Matt Butler

From what I've read, DSLR and other still cameras aren't designed for timelapse work; their mechanical parts (triggers, shutters, advance mechanisms,etc) wear out after several thousand shots.

Hi,

I'm aware of anecdotal stories of shutter and electronic problems, but has anyone actually experienced them first-hand?

cheers,

matt butler

cinematographer

Sydney, Australia

Has anyone used a digital SLR for long term continual locked off or moco timelapse work?

I'm talking about horticultural set-ups that occur over several months or longer where the camera is placed in a *set and forget* situation, and the entire set-up is monitored occasionally for any problems.

Previously I've shot with modified Arri's and Mitchells with the resultant processed footage straight out of the camera being telecined and graded at the end of the shoot period and that was it.

Any suprises or things to look out for, other than the obvious - ie. UPS back-up, lamp check and camera check with modem phone alert/links ?

cheers,

matt butler

cinematographer

Sydney, Australia

As per previous post - here is photo of Canon hard-fronted Eyemo with 7.5mm fisheye lens.

The camera is mounted on a modified Manfrotto geared stills head to shoot motion time lapse.

A custom clip on *finder* is used to set shots.

cheers,

matt butler

The Eyemo is a nifty B camera. I use one with a stepper motor, intergrated with a very small portable motion- control pan + tilt head ( a Manfrotto 400 stills geared head retro-fitted with stepper motors).

This Eyemo is hard-fronted to accept the range of Canon stills lenses.

The camera is mainly used to shoot motion(moving) time-lapse, but the registration of this particular camera and head is ok for "in-camera" multipass work at up to 25 fps.

It sure makes back packing to remote locations a little easier, and combined with a fine grained film stock,

decent optics, a good telecine grade, gives an excellent result for most broadcast delivery formats.

I'll try to attach a photo of it.

cheers,

matt butler

cinematographer

Sydney, Australia.

Thanks for your respective research.

I guess the structure of this film allowed the use of hand-held 100' load cameras ( eg. the operator on the fire engine ladder in picture #3), and compact 400' load cameras ( pictures 1 and 2). to get into the action of the Nuremburg rally.

It was a *music video* style film of its time, except the editors cut the many images to martial music, various Wagnerian themes, intercut with political speeches.

Thanks again

Here is a real left field question - (or should that be right field?)

Recently viewed a re-mastered DVD copy of this film from our local video shop and wondered what type of 35mm cine cameras they employed in those days in Germany?

googling wasn't much help, but came across this site with some production stills.

http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bytype/fil...enstahl/triumph

Any idea of make of cameras featured in the first thee photo's?

cheers

matt butler

Sydney, Australia

I know we've been circling around this issue for a while, but the historical perspective is that image presentation standards have beeen gradually declining over the decades and the *general public* don't really care.

We've been spoilt by Cinerama, 70mm anamorphic processes etc. that were state of the art in their time,

but now are unfortunately a unique anachronism to technological inventiveness.

Perhaps it's a generational thing, change is inevitable, home-cinema in Australia is booming, and when you do the maths, the cost for a family outing to the 'flicks (movies) is serious money.( car-parking, baby-sitter,

traffic - and you haven't even purchased the ticket yet!)

With no comparable reference, except for we privileged image gatherers, who are able to view our endeavours on laboratory standard projection set ups and screens, the *general public* have no chance.

David Mullen posted some nostalgic 3-strip grabs the other day, boy were those processes clean and sharp

but as other posters have commented far more eloquently, nothing beats a good story in any format.

just my two bob (shillings if I remember correctly)

cheers,

matt butler

I guess it's a matter of semantics and interpretation of the original poster.

*Online and videoreels* may mean the director can't view the nuances from a quicktime and isn't interested

in videographers.

I got to this point in my reply and realised the original poster had logged off anyway in a huff and thought I may as well do the same!

cheers,

matt butler

Here is another old chestnut.

What's the difference between a flare and a highlight?

About A$3000 a day!

Cults or Religions? As mentioned here, most religions have their beginnings way back before the era of *scientific enlightenment*, that period in the last few hundred years where fact was able to explain a lot of of the *mysteries* of life. Before then folks had no clear explanations for most things we take for granted today.

Our western *christian* history is full of religious conflict - check out the slaughter that occurred in Europe in the 17th century between various christian factions with underlying political intrigue. Sounds familiar? our muslim friends are in the same place at the moment.

Belief systems will always be with us, just look up at the deep sky at night on some remote location - it is a little overpowering - but all one can do is just accept it and not push your beliefs onto others.

just my two schekels,

cheers,

matt butler

Sydney, Australia

Not sure if you mean three seperate exposures on your original neg or three seperate images (triptych)?

If the first applies, Dominics suggestions are sensible, if it's 3 *panels*, then you are looking for a series of 3 way aperture mattes - probably a little difficult to track down or have fabricated on short notice -that are inserted into the aperture plate on some 35mm cine cameras.

