Frank Glencairn

....and than have halve of the resolution thrown out of the window by a crappy deinterlacer cause our posh modern TVs can't deal with interlaced. It's a mess.

DaVinci is pretty picky regarding the hardware - look at the specs on the Blackmagic site. The "static" may be caused by an old version of you OS - you need to update, if this is the case (both Resolve and OS) DNGs are greenish, because they consist from 50% green pixels but only 25% red and 25% blue. You need a LUT to get this to REC 709. Alternative workflow is CineformRaw. You get the speed and file size of ProRes, but better quality and you keep all the raw options. I wrote this article for BMC CinemaDNGs, but basically it covers all DNGs: http://frankglencairn.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/post-workflow-for-the-blackmagic-cinema-camera/

Wait for the MFT version and you can adopt about any lens on the planet (unless it is covering the sensor of course). You can use 16mm glass, but have to crop out the vignetting from the 2.5k material, which leaves you with 1920x1080.

Besides all technical stuff, I was also disappointed from it as a movie. Maybe because the Hobbit is a childrens book, but I found it too slapstickish (regarding directing and acting) to grab me. LOTR was deep, dark, mystic epic, but those 3 camping trolls where just like the Three Stooges and the dwarfs and goblins like from the Muppet show (I was just waiting for a tap dance number), let alone that guy with the bunny sled. Jackson lost me for the next two. And it's not because of 24/48 3D or not. So for the moment, my preferred Hobbit frame rate is zero fps.

There are some Chinese companies making them. Like the C-stands of DigitalJuice. Just browse ebay and you gonna find of cheapish copies (still expensive for what they are though).

Did a little lowlight comparison: And here are some original files to play with: http://www.filedropper.com/voodoo Frank

I have the flag kit from DigitalJuice, which is identical - just an other label on them - and I really like them. I would prefer to have that stud that goes into the gobo head, in the middle of the flag instead on the side though, but no deal breaker. Frank

He is always an inspiration for me. Thanks for sharing Stephen. frank

Brazil of course - the mother of all steampunk films. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGRdTCO6VzQ&feature=related

I own a mint set of Pentacon Six primes and I just love them. They are elegant, organic and buttersharp. Here is an article I wrote on them quite a while ago: http://frankglencairn.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/vintage-zeiss-glass-on-modern-cameras/ Frank

Can't wait to give it a testride, great job Sebastian. Frank

It was a baby bunny - the poor camera guy is now hated by the whole nation.

LOL, I already did that without the need of a Kickstarter - just me and the FS100/700. Frank

Just talked to Dedo Weigert from Dodolights - long conversation about LEDs and that most of them don´t play nice with skin tones, despite the CRI. Dodo makes some nice LED lights, but they still think LED can´t hold a candle (pun intended) to tungsten. Frank

Nothing wrong, AE doesn´t play realtime, until you make a RAM preview. Frank

Sadly they don´t really work if you speak German.

It´s doable. I shot some really nice stuff with a HVX200 and 4 lights many moons ago, but you really need experience.

The problem is, with traditional film - shot at 24 frames - they show you every frame twice or even 3 times in a theater, tricking the brain into seeing smooth motion. Digital projectors actually show 24 frames, which can lead to juddery motion, especially in high contrast areas. But just shooting 48p instead doesn´t work for the brain ether - it gives you that uber realistic soap opera look. Frank

As I said, I had the camera for a few days, now here is what I shot: Frank

Don´t want to play the wise guy here, but buying a camera just before NAB is always a bad idea. Even if there is nothing new or within your budget, chances are, that the prices on last years gear is going down after NAB. The 4k update comes from Sony, no way around that. If an other company can come up with a recorder, depends on the protocol they use. 4k raw over 3G-SDI is not trivial to implement.

Here is my "First Hands-On" review on the SONY FS700 http://frankglencairn.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/first-hands-on-review-of-the-sony-fs700/

I had a few days to play with the FS700 - gonna write a review on my blog and let you guys know what I think. The slow-mo is a burst mode that writes to a buffer. The buffer than dumps the data - in full HD quality - to the card or external recorder. It does not 4k in the moment, that comes with a future update. But the 11+ megapixel sensor downsamples the image to HD. So it´s massive oversampling going on. The details, sharpness and overall quality is impressive. My FS100 looks somehow SDish now ;-) Frank

The Latin word for rooster is cockalorum - but I never saw chicken on a c-stand. We have the word Kokolores in Germany that means making something crazy also refers to some random stuff, like the total mess on my desk. Frank

It´s literally hell out there. You are in the middle of a giant softbox. The light reflecting from the salt is almost the same intensity as from the sun. So the last thing you need is more lights, but flags, scrims, bounceboards, blackboards nets andwhatnot Salt is eating into your equipment, so bring a lot of plastic bags and zip ties. The flats is one of the rare points on earth, where dehydration and sunburn is REALLY a serious issue. Make sure you bring enough water, mineral tablets and sun blocker. Wear something loose of pure cotton or better linen. Good sunglasses and a wide brim heat of course. A walky-talky or some sort of radio is important, chances are - depending on where you are - that your cellphone won´t work. Make sure you got something that creates shadow, like a tent or pavilion.

It´s all done in post. Google for "teal orange look" there is a ton of information on that subject out there.