Aapo Lettinen

almost all "scope" shows are 2.39 just because that is the DCI "scope" native. 2.35 is talked about every now and then in preprod but all the people end up using the 2.39 anyway when the show goes to post, no one would like to leave black bars on the sides of the frame or export their show to 2k flat just because wanting that very small aspect ratio difference... technically one could letterbox the 2.35 to the dci 2048x1080 frame but I have never seen anyone use that format in real life, it may be that the post people just want to make projectionist's life easier by not adding third dcp format to the list of choices to complicate things (how did they manage in the film era or were the projectionists just more experienced back then, having to change gates and anything... compared to the current lazy iPad remote controlled work :rolleyes: )

I use a Chinese ebay adapter with my GH4, it cost about 70 dollars or so. I would not call it super expensive :lol: one will need to have the built in extender in the lens though or use it with a small sensor camera like the Pocket

you can use the B4 lenses with M4/3 cameras with an adapter. if using larger imager than 2/3" you may need to use extender to cover the full imager. I for example use a B4 zoom with 1.7x extender with the GH4 for making of and doc stuff and works quite well for that

should be enough for such a small set and underexposed moonlight. if you need only one big soft source you can consider bouncing them all from a single or two (side by side) 12x12 for example. chimeras would be harder light but also more exposure for the blacks

I use Paragon Hard Disk Manager on Windows for that, it can also format drives to hfs+ and ext file systems on windows if needed. it is slow to boot up etc. and has its quirks but it has been quite handy so was worth buying anyway. if you have the HFS+forWindows plugin you can also format them because the windows then recognizes the hfs drive correctly. (not sponsored by Paragon Software :lol: )

I will surely get one at some point, would be handy for plates and stuff. is there any info yet how much the body actually weights and which batteries fit to it & how much run time per battery? could be very usable as a drone camera I think when the weight is confirmed. would not trust a Blackmagic product as a A camera unless there is enough time to continuously check the material on set and reshoot if needed. my impression of their products is that they are nice on paper and innovative and handy but they have lots of build quality problems and mechanical design faults (connectors not secured to the body etc which may lead to internal damage if having stress on the connectors, etc) . faulty touchscreens and stuff . firmware related stuff also but not more than with other manufacturers I think. Like buying Maxtor/Seagate portable drives... they work and are kind of good but they are not just very high quality overall and are not as sturdy as better brands, just about OK for the price :blink: The new pocket will be great value even if it's not super high quality or reliable or has image problems like noise and jellocam etc. The manufacturer has had lots of delivery problems before (I think there was 1 or 1.5 year delay with the original Cinema Camera release and also long delays with the other later models) so I would not expect it to deliver this year though I hope it will :lol:

that's true that it can create bottlenecks when using translating software... if having a multi platform/filesystem workflow one should use the operating system's native format for the offloading drives and could use the other filesystem with the translating softw for the edit proxy drives. For example, on mac one would use hfs+ drives for all the offloads and use ntfs for the edit drive. It would also not be a huge problem if having only one of the BU drives in different filesystem as long as the offloading is fast enough

I havent tested it but a vacuum storage can could maybe help with the aging?