Another way depending on your shot, is to set it up using strategically placed strips of mirror to block your locked off shot- this can be very fiddly to execute in one go. I have also got the grip dept. one time to construct a *jumbo* matte box out of heavy black card and gaffer tape with flap down panels at the front. Works ok, but a W/A lens set at f/16+ helps for sharp edges and you hope the wind isn't too strong on location.

cheers,

matt *in-camera* butler

Sydney, Australia

50 years of videotape.Who can remember 2 inch Quad, 1 inch Helical, Quarter inch Colour Akai portapaks,

half inch B+W reel to reel J format, half inch Philips square casettes, three quarter inch Umatic?

Ever tried to play these then *state of the art* formats back? If you can locate an operational videotape deck, the adhesive substrate on the videotape has generally failed, covering the playback heads with a sticky deposit. Even then the major shows made back-up kines(film-recordings) for archive purposes.

So if we are doomed to repeat the past(as the saying goes) will any of our current formats fare any better?

cheers,

matt butler

occassional cinematographer

Sydney, Australia

I have used a Nikon to C mount adapter to mount a 55mm/3.5 micro while shooting flat art for animation.

It gave very sharp results.The lens was set at correct shooting aperture and then was opened up for critical focusing by pushing down on an inbuilt plunger device situated on the external ring.

The plastic gizmo for manual operation of later Canon FD lenses is called a *Manual Diaphragm Adapter*.

I have on occasion resorted to inserting a small piece of stiff foam-core in the slot to lock the lens to allow for manual aperture operation.

Does any one know where I could obtain some of the official Canon Manual Diaphragm Adapters mentioned in the posts other than eBay?

cheers,

matt butler

cinematographer

Sydney, Australia.

Has any one had the opportunity to use both the Panavision 6mm and 8mm fisheyes?

Is there a significant optical performance difference between them other than the 2mm focal length?

I'm aware you can only use the older 8mm fisheye with a Pan-Arri only due to rear element mount issues.

Look under< 16mm Only 21 January Richard PT>

Try googling HARRIS SHUTTER as well.

cheers

Given that you are shooting a POV and quickly cutting to another ANGLE, there is a technique that was used effectively in one of the earlier STAR WARS films.To shoot hyper speed background plates of Speeders,

(I think that's what they were called) the FX team stretched a very thin green string line along the designated trajectory path through the forest.

A very patient Steadicam operator followed this line, shooting at 1fps or so to create rapid moving B/G plates. So I guess you could rig and balance a cine-camera to drop down slowly through the tree branches, to "land" on your talents' shoulder,providing the soldier kept very still in his position.

Of course you wouldn't need the string guide, as you would be doing a gravity-drop,but you would need some method to stop the camera rotating on the way down! ie. triangulate it with 3 drop wires for stability.

cheers

You can see the effect occasionally on cinema screens where a poorly maintained film projectors' movement

is out of sync between the shutter closed timing and the movement pull-down.

I believe it's called *shutter- ghosting*.

cheers

Addition to my previous post - You are shooting reversal, therefore you will get a slight colour shift when using the 'rule of thumb' exposure tip.From memory you may have to give the BLUE filter about another 2 stops more exposure. The RED Wratten #26 is a denser filter and needs another stop. please test!!

I have even used 'prime' coloured perspex in red,blue and green on occasion where larger panavision filters were either unavailable or over-budget with reasonable results.

A Kodak photo booklet published ages ago had an item on the "HARRIS SHUTTER" where the tricolour filters were mounted sequentially in a vertical strip, which was then dropped in front of the lens during the exposure time on a 35mm stills camera.

cheers

The filters to achieve the tricolour effect are:

RED - either a Wratten #25 or #26, BLUE - Wratten #47, GREEN - Wratten #61 or equivalent optical filters generally available from major filter manufacturers.

For rule of thumb exposure, take you base exposure and open up 1 stop.

Don't forget to cap/cover your lens when rewinding in the camera to achieve your triple-exposure!

A sturdy tripod is a must to avoid misalignment, unless of course that is an effect your'e after.

The classic shots with the triple exposure technique are water movement -wave breaks,rivers etc., wind blown landscapes with trees, any situation that has distinct movement combined with static elements in frame.

good shooting,

A broad brimmed hat with optional neck flap (the aussie sun is a killer) and an optional all round fly net (aussie blowflies don't taste very nice!)

cheers

I'm sure that software must be a major improvement on that clunky cathode ray tube contraption used by the Rick Deckard character in 'BLADERUNNER'

cheers

There are lots of paint brushes out there, but not too many Picassos.

cheers

A few years back, I messed around with a Kowa-16 projection lens screwed into the front of an Canon FD SLR 85mm lens which roughly (very roughly) gave an angle of view (horizontal) to a theoritical anamorphic cine lens of 44mm focal length when compared through a directors finder.There was no apparent vignetting.

The same experiment with a 50mm SLR lens caused some vignetting as you stopped down.I was testing with a stills camera (36mm x 24mm neg size), image quality was acceptable,but obviously nowhere near the result you'd get from a pro anamorphic cine lens. Both lens set-ups could focus at infinity. You may also need a lens support system as the weight of the anamorphic "A" lens puts a strain on your main SLR lens.

cheers

Thanks for your research!

At least the GC (# 740) is older than me AND still takes superb time-lapse footage,with a Lynx C-50 motor and controller.

cheers, matt

There is a well known saying in computerspeak - 'Garbage In,Garbage Out',

cheers, matt