Jason Hinkle RIP

There are really a huge amount of options to do this, as vargavision said it depends on the layout of your room. one example if you are on the ground floor or have access to put lights outside the window then you can blast those shoplights in. since they will be a little yellow, i would use the shoplights for the simulated morning sun and use the arris for your indoor lighting. you can make the light "motivated" by putting your key light near the window so it seems like the light is coming from that direction. i did a no-budget shoot that was supposed to be morning and we didn't have access outside (3rd floor apts) so we had to do all the lighting by just bouncing it off the window shades and by not always showing the window in the shot. I tried to use high-key lighting and really blasting the actors to make it seem like it was a very strong light source. in this shot below the window is out of frame, but i think it has a bit of morning sun shining through look to it this one the window has a bit of natural light shining in but we bounced light off of it to supplement and placed our lights all near the window (you can see one light frame just barely at the left of the frame). even though light was not really coming from the sun, it still looks like it is coming from that direction of the window. you can cheat a little too with the lights not exactly shining in the window.

(sorry to post in general, not sure where to put this question...?) If you were shooting a cooking show and had the choice (based on budget) between DSLR or an HD camera around the level of the Canon XF 105 or a Panasonic HVX200, what do you all think would be a good choice? We will have adequate lighting and it's not required to record audio on the camera, so basically it's down to image quality that will be consistent. We have some b-roll that's coming from a DSLR, but I need to choose the gear for the main cooking part of the program. Also I feel kinda dumb asking but what frame rate do you guys shoot for network TV? I've only shot film and video at 24p but when I watch HD TV it looks so crisp I was wondering if that's normally shot at perhaps 60p? Thanks for any help.

From what I can see a couple of your shots are a bit soft. Getting really crisp focus is surprisingly difficult with DSLRs but I think it's critical to get that "pop." Other than that I think your footage looks pretty good. I think it would be improved in post with color grading, crushing the blacks a bit. Also a sharpen plugin could help. Getting great shots that stand out are really 100 little things rather than any 1 thing. But I think for the most part your footage looks pretty good.

I used mainly Nikon 28, 50 and 100 lenses. The adapter was a Les Boscher one. I have since sent the camera in and had service which I have been told may have been caused by a timing issue and some type of reflecting from the mirror. I also had the inside of the lens adapter painted flat black (it was silver before). The weird thing is that I had this problem with a bright spot in the center of the image on two different ACL cameras, which makes it suspicious that it was not something related to the lens or adapters. But the flickering only occurred on one of the cameras. Anyway, I'm a bit spooked on using my Nikons anymore, which is a shame but I can seem to get reliable results when testing

For that price range I second the ACL. They are good cameras for Super-16 or Ultra-16 conversion as well.

Thanks!

Well I have been screening this at festivals this past year and now thats finished I've posted the whole movie on YouTube. I previously posted the trailer, but here's the whole thing: The movie is a short comedy about a guy who doesn't know how to talk to girls. It's my first narrative film, before I've only done music videos. It was shot on Super-16 converted ACL and Nikon lenses. Film processing and transfer was done at Astrolab / Filmworkers in Chicago. I had a lot of technical problems with flickering and lens flares but was able to cover most of it in post. Any constructive criticism is welcome. Hope you like it!

I'm trying to project some footage and shoot it with my 16mm film camera. I was wondering if anybody knows of a good surface to project the image onto? Basically I'm doing the reverse of telecine, I suppose, transferring digital to film. I've seen the diy telecine machines project onto a lens of some type, would that be a fresnel lens? i would just point it at a screen and film that, but it seems like the quality would not be that great and likely to show any grains or stains on my projection screen. it doesn't really matter if the image is reversed or up-side-down, i can correct that later but i just want to get a good quality image onto film. thanks!

B&W does have some advantages - you can use that crazy purple jacket for $1 at the flea market and it looks like a classy, dark suit! I have seen people change to B&W in post in order to hide poor color or exposure, or to just give it a stronger look. In some cases I thought it worked, and others it still just looks like poorly shot footage!

Thanks, that is helpful. I guess asking for insurance for especially valuable or fragile gear should just be my policy. I don't mind loaning out dolly, grip and light gear so much, but perhaps for cameras and lenses I should be "official" about it. I have rented to friends who I very much trust. However they take it on a shoot with a larger crew and I have noticed that some professional crew expect their gear to be indestructible and they treat it as such. Not being malicious, but perhaps expecting old or off-brand gear to be as solid as top-of-the-line pro gear. So you would think the more experienced the crew, the nicer they will be with the gear but I have sometimes found the opposite to be true. I can't imagine my film camera being returned to me with a bad modification made to it. Who would do that!?

Just wondering if any of you guys get asked to rent your gear and, if so, what's your response? I don't really need rental income, but I do like helping my friends and also being able to call upon them for a favor sometimes on my crew or whatever. The problem is that people wanting to rent from me are not likely to have production insurance, and definitely wouldn't be able to replace, for example, an expensive lens, let alone an entire kit. Basically I want to help out friends when I can but it feels like I'm just taking all the risk when loaning out equipment this way. I'm just curious how other people handle it, particularly when it is a friend or associate who is asking to rent or borrow the gear?

