A recent spell of good weather has brought our gardens and local green spaces to life, so I thought perfect timing to get out and take advantage of Mother Nature.
I visited a local Garden called the Dorothy Clive Gardens, it dates back to the 1940s, now run by a Trust, it’s a fantastic place to visit throughout the year and takes on a different appearance over the four seasons.
My plan was to video and take stills of some of the flowers and trees and also test out some new kit that I had bought for my Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera (BMPCC). I recently invested in a battery pack which powers the BMPCC all day and also a loupe to help as a LCD screen view – very bright conditions can often make the display on any camera difficult to view and if you are shooting manual focus, something like a loupe is invaluable – focus is critical especially on shallow depth of field shots that work particularly well with flowers.
I’ve really enjoyed learning to shoot video and the BMPCC combined with top quality lenses is a superb tool for producing pro quality footage. I took all three Kowa MFT lenses 8.5/12/25mm and my Olympus OMD E-M1 for stills.
I decided to shoot in RAW on the BMPCC as I wanted to really extract as much details as possible to do the gardens justice and by using Black Magic’s colour grading software Davinci Resolve at the editing stage I knew I could balance the video to bring out all the colours, contrast and detail that both the sensor and Kowa MFT lenses help to capture.
It was a great day, although very windy, the sun was bright, producing some atmospheric shadows in the woodland part of the Gardens. After filming the footage and stills, I headed home to edit what I’d captured and added some layers of audio including ambient music, bird song and woodland sounds to try and build the atmosphere of the final video – I’m learning just how important audio is to help portray a ‘story’.
Here is the video created and then below, some stills shot on an Olympus OMD E-M1 and all three Kowa MFT lenses.
The gardens are surrounded by stunning vistas on all sides. Kowa 8.5mm lens and Olympus OMD E-M1
A low view in to the sun through the meadow using the Kowa 8.5mm lens and Olympus OMD E-M1
A change of lens for a more atmospheric view of the meadow. Kowa 25mm f1.8 lens
Creating a shallow depth of field using the Kowa 25mm at f1.8
Beautiful colours on a beautiful day at the Dorothy Clive Gardens. Kowa 12mm f1.8mm lens