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Flavours of Arabia
  • Travelling to the arabian peninsula is always a fascinating mix of feelings. You find the huge, futuristic skyscrapers which feel weird and cold, dominating the skyline. But quite amazingly the arabian culture is present everywhere, especially at the various souqs, although most of them are newly built and more than 80% of the people are migrant workers from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. This makes up for a very interesting mix of cultures, giving so many flavours - the Flavours of Arabia!

    With my images and the music fom Amon Tobin, "El Wraith" (licenced from ninjatune.net) I wanted to convey this weird, perplexing but highly fascinating cocktail of feelings visiting Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Doha, Qatar (Souq Waqif).

    Shot on the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, the BMPCC Speedbooster and the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 lens. Some additional shots on a Nikkor 50mm f1.4

    follow me on twitter: twitter.com/gunmac

    Let me know what you think!

  • 2 Replies sorted by
  • Splendid work, as always! It's really worth downloading the original file and watching it offline.

    Can you tell us how you worked? With a tripod and slider, perhaps also shoulder support? Everything using available light? Which shots were made with the Nikkor? Did you apply stabilization and noise filtering in post? Did you use the Ohrwurm stereo mic for recording street audio?

  • Hi cantsin, thanks for your nice comment.

    My gear: - This was all shot handheld (no tripod or slider), but I have a technique where I have my camera bag hanging around my shoulder and I place the cam on the camera bag. This works surprisingly well, as all the microjitter is removed this way. - Sound was captured with a Zoom H2 mounted on the Varavon cage I'm using with the BMPCC, and fed via "mic in" to the BMPCC (not line). Mic setting internally on the BMPCC was at 50%. - I am using a Neway 7" monitor (purchased in the deals section here), mounted on the Varavon cage - Everything available light - On the night shots on the boat I used neatvideo to remove noise - DaVinci Resolve was used for color grading - The Nikkor was only used for the shot of the sheiks (when the second half of the video starts)

    Hope that helps!

    best regards, Gunther