Sony NEX VG20 & 5N: Real World Test on the set of the Maddthelin Music Video

Some of you who follow this blog may have noticed that I posted some screengrabs from a music video I shot recently as well as some snaps of a camera I haven’t used before.

The music video was for a band called Maddthelin, done for the Astro Music Video Grant’s final episode. The camera, on the other hand, was a Sony NEX VG20 which the good folks at Sony loaned to me for an extended test drive together with a bunch of lenses. I also used a Sony NEX-5N I had recently purchased.

This was also my first time working with Low Angle Productions, a fight choreography team who I’d always wanted to shoot something with.

Unfortunately, I can’t upload the music video itself yet till next month but I’ve cut a little something together (above) showing some of the behind-the-scenes footage Sandie shot of the fight sequences intercut with some of the shots from the music vid (though hopefully not so much that I get a call from the producers of the show telling me to take it down, fingers crossed). However, if you’ve got Astro you should be able to catch the music video and the making-of episode on Astro Hitz (channel 705).

The band was great to work with and the Low Angle guys brought in some incredibly dope choreography. But, as the title suggests, this post is gonna be focusing on the tech side of things. Namely, the cameras.

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Camera and Lighting Tests with the Sony NEX-VG20

Those that are familiar with my filmmaking work have probably noticed by now that I don’t often light a scene, preferring instead to use natural light.

The reasons for this are usually two-fold - shooting with natural light allows me to shoot faster (and for a lot of my passion projects such as my short films and no-budget features, I need to shoot as fast as I can) and I also haven’t, until now, owned any lights.

The thing is, whenever I’m doing corporate jobs I often use lighting and I’ve begun collecting some second-hand lights, whatever decent deals my crew guys manage to find me these days, and thought I’d test them out. I was also lucky enough to get my hands on a Sony NEX-VG20 to test out over the long weekend last week together with a couple of E-mount lenses and some Alpha mount Carl Zeiss lenses with the appropriate adapter to fit them on the camera, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and test both the camera and the lights I recently bought.

For the curious, below is a pic of how I set up the two flourescents that I bought. I used an Ikea desk lamp as a backlight - just took out the bulb that came with it and replaced it with a daylight flourescent lamp with about 120W (equivalent) output.

I’ll post up my thoughts and review of the camera itself at a later date and I’ll update this post with the same footage color treated on Magic Bullets 2. I haven’t slept since yesterday and I should’ve passed out two hours ago but instead decided to blog for a bit. However, I definitely don’t have the energy to write a full review of my thoughts of the camera just yet.

Besides, it’s raining - perfect sleep weather.

I’ve also re-arranged the Hub yet again since the layout above. Because that’s what I do.

Camera remote app {DSLR Camera Remote HD}

This looks handy for us HD DSLR owners…

via stylishipadapps:

A stylish and incredibly cool application for professional and enthusiast photographers.

Enjoy!

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