructure modes, larger antenna, etc. but I cant get it to work properly. I'm using a brand new Android device. Maybe it's just the latest firmware and it will improve, or maybe it is something else, but this was really disappointing.

RELIABILITY
I have not used the Komodo or Ursa for long enough to conclude too much, but the Komodo did have a couple of small issues: once it shut down in the middle of a shot then gave a media error on reboot (batteries were full, so no idea what caused this), and I got a lot of unapproved battery warnings even though my batteries are Red-approved.
The Ursa 12K did not give me much confidence in its reliability: both volume control knobs fell off and got lost, and one morning when I was out early on an open vehicle and the air was a bit moist (no rain, just condensation), the camera failed entirely - first the white balance started cycling by itself, then it rebooted itself over and over, then all the buttons stopped working altogether. Later that day the buttons behind the screen started working again, and the buttons on the front left of the camera fixed themselves a couple of days later, so I'm sure it was just internal condensation on the electronics, but I would be hesitant to use the Ursa in humid environments again. Luckily I had the Komodo as a backup, otherwise I would have missed some important shots.

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