2 2010-2012 Ryan Koo This document is licensed under Creative Commons, so the following freedoms apply. However, I would request you do not email this PDF to a friend; instead, please send them to http://nofilmschool.com/subscribe where they can get their own copy of the guide for free. Thanks very much. You are free: to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work to Remix — to adapt the work Under the following conditions: Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. You can find out more about this license at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ nofilmschool.com/dslr 3 Most people would charge good money for this guide, but I’m giving it away free. In return, I ask that you please help support No Film School! You can do this via the following: Share the guide If you have a blog or website, please write a post telling others about No Film School (and the DSLR Guide)! If you don’t have a website, please share No Film School via Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network. Also, be sure to friend us on: Facebook Twitter YouTube Get your gear from the links in this guide This guide includes a number of affiliate links, which means I get a small percentage of anything you buy via those links. This percentage comes out of the store’s cut, not yours — items won’t cost you a penny more. In fact, if you want to support No Film School at no cost, one of the easiest ways to do so is to buy anything from either of the following stores (just click on the links below): On to the table of contents! nofilmschool.com/dslr 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 01 Introduction 06 Chapter 02 Basic Cinematography Concepts 10 Chapter 03 Choosing A DSLR 22 Chapter 04 Saving Money 30 Chapter 05 Stuck Pixels 33 Chapter 06 Aliasing And Moiré 35 Chapter 07 Rolling Shutter 37 Chapter 08 Overheating 39 Chapter 09 Lenses: Using Primes, Choosing A Brand 41 Chapter 10 Lenses: Adapting, Purchasing 48 Chapter 11 Lenses: Focal Lengths, Depth Of Field 53 Chapter 12 Lenses: Renting, Converting 58 Chapter 13 Storage (For The Shoot) 62 Chapter 14 Support System 64 nofilmschool.com/dslr 5 Chapter 15 Power 68 Chapter 16 Audio 71 Chapter 17 Magic Lantern Firmware 76 Chapter 18 GH1 Firmware 79 Chapter 19 Matte Box 81 Chapter 20 Filtration, Variable ND 83 Chapter 21 LCD Viewfinder 87 Chapter 22 Field Monitor 91 Chapter 23 Picture Style Editor 94 Chapter 24 Post-Production Overview 97 Chapter 25 Storage (For The Edit) 98 Chapter 26 Transferring, Viewing, Transcoding 101 Chapter 27 Audio Sync, Drift 104 Chapter 28 Noise Reduction 106 Chapter 29 Color Grading 109 Chapter 30 Thanks For Reading 111 nofilmschool.com/dslr 6 INTRODUCTION Why are DSLRs so important? That “movie mode” hidden in the menu system of your new DSLR? It’s not just a novelty feature. Together with the emergence of large CMOS imagers, HDSLRs are nothing short of a revolutionary, democratizing, disruptive moviemaking technology, as important as the invention of color film, 16mm, or HDTV. Not convinced? I’ve written more about how the DSLR is affecting the future of not only cinematography but also photography, as well as how their low-light sensitivity enables a whole new generation of international filmmakers to tell their story. However, the proof is in the pudding, so here are ten examples of stunning DSLR cinematography. Zacuto’s Great Camera Shootout 2010 is another great demonstration of what DSLRs are capable of when compared to (much more expensive) 35mm film cameras. nofilmschool.com/dslr 7 As for my own DSLR qualifications, I recently shot two episodes of the WBP Labs/ Babelgum show RADAR on a Nikon D90; several behind-the-scenes videos for Focus Features on a Canon 5d Mark II; some other DSLR footage I can’t yet talk about publicly; and I’ve lensed plenty of pre-DSLR projects (e.g. The West Side, or a music video I shot when I was 19). Digital cinematography is changing so rapidly these days that a printed book on the subject will likely be outdated by the time it reaches store shelves; this is especially true when it comes to the rapid release cycle of DSLRs. Up-to- date information can be found on online forums, but forums lack the organizing principles of a book, and as a result it can take a ludicrously long time to piece together reliable information (I spent months forum-surfing to assemble my own camera package). Thus, this guide: I hope it saves DSLRs are a readers money they would’ve otherwise spent on an out-of-date book, and I hope it great enabler saves forums from so many newbie — sorry, “n00b” — questions. on the “no film school” front. DSLRs (often called HDSLRs or VDSLRs now) are a great enabler on the “no film school” front, as they are priced to own and allow aspiring filmmakers to follow the “buy a nofilmschool.com/dslr 8 camera and learn” lesson plan. But as with any creative tool, a DSLR is only as good as the person using it — because, while these cameras offer a world of advantages, they also come with a considerable set of drawbacks. However, these drawbacks are worth dealing with in order to get the kind of amazing images possible with an imaging sensor that has twenty to thirty times more surface area than that of a similarly priced, dedicated video camera. To emphasize: these cameras are not designed to shoot movies. Their primary function remains to shoot still photos, but it just so happens that they shoot amazing video very inexpensively, and for that they are worth tinkering with, hacking, and jumping through a number of hoops to use. And make no mistake: to modify these still cameras to behave like “real” movie cameras, there are a lot of hoops to jump through (thus the length of this guide), but you will be rewarded by using a camera that many of us could only dream of a few years ago, for cheaper than any of us imagined. This guide assumes some basic knowledge of moving images, such as exposure, shutter speed, focal length, and frame rate. It focuses on the technical challenges unique to DSLR cinematography — it won’t teach you how to light scenes, stage camera As with any movements, or cook a full English breakfast. It will, however, give you a huge jump start creative tool, in figuring out how to make beautiful, inexpensive movies using a DSLR. a DSLR is only as good as the person using it. I can only take credit for a small percentage of the knowledge here. The vast majority of it comes from terrific user forums like DV Info, Cinema5d, DVXuser, REDuser, and Creative COW; news sites like FreshDV and Pro Video Coalition; and noted DSLR users like Philip Bloom, Dan Chung, Vincent LaForet, Jon Fairhurst, Stu Maschwitz, and Shane Hurlbut (not to mention firmware luminary Tramm Hudson). I’ve tried to credit and nofilmschool.com/dslr 9 link to others wherever possible, but ultimately this is one person’s opinion. I’ve taken a lot of findings from the forums and aforementioned users, combined them with my own experiences, and distilled everything down into one time-saving guide. Plenty of people will disagree with some of what I say here, so please make the forums your first stop after reading this guide. Let me repeat: if you have questions, take them to the forums — you’ll get a faster response and benefit from the wisdom of the crowd. Finally, take into account the crucial fact that this guide is free! It’s saving a lot of people a lot of time, and it costs nothing, so with that in mind, please keep your comments and suggestions constructive. The guide is organized in order of basic-to-advanced, meaning you can read it from start to finish if you’re new to DSLR cinematography, or jump around using the table of contents if you’re a seasoned vet. Without further ado, let’s get started! nofilmschool.com/dslr 10 BASIC CINEMATOGRAPHY CONCEPTS What should I know about (digital) cinematography? From reader emails, I realized that a basic introduction to some of the concepts referenced later in the guide might be helpful. Many of you are already familiar with these terms, so feel free to skip this chapter! However, if your background is in still photography or if you’re new to digital imaging in general, this bonus chapter should help clarify some basic cinematography concepts that we’ll be working with going forward. By no means is this an exhaustive glossary, but it is a good starting point. I’m going to explain things from a practical, crash-course standpoint rather than a scientific, 100% semantically-correct perspective, because I think it’s handier to know how something works in practice than it is to know all of the details of why it works — if you’re looking for knowledge of the latter, there are of course nofilmschool.com/dslr