Tyler Purcell

Yea, I always run a "protection" filter anyway, but believe it or not, I've had poop hit the lens and damage both filters! But thats plastic, the glass ones are a lot thicker. I wanna run my camera's more open, so I can have a more shallow depth of field. So that's why I was thinking of doing the 2.0 ND because that would make a HUGE difference. Plus, I'm gonna be buying a speed booster soon, so that will make my problem even worse. I never thought I'd have a cinema camera that required filtration! With film for me, it was always the opposite problem, always needed lights outdoors! LOL :) I'm using the Rokinon's still. They're OK for the type of stuff I shoot, though I'd love to hook up and try some PL optics someday. I don't have anything booked, but maybe on my next pay shoot I can bring you in to help! :)

Would this be OK? http://www.amazon.com/Schneider-Optics-Platinum-Microfiber-Cleaning/dp/B00OV98I50/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1429208526&sr=8-9&keywords=4x4+IRND+filter

Thanks guys, Yea I have a 4x4 matte box which has two filter holders. I can't use screw on because every one of my lenses has a different front diameter. Sounds like the only real solution is to buy a piece of glass, which isn't a big deal. I'd just have to be conscious of filter care in the future and duck when tree's or rocks hit the camera! :) I've never been forced to shoot with stronger ND's, are there any other side effects I should be aware of? I'm thinking of doing something like a 2.0 or something around there because the sun is too damn bright around these parts.

Phil, I think the Ursa Mini will do 150FPS @ 1080P, which isn't bad. My workflow would always be 2k or less anyway, so it's no big deal. Blackmagic is clearly not interested in slow-mo and I don't blame them. They want to make a high end cinema camera for a price point and the moment you source more expensive, higher power processors, your price point goes out the door. I'm anxious to see what the upcoming package deal costs on the Ursa Mini… They said by August/September, they'll have some special pricing. I'm shooting a feature next year, I may convince my producers to pay me through buying two Ursa Mini's and some lenses! At that point, I could start a rental shop! LOL :)

Interesting, I kinda suspected I wasn't alone with this quandary. So… what's the suggested course of action? I need to reduce the amount of light getting into the camera by at least 4 - 5 stops, as the damn Blackmagic Pocket camera is so sensitive, my lenses are always all the way closed with the camera set at the highest shutter speed (lowest angle) and lowest ASA. Plus, I'm about to get a speed booster, which will make the camera even more sensitive. Is there any other type of filter which will work to bring the stop down that won't have this problem? Has anyone tested any matte box filters that work well that aren't a few hundred dollars? I don't know if these plastic ones are IRND's, but that's absolutely worth looking into and a very good point because it does seem like IR interference. Thanks for the help! This is the first time I've tried to use shitty/cheap filters.

Hey guys Got an odd one for ya. So I've got these cheap polymer ND 4x4 filters for my matte box. They range from .3 - .9 and I use them because I do a lot of sports cinematography and they get destroyed quick. I've already gone through three of them and they're so cheap, it's no big deal to throw them in the trash when a rock or tree hits the camera (which happens often). When you hold them up to the light, they simply lower the brightness of the light. To the naked eye, they appear to be doing the right thing. However… When you shoot through them with a camera, they tint the whole image red. They almost eliminate the green and blue channels, it's quite amazing. I always have to do major color correction of my material, especially in the black levels, in order to work in the missing color. Now, I've shot with ND filters for my entire life and never seen this phenomena. Initially I thought it had something to do with the native color balance of my cameras, but after some recent testing, it's absolutely not that. So I figured out a way of making my own LUT which fixes the problem, but anything that's black has a brown/red tint to it no matter what I do. Here is a still image right out of DaVinci, after applying a simple 3D LUT, the base RAW to Rec709 LUT I use for everything. Here is a video I shot recently where I fixed the problems in post. Notice in shots with bright sunlight, the blacks are more muddy brown then red. Look especially at the guy with the green kawasaki shirt. The upper part of his shirt is green, the bottom is black… but in the video it's red/brown.

