Stephen Price
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Posts posted by Stephen Price
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I agree with Phil. Although I am guilty of shamelessly plugging my own company, I work as a DIT and Phantom Technician and believe one should post as a personal user. I feel if you are to market your business here you should and balance it with sharing knowledge and your name.
Stephen Price
Love High Speed
London
www.lovehighspeed.com
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300/1000Hz HMI ballasts are available and can power any HMI lamp up to either 4K or 6K with stable power. In most cases Arc Wander can be entirely eliminating with these ballasts, there are some circumstances that some form of flicker may still be apparent. Testing is always advised if possible.
There are now many other daylight balanced professional light systems available which do not flicker under high speed photography. Many can be used as particle sources, or lamps for confined spaces, many of these heads are much more power efficient with low heat output.
Stephen
Love High Speed
www.lovehighspeed.com
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The true sensitivity of a correctly set up Phantom HD Gold shooting at 25/24fps 180 Degree Shutter is 160 ISO. This is rated to be accurate for cinematography use.
Both large tungsten heads as well as any HMI can be used in most cases without flicker. When using any HMI lights, it is necessary to use 1000Hz HMI ballasts, most good lighting rental houses should have either 300Hz or 1000Hz ballasts.
300fps is 3.5 Stops down from 24/25fps. This means the HD Gold will be at 15 ISO at 300fps and 7.5 ISO at 600fps. The distance of a 20K is really dependant on the subject and lighting conditions shooting in. The HD Gold has low latitude when compared to film or an Alexa, whites will clip quickly. Diffusing light sources and filling dark areas improves results.
Despite these draw backs, the Phantom HD Gold is still a very good high speed camera. As well as having numerous Phantom Flex's and other high speed cameras, we still have two Phantom HD Gold's which work regularly to this day.
Stephen
Love High Speed
www.lovehighspeed.com
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They do have a global shutter and personally I have never seen any rolling shutter artefacts from the M series Miro or Phantom Flex and including when using flashes or lighting strikes.
Also in most cases one does not shoot at 24 or 25fps, generally higher frame rates where you are even less likely to see any issues when using flashes do to the higher number of frames photographed.
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A recent upgrade to the Phantom Miro camera is the LC320S. With its flip out touch screen, camera interface is localised to finger tip control on-board.
Light-weight and simple to use, producing stunning slow-motion images with the quality Phantom cameras are known for.
1920x1080 up to 1500fps and 640 ASA.
http://www.lovehighspeed.com/phantom-miro-m320s/
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One of Love High Speed's recent commercials is Nike - 'My Time is Now'. Three Phantom Flex cameras from Love High Speed.
Over 100 hours of rushes was created on three Phantom's and three Alexa's, all transcoded on location and multiple back ups of over 40TB made by Love High Speed. Much of the Phantom was shot using a 3D wire rig with a Libra stabilised head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMv8g8CO4cQ&feature=player_embedded
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The Phantom Miro M320S is one of the newest models. Small, lightweight, rugged and the same sensor as the Phantom Flex, stunning images can be produced up to 1500fps at 1920x1080.
Many custom accessories have been created to integrate this camera with standard accessories. This cost effective camera is suitable for long-term dry hire projects and other productions with tighter budgets.
Available for rental with bespoke enhancements from Love High Speed.
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"The SI-2K 2.0 and Minidecks are being used by director Danny Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle who shot Slumdog Millionaire. Both Slumdog Millionaire and their current project, 127 Hours, were shot with a combination of the SI-2K, 35mm celluloid with occasional use of the Canon DSLR."
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Just, tried it this morning, very strange, I had the same problem. I went through the steps, and nothing was stored?
The way i did it which is not described anywhere i could find; in custom mode, set the white balance preset to A. then in maintenance, auto setup, auto white balance, then change the ND number, put new filter in front of lens, then auto white balance again. then to store, in file, OHB file, store file. Once this is done, i would expect changing the ND number should change the white offset, but nothing happens.
Has anyone out there done this? i'm sure i did it about two years ago when the camera first came out, but maybe not. Is it just another feature that sony has produced that no one has ever tested and it actually doesn't work? Art Adams describes ND offset, but it doesn't say in his article that he actually did it.
Steve Price
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Well it defiantly works, I have done it, its hard to tell where you have gone wrong, i'll try and get my hands on an F35 and go through it step by step. But in all honesty, it's actually much simpler to change your ND's to a better matching set. It does simplify things some what, you don't need to remember to change the file when you change filter, and if you swap the body out you'll have to do them all over again.
Steve Price
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This appears to have come down to an attack on Jason, the thread began with someone expressing their opinion about a new camera. As i'm sure you know already, there is a very similar list price between all Phantom rental facilities in London, Take 2, Panavison, Green Door, Pirate, and Love High Speed, this price is there for a reason and thankfully it is not common practice to drop the rates. There is also a similar price between all technicians, as there is with Grips, Sparks, Focus Puller ect, this is there a for a reason too.
