Can I hook an iphone onto a tripod and steadicam?

H

harmonica44

We are shooting a night scene on the streets, and I have no one to pull focus as the focus puller cancelled.

I am not directing but operating the camera, but since I have no focus puller, while I operate a dolly, tripod, homemade steadicam, etc. I have to shoot at f1.4 and still keep everyone in focus. The ISO is already at 3200 on the streets chosen, and I don't want to raise it anymore. I am also doing sound now and booming during dialogue, but she wants me to pick the camera of best choice and set it, before she starts shooting with it. But she has never used a camera before and has relied on someone else. So I have to choose between a Canon T2i and iphone, and since she has no focus pulling experience under shallow DOF conditions at night, the iphone is best.

But I am having problems keeping the iphone hooked onto a tripod, or steadicam. I can't just tape it on and expect it to stay up. Any ideas on this one, how do other iphone shooters do it in their shorts?

Thanks.
 
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at f/1.4 it will be damn near impossible to keep anything in focus. unless the camera is on a tripod and the subjects aren't moving. on a steadicam, you'll need AT LEAST f/4.0 to come close to keeping moving subjects in focus. ISO 3200 is basically unusable because of the noise you'll encounter on either an iphone or a t2i. my suggestion would be to shoot the same locations as planned, but do it right after sunset at dusk, then color grade the footage to look darker in post processing. this is called "day for night" shooting and is very effective when done correctly. this way, you'll be able to get a higher fstop and increase DOF, AND you can pull the ISO down to a reasonable level (about 1250 is the highest I will EVER go on my t2i, and even that is severely pushing it) hope this helps!
 
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Okay thanks. I can try to talk her into doing day for night. She doesn't think it looks as effective though, for suspense, since it's a horror, but I will tell her. However, I have no idea how to do day for night, so I don't want her to blame me if she cannot do it in post or if something goes wrong in shooting. Thanks for the tip though, I will tell her. How come 1.4 lenses are becoming so popular in the indie world if 1.4 is unusable? Why not just by an f2.8 lens, but a lot of filmmakers still spend the extra money on 1.4. Why is that?

Oh here's some tests I did with the T2i at the location, under different color settings at night. Is 3200 ISO really that bad in the well lit areas?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_D8vD88k2A
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. I can try to talk her into doing day for night. She doesn't think it looks as effective though, for suspense, since it's a horror, but I will tell her. However, I have no idea how to do day for night, so I don't want her to blame me if she cannot do it in post or if something goes wrong in shooting. Thanks for the tip though, I will tell her. How come 1.4 lenses are becoming so popular in the indie world if 1.4 is unusable? Why not just by an f2.8 lens, but a lot of filmmakers still spend the extra money on 1.4. Why is that?

Oh here's some tests I did with the T2i at the location, under different color settings at night. Is 3200 ISO really that bad in the well lit areas?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_D8vD88k2A
Click to expand...

How to do Day For Night


Day for night shooting is used constantly, specifically for horror films. It's generally the only way to simulate shooting at night without a huge budget for lights, reflectors, etc.

in addition to this article, a little googling will help you figure out the basic issues with day for night.
day for night is absolutely going to be easier because it will give you more freedom to use different apertures, ISO levels and overall image control in post (it's extremely easy to darken footage in most software, while trying to brighten footage in post processing, especially when the ISO is that high, is extremely difficult without losing image quality/introducing even more noise). also do a google search about good ISO levels for low light shooting...pretty much any info you see will tell you that above 1600 will look amateurish and will degrade the image quality severely.


p.s. you can also shoot some of it using day for night, and then shoot the other parts of it at night that need that "authentic nighttime" look.
 
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Okay thanks, but I have tried mixing before real night, with day for night, but could never get a match in post and it would always look different.

As far as the footage looking amatuerish, documentary style thriller movies like Zero Dark Thirty has lots of noise during the night scenes, specifically the big raid at the end, so how does that movie make it look professional, as oppose to amateurish? It just seems like after that movie, that artistically, it can work maybe. But if not I think it's best to do all day for night, as I cannot match it if it's mixed.

I convinced her to do day for night though.
 
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If you feel that shaky about the day for night thing, don't do it. If you're going for that blair witch/cloverfield look, some noise is probably okay. I thought you were trying to do something more cinematic along the lines of a 3rd person narrative, not a 1st person handheld run and gun. doing day for night will also limit the amount of time you can shoot to about two hours at dusk, then it will be too dark. not sure how to solve your problem here. i guess just go with the settings you used in the sample footage you linked in your post above.


also, do you have a follow focus? shoulder rig? how to you plan on pulling focus?
 
