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Aapo Lettinen

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Everything posted by Aapo Lettinen

  1. you did check the main sprocket first? try to take the film off and open both the rollers so that the sprocket wheel can rotate freely and then see how it works. the camera's front housing can be taken off without too much risk to alter the FFD considerably (you have to make sure all the surfaces are clean and the screws tightened in correct order when putting it back together of course) if it helps to pinpoint the problem. there is also the speed adjustment mechanism at the lowest portion of the camera which can be accessed from the inner cover but that is much more work so I suggest to test first the rollers/sprocket wheel problems and then the shutter and if that does not help, then either checking the speed adjustment or sending it to a service shop. I believe the camera was correctly serviced and lubed when it was at Duall? the shutter's wormgear or speed adjustment's wormgear could also be the problem if not correctly lubricated, should be easy to find out if you open the front cover. (a K2 model)
  2. or do you see the mirror hitting something inside the cam like the ground glass frame? then it would probably be loose shaft problem like Tyler suggested. the most common problem with K-cameras is that the main drive sprocket jams, you can test it by opening both of the film guide rollers up and down of the sprocket and test if the jam goes away. if that was the problem it can be quite easily solved by adjusting the sprocket wheel position
  3. I only have K1 and K2 but by my opinion it is quite impossible to misalign the mirror accidentally, you would need to use a hammer or otherwise purposefully damage it. it is plain aluminium with five set screws and the shaft and bearings are also quite durable. the viewfinder focusing however changes very easily in transport by itself so always check that first before opening anything. also, never touch the ground glass set screws, it is almost impossible to get it back to the right position without special factory tools. if you must open the camera's front housing for service, make sure to use that specific camera's metal spacer between camera body and the cover when you put it back together. those spacers are somewhat camera specific and the ffd will change considerably if you try to swap them
  4. someone may also have this kind of plastic tanks available which can be moved with a forklift or pickup truck etc. Just attach a hose or small pump and you're ready to go :) they can be found in sizes of for example 1000L
  5. in Finland the local Fire Department can handle this kind of things in movie shoots for a reasonable fee. maybe the airport's own fire dept can help if there is any, you would save in logistics at least?
  6. I don't know any higher end camera which is totally fanless but there is relatively silent models to choose from. Even the freaking FS7 has a fan and I believe the FS700 has also (these can be used with Odyssey 7Q or Atomos to record RAW so I would classify them as cinema capable based on that) Maybe something like a higher end DSLR with the Magic Lantern raw hack. but they have serious overheating problems. you could get a package with 422 10bit capable camera body and external recorder though which could be fanless but raw is a tough one to find. Correctly set up fan cooling is not likely to cause you any problems in most shooting situations though. I personally haven't had any problems with for example FS7 in any situation. it is just vary difficult to get a convection cooling system work without making very big heatsink and people want their cameras small so it is better to use the smaller heatsink with a little help from the fan... I second that it is generally not practical to purchase a higher end camera body nowadays unless you have already made sure that you will get at least 4-5 times the cost back in the first about two or three years. if making for example couple of documentaries at the same time it is very practical to own the basic set and you can get the money back even in couple of months so why not. But if making high end commercials or features where the camera set easily costs 100K+ then you better be very experienced professional already who is just substituting the rental house gear with one's own gear and charges almost the same daily fee. purchasing very expensive equipment to yourself and giving it away for free is not advisable unless you won in the lottery and want to sponsor the greedy producer's movies :ph34r:
  7. they should work for any particle based contaminant including liquids but it is of course possible to enhance the effect with for example activated charcoal if needed. is that the main air intake for the camera and how large airflow it is generally? a blower unit like the ones used by industrial painters, asbestos workers, etc. could be used with the filters, so that the camera fan does not need to work harder with them. the filters cost a bit of course (I believe one would need from 3 to 6 gas mask filters for this depending on the airflow) but it would definitely be much less per day than sending the camera to the Service Centre every week, especially with the daily budgets in the productions the F65 is generally used in
  8. I open the c-stands by placing the longest leg agaist my knee and then opening the legs counter clockwise with hand. That is the "normal" way to do it I think, at least it is one of the fastest ways to do it
  9. is it possible to arrange some sort of external HEPA filter assembly to the air intake to prevent particle buildup in very dusty/hazy atmosphere? for example a vacuum cleaner tube with a 40mm HEPA gas mask filter attached to the other end ;)
