Patrick Cooper

I can see the dilemma. Would using an 82A filter help a little bit in this instance? I have heard of a number of people buying and using various dedicated film scanners and being disappointed with the results. They then ended up using a digital camera in conjunction with a backlit source source and got better results that way. I'm sure there are high end scanners like drum scanners etc that will produce very impressive results but I can't really afford that. I have seen a youtube video where someone got surprisingly good looking results using the digital camera method with colour neg film (at least to my eyes.) So far, Ive only digitised b&w negatives this way. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try the same method with colour neg film and see what the results are like. That was actually the original plan - to shoot digital. The subject matter being bands playing at various venues - mostly small venues with local bands. Then the plan changed to shooting a mix of film and digital. And it will mostly be digital anyway with film being used for the occasional image. I want some wide angle images among the shots and there's a recent thread where I mentioned that my Samyang 12mm f2 (which I use on my M4/3 cameras) is extremely prone to flaring. It has a major flare problem. Ive had some images ruined by this issue and I'm worried about lights in the venue shining into the lens wreaking havoc with it. To solve that issue, I could use my Canon FD 24mm f2.8 instead on one of my Canon 35mm SLRs. That was the initial reason for considering film - to prevent the ugly flare issue with the Samyang. Though since then, Ive looked online and seen some beautiful looking images of stage performances shot on colour negative film in recent years. Some in particular looked very moody, very atmospheric. And that has increased my motivation even more for using film in such environments. Though interestingly, there was one set of photos of a band that were shot on Portra 800 daylight balanced film and the colours don't appear particularly warm, at least to my eyes. I actually like the colour rendition. I don't know if the photographer used any filtration but that seems doubtful considering the light levels looked pretty low. These are the images here mixed in with other random subjects: And oh yea b&w is a viable option. That can look really nice and moody too. Though at the moment, Ive developed a hunger for colour neg film.

Excellent suggestion. I'm checking out prices right now from various stores.

"Unaware" is not the same as "forgotten." It's not that I am unaware. It's because Ive forgotten - it has been a long time (a number of years) since Ive dealt with colour correction filters and their specific coding. However, I have remembered their respective colours (orange and blue in this context) so I have retained knowledge of the basic principles with regards to their usage in specific lighting environments. I was only familiar with tungsten balanced slide films though I never tried any out. Assuming I'm using a daylight balanced film. Even so, it's not really practical when doing hand held stills photography in a dimly interior. Without a filter, I may be using 1/125th with the aperture wide open. With an 80A filter in place, my shutter speed would effectively be 1/30th - too slow to hand hold for most people, resulting in blurred images. Ah this was an idea I got from another forum. Yes a test wouldn't hurt.

Yes I was considering Portra 800. I admit Ive never shot this particular film stock before but based on reviews, it seems to be just what Ive been looking for. And yea Ive heard about Cinestill 800 and that it's been modified from 500T. I admit it seems odd that it's being marketed as an 800asa film, encouraging people to underexpose it whereas of course most people overexpose it in movie cameras. I am tempted to go with Portra because of it's truer higher speed which should come in handy for low light situations. Though of course 'pushing' is an option.

It does seem strange to me that as far as I know, there are no negative tungsten film stocks designed specifically for stills photography. When it comes to high speed neg films like 800asa, 1000asa and 1600asa, surely, the majority of people would use these indoors under artificial lighting or perhaps night city scenes. Sure, there might be some people who use such films outdoors during daylight hours for whatever reason. It just seems more logical to me to have tungsten versions of high speed films (thinking about most intended uses of such films.) If that was the case, people using these high speed films outdoors during the day could use the appropriate orange filter which would not only colour correct the images but would also act like an ND filter, reducing the chance of overexposure on a sunny day. And of course people using such films indoors under tungsten lighting could do so hand held without any filtration and get good colour in camera. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

That looks like a nice result with an iphone and lightbox. And extra nice seeing a crop of 35mm cine film. I'm not familiar with the manual colour tool in Photoshop - unless that's the option where you change the colour balance with sliders? I do know of the white balance tool in Lightroom though I heard someone using that for scanned slide film and apparently got poor results. I guess a blue filter might be quicker perhaps than doing the work with software? I guess at some point, I'd have to remove the orange mask from the neg film. With whatever software trick is used to remove that orange mask, I guess it's quite selective and hopefully wouldn't remove or reduce my blue filtration.

