A Tall Ship Called The BAP Union

The BAP Union was in Vancouver for a visit and I was going to take a free tour of the entire ship but the lineup was too long. The BAP Union is a very cool ship. There’s just something about these tall sailboats with the huge riggings and all the sails that captures the imagination. The crowds lined up to see the ship were quite large. That’s fascinating. A tall ship would make a great story for a video if you could get a a private tour and an interview with at least one of the crew members, preferably the captain. But that would require a KZbinr with clout.
The BAP Union was from Peru and it was sailing up the west coast of North America, visiting cities along the way. It was in Vancouver for two days and you could take a free tour of the ship if you wanted to stand in line. From here it was sailing to Hawaii.
I never got a shot of the sailboat leaving or entering the harbour with it’s sails up. It has 34 sails and it would have been very cool to see them all, but a shot like this requires a lot of effort because you really should have a speed boat to get the best angle and light. However, the link below will take you to a great channel with some primo sails-up footage. It was shot in April when the BAP Union was in San Francisco.
-Links:
• Video
-Gear: I shot with the Google Pixel 3 and the iPhone XS. Both cameras are okay if the story is there, but from a technical POV the Google Pixel 3 is better overall. The selfie camera is much better, for sure. And the photos from the Pixel 3 are still the best in the business.
-The biggest takeaway was that for a video camera…you need as big of a screen as possible. 5 inches diagonal is the minimum and 7 would be better. It was a partly cloudy hazy day and this was made worse by the highly reflective water nearby…and this created lots of glare on the screen. It was very hard to judge exposure and color properly.
-Both cameras have very little White Balance control so you have to hope for the best and then try to fix color in post as best you can.
-The exposure problem is a much bigger issue because the shadows look really dark but in post they aren’t dark at all. This was a bigger problem on the Pixel 3. At 100% screen brightness the screen isn’t accurate in bright light. To create a good image in post I have to expose the image so it looks very dark on the smart phone screen, but it’s so dark that I often can’t see anything on the screen. In low light the Pixel 3 is very accurate. I understand the new budget priced Pixel 3A has a low quality less bright screen. If true, that’s not good for filmmaking. The iPhone XS screen is much more accurate in bright light. It has an excellent screen.
-Location: Burrard Dry Dock, North Vancouver, BC. I also walked around North Van a little where I saw the car and the tunnel. Then shot a couple pics on the Ferry and the Ferry Terminal. May 13, 2019.
#tallship