I recommend the black oct18 lenses from the 70's which are made for the Konvas 1m, and purchasing a older straight viewfinder camera body which has the side latch 60m magazines and rheostat motor. they are both easier to find in good shape and cheaper than a full 1m package... the 1m body is good and has orientable viewfinder but you will have hard time finding a good working motor for it. I managed to get the better crystal motor for my 1m but I had to hunt the motor for a year or so, they are very rare in working condition and pretty expensive compared to the camera body. so the rheostat is the way to go I think... the lenses I would recommend for you from the newer 70's series (black finish on the lens body, usually with white and red markings) : 35/2 (very good lens, can be found in good shape for well under 200 on ebay. ) 50/2 (good lens with nice look. I recommend the newer black 70's model but you can manage with the older silver bodied model if the close focusing issues are not a problem (the lens locating pin disengages if focusing to few meters or closer and you will need to mount the lens again to the camera body to be able to focus to infinity again. has not been a huge problem for me but may be a bit disturbing if you want to do lots of rack focuses every time) 135/4 (pretty ok lens. this is very handy and affordable tele lens, the cheapest ones can be found for around 50 or 60 on ebay. I would get one even if you only need it once a year because it being very handy and costs next to nothing :) 75/2 (newer black model. these are good lenses but extremely overpriced because of portrait photographers. can be in 500-700 euros range or more when the real price should be less than 300. I would not buy any of these unless you can find them under 300 in good shape. you will want the 50/2 black model instead which is couple of times cheaper) 28/2 (much much better lens than the 28/2.5 model which is more common on ebay. these can be relatively high cost, couple of hundred euros even but is worth it if you can find one in good shape. 22/2.8 (the lowest cost OK quality wide angle I have found for the camera. not super good "zeiss" quality and the corners of the image are not that high quality but you can save lots of money if you need wide angles all the time with the camera. for optical reasons the lens produces pretty dim viewfinder image with lots of falloff but the recorded image on film is much better than the difficult-to-see viewfinder image) 18mm lenses, various models (pretty rare and expensive ones if you can ever find them in usable shape :/ . have never tested these but they should be ok ) I would purchase the 35/2 , 50/2, 135/4 . specifically the newer black 70's models. and then either the newer 28/2 which is good but expensive or the old 22/2.8 which is affordable but much lower quality. 18mm ones are so rare in usable shape that you may need to forget them and concentrate to get good mid range instead . and totally avoid the overpriced 75mm ones. It should be noted that there is some incompatible Soviet lenses on eBay which are listed as "oct 18" but are really the AKS4 camera lenses which is completely different mount and incompatible with any Konvas model. For example if you see a Jupiter 85/2 lens advertised for Konvas it is the classic scam, that is really a AKS mount lens which cannot be used on Konvas at all. The mount can usually be spotted from images because it has different slants near the locking groove of the mount and the end of the mount whereas a real oct18 mount has much straighter cut groove and mount end. If you have some old Pentacon Six lenses in inventory you can use them with the Konvas with an adapter as well. I personally like the original Lomo lenses more but it is good to have options and the Pentacon lenses are very easy to find and affordable :) Soviet zooms like Lenar or Lomo Foton can be used as well though they are pretty overpriced and have much lower optical quality than the Lomo primes. If you ever shoot b/w with the camera these zooms are truly great for it creating a nice retro look for closeups, I personally just don't like them for color photography because of the chromatic aberrations and poor speed compared to primes etc. I personally repair my own cameras because I normally don't have time to wait for them to go Ukraine and back for adjustment and the shipping would be expensive. I think these cameras work best for you and are most economical if you can do the repairs locally or by yourself, even if the repair/service quality is not on par of a real overhaul made by a trained camera technician. As said the magazines are the real problem with these cameras and cause about 70 or 80% of problems with them, the rest being loading errors by the operator or just bad luck...

the 2C would be nice but the Arri Standard and Arri Bayonet mount lenses are very expensive compared to, say, the Konvas lenses. Or Nikon AI-S lenses which can be used with the modified Cameflex or modified Eyemo. One really needs to worry about the lens mounts because nowadays a single old basic quality prime lens can cost more than the 35mm camera body... and one generally needs at least two or three lenses to do anything with the camera so good quality Cooke or Zeiss or Angenieux are out of the budget right away. maybe a very used 25-250 angenieux would do but even they seem to be pretty expensive (usable ones seem to be around 2k in eBay) But if one can find a Nikon mount Arri 2C or 35-3 it would be great for the price because inexpensive lenses can be used and there is much more lens options than with the Arri mounts or oct18 . actually a PL mounted camera could be cheaper alternative than a Arri mount or Arri B mount one because it is easier to modify inexpensive lenses, at least tele ones, to PL mount than to the much smaller diameter Arri Standard and Arri B mounts. Even the Konvas lenses, at least some of them, can be modified to work with it more or less correctly

