Visual Entity Video Production house is keen on creating best possible imagery on a affordable budget. We choose our equipment to achieve this.
We have always looked for options which are portable with a small form factor, something that is not intimidating for our talents and can be easily carried to palaces we wanted to go.
We really loved cinematic imagery, the shallow depth of field, film grain, beautifully rolled of specular highlight and obviously the dynamic range. We where working on post production and CGI those days and was inspired by such images and there was wanting to create something similar.
We have started our journey with two canon entry level DSLR’s Canon 550D and 600D. Canon revolutionised the industry by introducing video to there DSLR cameras. These cameras had a full frame (35mm sensor) or APSC (close to super 35mm ) sized sensors, booth these sensors are bigger in comparison to the traditional camcorders and thus produced very different film looking images. Canon 5D MarkII revolutionised everything. Creating cinematic, film like images become cheaper and affordable, even movies are shot in these smaller cameras. This allowed lot aspiring film makers (including us) to create quality content without spending a fortune.
These little cameras(55d,600d) were amazing out of the box they were able to shoot full HD videos in 24fps ( 23.976 to be exact) and that is still the standard for most of us. We travelled around with them shot lot of experimental stuff and made our initial videos.
Then something new had come which made these cameras even more powerful. Magic Lantern, this was an unofficial firmware for canon DSLR’s which unlocked even more possibilities. Enabled lot of features which were only available on the higher end cameras, like the intervalometer, proper kelvin scale colour temperature, accurate shutter speed adjustments, sound monitoring, rack focus many such features.
Intervalometer was our favourite. This enabled us to shoot 4k 12bit raw Time-lapse videos. They were amazing we had lot of fun with it. We still use these cameras for time-lapse photography
Here are some of our early time-lapse videos using canon cameras.
We looked for ways for improving image quality, Technicolor cinestyle was one of those experiment, which enabled our cameras to shoot on flat colour profile and capture more dynamic range. This enabled a window to enhance the footage in post production and colour grade it look more cinematic.
Our Current Favourite
Sony A7s
Our Next upgrade was sony A7s. Another revolutionary camera, which took us one step to closer to our goal of producing better images. We were early adopters of this camera. Sony a7 series cameras are our current favourite and we use them on most of our productions. This was a real game changer for us. It has an incredible dynamic range when shot in S-log, a proprietary picture profile from sony. It provides 14 stops of dynamic range. Another major feature is its incredible low light capability (iso performance) this could literally see in the dark.
Key reasons for our choice
Affordable full frame camera with amazing video camera features like peeking, sound recording and monitoring, exposure graphs etc.
Amazing low light sensitivity. Even till now it's the best low light sensitive camera. Shoots on limited budget and time you can almost get away with no lights and still your shots looking well exposed.
Almost no noise even at high ISO.
Very portable and light.
Servicing cheaper.
Incredible dynamic range. When used with log profiles produces really cinematic images.
Beautiful color tones.
No moire or aliasing of any kind.
4K with an external recorder. 1080p at 60FPS.
Here are some videos Shot with sony A7s