It sounds as if you have had your hands burnt, and if that's the case then thats unfortunate, having an issue with the cost of a piece of equipment and the crew needed is one thing and thats ok, but personally attacking individuals is a bit unfair. Do you think Technocranes are too expensive, is it a con that you must have three technicians as standard?
Steve Price
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they make you pay for a technician, which is another two grand a day for someone who has done a weekend course in computing and knows what "black balance" means.
I think many people may take serious offense to that statement, there are people out there which may have done a weekend course in computing and think they know it all, but that is mostly thanks to the RED. A good technician is invaluable, and should be advising a production from start to finish regarding many issues, including preserving image quality. It also takes a lot of experience to learn any camera to a high level, there are many ways a good technician can advise to avoid pitfalls or just to get the best looking images. There should be very little mistakes on set with a good tech, they are there ensure the technology works for a seamless production.
Computing is one part of a Phantom Technicians role, data management is a very important part of a shoot. Would you describe a Clapper Loaders role in such a disrespectful manner? A good tech should also be able to advise on lighting, exposure, equipment combinations to use and avoid, such as lenses and filters amongst other things.
I would also like to meet any Phantom Technicians in London or anywhere else in the world who are charging £2,000 for a ten hour day. And with the new Phantom coming, you wont even notice a black balance anymore. The two day course computer guy will have to find something else to fill up his time. :)
Steve Price
Digital Camera Technician
London
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Phantom is great, the problem is that the cost is approximately one bullion bar per frame.
Why do you think shooting Phantom would be more costly then 35mm Photosonics?
The Phantom Flex will be an incredible HS camera, greater latitude and sensitivity than the Gold but still with its superb image quality, I cant wait.
Steve
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The Phantom Flex was not used in Inception, 35mm Photosonics and the Phantom HD Gold were used.
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Well said
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Depends what you mean by "supports", and what you want to do with what.
Generally it would mean a software which can natively work with a particular file format. One which can pick up its meta data and allow manipulation of its RAW attributes and allow transcoding and de-bayering. I have not found any other software apart form Iridas Speedgrade which can do this for 12-bit siv files.
Steve Price
Digital Camera Technician
London
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There are very few differences to changing a lens on the SI-2K than when compared to any other camera. As with any video or digital camera, the sensor and OLP filter should be kept clean, when changing lenses it is susceptible to dust and dirt, be conscious of the environment you are in before you change lens.
Also the SI-2K has the great universal mount system, one should be careful to un-tighten or tighten the correct part of the mount, failure to do so might end up with a loose lens or a broken lens!
Apart from that there are no other peculiarities. Black balances should be religious, but its not connected to lens change.
Steve Price
Digital Camera Technician
London
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Uncompressed will use a lot more drive space but is better than cineform, which is compressed. Cineform compression however is still very good.
From the tests I have done, 12-bit uncompressed is superior than Cineform in image quality. Also the recorder/laptop runs much smoother than when recording to Cineform because no compression is needed.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Cineform is 10-bit Log and Uncompressed 12-bit is Linear. I have not done a latitude test between the two, but I doubt there is much in it.
My main problem with uncompressed is that there is very little that supports it. Iridas supposedly does, but no version of Speedgrade DI I have had has. And yes it will use more storage space, but that is not much of an issue, as long as the image is considerably better.
Steve Price
Digital Camera Technician
London
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Hello,
As both the 5D MKii and 7D are CMOS sensors, are they like most CMOS chips and prefer daylight balanced light? Is there a sensitivity difference between these two colour temperatures? And does using Tungsten light produce more noise in the blue channel like a RED?
If you were to shoot table top subjects in a studio, and had a choice of either 3200k or 5600k, what would produce the cleanest image?
Many thanks
Steve
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Thanks for your reply,
Colour shift is not an issue. I chose HMI for their punchy light source. To get the most out as possible. But I did fear that HMI's are hard to dim.
Thanks
Steve
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Hello,
For a music video I need to fade up and down several lights quickly with control. I have one 2.5kW HMI and two 1.2kW HMI lights.
I need to fade each one up and down quickly and individually form each other. Is this possible? I presume I need some sort of dimming unit, what would i need and how does it work in conjunction with the HMI's ballasts?
Many thanks
Steve
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Phantom Competition? & Light Solutions
in Vision Research
Posted
Hello,
Phantom HD Gold at 2.2 Gamma is 160 ISO. Set your meter accordingly. Expose to hold highlights and fill shadows more than you would normally for a well exposed image. Make sure the camera is black balanced regularly.
Stephen Price
Love High Speed