George White

I reported this (Aaton XTR) auction and another similar one to eBay last week. They took down the other aaton but not this one. What they had in common was they were each based, word-for-word and picture-for-picture, on items listed on a used equipment site called Kitmondo. The aution in question seems to be based on http://www.kitmondo.com/ViewListing.aspx?l...dName=AATON_XTR which is listed as being in Germany. The actual seller wants 8,000 Euros. ---george

Tommy I have a only a moderate amount of cinematograhy knowlege but one thing I do know is that you are unlikley to get useful responses to your post. If it were in the Frst Time Flimmaker section rather than the General section it would be slightly more imaginable. Even there, someone is much more likely to get a response to a particular question rather than "tell me everything". However, if you don't have that specific of a question right now, a new person who says "I have read the FAQs, perused the archives, read xyz book and am thinking of starting a project involving abc issues and constraints" and then asks for fairly general help has at least outlined where their starting point is and the context in which they are looking for help. Hope this advice on asking for advice is helpful.

Make a great movie and make sure you get all the rights and authorizations needed from your actors, collaborators and particulary music rights. You might look at: "$30 Film School: How to write, direct, produce, shoot, edit, distribute, tour with, and sell your own no-budget DIGITAL movie"

Not much in the way of data points, but one sold 4 days ago on eBay for $152. Seller is in the Netherlands, camera as-is with one known problem. Another from Canda sold for about $650. Also saw one that went in the high 200's near the end of April. To find them you need to search under "Completed listings" and try variations on the spacing and hyphens in the model number or search "canon super 8" and weed thru a couple of pages. --george

A quick google search shows it being used on Scrubs - if that is any help. ---george

I've never heard of an "animorphic" lens. An anamorphic lens does squeeze the image horizontally to fit more in horizontally. Sorry, I don't know anything about the specific lens you asked about. ---george

I was looking at GSMO on eBay a couple of weeks ago and researched this somewhat. A google search quickly turned up someone (on another cinematography board answering that same question in 2005 by saying a Culver City repair poutfit has developed a new board that goes in place of a bad circuit board. I do not know anything about it personally but you might want to do a google search on GSMO circuit board. ---george

I think its more (and and also less) complicated than that. There is a huge amount of information about depth of field on the net. I found this article http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/dof.html that specifically addresses it for various size video sensors. I'm sure with a little digging you can find a better site and all the information on the topic you'd like. ---george

I have "Sound for Digital Video" by Tomlinson Holman and found it remarkable in its depth and breath of information on the topic -- technical specs on various microphone elements, issues of capturing clean production sound, sound "perspective" etc. It may not be as cook-book as you are looking for and is written assuming the audio will be single system recorded. He also has a book called "Sound for Film and Television" which might be better for your needs but I haven't personally seen it and it is a little older. Tomlinson is an impressive guy (the inventor of Lucasfilm's THX). ---george

I have "Sound for Digital Video" by Tomlinson Holman and found it remarkable in its depth and breath of information on the topic -- technical specs on various microphone elements, issues of capturing clean production sound, sound "perspective" etc. It may not be as cook-book as you are looking for and is written assuming the audio will be single system recorded. He also has a book called "Sound for Film and Television" which might be better for your needs but I haven't personally seen it and it is a little older. Tomlinson is an impressive guy (the inventor of Lucasfilm's THX). ---george

There was an article in the LA Times over the weekend about the "making of" which said that film was used for about 2% of the footage primarily for some slow motion shots because the Genesis couldn't go fast enough. Also talked about Mel Gibson teaching the cast how to run in slow motion, how cheap the extras were, etc.

