Radiant Nature

[MarkBarbieri]

Over the holidays, my wife and I took the family to something called Radiant Nature down in Houston. It's hard to describe. It's sort of a light show, but more with lit up stuff rather than traditional Christmas lights. They have it annually at the Houston Botanic Gardens.

I recorded with my DJI Osmo Pocket 3. It's a small handheld video camera with the camera mounted on a gimbal. It has a 1" sensor, which is larger than normal for this size of camera. That gave it reasonable low light performance. I shot in the camera's "log" format. Many video cameras have that as an option. Your video will look really dull right out of the camera, but it gives you more latitude to adjust your exposure in post production. I also set the camera to underexpose by 1/3 stop to avoid blowing out the lights.

Even with the gimbal, I'm still struggling with my camera movements. Moving your camera helps give a sense of dimensionality. When you move the camera while recording, things near the camera move more quickly across the screen compared to things further in the background. This is the effect Walt Disney was after when he invented the multiplane camera. My gimbal effectively eliminates camera shake, but it doesn't make it any easier to make smooth camera movements. That requires moving at a steady speed in a relatively straight line. I find that difficult.

 

[klmall]

Over the holidays, my wife and I took the family to something called Radiant Nature down in Houston. It's hard to describe. It's sort of a light show, but more with lit up stuff rather than traditional Christmas lights. They have it annually at the Houston Botanic Gardens.

I recorded with my DJI Osmo Pocket 3. It's a small handheld video camera with the camera mounted on a gimbal. It has a 1" sensor, which is larger than normal for this size of camera. That gave it reasonable low light performance. I shot in the camera's "log" format. Many video cameras have that as an option. Your video will look really dull right out of the camera, but it gives you more latitude to adjust your exposure in post production. I also set the camera to underexpose by 1/3 stop to avoid blowing out the lights.

Even with the gimbal, I'm still struggling with my camera movements. Moving your camera helps give a sense of dimensionality. When you move the camera while recording, things near the camera move more quickly across the screen compared to things further in the background. This is the effect Walt Disney was after when he invented the multiplane camera. My gimbal effectively eliminates camera shake, but it doesn't make it any easier to make smooth camera movements. That requires moving at a steady speed in a relatively straight line. I find that difficult.

Beautiful display and filming!