A Short Q&A

Here are some questions people have asked me that I though might be good to post on my website.

Q: What lenses do you use?

A: As for lenses we are using

Canon 24mm 1.4Canon 70-200mm 2.8Canon 16-35mm 2.8Canon 50mm 1.4Canon 24-70 2.8

That is pretty much it. I haven't really used anything other than those four lenses. I would love to try out the expensive cinema prime lenses Zeiss makes...but they are expensive...

Q: What editing software do you use?

A: I use Adobe Premiere to edit all my videos. I use After Effects for special effects. For some features (like optical flow) I occasionally use Final Cut Pro X.

Q: What format and codec do you use to export your videos?

A: I export for YouTube with the following settings.

Frame size: 1920x1080

Frame Rate: 23.976 (This changes odviously because I don't shoot everything in 23.97fps)

Field Order: Progressive

Aspect: Square Pixels

TV Standard: NTSC

Profile: High

Level: 4.0

I make sure "Render at Maximum Depth" is checked

Bitrate Encoding: VBR, 2 pass

Target Bitrate (Mbps): 8 

Maximum Bitrate [Mbps]: 8

I use Adobe media encoder to do all my encoding for Youtube but MPEG Streamclip does a wonderful job as well.

Here is a sreenshot of the average video I upload to YouTube

Q: How do you clean your sensor in your camera?

A: You need to be very careful when cleaning the sensor. You don't want to blow inside your camera (even with compressed air) because it can put moisture on your sensor or sandblast the sensor from the dust in the compartment. Once I had dust on my sensor and I used a straw to suck it out. If it is really bad the best and safest way to clean it is to send it into a professional camera cleaning place.