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Aapo Lettinen

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  1. Aapo Lettinen
    if using larger format lenses it is usually good idea to use matte box and hard mattes or black tape mask to increase contrast and reduce flare, the ff lenses have lots of spare area to flare, especially with older coatings. some adapters may not have been made to exact specs and the lenses's focus scales may not be perfectly calibrated so it is a good idea to check all the combinations first before serious shooting. I usually shoot the tests in b/w film and develop it by myself so the results can be seen very quickly
  2. Aapo Lettinen
    I usually shoot with 180 degree shutter, but if I know the footage will be post stabilized (for example using Warp Stabilizer in AE) then I usually choose 90 degree angle to reduce motion blur which could otherwise lead to very distracting edge artifacts in stabilized footage. for music videos etc. stuff the shorter shutter time could also be usable. in movies I think it's a bit worn off effect in most cases and is also a very bad substitute to ND filters because it causes very visible effect
  3. Aapo Lettinen
    I understood that the hot glue was only for the switch, not the actual light. I usually use small plastic bags to protect the light switches and plugs in wet conditions… for a switch it is usually enough that the bag is wrapped around the switch and sealed from the top part (taped tightly to the power cord etc) , the bottom can usually be open if the switch always hangs upright
  4. Aapo Lettinen
    at least 2 lenses: something wide from 16 to 25mm range, and one longer lens, maybe 65 75 or 85. since you are using CP2:s you could also use (ZE, ZF) still lenses if changing the camera mount, but it would be more practical to stick on cp:s because of the better mechanics and easier handling. Exact focal lengths are a matter of taste, but considering you already have one lens from CP2 series I think it's easier to use same series lenses to expand your inventory. maybe 85mm T1.5 CP2 super speed and 21mm T2.9 CP2 ? If you need more speed then 20mm T1.9 Ultra Prime might be better solution than 21 CP2, and if you need shorter tele than 85 then maybe UP 65/1.9 might be an option. Zooms are also an option If something under 21 is needed for some shoots you can rent it easily ( 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 / 18mm)
  5. Aapo Lettinen
    I meant that if they are using the fixtures without any protection (lens or safety net) in place there will be hot glass flying everywhere if the bulb explodes
  6. Aapo Lettinen
    Yeah, sounds like some of them may be partially blind sooner or later <_< Even 300w bulb has lots of energy if it decides to explode, note the marks those glass shrapnels left to the aluminum reflector which is about 1.5mm thick:
  7. Aapo Lettinen
    I was on a indie shoot couple of years ago where they used real guns and ammo instead of using blanks because they wanted to cut costs by not "wasting money" on blanks… If shooting mostly small indie productions, then it may be handy to purchase real Arri lights (if shooting lots of stuff and no money to rent lighting gear) or purchase cheaper chinese stuff (no money to rent and no money to purchase arri gear, also shooting not so often so no need for more durable gear) . I purchased the chinese stuff because I knew I could easily repair them "if" there's some issues :/ I also needed lights for time consuming small scale second unit stuff (miniatures etc) and for documentary demos etc. For bigger productions I can rent lights (arri, filmgear) and no need to keep the chinese stuff around there. I would stay away from chinese hmi, though. May be very difficult and dangerous to repair and very bad idea to have uninspected high voltage gear around… have used some Filmgear him:s and they were OK but non-brand hmi:s directly from China, no way in hell :blink:
  8. Aapo Lettinen
    The light quality might be somewhat similar, but the mechanics would NOT… with all the inner parts replaced, it might really be cheaper to buy used Arri lights. If you can do the rewiring then you can try to find a balance between the costs and quality of the fixtures. I think all you can possibly do is to make sure it is safe and maybe fix something small, but no major modifications like changing the complete inner parts including rails etc
  9. Aapo Lettinen
    linear halogen bulbs tend to create more uneven beam, if diffused or used as a kicker/backlight this is not a problem or if used in a way that the beam structure is not fully revealed (eg. projected to a flat surface etc.)
  10. Aapo Lettinen
    correcting the tungstens with 1/2 ctb can be enough in some cases, gives you one extra stop of light compared to full correction and 1/2 is usually enough to prevent the outside light from going overly blue
  11. Aapo Lettinen
    how much of the stairs is visible? for the area downstairs, you could bounce light from white surface under the stairs on both sides, you could hide the lights downstairs so they are not visible. this is only effective if you need just a little bit more light near the windows because the light would be too frontal if you increase the bounce area by using more surface. or you could use bigger lights for bounce, thought this might not be practical. fresnel or par would do for this but definitely not open face tungstens, they have too much spread to get a reasonable spot to the corners near the windows.. for upper stairs, you could hang 4-4 or bigger kino flos above the frame line so the light is coming from the general direction of the big windows but is wrapping around the stairs to the shadow area and creates good soft backlight for the characters. you could archive kind of similar type of effect by using bounced or softened tungsten light but the rigging is much more complicate and more time-consuming to tweak if you need changes
  12. Aapo Lettinen
    what kind of scene you are shooting there? for daylight it would be much better to use hmi:s for the reflectors, you could manage with single 1.2k for example instead of using quite a bunch of small tungsten lights corrected to daylight (light loss about 2 stops…) If you cannot use hmi and can manage with warmer fill, them maybe you could correct the tungstens with 1/2 ctb so you have double the light level compared to full correction
  13. Aapo Lettinen
    the gel surface will create a hard additional reflection just like any shiny plastic foil. it may look like a reflection from glass surface, mirror or other shiny surface but it is definitely distracting if you are not intended to have it around
  14. Aapo Lettinen
    I already posted this one to the Lighting forum but I think every indie filmmaker should read this if they are planning to update their light set with chinese gear: http://aapolettinen.blogspot.fi/2014/09/chinese-fresnels-are-they-any-good.html
  15. Aapo Lettinen
    Hi you all :) I recently bought some cheap Chinese fresnel lights just to see if they are any good or not. I wrote some thoughts to my blog, and there is also lots of images! http://aapolettinen.blogspot.fi/2014/09/chinese-fresnels-are-they-any-good.html I'd say it is very risky to order this type of gear directly from China. Luckily I have worked years with professional lights so I dared to try these cheap counterparts just to see if they can be used safely by anybody...
  16. Aapo Lettinen
    although some 50hz fluorescent setups can create flicker with some cameras even with 1/50 exposure. there's more possibility for this if some of the fluorescents are in different phase legs or you have "1/50" exposure which is actually NOT one 50th of a second (for example my 5D2 with Magic lantern has only 1/47 instead of 1/50 :blink: )
  17. Aapo Lettinen
    if shooting with 172.8 degree shutter you'll be fine ( 1/50 exposure)
  18. Aapo Lettinen
    soft keys, filling from the key side, soft kicker/backlight, using negative fill… I like to think all materials as reflective surfaces, it helps a lot when you try to figure out which fixtures to use, from which angle and how much to soften them. The reason I mentioned soft backlight is because hair is quite reflective material so you can avoid hotspots from backlight by softening the light (adding more surface to it so you don't get, for example, a hot reflection 5cm in diameter but instead almost evenly lit reflection which can be as long as the hair surface is, if you like. This has much to do with the actual physical length of the light fixture). One rule of thumb is to use a light which is physically at least about 1 or 1.5 times the size of the subject to get the shadows spread more parallel (for example, when lighting a standing human I tend to soften the light so that its surface is at least 60-70 cm. But the most important reason to use diffusion with light fixtures is to avoid hard beam edges and to get the light spread more evenly. Make tests with 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and full diffusion. Experiment how to make contrast with soft lights by careful alignment and flagging. Study how the natural light behaves outside and inside the buildings, and try shape it with flags and reflectors/bounces and to replicate it with artificial sources. Art Adams has made some helpful articles about lighting, there you can find some useful tricks and techniques: http://provideocoalition.com/aadams
  19. Aapo Lettinen

