Adjusting Viewfinder box to 2,35:1

[Thomas Buelens]

Hi,

 

I'm going to shoot a HD shortfilm but I am still thinking about the ratio.

 

How can I adjust the viewfinder box to 2,35:1?

 

Thanx.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

On which camera?

 

Phil

[Thomas Buelens]

I posted this in the cinealta section. So its for the F900.

 

I hope you can help me

[David Mullen ASC]

The CineAlta has a scope extraction frameline generator in the Marker Menu.

 

You can either set it manually or use the preset "Vista 2" framelines, which basically give you 2.37 : 1 crop lines, close enough to 2.39 : 1. "Vista 1" gets you a 1.89 : 1 frameline. The recording remains 16x9 full-frame though and any downconverted dailies will be letterboxed only to 1.78 : 1.

[Brad Grimmett]

The CineAlta has a scope extraction frameline generator in the Marker Menu.

 

You can either set it manually or use the preset "Vista 2" framelines, which basically give you 2.37 : 1 crop lines, close enough to 2.39 : 1.  "Vista 1" gets you a 1.89 : 1 frameline.  The recording remains 16x9 full-frame though and any downconverted dailies will be letterboxed only to 1.78 : 1.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Does anyone know why they've made the preset framelines in the "Vista" settings just a little bit off? Wouldn't it make more sense to have 1.85:1 and 2.39:1 instead? I know they're "close enough", but why the difference?

[David Mullen ASC]

Does anyone know why they've made the preset framelines in the "Vista" settings just a little bit off? 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You'd have to ask Sony. The F900 Maintenance Manual just says:

VISTA 1 = 16 : 8.469

VISTA 2 = 16 : 6.75

 

To be really precise, you'd probably want a 2.39 : 1 box reduced slightly inside the 16:9 full-frame on all sides to take into account any trimming by the projector gate.

 

But I've done five features in HD composed for cropping to scope and I find that the Vista 2 markings work fine.

 

However, only my last HD feature, I found out that the editor cut the whole movie thinking it was 1.85 since there was no scope letterboxing in the downconversion and somehow the director sitting in the same room for a month never mentioned the aspect ratio to the editor. So now they are recutting the movie slightly (I hope) with the scope extraction in mind.

 

I had asked my camera crew in Texas to shoot a framing chart in prep but it never got done and I forgot to keep on it. But I would have thought the editor noticed all the excessive headroom in many shots...