Mark Kenfield

Looks great Miguel, well done. Those K35s are super funky. I just assumed it was an anamorphic shoot until I read your description! Wouldn't have guessed it was a "Sony" shoot either, the Venice really is a return to form for Sony (it looks much more like the lovely F35 than their newer sensors). What was the weakness you uncovered?

How odd. I can’t really see how something as small as the A-Minima could realistically take up any more actual space in a venue, than anything else. Is there really no room to push back on them about the camera? It’s so small already.

It certainly happens, but not often in my experience. Generally, we’re working at such low light levels in interiors (with 800 ISO being a sort of de-facto sensitivity). That 9 times out of 10 I’m having to dim prac lamps down. Often significantly. I was really sweet on the idea of the kino bulbs for a while, but they’re just too big in too many fixtures.

I carry a big bag of assorted halogen bulbs, from 5w-70w, that generally get paired with dimmers. I’ve got some daylight balanced LED bulbs as well, but have yet to actually put them into a scene. I’d be intrigued to try the Philips Hue LED bulbs, but haven’t got around to it yet.

But no professional (BNC) connection point for the external raw recording. That seems almost odd considering how en pointe Sigma have been with speccing and approaching their cinema lenses thus far. I LOVE the idea of this as a Director's Viewfinder though. Any and all formats would be doable, spherical or anamorphic.

For cheaper, more modern T/1.5 glass, the Sigma Cine Primes and Tokina Vista Primes are your main options. Both are excellent performers optically. If shooting by real candle light is the plan though, I'd suggest opting for some newer sensor tech than the Alexa. The Panasonic Varicam and Varicam LT have a dual-ISO mode, and can do 5000 ISO with a normal spread of latitude. The Sony Venice also has a dual ISO mode, with a normal spread of latitude at 2500 ISO (but it remains extremely clean up to 5000 ISO as well). With those cameras you could use the Superspeeds stopped down a bit (to avoid optical issues, or have a more usable depth of field), or you could pair them with slower, cheaper lenses if needed. For squeezing as much exposure as possible from a practical source like candles, the dual-ISO cameras offer a capacity that simple hasn't existed before.

Yeah, I'm very intrigued by what shifting the load to the hips will do to the movement. It's the one thing that's holding me back from ordering one just yet. I touched base with Jesse (the cam op who's created it) as soon as I saw the coverage of it at NAB, asking if he had any sample footage from it comparing the movement both with it and without it. But (unsurprisingly) they've been swamped with orders, so it's not something they really have time for at the moment. Jesse said he'd used versions of it on Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, American Horror Story, Pose, The Assassination of Giani Versace, Futureman, The Disaster Artist, Foo Fighters: Run, and Feud. I've seen two of those (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile and The Disaster Artist), and I certainly didn't notice anything strange or unexpected in the handheld work on either of them. So I suspect anything it does introduce into the movement is pretty minimal (certainly compared to the pendulum issues you have when walking with an EZ rig). But I'll probably hold off until I can actually see it in action.

I'd never attempt a full day's shoot with the Alexa without a minimum of 5 batteries of around 150wh each (and then, only if I knew I'd be able to recharge them during the day). The Arri chews through power in order to give the high performance that it does.

EZ rigs are amazing when you're standing still, but problematic if you need to move around. I'm very interested in the new "Ergo Rig" for that reason (I still can't quite believe it took until 2019 for such a camera support concept to appear). For me, handheld works best when there's a reason for it. When you want to take the audience and unsettle them in a particular moment or scene. For that very reason, I don't think it pays to overuse it.

And here are some screengrabs from a few things I've shot with it, to show what it can do:

Selling my lovely, maxed-out Sony F3. You won’t find a better version of this camera anywhere - this unit has both the RGB 4:4:4 upgrade (for 10-bit 4:4:4 uncompressed output) and Element Technica’s amazing body armour modification, which strips away all of the handycam-style nonsense of the original F3, and turns the camera into an incredibly solid and genuinely production-friendly machine. They called this thing the “Baby Alexa” for a reason, with full 4:4:4 colour subsampling, huge dynamic range, and incredible low-light performance (due to its massive photosites), when you pair it with an external recorder, you get fantastic images in 1080p up to 60fps. I’ve been using it as a B-camera to my Alexa for the last few years, and it’s kinda remarkable how well the image from the Sony keeps up. It’s been very well looked after and is in great condition, with a low 677 hours on the body. The baseplate also includes a rear 15mm LWS rod clamp (not pictured) for mounting a v-lock plate or other accessories. It has a great set of built-in pre-amps, so for documentary interviews, or corporate shoots where you need to run sound into the camera as well, it really works a treat. So if you’re after a cheap, but powerful S35mm camera, with the reliability that Sony’s Cinealta cameras always deliver, and don’t want to deal with the mess and complexity of the mirrorless cameras, this might be of interest to you. Looking for $3,200 AUD (ex. GST) / $2,400 USD Located in Melbourne, Australia, but happy to ship worldwide.

For me, when I have a stills camera on set, it's generally all of those things rolled into one. It becomes a viewfinder, BTS camera, and documents lighting setups.

If it’s close to the subject it’ll play, or if it’s a dark day out. But that’s about it. Even a 4k HMI is middlingly useful during the daytime. Generally I’d rather have good mirror boards and reflectors handy.

I’ve found it both excellent and terrifying. Very well done.

Congrats Uli! Just watched it, absolutely gorgeous! (with a lovely twist and soundtrack too) I feel like most of the 35mm features I've seen in cinemas recently have felt almost indistinguishable from the digital ones. But you really "feel" the analog in this piece. And it feels wonderfully appropriate. Did you do anything in particular with the processing, or rating of the stock?