Patrick Neary

Despite any misgivings I have about these cameras, I know that shooting with them is great fun. Car mount? 2 minute set up. Falls off the car at 70mph? Who cares! PA runs to Best Buy and gets another one! (ok, but you know what I mean)

I shot a series of national spots for Kraft a few years ago, we shot 35 with Panaflex GIIs and Primos and the usual stuff. There was one shot, overhead about 14' looking straight down on the talent, and if you've ever had to rig one of those beasts with only ladders, a tilt plate and speedrail then you can begin to understand the pain and time involved. Doing the same shot with a Canon or GH1 would be like, broomstick and velcro, moving on!

Wait a sec here, how is it more video friendly than the Canons? The GH1 is using h.264 compression, right, just like the Canons? I've been experimenting with the T2i, which uses h.264 compression, but once that stuff has been transcoded to ProRes, I'm getting some outstanding results. Maybe I'm missing something that's come along with the hack you are referring to?

Hi-

What I mean is it's much friendlier for me to use, I like the bendy screen and the controls seem more intuitive and easier for shooting video. The only issue might be that it's too small, I manage to press about 7 buttons every time I pick it up. But hey, I like the Canons too...

I'm just transcoding to AIC (FC Express, *blush*) and obviously there is an issue with the render to 29.97 adding a weird pulldown cadence that shows up as a judder, I need to try again and output 23.98.

(and my Ptools version was 3.36, not 3.6, bad typing)

Okay Patrick, we've both moved on from the ARRI's to the GH1. :D

 

not so fast there! I've got 2 features fresh on the boards and am aiming/hoping to do both in S16 (in this case rather than red), for all the usual reasons.

I've also been looking at some 35mm ProRes and uncompressed I have here on the mac and the GH1 stuff is easily as sharp and detailed, it just has a different set of artifacts, and the film obviously has a depth and range of color and tonality that's unbeatable.

The GH1 though is so small and fun to use (and so much friendlier for vid than the Canons) I would love to do a short or spot with it. I could see it also being a nice companion to Panasonic's AF100 (?) if and when it finally arrives.

I used the Ptool 3.6 also, only checking the "compare versions" "24p native" and "C" settings (I'm only shooting the AVCHD/1080/24). It was painful enough just trying to figure out how to get to that point (plus it seems to work) that I don't feel like wading through the trainwreck of information over at DVX to change it again.

I've been shooting like a madman with this thing since the hack, and today was the first time I had a write error, but that was with a very complex (detail-wise) shot, sharp wide angle, moving, with moving leaves and droplets, etc. And then I pulled the card and realized it was only a class4. I'll grab a class 6 or better and shoot some more. I guess you could back down the bit rate, but that seems to defeat the purpose of the hack in the first place, which is to pump more data. Mine seems pretty reliable as it is.

yeah, that's pretty exciting, another cheap camera with unreliable firmware that uses still lenses.

 

Does it have peaking and zebras? That, at least, would be something.

Hi-

Not to sound defensive about the GH1, but it doesn't have peaking or zebras, it has a histogram, and believe it or not, you can mount PL lenses with a simple, no optics adapter, and add a follow focus and matte box if you like. And a sunglasses holder.

Certainly it would be a tough camera to use in a typical production environment (hey, you forgot to add no monitoring and shitty sound, and no xlr connectors, and on and on) but I don't think anyone with a real budget would be ogling the GH1 as an A-Camera- I sure wouldn't. That doesn't mean it might not find a useful place out there in some creative hands.

Hi-

For anyone who's interested, here's a tidbit shot this morning with my "hacked" GH1, the Vimeo version doesn't really do it justice, but here goes:

http://www.vimeo.com/12866043

I'm kind of surprised at the lack of chatter here about this hack, the quality now coming from this little camera is truly astounding....

Howdy-

Does anyone in the US rent these S16/anamorphics yet?

thanks

So sad. I'll miss his manic enthusiasm for tinkering.

Hmm, I wonder about that one. It highlights "The Star Wars" with the date of 1980. Not sure how that can be since Episode IV was released in 1977, Empire Strikes Back in 1980, and Jedi in 1983. <_<

I think if you look at the actual plate on the camera it lists star wars at 1976.

$100,000! Star wars was cool, but it wasn't THAT cool! :)

There's no reason why this shouldn't work on conventional black and white motion picture negative. The Vitamin C (Sorbitol) is a widely used developing agent - probably has more effect than the coffee, which is just there for the novelty. (Though I've no reason to suppose it doesn't also work as a developing agent given enough time).

 

But unless I've missed something, developing negative in this brew will give you a negative - and a silver negative at that. Possibly with coffee stains, but that's not what the video shows. The sepia positives shown in the video can't have come from this process. Even printing from the caffenol-processed negative would only give you a regular black and white print.

 

And it's a very long developing time at normal temperatures. You'd need a lot of hot coffee in that processing machine of yours, James ;) Perhaps there is a use for that stuff that Starbucks make, after all.

Hi-

Coffee's more than a novelty! I've souped my 4x5 in caffenol and you don't need the vitamin C. Foldger's Instant coffee (and the washing soda) do a fine job of developing, but it does take a good 30 minutes for most B&W neg films.

