Choice of stock for beach shoot

[Chris Clarke]

I'm shooting a promo in a few weeks on a beach. I'm looking for as fine a grain stock as possible as I'm shooting on 16mm and the director wants a clean, colourful look.

We'll be using a pola throughout together with a 90deg shutter when shooting at 25fps. There is the possibility of higher frame rates, no more than 150fps, which would be at 180deg.

So I'm looking for a slow/medium speed stock with the potential to lose 4 1/2 stops without going wider than T2.8/4.

I'm considering using an unfiltered tungsten stock (correcting in TK) as their is too much of a gap between the 50D and 250D stocks.

Considering we're shooting in the UK with it's unpredictable weather I may have a roll or 2 of a higher speed up my sleeve on the day.

Any suggestions or experience are very welcome!

Thanks,

Chris

[Sam Care]

Hi Chris,

 

Fuji's new 160T Vivid Eterna stock would be what I would recommend. It's incredibly sharp for a 16mm stock as well as having a lovely contrast, solid blacks and high colour saturation. With it's speed on a sunny day you will get the stop you want with the pola and shutter angle effect. However if it's overcast you may have to sacrifice something unless you can light actors a stop or maybe shoot at f2. If you are going to carry a faster stock with you for safety, the 160T cuts well with all other stocks in the Eterna range including the 400T even though it is slightly lower contrast. I hope this helps.

 

Sam

[Chris Clarke]

Thanks for the suggestion Sam. I've read through some old posts on the Vivid 160T and it sounds like a great 16mm stock. We won't be shooting faster than 75fps now so I think I should be fine with one stock. If it's completely overcast then we can't shoot anyway.

 

On another thread.... What do you think of the pros and cons are of shooting uncorrected tungsten stock in daylight? I know there's the uneven exposure across the red and blue layers but so many DP's I talk to say this is far outweighed with the options available in the TK.

[Chris Keth]

I was going to recommend Kodak's vision 2 50D but with a pola (2 stops), a 90 degree shutter (1 stop), and high speed (2 stops at 100fps) it may be too slow. All of that would put your sunny 16 exposure to an f2.8, less if you like a thick neg. Not unworkable but I tend to like my exteriors at at least a comfy 4. Do the fuji eterna, I think.