[Applause] so recently I posted this photo on my YouTube community and I asked people what camera they thought that I shot it with and out of over 20 comments only two people referenced the night kind interesting so let’s get into it the ask was to shoot a 2 to three
Minute documentary with the Nikon Z8 and it was my goal to prove two maybe three things the first one is that Nikon is super underrated and it’s a really great camera two all of these cameras are just tools so pick the best one that works
For you and three the Nikon Z8 should be a part of the conversation when filmmakers are looking for hybrid cameras I’m sorry I just think that it should but I digress let’s get into the creative so I want wanted to approach this branded video as if I was dping a
Client project so finding a team was the first step and making sure the quality was going to be top tier was super necessary for me I wanted to approach this a little differently than a standard social media real now if you guys have been following me you already
Know that the first thing that I did was to create a treatment on how I wanted to go into shooting this and not just that the client wanted a treatment before they approve of the idea so I already knew the location because I am a peer
Space stalker and I’ll go on there just to find locations and I just saved them for future projects and if you know I’ve talked about using canva and Fram set as my main go-tos when I create my treatments frame set for my inspo photos to give the client a visual reference of
What I want and canva as the base Foundation of where I’m going to actually show that treatment so I went on frame set and I found all the images that I wanted and they described to a T exactly how I wanted to shoot this knowing the location and what it could
Provide of course I did a location scout but I had already knew and saw what was shot at that location and I knew instantly when I saw the images that I could bring this to life with the Nikon Z8 and so they approved of the concept
And it was go time tip one the more work you put into pre-production the better your results will be period like I said before ever since I’ve started doing treatments for a lot of my projects they have came out exactly how I envisioned them in my head because I have all the
References that I need the day of I have every single thing that is available to me that day I’m not forgetting what I talked about I’m not forgetting what I wanted to shoot it is all available for not just me but for the client for the director for the team for everyone to
Continue to look back on to make sure that we’re doing and giving this project justice so with that let’s talk about production so Nikon sent me to Z8 and I had three lenses that I chose one was the 885mm 1.2 nikore Z lens because I decided maybe I might want to get some
Super close shots and play around with that the next one was a 35mm 1.8 nikore Z lens which 35 is just a really great focal length at all times and of course if you go with a tight a medium you got to go with the wide so I decided to go
With the 14 through 24 uh 2.8 I love this lens it’s a ncore lens as well but I love this lens and it gave some really super wide shots I was at the 14 and it was beautiful just centering him in and just diverting everything towards him
Again let’s talk about the leading lines that’s happening with the compositions okay I talked about that on my last video a lot of this video referenced a lot of what I talked about with composition you had all these windows and he was always the center and I really love that for this particular
Project it just did what it was supposed to do okay my camart Bri she’s amazing she’s a DP in LA but she’s like a dope DP a dope cam up a dope dope everything she brought in her Ronin and so I was like able to put my skates on and jam
With him and roll out I am an actual roller skater it wasn’t me just putting on random skates to get these shots I skate every week and so this was really fun being able to you know do something that I love as a hobby and intertwine
That with me as a filmmaker so I put my skates on we got to get some really fun smooth shots of him spinning and me following him and him coming towards me and just really dialing into this smoothness of him being in his own little bubble with her Ronin and it just
Made for great BTS shots I had the Indie filter on the lens which you guys know I always I never had not have a Indie filter on the lens I had a polar Pro um Indie fil variable indd filter on the lens uh just because I wanted to stay
Wide open to have that depth because again we were just downtown and you can see some of the buildings through the window so I just wanted to get as much depth as I could and the indie allow for me to stay wide open with my lens now we
Added Haze as well just to set the atmosphere I feel like on projects like this you kind of have to add Haze you kind of have to set the atmospheric and the haze was amazing it did just that for the the lights we end up using two aperture lights for the interviews it
Was a 600 and a 300 and we just motivated with the light that was coming from the left side of camera and then we had two floppies as negative feel on the right just to add a little contrast that was it everything else was natur natural light everything that you see was pretty
Much all the B- roll was natural light so it didn’t really have lights in hindsight I would have just made sure I had some kind of bounce on his face because of course he was backlit a lot with all the lights around the um loft
But I think I love the aspect of having this silhouette Vibe because the focus isn’t so much just on him but like you know his hobby the roller skating what he loves to do so I definitely would have had a bounce just for safety but other than that everything was it’s