    K3 in 50 hertz

    Aapo Lettinen replied to TimWu's topic in 16mm

    the shutter angle is something like 150 degrees so you'll need about 20.8 fps to be able to get 1/50 exposure. and yes, all wind-up cameras have speed drop. It would be ideal if you could get a sync camera for the street scenes and shoot the rest of the scenes with K3 if necessary. Of course if you could calibrate to the 20.8fps then you might be more or less ok with the K3
  20. Aapo Lettinen
    with HD you are able to check the shot right afterwards and see if there is some problem which needs to be fixed before next take. with such high frame rates you simply cannot see by eye what's going on and whether the subject, for example liquid or explosion, is moving like you've planned. maybe if your video tap could shoot, say, 1000fps. but then you'd have high speed video camera onboard anyway so it's more practical to simply use video for capturing and skip the film step. Also lots of high speed is used in commercials and there it is very critical to be able to show the shot to the customers right after the take so they can see their products is presented just as planned. Another reason is that with high speed you need LOTS of light, maybe hundreds of KW's in some setups. That means you need to have as sensitive camera as possible to save lighting gear, electricity and money...with digital high speed cameras you can use wider shutter angle if needed so you can get almost a stop more "sensitivity". But I think the biggest advantage with digital high speed cameras is that you can trigger whenever you want and change the triggering style shot by shot. No need to speed-upping a film camera and precise starting time for the action
  21. Aapo Lettinen
    Hi you all :) I'm looking for a hdd bay which one can add to at least 10 SATA hdds at the same time and which preferably has Thunderbolt. Is there any options out there, the most I could find is 6-bay versions?
  22. Aapo Lettinen
    some problem with the original link. here is a new one: http://aapolettinen.blogspot.fi/2014/08/making-simple-nimh-battery-for-konvas.html?view=classic
  23. Aapo Lettinen
    Nope :rolleyes: Maybe they would believe it is an actual battery if they x-ray it. Definitely not a hand luggage item. Visually it looks like something which has over a pound of C-4 in it, especially the aluminum foil stage :ph34r:
  24. Aapo Lettinen
    I made an affordable 8v battery for my Konvas 1-KCP using NiMh cells picked off of eBay : https://aapolettinen.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=rzYJvEcBAAA.55i9J13eyhYWCBKkzH1YZg.n-gZF7DeDmyp0JYjlY338g&postId=389739504158150991&type=POST#!/2014/08/making-simple-nimh-battery-for-konvas.html The same procedure can be used for making a oddball voltage battery for any type of camera or equipment :lol:
  25. Aapo Lettinen
    software tools are used for stop motion animations especially because of the ability to overlay the previously taken frame with the frame you are currently working on, so you can see how much there is movement between the frames and how much you need to move the subject and camera for the current frame to get desired motion effect. and yes, almost all stop motion is made with stills cameras nowadays
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