Pretty cool stuff, they're finally making a camera that LOOKS like a camera! I'm a bit depressed they didn't update the pocket camera. They spent all this time building an all-new camera with an even smaller form factor, but didn't bother updating the pocket. Still the Ursa Mini 4.6k is absolutely on the short-list when it's available. Rokinon released a few new cine primes as well, so EF mount it is! :)

Yea, Avid has been rubbish since day one. It's so unfortunate they force people like myself to use it. :( Edit: I have absolutely no idea what their new product is. The web site is full of little pictures and buttons, with no exact description at all.

I barely get enough cinematography work to make ends meet. I shot for 7 days on a pilot last year that still hasn't been finished. Did a few promo's and short subject pieces, all of them pay, but most of them I haven't received the money on. It leaves such a bad taste in your mouth when you work hard to produce something quick and the client disappears after the initial down payment. I'd say on average, I work about 2 weeks a month and barely make ends meet. I have a lot in the works, but nobody has signed on the dotted line. I think the big problem is who you know and honestly, mostly everyone I know is in short-subject, promo/marketing style pieces which are quick shoots and edits. It's a hard business which is why I diversify and edit/color as well.

And the A7S only records 8 bit externally as well, making the blacks a REAL problem. I have experience with the 5DMkII/MKIII and A7S, though wouldn't shoot with either due to their codec's. You'll get a great deal of compression noise and if you don't light it very flat, you'll be in big trouble correcting in post unless you crush the blacks. I've used the Panasonic AF100, which is the older version of the AF101 and it's not a bad camera. Though David's point about the sensitivity is right on the money and creating shallow depth of field can be very challenging. The internal codec is 10bit 4:2:2 however, even though I don't believe it has a RAW recording format. Honestly, I'd rather have 10bit 4:2:2 then 8 bit any day of the week. It records in AVC Intra, which is an OK codec @ 100Mbps, not the best… but A LOT BETTER then the two other options. Plus, it's a motion picture camera, not a still camera. So it has audio controls, decent viewfinder, built-in filters, everything you need to actually shoot a production. Sure, you'll be stuck to Rec709, but if you're very careful in the way you light, I think it may be OK. I shot a few things in Rec709 using the AF100 and it didn't come out very bad at all. We rented cinema primes and the camera flat-out worked well. I'm trying to dig up some footage now so you can see… maybe I'll get lucky and find something. ;)

It really depends on the mood and what you're looking to see in the background. Most underwater lighting is done from direct over head in a grid system of multiple smaller lights hung over the subject. Then key lights underwater will fill in the faces. Due to the backscatter effect, the lights facing the subjects need to be off-center. It's actually not difficult to get this all dialed in. Hydroflex makes housings for a few light meters, I usually rent whatever they've got available. They also rent the camera housings and hydropar lights. If you aren't currently scuba certified, I highly recommend doing that before attempting any underwater cinematography. Being able to control buoyancy on your own is critical to getting a good shot. It's hard to do this if you're using hookah OR simply holding your breath. Some of these hydroflex housings are huge and can be unwieldy to deal with in the water. So being very self sufficient with SCUBA first, will allow you to focus on the shooting and not bouncing off the ground or surfacing every 20 seconds. I also use UW communication systems when shooting. OTS (ocean technology systems) rents/sells them and they work great. I always run an assistant camera underwater on SCUBA, who doesn't surface and then someone who goes between the surface and underwater to deliver what we need. The in-between person takes orders from the above crew, who is listening into our conversations. The fewer people in the water, the better. I refuse to run more then 3 shooting crew members and ALL of them must be SCUBA certified to be on my crew. I generally go diving with them before shooting if I don't know who they are. There is also one safety diver required for each talent in the water, especially if they're not on SCUBA. Anyway, it's not a big deal… it's just a logistical nightmare and depending on how much material you need, it can take 4x as long to shoot underwater then above water. Ohh and all the info above about safety and field of view is accurate, but the moment you dump the camera in the water, you'll figure those things out. :)

