Kevin Zanit

I would 2nd the above. That said, usually double ended HMIs (for example an 18k fresnel) with a flicker free ballast through some diffusion will be fine in terms of flicker. Especially if you are mixing it with sunlight. That said, HMIs are always hit or miss and when possible, tungsten 5k or bigger is desirable. Kevin

I have had mixed experience with high frame rates under stadium lighting. Usually they do flicker. With that said, there tend to be so many sources that the flicker is not as noticeable. Obviously if you are seeing the actual light source then the flicker will be visible. It is also very hit and miss in terms of finding a safe speed. I would expect flicker. Kevin

"How do you monitor this camera? is there a little LCD or something? can I review shots right after doing them, to decide if i need to reshoot them, delete them, save them, etc?" The camera has a viewfinder (Sony color viewfinder) as well as an HD-SDI out, so you can monitor with normal HD monitors. The take you shot is available to be played back immediately after cutting. It will play on the viewfinder as well as the SDI out at any frame rate you want, though typically you play back at 24 fps (or 29.97 depending on your final time base). You can then decide if you want to keep or dump that take. If you keep it, you typically set in and out points for the clip and save to the computer (which can take quite some time), or if you are using a Cinemag, save to the mag in a few seconds (and then download the mag at a later time). If you decide not to keep the clip, the shot is dumped instantly and the camera is ready to go again.

Well VRI makes other slow motion camera than the Phantom HD, see if you can rent one of those for a more affordable price. They are not as good of quality, but its better than nothing. 120fps may or may not be fast enough. Depends on what you are looking for. Can you test it? Personally, I'm thinking 120 may not be fast enough. As for lenses, why not just carry one or two wider 16mm lenses when you need to drop down to 2k? It sounds like you need to go to 2k for a few specific moments, so you should be able to plan what focal lengths you need. Kevin

I heard the entire 4k package at one point was available which would include all the Origins (I & II) as well as the three(?) Evolutions that were produced along with their Codex recorders and a bunch of lenses, etc for under $10million. This of course would come with no support, but is still a pretty good deal for the right investor considering how much just the ten(?) or so Codexs are worth. I heard this a long time ago and may not have ever been that accurate. As for what to do with the files it creates, well certainly not that hard to deal with. Its just a lot of data. The company Elhanan and I started was able to handle Dalsa material for a relatively minimal cost. You could use the software Dalsa developed to handle their own RAW files or use the Iridas solutions already in place. I'm still sad to see the cameras go.

Happy birthday David!

I would not agree that it is all that different from any other camera in this regard. You just need a TON of light at the higher frame rates so as to not underexpose it. And if you have the limitations you are talking about in terms of units (as far as I know there are no tungsten units that are 4k, but 5k and under), you may be pretty underexposed depending on your frame rate. Also, depending on your frame rate you will have flicker from these smaller tungsten sources on AC power. Remember, the Phantom is a daylight balanced camera, so lighting with no correction will underexpose your blues and give you a lot more red than you want, which can definitely affect how the green screen color comes out. You can white balance the camera, but it is not as good as putting a filter on the lens or the lights. You will loose some latitude. The best thing is to try and get it as close to daylight as your light level will allow. So any 80 filter on the lens or CTB on the tungsten lights would be a good thing. Kevin Zanit

Again, the topic has been covered a bunch by a lot of people so please do a search. The flicker with smaller tungsten units is because on AC power the 60Hz cycle causes the filament to heat up and cool down. With smaller globes the filaments are small and thus cool down much quicker, so you actually see the filament turning on and off at those frame rates. With bigger globes (5k and up), the filament is so big that it cools down much slower and thus appears continuously on in spite of heating up and cooling down at 60Hz. On DC power none of this is an issue.

This has been discussed quite a lot in the past, please do a search. The short answer is the cheapest light source for these frame rates would be the sun. In a studio setting you need to use either Tungsten lights that are 5k or bigger. Smaller sources will flicker. You can use HMIs. Personally, I have had mixed experiences with HMIs. Sometimes you will get flicker/ arc wonder (these are two different things, but both can happen at these frame rates). Lightning Strikes Softsuns have worked very well though (50k and 100k units). What 16mm camera would be using that could shoot at 2000fps out of curiosity? Most film cameras will be a bit more forgiving about flicker because there is no pin registration, etc which means there are typically so many other problems with the image you don't notice flicker.

Thanks! Well the high frame rate does give you a fairly short exposure time just by being at 1000fps. 1000fps with a 180 degree shutter is a 1/2000th of a second exposure. This is enough to freeze most actions. Things like small water drops and to some extent pours can benefit from an even tighter shutter, like 90 or 45 degrees, but that just requires a TON more light. Most of those shots were lit with 5k, 10k and 20k fresnels.

