Jason McKelvey

Very interesting, thanks Leo and George. Jason

Their website claims that you retain the DOF characteristics that separate 35mm from 1/3" lenses... that was the big question. If putting a 50mm film lens on a XLH1 rendered the same DOF look of the standard Canon, what's the big deal. Yeah, the glass is better, but not worth the trouble. But if it helped it look more like film by providing that etherial DOF of 35mm lenses, that is a big deal. I can learn to do the math as far as picking lenses... if you want a focal length equal to a 50mm, use a 25mm. For $650 that's a good deal. DAVID WEST: Have you used your adaptor for any real life shoots? Any clips that show fast rack focusing? Jason

This always sparks arguments... that's why I wanted to see if anyone has actually used it. The proof's in the pudding thing. Well, I hope get a H1 soon, so I'll rent one and let yall know what it looks like. Jason

I want to set up our XLH1 in a studio configuration with rear zoom on the right pan bar and rear focus on the left pan bar, and an LCD monitor mounted on top. Is this possible? Any suggestions? Jason

Has anyone used the XL1solutions PL to Canon mount on there XLH1? It has no optics, so it only uses the middle 50% of a lens. So if you need an appearent 50mm focal length you have to use a 25mm PL lens or something to that effect. http://www.xl1solutions.com/ADAPTERS.htm $595 to purchase I think they rent them too. Would someone please try this? We haven't got our XLH1 yet, but I'm itching to know if it works. Jason

I not really sure who Panasonic is targeting with this camera. I work for a church and have used the PD150 for years for smaller shoots that are down and dirty, not warranting pulling out the SDX900. So, we are looking to replace the PD150 and immediately looked a the DVX100... then this HVX-200 thing came out. At first I thought it would be a good replacement/upgrade to the PD150, real HD and everything... but let's look at the logistics of it. You're out in the field with this camera, two P2 cards, and a laptop. You record to the P2 cards, then have to dump that into a laptop, which last I checked is a computer, that does run the chance of getting the blue screen of death and locking up on you. Or, you are in a field somewhere where there is no power and the laptop battery runs out. Your sunk. What if the laptop gets a corrupted spot on the hard drive before you get a chance to dump it to your NLE? And I have to pay what for this convenience?... $1700 per card? Plus, we don't have a dedicated laptop for the field so now I have buy and $1200 laptop? I think all this puts it just out of reach people/organizations like me. Even if the cost was less... fumbling around with P2s having to dump footage... like that other guy said, when your not used to changing tape ever 10 minutes, it's a real big step backwards for us video guys. I wish they could have figured out a way to record HD on miniDV.

Does anyone know what the high end productions do for color balance? We have about 9 moving lights (Martin Mac's) and the magenta colors turn "tron" blue and posterized; yellow looks really green. We tried white balancing at 5.6K, which is the color temp of the moving lights, which made the moving lights accurate, but we use dimmed source 4's, fresnels and pars that render faces really warm. I wish I could go behind the scenes at one of the HBO concerts and see what they do. Thanks, Jason

THey had a good idea it would be problematic. They are film guys and 2/3" video is a new realm for them. There 1/3" adaptor works great, so hopefully they can get it figured out for 2/3". J

I have the dovetail plate that comes with the tripod, it has the 2 screws that slide forward and back. What I need is the plate that attaches to the DVX100A... it has one screw and one stud. I think that replaces the dovetail, if memory serves me right. Jason

Oh, yeah, it's 60P for sports... I was just talking about 720P in general. For slow-mo a shutter is always used. How many times have you seen the freeze at the end of a replay that jiggles back and forth between fields? I'm beginning to understand why sports is going progressive. I don't know why, but there is an observable worsening of interfield blurring with 1080i HD that was less noticeable in SD interlaced. Read "The Guide to Digital Television" by Michael Silbergleid. It's old, but still a good read and he talks about this phenominon. Also, because 1080i is interlaced, you only see half the resolution at a given moment, so isn't that morelike 540 lines every 1/60 of second vs. 720 lines progressive? J

Also check out Nigela Bites, it's shot 24P (or maybe 25P) as well, very similar look. Brian, if that church is looking for cameras right now, have them check out Thomson Grass Valley cameras. They have a focus assist circuit that puts a crawl (like tiny ants) around objects in focus. I saw it at NAB and it is amazing. We are considering the LDK6000s, which shoot 24P but do the 3:2 pulldown in the camera, so the switcher and decks so a standard 60P signal. GVG cameras cost a little more, but our church is looking at them because we like that cinematic look like you see on MTV productions and concerts. We are trying to stay relevant to the masses, who are now very technically savey and won't watch 2 seconds of poor quality. Why watch a preacher when you can watch ER? We would shoot our entire show 720 HD, 24P 16:9 if we had the cameras right now. David, a friend of mine who works on sports trucks a lot said that sports trucks are leaning toward 720P because of interlaced motion artifacts in 1080i, not to mention slow-mo looks great in 720P. I guess the answers will come in time. TimJBD If you have questions you would like to discuss, my email is JasonM@calvaryftl.org Jason

28 Days was shot on XL1's. Aren't XL1's 1/2"? I don't know. But I do know that 28 Days was shot with 35mm film lenses and an adaptor.

