DavidFu

Check your timeline render setting. Apple + 0 when time is selected. Quicktime will only tell you DISPLAY resolution, not encoded resolution. Somehow you're ending up in XDCAM 1440, which is one way XDCAM compresses but still shoots "full" HD.

Noise is a problem on any digital camera, it is a fact of the format at this time. David Fincher had denoising worked into his workflow on Benjamin Button shooting with the Viper. The only perfect solution is to denoise in post and that can pretty expensive if done by a specialist.

If you have to see example of 2perf 35mm, check out Sergio Leone's films, they're all 2perf. I wouldn't expect anything shot with Penelope to look much different than anything shot in 3perf and matted to 2.35 in post. I see this is as more of a "producer's camera" in that it saves film stock (money) and really doesn't affect the image quality from shooting 3perf matte to 2.35.

You have to understand the computer inside the camera cannot distinguish what in the frame you are trying to focus on. There have been implementations of selective focus back on older Canon EOS film cameras where it would focus where your iris was looking and more recently on Point and Shoot cameras detecting faces. Both of these techniques are rather impractical in filmmaking. Your video camera is constantly trying to find focus, if the person moves, it cannot follow the person and will try to find focus again, and oftentimes this is not the effect you want. The best way to do this is to find the focus, then put the camera on manual so the focus does not change unless you change it manually. I understand your camera may not have manual focus, but that is difference between more professional cameras and household cameras.

Just a suggestion: enroll in a film class at a local community college. It costs maybe 100 bucks for a quarter. They have lights, cameras, computers with editing software and teachers with good experience and time to help students. It can save you a bunch on your budget and most of all save you time by giving you good advice.

If your goal is to work in Hollywood, I would not recommend going to school in Asia. Industries in different countries have very different work habits. I did a one year program in Beijing with the intention of working in Beijing and not going back to the states. A film school grad from the States would have a very difficult time adapting to here and vice versa.

8 gigs of ram is over kill, and so is buying harddrives from Apple. I would recommend Raiding up two 1T drives in a G Raid, that way you have 2T's, portable and costing you just about 300-400 bucks. But again, SD and HDV, Imac is sufficient in my experience. If you are going to editing HD footage, I'd recommend upgrading to Final 6. In terms of computers, for HDV the iMacs out now are fine for that type of footage and really anything up to ProRes will run fine on an iMac with a Firewire800 external. I'm running FCP 5 on my 2 year old Macbook Pro and it handle SD footage fine, but for HD I use Imac or Mac Pro. As long as you're not looking to add a Kono card, you should be fine with an Imac. If you purchase Mac, you can wait till summer, when Apple typically does their summer deal of giving you an Ipod with purchase of a Mac. On top of that you can apply a student discount (there is a student discount for high schoolers also, so you don't have to wait until you get to film school).

Hi I'm new to the forums, didn't see a 65mm forum or a 3D forum, so I figured this was the closest for camera format. I am currently doing technical research for a 8 minute promotional pic shooting in Beijing. The idea is to shoot for exhibition on a Cinerama type display, with three projectors. Furthermore, it needs to be stereoscopic, which would require dual cameras in the traditional setup of 3 cameras covering different angles. I bring up Cinerama because of the single film Cinerama camera that was later developed. I haven't been able to find a modern equivalent to this, other than IMAX, but I am not aware that their screens are available anywhere other than a brick and mortar IMAX theatre. My instincts thus far have narrowed it down to shooting with a Pacific FX rig or a P+S 3D rig, with either RedOne in 4k and (then extracting 3 separate images for each projector) or 65mm. I would prefer to go digital so I can monitor the 3D on set, but as of yet there is no 65mm digital option that would offer the maximum clarity. I would appreciate input in any of these areas: 1. 3D Rig: What is the best rig to work with? I know of Pace Cameras, but as far as I am aware, they come with cameras, but I would prefer to rent locally if possible. I know that My Blood Valentine was shot on the Pacific FX 3D rig with good results and PS Technik recently debuted their 3D rig at NAB. What have been people's experience with these rigs and companies? Are there other options? 2. Cameras: I mentioned Pace and I am currently considering Red One or a Cinerama type rig. Aside from "negative" size I have to consider focal formats. Cinerama used anamorphic which was more pleasing in terms of capturing width. If I shoot Red, I can only go for super wide lenses, which would distort badly on the sides. Is there a happy medium? 3. Cheating: I've found In-Three and their work on Superman Returns where they retroactively created stereo images from a single camera in post. This could be a viable solution as it would greatly reduce the burden during production. But would this process be more costly than shooting two cameras, and is the effect comparable (I can surmise it is definitely not 100%)? Sorry for the long post, this project is a pretty complicated one. I appreciate all your feedback.