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Andrew Spirk

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About Andrew Spirk

  • Birthday 03/21/1983

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  • Occupation
    Student
  • Location
    Cleveland

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  • Website URL
    http://www.artofdestroy.co.uk
  1. Thank you both for your very considerate and detailed posts. Those were exactly the answers to the questions I was thinking. Unfortunately this is spec work and coming out of pocket, so it's a little difficult to get the funds in order and justify a big package. However I'm going to look into the EX1 (never used it) and see what kind of wheeling and dealing I can do with some rental houses. I think with some creative thinking I can still get this project done, and either way, make due with a camera that's not top of the line. The EX1 is a very good suggestion, especially the idea of using a deck and feeding it the footage for minimal compression. I'm actually pretty relieved to hear about your experience with the 35mm lens adapter. I spent way too much time and far too much effort trying to get that thing to work the way I needed it, but in the end it just made the footage look like crap. The depth of field was pretty cool, but I could get similar results by just backing the camera up and crashing the zoom. Granted, it compressed the space, but it also doesn't require all that extra equipment which slows down setups tremendously. At the end of the day, I'm probably going to end up either sticking with the HD110 and biting the bullet by making the best of it, or possibly renting an EX1 with a deck. I'm still going to continue my investigation on the matter and either way I'll post back in this thread with my decision/results when all is said and done. Thanks again!
  2. Another option I was considering is just picking up a Canon 5D Mark II and shooting with that. From what I understand you can rack focus with it, and I believe it would work in a FCP/AE workflow.
  3. Hi everyone! I am looking to rent a camera that isn't going to cost over 2000K for a weekend rental, and can achieve filmic depth of field and a very high quality image for greenscreen/motion tracking. While the DV color space is a pain for greenscreening, I don't know if there are any cameras in this budget range that have anything more suitable. I'll cut to the chase: Currently what I have at the moment is a GY-HD110U and a RedRock M2 Adapter with a couple really cheap Nikor lenses. Everything I've ever shot with that configuration has been a bitter disappointment and has yielded some pretty awful picture results. -Our camera has the ccd 'defect' which still needs to get sent in for replacement. What happens is the camera has (to the best of my knowledge) a set of two ccds that are put together to make up a single frame. Due to the defect the right side is sometimes darker than the left in certain lighting conditions. I also live and work in Cleveland, OH and there are very few rental houses that provide anything other than news camera style rentals. The closest around here is Industrial Video, and they have the Sony XDCAM PDW-700F (I think it's F) and the panasonic equivalent. I have no problem driving within a 100 miles to pickup a camera, but again, the closest pro rental house I can find is in Michigan (Fletcher). The important things I'm looking for is a camera that has a high quality image, 'film' depth of field using either the built-in lens, the M2 adapter, or getting an adapter and a few prime lenses from the rental house. Another important consideration is the ability to bring the footage into FCP and after effects with some degree of flexibility. In addition, a number of the shots will have windows green screened out, and the easier that will be to deal with in post, the better. I realize this is a lot to consider, but I'm hoping some of you can sympathize with my situation and offer some advice on the options I have. I've been doing quite a bit of research, but I can't seem to find anything solid. Thank you!
  4. Wow, I feel just terrible Brian! I completely forgot you guys were at Cinegear. My apologizes. I got the email you sent me and just to let everyone on the boards know, RedRock is taking every measure to resolve my situation. Brian seems to make each problem a customer has his personal mission and is in direct communication with us to remedy our little problem. It really is a fantastic problem, which is probably why I'm so upset about it, once I had it on the camera, I never wanted to take it off again. So it is what it is and I know fully now that RedRock and Brian are going to help me 110%. So without a doubt, my next posts will be shots, rather then tests. Thanks again to everyone who posted helpful advice.
  5. Chris- I'll check that tomorrow when I get back into work. Chuck- Thanks for those suggestions, I'll give that a shot tomorrow as well and see if anything pops up out of it. I agree it's an optical spacing issue, but every component of this setup is screwed in to one another, so I'm no quite sure what to say about that as it's not really very adjustable.
  6. I wish I could edit a post... grrrr. I miswrote the layout, the correction is as follows: Fujinon Lens -> 82mm to 72mm Step Down Ring -> 72mm HD Achromatic Lens -> 50mm Hard-Mount Coupling -> M2 -> Nikon 50mm Lens
  7. Chuck- At this point, any suggestions at all are greatly appreciated. For the most part, I can't get any real answers from RR or their forums. I was hoping by posting here, I could get some helpful advice, and so far it's headed in the right direction. The way the RedRock M2 works is relatively simple, and the layout is as follows. Fujinon Lens -> 82mm to 72mm Step Down Ring -> 55mm Achromatics Lens -> 50mm Hard-Mount Coupling -> M2 -> Nikon 50mm Lens The M2 has a spinning piece of glass that you focus onto while it is not spinning. Once you get that focus, you start the motor in the M2 and the grain goes away and you can then focus the Nikon lens in front of it. My problem with this is that when I focus on the grain of the Ground Glass inside the M2 box, I can't get a complete across the frame focus, it seems to focus on very few pieces of grain all around. The focus begins in the center with very dense grain in focus, then as I focus in more, the grain in the center evens out across the frame. Yes, it has to be in Macro mode, by following the tutorials, asking questions, and the posts at RR, they recommend for the HD110 to turn the focus and the macro all the way to the right, then use the zoom to focus in on the Ground Glass inside the M2. -Andrew
