Mike Brennan

I've use dthe Optex Excellence on Viper and f900. Results are indeed excellent. T2 high sharpness and contrast come at the expense of fewer moving parts. Haven't used the Innovision. Mike Brennan

The interesting point to note in the Genesis test is that the slightly blown out windows were ND gelled and I have been told that there was no shortage of light available on set. So *it appears* that the cinematographer controlled the balance between exterior and interior. Since the audience were very interested in how the Genesis and film compared in highlight areas I wonder if the balance between outside window and inside was based on what the Genesis could handle or on what would be a regular setup for that DP when shooting film? The slightly hot outside look was not untypical of a 1 1/2 stop difference between in and out that is in everyday use. I am not saying that lighting was changed between setups. I am not saying that a decision was made to favour one format or another. I am saying that it appears the degree of burnout was in the hands of the DP (and grader if the aesthetic was for the film to match the Genesis). I would like to see a test subject where both film and Genesis burn out. No digital camera should suffer burnout of highlights with ND gells and HMis on set, the pertinent question is the *amount and cost* of control of exterior light one needs to apply when using digital. An impressive test overall, but I am unsure of its highlight handling ability. Guess I'll have to use it:) Mooted 14bit ADs will be interesting. Mike Brennan

Saw the Midnight screening in Miami after a 2 week straight shoot. Fell asleep :) What I saw looked clean. Impressive keying of fine hair without the buzzing of the previous SW. Smooth skin tones. Rich blacks yet there were a few low key scenes with black actors being lit from upstage that showed very good control of shadows. Overall a resonable improvement in sharpness. We were shooting Viper/filmstream/SRW1 on my shoot so the producer, having endured with looking at green on-set monitoring for two weeks left with high hopes for our project! Mike Brennan

There were very few sold. I was tempted to pick one up second hand sor $6k last year.. But to be usefull one needs to fit an inverter board to the f900. This in turn needs an extra fan bolted to the bottom of the camera where the shoulder pad is. The board is not easily removed and involves a new setup of the camera. I saw pic s with Arri Primes in 2001 and at the time it was sharper than the then standard Canon 1st Gen zooms. It is quite bulky. Note that the newer HD cams have an inversion function built in.... Mike

Three questions aimed at exploraning our interpretation of rgb vs Filmstream. 1/Any difference in dynamic range between rgb and film stream? 2/Which mode best handles details in highlights without affecting mid range? 3/ Given a typical exterior location on a low budget movie, where say a hot sky is not controllable which would be a better choice, filmstream or RGB? To keep the question on topic :) consider; (i)both modes use same 12 bit AD in camera. (ii) CCDs themselves will overload in the same manner day in day out, no mattter what recording method. (iii) Filmstream allocates more bits to shadows. Mike Brennan

Perhaps the adjustments and mistakes that the DP himself reffered too and that seem to be puzzling a few on this forum, is the DP and gaffer getting used to and learning how to deal with limited highlight handling of CCD? This can be mistakenly reported by onlookers as "problems". I can't see many shots that come into the "having problems" category shooting in harsh sunlight on digital on a reasonable budget movie. One simply uses a larger/heavier silk, more fill or bigger key lamp or all three. Set designers should be aware need to explore how surfaces are captured by ccds. More of a problem on low budgets with limited resources.... I'm off to the sunny Bahamas next week to shoot a promotional video for a TV manufacturer for instore use at 5000 outlets. Their choice of format, after 3 months of deliberation and testing is uncompressed HD. Mike Brennan

Yes, It had me thrown for an hour as it was so bad I couldn't believe it was the (new) lens and also assumed a LCD would always be in registration. Turning the camera upside down didn't make a difference, it was still out of registration on left hand side. (unless the lens fault rotated with the camera!) We get to revistit the beast with a new apple in the near future to get to the bottom of it. Glad to hear that it is unlikely to be LCD as its constant registration is one of its advantages over a crt Mike

