Justin Dombrowski

There are DP's I work with (when shooting RAW) that tend to "overexpose." There isn't any clipping, however, they maintain as much detail in the histogram to increase the dynamic range. Then crush it in post. Then there are DP's I work with that shoot everything they possibly can in camera, including there final looks, essentially leaving almost nothing left to do in post. I guess it all depends on how you work. I think the guys you stick to "in camera" have more confidence but at the same time, the guys who leave it up to post have more versatility when it comes to pleasing the client. There are pros and cons to both methods, just find a method that suits your workflow.

1) Stick any and all Filters closest to the lens on the mattebox. When stacking different filters always put the IR or Polarizing Filter in first (closer to lens) then any ND put in front of that. 2) When focusing on a mirror or other reflected surface you have to measure from the sensor of the camera to the mirror surface AND measure from the mirror surface to the subject your focusing on, THEN add those two distances together. That is what you set your focal distance to. 3)When tail slating, always stick the slate in upside down with the sticks open, the slate is usually never flipped, and if it were to be flipped it would be after the clap. 4)The cinetape detects the subject my movement within the scene. A LED light comes on with the focal distance to that subject. If there is multiple subject within the scene you can set a minimum distance for the range finder so if only detects certain subjects. Also you can tweak other aspects of the range finder to find and stay on your subject. (my recommendation- just take the traditional approach. Make your measurements and marks, and pull like you have never pulled before!) 5)http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=44357 6)You answered your own question.. use fine point pens and alcohol wipes.

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=48642

Another fun thing to try with stacking gels.. If your ever in a situation where you have a full CTB and no halves or quarters. You can apply the Full CTB & counter act the color temp with a 1/4 or 1/2 CTO. Had this on a shoot where we needed to correct 2 tungsten 650w and we had limited gels. So we put a 1/2 CTB on one and a Full CTB paired with a 1/2 CTO on the other. Now I know the light output and color temp wasn't perfectly matched but, it was close enough and served its purpose well. Are there any other gel combinations that get interesting effects?

The only monitor i have used for this was the Marshall brand. But if the Small HD is a DP6 (or similar model) then you should see the desired results.

An example of signal pass through would be a monitor that has HDMI loop through capabilities like the Marshall model (can route the 2nd monitor through the 1st one) or the best solution for this is to rent/buy a magic box hdmi converter. it converts a single hdmi input into 2 sdi outputs. So you can have a monitor for the operator, a monitor for the AC and one in video village.