Michael Belanger

A friend of mine has a softbox and I wanted to know if there is a way to tell how much heat it will allow. I don't want to chance it and it end up burning. I won't be using more than 500watts if that makes any sense.

One important thing to be aware of, there are soft boxes made for strobe lights that are not designed for high heat. They max out at about 200w which is roughly the intensity of the modeling light in a strobe. Make sure the softbox is for a hot light, a continuous tungsten or hmi source.

And, yes, Set-Wear "hot hands," gloves!

Excellent call on the gloves Adrian. I'll need to check those out myself.

I have a very strange lighting tool that I started to use years ago when I was engineer of a small cable tv studio. We had a dozen or so Mole 1ks on a grid and we'd often need to adjust barn doors at the last minute, but our rolling ladder was a bear to use. I got in the habit of using the bristle end of a common straw broom to grab the vanes and move things around. Plus it's handy for sweepign up. lol.

Also, some heavy-duty extension cords and mats to cover them where people walk would be great.

I have a Lowell DVCreator 44 kit and it's served okay and sometimes it's all I need; but it often doesn't give me the flexibility that I want. I'm not a rich guy, but I want to start gradually building up my kit. I know it's hard to say what is best to have because it's highly dependent upon the circumstances of an individual shoot; but I'm guessing there are items that are close enough to gimmes that I'd be safe dropping a little cash on, and be happy of having when at the last minute I decide my little Lowell kit isn't satisfactory for a shoot.

 

So, any thoughts?

 

Oh, and I have a light meter, which I'm guessing might be among the first suggestions.

Looking at the kit, you might add:

From Lowel...

another Tota for situations where you want to light a backdrop with one on each side (chroma-key for instance)

another pro light to use as a second backlight.

gobo arms to hang the backlights out into the scene without the stands showing

scissor clips if you shoot in spaces with drop ceilings - again to hang the pro lights.

Some no-brainer gear to add on (some of which also greatly increase the size of the kit however)...

A couple of break-down c-stands with 24X36 silks will help diffuse the light much better than the 10x12 frames in the kit.

A couple of more break-down cs with scrims and/or flags to control spill and balance falloff.

dimmer modules for the backlights, etc. These can be build from home depot parts for the smaller lights.

150w to 300w practical lamps to replace bulbs in light fixtures, etc on set.

CTO+ND gel for reducing light through windows and correcting it to match your tungsten lights.

To expand...

Fluorescent soft lights. Inexpensive versions from a few sources are available these days.

Some larger tungsten units, say 650w or 1Ks

an HMI for fill or boost outdoors and/or moonlight wash for night scenes (staggeringly expensive, prob better to rent as needed)

I'm assuming you're shooting a mix of corporate and theatrical on digital/video. The light meter will be handy but not nearly as necessary as when shooting film. The lowel stuff is very light weight and compact, but doesn't hold up to abuse like mole-richardson or arri gear will. A mix of both lets you work up or down depening on the shoot.

please, help me to choose between this two cameras

 

I am interested in buying one of them

 

social documentary proposes

 

* low light situations

* hard contrast lighting exterior-interior

* quickness and versatility & workflow...

* signal quality: DVCPro50HD versus XDCamHD

 

THANKS IN ADVANCE

I've shot with both the HVX-200 and the Sony EX-1. My preference is the EX series. Better lens, manual controls of focus, iris, and zoom. The XDCAM codec in the EX1 seems to hold up better than the DVC Pro HD in the 200 even though it uses 1/3rd the data rate. I think it's because the EX1 has true 1920x1080 resolution to work with while the 200 pixel shifts.

As for the new cameras in the lines, the 201 does use 1/3" sensors. Not sure if they've increased the resolution or not, but the 1/2" chips in the EX are superior as far as bokeh, etc.

The EX3 is the same sensor block as the EX1, with a removable lens, timecode inputs, a few more connections, and a slightly larger body. It also has a viewfinder eyepiece over the LCD screen. For my money the EX1 is the better deal once you add a shoulder rest, viewfinder adaptor, etc. Plus it breaks down smaller for Steadi-cam work, etc.

(David - don't know what happended to the EX2. It's apparently still stuck on someone's design desk over at Sony)

We decided to ask if we could reshoot the first scene of the movie, shot on Day One, of Billy Bob Thornton selling to a pumpkin farmer.

David, it's amazing how different those 2 shots are. Not only does the brighter sky and smoke help to sell the depth along with the peatmoss crops, but even the foreground being filled in with full-size pumpkins lets me imagine more of the scene behind me. I'm saving these 2 frames for my notebook.

Thanks for the great posts and Happy B-day.

I independently came across the AHSupply site over a year ago while sourcing parts for my own diva-like kinos (which I still haven't made yet) and thought, gee, these kits would be perfect! Great ballast, reflectors, all the bits and bobs come included. Glad to know others thought the same thing and have good things to say about them. At the time they told me their 5400K bulbs were a German make with a CRI of 91, which isn't bad, but I would probably just put the Kino-branded PL55 bulbs in for their better CRI.

 

The only part I have to figure out is the enclosure...what are you guys making yours out of? Coroplast seems to be the easiest and cheapest (though least durable), wood is quite a bit heavier, and sheet metal is not something I really have the tools to work with easily.

 

Does anyone miss the dimmability of a Diva kit, or the hi/lo output of a select ballast, compared to your homemade kinos?