Stuff at the beginning of my reel - www.kevinzanit.com was shot at 1000fps with a 180 degree shutter.

The R3d files are pretty small actually, as long as you have enough hard drive space it should be fine. Its the same as just copying files from a portable hard drive or thumb drive, etc. If you are using the REDDrive, it has firewire 800, 400 and USB. Use whatever connection you want, you won't really see much difference in speed. The REDDrive is only a single drive, so your never going to get much more than 60mb/s (though I would expect more like 40), especially if you are transferring to a single drive as well. If you are using CF cards, you need a CF card reader, which I think mainly come with USB connections.

The best electronic archival medium I am aware of is LTO tape. LTO4 is the latest generation. Each tape is 800gb native, 1.6tb compressed. The machines are fairly expensive, but the tapes are not too bad and go down in price all the time. It is also very fast, can read/ write at up 240MB/s. I would still trust it over just about everything else, it has been the standard archival medium for a very long time, with an accepted lifespan of up to 30 years or so. To date, most LTO formats have been backwards compatible as well. Kevin Zanit

Paskal, Cinelease, Hollywood Rentals and Wooden Nickel are all fine depending on your needs. Some will have more stuff than others, some have higher prices than others. I sort of listed them in order of typical prices I've seen from high to low.

The max frame rate in Redcode 36 in 4k 2:1 when recording to 16gb cards or the drive is 30fps. The way you set your projects base frame rate will impact timecode and audio. Varispeed will disable audio. Kevin Zanit

Hi, I second a lot of what was said here. The Phantom is great at 24fps with the Cinemags as long as you also anticipate the large amount of data in post. Now that the docking station for the Cinemag is available, it is possible to just setup a separate computer and rotate the mags throughout the day. In terms of lighting, the safe bet is always big tungsten units (5k and larger). That said, I have seen plenty of highspeed shot with 18ks. It seems that if you have enough units (on flicker free ballasts) going through diffusion the problem can go away/ not be noticeable. It is a little hit or miss. Softsuns are great units with the Phantom, though I don't know if they are available in England. The flicker issue has been discussed a lot in the past so also try a search. Post production is crucial to getting the most out of the camera. With a proper processing of the RAW Cine files the camera creates you can end up with amazing results. Kevin Zanit

It depends on how much you are really shooting and if having the two cameras for the same setup could be a big advantage for you. The Phantom HD with at least one (better off with two) Cinemags is a great looking package. Also, the Phantom generates rather large amounts of data, so it is something to consider during your post, but is certainly something that is very manageable if planned for. Kevin Zanit

It has been talked about here before, so try a search for more detailed info and safety considerations. For a light as small as a 250, a drop ceiling hanger would be a real good choice. Its a piece of grip hardware designed to fit onto the slats of a drop ceiling and gives you a baby pin to mount from. Kevin Zanit

Shocking that this thread is going to turn into a mess, which of course is normal for any thread regarding the RED. From my experience both Adam and Phil's points (as are many of the criticisms of the camera) are accurate, and are being presented fairly reasonably in this thread. Of course Matthew is being completely objective: This is what we find on the first page of his site.

It is totally dead here. At least for me and the people I have talked to.

I have not seen a side by side of the Phantom 65 and the RED, but I have seen the Phantom HD and the RED. If you take out the issue of resolution, the Phantom HD had a far superior image in terms of latitude and color information. I can assume it would be the same situation with the Phantom 65. I have dealt with post for both cameras, and they both have their own set of quirks. That said, the Phantom material has vastly more room to manipulate the image before getting serious noise or other artifacts. There are other factors of working with both cameras on set, but in terms of picture quality, I think the Phantom is superior (again, this is just based on my side by side with the Phantom HD and some limited experience with the Phantom 65). Kevin Zanit

I don't think it would look much different, but it would certainly be a lot more work to control. Cutting the maxis would be a bit of work. You could hang your space lights and then send them through a 20x20 of light diffusion (like 1/4 grid, china silk, or 1/2 soft frost). Would give a similar look/ blending as the bounce. Kevin Zanit

IIRC^2, I was on some of that Nike commercial, I would put money on Lubezki still choosing film if given the choice . . .

I've used it a few times. Pretty cool, especially if your going to be scouting the location well before you will actually be there. If there is not much time between the location scout and the actual time there, I just think its easier to check out the place at different times of day, assuming you can get to it and all that. It works well if you use it correctly.

black plastic table cloth from a party store (the type you would throw away when your done) is good for skirting stuff like that because it is not heavy at all. Its also really cheap, so would be a good choice for what your talking about doing. Kevin Zanit