Hi-

If you haven't been here yet:

http://www.stopmotionanimation.com/dc/dcboard.php

there's a wealth of info!

If using a dslr one thing you need to worry about is flicker from your (canon) lens aperture closing and opening for each frame. To get around this you need to use Nikon lenses and adapter so that the iris stays at the same place (f5.6 for instance) rather than opening and closing between each shot.

Nobody shoots animation at 48fps, (where would you show it???) in fact many stop motion films (including Wallace and Gromit) use 12fps, shooting mostly on 2's rather than ones.

And imagine if you actually held the camera reasonably steady during your walk, rather than shaking it all over hell and back like the spastic camera work in the demo.

here you go:

http://www.alangordon.com/s_filmcam16_mags.html

spendy though!

(I don't know how big the Eyemo crank handle is). I did try and crank the little Konvas at 24 FPS which was damn near impossible to do smoothly.

The Eyemo crank is tiny, it's the same one as the filmo. It makes it harder to crank smoothly, but again, if you're hand-cranking these days, you generally want it to look hand-cranked!

Hi-

I just finished shooting a 35mm short for a friend with an old hand-cranked Mitchell and Eyemo- One thing I found shooting some earlier tests is that you can get very smooth running speeds out of either camera, negating the hand-cranked effect you are probably going for.

What I ended up doing was pulling the big brass flywheel out of the mitchell, and setting the speed dial on the Eyemo at its highest setting (48fps). This allowed for more rapid and abrupt changes in cranking speeds, and more pronounced exposure fluctuations, which is what we were going for in the first place. And if my hand slipped during the shot, or I felt like cranking faster or slower during a take, so much the better.

Have fun with it, I wish I could hand crank everything I shoot!

Oh, and I used the old Alfred Hitchcock show theme- I can't remember the name of the actual classical piece- as my internal speed regulator :)

damn that is just cool

edit-

position filled

Thanks John and Charlie! The woodruff key is a great fix-

I'm still curious though, was there a time when one had to specify B&H core when ordering film? I've got a kodak sheet from the mid 60's or so and it doesn't give any indication of seperate cores for B&H.

I am looking for a additional motor to add to the Eyemo mag to do torque takeup on the 400' I would not trust the drive takeoff for long term shooting.

 

-Rob-

That would be a good move, the pulleys on my mags at least seem to be rather slick, and the belt doesn't bite very well after 250' or so either.

That's crazy about the spindles on the mags, people have been using these things for years but I've never heard or read any mention of the non-standard core. Did people have to order "B&H core" film for Eyemos and 2709s I wonder?

Hi Robert (and any other Eymoleons out there)-

Do you happen to drive 400' mags with your Eyemo? The reason I ask is that both mags I've acquired use odd cores, with "outies" instead of "innies" (see picture) so that if you plop a standard 35 core on the spindle, it freewheels. I ended up tapping out the retaining pin in the take-up spindle just slightly so that it would drive a standard Kodak or Fuji core. Is this standard for Eyemo and 2709 mags? How do others deal with it?

The other thing I've noticed about 400' mags with the Eyemo is that adding even 250-300' of neg creates quite a bit of drag (no surprise). Asking the spring motor to drive a 400' mag is obviously out of the question, but have you (or anyone else) regularly driven 400' mags with the classic Eyemo ac/dc motor, or the NCS Products single-Frame/Sync motor?

I was hand cranking mine and as the take-up side hit 200' or so the pressure needed to drive the mechanism was quite substantial, nothing like the Mitchell which will crank through 400' effortlessly.

Also, which motor do you use for timelapse, and are you happy with the frame to frame exposure consistency? Any problems or issues in asking the Eyemo to drive single frame?

Thanks for any insight!

B&H core (came with mag) is the gray one on the right, standard Fuji on the left.

Hi

If there ARE any Eyemo users left out there, check out you-know-what-Bay for good deals on 25mm f4.5 Eymax lenses right now. Someone back east apparently must have run into a big cache of NOS lenses, they are selling for under $10. (search for "Eymax" they have them labeled as "Filmo" lenses-actually the box says filmo too, but these are eyemo mounts). The two I got are like new.

So really, anyone still shooting with theirs? I've been hand-cranking mine this summer for a friend's silent short!

Hi-

what about using those huge medium-base flash bulbs? Not super convenient for lots of multiple flashes, but long burn time and huge output.

Given that they came out with a firmwire update for the 5D M2 that allows you to manually select shutter speed and aperture for the video, I would assume not; why would they make the same mistake twice? Then again...maybe I'm giving them too much credit.

" Users can set exposure and frame rate – with options for 24 fps to create that cinematic feel."

whatever that means...

Well, was it a major PIA to use it on a feature? Let's hear it from someone who has actually done it...

GHAAA! EDIT!!!!

OK, re-reading my post I hope it's clear (I know it's not) that this isn't meant to be a dig at Jamie, it's meant as a friendly taunt to the original poster- I'd like to hear more about the shoot. Sorry for any confusion....