Jeremy M Lundborg

Still recording to h.264? Not interested.

Thank you for all of your informative responses. I can't wait to test. Jeremy

I am gearing up for a shoot and I've a question about how to accomplish a specific shot: A sniper's POV. The camera will be the sniper who is aiming down the barrel of his gun (with a notch-sight at the nozzle). I'd love to keep the sight and the target (probably a hundred feet away) recognizable. I don't want to rack from one to the other to simply understand he is aiming, and I don't want to go too wide and loose the tension. Any thoughts on the proper mechanism? And what about a modern rifle? Can you focus easily on the optics in the sight while still making out the image? This image looks altered, but you get the point. We will be shooting with Master Primes. Thank you.

Curious as to whether using 16mm for VFX composite work is realistic. How would one rate 7218 in order to get a dense enough negative for a cleaner image, clean enough for post-work? 35mm would be fantastic, but the budget isn't present as the VFX are being done as a favor. We are also shooting some high speed so 16mm is obviously more reasonable. Thank you.

We will be tracking with the main runner who passes up two other runners in the fore/background. I gather we'll need a clean plate, and respective takes with each runner separately. The two runners will evaporate into water as the main runner passes them. Of course we'd love to get all the passes the same, but with the kinetic motion it's a struggle without a proper rig. My initial thoughts were echoed above in terms of pullies/ropes but with the physical tracking it needs to be a little more sturdy. At this point I believe the best way to go, as with any photography, is just throw some math at it. Do our best to regulate the speed of our dolly(atv) and then we can at least have a chance in post once we get a solid take with the runners.

I'm shooting a student spec commercial that involves a runner and some VFX. We want to be able to track with the runner and do some VFX around him. The shot involves multiple passes for plates, but we can't afford a huge motion control rig. Any suggestions on ways to accomplish valid plates within a reasonable cost? Thank you. Jeremy

Mike, Thanks for clarifying. Yes, that conversion would occur. Although it is something you have to live with considering the difference in size of the negative/Red sensor. The important note here is the location in which I was shooting(wide open desert). There was no concern with available space as I imagine there would be in tighter quarters. In terms of the differences between 16/18, I was talking specifically about the image in the viewfinder. Which as I stated was my main concern.

Mike, The widest lens I had in my package was a 28mm, effectively a 14mm horizontally. In the trailer you can see its use in a wide shot where the three characters are framed in thirds, heavily towards the bottom, in the desert. In build 18 I was very comfortable with the anamorphic conversion because the anamorphic crop in the RED is VERY close to the horizontal(left and right) edge of the full chip, but in comparison cropped severely from the vertical(top and bottom) edge of the chip. Therefor the crop is made appropriately for anamorphic lenses. Be aware that in Build 16 the crop is reversed because it is squeezing like it would on film, but you loose out on the width of the chip instead of the height. In comparison this is nothing like the large crop you experience when going from 4k to 2k. In fact if I recall the shots of the little girl in the beginning of the trailer are done with as spherical 300mm RED lens and the eye shot with a spherical macro. This was simply shot in 4K 2:1 and cropped appropriately later on in post. I would state there is no conversion factor beyond what a normal anamorphic requires in determining both focal lengths. Please find an image attached taken by the still photographer off of the main monitor during a blocking rehearsal. You can see the effective crop from Build 16 noted by the available image and cropped by the opaque square. This is obviously the squeezed image and what one would frame for using Build 16 and anamorphics. Jeremy

Shot a student short with RED + Todd AO Anamorphic lenses. To be clear I have not shot film + anamorphic, but have shot RED and film + spherical lenses. My main qualm was the lenses were quite old and didn't match very well, especially past 50mm. It was a creative decision to go with them, but the set available was finicky. In terms of the package, I was impressed by the quality recorded. We haven't been in to post and to be honest I haven't even seen much of the footage. From what I have seen I am very happy considering the price of the package. Haven't heard of a 'soft anamorph' need. The majority of the film was shoot in broad desert daylight and the camera responded well with the usual compliment of ND + IR cut filters. I was happy with the response to tungsten at night in a fairly low-light scenario. I haven't seen all the footage but most of the shots shot a little under came out with great range shot at 2.0, especially considering the sweet spots of anamorphics at 4.0-5.6. Much of the film was shot with heavy hand-held work and I have a feeling some of it may have a problem considering all the responses about the rolling shutter. Most of the footage I've seen doesn't have this problem. Fingers crossed. Build 18 came out the night before our first day and after a quick test we opted to utilize it specifically for the in-camera de-squeeze for anamorphic. As it turned out build 18 wasn't ready and we quickly rolled back to build 16, and as DP/operator I was NOT happy about framing with the squeeze. We had one down-converted monitor desqueezed, but that was a luxury afforded the director(and rightly so). I believe these issues have been fixed but I have also heard RED ditched anamorphic support altogether(?). I'm sure this has been discussed endlessly but you also must crop the 4K ANA image down to 2.40, so technically you are using a bit less of the quoted resolution the camera claims to record. I found this wasn't a problem as long as my compositions were as intended(but as I said irritating with the in-camera squeeze), and that I was willing to part with the thrown out portion of the frame data. Please find a work in progress (lacks any post work) quick edit semblance of a trailer for the short here: www.jeremymlundborg.com/Ephemera/METAL_BOX.mov There are some tech issues involved: a hot mirror reflection, imbalanced lenses(specifically the 100mm which can been seen in what looks like underexposed pastel-ish two shots - but that is a condition of this specific set of Todd AOs), the infamous RED dot in the sun, etc. I'll attempt to note the progress in post and my thoughts. I'm sorry I can't be insanely technical about this, but if you have any more specific questions feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer. Jeremy

As always, thank you for your reports. The notes are extremely helpful to students like myself. And whoever put up the pirate flag on that fly swatter is hired.

Quick few questions: I was wondering if anyone has had any problems with 'weaving' or 'double-imaging' (as photo-sonics states on their website) of the image upwards of 500fps-1000fps? We will be employ some special effects in post and I want to know if anyone has any comments on required stabilization in post? Thank you.