Does the flagship of Canon’s popular Rebel series pass the holiday travel test? I took the Rebel T6S, also known as the 760D to Playa Dorada in the Dominican to shoot some photos and video.
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EOS Rebel T6s DSLR Camera with 18-135mm Lens
Behind the scenes notes:
Canon loaned the T6S with the 18-135 kit lens. Sony loaned an A7S2 with 28-135 cinema lens for the same time period – the scenes where I’m on camera are shot with the A7S2. I was also fortunate to have the loan of a RodeLink Filmmaker wireless set and VideoMic Pro.
We went to Viva Wyndham V Heavens, a recently rebranded all-inclusive on Playa Dorada in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Lovely beach, great staff, marginal food – read more in my tripadvisor review.
I used no additional lighting, but did record these high dynamic range (me in the shade, sunny background) scenes using Slog2 and grade in post. More details to come in my review of the A7S2. I also did the reverse, so the Canon’s footage is used for the A7S2 review.
DSC Labs provided the Chroma Selfie for white balance and colour alignment. I use Manfrotto 190 sticks with 701 head. It’s heavy for travel, but solid and useful when using the Sony 28-135 cinema lens.
I used a Parrot teleprompter with Teleprompt+ 3 running on an iPhone. Yes, everything is scripted, no, I can’t memorize lines. This is a small and fairly easy-to-use solution. Although in the brightest sunlight the screen can be hard to see. And the mirror came away from the shade after we returned home, so it’s back to Parrot for repairs.
Screen captures were recorded on an Atomos Shogun from the Canon’s HDMI out. Voiceovers recorded with a Rode NT USB. Is this a good time to say I’m really pleased with Rode products?
Camera closeups and macro shots taken with Sony A6000 with 35mm macro lens.
After the end of the review of the Filmmaker kit, I purchased one for myself. It replaces my Sennheiser ew100 g2 kit. The difference is remarkable. First, the Filmmaker is the simplest kit ever: plug the mic into the transmitter, connect the receiver to the camera. Turn them on. And the difference in quality is remarkable. Very pleased.
Screen captures are edited, retimed to match voiceovers and generally not representative of actual time.
Images processed in Lightroom CC 2015.3 Images are uploaded to flickr if you’d like to see the EXIF data. Edited using Final Cut 10.2.2 on a 5K 27″ iMac. Output using youtube settings at 1080p.
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