  10. with 2.5k / 4k recommendation I predicted that the main use would be outdoors to fill shadows for day exteriors in small sets and lighting interiors through windows for daylight look in controlled setups. For indie use for daylight interiors I would just gel the windows rather than trying to bring in many K's of HMI light just to reduce contrast. The M18 is a great choice for use in the US as JD suggested but it would be good to have two or three of them depending on how much grip gear and time you have to control the natural light. Renting is of course an option if extra light is only needed for limited days. even if ending up using the Chinese HMI's, make sure that the bulb is great quality and the light can stand the possible bulb explosions, someone may lose an eye or two if these things explode on set :unsure: For bouncing it is not as high of a risk because the glass would possibly fly to a safer direction. But for low budget use couple of tungsten fresnels may be much better option than unreliable HMI, especially if using indoors and if window gelling is possible or warm light is needed. for example Firestarters and 2k tungstens are so cheap to rent that I mainly use them instead of HMI's in low budget shoots unless high power daylight balanced light is absolutely necessary
  11. Chinese knockoff tungsten lights are usually possible to repair relatively easily (very simple designs) if changing cables/swapping parts/manufacturing some minor parts to replace factory messed up ones is not a problem. Mainly the problems is if someone else is using the self repaired stuff and get hurt because of not knowing how to handle the custom modified repaired gear and just predicts that it would behave like any other light (insulations, humidity protection, 'bulb fail protection' etc.) I personally have some Chinese fresnel lights, a 300w 650w 1000w set, but I never rent them out or let anyone borrow them just to be sure that I will know how they are handled and can intervene if there is likely to happen something they are not prepared for, like someone leaving them out in the rain without protection predicting that they would tolerate water as well as the newer Arri fresnels :blink: They have been repaired right after purchase to fix the safety issues (there were many) but they are not Arris and getting parts is also very difficult if something brokes
  12. one thing to remember if using multiple cameras or cameras that don't automatically increment the card number by one when formatting: ALWAYS make sure that the camera letter is right and the card number is correct. it is so much easier to check that everything is ok in all copies and do the editing and online later if you only have one A001 card in the project and you can track down the shooting day and camera etc. quickly just by looking the filename. The common mistake in smaller projects is to not keep the B and C camera letters and numbers constant so that there may be C camera card2 which is named A004, or every camera named A camera at first, or B camera card numbers starting from 001 again when shooting the next block, and so on. The simplest folder structure would be Shooting day (Day01 etc.) / Camera card (like Card01 if the camera does not create unique card names when formatting) or the real card name like A001R0Z1) /then all the original card contents and the checksum file generated by the transfer software. When everything is copied correctly and all the backups are checked and OK one can delete the card contents as Steve said to make sure that it will be formatted in camera. It is extremely frustrating if the DIT gives back cards which may or may not be copied correctly so the AC always needs to confirm if the card can be formatted or not. "I only have one copy of this but three copies of that but I can't remember which one is which so can you just make sure to call me always before formatting anything so that we won't accidentally lose any material" :D Same thing with spare hard drives etc. , if the drive is labelled as "empty" or "this can be formatted" but it contains some random material, then one always needs to check first if it really can be formatted or if it is just some material wrongly labeled which will be destroyed if formatting is done :wacko:
  13. 1200w hmi is not that bright for daylight use unless used close to the subject. something like a 4k would be more useful especially if you need to diffuse it even a bit. a 2.5k or 4k Par or Max would be great for you, they are much much brighter than a 1.2k fresnel like the one pictured but are not as difficult to handle and get the power to than the 6k ones. at least get a Par or Max instead of Fresnel stuff, you'll get much better efficiency. Chinese lights have quality and safety issues quite often and HMI lights are more difficult to repair so unless it is excellent model recommended by professionals and checked for electrical safety I would advice against them
  14. good anamorphic lenses are very expensive to buy nowadays but you may find good rental options for older lenses. one thing is, these lenses tend to be big and heavy and if you need something light and small for for example handheld use you may be quite limited. ten years ago you could have bought a 3 lens set of PL-mount modified Lomo anamorphics for about 1k dollars but that is absolutely not possible anymore, you can check eBay for today's ridiculous prices :ph34r: anyway, camera bodies are quite affordable nowadays if you can find a good one. If purchasing I maybe suggest for MOS a camera body like 35-3 or pl-modified 2c, even a 235 or 435 might be possible (if renting is not practical) and then renting the lenses if you can find affordable options with good handling properties and look. Here in Finland a standard rental price for a single Lomo roundfront anamorphic prime is about 100 - 130€ a day in big rental houses... I'm sure you can find something affordable from indie oriented places. 3-perf + 1.3x would be great if shooting more material per day. Arri 235 + Hawks maybe?
