Mark Sasahara

The Cine Tech Titanium II folllow focus is about $1500-$1700 new. It's really great and comes with a 10 inch whip. This allows an assistant to be next the camera and pull focus without disturbing the position of the camera, due to the whip's flexibilty. I got a really great deal, from ZGC on a Chrosziel Matte box, bracket and rods for my XL2 and the Cine Tech also. They're located in New Jersey. Talk to Chris in Sales.

Landon, the 16x manual lens is my primary lens. It is very sharp and I use it with a Cine Tech follow focus a lot. Hand held it's great too. The zoom speed can be controlled on the XL2's hand grip, by the lens. Zoom speeds are 3 seconds at zoom speed 16 to about 36 second at zoom speed 1. My one complaint is that when you rack focus there is breathing, but you can cover it with a small move. Many zooms exhibit at least some breathing. For filmmaking the 16x is much better than the 20x. Mechanical and hard stops for the focus and zoom. marking for focal length and distance. The 20x doesn't have any markings, it's all electro, so it's brushes, no mechanical stops. I do have the 20x as well. The Optical Stabilization can be handy for long tele shots and for hand held stuff too. It is also longer in the tele end, which can be good for compression and longer reach. What's funny is that the 20x does not breathe. Close focus on the 16x is about 46 inches at 86.4mm tele end and about 28 inches at the 5.4mm wide end.

Mikey, in a word: GREAT! I got my XL2 package from ZGC and they have been really great. Chris B, in sales, is The Best. She helped me put together a package, answered all my questions and gave me a great price. I had some trouble with the camera and she was very supportive. I think that they offer more personalized service than B&H, especially when trouble occurs. Now all is well and I'm a happy camper. I love my XL2. And ZGC.

Don't know about the Sony, but the XL2 and DVX do have a selection of shutter speeds to choose from. When I am in a low light situation and need more light, I'll switch the shutter from 1/48 down to 1/24 on the XL2. It doesn't go any slower, but it does have faster shutter speeds. I think the DVX has slower shutter speeds down to a 15th if memory serves, plus faster speeds as well. The problem with faster shutter speeds is that the image starts to get a more pronounced strobing effect.

Could that have been a problem with that particular body? Did you try the lenses on a different camera? Obviousy it's a bit late, but just curious. Also, were you able to resolve that problem?

Thank you David, for all the great postings and pics! I'm amazed, informed and inspired. The child labor people would have driven me crazy with frustration, your tongue must hurt from having to hold it so much.

Jan I think you're being a bit rude. Rik was suggesting that you use an XL1, or 2 for aquisition and use the EOS adapter with your lenses and try that as a way to cut costs, etc. It may not have been the answer you were looking for, but there's no reason to be ungrateful, he's trying to help you solve your problem. If you read your post you'll see that his answer was trying to point you in a useful direction. When you are drowning, do not criticise the color of the rope being thrown to you, for it may be withdrawn.

I don't have any expreience with the Sony. I really like my XL2, 24P, native 16x9, cine gamma. Like Rik said, wait 'til after NAB. I personally hate HDV and think it's a bastard format, faux HD, but that's my opinion. If you want HD, shot with a real HD camera. The other thing is most of the world doesn't have HD yet. The majority of tv's are still SD. Also, you have to down rez the HDV to fit onto a DVD. Look around on some of the forums here and on DVInfo. A friend Produces Town Haul, on A&E and shot with Panasonic SD-X900's. It looks really good and it's 24P. Course, that's a 2/3", 3 chip cam. Check out dvxuser.com, they have a shootout between the DVX100A, XL2 and the Z1U. Did I mention I hate HDV?

Be sure to use Sheetrock brand, or gypsum board that has a white, or gray paper cover. Some gypsum board has a green paper cover which will give you a nasty green color cast. I find that Homasote, with a thin outer coating of concrete is a nice lightweight alternative. I can use this with a Brute for neg fill if need be, but I shut it off every fifteen minutes. Hope this helps!

Yeah, I have to agree with Rik. I make my living as a DP, so I list myself as such. Since you are starting out, I suggest you list yourself as "student", or something. I do not imply that I know it all. One can never know it all, so I am always learning. I hang here, so that I may gather and impart knowledge. As Rik said, do your research on the web. Go to the recommended books section and first time filmmakers section here, other websites and see what books, etc. are suggested. Go to your library, go to rental houses, go to ebay. Find out who the manufacturers are and visit their websites. Do your "due dilligence" and look around. Google is a wonderful tool. Play with your 35mm camera. Not knowing is the perfect place from which to start. Be a sponge.

Super16 is 16mm film, 35mm is 35mm film, two totally different sizes of film. A super16 conversion makes the regular 16 gate wider. The change is happening at the gate and also in the position of the lens, not in the actual size of the film. The only difference in the film is not in the films size, but the film perforations. Super 16 requires single perf rather than double perf film, to acommodate the wider frame size. If the film size was different, it wouldn't be called 16mm. There is no reason to change anything else, or attmept to convert a 35mm camrea to 16mm. Unless you're really, really bored and have a lot of time on your hands. Both Aaton and Arri 16mm cameras can be converted from regular 16 to Super16 and back again.