Has anyone tried this EOS to M4/3rd's adaptor yet? http://www.rjcamera.com/ocart/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=84

Film scanner yes… I've worked with it and the thing is ready for prime time. It appears they've been delaying release purposely. My guess is, they've got a supplier issue. Blackmagic is very tight lipped about this NAB this year. My guess is, the pocket will either be a minor update (faster processor to allow slow mo) OR an all-new camera in a different case. Blackmagic is a forward thinking company and they've admitted to not updating older cameras because they'd rather release new ones. In my opinion, Blackmagic needs to re-develop the 2.5k and 4k large sensor cinema camera's into a form factor and package that's usable, with interchangeable batteries and such. In my dream I really hope they do it this year as I can't stand the current 4k packaging and I'd like one to shoot a feature with next year. Even if they added interchangeable batteries and slow-mo capabilities. With all that said. I have a feeling we'll be disappointed yet again. The URSA is an unusable toy and it's depressing they went that direction. If that's the future, we may be poop out of luck unfortunately. :(

Got ya… That's what I initially thought you meant, but scratched my reply because it didn't seem logical! LOL :) In the film days, mixing and matching camera bodies was part of the trade. I'd carry a Bolex, Arri S/M and SR with me, on every shoot. I'd use the S/M and Bolex for all the MOS stuff, including close-up's and wides. I always had a zoom lens on the SR and would shoot all the sync sound stuff with that camera. However, I'd always run the same stock in each camera, so there was no difference in quality. Cutting between them was seamless, it looked like everything was shot from the same camera. I also generally shoot an entire film with ONE stock. Look at the script, pre-plan for proper lighting and pick a stock which will work for the look. I use the same philosophy in the digital realm, only the stock is the camera you use. So in my world, I stick with the same camera for an entire film. Scenes that are dark, I will bring in practicals to bring it up a bunch or perhaps raise the ASA as a last ditch effort to compensate. If a director needs that crazy wide angle shot, I'll rent the components needed to adapt the A unit cameras to get the shot. I really focus on shooting things the old school way and keeping the constancy throughout a production. But hey, I'm one of the bozo's who dislikes digital cinema and wishes it never existed. I was born 40 years too late evidently! LOL :)

It's one of the reasons I like the blackmagic cameras with standard ol' analog control. It's all manual, using a light meter or relying on built-in histogram to determine exposure. The focus and exposure guides are very handy to have, but my SR had both of those. It's just the old method was analog and the new method is digital.

Sure, external recorders and software like magic lantern, do make the camera's usable. However, by the time you've added all the gizmo's to create a decent image, you could have bought a real cinema camera, with true 12 bit RAW capability, S35mm sensor, global shutter and 4k resolution. So yea, if you've made the investment, might as well use it. If you had that same investment into a Blackmagic 4k camera, you'd probably use that every time as well. I only own the pocket cameras, so that's what I shoot with. If someone came to me with a feature, I'd rent something else because I know they're not up to the challenge.

Yea, the whole concept of the blackmagic cameras is their ability to shoot in 12 bit Cinema DNG, which works flawlessly with DaVinci for post. I have yet to use Cinema DNG mode because the Pro Res HQ "film" mode looks so damn good. It delivers a flat image like Raw, but in a quicktime wrapper so you can drag and drop directly into an editing program without doing any transcoding. If you protect the highlights during capturing, this mode works fantastic. The down side is; if you over-expose, good luck getting anything out of it. The histogram shows raw capability, not pro res… so that's a small snafu with the design. The built-in monitor is worthless without a viewfinder adaptor. The viewfinder itself isn't representative of what's going onto the card. In a lot of cases it's covered in zebra stripes and green marks from focusing anyway, so it's only good for composing. The mini-HDMI output is also not full quality when capturing, so it's kinda worthless anyway But yes, you can set the output AND viewfinder to Rec or RAW mode.