  15. "No movie is worth dying for" , especially in indie productions where corners are cut and safety may be ignored quite often
  16. absolutely clean greenscreen shooting is only necessary if you do high end live broadcast where you can't mask anything afterwards or fix with rotoscope and spill removal. in any other case one just makes it as good as possible on set with available resources and everything else is fixed in post. cleaner original material is preferred if it is cheaper solution than doing more post work to fix the glitches. as I mentioned earlier, every surface is somewhat reflective and if the light angle is very close to 90° from the surface normal (like the green background immediately behind the subject's edge) it is plain impossible to prevent reflection whether the material is hair, skin, concrete, wood, metal, glass... you can, however, try to add another more desirable reflection over the green edge reflection to mask it enough that you don't need that heavy post work and the edge is cleaner, especially with bad codecs and blurry edge. ....this is why everyone is recommending using heavy edge lights to reduce spill. masking the green reflection by adding more desired and brighter white reflection over it. that, however, easily leads to a boring result when every greenscreen shot in a movie is lit in the same way: simplistic lighting with all the edges heavily backlit whether it is motivated or not. I personally prefer less clean greenscreen stuff with much more creative control over lighting and fixing the possible spill issues in post if they can't be resolved on set with flagging/negative fill/white bounce/reflecting something else from the surface. it just needs better compositor with more advanced tools and more time, a simple "Premiere Pro chroma key" won't work for that kind of material
  17. we used polarizer with the table shots and just manually masked the most problematic parts afterwards. It is also possible to reflect white or colored surface from the most problematic shiny spots to replace the green reflection with other type of reflection (like white kapaboard etc) but it may take too much time to do it for multiple shots like in this case so one just needs to decide the amount of work done on set VS the amount saved for post production. Every surface is a "shiny" surface and with the reflection angles normally encountered in greenscreen work SOME spill is inevitable. one needs to try to replace it with something else like reflecting something white from the same angle (white reflection, backlight, etc) The problem with for example backlights trying to kill spill is that they have to be quite wide so that they can entirely replace the green's reflection on surfaces like hair, shiny tables, etc. The edges are entirely possible to correct afterwards manually, even by rotoscoping single hairs to separate them from the background if keying is not possible or practical. but that takes enormous amount of time and no one has that ;) (it is possible to do these effects even entirely without greenscreen if you have good enough compositors but they will go absolutely crazy for the amount of work so not recommended :lol: it can be used however if you need lots of background for 3d matchmoving and your subjects are very smooth and simple edged so that rotoscoping is easy, like in this Ruairi Robinson short https://vimeo.com/4644064 . making of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ylHndX8nFw )
  18. for example, reserve couple of (at least two) T-bars on combos for some for example 3m x 4m pieces of black molton and then you can use those behind the subject to flag the unused screen areas on sides. very quick and easy to assemble and move and if having good enough distance you can still light the screen easily
  19. negative fill or white bounce helps for the spill problems. you can just cover all the screen areas which are not used with black molton or use solids/floppy flags/hanging pieces of molton to flag the unused screen area to reduce spill. If shooting fixed camera shots or otherwise pretty static action I tend flag very close to the subject edge, leaving just enough room for the action and then taking the flags away with bezier mask afterwards and keying the edges normally
