Salil Sundresh

Is that aluminum tubing you got instead of steel? Is it strong enough?

I'm budding DP who shoots all sorts of stuff mostly with my own equipment. I'm looking for a single monitoring solution for my post-production/color correction and field usage in order to judge my lighting and for clients & directors to view. I'm not sure whether I should go with a decent LCD field monitor or a used a CRT field monitor off of eBay and then possibly get a junky LCD like a portable dvd player w/av in for client use when there's no power or ultra portability is needed. For post right now I have a 24" gateway LCD monitor that doesn't seem to give reasonable contrast/colors no matter how much I calibrate it. I've also been using a 13" TV/VCR I got from walmart several years ago but not only is it not a professional broadcast monitor but the inputs are unreliable. Most of my work goes to DVD or web, a small number of projects go for SD broadcast occasionally but not very much. I'd like to keep things under $500 max. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I was wondering if anyone had a ball park range I should pay per foot for 5/8" stainless steel tube for using as a gobo arm? Chepeast place I found locally was $75 for 20ft (minimum 20ft purchase). So $3.75/ft. Seems like a bit much?

Thanks everyone for your replies. I realize this isn't exactly the most professional thing to do. This is for a time lapse shot where the DP (he's paying/renting gear...so this is incase he doesn't get a 20A stinger and buys his own cheap ones in hopes they don't melt) wants to use a 2k to simulate the light of a sunrise coming through the window. So we'd just capture a frame then dim up/raise the stand, then repeat a million times. Most of the time it would be under 80% intensity on the 2k dimmer. 2k will be outside on a fire escape stairway on a mombo combo stand which will go to a max height of 15ft shining through a window. The light and most of the cable will be outside in Chicago in March so it won't be hot weather and we're going to be shooting at night with more than a couple hours till sun rise after wrap. Any other thoughts? I wanna get an idea of how long it might be good to run it and how long it should cool for before going again.

How long is it ok to run a 2k off a 15A stinger before the cord may start to get damaged? How long do I need to let the 15A cord rest/cooldown after turning it off befor firing it up again? Will be using 2x50' stingers for the run to the head. Working in the USA with 20A circuit @125V AC

I think it's in part because of how sensitive stocks and video cameras have become so it's easy to get "acceptable" looking image. People can light up a little scene with just a few kinos and not have to worry about double shadows or ugly hotspots. In some sense it's a good thing because it will hopefully take some of the focus off of technical quality of images (resolution, blown out highlights, color saturation, etc) instead DPs will be hired more based on their art instead since the craft of exposing technically good quality images is becoming easier.

I think One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (nominated for oscar in best cinematography, 1975) has some of this towards the end.

Try checking with your producer/PM if you can prep or oversee prep of the equipment the day or night before. The guys at the rental houses may be able to answer your questions about actual operation of the Kinos and HMIs. Most of the time they are relatively simple to operate in my experience (especially the newer stuff) so I wouldn't be scared off by it. Just be mindful of the hot re-strike time if you get magnetic ballasts. As a general rule of thumb, HMI bulbs can put out 4 times as much light as a tungsten bulb. The fixture and lens have a big impact on this though so like Mike mentioned, check the photometric chart. Based on the stills you've provided, it looks like you are going for a combination of soft fill and hardish sunset like light? Am I right in saying this? What if you throw some diff on the whole fixture to soften it up a little bit and then put a silk half way in front of the fixture to get that spotty hardish light spilling on to the subject? You might also want to get another hmi bounced into some griff to fill in the other side. 1200w's are the largest HMIs made as far as I know that run off a 20 amp circuit. As for the black background, if you can afford it get some big pieces of duv to throw on some speed rails, you might also need a floppy on the edge of the grif to help control some of the spill.

Thank you to everyone for your input. I'm still having some difficulty finding an apropriate diamter tube. Are there any online stores where I could order the appropriate tube that anyone has to suggest?

Also, check with your make up artist to see if they can do anything to help make lighterskin subjects less reflective.

