Jon Mello

this thread is a riot! i would surly hope that an actual altercation never takes place for the sake of Mr. Rubio! In my experience, climbers like Mr. Cangi are in serious, serious physical condition. afterall it was climber Mark Twight who got those 300 chiseled Spartans looking like ...well.. chiseled Spartans! on a side and back to the RED topic, the prospect of that kind of resolution and technology being available to to the masses in the near future is exciting! but story triumphs technology, so i fear there will be just a lot more ultra-rez so-so films flooding the market, no? but seriously, i'm not an expert with digital cams, but whats stopping camera mfg's from just taking their 3, 4, 5 , 6 or 7 megapixel still cameras and having them snap 24, 60 or ever 150 frames a second? (other than obviously rendering the heavily marketed expensive "heavy iron" cam's useless).

This may or may not be the case, but I've had a similar situation happen to me. The culprit was the little watch type battery that is housed in the zoom handle died. I was rolling and timecode was rolling on the monitor and everything seemed okay, but when it came time to capture the footage - nothing was on the tape! Unfortunately, everything had to be re-shot. I surely hope this isn't the same in your case, as it was quite the problem for me! Hope this is of some assistance. ~Jon

>>Even with TSA locks, you still are dealing with TSA personnel, the majority of which don't have any experience or respect for your investment, and if they wreck it too bad for you. << Give these geniuses a badge, a walkie-talkie, & permanent-press slacks and look out!! When it comes to flying commercial, I ship anything of value to myself via FedEx. Sorry about your camera and our government... I'm quite sure that if you gave the TSA person ANY lip over the cameras damage it'd be considered a terrorist act and we'd never hear from you again. Cooler heads prevail I suppose.... If it was my camera, it would be all over for me.... :unsure:

Herbert, Correction. After re-reading your post, I realize you may not be using a Wide Angle Adapter, but instead have a wide shot. The XL image can get a little soft on very wide shots due to to pixel averaging. This is not a technical issue with the lens however, but an issue with available resolution. ~Jon

Herbert, [A] mode is a full automatic mode. I would suggest [M] (full manual) when it comes to critical focusing. Also, I have experience using a Century Wide Angle adapter with XL's and have found that the range of crisp focus is limited to about 40% of the zoom range. In addition, I'm not aware of a backfocus adjustment on the 20x flourite, if in fact that is the lens you are using. Hope this is of some help! Best of luck! ~Jon Mello - RI USA

Flash Video offers the most compatibility between PC/Mac users with decent file size/quality ratio. You need a Flash encoder to create this type of file. >more information can be found here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/video_guide.html Quicktime 7 (h.264) offers outstanding quality with low file sizes. FCP utilizes Quicktime Pro, and can export using "Quicktime Conversion" >find more information here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/pro/faq.html >>tip from "Beaver" @ MoGraph.net : I still like to use Sorensen 3 since there's still that fringe out there that's still on QT6. Frame Rate: Current Keyframes: Automatic Compressor Quality: Best Data Rate: Restrict to 6400 (this is the one variable that I usually mess with to get the best quality / file size, everything else I tend to leave alone) I usually resize to 400 x 300 - it's a good medium size, but do whatever you want - offer multiple sizes if you want it's up to you. For sound I use AAC Stereo 44.1 / 96 bit rate and I don't bother with the advanced settings. Finally, check "prepare for internet streaming" and use Fast Start Compressed Header. If you do an h.264 version, make sure you're using multi-pass and frame re-ordering to get the best file size / quality ratio. Everything else should be pretty much the same, and try to tweak it by adjusting the video data rate. 6400 will usually give you some pretty big files, but it looks super clean. I tend to use that as a max, and go down from there, and see how far I can go down before the compression really starts to bother me. It's just about finding a happy medium.<<< Hope this helps. ~J

wow! very cool premise, and the shot selection was interesting. was the upshot a composite? concerning the hard cut brightness/audio change in the field wide shot may indicate time passing... a dissolve could have worked there. i agree about the polished boots comment, but the actor really pulled off a believable scenario! just goes to show that you shouldn't put all your rocks in one bag ;) overall I loved it and voted accordingly. Good Luck!! ~J

Greetings Everyone! My first post here and I'm looking to learn as much as I can in this field. This forum is a such a fantastic knowledge base, really incredible! Please take a moment to view my first two shorts. Both were shot on DV with a heavy $65 budget going to tape stock, doritos, and beer for the post sessions. Both were shot one after the other in late spring/early summer of this year. Looking for some honest critiques and feedback on these as I'm gearing up to shoot my next short in just a few short weeks! These two were such a great learning experience, I'm hoping that a few fresh pairs of eyes can offer some insight into areas I can work on and apply to the next project. Thank You in advance! ~J You Tube Playlist Link: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=727A25D30BAC8D8D