This is a video clip I directed just before departing for Africa, it has recently been released so I can share it with you. It was shot in club Prime in Amsterdam on the HPX300 and PS Technik MiniC combo. Operated by Gregg Telussa, he did a great job as usual! Language is Dutch but please tell me how you like the image!

Check out the gallery for some workshots!

After two months in Africa I am back home! Obviously it’s weird and I have to find my way again, the last weeks of our production I have been very tired and didn’t get around to posting anything. So I owe you guys some nice aerial shots I think! Shot in Kigali, Rwanda and Lilongwe, Malawi both in a helicopter and a plane.

One of the first children helped by the halfway home in Entesekera is currently making  a living by weaving clothes. A nice setting with some beautiful natural lighting.

After a seven day communication blackout in Maasai country, a chartered flight to Nairobi, a 9 our drive to Maua, Kenya and back I am online! It was actually very nice not to communicate for a while, if we needed something from from a Maasai settlement we would send someone an receive word four ours later, a very impressive culture. One that still lives as they did thousands of years ago as gatherers herding cows an goats. No electricity, telephones or internet. You can imagine I have built quite a backlog of videos waiting to be posted… The project we were visiting was funded by the Liliane Foundation. Traditionally the Maasai have a very bad image of the physically and mentally disabled, it is seen as a course, a punishment from the gods and people are often hidden and starved to death. The Liliane Foundation is funding a halfway home for the disabled in Entekerera. The main objectives are to provide a home, education and create awareness in the Maasai community, and so bettering the situation of the disabled in the Maasai comunity. Part of the halfway home is a school were I shot the video above. Below is a sunset shot in this beautiful part of Kenya.

Yesterday we departed from Bukoba at 8:00 we knew it would be a long trip, from Bukoba, Tanzania to Kigali, Rwanda by car. We heard different travel time estimates, ranging from 5 hours to 12. Last night we pulled in at 8:30 pm so the latter was true… It was a journey with risks, we learned that the boarder region between Tanzania and Rwanda was not the safest. Armed bandits were common so we arranged for an armed escort. Two armed police officers would accompany us during our trip. The road was pretty good for African standards, we enjoyed what they call an “African massage” in our 4×4 van. Crossing the border post proofed to be easier than anticipated. This morning I woke up in a hotel in Kigali without a scratch, the first good night sleep in 3 days. This video shows a short excerpt of our trip.

We recently visited a small local village on the coastline of Lake Victoria, Tanzania. The community was receiving post natal care from a local hospital we here visiting. A part of the performance based financing program initiated by Cordaid, click here for more information. These are some of the mothers faces.

Just a quick edit of some early footage, the morning ritual of an African woman washing her son with water form a domestic water reservoir. Made available through Dutch development aid.

I know what your thinking; why not use a wide angle converter? There are a couple of good options available. 16×9 has the EXII one and Century Optics has the .8x LC. Good options if you are on a budget. For me the biggest draw back is the risk of dust between the lenses. Also take into account the added weight and length. Another drawback is optical quality; the cheap stock lens plus a 3rd party adapter equals distortion and artifacts. So the best option is a proper wide angle lens; the Th13x3.5BRMU a 13×3.5mm lens with a 0.4 meter MOD. Here is a comparison of the three options.

So what do I think about the Th13x3.5BRMU build quality? My first impressions where long and heavy. The handle is made of die cast aluminum  and feels very strong. There is a servo switch for manual and servo, a return button and a aperture switch for auto, manual and push auto. The macro locking is the same as the stock lens, a bit flimsy. The same goes for the aperture ring but the focus feels very smooth in a slow kind of way if you know what I mean.

The lens really stands out in the most importand field: optics. One caveat; no CAC, Panasonic makes several cameras with CAC (Chromatic Aberration Correction) but both camera and lens need to support this feature. So no dice for this wide angle. CAC is worthwhile with these cheaper HD lenses, check out a full list of CAC compatible lenses here.  Thankfully the quality of the wide angle is very good compared to the stock lens even without CAC. You can see the difference  in the videos below, click fullscreen for HD.

I like the fact that there is almost no breathing, however I do find the red and greens in the soft focus disturbing. This issue could be solved if Panasonic created a CAC file for this lens.

Against a non white background using macro there is no chromatic aberration and I like the bokeh.

Breathing on the Th13x3.5BRMU is minimal, a big plus over the Th17x5BRM.

Below are some image quality comparison shots between lenses. Be sure to click on each image for a full size HD image.

A comparison at 100%

150% note the black levels on the Th13x3.5BRMU

200% chromatic aberration is noticeably less on the Th13x3.5BRMU

Conclusion

In terms of image quality I really like the lens, I feels it renders blacks very crisp and the detail level just feels higher. I did notice a change in color temperature between the two lenses, the Th13x3.5BRMU being a bit warmer. The camera becomes heavier with the Th13x3.5BRMU but it’s still very easy to handle. The balance stays in tact depending on your battery weight.

The lens is very hard to get since Fuijnon has stopped producing the lens and will only have a new batch available per March 2010 so try to find one on Ebay, the street price for a new Th13x3.5BRMU is around 6000 US.

The project is a two month shooting period in east Africa, during this time we will be visiting five countries; Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Malawi. We will be making 13 episodes for Dutch television about Dutch traders, aid workers and foundations in these countries fulfilling an important economic and social role. Each broadcast we will portrait one of these businesses through the eyes of our reporter Leon van der Zanden. It is a road movie where the crew plays a major role during this trip. The program is made possible to date by COS Brabant, Cordaid, Liliane Fund and Mundial Productions.

My responsibilities are twofold,  I am the director and cameraman, so I am preparing on a contextual and technical level. Since this is blog is mainly about production gear  I will give you a rundown on what we are packing and how we plan to use it. It’s quite a challenge to be packing a very minimal kit since we will be doing a lot of travel.

At first i was planning to shoot on the P+S Technik mini35c but after giving it some thought I figured it would be the wrong tool for the job, it’s fragile compared to a broadcast lens and it would be a lot of work pulling focus myself on the run and gun style job. So I was stuck with the kit lens provided with the HPX300. A Th17x5BRM made by Fujinon, an ok lens but it won’t win you any prizes… The main problem with this lens is the angle and MOD being 5mm and 0.9 metres. So shooting in a car is no option.  I decided to by  a Th13x3.5BRMU, this lens has an angle of 3.5mm and the MOD is 0.4 metres. This seems like the proper lens for the job more in this post.

Having a good P2 workflow is crucial, so I have done a lot of research in this area and came up with the following workflow. We will be shooting on 4 32GB P2 cards, providing us with 2 days worth of shooting. These cards will be backed up on two G-tech mini drives via a Macbook Pro running Shotput Pro. After both disk are full one will stay with the production team and the other will be sent to the broadcaster in The Netherlands.  After some calculating and guesswork I decided to bring a whopping 10 500GB drives with me.

Here is a list of gear that I will be hauling around Africa for two months;

If you have any suggestions about this kit or the workflow please feel free to let me know.

Ok so a lot of people have been asking for some test footage from our new camera. They were right there should be more, so here it is:

Clip 1, Slow motion: uncomp - web

Clip 2, Person in street 3 lenses: uncomp - web

Clip 3, Ninja in street different shutter speeds: uncomp - web

The footage is 720p uncompressed or H264.

Have a look at the bokeh, grain and other stuff that catches your eye and let me know what you think.