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Steve Zimmerman

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Posts posted by Steve Zimmerman

  1. Hello!

    It's been a long time since I've been on this forum!

    Looking to sell my Olex Services custom upgraded 17EP motor.  I ordered it directly from Olex in the Ukraine!  It has upgraded electronics, crystal sync speeds and can be set for time lapse with long exposures.  Includes remote with cable.  We did a small number of film test with it, and it worked perfectly.  It has sat in a cool, dry closet ever since.  I plan to post a video of it working soon -- at least hear the sound, heh!

    I also have a 35mm Konvas 1M with a PL mount, it was in the process of getting some upgrades to film super 35mm at the time, but I decided to switch to the Blackmagic 4k Production camera when it came out.  While the motor is almost perfect, the camera will need some work from a camera tech.  Cinema gear in L.A area worked on it last.  http://www.cinemagear.com/

    If interested please ask questions.  I'm willing to sell together or separate.  I'm located in South Carolina, USA.

    EDIT:  I just found my 2014 post talking about selling the motor.  I never actually posted it because I decided to keep it for a while longer.  I definitely want to sell it now!

     

    Thanks!

    Steve Z.

     

    Link to my Vimeo page:  Last 3 clips are from this Konvas.

    https://vimeo.com/szimmerman

    Olex Services:

    https://sites.google.com/site/olexserviceskonvas/repair-of/upgrade-motors/17ep-16apk-konvas-motors-upgrade/finished-upgrades-a-some

     

    IMG_0392.JPG.e7cfa5b861b915ca5e70b4ccb345ff1d.JPGIMG_0396.JPG.8805797229206ef00e5eab4898c9b470.JPGIMG_0397.JPG.7c114c7e4533e613c902d0900183ca35.JPG

  2. Here are some interesting moving vehicle shots that are faked, maybe obviously, but they work for these stylized films:

    start at 14min in:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNHMiQP3Jrc

    Intercut with day-for-night shots of the bus, they had grips running by the windows with tree branches while they rocked the bus with hydrolic jacks. They got clean sound cheaply too with the stylized technique. They talked about it on the DVD commentary.

     

    The end of Black Sabbath with boric Karloff has a similar deal, presented as a joke.

    Skip to 1h:30:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lID_NtqaLt4

  3. Figure I'd reach out to the Russian camera fan base first... :)
    I’m thinking about selling my 1990's PL mount Konvas 1M
    --It was just tweaked by Richard Bennet at Cinema Engineering in the LA area.
    --Olex Services upgraded 17EP motor with wired remote (uses standard 4 pin XLR 18v battery).
    --Motor can do time lapse speeds down to 12 minutes and up to 60fps (never tried past 24fps).
    --PL mount is centered and aperture cut for true Super 35mm.
    --2 400ft magazines, freshly lubed and checked.
    I can send a link with super sharp footage shot with this camera.
    Anyone interested?
    Thanks,
    Steve Zimmerman

    gkrimus@yahoo.com

  4. I guess they want everything to add up in a spreadsheet automatically. They at least need different entry boxes or checkboxes to toggle between "rolls of still film" or "feet/meters of cine film". I did not buy thousands of rolls of still film! :ph34r:

  5.  

    I recently watched a friend of mine do some stabilization in Resolve and it looked so simple to put exact points to stabilize and eliminate false points of motion you don't want it tracked to. I really keep meaning to do a tutorial or something of the like just pertaining to super 8 jitter.

     

     

    Does the free version of Resolve have those stabilization controls? Sounds great.

    SZ

  6. I love the Warp Stabilizer. The most natural effect I have found through experimentation, is to set the effect to 1%, choose Smooth Motion and select position, scale and rotation. This seems to leave all actual movement of the camera behind, while removing all the film jitter and weave. It also removes subtle lens breathing when focusing.

     

    It does have problems with scenes like big face closeups where someone turns their head, causing the entire frame to shift too much. Then the manual Motion Tracker needs to be used. I wish you could use something like a lasso tool to select one or more "anchors" in the frame and still use the automated WS effect.

  7. That's why I always stabilize my tripod footage in either motion, premiere pro or after effects.

    The Warp Stabilizer effect in After Effects and Premiere Pro is excellent for film jitter and subtle weaving. Set the effect strength at 1% and it will automatically remove all the jitter but leave all of the natural camera motion. It can be weird on some closeups, so the AE manual motion tracker needs to me used for those shots.

  8. Premiere Pro has a 30 day free trial with no watermarks or limitations. You should be able to output 2K with no problem.

     

    Select your timeline, File>Export>Media> Select ProRes setting and select Queue to export with Media Encoder.

     

    You might have to install the ProRes codecs if you are using Windows (?), but the Mac version already has them. You can also edit folders of DPX files like video clips, so less transcoding.

     

    http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere.html?sdid=KKQNO&ttsrccat=sem-na-ccm-cons-freetrial&skwcid=AL!3085!3!45704933722!e!!g!!premiere%20pro%20trial&ef_id=U7Fh7QAAAKSIgv@Z:20140630131109:s

  9. Here's a follow up to my problem which I have seemingly completely solved. The key was to always render out the video as uncompressed 2k until the final 1920x1080 transcoding in Adobe Encore. This solved the problem of the image being overly grainy in dark areas. I was double compressing before, outputting as Blu Ray h.264 from AE or Premiere Pro, then it was transcoding in Encore. Uncompressed is a Huge Improvement. If not for faster computers and solid state drives, this would take very long renders without huge expensive RAID drives.

  10. Even more than the camera, your glass is almost more important.

     

    I have used Kinor and Konvas cameras, and another thing to think about is the lens mount.... For most Russian camera the mount is OCT-18 or OCT-19. That means you are locked into only using old Lomo lenses. Many lens techs will not work on them, and blind buying them on ebay you may be stuck with a lemon. We bought a set of Lomo's from a prominent Russian camera owner and all of them were totally hazy. The 2perf Kinor was an excellent camera, but the lenses were poor. I guess some people are lucky with quality Lomo's I was not. Our Foton zoom lens is very nice though it is only workable from f/5.6 and up.

     

    Luckily my Konvas is PL mount.

  11. My mistake, looking at the slates I did expose at 125asa. I agree with overexposure too. I plan to expose for the shaded side of faces and overexpose one full stop whenever I can. I used that same method years ago for student projects with good results in standard def. I keep hearing about improved under exposure latitude for new films, but even now, film loves the light!

  12. Hi Steve,

     

    I use Dark Energy for AE, and find it superb for film, it's a tad on the pricey side, but well worth it IMO

     

    http://darkenergyforaftereffects.com/

     

    Cheers,

    Sean

    I definitely plan on trying it out soon. I'm on a Mac now but switching to a PC soon. I all learned the tips I typed above from a Dark Energy tutorial video, not from Adobe's website. :rolleyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRpZT0-Ea-Q

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