if price is the most important aspect then the Konvas might be the way to go. The ebay camera bodies may be in relatively good condition if the motor works and mostly need cleaning and oil (I recommend buying the older straight viewfinder side latch model Konvas 1KCP with the rheostat motor and using 7.2v airsoft nimh batteries to power it) but the magazines are nasty little things and will take forever to adjust if you want them to run reliably with stable image. You will probably only repair one or two magazines total and use them for all filming....if you buy more mags you will probably end up keeping them only for spare parts and will never bother repairing and adjusting them all. one thing with the oct18 lenses is that generally the newer 1970's lenses fit correctly to the older camera bodies but old lenses may not work 100% with the newer camera bodies. For example the 50's and 60's lenses may have too long focusing move so that the locating pin on a newer camera body does not hold the lens in place when focusing closer than couple of meters. new lens with older body is generally not a problem. if you want to use normal 2" film cores with core adapters you are able to fit around 42-45m film to a 60m magazine. with the original Russian 1.5" metal cores you are able to use the full 60m per mag but it means lots of rewinding so the core adapters + 2" cores is normally more practical

Konvas cameras are pretty good and portable if you have time and guts to repair them by yourself or you have a camera tech friend next door who can fine tune them whenever needed. it is not very economical or practical to send them away for service and you can have very hard time with them if they are not in good shape :ph34r: an Eyemo would be much more reliable for sure. I personally use Konvas cameras only when it is important to have a very easily portable small 35mm camera for a doc shoot (fits in my backpack ready for use with all the extra batteries, changing bag and extra film and the 200ft mag attached to the camera) or I need to use it with a gimbal. most of the other footage I shoot with a Cameflex Standard which is much better build quality camera and can accept Nikon lenses (and M42 too with my crappy diy turret modification :rolleyes: ) Konvas lenses have a very nice look though and they are affordable (if oct18 mount ones) .

I have used Matthellini clamps directly on the speedrail, should create enough friction so that it does not slip that easily with "smaller lights" like 2-4 Kinos and such. safety wire for the light is needed of course. how much that light weights, maybe you could just add two clamps to create more friction?

if you would know the approximate position of the needed shots on the reel you could ask them to just scan those with couple of feets extra. for example "scan only from the 122ft to 210ft on reel 8" and if you would need something extra which is located close to that range on the reel you could just let them scan the whole range so that they would not need to find the other spot separately. If the scanner needs lots of shot by shot adjustments it would be much better to sit with the operator and pick up the exact shots needed. or transfer the adjacent shots too but only make the fine adjustments to the select shots you know you will need

just recovering an old thread... I just wanted to add that there IS a way to use other file systems than FAT/FAT32 or exFAT when working at the same time with Windows + Mac based workflow. You need a separate commercial plugin for that, for example the Paragon's HFS+ for Windows software. I personally edit with couple of desktop macs and a windows laptop with Paragon installed on the windows laptop and can read and write the Mac formatted edit drives natively on the Windows machine, edit the Premiere projects located on in, even use Shotput Pro on the Windows machine to backup to the HFS+ drive (though I'm not sure how safe it is for the data to use a translating software between the operating system and the backup drive, will test it later) . the Paragon makes the Window Explorer to see the hfs drive natively, there is no user interface or anything in the plugin. This type of plugins are worth a try if you want to use multi operating system workflows. that "HFS+ for Windows" cost something like 16 euros and paid itself back in an hour or so ;)

yep could be that the mirror is not lifting up correctly. I have lots of old soviet Zenit stills cameras which have this issue... the mirror works most of the time and then for a frame or two it does not rise correctly when the shutter is released

I tested that some years ago with 35w Chinese "xenon" 12v replacement kits... attached one inside a handheld 12v searchlight and another inside a poor quality 300w Chinese fresnel light. It kinda worked OK but the burning angles were very limited (the light started to flicker when the bulb was tilted to certain angles) and the light output was not enough for any real movie use. interesting test but I did not find much practical use for them back then. A self designed LED unit would be much easier to construct, much more reliable, cheaper and have higher output than a car xenon bulb diy light. If you specifically need a cheap self made discharge lamp with interesting characteristics and high output you could try to construct a carbon arc lamp from an arc welder and some graphite electrodes and scrap metal and other stuff. Would be pretty scary device and a real fire and UV hazard and pretty challenging to use but could work quite well for a special look for old style studio films :lol:

if your actors would have helmets and very simple clothing you could theoretically just rotoscope everything without using any greenscreen. if you have very very difficult matchmoving shots this may be actually much easier than to try to greenscreen everything and trying to have enough continuous trackers (when the original wall texture would have thousands of tracking points readily available) it is easier to rotoscope though if the background is somewhat solid color so can't say without being on the set..