I do not see a paticular rational for running that case, but there is an argument for increasing the 1/3" format by a factor of 2 (making it about 1/2 of the 35mm coc rather than 1/4). The rational would be that material shot in that format was likely intended to be viewed on a TV at home rather than the theatrical experience the 35mm was aimed at. The intended viewer's angle of view is a factor in coc. A bigger image (to the viewer) has to be better focused to be in-focus than a smaller image. If the total angle of view of typical home viewing was about 1/2 that of typical theatrical viewing then dthis oubling of the coc would be valid. Using .012 mm rather that .006 mm for the 1/3" format coc produced a 5 1/3 stop (f/1.4 --> f/9) difference. I would still say that the 3 1/3 calculation above (assuming no error on my part) would be the right answer if both images were intended for the same ultimate viewing angle. (I thought I already posted this info, but do not see it so I'm trying again --sorry if it appears twice) ---george

(1/1.4 should be f/1.4)

I did some calculations and used an on-line DoF calculator. I got 3 1/3 stops. Assumptions were: coc for 35mm = .001 in (.025mm) , coc for 1/3 " CCD = .00025 in. (.006 mm) Then I took three data points (angle of view of about 50 degrees, focused at 5 feet away and 10 feet away, and angle of view of 15 degrees with object 25 feet away) for each point I calculated the 35mm focal length and the coresponding 1/3" CCD focal length and then used www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html to find a pair of f stops that gave the same DoF. I used 1/1.4 for the 1/3" and at all three examples the closest 35mm f-stop was 4.5. I could not get the data to line up in a table but this should show my assumptions and method. format 36mm : 1/3" CCD coc: .025 mm | .006 mm angle of view: 49 degrees | 49 degrees focal length: 30 mm | 8.2 mm f-stop: 4.5 | 1.4 subject distance: 10 feet | 10 feet near focus point: 7.23 feet | 7.27 feet far focus point: 16.2 feet | 16 feet ---george

A couple of year?s ago I bought an XL1Solutions adapter to put my Nikon lenses on my XL1 naively thinking I would get 35mm-like DoF. It didn?t do that at all so I looked this stuff up. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field as well as many other sources, it is clear that DoF (for a given definition of ?in focus?) depends only on: 1. aperture; 2. image size at the point image is focused/captured; 3. focal length, and 4. distance to subject. (note ? details and quality of lens construction not on the list.) But furthermore: check this and other sources to see that focal length and distance to subject essentially cancel each other out. If you think you will change to a smaller focal length to decrease the DoF -- wrong. You will then need to reduce the distance to the primary subject at the same time to keep the framing of that subject constant. The math works out that you will be right back where you were in DoF. See the chart and other info in http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials...th-of-field.htm. What that shows is for a given format (imaging size) and a given % filling of the frame by the primary subject, aperture is all that matters. When you read odd things like ?use ND filters to get smaller DoF? or ?we add light to increase the DoF? they are inelegantly saying (correctly) it?s the aperture that matters. There certainly is no magic in lens design or construction that does it. There is a reason the P+S and other adapters have the mechanisms they have and unfortunately a $600 thing doesn?t do what the $7000 thing does. ---george

I was hoping someone else could confirm the logic of this, but yes, if the camera is set to frame rate X and imported into a FCP project set to that same frame rate of X, then the audio file exported at that point will be a real-time (to the accuracy of the xtal in the camera) representation of the sound on the set. At that point it is just an audio file and doesn't know that it started out in life as the audio part of a video. The audio file doesn't know about frames, just about real time. A sound that lasted 10 sec. in real life is 10 sec. in that audio file. When the 24 fps material is brought into a FCP project set to 24 fps, action that lasted 10 sec in real life will be represented as 10 sec. Again, I have not done this myself so validation of the logic would be good. hope this or other ideas and coments here help Scott get through this shoot. --george

Scott You might consider this: capture the audio (along with the video I assume you are not using at all) into FCP with the project settings appropriate to how the camera was set (29.970, 24, 23.976 fps etc. -- should not matter). Then output the audio as an aiff audio file. As long as the camera settings and the FCP project setting match each other it will not matter what they were, the audio file will be time correct. Later just import that audio file into the actual project you bring the telecined project. I can not say have done this, but it seems to me much more straightforward than other workflows that involve different time bases. ---george quote name='Scott Bullock' date='Aug 19 2006, 10:31 AM' post='122313'] The only option I have is 24 fps. We're planning on having the film telecine transfered without synching the audio, and then synching everything in Final Cut Pro after we've captured the 2 video sources (the telecine transfer and the video with the audio on it) into the computer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will work. This is the kind of stuff that happens when nobody is willing to spend any money. <sigh> :unsure:

