A wedding cinematographer’s review of the DJI Ronin-M

In case you haven't been paying attention, there is a total revolution going on in the world of camera stabilization. For five of the past six years, I have used, loved, and traveled with the Glidecam HD-4000 to every wedding I have filmed. Now, with the advent electronic gimbal stabilizers such as the Movi and Ronin, it is looking more and more like the Steadicams and Glidecams of the world are becoming obsolete. Weights, muscles, and basic physics are being replaced by motors, algorithms, and computers. Okay, maybe not the muscles, electronic gimbals are plenty heavy too.

With the release of the DJI Ronin-M, I decided to jump onto the electronic gimbal train and buy one for myself. For the past few months I've been putting it through the paces, filming weddings and testing it in a variety of scenarios. I'm sure you're wondering, does it live up to the hype? Is my Glidecam now gathering dust in the corner? Do I now wish my tripod and monopod were electronic in some way too?

The face I make when using the Ronin-M
The face I make while using my Ronin-M

Like most things in life, the answer to these questions isn't a simple yes or no. In terms of simplicity and ease of use, the Ronin beats my Glidecam handily. But when it comes to setup time and my style of filming, I still prefer the Glidecam. In the review video above, I break down these pros and cons, as well as fully compare the Ronin-M to my Glidecam HD-4000. And like my previous reviews, I keep everything in the context of my experience using it to film weddings.

So if you are a wedding videographer, cinematographer, uncle Bob with a camera in the back of the church, or basically anyone else that wants to learn more about the Ronin-M, I hope this video is helpful to you.

Thanks for watching! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about the review video or the camera. If I don’t know the answer, I will do my best to find it out for you.

How to EASILY color grade Sony A7Sii, FS5, and a6300 footage using Premiere Pro CC

Color grading has always been one of my favorite facets of cinematography. Think about the warm reds and oranges of Mad Max, or the darker hues of The Revenant.  The ability of a colorist to alter the mood and feel of a film through hues and saturation is incredibly powerful. I’ve been wanting to make a color grading tutorial for years, but it wasn’t about a year ago that I felt that I had learned enough to even consider doing that. I knew that the time was right when I finished creating my video about my favorite picture profile for the A7Sii.

That does not mean that this tutorial only applies to wedding films shot with the A7Sii or any other camera for that matter. The philosophy, curves, and color wheels, should apply to any video you are color grading, regardless of its content. You will need a copy of Adobe Premiere Pro CC to follow along with this tutorial. Adobe currently offers a free 30 day trial of Creative Cloud with all their apps, including Premiere Pro.

I do have a couple recommendations before you start color grading. First, I would watch my first video about my favorite A7Sii picture profile. Spoiler Alert: my favorite picture profile is PP8, with the CINE4 Gamut and sgamut3.cine color space. By filming footage with that picture profile, it makes it easier to follow along with this tutorial. Second, I would invest in a good color calibration tool like a Spyder 5 Pro. If your monitor isn’t calibrated you will have no way of knowing if your color grade will look good on all screens, or only yours.

The face that I make when my monitor isn't calibrated properly...
The face that I make when my monitor isn’t calibrated properly…

If you are interested in learning more about color grading, check out the Tao Colorist Newsletter by Patrick Inhofer. Every week, he covers the latest news, tutorials, and technology in the world of color grading. It is incredibly insightful and a joy to read every Sunday. I am also a huge fan of Denver Riddle’s Color Grading Central. He offers training, LUTs, and plugins for aspiring colorists around the world. Now if he would only make some plugins for Premier Pro. 🙂

I hope this tutorial was helpful for you. I’ll be coming out with another tutorial for color grading with LUTs very soon!

Want to watch more? Check out my reviews of the A7Sii and FS5, as well as a tip for how wedding cinematographers and photographers can get along. If you have any questions or comments about this picture profile or anything else relating to wedding cinematography, please get in touch.

My Favorite Picture Profile For the Sony A7Sii and FS5

Three months ago, I started making wedding cinematography training videos to help others film weddings. It took about a week after uploading my first video for me to discover that there is a massive community of wedding cinematographers out there that want to get better at their craft. As I produce more videos in this series, I find that I am asked even more questions in comments and emails. These messages are added to an ever-increasing list of videos that I will be making in the future.

By far though, the most popular question I have received is, “Which picture profile should I use when shooting with my A7Sii?” This is definitely a complicated question due to the sheer depth of the picture profile menu on the A7Sii and FS5, as well as how many differing opinions there are across the many blogs and forums across the Internet. Your train of thought may have been something like mine: “Do I shoot with the new fancy SLOG3? But doesn’t that cause noise in the shadows? What about SLOG2 instead? Isn’t that going to cause an odd green tint in some images? Maybe one of the Cinegammas then? Aren’t those called Hypergammas in the higher end Sony Cameras? Why is everything so different? Am I crazy? Does this even look better?”

The look I make when I think too hard about Sony's picture profiles.
The look I make when I think too hard about Sony’s picture profiles.

I’m excited to say that today I have an answer for you. After extensive testing, and reading throughout the vast corners of the Internet so you don’t have to, I have found an ideal picture profile. Please keep in mind that while this may be my favorite picture profile, it doesn’t have to be yours. You can have a different opinion from me, and that is alright.

I wanted a picture profile that would suit my needs well. It needed wide dynamic range, a flat image for color grading (but not too flat!), and be versatile for the wide variety of shooting locations I typically go through on a wedding day.

Those needs almost immediately cut SLOG2 and SLOG3, with their minimum ISOs of 1600, and their bright exposure requirements, from my list of options for picture profiles. Incidentally, the 8-bit codec of the A7Sii in SLOG3 can also cause banding in the finer color gradients like blue skies etc. I wanted to avoid this as well.

If you don’t feel like watching me ramble in the above video for 6 minutes about picture profiles, here are the settings for my favorite picture profile:

SETTINGS FOR MY FAVORITE PICTURE PROFILE FOR THE SONY A7Sii and FS5

-Reset PP8 to default.
-Change the Gamut from SLOG3 to CINE4.

That’s it! Congratulations, you’re now shooting in my favorite picture profile! Leave all the other settings as they are. Go try it out and see how you like it. I’ll be making another video soon, showing how I color grade this picture profile.

Special thanks for Marien Breithouwer for originally sharing this picture profile.

Want to watch more? Check out my reviews of the A7Sii and FS5, as well as a tip for how wedding cinematographers and photographers can get along. If you have any questions or comments about this picture profile or anything else relating to wedding cinematography, please get in touch.