be aware that you need to have enough depth separation on the tracking markers + any "natural potential tracking points" on the native texture of the walls and floor to be able to matchmove the shots correctly to be able to add the 3d piano model seamlessly to the scene when the camera is moving. and it is also highly dependent on the camera moves +angles+shot size etc. so it can be a bit risky to do matchmoving shots on that setup, especially if you want to do anything more than very wide shots where there is plenty of tracking points available. you may need to have more than 20 or 30 continuous markers in a shot to be able to matchmove it correctly.. the green will probably spill to the chairs especially if they have glossy surfaces, they are also very close to the green so it may also spill to the actors. it could help the screen lighting a bit if you can round the sharp corners of the green. may be needed to just get the actors farther away from the screen to be able to light it correctly. You can also consider adding lots of cooler overall ambience to the room which lights the greens and then light the actors with punchy hard lights which can be completely separated from the greens. I have not shot with the Pocket though so I don't know if the camera can handle this type of high contrast setup without too much noise on the green screens but this type of high ambience high contrast setup could work if you can't light the greens any other way

why not making a full animatics presentation of the movie instead of the script if the screenwriter is so talented in all areas that he wants to fully plan every other departments work for them? and then take all the directing and editing and cinematography credits? how many hats would be enough :blink:

it might be ok to put some camera angles etc. to the script if you are also both the director and cinematographer of the movie.... otherwise it's best to leave that kind of planning to the actual persons who will do it better anyway than the screenwriter who may have never even been on a movie set :blink: micro-managing other departments work (director, DP, editor, etc.) would also be quite disrespectful and makes their work more difficult. Like other said it is also more difficult to tell the story on the script (and read it) if there is lots of unnecessary technical suggestions and other useless additional info in the script :ph34r: it may also give an impression that the screenwriter is not very talented and does not trust the script or the people who would make it a movie

It depends on which color spaces your monitor and projector can show in grading. If the monitor can only show rec709 then that is the preferred and also if the main release is tv rec709 formats. If your monitor and projector can show the P3 then for dcp release it is better to use p3 for viewing during the grade to see wider gamut... When rendering out you will convert the colours automatically or manually to dci xyz color space for jpeg2000 and it has benefits to have wider gamut originals. But if only having rec709 monitoring you will use that as a base and do the output conversion from 709 to xyz when rendering the jpeg2000 seq for dcp. The colour accuracy may be very good when doing the "low end dcp grade" in rec709 2.4 120cd and testing the brightness with rec709 2.4gamma 48cd/m2 calibrated extra monitor to simulate cinemascreen brightness, then using automatic conversion in resolve to output jpeg2000 sequence in xyz colour space and use other programs to wrap the jpeg2000 and audio tracks to dcp package

if you have to use a normal protection filter, it is much easier to get the water away from the surface if you use plenty of lens cleaning fluid first applied with lens tissue (changes the surface tension so that the water is easier to get away from the glass when it concentrates to small droplets) . I tend to have a blower bulb with me at all times when shooting in the rain..using it to blow the water droplets away from the filter surfaces and aided with the fluid if needed. Is it going to get very wet/lots of splashing so that you'll need the drysuit for also keeping warm during the shoot, not just for emergency situations? If you have to have it on at all times you can water the outer surface of it regularly when it's starting to get too warm, it helps a lot with the heat (for a little while. you may need to keep it moistened at all times if its going to be a hot day) If the drysuit is only for life saving situations and not for any diving or surface action etc. it might be easiest to just have lots of layers underneath which you can easily remove during the day when it get warmer. like fleece shirts and such which can be taken off if needed. Another option would be a heating vest and lots of batteries, then you could just turn it off when its getting warmer and when really warm you can additionally moisten the suit outer surface

I believe something like the 28-76 zoom would cover most of the shots if having some wide primes with you as well

oh that was not obvious from the start :rolleyes: then I would NOT use calcium carbide in a bathtub, the glass wool panels +diesel oil would look much nicer :lol: