Kim Sargenius

Any suggestions on a lens I should get? I want to get that classic barrel distortion sort of look.

 

Steve

You won't get all that much barreling with a 14mm UP, it's pretty rectilinear.

Look for something like the Peleng R8 8mm - it's proper fisheye on 35mm stills but won't give you a circular fisheye view on motion picture as you use a smaller imaging area. There are some of these converted to PL mount.

http://www.longvalleyequip.com/lens.php

HTH,

Kim Sargenius

cinematorapher

sydney

Errrrm - I feel like I'm about to ask the dumb question here; but no-one's thinking strobes????

Kim

It hadn't ocurred to me that multiple lights blended through diffusion could reduce flicker. That's a good one.

It will help further as well if you can keep your lights on different legs / phases.

cheers,

Kim

I'd go with real black and white, the textures are much more interesting than all these smooth color stocks.

Agree! Colour for B&W is just not quite the same, and I think it comes down to silver grain vs. dye clouds - dye clouds when desaturated are just blobs, not grain :P

Plus X neg with a Wratten #25, and if you want to be real gutsy play around with a polarizer as well :D

cheers,

Kim

I would like to do a footcandle test to see if the output of a 30 volt ACL is comparable to a 120 volt Firestarter or a 1k vnsp.

Would be interesting to see these in there as well:

http://www.bmlighting.com/catalog/mactechhpl.htm

Bardwell&McAllister have put ETC's HPL lamps in various mini-brutes etc. Anyone had a chance of trying these yet?

cheers,

Kim

I love all the characteristic abberations of anamorphic optics. I find them strangely beautiful just like I find the massive uncorrected coma in 19th century portrait lenses beautiful:

 

 

B)

AKA 'Cat's Eye' Bokeh :D - which a function of mechanical vignetting in the lens.

That's probably the most extreme example I've ever seen! Must be talking f1.0 or Kubrick's infamous f0.7!!

Where'd you get that photo from? Flickr?

cheers,

Kim

Course if that's really what you want, you could always light the scene with RGB clusters of LEDs, which will give you narrow spikes in each colour record.

 

Hmm, that's interesting. I wonder if one could increase apparent saturation in that way.

 

Phil

Combine it with some sort of three-colour separation technique and you might be onto something!

cheers,

Kim

OK, since Kim Sargenius has mentioned them, I know John Carlson won't mind if we provide a little more discussion about color enhancing filters (or rare earth filters). I'm sure that's what he sent you out to look for.

Dominic,

Thanks for putting that so much better than I could! And with an explanation in words that I can actually understand!

cheers,

Kim

On a recent shoot with 'Phil Rhodes' we had to

Does this refer to any particular 'Phil Rhodes' or just a general 'Phil Rhodes' type personality? :P

Sorry, I'll stop the phil-bashing right now... :)

Kim Sargenius

Thanks guys for your recommendations, I'm just gonna stick with my original idear, but figured I'd open it up to any suggestions.

Have you tried didymium / enhancers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didymium

http://www.singh-ray.com/colorintens.html

I've only ever played around with them (Tiffen ones) and there does seem to be some increase in saturation - especially in the warmer colours.

Most of the available ones are designed for on-lens use but I wonder if they might work on lights as well? Some of the sizes should fit on a Dedo...

cheers,

Kim

The alternative is to have some adaptor 16Amp/13Amp cable tails made up

Brian,

I've come across something like that on lights from AFM here in Australia. There initial inventory here was all brought over from the UK.

They all had some big adaptor plug dangling off them and the prep tech used some specific UK term for the little jumper cable they used - 'turnover' or 'change over' or something like that? You familiar with what I'm talking about? Just curious about the lingo :)

cheers,

Kim Sargenius

It's most apparent in the stuff I've shot with 5218-just no snap or crispness.

 

Everything else looks great. I always try to avoid shooting wide open with these lenses.

Hi Milo,

Some stupid questions to start with:

Are you shooting both '18 and '73 in the same scene under the same lighting? If not - could it be that the scenes you are shooting with the '73 has just that little bit more snap?

How have you been viewing your rushes?

Ignore all of the above if you've already been through all that :)

In my experience the '18 should if anything have just a little bit more snap and contrast than the '18.

HTH,

Kim

I also been told by using mattes on a matte box at night can act as a secong iris, is that true?

Yes, the mattes can under certain circumstances act as another iris - a Waterhouse stop, so called because the first stops used for controlling exposure were just holes drilled in sheet metal, invented by John Waterhouse.

If the mattes change the shape of the bokeh then they might also affect your exposure but it would have to be a pretty drastic change of shape before you'd really need to worry. This is to check - point the camera, with the matte on, at a distant point source, such as a traffic light or car head light, throw it out of focus and if the resulting disk has any square corners you might want to think about going to the next size up on the matte.

further reading:

Waterhouse stop

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterhouse_stop

Bokeh:

http://www.vanwalree.com/optics/bokeh.html

HTH,

Kim Sargenius

In David Mullen's spare time...

I got a good laugh out of this :)

I don't know anything about your culinary skills David so don't take this the wrong way mate!

cheers,

Kim Sargenius

The original idea was to do an online magazine, but I'd really like it in hardcopy instead. The first issue or two would probably be offered free online, so people would be able to become acquained with it and see if they liked it. I've also got an idea where registered users could not only read the articles on-line, but also would be able to comment on the articles, much like the system employed by the IMDB or Amazon.

IMHO it sounds like you're looking at an all or nothing approach - you want a fully fledged Cahiers du Cinema or nothing at all.

My personal take on it would be to start as a blog - if nothing else you'd get good essay writing practice for your studies :)

I think the key to success would have to be very strong editorial direction and focus - keep a very close eye on the signal-to-noise ratio.

My 2c worth :)

cheers,

Kim Sargenius

Of course the first thing to come to mind is shooting a film noir in B&W, but I recently watched Road to Perdition by Conrad Hall and that is beautiful film noir in colour.

Also have a look at 'Klute', shot by Gordon Willis, ASC.

cheers,

Kim

In my own humble opinion, Kodak creates a much truer color image that isn't too different from what MY eye sees. But Fuji, because of the extra silver, does lean more towards the grey/green/blue colors.

That's funny - I'm the EXACT opposite! Shooting Kodak means a split second of mental 'translation' whereas I Fuji 'sees' much more the way I see :)

Having said that, with the new Fuji Eterna stocks the gap is narrowing - I feel both Kodak and Fuji are moving towards the centre, and add on top of that increasing use of DI's and soon the stock choice will be made on $$$ rather than look... :(

cheers,

Kim

Actually, the internet search doesn't produce as horrible results as you might expect. The

first page is all photographic stuff, some off topic but interesting, some right on topic,

including Ken Rockwell.

I'll try this - I think this attachment is what Max refers to as 'condom' bokeh.

Paul Van Walree's site is also a very, very good companion piece to Ken Rockwell's excellent site:

http://www.pinnipedia.org/optics/bokeh.html

cheers,

Kim

It's not a characteristic of the light to see the beam unless the set has been smoked, which is probably the case here.

Actually, it's a combination of the 'optics' of the source, the atmosphere (smoke) and overexposure.

A light source such as a search light, beam projector or a Dedo collimates the light - most of the light follows the path of the 'beam', very little stray light. Most xenon lights are of this type.

A light source with less precise optics (think redhead etc) will scatter the light more and so doesn't produce a distinct 'beam'.

Of course, to get that hot white beam you also need a certain amount of atmosphere to 'display' the beam and a few stops overexposure, preferrably against a darker background (try creating a beam in a white cyc!)

cheers,

Kim

[...] could anyone give any advice on using overheads

They're NEVER big enough... :angry:

Make sure you have the sturdiest / heaviest stands you can afford and LOADS of shot bags and weight buckets to tie them down - any little hint of wind and you will have to wrangle them like you would a sailing boat, anything bigger than a 6'x6' at least. Having someone on your crew with sailing and/or rigging experience would be very handy.

The silent diffusions and fabric based ones are better as they won't be as noisy.

Heavy diffusers can look a bit strange - they might cut down and soften the light too much relative to your background, so keep that in mind.

HTH,

Kim

If it were my money, taking into account the possibility that I could only afford one or the other, I'd purchase the ultra contrast filters. They seem to do a better job of giving detail in the shadow areas without completely compromising them.

I like SoftCons for DFN - essentially a Diffusion filter (spreads a bit of light into the shadows) sandwiched with an ND (holds back the highlights a bit).

One time I could only get a set of UltraCons for a DFN pick up shot - the rest of the scene had already been shot with SoftCons. To match the two I used a bit of hairspray on the UltraCons, just a very fine mist from about 6in away - matched very well in the end! :)

So, yeah, if you can only get one or the other, get the UltraCons - some Streaks'n'Tips will get you the halation if you want it! :P

cheers,

Kim

I am also from Australia, and i realise the intensity of the sun we have to deal with.

"Between the hours of eleven 'till three, stay under a tree" :D

Shoot your close ups / tighter shots during these times - a lot here will depend on your ability to choose your background so it won't look too harsh and bright compared to your subject.

Shoot wider shots in the early morning or evening when the light is softer.

HTH,

Kim

It can be used. I'm personally a bit darker than your standard-issue Caucasian, maybe 2/3 of a stop over 18% gray. Gray cards definitely work better here, especially if you're going to be shooting several hard hours worth of work, I think that one is better off taking the plunge with a card than trusting hundreds of dollars worth of work to the back of the hand.

Same here; about 1/3 darker than 18% (so I'll open 1/3 from any reading) though this is highly dependent on the seasons - my tan is darker still :) I've found that the palm is more consistent...

cheers,

Kim Sargenius

www.cinematography.com/forum2004/index.php?showtopic=14164 . This was in general discussion for like a month or more. You know I had the answer to your question but you're comming across as such an arragant, dismissive little .... well I don't want to be accused of flaming so I'll just leave it at that and say I wouldn't give you the answer if it would save my life! You really need to learn some manners. By the way if I were you, I would probably change your display name or there is a very good chance your account will be terminated, just a peice of advice, do want you want with it. If you don't believe me read that thread and then see if you still don't.

Reminds me of an excellent blog entry on what we are up against as the barriers of entry to filmmaking gets lowered - the dilettantes, dabblers and posers:

http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/desig...for-your-rights

Kim Sargenius

Overall, the quality of their processing has been quite good - for both super 8 and 16mm.

 

Though it would be nice if they spliced some film leader to the films they process.

My experiences have been far more mixed - processing itself not too bad but turnaround times rather on the erratic side, though I guess beggars can't really be choosers, eh? :)

Kim Sargenius