You might look at: http://www.tapeandmedia.com/detail.asp?product_id=MDV-9 to see plastic cases that each hold 9 miniDV tapes and fit on a shelf like a book. Since it has a separate compartment for each tape and the whole thing seals & latches quite well you might not need the individual little boxes. If you buy several at a time it is less than $1 a tape. They also carry another thing that holds 50 tapes, but there is just a spot to slide each tape in and no cover so you would really need the individual boxes also (I don't know where to get those). ---george

Irv at IJM was very helpful, knowledgeable and an interesting guy to boot but had my 2008S for quite a while (I guess he had a flood at home and other issues come up). However, I would say good quality, judging from the workmanship on my new battery set-up and a viewfinder I can now actually see through! ---george

Not 100% true, I believe. I think you have to be logged in in order to use the search function and also to go into the " Please Critique My Work" area. Which is fine. ---george

I have a Beaulieu super 8 camera that also has an internal filter. I asked the person who overhauled it for me if it would be better to remove it and use a filter on the front of the lens (I thought it would give me more flexibility). He told me that while the internal filter is in the light path to the film, it is not in the path to the viewfinder and thus has the advantage of not making the viewfinder less bright. I beleive the Bolex shares this characteristic (according to logic & an on-line manual I found). If so, it is a big advantage to use the internal filter. ---george

My list might be obvious but: 1. Turn off auto exposure. 2. Its very easy have very blown-out shots in day time interiors if you get a window or open door in the frame. 3. Speaking of windows and open doors, if they're not blown out then they are distractingly very very blue. 4. If the camera has a mic. jack consider getting an external mic. Too often in low sound level situations the automatic gain control (probably can not turn this off, depending on the camera) goes up and we hear the motor turning the tape. My son goes to a high school for the arts and when the students show their work (done on video) every semester these seem to be the most distracting, repeated technical problems in some of the younger student's work. ---george

Many -- One example: I've seen a couple of articles about the use of XL-2s for Wassup Rockers. In the last few months there have been multiple articles about the XL-2 use on Wassup Rockers.

re: [Though strangly in my book (9th) on a 13mm at f/4.0 the Hyperfocal Distance is 2' 9".] Sorry Andy, after trying to be careful and precise with these numbers, I did accidentally slide a column over - it is 2' 9" in my 9th ed. also. Still a huge difference from the 13 feet of the calc. ______________ More to the point (thanks S8 Booster for the schneider info). From the schneider/beaulieu 6-70 tables above: 12mm f/1.4 hyperfocal = 34' 2" (chart shows 1/2 hyperfocal which is where near focus starts) at 10' distance: near = 6' 6"; far = 22' 1" ASC Manual: 13mm f/1.4 hyperfocal = 7' 10" (no common foc. lgth between ASC and schneider tables) at 10' distance: near = 4'5"; far = inf. the calc. S8 Booster ref. to: 12mm f/1.4 hyperfocal = 33' 8" 13mm f/1.4 hyperfocal = 39' 7" Hoping to get a DoF "expert" to double check this before I figure out how to bring this to the attention of someone involved with the manual.

thanks, it was quite helpful -- The calculator ref.'ed above seems great. It assumes .025 mm as the CoC for 35mm which is about the same (within 2%) as ASC manual's .001 inches -- great. It then uses .0007 for 16mm (the ASC manual says either stick with .001 or go to .0005, this calc is in the middle -- good) and uses .0004 for 8mm (ASC manual says .002 -- five times larger and even larger than the value used for 35mm - NOT good! My original contention was that they meant .0002 but used .002 by mistake). As this calc. shows, the CoC generally gets smaller as the format gets smaller. Bottom line -- this calc gives very close results for 35mm with the ASC manual (called "all formats in ASC manual), but different results than are found in the ASC 8mm tables (example: 13mm lens at f/4 has a hyperfocal distance of over 13 feet [calc] or less than 2 feet? [ASC manual]).