07Mar Behind the scenes in the DSLR FILM NOOB studio
A few of you were asking about the DSLR FILM NOOB studio, so I thought I’d give you a quick walk through. The studio is currently a disaster area right now. I’ve been in and out on a number of jobs and instead of putting things away I’ve been leaving stuff on the floor and other random places. Not exactly the best organizational strategy. Tomorrow might end up being a cleaning day.
As you probably know I often shoot on the 5d mark III or Canon c100, but those cameras are often buried in a camera bag and packed for travel. For that reason I keep a Canon t2i with a Canon 17-35mm f2.8 lens
around the studio for quick bits of filming for youtube. Underneath of that is a Beachtek DXA-SLR audio adapter with a XLR splitter attached. Audio comes from either a boom mic mounted under the camera or a wireless pack.
For my own reference and framing I have a Smallhd DP4 attached. Magic Lantern provides the audio level meters and a simple Canon RC-1 is used to start/stop recording and focus the shot. This setup does a great job and it’s a reasonably affordable solution for a lot of film making applications. Here’s the price breakdown:
- Canon t2i
– $300
- Canon 17-35mm f2.8 lens
- Beachtek DXA-SLR – $269
- Canon RC-1
- XLR splitter – $9
The whole thing, minus a boom mic and monitor will set you back just under $1000. While that is still a decent chunk of change, it’s about the same price or a little under something like the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera which doesn’t come with anything but a camera body and a battery. While the t2i and BMPCC have a lot of differences, the t2i still stacks up pretty well in the price to value category.
There are many arguments about how much resolution the t2i actually provides, I would say the t2i is a good base line. If the image you get from a camera looks as good or better than a t2i, you’re working in a good spot. People get pretty excited about resolution, for me the first time I shot with a Canon t2i or a 5d mark II, I was impressed. Even though image quality in newer cameras has gotten better, it hasn’t changed my opinion about the Canon t2i. It’s still a great camera for the price.
If you guys like this kind of content, let me know and i’ll start putting out a few more behind the scenes bits like this on the second youtube channel.
March 7th, 2014 at 8:46 pm
400$ – very good price for Canon 17-35mm f2.8 lens. eBay bidder 80 lvl? 🙂
March 7th, 2014 at 10:09 pm
Actually got the Canon 17-35mm f2.8 for $350 with free shipping on ebay. I raised the price to $400 just to give it some swinging room. I get 20 or so e-mail updates from ebay a day on product pricing. If you set it up right, you can swing deals pretty easily.
March 8th, 2014 at 1:12 am
Thanks for a look behind the scenes. Your stuff may be scattered around your studio but it’s probably easier to get to than my stuff which is jammed into a couple of closets and the garage.
March 8th, 2014 at 8:16 am
Yeah, I hate loaning my equipment to friends/family. Ugh, too many broken parts returned and blaming it on ‘cheap’ equipment.
Hand a knob on my manfrotto broke, all the rubber bands on my rode videomic snapped, scratched up lens filters, etc.
Now I just lie about who has what equipment.
“Sorry man, I already let X borrow it for his project.”
March 8th, 2014 at 8:26 am
I charge rental fees, it discourages the more careless people I know from asking to borrow things and anything over $300 is insured.