Usually I expose darker skin at around middle gray -- very close to what your incident meter reads (darker skin is closer to 18% gray than white). Try underexposing 1 stop below what your incident reading gives you?

What is the emotional tone of this scene? Is the light coming in from outside direct sunlight or skylight? If it's skylight and you need some fill on the actor's face, try taping some of the mini kino flo tubes to the back of the seat. It could act as a nice frontal fill.

It depends on the look you're going for and the production design/sets. All that can really be said is, make sure you have a ton of light (a ton for a low budget dv indie production) for that camera because I've heard people say that camera's sensitivity is as low as 80 ASA. You'll probably need atleast 70-80 footcandles (for areas you want to expose at as middle gray) if you're shooting wide open with fast lenses.

Yeah good point, we actually had to spot mine slightly b/c his had a narrower beam diameter at full flood.

Well I took the plunge and ordered 3 of these and they arrived last week. So far so good, they feel solid and lock smoothly. I haven't used them to support much more than foamcore and silks.

I have this off brand arri like fixture and I wanted to compare it to the real arris, I know about the photometrics calculator arri has but my friend told me those are only theoretical so I might want to check it on the real thing. So basically looking for how many footcandles from 5ft at full flood. If anyone could help me out with this it would be amazingly helpful. PS: If your meter doesn't do footcandles just give me the fstop, fps, and ISO/ASA.

I see what you guys are saying. Thanks for all the replies. Now that I look at it, it was a pretty dumb question. It just astonished me that there was such a big difference between the two 650s.

I just compared a friend's 650w fresnel to my 650w fresnel. At the same distance mine read F8.0 and his reads F5.6 so therefore mine is twice as bright. Why could this be? Does this mean basically my friend's 650w is the equivalent of a little more than a 300w fresnel?

Thanks for the tips everyone, I ended up with just use 2 bounce lights and a back w/some O on it. Fortunately the we pulled the plug with the client...the set was a nightmare to light. (ie: background same color as subject, etc)

I have to light a set with 2 fake walls at 90 degrees and the subject stands in the corner at about 45 degrees facing away from the walls. Subject is about 3ft from walls, are there any techniques i can use to minimize casting double shadows on the walls? Unfortunatelly the fake walls go all the way to the ceilling so no room to shoot light over the wall. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Just curious, where did you manage to find this stainless steel pipe? I searched home depot, lowes, and menards in the chicago area with no luck. The only thing I found that was proper size is a copper pipe, but I'm afraid it may not be strong enough. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Anyone have any experience with Impact's Grip heads? http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/3719..._Head_2_5_.html Would save $11 over the Matthews grip heads

Ya, i guess i just assumed it would be some non-standard size so I was hesitant to look into that. I'll have to check out the depot this weekend! Thanks!

I've been looking to purchase a grip arm or two and some grip heads. I've noticed the Matthews' arms have a grip head attached that cannot be removed, but I found calumet has an arm with a removable grip head: http://www.calumetphoto.com/item/MF7011/ Being able to remove the grip head would be more versatile IMO and save money on buying more grip heads. My question is, are there any other companies that offer this? I couldn't find a reviews on the Calumet grip heads so I'm a little hesitant until I can try it out. Having a removable grip head may not matter to those that are working with a 5 ton grip truck of stuff, but being an individual with limited funds I'm trying to get the best bang for my buck. IE: Say I wanted to boom out a light from a stand, I don't necessarily need 2 grip heads to do this, I could remove one of the grip heads and use it to mount a flag or net on another stand.

Kodak claims film has 20 stops of dynamic range? Does anyone have any idea how this could be true? Isn't the human eye only like 18 stops? If we could shoot on stocks with 20 stops of dynamic range, that would mean big roles of ND would be obsolete in many cases...yet it still seems like this stuff is used quite a bit. Is this 20 stop dynamic range only for some super expensive imax stock or...? Click the 10 fast facts link, fact #3 http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Produ...on_16/index.htm