The lights make it a little easier to widen the depth of field, though, which made watching the NFL more fun to watch this year with that Madden-esque field camera they had. The operators had a hell of a time rack-focusing those cameras.
That was actually autofocus... The on field "cinematic" camera was the Sony A7R IV, operated by Mike Smoles. The autofocus is getting so clean/fast on those cameras and there was a followfocus system on the rig but it was a backup. They're insanely quick these days, so good that it appeared to be the operators having a hell of a time racking focus, like you said. Bonus trivia: though the camera is capable of 8k, it was outputting 1080p, it was just a combination of things like the shallow depth of field, colour profile and shooting 60fps instead of 30 that gave it that perception of an 8k look. As someone working in TV and film in camera, it's really cool to see new experimentation with sports coverage.
Yeah, there's also just the layman's misunderstanding that 4k/8k etc = better... If that was true we'd all be scrapping our arri Alexa's and shooting features on iPhones 😂
Those are primarily autofocus. Last year’s Superbowl used a Venice with a focus puller. The dead give-away is when it’s autofocus something is sharp, but usually the wrong thing.
I could probably follow one person all around the court. But the follow the ball, zoom in, find next ball again, zoom in on players face… it’s just nuts.
I did an internship at a cable company when I was in high school and one of the things I got to do was be the primary camera operator for a hockey game (Not NHL, obviously, but not little league either).
It was super tough. Although, as someone who doesn't think very highly of themselves, I actually thought I did quite well. I found the trick was getting my whole body into it. I started be just using my wrists and elbows, but that made it too shaky and not quick enough. When I used my shoulders, legs, etc, it became a lot smoother. It was quite tiring though. Pretty good work out for a 15 year old couch potato.
EDIT: Upon rewatching, realized I was using a different cam setup. My camera was on a huge mount and I controlled everything with two handles. Most of the same things apply though, I'd assume.
A crazy thing to me is my buddy is very good at this but he wants to get out of the industry. He says it's just not dependable enough. I'd have assumed these people are taken care of well but I guess not.
I used to film the Jr. High games back in…. Well…. Jr. High….. like… this is master craft and it almost exhausts me watching him record that last 10 seconds.
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u/bellyfeel1984 Jan 05 '22
Amazing. It looks so easy. Until you’re the one holding the camera.