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Aapo Lettinen

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Everything posted by Aapo Lettinen

  1. how reliable are those Kinefinity cameras? that is a huge factor when making professional productions with any camera. if you have to buy a backup body it is not that cheap anymore. Are there any feature films shot with them which have good budget, sets and locations so that the look can be evaluated more carefully? to me it looks a bit like Epic MX footage: very detailed, mediocre highlight handling, not that great colors but ok for most uses :)
  2. by my experience the FS7 seems to be still in a bit unreliable firmware stage (I've had dozens of situations with a rental camera where the video scopes stop working with all settings and have to rely only on zebra for exposure. sometimes may have other quirks also. these may magically fix themselves during the day, sometimes not). but it is relatively lightweight and handy camera with good image quality. the display/viewfinder is a bit awkward, it can easily go little off level without operator noticing anything which may lead to slightly awry images. and the original handgrip is not that good. the kit zoom lens is otherwise good but it has lots of latency which limits its usage. With 3rd party viewfinder accessories and handgrip it is quite good camera though the image quality is not as good as with F5 which is supposed to have about the same sensor but with different image processing. and seems to be that the FS7 sensors may be lower quality throwaways from the F5 assembly line just like the RED does with the Epic/Scarlet sensors. I you happen to find a used F5 for good price you should 100% take that but otherwise the FS7 is a good buy ^_^
  3. Color negative is probably the way to go, or b/w negative because they are most likely available at reasonable prices. Color negative and color reversal are totally different film stocks and processes. Most black and white reversal films can only be developed as reversal but most black/white negative films can be developed both negative or reversal if you want. I would look for negative films anyway unless you specifically need the film only for projector use and you are not planning to scan it at all
  4. they lift the shadow areas and like the mist filters, contaminate the shadows with highlight color when they spread light across the frame. I use promists for halation effect quite a lot but very rarely low cons for anything because of the higher shadow contamination compared to low halation. I use double fogs however from time to time
  5. you can shoot a multi format production if the budget allows only limited days with expensive gear. that way you can get more production value for marketing (remember making of material!) and better visuals for select scenes but can still make it happen on a limited budget. selling a film for profit is probably the most difficult part of the whole project and usually needs professional help and lots of contacts to get done. if one is intending to make a indie film purely for profit then one would maybe have better chances with lottery, if one would do the film anyway whether it'll be sold or not, then why not trying it out ;)
  6. I think the Peleng 8mm could be the only option with that mount
  7. You can buy some orwo or kodak bw film and even develop it by yourself if it is just for tests. You don't even need developing tank or hazardous chemicals for negative tests, just make a batch of coffenol and thiosulfate fixer and develop it in a wash basin for example. You can try for example frame24 for kodak film and wittner for orwo
  8. You can use for example m42 to pl or t-mount to pl adapter, attach it to bellows and then attach the taking lens mount's adapter to the other end with available tools, even glue or tape will work. You can also use microscope lenses if you have tons of light. You may want to use longer focal lenght lens or physically small lens to make the shooting easier and to avoid shadows. You could maybe theoretically use some pl lenses with lots of extension tubes but it is extremely unpractical because of the large barrels and front elements. I use el-nikkors for this kind of stuff though usually more like 1x -4x macr. Attached with m39 to m42 adapter to m42 bellows which is attached to m42 to t-mount adapter which has t-mount to pl adapter on it. But i think the microscope lenses would maybe work better with 10x if you have, again, enermous amount of light. Your ant may catch fire in the process, i hope peta wont mind :P