Maybe some will remember the debates of past about the XL1Solutions PL to B4 video adaptor, and whether or not it would work. Well, I finally tested it. And it didn't work. Well, let me explain. The makers know how to fix the problem, so I hope to get it back in a few weeks. The film lenses can not be physically close enough to the CCD to work. So they are going to put in a nice piece of glass to compensate. We did see an image with a 180mm lens though. The DOF was about 1 inch and would only focus on something about 4 feet from the lens. BUT!!!!! what we did see was pretty cool. The quality of the ARRi lens let you know that something was really really different... better. Even the straight-up film techs there were like "wow, that looks really beautiful". We were using an SDX900 with SDI out to a sony broadcast monitor. When I embarked on the search for an alternative to the P&S adaptor, I was more after the DOF difference that 35mm primes give you. Though I still want that, I now see the benifit of just the glass its self. I'll let you all know how the next tests go. If the compensation glass works out, I believe these guys will have a bit of gold here. The adaptor should cost under $2000, and has no moving parts (save for the back focus adjustment), and is very small compared to the P&S (25,000?). The only difference should be the calculations needed to pick your lens. Jason

I've been trying to find information on the web on the future of HD. I'm curious as to how 1080i will survive when a vast majority of home display products are native progressive... namely plasmas, LCDs, and DLPs. Along with the announcement that Sony will stop manufacturing of CRT monitors in favor of LCDs makes me wonder why anyone would invest in interlaced technology. At this point, our church is getting ready to purchase our first HD camera for our overflow room delivery, and other churches have said they wished they had bought 720P cameras because the 1080i camera they have causes interlaced artifacts. As we get ready to put in multiple HD cameras in our church for broadcast, it forces us to think about investing in a format that will have staying power. My gut tells me that Progressive technology will prevail. Of coarse 1080P would be the best, but it's rare at this point, and the cost of storage would be huge, plus who has the bandwidth to broadcast it? So, I think 720P will win. 720P aquisition, uncompressed editing, 720P delivery via HD broadcasting matched pixel to pixel to a home with a progressive display vs a bunch of scaling using interlaced... I don't know. Any thoughts? Don't confuse this with cinema, I'm talking made-for-TV here. Jason

There is a show currently airing on the Food Network, I think it's called The Next Food Network Star, sort of a American Idol for chefs. Anyway, I noticed on the commercials for it that they were shooting with Sony HDV camcorders, given away by the small LCD screen attached to the audio block on the top front. So I watched 2 episodes last night and was a little disappointed. The picture had better color than shows that were shot with PD150s, but still looked soft. And, focusing was a problem; I'm so tired of seeing shows shot with auto focus cameras. The back wall is always in perfect focus, and the subject is soft. Check the show out. I'm beginning to wonder if the limitations of a 1/3" CCD are the culprit. I expected more after all the hype of HDV. OH, I almost forgot, the audio was ATROCIOUS. I don't know what happened there, but it was truly bad. J

The plate that came with my Vinten Vision 3 tripod head doesn't work. Where can I get one of the plates with the pin and screw? I have one with my PD150, but don't know where it came from. Thanks, Jason

A lot of studios use Auratone speakers because they sound cruddy just like most TV speakers and stock car stereos... which most people use to listen to programming. J

If I use a 50mm prime, should I set the HD lens zoom the the middle somewhere and move the camera in and out to match frame, or what? I have a Hamlet portable waveform that I can use to set iris on charts. Forgive my lack of film knowledge... the distance markers on the prime lens: is it the distance from the back of the lens or film plane? I'll get the wide open shot by using the shutter speed to control exposure. I'll get the infinity shot too.

I would like to get some advice from you guys on doing some controlled tests. The guys at XL1solutions have graciously agreed to loan me a beta product... a PL to B4 mount with a back focus adjustment. By the way, they are really nice guys. Anyway, I will be going to a local rental house who has agreed to let me shoot some tests with Arri PL lenses free of charge. I'll be using an SDX900 at 50mbs mode 16x9, Progressive. I want to set up some test shots that include a subject of some kind with forground and background elements. What would be the best way to compare the PL lenses to my Canon 21x7.8 HD lens. Should I use primes lenses or a Arri compact zoom? My thinking was to set up a shot with a prime lens, lock off the tripod, shoot some tests, leave the camera in the same position and using the zoom on the HD lens, frame up the same shot and repeat. I'll post frame grabs of my test for you guys to look at. Thanks,

We have a Canon 21x7.8 HD lens and the glass is great, the breathing is awful. J

We have an older Canon 9x5.2 wide angle SD lens that is a real work horse. Very little breathing, I actually prefer it over our 21x7.8 Canon HD lens until I need a long closeup. The HD lens breaths like nothing I've ever seen... awful. Jason

I made the mistake once of leaving a 1/4 Black ProMist (4x4" matte box) on a PD150 outside. The DOF was like 2 miles and looked like the lens was dirty. Stupid. J

What about this... I'll put it in an annalogy: If you put a light meter in a dark room 3" away from a wall and cut a hole in the wall 2" in diameter, take a reading of the light coming from the room next door, then cut a hole 3" in diameter, would the light meter read higher foot candles? If the ccd is only seeing a fraction of the 35mm image, the ccd isn't seeing as much as a film frame which sees the whole 35mm lens image. Some of the light spills out past the CCDs in all directions. There's your lost 1 or 2 stops. Or, I'm an idiot. j

Thanks Sam, I agree. J

I understood the super8 statement, I just didn't understand why he felt he had to make an unprevoked statement like that. It's a TV commercial guys, not a feature. No one would ever think of making a movie with digital video... oh, well except that one movie with Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox. And Star Wars. And Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Ease up a bit on the video guys. The 900's a great camera. John, I don't know the place, Jack Chew was the editor, I don't know if you know him.