Jason Hinkle RIP

i'd use practicals with color-balanced bulbs and reflectors as much as i could. but i wouldn't leave the light kit at home either, just in case!

Any tips on lighting a dark, moody interrogation scene? The set is a large, old industrial basement with concrete walls, pipes, typical basement stuff. the room and general tone is supposed to be dark, but i don't know how dark to go before the background will just be lost? In my mind I am picturing the typical scene where the subject has a lamp shining in his face - something like this photo: http://mindpowersystem.com/images/Interrog...gationroom6.jpg but i do want to get some of the room because it is pretty creepy looking, which is the intended mood of the scene. I'm wondering is it as simple as just putting a spot on the subject? If not, How many stops off should the subject be from the background walls and should I meter only off of the subjects face, or compromise between the subject and the background? Should I shoot it a little brighter than intended to get the image on film and then darken it in post? i'm shooting on vision3 500T, btw. thanks for any ideas.

I just finished an all-day shoot set in a bathroom and found it very challenging. I can share some experience for what it is worth. We didn't need much light. With mirrors reflecting everywhere and the walls being tile/white, one light source totally filled the room. I used 170w of cool light and it was bright enough to shoot at f.8. The main problem was that it got hot as hell in there, even with cool lights. With your lowell it probably will get really hot in there. If you turn on the shower it's going to get super humid as well. i would recommend bringing a fan to cool the room between takes. I found it difficult to make the light look interesting and i think i wound up with adequate, but fairly boring light. In hind-sight i might try a candle or something if it's appropriate for the scene. Maybe use a gobo or something to get some light patterns. Maybe bring a lot of black material to cover mirrors and things so you can get a little more control? It was also tricky to get any variety of shots due to the cramped space. The mirrors made wide-angle difficult without getting the camera in the shot, and there wasn't enough distance to use a longer lens unless i was shooting extreme closeups. I removed the door and shot a lot of it from the hall through the doorway just to get some variety. Another suggestion if you are shooting sync sound, is to bring a lot of blankets. We stuffed the tub with blankets, put them all on the floor, etc. hope that helps - good luck!

Nick, I don't know what type of battery you use but if it has a cigarette lighter charging plug, then you can use one of these to check it: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1502...ester_with.html I have one & it works fine, though honestly I don't really use it that much. Also, thanks Boris. I always wondered what the heck that meter was doing.

Those are awesome tips - thanks guys. There's so many details to consider, it's overwhelming sometimes! I have a friend loaning me a nice lens for a while and I'm going to shoot some tests to figure out my own lens too. I want to make sure I'm using my gear to the fullest before I spend more. Thanks so much - this has been hugely informative.

Thanks Karl. Actually if all of my shots looked like the bottom right corner of the one above (the wood table) I would be satisfied. I like that level of grain. I posted the shot of the guy because it has a lot of colors and I thought that would be what someone would like to see. But, probably the grain is what you would want to see, so I hope the shot of the glass is useful. Of course I'm a beginner, so I am just figuring this all out and hopefully at least somebody who is thinking of Vision 3, well hopefully my stills are somewhat helpful..?! I shot some old 50 speed film outside a while back and it came out pretty grainy too, so I think the skill of the photographer is my biggest problem at the moment!

hehe. sorry no bikini shots this time! The image of the guy above was shot with an Angenioux 12-120 which does not seem to be taking very sharp images despite my best efforts, however it could just be my fault - I'm somewhat unhappy and frustrated with the grainy images I'm getting. Here's one more still with the same vision 3, this was shot with a Nikon 50mm, though. It is probably the sharpest shot that I captured on this shoot so I hope this will be more useful for seeing the nature of the vision 3 stock.

Thanks Andrew, I'm going to do that.

Thanks again Allen, that actually makes a lot of sense about the wide lens softening the light and, perhaps flaws in the lens are amplified. You're right about the blue halo too - it's even worse in some other shots from that same setup. The lens looks clean to me, but then I don't know for sure if I would recognize a bad lens. I don't see any obvious dirt or fog on the glass. The weird thing is that both shots are the same camera, lens, same film stock, lights and everything. It's an Eclair ACL with the Angie 12-120 Camflex mount. Probably doing some tests like you mentioned is the best way to know for sure what's going on?

Thanks Ira, I do understand the wider f-stop is going to be more shallow depth of field which would theoretically make it less forgiving to focus. But I'm pretty darn sure that I had crisp focus in the viewfinder. I had about 80 ft candles of light according to the meter, with the 85 filter I should have closed it one stop. That was actually an oversight on my part leaving it open in this setup, but as it turns out it clued me in to the fact that the wide-open shots were all a bit soft. If it's just lack of skill, I'm definitely ready to accept that too. But, I suspect this lens isn't good wide open - I've seen a lot of similar 16mm results on YouTube - it seems like so much footage comes out soft. I want to learn how to get those crisp images I see you guys here posting!

Thanks Allen. Here's some footage I just got back. I picked these two because they are almost an identical setup - the main difference being the first image f-stop was closed 2 stops and the 2nd image was wide open. In both shots the camera is about 12 feet away from the subject with nearly identical amount of lighting. This is filmed on brand new Vision3 stock under daylight balanced cool lights with an 85 filter. The 2nd shot is not just one bad take either - everything from that setup is soft, including some long and medium shots. The f-stop seems to be responsible, however I don't have enough experience to feel 100% confident saying that ;-) The first shot is about as sharp as I seem to be able to get. I wouldn't mind getting even sharper, but I'm not sure reg 16mm best light transfer to MiniDV is going to get much sharper..? Maybe it's time for better lenses? I want to make sure I'm getting the best I can from my gear though. Thanks again so much for your help.

