I’m on a mission to capture the most cinematic visuals of wingsuit flight possible. There have been a few high-budget features that have included wingsuit action sequences, but in my opinion strapping a Red on to the cameraman’s head, setting the focus to infinity with a small aperture and a narrow shutter angle doesn’t do it.
The attributes I am looking for are depth of field (thus needing a very fast and accurate auto-focus), stabilization (a solid IBIS), resolution, and usability. In my opinion, finding the right combination of these will provide the best, most repeatable cinematic wingsuit footage.
Episode II — Undisclosed Camera Setup
Project Details
Client: The WLDRNSS
Role: Cinematographer / Editor
Category: Video Production
Mechanisms: Undisclosed Camera, Assortment of lenses, Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve
Breakdown
For the second episode of this series I got my hands on a highly anticipated new camera that I don’t want to disclose at the moment. I think this footage turned out so good that I don’t want to disclose my new secret weapon. If you have a project that would benefit from this quality of adventure sports footage, reach out and let’s talk.
Every con in this footage can be attributed to either user error (new camera system for me) or difficult lighting for setting manual exposure on the ground and then the clouds having changed by the time we got to altitude.
Episode I — GH5 + Atomos Ninja Inferno
Project Details
Client: The WLDRNSS
Role: Cinematographer / Editor
Category: Video Production
Mechanisms: Panasonic GH5, Atomos Ninja Inferno, Assortment of lenses, Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve
Breakdown
This setup gave me the ability to capture 4K Apple ProRes at 59.94 fps in V-Log.
The Pros: The ProRes 422 footage coming out of Ninja Inferno is a dream to work with. I really like Panasonic’s color and there was a lot of range when it came time to color-grade. The 59.94 gives some wonderfully smooth playback. That’s about where it ends for me.
The Cons: The near constant focus searching has made most of the footage pretty unusable. I disabled the IBIS and yet still got IBIS wobble. Not sure why? Does turning IBIS off not actually lock the sensor in place? Perhaps my unit is fatiguing after many many parachute opening-shocks over the past few seasons? I did a bit of post stabilization, but that’s not an ideal solution and it’s still noticeable on many of the clips. Using a longer lens could also help. Not a big fan of how sharp the lens is, though I could tone it down a bit more in the camera settings. Running an external recorder to capture this quality of footage was not ideal. I think the Atomos Ninja V would make it a bit more bearable, but I’d still prefer being able to capture in-camera.