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You can stop down an f/1.4 lens to whatever you want. I tend to shoot around 2.0 or 2.8 unless I really need the extra stop of light.
Stopping down a lens generally makes it perform a little better - so an f/1.4 lens stopped down to 2.8 will perform a little better, and be a tad sharper than an equivalent lens where f/2.8 is wide open.

In terms of Steadicam, there are specific steaficams designed for use with iphone. Check out the Steadicam Smoothee
 
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WhiteOpus said:
If you feel that shaky about the day for night thing, don't do it. If you're going for that blair witch/cloverfield look, some noise is probably okay. I thought you were trying to do something more cinematic along the lines of a 3rd person narrative, not a 1st person handheld run and gun. doing day for night will also limit the amount of time you can shoot to about two hours at dusk, then it will be too dark. not sure how to solve your problem here. i guess just go with the settings you used in the sample footage you linked in your post above.


also, do you have a follow focus? shoulder rig? how to you plan on pulling focus?
Click to expand...

I don't plan on pulling focus. I was just brought on to do sound, and was willing to lend my T2i, to be nice, since the camera operator dropped out.

I do not have a follow focus. I just have a homemade steadicam and a tripod. I probably will not be recording dialogue during the shots that call for the steadicam since it's a chase scene. But I made it clear to the director, that I cannot pull focus, and will have to shoot at f4 or deeper. I also told her I have never done day for night before, and have no idea how to shoot for that. She wants to shoot at dusk though, cause the actors are working for free and will not want to stay out too late. So it's a very limited shoot time, and I shoot in two days, so we have time to order extra equipment. I also cannot shoot at night like how I did in the video cause the video was shot at f1.4 just to get it that bright, and I need to open up more if the director is going to operate the camera while I do sound. Neither of us can pull focus while open at a sensitive f-stop.

If the iphone is better for not having to pull focus, I could use that, but there are no manual exposure settings, and the ISO raises and lowers automatically, and you can see it in the camera. It looks amateurish, so a DSLR is probably better. Since I will be mostly doing sound and boom operating, I will advice her to shoot at dusk at a deeper DOF like f4 or above though.

Come to think of it, it will take too long for me to have to switch between sound equipment and video gear, if I am to keep being the cameraman and the soundman simultaneously. It's probably be best we just shoot it at dusk and I give her a deeper DOF to work with, like f11 or f8. I am uncomfortable telling her to go for day for night since I have never tried it, but I am more uncomfortable shooting at night at f1.4 at 3200 ISO, or f2.8, at 6400 around instead.
 
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it's gonna have to be the middle of the day if you wanna shoot at f/8. Around f/4 would be the best option you probably have in my opinion, because you still have a small amount of play room with the focus but it won't be so dark that it blocks out the light.Honestly if you have a lantern or a couple flashlights you can make a DIY soft box with a white sheet and a cardboard box so you have some control over the light, filling it where necessary. I did a film recently in which I simulated candlelight using a single floodlight and shaking two orange binder dividers in front of the light. The scene was actually a lot brighter than what you see in the final product and this is because I graded it in post to have that look. I would suggest doing as many tests as possible until the day of the shoot, so you don't have to fiddle around with settings to get it looking right. The benefit of doing test shoots prior to the actual shoot is you can take the footage and see it on a larger screen (i.e. a computer) in order to see what's in focus, how noisy it is, whether the light is sufficient, etc.
 
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To shoot steady with an iPhone:
http://www.cinevate.com/store2/morpheus-stabilizer.html

This is thread number 152257855334 asking you about shooting at night.
Everytime looking for a new solution for the same problem: shooting at night forces you to use a shallow DOF.
Just wait a moment till the new Sony A7 is available and rent it: the iso on that camera can be set to extreme high values.

I'm not sure, but to me it seems an iPhone will drag the shutter when it's dark, causing fuzzy lightscribing and too much motion blur.
 
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Yeah that's what I thought too. Well we are shooting tomorrow, and managed to do a couple of tests at the location. There are scenes she wants shot in the trees with no lights and that will have to be done at dusk anyway. I can't do it in the middle of the day, since the actors are all coming at dusk. I am just doing sound though. She is the one using the camera. So I will set it for her as best I can and she can use it. Well I wouldn't go under f5.6 for shooting at dusk, but I can get f8, if I raise the ISO to 400 or 800.

I played back the footage on a regular TV. As far as the parts of the location that are interior and will have to be underexposed (since they are not using proper lights), the noise is not that bad. It's there but it looks good as long as you accept it as a documentary style look like Zero Dark Thirty style or something like that.

There are some parts of the location where it will be underexposed and I will just raise the ISO higher and hope for the best. But since the DP dropping out was this week, I didn't have time to do much testing, since I was just shown the location yesterday. I thought the iphone might be better but the big problem I noticed is that it adjust it's exposure automatically, especially in moving shots. What is fuzzy lightscribing?
 
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