Have fun and good shooting!

I think that college is a very important place for people to grow up, make mistakes and mature. I was pretty immature and obnoxious when I was in college and quite a few years after. But I never stopped learning and always had the drive to keep achieving and keep moving forward. Much of the important things that we learn are not necessarily taught by the prof, but the things that we do on our own and the mistakes that happen along the way. I am more of an experiential learner, but books certainly help a great deal. The school can only teach you so much. I also expected to be "fed". My advice is wherever you go to school, don't expect to be fed. Take the initiative, be a thirsty sponge and soak up as much as you can and do as much as you can. Talk to the professors, talk to other students and learn. I'm in my early forties and I am always learning something new. I am learning about other aspects of my business, how to do business, learning about myself and others. I know I don't know it all, so I try and keep myself educated and talk to people that do know. Don't limit your knowledge. Learn about other things, you never know where it will take you. College is also a great place to meet like minded people. Some of my oldest friends are classmates from my freshman year. I felt more at home at the Rochester Institute of Technology, because I felt like these were "my people": other photo crazed individuals who wanted nothing else but to be photographers. I started life as a photographer and transitioned into film and video in the ninties, but a good portion of what I learned in photo school was useful. I learned a lot about the nuts and bolts of photography. I started out as a photojournalist, a lot of the instincts and drive came from that and what I learned on the job and in college. There's lots of rich kids who are jerks and there's lots of rich kids who are good people. Quality of character doesn't have much to do with money. Be nice. The guy you just screamed at may be the guy at your next job interview. AFI is probably a great place, you are in LA and it seems like a sort of fast track for getting into the industry (my observation from here in NYC). By being in LA, or NY you will be meeting people, in and out of school who may be valuable to you. They may be in a position to hire you or may know of an opportunity. This could be while in school, or many years later. Even if you never knew them, the common thread you will have is that you went to the same school. There is a lot to be said for the "old school tie", meaning the alumni connection is strong and that may be the one thing you and the person hiring have in common. Getting a job is not necessarily what you know, but who you know. I meet a lot of the same people on a lot of jobs. Going directly into the industry is good also, but I feel that going to college helped me learn about things that I might not normally have learned about, thought or done. As another poster said, it makes you more well rounded. It took me away from the comfortable and familiar. It was a good place to grow.

Yeah, apples and oranges. No offense, but your reasoning is backwards on your last paragraph. The SDX is a far superior camera: the sensor is twice as big, it's recording on a better format: DVCPRO50 is 50Mb/s and 4:2:2 sampling. It's a pro camera, with better glass, there's just no comparison. MiniDV is 25Mb/s and 4:1:1, half the color sampling. MiniDV is an inferior format compared to DVCPRO50, or DVCAM. I love my XL2 but yes, video Voodoo. Effective pixels are 350,000 for 4:3 and 460,000 for 16x9. There's a reason why the SD-X900 is $26K, just for the body. A good zoom will cost you at least another $25K. Like Patrick said, go and shoot the two side by side and you'll see.

Tiny little LCD pixels are not sharp whether they are B&W, or color. The stock color EVF is not very sharp because it's an LCD screen, nature of the beast. The only way to get real sharp B&W is to get a real B&W CRT viewfinder. So you have to plunk down your Pounds/Euros and get the FU-1000. I use the FU-1000 and if I need to see the color, I'll plug it into a monitor. I'm saving my pennies (pence) for a color Panasonic 7" on-board monitor so I can have a better idea of how the color looks and not drag along a heavy monitor all the time. It's an LCD, but it would be for color and framing. I have a Chrosziel AC-440-01 Sunshade. It's a two stage matte box that is really great. Go to the Chrosziel website and check it out. http://www.chrosziel.com/