At some point in the near future, I may be photographing a performance on 800asa film indoors (stills photography.) The film will be daylight balanced and there's the likeyhood that the artificial lighting will predominantly be tungsten lighting. Obviously, this is going to produce a rather warm yellow / orange cast with the film. For digitising the negatives, I'll be using a Panasonic M4/3 camera with macro lens and a tablet for the light source. Ive used this same method in the past with digitising black and white negatives and was pleased with the results. With regards to colour correction, would it help immensely if I used a blue filter on the macro lens during the digitising process? Or would that be unnecessary and Lightroom or Photoshop would be more than sufficient in removing the warm colour cast? There does seem to be the belief that negative film is easier to colour correct than slide film. I know that some may suggest using a blue filter on the lens of the film camera during shooting but I'll be using it hand held and will need as much light as possible to enter my lens. Out of curiosity, back in the old days with optical printing, would they have used a blue filter on the enlarger when printing from daylight neg film that had been exposed to tungsten lighting? And there's another thing I'm curious about. If negative film has as much latitude with colour correction as some people suggest, why is there a need for both daylight balanced and tungsten balanced negative film stocks for cinematography? Say for example, if you had a daylight neg film and a tungsten neg film and exposed them both to tungsten lighting with no filters, would it be possible to remove the warm colour cast from the daylight film completely with software so that it matches the tungsten film in overall colour balance? I'm guessing probably not.

Not quite. Ive only photographed musicians in small venues so far. Though I'm happy with how they've turned out. Among those artists was an Australian singer / songwriter Monique Brumby who has enjoyed some commercial success (shot on Fuji 1600asa colour negative film.) At the moment, I'm putting together a portfolio. In the meantime, I'll keep photographing small artists and buskers. Yep, no connections here. I'll contact some music publications and offer my services to them. I have contacted some in the past but didn't have any luck then. There's a fair chance that images would be ruined by flare if I used my Samyang 12mm. I once shot an interior with it with a window in view and the whole image was plagued with multiple flares all across the frame. It was unusable.

For so many years, I have dreamed of having the privilege of obtaining media passes for rock concerts of big name bands and solo artists like The Rolling Stones, U2, Sting etc. It still hasn't happened but I'm going to keep trying. With regards to equipment, I would be shooting with Panasonic mirrorless Micro 4/3 cameras. I don't have the luxury of owning a fast constant aperture zoom but Ive got some fast primes I could use. If I am successful at obtaining a media pass to a gig one day, I think I might take along three camera bodies - one fitted with a wide angle, one fitted with a standard lens and the third fitted with a short telephoto. One of the kinds of images that I'm really looking forward to producing is a wide angle shot of a singer or guitarist up close from a low angle. Just looks so dramatic with loads of impact. My wide angle for M4/3 is a Samyang 12mm f2. That seems like a logical choice for concert photography but it has one major drawback – it flares really easily and horribly. Major flare problem. Once I even had pretty bad flares from it on an overcast day with a lens hood in place. Of course with a concert venue (up close to the stage) there are going to be heaps of lights shining into my lens and for the Samyang, that could end in disaster. Now, I have seen some concert photos that feature flare and it can look kind of cool and atmospheric. But my Samyang produces ugly flares – the kind I don't want. And I simply cannot afford another fast wide angle lens – they are crazy expensive. So I'm considering something quite drastic. Instead of bringing along the Samyang on an M4/3 body, I'm actually thinking of bringing my Canon FD 24mm f2.8 mounted to a 35mm SLR. So two M4/3 bodies and one film SLR. And by coincidence, the 24mm on film will have roughly the same field of view as the Samyang 12mm on M4/3. I would be shooting on colour negative film and I admit one big benefit of that is that I can be pretty loose with exposures as compared to having to be precisely spot on as with slide film or digital. Though obviously, I will try my best to avoid underexposure as that is the worst thing you can do to neg film – those weak blacks look really yuck. I'll try and overexpose by about a stop or two. I actually used to shoot in similar conditions back in the 90s on film. Not concerts as such but circuses. Though I did photograph a musician (Monique Brumby) in a small venue as well. And also a play once. During that period, I would shoot on 1000asa and 1600asa film for these kinds of events. Though I have a feeling that big rock concerts may be a little bit better illuminated than those other places I shot but I can't be sure. Though here is the dilemma. If I'm shooting for a publication, they may want the images uploaded to social media. If that's the case, I'm not sure of when the deadline would be - whether that would be the same night as the concert or the day after. That would be fine for my digital images but obviously, it's going to take time to get the film developed and scanned. I don't suppose a rock music publication or media agency etc would be accommodating in having the digital images uploaded soonish but the film images uploaded at a later time? This is a potential issue that I'm struggling with.

Yea it's definitely a weird issue. I guess on a positive side, at least I could use the Shotcut software on the laptop to convert the files to a different format which can be recognised by Sony Movie Studio and WMM. And there's a fair chance I'll probably be doing the same thing on the new pc running Windows 10.

