Some Perspective, Please

[Dermot Shane]

Shooting wildlife on a Red isn't any harder than shooting it on an Arri SR which is what everyone used to use, and in fact it's much much easier, so I don't get the fuss at all.

Nick

is there not a fair bit more DoF on an SR / fuji 250D in full daylight?
from memory... at f11 the world is pretty much in focus from 10' away to infinity... and no one wants to be closer than 10' to a Grizzly ;-)

 

[Björn Benckert]

is there not a fair bit more DoF on an SR / fuji 250D in full daylight?
from memory... at f11 the world is pretty much in focus from 10' away to infinity... and no one wants to be closer than 10' to a Grizzly ;-)

S16mm 50mm f11 = Red Weapon/ Epic-W 8k 133 mm f29


But Im sure helium in 4k would look better than most s16 stuff. with same lens / setting.

 

[Andy Maser]

is there not a fair bit more DoF on an SR / fuji 250D in full daylight?
from memory... at f11 the world is pretty much in focus from 10' away to infinity... and no one wants to be closer than 10' to a Grizzly ;-)

Granted, that's a black bear, but I just don't have BTS of griz shooting on hand. This was for an IMAX feature that's being released early next year. Lots of bears and wolves shot with no autofocus and mostly on RED. RED is a professional tool--quirky, kinda complicated, requires experience to really nail it. But it's also a unique tool and one that's unrivaled for wildlife and other run & gun / field work. You can make a pretty image with anything in a controlled environment; these cameras give you the flexibility to make something amazing in the toughest conditions. You just have to put in the time to know the tool really well.

(BTS of shooting on RED shot on RED. So meta.)

 

[Curtis boggs]

Jack,

Where are you located???

Curtis

 

[Curtis boggs]

Granted, that's a black bear, but I just don't have BTS of griz shooting on hand. This was for an IMAX feature that's being released early next year. Lots of bears and wolves shot with no autofocus and mostly on RED.

(BTS of shooting on RED shot on RED. So meta.)

WHERE IS THE 100X SUPER "LIKE" BUTTON !!

 

[Zeb B]

Funny to think back at all the NatGeo, Sports, and Conflict Area Photogs who managed to get The Shot with fully manual cameras on film . . . which took days to develop and review. Those were Craftsmen of substance. Like most creative fields in our current era; lower the technical bar to entry - get a bunch of folks who don't have what it takes to contribute anything of consequence. The current crop of musical 'artists' comes to mind. I invite you to watch any of Rick Beato's "What Makes this Song Great" series to understand what that means.

 

[Grayson Fahrner]

Hi Bjorn, Well I saved and borrowed a whole bunch of money to get in to the Weapon. I don't see going to a higher price point. I want to love it, but it has to work. I wouldn't have purchased a manual focus camera to work with Grizzly Bears and Wolves.

Bjorn got on my case too when I was asking for help using a Weapon the first time without really understanding the camera, and I can see where he is coming from. They really are an investment of money and time, and I took a monochrome helium to Eastern Congo without any cinematography experience whatsoever and dealt with many of the issues you are experiencing; and yes the AF did surprise me as a non-feature with these cameras using Nikon lenses. The only way I could get a lens to autofocus was by using the side handle accessory while using Nikon lenses that were set to AF on the lens; even then it was sketchy and not really friendly with a big camera setup in front of wild gorillas. Most of the time I used a focus rocker switch on Fujinon lenses which, in all honesty, was only marginally better than manual in terms of camera shake induced by reaching up for the rocker switch. The benefit of a rocker switch is SMOOTH focus pulls, which are less jarring and distracting than handheld manual focus. If I had to do it again, which I might, I would use focus and zoom triggers while viewing the subject in EDGE mode on the viewfinder; I'll discuss this more later.

I come from a stills photography background, and so I understand your "need" for AF as the accuracy and speed of AF is what separates good cameras from great cameras and lenses in that world, and the difference between the shot and a blurry mess. However, having been to Alaska around bears and wolves I can say that unless your focal length is REALLY long, like above 300mm full frame, I would set focus to at or near infinity and mind your aperture on the long glass. Bears and wolves should NEVER be close enough where you have to rack in and out a great deal; in even the best viewing conditions you do not want to be less than 10 feet from a bear trust me, and wolves will never get that close to you. Wild foxes when curious, maybe.

I've done stills work with bears using a 400mm 2.8; that depth of field no matter what is a challenge with any autofocus and with a full-frame video sensor you have little room for error even if AF is perfect. I'd stop down, and set focus to near-infinity; bears move rather slowly unless there's action but if you can anticipate their behavior you can compensate for the need to AF. A good guide to bear behavior in the wild that helped me was "When Bears Whisper are you Listening" https://www.amazon.com/When-Bears-Whisper-You-Listen/dp/0979678218 -cheesy title but this guy knows what he's talking about and I could correctly anticipate a bears movements successfully several times after reading this book.

For wildlife, it is crucial with video to adjust zoom and focal length (ideally simultaneously) without disturbing the camera; the best way in my experience is to use triggers like 24shots or other more robust (expensive) follow focus systems. While using your fingers to adjust zoom/focus, you can see your subject in the "Edge" view which in my experience is REMARKABLY accurate, as RED is basically telling you exactly what pixels are in focus. It shouldn't be too tough to see a bear in the Edge focus view mode, or the nose/eyes if you are close.

Gorillas, in contrast to bears and wolves, DO get up close and personal and I had trouble focusing as they came toward me due to my inexperience. Luckily, I can play it off as intentionally cinematic as in this video:
https://vimeo.com/269017364

 

[Grayson Fahrner]

I agree with this, there was an issue with the type of D-tap cables and battery adapaters I was using and if they could power a 7" LCD AND a weapon. It worked occasionally but was glitchy. The issue resembled shutting off, lack of initialization, cutting off in the middle, and was rather scary until I used a sharkfin to double the battery power, then used a different gold mount power adapter instead of the one designed for Scarlet cameras.

 

[Clark Dunbar]

being an old guy - never quite got this whole AF thing (understand it and admire the technology for still work - and it works pretty well on my iPhone...) but have been pulling manual focus for decades on lens from 15mm to 800mm+ - use to practice on cars along the freeway and birds in the yard... RED's and all large format cameras require really knowing the tool and practicing to build the skill sets...

here's a 8K VistaVision frame - 600mm (on sticks) - manual focus

so plan ahead - there is a lot of great info in the posts within this tread - and practice - you'll get there.