Canon 7D Set Notes.

by jared1November 8^th, 2009

The DOP Mariana Sanchez de Antunano and me on set. Photo by: Jack Zeiman

I have been shooting with the 7D for the past week for a web series. We have three 7D’s on set. The Marshall 7″ on board monitor has been our best friend. We are running the HDMI into an amplified HDMI splitter box feeding the Director’s monitor. It has had some screwy effects on the camera.

I think it is the amplified splitter. The first day all the batteries showed up dead on the camera. I had personally charged two batteries the day before and knew they were hot. The HDMI was messing with the camera. To fix the problem we unplugged everything from the camera, powered up and then plugged the monitor back into the camera. Viola, fixed.

Follow focus has been a bitch for my assistants, they are doing a great job. John, Nirant, and Karl, You Rock! The two inch throw on the canon zooms is not enough.We are using two Arri FF four’s and a Arri MFF one DSLR follow focus. We have some geared zeiss primes and canon zooms 17-35mm, 24-70mm, and two 70-200’s. The primes are so much crisper than the zooms it is a shame to not use them exclusively.

Everything is so small and light. We can place cameras wherever we want with very little effort. Gaff Tape anyone? Velcro even! Camera moves with one hand. It is so amazing to shoot with this camera and it’s components after using 35mm packages. My back is happy again. The term Wild West keeps coming up in conversations and we truly are at a crossroads of cinema. HD DSLR’s are the future of film making. (Anyone with a stupid Letus adapter will attest.) All we want is to be able to control DOF to benefit the story. Finally we have a tool for that.