I have video files which I believe are Quicktime MOV files and I have no issue playing them on Windows Media Player and importing them into Sony Movie Studio on an old Windows 7 pc with 32 bit system. However, I cannot do the same with a laptop running Windows 7 and 64 bit system. On the laptop, WMM won't recognise the files. I haven't tried VLC as yet as I don't have that on the laptop yet. When I try and import these video files into Sony Movie Studio on the laptop, I get two kinds of error messages. The first message says: "An error occurred while opening one or more files. The file format plugin for the specified format was not properly initialised." The second message says: "The Sony QuickTime plug-in was not able to initialise the QuickTime components on your system. It appears that Quicktime for Windows is not properly installed. Quicktime files cannot be read or written without a full installation of the Quicktime version 7.1.6 or greater components, including the authoring components. If you are connected to the internet, Quicktime can be installed from the following location Download QuickTime 7.7.9 for Windows" Ive downloaded the file from that link in the past but it didn't make any difference. I thought I may as well try again anyway. I came across an option to download Quicktime 7.7.9 from the Quicktime website. I began the download and noted that the publisher was Apple Inc and it was a Quicktime Installer exe file. I was then given options to Modify, Repair or Remove Quicktime (presumably because Ive downloaded the same file in the past.) I selected Repair and went ahead with the installation process. Afterwards, I tried importing the same MOV files into Sony Movie Studio again and got exactly the same error messages. Any idea what's going on? It's a problem that's been going on for a very long time and Ive never been able to solve it. Fairly soon, I'm having a new computer built to replace the old pc and I guess it's likely that I'll have the same issues with the new machine. By the way, I discovered that I can import these MOV files into Shotcut on the laptop. So that's something at least.

It's been ages since Ive shot on super 8. And I can't remember if an ND filter is necessary when shooting 50D outdoors on a sunny day. Obviously, it would be necessary for faster film stocks. I vaguely recall when I shot on Kodachrome 40 years ago, I was around mid aperture on a sunny day with the daylight filter in place (effective asa speed 25.) And I remember once having to shoot wide open at f1.4 in the morning on an overcast day with K40. So considering that, an ND filter may not be necessary for 50D? Plus I would generally be deliberately overexposing it anyway (opening up the aperture wider than the indicated reading) since it's negative film.

There's an interesting thing I notice by looking at the photos of some of these cameras on eBay. It looks like a number of these cameras can be loaded with 100ft daylight spools. And unless I'm mistaken, with some, I don't see the option of adding a 400ft mag. This is really surprising because one of these cameras can film at 4000 - 5000fps. Surely, at those kinds of running speeds, 100 feet of film would just last a few seconds?

Now and then, Ive been tempted to get one of those high speed 16mm cameras that are sold for next to nothing (insanely cheaply) on eBay. Although Ive shot some 16mm before in the past (with a K3) I admit I don't know a great deal about the operation of high speed cameras. Obviously, they are very specialised devices. Are there any particular models that are recommended? I notice the Wollensak cameras seem to be fairly common on eBay. If I manage to obtain a Wollensak or another high speed camera, is there a decent chance that I could find an instruction manual somewhere? Knowing the film loading procedure and basic operation would of course be mandatory, as well as any idiosyncrasies that the cameras may have. I'm guessing that a lot of these kind of cameras don't have reflex (through the lens) viewing? I'm okay with that because a lot of the stuff I would be shooting would be studio set ups. Though I would like to be able to frame and focus accurately. I'm also assuming that many of these cameras would be regular 16mm rather than super 16? I was once talking to a cinematographer who mentioned that high speed cameras require regular servicing. This is no surprise considering the stress that's imposed on them (high frame rates.)

You'll have to forgive me as I'm not great with numbers (and maths has never been my strong point.) I assumed that 25fps would be just as ideal as 24fps because both frame rates are very close to each other. And considering that for decades, movies have been shot at 24fps, I haven't heard of any serious complaints when these films are released in the NTSC format for the American home video market. So just to clarify, converting 24ps fps to 29.97 fps won't have the same issues as 25?

Thankyou for the info. I didn't realise that 25fps is not used much outside of broadcast. Is that the same for Australia and Hong Kong? However, I guess it's easier to convert 25fps to 30fps than the other way around. Some folks who shoot stock say that frame rates aren't much of an issue because clients can convert it to their needs. Though I'm not sure if there are some clients who are very fussy about a particular frame rate for their project.

Once at a flea market, I came across a super 8 camera with manually adjustable ASA settings which was quite a surprise. Certainly not a common feature. I can't recall the brand name but it wasn't a Beaulieu or a Leicina Special. Overall, it was a really simple camera. Nothing fancy other than the ability to adjust the ASA settings manually.

