Blackmagic Cinema camera. Image stabilisation. Baby sign language. What began as a test of image stabilisation on the Blackmagic Cinema camera with a Canon 100mm f2.8 IS lens, ended as a family document of Audrey talking.
It never occurred to me that the BMCC had to be recording for image stabilisation to work. I didn't ever try recording because it was too shaky to be worth recording ;-)
I only pressed record when I noticed Audrey and Anna were doing a lot of signing. And then the image stabilisation on the lens kicked in. I neglected to turn on the external microphone so there is no sync sound. But since it was sign language, it seemed just as well. Baby sign language is very cool as it means you can read and converse with babies for months while they are too young to make the mouth movements required to talk. They can tell you want they want. It's less frustrating for everyone.
This was shot raw, probably at ISO 800 and f2.8, lit by natural light coming in from the back wall. In Resolve, in the Camera Raw settings, it was switched to "BMD Film" and output to FCPX to edit and finish. I also tried to colour correct in the Rec709 colour space, but I found I was doing a lot of fiddling and getting an image that was nothing like what I wanted. In contrast, I could flip to "BMD Film" and get something very close to my ideal.
IS makes this lens really fantastic on the BMC camera. Steadying shots on it at 100mm is less work than on a nonstabilised 28mm. Without IS, as I said: the images are unusable. I'm glad the camera saves power by only operating IS when it is recording, but it makes it tough to focus before you start shooting. But who' s complaining?
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Music: Hold Me Close by the splendiferous Bella Ruse
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