My early lights used plastic storage boxes as the shell, with an aluminum pan inside that I had made by a local sheet-metal shop. Mounting to the light stand was with an exterior yoke and stud adaptor. The storage box top was clipped on the front for shipping to protect the tubes inside.

My newest lights are very minimalist, with each tube separate and the ballast in an external box. Basically the reflector itself is most of the structure. These are of course much more delicate and have to be packed for shipping in a larger storage box.

I don't miss the dimming of the Kinos. It's easy enough for me to adjust the position of the light, lay on a bit of diffusion, or dial up my tungsten backlights to match the keys.

Also, I wire my ballasts in such a way that I can use 1 tube or 2 by simply plugging in the second cable (with mains power off of course. Don't mess with the hi voltage side of things while its energized).

Look at this site these guys make kits, kinda, everything but a housing or box for the actual light. I would recommend getting Kino Flo bulbs though. I have seen some nice stuff turn out by using this equipment. http://ahsupply.com

 

Its funny actually because these guys are a Aquarium Hobbyist Supply site.

 

Best.

 

-Christopher Arata

I've used the AHS kits as the basis for my modular lights for about 5 years now. They're fantastic with customer service and very friendly over the phone. The ballasts are very light-weight and the reflectors are great. You may want a slight amount of diffusion over the light to soften the hot spots (lines really) caused by the folds in the reflector.

I do not recomment the tubes they sell however. They have a very small, delicate bridge between the two tube sections which is easy to break. I've actually snapped them by applying a little too much pressure to the center of the tube while installing. If you do go with their tubes (assuming they haven't changed suppliers yet) then always handle them by the ends, not the middle.

Michael.

That's a hard call to make. I'm an EX1 owner and I love the camera. For continuous shooting with you AND an assistant it would be fantastic because you can keep switching cards and capture your 6 hours without loss.

Without an assistant the simplicity of throwing another tape in the Z7U and getting back to shooting in 20 seconds might be the deciding factor.

None myself online yet, but there are several sites out there with clips. There may be one or 2 with full-res MP4s on them, the rest will be recompressed of course.

Interesting. Got any samples?

The F350 shooter I know says he's had no prob with his LCD, so something seems off.

I'm talking about the F350. It seems that every now and then, the screen will get stuck in the fully open position. I've found that if you push in the plastic piece at the base of where the screen is attached to the camera, it will close. But that seems like it would be a danger for breaking over time.

I've been shooting with the camera for about a week. It is indeed branded with a CineAlta badge. 1920 x 1080 chips, 35 mbps recording rate using the same mpeg 2 codec as the other XDCAMs, but recording to solid state cards.

The lens is a very decent Fujinon, fixed, with full manual controls.

One of the really nice features is a fully 10-bit HD-SDI output so it can be recorded to HDCAM, DVC Pro HD, etc.

Will it produce the same image as an HDCAM? No. But the street price is about $6,500

It's a direct competitor to the Panasonic HVX-200 and seems to produce a slightly better image with 1/3 the bandwidth. Plus it has 1/2" chips for "better" depth of field.

So a guy at Heavy Light in NY mentioned a new Sony camera that is being billed as the latest CineAlta but is available for $8K (US). Am I hearing this right? $8K? If anyone know what camera this might be, thanks.

Hi Megan,

I'm assuming you're shooting with an EX1, the new solid-state camcorder from Sony.

Is the LCD stickingin the fully open position? I haven't seen that problem, but mine does fail to seat properly when fully stowed. This happens 1 time out of 20 maybe, with the screen not fully underneath the microphone block on the top of the camera. The screen has a bit of play vertically and if it's a little to low it doesn't line up with the tab underneath the mic block. Lift it a bit and it will work properly.

If that's not the problem reply back with more info.

M.

I've been working with the XD camera the last few projects, and have come to to find the LCD screen tends to get stuck open. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it a known design flaw with the camera? Any tips on how to prevent this from happening?

that is cool, michael, but it would be cooler if you could search by movie title....!

 

i was looking for frame stills the other week for lighting references. we were doing a spot with different looks from different decades in it, and i needed some visual inspiration. also, i knew i wouldn't be able to be at the final telecine, so i sent the refs along with my own stills from the shoot, to the post prod supervisor. it wasn't that easy finding the ones i wanted...

Yes, a search function would be cool. The archive is one huge list though, so you can do a find on that page for a specific title. Not that everything is going to be there, and only 1 quasi-random shot per title.

Yes, I use them to analyze lighting mainly.

I've been visiting this website:

Movie Screen Shot

It's a weekly quiz that presents 5 movie screenshots and invites you to identify the movie. I never bother playing, but they have a huge archive of previous quizzes with hundreds of stills from every movie you can imagine.

I've discussed this topic and the makeup mirror in general with my girlfriend who is a makeup artist. The mirror does seem to come from the theater where actors would be doing their own makeup. But makeup artists still use it since theaters and trailers seem to be outfitted this way as a matter of course.

The MUAs are trained (at least at her alma mater) to stand next to the person they're working on and check their work in the mirror, thus seeing it close-up (from one side at a time) and from a distance with one glance. The even light around the mirror is cheap to build, but not optimal, especially since it's coming from the MUAs side, not from behind them.

When she has worked without a mirror on shoots with me I've rigged a 55w biax fluro tube in a reflector a foot or so above the talent and in front a bit to give her even light on the actor's face. I match these to tungsten or daylight depending on the scene. In these cases she's facing the actor straight on and can see both sides of the face at once.