  9. sorry for the lengthy posts. the point was that I use zone system usually only for the highlights and deeper shadows and use incident metering for the middle range and in low contrast situations. in your example that would be sun lit area with spot metering, for example T2.0 (if T2.8 incident) if the floor is darker colour than middle gray. Thus starting with the readings of the least controllable light. That would set the camera aperture to T4 if the sunspot needs to be 2stops under. Then I would lit the talent key to about T4 incident, and now I could see where the ambience level goes in the set so I could add ambience to the scene and could finally see how much extra fill is needed for the talent. Lets say that the ambience reads T0.7 incident and the background is middle grey, which is three stops under the sunspot and five stops under the ""middle grey"" (base exposure middle grey T4) in scene. If it is OK that the background contrast is lower I would bring the ambience to about T1.0/1.4 split (about 1.5 stops under the sunspot reading). Then one could add fill to the talent if needed, to get the fill to maybe two stops below key light incident. With Caucasian skin colour the spot reading would be something like one stop brighter than middle grey incident ? so it would be: background middle grey -3.5 (T1.0/1.4 split spot reading) > background sunspot -2 (T2 spot reading) > talent shadow middle grey -2 (T2 spot reading) > talent shadow skin tone -1 (spot reading) > talent key middle grey 0 (T4 spot) > talent skin tone +1 (T5.6 spot) , talent skin & hair reflections + X stops, maybe +3 ? (T11) . That would be 6.5 stops of total contrast which the camera can easily handle and you can fine tune the contrast ratios from there to the taste. Maybe the ambience could be on lower level if camera noise is not a problem and you can tweak the aperture up and down to get more highlight headroom/less noise to the image when pulling the overexposed image in colour correction. But you can see that you need both incident AND spot readings when lighting a scene, especially when working in shadow or highlight end of the scene
  10. (to Jay) oh then it may get a little confusing. because if your background is not middle grey you should usually also take spot readings of it to know where it falls on the curve if you want to have it to look like for example two stops under key and it is darker/brighter (lower/higher albedo) than middle grey. the all incident readings works best if the whole set is lit by same light, say, key light and ambience. I use it a lot when shooting documentary stuff on film with natural light. usually I take more readings though, usually a reading of key light, say, sunlight at T8 incident, then the ambience reading, say, T2.8 incident, then the brightest area which needs to have details, say, the sky at T16 -22 spot, and the darkest area which needs to have details, say, a forest line reading at T2 spot. if the film records well from 3.5 stops under to 7 stops over, I can set the forest line to about -3 stops which sets the aperture to T5.6 which sets the sunlit middle grey objects to one stop over, the sky 3 stops over, ambience lit middle grey object to 2 stops under. = Forest from -3.5 to -3 > middle grey shadow -2 > -1 > camera aperture 0 > sunlit middle grey +1 > +2 > sky +3 - +4 stops. Considering it's film and with best light transfer with good scanner and if the shadow areas are important I would probably expose closer to T4 to get: Forest from -3.5 to -2 (more contrast and detail) > middle grey shadow -1 > camera aperture 0 > sunlit middle grey +2 > sky +4 - +5 stops. then pulling down the highlight in scanning about one stop to get the sky detail from +5 highlights. But most of the time I'm just interested in ambience readings and how much they fall under base exposure, the idea being to expose the shadows between 1 and 2.5 stops under the incident ambience light depending on content and then correcting the highlights afterwards. film is easier for this being an "open top" format contrast wise, with video it is usually easier to correct the shadows in post than with film but the highlights are an issue. but you can use the same principle with video also, by determining how much noise you can tolerate in image to set the usable range in stops which the video camera can capture. then it would be shadow spot, fill incident, key incident, highlight spot like with the film example and quite reliable end result
  11. btw were all your meter reading incident or spot readings or were they mixed, if you are using zone system the readings have to be spot readings from camera direction to get it right. I got a little confused about the "sun" reading which did not seem right compared to the shadow area next to it, that's why I asked
  12. Yep, 6 stops is 2/4/8/16/32/64 times darker than the foreground so it is indeed quite dimly exposed. 1 stop change is always double the light level/half of the light level. using a light meter when lighting is generally easier and faster than looking through camera if you are familiar with contrast ratios and your camera's dynamic range and are used to light by eye. you can use the camera/monitor scopes to ensure the right exposure and to fine tune lighting if needed
