Best lens and setting for recording video

[da...@victoryfamily.com]

I just recently purchased a Canon 7D and will be using it to shoot some video as well as take pictures. What is the best lens for video recording and what are the best settings for the best results when shooting video?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Gmail (ntbone2)]

This is a BIG question that cannot be summed up in an email. I will try to give you a bit of information to get started though.

 

First, how and what will you be shooting?  This will make a difference on choices of lenses.  Also you need to decide if some day you are going to be upgrading to full frame or not.

 

Lenses

 

There is a 18 to 55 F2.8 with IS that is nice for crop but will not work on a 5D MK II/III

There’s the 24 to 105 F4 and 24-70 F2.8  The F4 version has IS but the 24-70 does not.  24 mm is not very wide on a 7D. 

There is also an 18 to 85 for the 7D.  It would give you nice zoom range. I do not know if that lens has IS.  It doesn’t go very low on the F-stop.

 

Using a stabilizer (like Steadicam) the following video shows the 24-70 vs the 24-105 and what image stablization can buy you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJZskHKW9mU

 

Best Settings

 

I have been shooting a lot of video with DSLR’s and I tried the Technicolor Cinestyle picture style which gives a very flat profile. It took too much editing and introduced too much noise. I have had much better success with the following

 

http://prolost.com/flat

 

Some other things you need to be aware of.  You should try to always shoot at shutter speed that is about 2x the frame rate.  If you are shooting at 30 FPS then you need 1/60th of a second shutter speed. If you shoot at 24FPS then you need 1/48th (or close to it) shutter speed.    If you shoot at faster shutter speeds you will get that Saving Private Ryan, Zombie like effect. Great for some action shots.  If you shoot slower, you will get more blurr then you want. The camera won’t let you go lower the the frame rate.

 

Use manual mode. It’s the only mode that gives you good control over things so exposure won’t change. This can make it hard if you need auto exposure.

 

Almost always use manual white balance. Especially if you shoot with more then one camera.  You do not want the white balance constantly changing during the shot. It makes editing the video later much harder if the colors change drastically.

 

Some other Notes

 

The best thing to be said about the built in microphone is that it records sound. It doesn’t do it very well at all. At the very least getting an external mic is a good suggestion. What to pick here depends on what you are capturing. If you are capturing a live music event then a nice XY mic is good (or an audio recorder). If it is more people talking, like interviews, then a good shot gun mic is good.   Do not underestimate the importance of good audio. People are more forgiving of poor picture quality then poor audio.

 

There are a lot of things to learn out there regarding shooting video. I have only touched the tip of the iceburg here. There are plenty of resources on the web.

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[da...@victoryfamily.com]

That's some great info to get started with. I appreciate it. Any info like it will really help. I'm fairly new at this, but I really enjoy it so I want to get the best results I can.

[Gmail (ntbone2)]

I would also recommend looking into a good editor.  A less known, but very powerful video editor that I use exclusively for all my footage is called EDIUS.  I picked EDIUS for several reasons

 

1. It was relatively easy to use.

2. It supported multiple monitors. I use 4 when I am editing. Two monitors have all the controls and windows for editing, and 2 are used exclusively for video output.

3. It supports reading the Canon video files with amazing speed with out the need to transcode.

 

This article is a bit dated but aside from possibly Adobe Premiere, I do not think any of the competing applications have improved much.

 

http://tbone-tech.blogspot.com/2011/01/nle-video-editor-seeking-performance.html

 

I can work with up to 4 video feeds at once viewing them all with effects using the mutli-cam feature and no transcoding.  To get this kind of performance with most other applications, you need to transcode. Transcoding takes time and space and possible quality loss.  If you are just getting into it, consider the lower end versions of EDIUS.  If you eventually go into multiple cameras, then the pro is the way to go.