Capturing Porsche USA Endurance Race with Atomos Shogun and Sony A7s

On a recent project of short 3-5 minute documentaries for Porsche USA Anthony Arendt put his trust in an Atomos Shogun paired with a Sony A7s even when the director made some very specific production requests.

“Our first documentary in the series was to shoot the Porsche Endurance team at the Mobil 1 24 Hour Endurance Race at Sebring International Raceway in Florida. Our brief was to cover the racing team, the races, the fans and everything that goes on there.

During one of the first pre-production calls with the director he made it clear he wanted to be small and fast with a very small footprint and also wanted to shoot 4k for possible big screen opportunities down the line. I suggested the Sony A7s paired with the Atomos Shogun, a very small form factor for a mirrorless camera able to shoot in extremely low light well and that can output 4k externally via the HDMI to an external digital recorder. 

I chose the Atomos Shogun because of its ability to record 4k ProRes HQ files at frames per second which the editors had asked for. It’s also a really light on board reference monitor that I can depend on for color, composition, exposure and focus.

I was concerned that the heat, the humidity at Sebring, which was in the 80’s to 90’s, could have been a problem with the A7s and Shogun. But in the 5 days of shooting I never once had an overheating or humidity problem with either the camera or the Atomos Shogun. It rocked with whole job with no issues.

View video here: http://www.porsche.com/specials/en-us/usa/mission-report/testofmotorsport/