Aghhh .... quoting numbers from Sony menues is dangerous as the numbers differ between camera models and even versions of same camera. (software is designed by different teams) It appears that on the f950 neg softening starts at -40. In previous cameras there has been always residual amount of detail. This may not be the case with newer cameras. Mike Brennan

Circle of confusion has nothing much to do with what I was referring too, which is the practical application of depth of field on digital cameras. Circle of confusion could be described as the depth of field of the image *at the image plane* of film or digital cameras. Measured in fractions of an inch or in case of 2/3 inch HD fractions of a millimeter. I was referring to the display of very sharp pictures. So sharp that the area in front of and behind would normally be regarded as in focus appears, in relation to the point of focus, relatively soft. "We can achieve critical focus for only one plane in front of the camera, and all objects in this plane will be sharp. In addition, there will be an area just in front of and behind this plane that will appear reasonably sharp (according to the standards of sharpness required for the particular photograph and the degree of enlargement of the negative). This total region of adequate focus represents the depth of field." The Camera, Ansel Adams, 1980 "Zones of focus", "critical focus", "acceptable sharpness" are all fairly subject descriptions of depth of field. The higher the res of the display (or in Ansel Adams case the larger the neg and print) the less the "apparent" depth of field. As for cinematography prospect of 4k high res digital displays and high res film or digital capture may require a rethink on the tried and trusted depth of field tables. Maybe something to learn from those who shot for 70mm projection? Mike Brennan

Yes it could be backfocus mechanism that is unable to deliver a sharp picture, but I don't think that it is the mechanism itself that is at fault as it was ok on two other HD cameras (a viper and a iki) Adjusting backfocus to produce sharpest image resulted in a rather soft image so I'm looking at optical assembly (ir filterwheel or prism) or mechanical (mis) fitting as culprit. It could be a dodgey intermittent backfocus problem that as cirumstances had it was ok on the two other cameras but not on the Sony! Mike Brennan

Used a Sony Broadcast 23 inch Luma panel recently that was well travelled and knocked about. It had obvious registration errors in the form of vertical colour fringing, not across the whole screen, just on one side. Also had colour shading at the very (side) edges of the panel. We flipped the camera upside down to prove it! So much for the "always in perfect registration" of LCD panels? Mike Brennan

I'm interested in anyone who has had unusually soft pictures with lens wide open and suspected an optical fault in the camera, ie the IR filter, filter wheel or prism itself. In a recent test at the wide end stopping down to T4 corrected the softness. The same lens on another camera was OK, different lens on same camera was also soft. So it appears to be a camera fault. Monitoring was not ideal so I can't be certain. Yes I know many lenses are sharper stopped down, this case was well beyond that. Camera was a f950. Suggestions? Mike Brennan

Yes the words may be the same as have been noted before. But as technology develops (and this thread is about Genesis a landmark introduction of a large format single chip ccd and portable HD recorder) No harm in it being readressed? Mike Brennan

The HDC 950 was the forrunner to the HDC f950. Probably more HDC950s than HDC f950s in existance at the moment. The f950 is not CE approved for Europe. As far as I can tell all 950s have the same flaring of pinpoint light sources that mark one f900s have. Whats different? The f950 has slow shutter, dual viewfinder outputs and of course 4:4:4 and the new optical block that was introduced with Mark 2 f900s. (90% sure of this) The HDSDI output of the f900 should be similar to HDC950 and HDCf950 I've noticed that issues with f900 also appear with HDC 950. (strobing of highlights at shutter speeds above 150th sec was one) Menue is similar. The Panavision 3d camera was made for/by Vince Pace and James Cameron. I've treid to rent it for a few days in UK but got nowhere... T head is available for HDC f950 and HDC 950 Neither cameras have YPbPr outputs so be careful that you have the right monitors. There is a 14bit A/D HDC camera in the wings,that will do 1920x1080 4:2:2 50p maybe we'll get to see this one in Europe? Mike Brennan