You could also consider the older Canon 1014 Autozoom Electronic which can do dissolves. They generally go for cheaper prices on eBay compared to the 1014 XL-S. Also an advantage of the AE is it's top running speed of 54fps. The XL-S can only go as high as 36fps.

Ive been using a Panasonic G6 for the last few years. For full HD video recording, Ive always used 25p in AVCHD (or so I thought.) In the menu option within the AVCHD setting, it says: "1920 x 1080 50i, image sensor output 25p, 24mbps." Here we have a bit of a contradiction – it indicates both interlaced and progressive with this particular menu option. Obviously, it can't be both. Ive had the assumption that this meant that the camera is recording interlaced video but converting it to progressive for the output. Though Ive no idea whether I'm right or wrong about this. Tonight, I imported one of these supposed 25p AVCHD videos into Shotcut NLE software. To my surprise, when I checked the properties of the clip within Shotcut, it indicated that the video was interlaced. That had me puzzled. All this time, I thought I was producing progressive video with this camera when I used that setting. As a test, to see if Shotcut was reading info accurately, I imported some Panasonic G2 footage which records 1280 x 720p video. And sure enough, the properties tab indicates that the video from the G2 is progressive. There is also another 25p option in the Panasonic G6 in the MP4 setting. This particular option reads as follows: "1920 x 1080 25p, image sensor output 25p, 20mbps." No mention of interlaced video there. Which would be the better option to use? I want the best quality with progressive video. I'll be submitting quite a few clips to stock footage agencies and some of these companies don't accept interlaced video. Even if the AVCHD option is interlaced, I could always convert it to progressive within Shotcut. Ive previously output such clips as progressive with Sony Movie Studio and didn't see any issues with motion artifacts. I also note that the AVCHD option has a higher bitrate compared to the MP4 25p option which is a bonus. Actually, I have accumulated a fair number of AVCHD clips already that I want to submit to these stock agencies.

I believe there are a fair few super 8 projectors where the gate can be completely removed for cleaning. Just wondering if the pressure plate can usually be removed as well? Wonder if I can sandwich them together outside the projector as part of a DIY transfer unit. Ive given up on the idea of converting a projector for telecine as I lack the patience. By the way, my projectors use a different design for cleaning - the lens swings out to the side to provide access to the gate.

Did another export on got 116 mbps. Hopefully, that should be okay for a 4096 x 2304 video at 25fps.

I've just exported a time lapse video with Shotcut that was shot with a Panasonic G6. Pixel dimensions are 4096 x 2304. The frame rate is 25fps. I'm fairly new to 4k video and I plan on submitting this clip to some stock agencies. For the bitrate, I selected 100mbps. After exporting, I checked the technical details and the bitrate of the finished file is 75mbps. Just wondering if that's too low for 4k video? If that is considered too low, what would be considered an acceptable range (in terms of bitrate) for 4k video shot around 24 / 25 / 30fps? Bear in mind that I want a balance between good quality 4k video and manageable file size for uploading. Although quality would be good, I don't want to end up with a gigantic file size that's going to take 2 - 3 days to upload (I do have slow upload speeds for my internet by the way.) I did some googling and noted that the Panasonic GH5 can shoot 4k video at 100mbps. So I guess that might be a good target to aim for. With Shotcut, I notice no matter what bitrate I enter, I usually end up with a lower figure. So if I want 100mbps, I might have to input something like 130mbps perhaps.

Thanks for the replies. I'll look into Lightworks. I remember people discussing it a few years ago in editing forums. By the way, I did manage to get Shotcut working properly tonight on a laptop.

For a long time, Ive been on a quest to find some NLE software that's suitable for producing footage that I can submit to stock agencies. And it looks like my quest still isn't over. Mind you, I'm on a really tight budget so I'd prefer free downloadable software. Ive actually got two quite decent NLE programs that Ive paid money for (Sony Movie Studio and Adobe Premier Elements) and although they are quite versatile, neither of them are entirely suitable for stock footage. These are the requirements that I want - Progressive video Offers MOV as a file type option Can select codecs such as h264 (bare minimum) and possibly other less compression heavy codecs like photojpeg (though not essential) Allows the bitrate to be altered Supports full HD and 4k video Has basic colour grading options (contrast and colour saturation will suffice) Simple trimming Ive tried to install Davinci Resolve after recommendations to use that software but my system can't handle it. I found out that it requires 8GB of RAM to run though I only have 4GBs of RAM on my pc. So far, Shotcut meets just about all those requirements listed above but it's not all that reliable or stable. It freezes a lot and many times ends in failed exports. Does anyone have any recommendations for software that has all those requirements?