Using a 35mm still photo lens on the Mini35 will double the focal length, because the cine film frame is about half the size of a still photo 35mm frame. So a 20mm still lens becomes a 40mm on the Mini35, because you are extracting the center portion of the lens' angle of view. Using PL Mount lenses or Panavision lenses allows you to take full advantage of cine lens' full angle of view, geared follow focus interface, easily read and moved focus and iris rings. Still photo lenses while a good inexpensive alternative, don't give you the same angle of view, ease of use, or functionality as cine lenses, they just weren't designed for film/video shooting. You are probably best served renting the 400 Series "Oszi" Mini35 rig for the XL2 and renting a set of Zeiss Super Speed primes. These have a maximum aperture of T/1.3 and since you lose about two stops, you'll still have a fairly fast T/2.8 lens. The newer "Oszi" has the oscillating ground glass that has a somewhat random pattern rather than the old spinning ground glass, which would sometimes show up at around T/5.6, or 8, I forget. Part of the "Film Look" is the shallow depth of field, which you would achieve with the Mini35. Another component is the contrast, dynamic range and the way film captures motion. 24P and Cine Gamma/Cine Look image processing brings video closer to looking like film. Film is film, video is video, they are both excellent tools and I think film will be around for quite sometime. If you do buy a mini35, then rent the lenses. Super Speeds cost about $10K, per lens. Some folks like the Cooke S4's and those are T/2 and start around $15K per lens. The canon 16x manual lens is an excellent lens, the 20x is also very good but they have two functions. If you are doing more cine style shooting the 16x is great. I use it almost exclusively, because I need to be able to hit a focus mark and know exactly what focal length I'm at. Even with run and gun, I prefer the 16x for almost everything. I like to 20x for it's image stabilization, which is great if I have to hand hold it, especially at the tele end. The longer tele end is great for wild life or extreme tele compression effects. The downside is that the focus and zoom are electric and use brushes, so there are no actual mechanical linkages to the zoom and focus. I have a focus gear for the 20x so I can use it with my CineTech follow focus. It works to an extent. The EOS adapter for the mini35 is strictly a way to affix the lens to the Mini35, you won't get any electric hook ups. The Canon EOS adapter allows full electric functions of the EOS still lenses because it is connecting directly to the XL2 body. Both Canon and Nikon are great glass, I've shot with both. Canon Auto focus is faster than Nikon, but for our purposes, we need manual lenses. The Nikons are fine. Canon FD manual glass ceased manufacture quite some time ago, but Nikon still has manual lenses as current product. Do your homework. Go on other forums like DVinfo and others, go to the ZGC and P+S Technik websites and read up.

Hmm, wonder what kind of a deal they'd give me if I trade in my XL2 and my Hasselblad? I'd definitely get the primes. I think I've got enough pennies (yeah, right!).

You really ought to shoot cine film, as John pointed out the pitch difference, but also you want to see that particular emulsion and run it through the whole processing and printing chain so you can accurately see what the result will be. As several people pointed out, you can also check your exposure. Select a couple of emulsions you want and get 100 or 200 foot loads, try them out, get them transferred and maybe see a projected print. Play around a bit and see what they can do.

I might have that tatooed on my forhead. Nice! Yes, B&W would be nice.

Just for fairness sake, Canon and Fuji also have cine style primes and zooms. Canon http://www.usa.canon.com/html/industrial_b...home_hd_ec.html Fuji http://www.fujinonbroadcast.com/cgi-bin/pr....cgi?parent=173 I don't know how they compare with each other, has anyone done any tests?

Thanks Walter, an interesting and informative comparison. Now that I live in NYC, it's so nice to be able to go to B&H whenever I feel like it. Cheers!

As the others suggest, shoot it clean and then tweak it in post. Having said, that if you do want to get that "Bleach By-Pass Look" go into the camera menu: Camera Menu >Custom Preset >Preset Setup >Red Gain, Blue Gain, Green Gain Turn down the red, green and blue gain to achieve the desired desaturation. Check it out on a calibrated color monitor if you can. Again, unless you are absolutely sure, shoot it clean and apply the filter in post.

The 16x Manual lens is the lens to get. Get the Century .7 Wide Angle adapter and you're set. There should be body only kits available in the U.K. by now. Go to the XL2 Watchdog site and read up. There are links for the XL1 site and you can get info on the 14x there. DVinfo net forums are really great for the XL1/2 and the DVX100A. http://www.dvinfo.net/canonxl2/index.php Cheers.

To use 35mm primes on your digibeta, you will probably want to use the P+S Technik Pro 35 lens adapter. This will allow you to use 35mm cine primes and zooms on a 2/3" video camera. Shallow depth of field, faster lenses, easier focus pulling and similar work flows for your first A/C are part of the reason for using them. The Zeiss Digiprimes are really nice, Canon have also come out with a range of primes for 2/3" cameras. Sony just came out with a new Digibeta camera that will do 24P-Woo hoo! Real colors! Real cameras! Go to the press room and check out the announcement on Sony's website. You might be able to rent one when you do your shoot. Otherwise the SDX-900 might be a nice way to go. Varicam? There's a bunch of lower priced HD cams that just came out by both Sony and Panasonic, Rental houses may have them by the time you shoot. New Sony Digibeta w/24PsF- whatever the F PsF is. http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/5586

As Jason suggests, if you can rent out a similar set up and try it out, that would be best. Also note that you will get a magnified image, somewhere around 5 times magnification. The Arris are meant for 35mm cine cameras which have a frame size, for example for an Arriflex camera with a 4:3 gate the image size on the neg is 20.2mm x 15.2mm. Whereas, the 1/3 inch chip is 4.8mm x 3.6mm. You would only be getting the center portion of the lens. The 35mm cine lenses have a much larger angle of coverage. Fine if you are doing stuff where you are shooting with long lenses, but if you need to go wide, nothing will get you very wide. I have used both cameras, I own an XL2, but the DVX is also very good. It's a very close race between these two cams.