Jim, your personal opinions regading individuals mean nothing to me as you post under an false name. If you mean what you say why hide? Mike Brennan

Press release says it was the versitility of having matched zooms and primes was good and price performance was in tune with TV drama, commercials and low budget movies. http://www.canon-europe.com/TV-Products/Ne...rcePageID=33106 Until someone does a proper test the difference in HD lenses will have to born out through what the audience sees on screen after a decade or so of shooting! Mike Brennan

I agree 10 to 100 is not the one stop shop of zooms. Maybe it was a Star Wars preference? They dropped primes and used the two Fuji zooms exclusively in the last SW so it says in the adverts. Panavision made B4 mount versions of their zooms, planning to make them available (in the UK at least) for drama market using HDW750s, and also for f900 users. Don't recall it ever happening though... Are they still available? Mike Brennan

Panavision France has just increased its inventory of non Panavised HD cameras and lenses. They went for a total of 28 Canon zooms and the new primes citing that they were the best choice for TV work and budget movies. Note that Canon is more popular in HD world in Europe than USA and also Fuji has less market presence in Europe it does in the USA. Mike Brennan Canon press release has details http://www.canon-europe.com/TV-Products/Ne...rcePageID=33106

Yes I know you are referreing to camera sensors as I have said all along, I wish you had started a different thread! This one is about 1920x1080 recording modes of the SR format, not cameras and Nyquest!! I haven't made a point that the Genesis *is* oversampling, thats another thread, when we know more about the camera. Mike Brennan

Thanks Jim! Yes it is very interesting news. A hard nosed studio going HD. The ability to shoot 23.98 will mean that they can offline on the office NTSC Avid! What was the ancillary piece of equipment that they asked you for help with? Mike Brennan

I didn't say it was positive or negative attribute, it is a list of what is different bewteen film and digital. Mike

4:2:2 2.7:1 440mbs 50 minutes record duration 4:4:4 SQ 4.2:1 440mbs 50 minutes record duration 4:4:4 HQ 2:1 880mbs 25 minutes approx? It uses intra frame for progressive and intra field for interlace SRW1 portable has stereo 4:2:2 mode where it records two seperate 4:2:2 HD pictures at 2.7:1 at same time. Recent upgrade for SRW1 portable will do 720 60p. Genesis version will do 1920x1080 50p so Sony are promising. Genesis version will also do time lapse. I think these features will become availabale to all users eventually, but don't lay the foundations for a job until you have seen it work. Press releases that say that a feature or commercial was made using "SR format 4:4:4 recorder" could mean it was recorded 4:2:2 Mike Brennan

Getting back to the original question regarding the look. Compared to progressive video I explain it in this non technical way 1/ 70% of the look is the motion portrayal, ie judder of 24 frames per second. 2/ 20% Depth of field, out of focus backgrounds. 3/ 10% colour pallette grain and soft look of highlights. So progressive video, SD or HD 2/3 inch cameras 1/ Achieves same motion portrayal (if 180 degree setting is used). 2/ Cannot achieve very shallow depth of field unless pro 35 adapter is used. 3/ Cannot achieve same colour pallette, grain and soft look in highlights. (althought transferring HD to film imparts a grain structure) Mike Brennan

Its yesterdays news... Mike Brennan

Starway wrote about recording more pixels with an SR than HDCAM. This thread is drawing attention to the tri mode SR recording format and how it is important for us to know which mode has been used on Sin City, Star Wars III and the new movies shot on Genesis. I am interested in exploring work flow, reliability and different costs of each of the SR modes of recording and uncompressed recorders as well. Since Genesis, Arri D20 and 2/3 inch 3 chip cameras all have different camera resolutions (and can all be recorded to 1920x1080) Nyquest would be more relevant in a comparison of cameras, not recording formats? Mike Brennan