  20. yes it is theoretically possible to light a set without first hand experience but it will take forever (easily at least 5 times longer than average) because without experience you have to try and test different approaches multiple times before finding a good enough solution. in contrast, a experienced person will usually know how to approximately do the lighting even by just seeing some scout photos and rough references for the intended look, even without visiting the location beforehand (a recce of course helps a lot). The challenging thing is, lighting a set is like inventing the wheel over and over again, just like editing... finding the best custom solution to a set and scene by knowing the readily available theories and standard approaches (from film school and books) but inventing your own every time based on your experience, available resources, time... this adapting and customising and readily finding the best logical solution without testing and wasting time is the thing that takes time to learn. dozens of projects and couple of years I'd say
  21. I personally think that lighting skills are more critical for a DP than AC skills. Actually, Lighting and Editing would be a very good combo so that you understand what the directors need to get the scene working, how the images are cut together, and you can make the right mood for the film. Using cameras is relatively easy anyway and there is normally a AC and Key Grip who can handle the technical things for you, so the 'painting with light', 'setting and maintaining the mood' and 'making the film coherent' (image choices like blocking, operating style, framing, etc) are the things most critical for a DP I think. technical knowledge is always handy but it is not absolutely critical
  22. you can get away without assisting anyone but you cannot advance in your career without the right connections which may be easier to build if you climb up the ladder. The key is to determine which kind of help you will need and then plan your future projects based on that. ...every 15year old kid can make single nice looking images and short films but it is the other things that matter which'll get you hired. prepare to spend many years of your life and work like a mad. it is also eventually, at least a bit, just happy accidents and luck which will get you in contact with the right people who can help. Assisting is a great way to get in contact with new people and to learn new ways to work so I'd highly recommend it... it may be even faster to climb up the ladder than to try to convince directors and producers right away that you are better choice than their usual pick for DP job. DP/Director relationships are quite often built in film schools so it is very unlikely that they would pick you instead unless they already know you and all your work (in which case you could just call them right away...)
  23. now I can see the images :) smaller sources work fine for that kind of images. 650's and 300's for example as others suggested depending on which gels and diffusion you use
  24. I can't see the pics for some reason but in smaller shoots my favourite fixtures are 2K tungsten fresnels (normally two or three of them if I have possibility to power them up) and then one or two sets of 300, 650 and 1000 tungsten fresnels with couple of Firestarters (1k VNSP par cans) if needed. if HMI is needed I mainly use 1.2K and 2.5K Par:s, they can be powered from normal 10/16A wall outlet and are powerful enough for smaller shoots. Kino Flo:s or small hmi:s quite rarely, in most situations a tungsten fresnel bounced from a white styrofoam or kapaboard is much more versatile for me than a Kino fixture and can be adjusted more than a Kino in terms of colour and light output, spread etc.. but it depends a lot of the situation, sometimes a Kino or a LED panel works nicely. I highly recommend the 2K:s and Firestarters if you are on a budget and have possibility to power them up, they are lifesavers in small productions (good output, cheap to rent) and can be powered with any type of 30 year old cheap-o genny :lol:
  25. I mainly light by eye even if having a decent monitor with correct LUT, then checking with waveform or histogram that the exposure is correct. I usually have 95% zebras on at all times so it is easy to see if something is close to clipping. never been a fan of false colour but it can be handy at times. I am used to incorrectly calibrated monitors and general unreliability of digital systems so I mainly treat them just like film: lighting by eye and doing minimal checks with meters, then adjusting it in grading to match the look seen by eye on set. monitors are mainly for framing etc. and not colour tools for me. they are, however, handy if you have lots of diffusion filtration etc. and they are useful for directors because they are not used to "imagining the look over the image"
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