Something that you could do you could take your Nikon Z8 out and go and shoot this exact same thing when it comes to my thoughts on a Nikon Z8 all right y’all know I’m a non-biased person I’ve used pretty much every camera or a lot of cameras throughout my
Film making career and I just getting started but I’ve been doing it for a long time I’ve played with a lot of the brands and what I will say about the Nikon is I think it is a super underrated camera and I’m not just saying that y’all they didn’t have make
This YouTube video they had me make the documentary but they didn’t have me make this YouTube video and I just really think personally all jokes aside that it is a underrated camera and I think it’s unfair because I think YouTube has been a part of that and if it’s a potato it’s
A darn good potato okay like it’s a really good camera it has everything you need like it has waveform y’all know I’m not a histogram girl it has waveform it has like skin softening it has prores raw in the camera 8K in raw which is like their log system or their raw
System like it has what you need 4K 60 all the things that you are looking for in a hybrid camera and not just that it’s a great photo camera I think it’s 42 or 46 megapixels for the photo side it’s a easy switch to go from photo to
Video it is a really really really great camera and the biggest thing for me that I learn with the camera is I’ve always Lov Nikon colors that’s again I feel like they’ve had the best foundation the best neutral colors ever like they don’t color shift at all and the biggest thing
Is yes we’re all going to color but to have a really good foundation to start with with no color shifting is always going to be ideal it’s about having the best workflow and they do and so they have some of the best colors and it was super easy to grade and
The image is so clean I didn’t have to worry about noise and the Shadows my blacks were black with no noise it was beautiful and it’s just such a clean image when you think clinical you think of that like the Nikon Z8 mixed with the nikore lenses is a very clinical look
But I think clinical is amazing for commercial I think clinical is beautiful for commercial and so I just really fell in love with the images that we got and how clean it looked and again no one thought that it was shot on a Nikon so that should let you know it really don’t
Matter this could have been shot on a Ari right like this looks like AR type of cleanliness and that’s the point that is the point the only thing that I did not like about the camera was I’m not a fan of the menu setting I just I like
Clean I like not a lot of stuff happening just give me the important things that I need so trying to scrub through and just get the main specs like the the resolution and the autofocus and you know just all of the the the the waveforms all of those like it was a lot
To get through when it came to the menu setting and the last thing I’ll say that I don’t like is that you do have AK raw but of course and you do have prores but of course you have to make sure that you have a car big enough to handle both and
With AK you get about 12 minutes on a 256 I think and so play around with that prr same so don’t that would be it just make you know you going to have to pay a little extra on the back end to get a card that can handle those resolutions
So yeah now if you got this far leave a skate in the comments below that lets me know that you watch this thing okay and so with that to end this all I just want to say y’all have seen what I’ve shot with multiple cameras and the common
Denominator is my creativeness it does not matter the camera that you use so let’s end the fights on the brand the Nikon Z8 is a really really really good camera that should be in the conversation anybody anytime somebody asks me what’s a good hybrid camera to
Get I’m I’m I’m get I’m asking all the questions to provide the right answer or hopefully the right answer or to just direct them and I think that the Nikon Z8 deserves you know that conversation personally if you do not already have a camera system I would encourage you to
Look into it especially if you’re also into photography because it’s a really great hybrid camera and the workflow is light the workflow is easy most people would just talk about the camera itself you don’t want to be at home focusing so much on post color right like we let’s
Just create and to me it’s about having a really light and really good workflow so let me know your thoughts about the video let me know your thoughts about the documentary let me know your thoughts about Nikon um shout out to them for you know allowing me to play
With this in the way that I show up in the world I am a DP I shoot documentaries so it was kind of me just being able to rest and be comfortable in my skill set and just use the camera that they’ve given me and it was a
Really great challenge because I’m yes I would like to use the Ari yes I would like to use whatever but to be able to say hey I can use this camera we all know from the Creator that it don’t matter the camera and in this case it
Didn’t even matter the lens cuz I just use the nikore lenses that they provide I didn’t have these amazing Cinema glass and it still was a beautiful image so with that let me know if you guys like the documentary I hope you did leave your roller skate in the comments below
Share any comments that you have below as well like this video y’all it really helps me a lot and share this video with your friends who are looking for new camera systems or a new camera or a hybrid camera share this with them so they can see what this camera can do
We’re about to get rid of this whole potato J thing and we about to just give the Nikon de the just the love that they deserve for in this video for sure so thank y’all so much for watching I love you all make sure you subscribed and
I’ll see you in the next video bye
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