  13. You lose approximately 1 stop of sensitivity with global shutter and therefore also lose about one stop of dynamic range. The blackmagic 4k imager is ok if you have enough light for it although the color reproduction is not very good, resembling the original red one quit a lot I think
  14. it is much faster to make offline versions from prores than raw so it may still make sense depending on what you do with the material. it is also easier to edit if you cut directly from the camera files
  15. it saves lots of time and money if you have experienced people around, so I would definitely book a experienced "gaffer" who is fast and innovative and can thus do great job with the resources available. even if the whole lighting/electric crew is only that one person I would do just like that to make sure to stay on schedule. otherwise the DP has to do the gaffer job which eats lots of time and they will probably hate it. you can probably save 30-40% on lights if you have experienced and innovative people using them so it is also most likely cheaper option :lol:
  16. if you have to lower your rate considerably they should show you the budget and you can then negotiate together how much the production can afford to pay you, eg. what is a fair rate considering what the budget is. it is difficult to say how much it would be in a low budget indie feature without seeing the budget and discussing with the producer or production manager
  17. good quality borosilicate glass. should not be that difficult to obtain. laboratory glassware could also do if you can find it in usable shape, for example borosilicate petri dishes etc. there is also lots of custom lab glassware companies and optical companies which could do anything from the boro glass, for example round discs which would be similar size to cd:s , etc
  18. only the conservator-restorers know how the artwork in their museum is actually done, with which chemicals and techniques and what ingredients could possibly react with the propylene/ethylene glycol vapour. you can ask them a list of the stuff used in artwork and get a chemist's opinion about which could react and which would not. If there is something vulnerable in their collection, they could then remove it for the shoot so that it wouldn't get any glycol vapour on it.
  19. glycerine fog fluid might also be possible though it may damage the fogger without modifications
  20. "Substances: Food/High Grade glycols: Monopropylene Glycol: CAS Registry Number: 57‐55‐6 Triethylene Glycol: CAS Registry Number: 112‐27‐6 " Their conservator-restorers will probably know if it is safe to use in the presence of their collection, they know all the materials and chemicals used in their collection. It's very dilute vapor anyway but it can fixate to things for days, thus the smell on clothes etc. I've never heard that it could damage artwork in any way but who knows....
  21. there is all kinds of cool stuff in stage lighting :) here is an example of the gobo filtering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ6VP8zL8Ac
  22. the light effect has regular pattern so it is definitely dmx fixtures. I'm not a expert of stage lighting but multiple gobos could do the job I think. It's lots of rotating light patterns moving around
  23. I can't see photos either. seems to be quite expensive, especially with shipping. you can get two rolls of fresh wittnerchrome at that price and don't have to pay customs. without photos, very few purchases and zero seller reputation and no other items on sale, looks a lot of like a scam. I mean, come on, even I have lots of feedback on my eBay account without never even selling anything, just buying stuff :blink: eBay sellers tend to list the amount of items if they have more than one on sale so that you can buy more than one at a time and they don't have to relist all the time. if he can't send you photos or add them to the listing I would advise against buying those although you will probably get your money back after a while with buyer protection if it's a scam :mellow: Just don't wait more than 25 days for it to arrive, even with that slow 'Global Shipping' option which goes via multiple carriers and is difficult to track because it changes tracking codes multiple times... I would not be worried about the seller's reputation, one can get that kind of feedback in 5 minutes so not a problem for him to create a new account if necessary ;)
  24. have you tried switching the hdmi output format, the gh4 can output different signals and probably a monitor can show at least one of them. progressive/interlaced etc. and that "smart hdmi" function also did something, don't remember what it's called but it is meant to communicate with Panasonic televisions
  25. looks like M42 mount Zeiss Jena Sonnar 180mm. the shutter tab of the M42 mount is visible on the rear image. but the lens rear cap is on in side images so can't be absolutely sure because the mount is not visible on those. you can just measure the mount diameter, if it's 42mm then it's the M42 (no T2 mount on those lenses as far as I know)
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