Patrick Neary

It works, but it's awkward and not that good of a lens. I had one exactly like it years ago, but almost never used it because it's heavy (you need a turret locking cap that screws into the bottom lens port and secures the turret to the camera) and the focus and zoom were quite stiff, although that may have just been my specific lens.

If you unscrew the viewfinder and look down the little vf port into the lens, you can see a kind of beamsplitter and three (if I remember right) small silvered dots which take light passing through the lens and deflect it up into the dogleg finder. The three seperate "dots" allowed a kind of split image focussing.

The finder sticking out also just seemed to always be in the way, and it would get bumped out of alignment (it has to be set just right on the c-mount or your frame will look dutched through the finder).

Anyway, I just thought non-reflex primes were much nicer to use, and a lot sharper.

If you like Kurosawa, also check out Yasujiro Ozu- (Tokyo Story and Good Morning, and a zillion others). Really brilliant filmmaking!

Hi-

You can also use a mix of approaches- I did this not too long ago for some hospital scenes in an Animal Planet movie- In the rooms (and a large hallway) with a lot of exposed windows, we balanced for 5600k, bouncing additional daylight in with shiny boards (left on the flourescents, only if they were in the shot, just so they wouldn't look "off" but didn't have any problem with green cast). In areas with no windows, we lamped our kinos with tubes from the hospital. In an O.R. scene, we lit entirely with 3200k kinos and a few tungsten units. We also bounced a 2k into a room we could see through the doors in the background to keep it from going too green (but kept its' flouros on, again, just for effect) It all worked out quite well and kept us from trying to "muscle" around different color temps!

Now, if you have a shot following someone from outside, through the halls, into the basement.....

Hi-

George is right, the vision 200 cart is notched for asa 160, so you get a little overexposure and slightly denser neg. I shot a music video not too long ago ( http://www.brokenskyfilms.com it's the "keeping it real" vid for buellton) on S8 and really enjoyed it- I'd love to do more- especially with the 800asa neg, it just becomes a surrealistic-mess-o-grain.

I shot a couple episodes of a kids' series up on the matterhorn (on '74) and remember having to ND the bejeezus out of the lens. That snow and swiss sunshine is quite intense, even if it's hazey.

All of the things you are talking about can be very easily created in the telecine and/or post. If I was doing it, I'd shoot the cold stuff with (or without) an 81c or ef (lotsa lotsa NDs) and not worry too much about keeping track of exact color temps, 'cause you're going to fine tune in TC anyway.

250d, being a daylight stock won't go nearly as cold as the 74, but again you could dial it in easily in telecine.

it sounds like a fun shoot!

....."really? hmmm...."

Here's the thing: when someone is testing you like this (and it can be a gaffer, an AC, a producer, the caterer, you name it) you'd better be 100% confident in what you're doing, or you may begin to feed into that second-guessing yourself.

I've found that if someone is expressing concern about your choices, whether in production or telecine, it can be instructive to hear them out, but not give them any ground (unless they're right, but that's another story). If you're being accosted by a ne'er-do-well, it helps sometimes to just throw it back on them to explain their reasoning- (and then you can politely say, ""really? hmmm...." ;)

If you're really confident in your choices, you should be able to communicate that concisely- if you can't, then certain folks will stomp all over you and your work.

This is an interesting problem, and one that doesn't seem to be discussed too much, and I'd love to hear how other DP's handle it.

Here's a short bit about the film (with a "behind the scenes pic) on indiewire, although there's little tech/post info:

http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040226young.html

You can also find a schedule of film play-dates and locations on Young's own web page-

very good point- Personally I'd love to give an a-cam a try, it looks like a very fun camera!

Not to shoot down their fine work (the a-cam folks), but couldn't you just machine-out an old filmo gate and end up with the same thing?

I can imagine!

The 900 looks like a promising new camera, especially with the rental rates (at least around here) at about half the cost of HD.

But that sounds like another forum topic!

Hey! Did anyone in these hallowed forums catch the Sundance screening of November shot by Nancy Schreiber? Just curious what anyone thought of the image quality (from both tech and aesthetic perspectives....)