Video

I have recently started to take an interest in shooting video . I was wondering if many others have played with the video function on there Pentax. And what tips they can share

Use an external mic if you have the facility. The internal one on my KX has a habit of picking up the sound of the autofocus motor on the lens.
My new K3 arrives on Tues (YAY!) so will be able to put a mic in that one if it has the same issue.

I know someone who has one of these on his Nikon and it makes a huge difference.

webba, what camera do you have? If you have the facility then taliz above is right - an external stereo mic makes a big difference. On the DSLRs (certainly the K7 / K5 models) the 'on-board' mic is mono only. For me the biggest drawback with this is wind noise- it is sited on top of the camera and so the airflow across the top exaggerates the sound of wind. A hotshoe fitted mic can eliminate this problem if it has a dampening 'sock' over it. I use a Polaroid model, about £40, and it has a function to control whether you hear sound from 180deg radius or 90%deg in front of the camera. The quality of recorded sound is amazing I find. I believe the K3 has improved the siting of its on-board mic which should reduce wind noise.

The disadvantage of the hotshoe fitted mic is it stops you using the flash, a pain if you're mixing shooting video with flash stills, so in those situations I have to limit myself to the camera mic.

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My Guides to the Pentax Digital Camera Flash Lighting System : Download here from the PentaxForums Homepage Article .... link
Pentax K7 with BG-4 Grip / Samyang 14mm f2.8 ED AS IF UMC / DA18-55mm f3.5-5.6 AL WR / SMC A28mm f2.8 / D FA 28-105mm / SMC F35-70 f3.5-4.5 / SMC A50mm f1.7 / Tamron AF70-300mm f4-5.6 Di LD macro / SMC M75-150mm f4.0 / Tamron Adaptall (CT-135) 135mm f2.8 / Asahi Takumar-A 2X tele-converter / Pentax AF-540FGZ (I & II) Flashes / Cactus RF60/X Flashes & V6/V6II Transceiver

Thanks for the mic tips I was on that I have a K5 and a K5-11s and have just bought a Kx from here for the kids to use. my thoughts were for going off camera for my sound and using mobile phones with external mic adapters and a clapper board or using the on-board sound as a guide .

Lens wise I plan to use my manual focus prime lens of which I have 24,28,50 and a 135 I have also JUST bought a couple of fixed aperture zooms as I have found that zooming changes you aperture so makes things very tricky unless you de-click your lens.

I feel that I now have a fairly good video set-up but was still wondering if there were any Pentax specific tips or tricks you guys could pass on

Hi,

Things to watch out for:

Check that the stabilisation is actually mechanical. I believe it is on the K5 series so that should be fine. On the K-30 and MX-1 (?) it appears to be electronic, which works fine up until a point where it frankly gets all jello and nauseating. Very disappointed with that unfortunate decision, and was actually hoping there would be a firmware update that gave the option. Alas Pentax doesn't have a solid hacking tradition, as these are the types of oversites that the public community ends up fixing on other brands...

Things to try:

Video incorporates all the shot aspects of still, plus more. So, get your lighting sorted etc, pick a depth of field that you're after etc and go from there.

Video is way more forgiving of out of focus shots if you have a narrow depth of field shot, it actually gives it some atmosphere if someone is drifting in and out of focus on a head/portrait type shot etc. Pentax's prime lenses come into their own here.

And, you can move the camera whilst filming scenes, so you get into pans and slider rails. I have an old skateboard with a 1/4" bolt through it, which acts as a moving tripod for those very cinematic shots. It's a whole lot of fun trying different things out. Likewise with stabilisers to allow you to track along behind someone. Think outside the box, like mounting a camera in a wheel barrow for that walking and moving camera shot etc.

Editing software comes into it. Technically you can overlay video just like layers in photoshop, so that can open a world of possibilities. Video is just lots of still shots replayed quickly one after another. To do this you'll need something more than a basic editor. To do basic clip trimming and reorganising you can get away with the basic software that comes with the mac/windows etc.

A long way down the line you can look at colour grading also. That's the equivalent of processing within lightroom/OnOne perfect effects etc. By this you can tailor the colour in a shot to convey the feelings you want from it. It is commonly called colour correction, but that suggests there is something wrong that needs fixing...
quick look for a youtube example here

All and all, have some fun. I don't think we can upload videos here, but maybe publish to youtube and we can take a look

From my brief experience, you need to think with a 'video' head on rather than stills. You probably need a tripod and/or rail (skateboard?) as any shake simply looks wrong, you need to watch the audio (wind noise, AF noise, bystander noise etc.). I never got as far as editing - I had nothing worth the effort (due to the above).

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PPG Flickr

A quick test

link

Daniel (all info on youtube)

Very cool, nice depth of field. That illustrates what I meant about it being acceptable to introduce out of focus points at times in video Those manual focus lenses really come into their own for this type of video work, where you want to dynamically control the focus point and method. This would look stupid if the auto focus was zooming in and out and back and forth trying to nail down a focus, of what it thought was the subject etc.

The white balance looks a bit off and that's a good point if you don't have a more advanced video editor. It's going to be quite important to set that right in this case.

Here are a few quick ones of mine for interests sake:

Youtube link 1

Youtube link 2

Thanks Rich, thats a very good point about white balance. I didnt notice at the time :-O

I've found Sony Movie Studio Platinum to be very flexible and powerful in its range of 'image' adjustments such as white balance. They come as a collection of 'FX', actually mini plug-ins, and its possible for third party developers to provide additional 'FX' as well. There's a comprehensive range of included adjustment plug-ins, such as white balance, exposure, contrast and 'colour correction' which allows a 360deg colour wheel adjustment individually for low mids & highs.

The plug-ins can be applied either to individual 'events' (the bits of video clips or photos you're using on the timeline), or to whole tracks, or even to whole project outputs. And the real power comes when you use the keyframe feature to apply control animation to make the effects and adjustments change to adapt to your movie - eg I have one shot moving from the kitchen with bright white lights, to the living room with low tungsten lights - I can make the White Balance adjust smoothly as the camera moves between the two.

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My Guides to the Pentax Digital Camera Flash Lighting System : Download here from the PentaxForums Homepage Article .... link
Pentax K7 with BG-4 Grip / Samyang 14mm f2.8 ED AS IF UMC / DA18-55mm f3.5-5.6 AL WR / SMC A28mm f2.8 / D FA 28-105mm / SMC F35-70 f3.5-4.5 / SMC A50mm f1.7 / Tamron AF70-300mm f4-5.6 Di LD macro / SMC M75-150mm f4.0 / Tamron Adaptall (CT-135) 135mm f2.8 / Asahi Takumar-A 2X tele-converter / Pentax AF-540FGZ (I & II) Flashes / Cactus RF60/X Flashes & V6/V6II Transceiver