First off, I wouldn't use a DSLR for shooting anything important. Being locked into Rec709 color space with MPEG2 files (limited dynamic range), doesn't really give you any correcting ability in post production. So when you make a mistake on location, even a minor one, you will struggle to fix it. Even with magic lantern installed, shooting RAW, it's still more challenging in post then a true cinema camera would be. Choosing your native white is more of a creative decision then anything else. The stock DLSR settings are kinda restrictive, the light bulb icon is 3200k and the sun icon is 5600k. The other settings are for automatic exposure. With magic lantern, you can manually select a white point, which is very nice. Most of my DLSR shooting has been done indoors on sets, and I've found they work pretty good at 3200k. There is plenty of saturation and anything more could be considered overly warm. With the blackmagic camera's, I tend to push it to 4500K indoors and 6500k outdoors, I've found those numbers to deliver a nice warm image when I apply a lookup table in post. This means I only tweak and not re-work everything, like I would if the camera's white was set colder or warmer. When you work with a DSLR stuck on Rec709, it's imperative to have a decent color corrected monitor attached, to make sure you're in the right zone. Also, it's critical to make your lighting as flat as you can, the moment you add contrast, the MPEG will start to fall apart when correcting. You'll get noise in the highlights and pixillation (due to the 8 bit recording) in the lows. The lows/darks are the real problem because they become very muddy and you can physically see steps in the image from grey to black. The only solution's I've found are to over-light (make the image very flat lighting wise with very even exposure throughout), as if your shooting 200ASA film for DI or crush the ever living poop out of the blacks. Yes, I'm one of those whack jobs who shoots 200ASA indoors with DSLR's, it's amazing how much it helps in post however. Anyway, if I were you, I'd rent some cinema cameras for your production; Sony, Red, Arri, Blackmagic… choose your poison. I'll say this much, being heavily involved in post production, I vastly prefer the Pro Res workflow of the Arri and Blackmagic cameras over the RED CODE or MPEG2/RAW work flows of the Sony and Red cameras. :wipes brow: hands are tired, good luck! :)

There is a clutch on the take-up side which is probably damaged. It takes a few milliseconds for the pulley to get up to speed and during that time it's designed to take up fast and then slip. Most likely that little mechanism isn't dropping to it's "slip" position fast enough. You should be able to feel this by putting tension on the take up pulley and starting the camera. It will probably jerk right out of your hand.

Huh interesting…. I'll have to do some tests! :)

Yea, Yea, I'm using HDCAM as a "slang" it refers to 12 bit 4:4:4 SR format. Sorry for the confusion. Nobody uses the older orang door HDCAM format anymore, that's been dead for years.

I'm confused.. 800ASA looks like crap. So you're saying that's what the camera is SUPPOSE to look like?

I've been talking to reps about the Blackmagic scanner and nobody has a release date. I've also seen it work and did some hands-on testing, so it's not vaperwear. On a side note, NAB is looking more and more like the release time.

And the worst part is, theaters which don't have 4k projectors, aren't going to be spending money again to buy them when MOST movies come in 2k anyway. David is right about trailers being done in 1080 and upres'd to 2k. I use to work for a trailer house and that's what we did. Sometimes we didn't even color them, they would come pre-colored off the HDCAM tapes. Other times, we'd send our EDL's and files to a shop for color, it all depended on the budget.

Ya know, I think anyone with some skills can shoot a feature. Today, much of the look is created in post anyway. So constant lighting and proper lens selection are more important then anything else. I agree with Mark, finding a great gaffer and key grip are high on the priority list. I'd also find a great AC and Operator. Work with them pre-show, go over lens selection, maybe do some tests pre-show to make sure you're good on day one. I'd simply lean heavily on your gaffer and operator, be more of a director rather then physically doing things. It will help you relax a bit and focus on what you see with your eyes, rather then being stuck behind the camera. Also… be very forward with the lighting, gaffing and camera department you build, let them know this is your first feature. On my first feature, I had a horrible/worthless gaffer, horrible camera operator and assistant. It was a horrible experience all the way around, mostly because I had no say. Just having some good guys you can lean on when you need help, is HUGE.