Hey Saran, you don't really have to do anything. Just shoot your footage and then in post, use a de-saturate plugin or if you prefer some other plugin to make the footage black and white. As Alex said, he chose shots with high contrast lighting so that they would be more dramatic in B&W. So there are artistic concerns, but you don't have to do anything technical with the camera. I have worked with people who planned to do B&W, but then changed their mind and kept the color later because it looked so good. And I worked several times where it was not planned and they just decided to use B&W as an effect only after the shoot was done.

It is an unfortunate problem with very short lenses, there simply isn't a lot of room. I set up my mounting plate so that my camera is kinda hanging over the front a bit. That gives me a tiny bit of room under the camera for the follow focus to slide really close. My particular ff has the gear to one side (I have a d-focus) so for my tiny 50mm pancake lens the ff will only fit on the left side of the camera. If it's not too heavy, you could attach your matte box to the lens using a threaded adapter instead of the rail mount (I believe all of those particular Nikons are 52mm threads) something like so: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/544782-REG/Genus_GL_GAR52_GAR52_52mm_Adapter_Ring.html I'm sure you probably thought of using a lens hood instead, but if you are using filters or a french flag, it might not be acceptable replacement to the matte box.

how did you like working with those lenses? i have been kinda drooling over them for a while! i agree somewhat with vincent, though I think it is quite good as-is, it could better trimmed down a bit. you have some absolutely beautiful footage, the possibility of this looking like a high-end, big budget spot is there. if i didn't think it could be something special then i would just say "great job" and leave it at that, but your footage is worthy of another edit i think. thank you for sharing this, I have wanted to see those lenses in action.

that really stinks. i have travelled to vancouver several times in a touring band and, though the city is incredible and beautiful, every person we met along the way told us that theft of music gear from a car/van is extremely common. we were warned many times to the point where we were so paranoid that we slept in our van. it makes me really angry when people steal gear used for another person's livelihood. i sincerely hope that you do get it returned.

Hey Justin, are you able to focus to infinity? Meaning if you set the focus at infinity on the lens, is everything in the distance in focus, or do you notice that you cannot focus past 20 feet or so? The reason is because if you cannot get infinity focus then it is likely that you have the wrong c-mount adapter. You might have one made for the Bolex RX camera which has a different focal length. That basically means, the distance of the rear lens is too far from the film because the specification for the Bolex RX is slightly different than for any other camera. A lot of eBay sellers have no idea what they are selling and they don't know the difference. If you can get infinity focus then the adapter is just probably a little off. At the rear lens mount the tolerance is less than a millimeter so the thread on a cheap adapter only has to be a tiny bit off and it throws the focus out. If you are the type who likes to focus by tape (which I do prefer myself) then you might want to consider forking out the dough for a professional adapter like one from Les Bosher. Unfortunately they are really expensive like $350.

You can get the hand-grip portion of that shoulder rig here: http://www.thecinecity.com/eshop/product.php?productid=287&cat=3&page=1 I agree it does look a bit big. Also I don't know why these hand-grips are so expensive? It seems like somebody would have come out with a durable plastic grip for $20 or something already. That wooden hand-grip looks kinda interesting - you think that plug would work as-is on the ACL? It would seem like it could be possible since it says Aaton on it, but it seems to be made for RED cameras, that's kinda wild to think they have the same on/off connector as our old ACLs..?!

If you have two HDMI monitors, you can grab one of these for $60: http://www.smallhd.com/Store/5-6-inch-HD-Monitor-Accessories/HDMI-Loop-through-Splitter

Hey Albert, send me a message on eBay and I think will be enable your eBay account to bid. Thanks for the message!

hey alain, no idea why but i felt compelled to see if I could give a more contrasty look to your screen shot!

I'm selling my Marshall LCD to pay for more holiday toys! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140487123335 It hasn't seen a lot of use - great condition in the original box. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! -j

I have a color 4:3 video assist, so I don't know if there is an issue with B&W but i've used two different monitors which I liked. A Marshall LCD70p-HDA and more recently a SmallHD DP6. The SmallHD does have a custom zoom that allows you to set the zoom, horizontal and vertical offset separately and you have I think 6 custom presets that you can save for instant recall. So that's pretty nice for lining up custom framing. The marshall has some zoom presets as well. For both monitors, though I tend to prefer the 1-to-1 pixel display because it's a little sharper. I usually just put gaffers tape over the monitor based on my shooting ratio. I don't find any of the smaller monitors to look "great" but they do the trick to see the framing. None of them are good enough to use for critical focus, though so far as I have seen.

I'm headed across the pond in September. Any Eclair people in the vicinity interested in meeting up for a pint or something? Or if not, know of any camera shops that I should visit?

In my case it was a camera problem and had to be sent in for a part replacement. I can't remember what was fixed - the clutch, or claw or something (I don't remember the name of the part). I actually made a video of this camera compared to a working ACL. This was a video I sent to Bernie and he immediately recognized the problem from it, so I guess it must not be a totally uncommon issue: Camera losing loop: Timing problem: If you're camera is doing either of these things, it needs to be repaired.

Hey Ray, did you check the timing? I had that same problem and the same combination of magazines as well. The mag with the safety claw would be very loud due to losing the loop. However the magazine without the safety claw would just rub against the roller and produce a sliding sound. That mag with the claw is a safer magazine because exactly as Evan said it will warn you if you lose your loop. To check the timing is simple: http://eclair16.com/eclair-acl/how-to-videos/check-the-timing/