  8. To answer the questions; without the redrock adaptor the image is all in focus, has no chromatic aberration and is evenly lit. The zoom setting on the Fujinon is between 20 and 40, closer to 40. The macro and the focus are both turned all the way right. The lens on the front of the M2 is a Nikon 50mm (1.8), brand new. And to reply to Chuck- The angle I am shooting the focus sheet is dead on, this focus issue is persistent with the camera, sometimes less noticeable than others. The M2 is hard-mounted to the Fujinon, which is why I can't really explain why the focus is the way it is. It's very confusing. Here are some followup links to previous posts I've made at RedRocks forums, none of which have been solved. This post ends with me raving about how great the M2 is, it was premature at best. It's an excellent item, but upon closer look at my footage, I still had the same problems. http://www.redrockmicro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3103 This next post contains images of the setup recently used. http://www.redrockmicro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3751
  9. To answer the questions; without the redrock adaptor the image is all in focus, has no chromatic aberration and is evenly lit. The zoom setting on the Fujinon is between 20 and 40, closer to 40. The macro and the focus are both turned all the way right. The lens on the front of the M2 is a Nikon 50mm (1.8), brand new.
  10. I can't seem to get any responses to my post at RedRock about this issue, and it's been a huge problem over the past 7 months that I've been struggling to get this to work. Believe it or not, I haven't advanced very far since we first received the M2 in the mail. I've included a 100% 720p still from our JVC HD-110U. The focus assist says nearly everything is in focus, yet... you can see it's obviously not. The M2 is attached via the hard-mount, so I can't really explain any reason why it would be mis-aligned and further more, why any part of the image should be blurred. You can also see very obvious Chromatic Aberration, something I hoped to fix by doing one of two things. 1.) Try a prime lens as opposed to a zoom. 2.) Take the footage in via the Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme card instead of firewire. Neither did anything to remedy the situation. Here is a link to a movie showing as I shutoff the M2 and the GG slows down. Keep in mind that I adjusted the focus on the JVC lens very carefully and adjusted the focus-assist to the GG as evenly as possible. http://www.artofdestroy.co.uk/blog/wp-cont...focus_chart.mov
  11. Well went ahead and ordered a monitor. Got the Marshall HD 7" from BH http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/3911...CD_Monitor.html Looks pretty good. And not too bad at 1350$ Also got the XLR powertap http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/3413...wer_Tap_to.html To plug into the Anton Bauer powertap. Any opinions on this? Hate me for it? Let your responses fly.
  12. I've been trying to find a suitable monitor for sub $1,000 US for a little while now, but nothing has come up that is very high recommended. The monitor just needs to have these parameters. Be able to attach to a Bogen tripod rig (or something like it) Be at least 6" but 8" is preferable. Be HD... And be able to mount upside-down or flip the image, as this is being used in conjunction with the RedRock M2. Also, if it can be powered by the Anton Bauer system as well, that would be really nice. Last but not least, it would have to be nice enough to accurately gauge focus and high quality enough to get a fairly close approximation to the final output. As far as the monitor and the JVC, can you get the focus assist to appear on an external monitor? Are the component outputs the only way to get it to work with the camera? Thanks in advance to anyone who replies, I've been really struggling to collect information about some monitors, but without actually seeing most of them, I can't really judge one from the other strictly on specs alone.
  13. My question is kind of simple; I've been playing with the M2 adaptor with a JVC HD110U and a Nikon lens mount on the M2. My question is this, what's stopping someone from using a medium format lens like a Hasselblad (zeiss) or equivalent in a DV setup? There's a huge difference in the target "negative" size from a 35mm to 65-70mm lens. There is a vast amount of information on the internet regarding this subject, however, I was kind of looking for opinions from the members of this site because I'm sure a few of you have tried this or have a lot of experience with this specific situation. To add to this, I remember a few years ago there was a guy in NJ who made adaptors for any SLR lens out there for an XL1. No idea what that entailed, but they were around 1250$ at the time about. So, any specific experience or advice on my question (be my question valid or faulty) would be appreciated.
  14. Well, considering that I purchased the camera through work, and that we were looking for the cheapest crystal sync, with minimum hassle, we got the K3 upgraded kit from Duall, for $1500 US Dollars. It's a bit on the steep side, but for my own needs, I see it being a very viable option for shooting film. I can't wait to get the vision2 stock processed to see if the image is sharp, rock steady, and above all, nice looking.
  15. Thanks very much, I will look into Mr. Hirschfeld. I needed that reassurance about the vf, I was just not sure if it could be trusted or not considering that I've mainly used it for photography for years. I am concerned about one thing though, when I take the dome off, on the little sensor glass there is a small off-color smudge, it does not seem to be cleanable. Would this adversely affect the metering, it seems to match almost seamlessly to my Ultra-Spot. I feel it is reliable, but am not absolute.
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