Elhanan Matos

If you are looking for the best HD lenses take a look at the Digiprimes. Right now we have a 5mm, 7mm, 10mm, 14mm, 20mm, 28mm, 40mm, and a 70mm. We have a zoom coming out very soon which is a 6-24mm. And sometime next year we will have a 3.9mm. You can get these lenses at Clairmont Camera, Plus 8 Digital, Sim Video, Abel Cinetech, Bexel, Broadcast Video Rentals, Fletcher Chicago, CPT, etc... If you give me a location I can give you a rental house to check out.

I believe Sony has done a film out, I have not seen it yet though. I think they will show it at NAB.

Funny someone brought this up today. Earlier today the project manager for the HVR-Z1 came by today to talk to us about the Z1, and he brought up something pretty interesting; when your shooting with the Z1 and your using cineframe 24 or 30 you don't have any control over the shutter, but when you're shooting in 50i with cineframe 25 you do have some control over the shutter, which will let you smooth out the stutterieness (is that a word?) that you get with cineframe 24.

I don't know about using Film lenses on a Digibeta camera, but It's getting more and more common for people to use a Fuji or Canon HD zoom on their Standard Def cameras. If youre interested in using Primes on a Digibeta camera take a look at the Digiprimes, or the Fujiprimes, and I believe canon has a set of primes as well. Using HD lenses will be much easier for you to use than Film lenses.

Phil, I agree with you on that a video cameras worth does decrease MUCH MUCH faster than a film camera. But a video camera is also a very wise investment if you already have some connections, theres always someone out there looking for something better than mini-DV and cheaper than Film for their student film, music video, commercial, etc... who will rent it from you for a little less than what most rental houses are charging. I know some people still renting out their Beta SP cameras for a few hundred dollars a day.

There arent really that many HD cameras available. You have the Ikegami cameras, which are mainly used for sports. The Thomson Cameras (not the Viper) which is used mainly in a television studio. The Viper, the Sony HDW-F900, and the Panasonic Varicam. It would take a while to describe the advantages and disadvantages of each camera; you can probably search this forum to find all that out. But... my favorite would be the Sony F900, and I like that camera because of the amount of control I get in the camera.

It's much much better than Yahoo.

Something someone once told me was, "If you can't afford working in Television, try sock puppets." Maintenance on any camera, wether it's Film or Video (I'm talking about real cameras, not Krasnagorks and DVX-100's) is very very expensive.

It's also in the SRW-1 Operations Manual.

I haven't seen a website for looks for the F900. The Sony cameras use memory sticks instead of SD cards though.

This camera doesnt make any other camera out there obsolete. A camera is only obsolete once people stop using it. The F900's have been out since 1998 and they are still in use, and they will still be used for another 10 years at the least. How long has Betacam SP been around? 15 years? And there are still alot of people still shooting with it. Just because the camera you baught 5 years ago isn't the best camera out there doesnt mean that the camera is now obsolete.

Well.... there werent any sandwiches, but they did have some pastries.

Are they gonna have sandwiches?

It is in California, and a few other states.

I would recommend you shoot with the Digibeta if your concerned about colors, depth of field, low light conditions, and if you want more options with lenses (I would also recommend you shoot with HD lenses on the Digibeta camera). But if your main concern is resolution, and you absolutely need HD resolution, then shoot with HDV camera. You should test it out for yourself, see if it works well in your workflow, and see if you like it.

If I only had to travel about 5 or 10 miles a day that wouldn't be a problem, but I do an average of 300 miles a week.

I have used the Sony HDV camera with the Sony wide angle adapter with a few matteboxes, and most of the chrosziel matteboxes I have used had some vignetting issues. There is one chrosziel mattebox that does work, but I can't remember off the top of my head. You can try calling 16x9 inc. They will be able to help you out... www.16x9inc.com

I think I saw something like that used in Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, I think there was a scene where Jim Carrey was running down the streets and everything about a foot behind him was out of focus, it was a really neat gimmick.

I live about a quarter of a mile away from Calabasas, and I had to make that drive last week to go work on a Golf commercial in Irvine, which isnt that far from Long Beach. Call time was around 8:30 in the morning. I left my house at 6:00 in the morning, thinking that I was smart and would beat the traffic. I got to the set at around 9:00! Thats 3 hours to get to a location that is only 70 miles away from my house! There was a point where I was just getting on the 405 free way from the 101 heading South were I travelled about 2 miles in 20 minutes! If you want to check out how bad our traffic is you can see it online at SigAlert http://www.sigalert.com/map.asp?Region=Greater+Los+Angeles But even though the traffic is terrible, LA is a great place to be in, its definitely not a boring place to live. And I have been to places with worse traffic, Tel Aviv is a great example of a city with horrible traffic.

Well you could get the cheaper VCTU-14, its mostly plastic. The VCT-14 (not the U) is very well made, and will last you a long time. And compared to the Chrosziel, or the Arri bridge plates, it's relatively cheap.

I think pretty much all the tripod companies are owned by Vinten now... Vinten, Bogen, Sachtler, Occonnor

This would be a DIT, usually DIT's will get paid as much (if not more) than an operator, this all depends on who you hire. It's best to hire a DIT with a solid background in HD, there are alot of people out there who think that using an HD camera is the same as using a DVCAM camera, or a Beta camera. Check with your rental house and see if they can recommend anyone.

You should check out the Sachtler Video tripods

Yes, you are completely wrong.

You don't have to roll bars on every tape.