I was looking for an easy to use sunshield for the Panasonic GH3. Nothing was on the market yet except for the Zacuto VF, and that required that you hold the camera to your eye.

 I devised something out of black and white foamcore. It is lightweight and slips over the flipped out viewfinder so it can be oriented in a number of directions.

It can be  placed flat in the camera bag for travel.

Pop it together to use. There is velcro on the edges by my thumb.

I held it in place with a rubber band.

I attached the camera to a monopod for almost all of the shooting in Sierra Leone. In come cases if I need to move, I collapsed the monopod and placed the end under my right arm to anchor the camera there and used the strap around my neck for another support point. This left both hands free to support the camera and work the controls.

Some shots from Freetown:
                                    All the children wear uniforms to school.

Motorbikes are used for taxi service up and down the hill where Fourah Bay College is located.

Sierra Leonians are quite adept at balancing loads on their heads. This results in great posture.

Idriss Kpange worked with our crew. This is a shot of him in his recording studio.

We went to Bunce Island on Monday. Tony found a ride on a fellow traveller.

The remains of the slave fort on Bunce Island.

Freetown from the water side.

First day in Sierra Leone. We have to get a few clearances in hand before we can hop out on a street, film in public, etc.
We took a tour of Freetown, including Fourah Bay College, where Marcus Rediker will present a public lecture on the Amistad Rebellion on May 8.
Konrad Tuchscherer and Philip Misevich of St John's University led us to their old academic haunts and the site of the lecture.
All three are pictured below in reverse order outside the Department of History and African Studies, the site of the lecture.

Equipment List for Sierra Leone Amistad Rebellion Project

Here's is a list of gear that I am packing in a Manfrotto Backpack:

Description of Articles:

Lumix GH3 Camera w/Battery Pack (Serial #WE3AA001604)

Lumix 12mm-35mm  HD lens (Serial# XT2KD001752)

Nikkor 24mm f2.8 lens (Serial# 776873) Nikkor 50mm f1.4 lens (Serial# 3802316)

Rainbow Nikon to micro4/3 Lens adaptor

Lumix Battery Charger AC, 1 Panasonic 7.2 v 1860 mah  battery 3 Wasabi 7.2 v 1860 mah batteries

Lacie Rugged  350 gB Hard drive

Manfrotto Compact MKC3 – H01 Tripod (Serial# R0061255) Bogen 3009 tabletop tripod Monopod (unknown brand)

Ceptics Grounded Universal Plug adaptors Universal Surge protector/Power strip

Zoom H4N Audio Recorder (#00123668) AC Adapter (#12805538) and Windscreen

Sony SO-UWPV1/38 UHF wireless lavalier pack: Sony UTX-B2 Transmitter (106876) (FCCID:AK8U&XB2) Sony URX-P2 Pro Wireless Receiver (107357) lavalier microphone w/ screens

2 – MEElectronics In-Ear headphones

HP PC and Power Cord/Mouse (#CNU9445DDH)

Tiffen Lens Filters /Case (Polarizer, ND0.6, CPL, UV)

I would not want to go on a 50 mile forced march with this load, it is approaching heavy as it is.

Tony is packing a similar set of equipment with some different sound gear.
We are going to record sound to Camera A or the main camera, and also get  Boom and or wireless lav sound to a Zoom H4n recorder. I believe the plan is to use
Plural Eyes for syncing.

My friend, Dave Bodnar is lending me the HP small notebook PC. 
He has it set up with a Solid State Hard Drive and Ubuntu (Linux) OS.

We've tested the camera in a variety of settings and decided to shoot 29.97, 50Mbps QuickTime files. The camera will also shoot AVCHD and MP4 files as well as Stills.
The Lumix lens and some of the scene file settings together produce some pretty sharp, almost too sharp looking images. There is a lot of enhancement in the image, so we've decided on a Custom setting (Photo Style) that is -5 Contrast, -5 Sharpness, -2 Chroma and -5 Noise Reduction. 
I am getting used to the focus functions on the camera, some work through the touch screen. I like using the  50mm Nikon lens on a monopod or tripod because is seems a little easier to see the (manual) focus snap into sharpness.

We'll be doing most of the shooting in daylight, I'm told, so DoF should not be an issue. The camera performs pretty well in low light in any event and we will have fast lenses on hand.  

Pre-Production for a Project in Sierra Leone

I'm excited about a project that will start filming in two weeks in Sierra Leone. Headed there with Tony Buba and Jan McMannis of Braddock Films and Marcus Rediker from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Rediker will be presenting his book, The Amistad Rebellion in Freetown at Fourah Bay College and we will travel with other colleagues of from St. John's University to various locations in Sierra Leone that are associated with the African rebels of the Amistad, and the slave trade in the mid 1800s.

Tony and I are going to shoot with two recently purchased Panasonic GH3 cameras. These are micro 4/3 DLSR cameras that shoot 1080p video to QuickTime.mov files @ 50Mbps or higher in 24p, and can also record slo mo speeds. I've shot a short test and met with Glenn Przyborski, guru of everything camera in Pittsburgh and Tony has had Maranda Wodzinski shoot some on street interviews on which he has gotten dual sound with a zoom recorder. We're still working out some details of the scene file settings, etc. in advance of our departure in early May.

The whole idea is to travel fairly light for this project. I have the Panasonic f2.8 12-35mm lens and a few Nikon still lenses (f1.4 50mm and f2.8 28mm) in my kit. Tony has the Panasonic f1.7 20mm and f1.4 25mm primes. We'll be recording to SDHC cards and treating them as negative, with a double backup to portable Hard Drives that we should be able to do at night in the hotel.

The cameras are relatively light with the battery grip and feature a headphone jack to monitor sound, which was crucial for the project. we'll record sound directly to one of the cameras and get separate audio from a boom and wireless to a zoom recorder that we can sync in post. The cameras should be able to record for long stretches w/o shutting down with overheating. Yet to be seen is how they will function in the relative heat in humidity in Sierra Leone in May.