Shoulder Rigs, ND Filters and Friends
Hello,
Welcome again to one of my blog posts, and today I will share with you a few things about the hands-free shoulder rig and dHD ND Filter I got my hands on to this Friday. Well one may ask (if new to the world of film making) what these two are (I will post some photos at the end of each description so you can get a visual of what the gear is).
Well a Shoulder Rig is a stabilizing tool for the DSLRs. Most film makers believe that DSLRs have revolutionized the independent film making process because of their cheap prices (compared to cinema cameras such as the REDs and ALEXAs), small size and compatibility, large image sensors, good low light performance and for photographers, the ability to take stunning stills. But with all this we still get some downside. Things like poor audio performance (hence the need of external microphones and/or recorders), jello effect and jitter while shooting hand-held. So to stop this the use of external stabilizers is recommended.
Personal experience: Well if you look around filming gear is very very expensive and for us beginners and students it might be a problem, because it still is important to have stable image for good video product. But while doing my research (which I advice all beginner photographers and film makers to do before buying gear), I came up with the JYC hands-free shoulder rig. Well for advantage it is very cheap (around 60TL = 25-30 USD = about 46,000 TZ shillings). Second advantage it can be built up to form a more stable rig with time, so you don't need to worry about price because you can collect the components with the small investments you can afford, seems durable (I have yet to prove that), fits well in the shoulders and really helps remove the jitter problem.
But nothing is without disadvantage. First, it can never be compared with the good rigs out there like the Manfrotto or Sevenoak and the others. Second, it is not quite ideal for walking, as it will move with the body (so you mainly have to stand still) but I believe when I get the chance to increase the components things will work out.
JYC Hands Free Shoulder Rig (Camera not on rig; used for the shot)
As for an ND Filter, it is basically as some film makers like to call it, sunglasses for the camera. For basic understanding film makers have their recommendations while shooting video. According to the 180 degree shutter angle application (mainly used in the cine cameras), the use of twice the number of frames per seconds for the shutter speed is recommended in DSLRs e.g for 24/25 fps 1/50s is recommended, for 30 fps 1/60s is recommended. Now with this shutter speed, the image is blown out (really bright) when you have a very wide aperture (iris of the lens) thus you will be forced to use lower apertures, missing the shallow depth of field (basically a blurry background). Now to keep this from happening we use ND (Neutral Density filters) to help us control the light through reduction. (Remember you cannot use faster shutter speeds to regulate the brightness problem because the motion blur produced in the image will be lost making the video choppy and unrealistic)
There are two types of ND Filters, Standard and Variable. As for standard they have fixed f-stop reduction numbers thus cannot be changed. For the variable ones, you can regulate the stop number to increase or decrease the reduction rate. So I decided to buy the variable one which gives me more control of my light settings. ND filters are also very important in photography for long exposure shots.
Personal experience: As I said, I bought the dHD variable ND filter which can regulate about 9 stops. For now seems pretty good and useful. Haven't yet tested the vignette and its effects on the image quality. But it seems quite stable for what it costs (155 TL = about 70$ = around 120,000 TZ shillings). And as famous DP Philip Bloom says: "If you don't have an ND Filter, what the heck have you been doing?" A very useful tool for great video and photography.
dHD ND Filter on the Nikon 50mm 1.8G lens. (Picture shot on Samsung Galaxy S2)
And so I put my gear into practice to see the pros and cons. My friends and I had a day out and that made the perfect opportunity to shoot something and got quite pleased with the gear. Wouldn't have done it without them.
My Friends. Click on the photo to watch the final video.