Does anyone here get their film transferred to MiniDV and then import into Final Cut Pro to edit? I'm struggling with some technical glitches regarding the frame rate and the image size. For one thing, the image ratio is 3:4 (640x480) however Final Cut refuses to believe that it is anything other than NTSC 720 x 480. It looks normal when I'm editing but when I go to render it, Final Cut will always stretch or crop as if the footage was 720x480. I think I'm confusing raw footage settings vs the sequence settings or something, but I can't figure out the trick. The other issue I have is the interlacing looks terrible when there is motion and even using the "de-interlace" option when exporting doesn't do a perfect job of getting rid of those lines. I have been getting my footage processed at Spectra and MiniDV is the format that they send me. I know MiniDV is a compressed format. They do offer the option of putting the footage directly on a hard drive instead or they will make any other adjustment that I request, the problem is that I just don't know what the optimal format to request would be. Any advice about your process, what settings you use or the digital format you prefer from the lab would be greatly appreciated.

I was wondering if someone could help me with some tips for getting a really crisp, sharp focus on 16mm film? I know there are a lot of variables and I've already discovered some things, but I would like to hear any tricks or tips out there. During the shoot I am really anal about zooming in and getting a super sharp focus on the subject, yet some shots still come out looking soft & amateurish. The one thing I have managed to figure out on my own is that shooting with the aperture wide open seems to make it difficult and/or impossible for me to get a really sharp focus. Adding more light so that I can close it down even 1 f-stop seems to make a big difference. I am almost thinking that my lens will simply not capture a sharp image with the f-stop wide open. Could that be right? Obviously the glass is critical, but I have gotten some very sharp shots so I know my equipment is capable of producing great images. I would just like to be able to do it consistently. I have a few lenses but for the purposes of this question, you could just assume I'm using the old standard Angenioux 12-120. Thanks for any advice.

I just got some Vision3 back from the lab today. This was shot with about 80 ft candles of daylight balanced lights and an 85 filter. I have some other stills of closeups and such if anybody is interested I'll post them.

That's a good idea actually! knowing me, I would forge to set it back to 24fps the first shot of every reel. i guess i could make a benny hill movie with the footage!

Loading the feed-side is done in the changing bag, but the take-up is done in the light. I actually put the mag on the camera, remove the take-up cover and run a few frames while watching the loop to make sure it's all perfect. Then I slide the cover back on with the mag still attached to the camera. It seems kinda wasteful, but actually it's only 1-2 seconds of film. Whereas a bad loop will ruin the entire roll. Most people just go by the sound, but I like to also visually confirm that the loop is perfect. One great tip that I received is to give the bottom loop an extra frame or two and make sure to manually turn the motor a few turns whenever you connect the magazine to the camera. This allows the film to gently snap into position in the gate and create a balanced loop. Otherwise if you just hit the power switch, a few frames can slip by before the film snap into position and you wind up with a lop-sided loop - usually all the slack will be at the top. One other thing - I was originally told the loop should be exactly 12 frames. But if you follow the ACL instruction manual it shows you to measure by folding the loop over to the edge of the mag. I find this way measures 14 frames. I've had film come out both ways but I'm always kinda wondering if one is better. I usually do it the "ACL way" using the mag edge to measure.

B&H seems to be working on their website over the past few weekends. I had the same thing happen to me two weekends ago. My battery is working out great. I actually got a Y adapter and I use it to power the camera, my video assist and LCD monitor - all three at the same time. The one battery lasted for an entire 12 hour shoot without having to recharge.

I have an ACL 1 and an ACL 1.5/2 mutt - I know there are a lot of variations but I can tell you that if you have both the front and side switch, then they kinda work together and it can get confusing if you forget one or the other switch is engaged. When the front switch is depressed, it will also slide and "lock" to the right (towards the viewfinder) and left (away from viewfinder). On my camera, when the front switch is slid to the right, the motor will be permanently running. When it is slid to the left, then that means the handle button is now in control. If your handle is the ergonomic type, it's an on/off toggle switch. If you just have the plain handle, then the switch is actually attached to the camera body and it is a 3-position sliding switch. On my camera, the lowest position is off, and the top two both seem to be "on." One thing I can recommend you do once you get some practice film is the following two tests, they are very easy to do and will save you some ruined film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBBumID3xlM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUhI7qMjtzQ In both of these videos, camera 2 is broken and had to be sent in for service. If you shoot film with your camera in this condition your footage will be completely blurred and unusable except for perhaps an art-house experiment! Save yourself $100 and check this before you shoot (unlike me who found out the hard way ;-) good luck with the camera.

I just bought one of these: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/2281...te_Battery.html At $62 it's not bad because you get the carrying case, charger and the attached cable is 6' - so this is everything you need. If you already have a charger you can get the battery alone for, I think $59. -j -- J. Hinkle

If you decide that you are going to give up on the camera - I'd be interested in the top handle and the rubber eyecup! -- J. Hinkle