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peterasimmons

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Everything posted by peterasimmons

  1. Today, I've managed to shame a large and well-established camera kit hire company into paying their kit room trainee the minimum wage. They were planning on paying no wage at all for a full 3 months, with the flimsy promise of "possible" paid work in the future. Luckily, when I mentioned BECTU, the Guild of TV Camera Ops and the power of social media, they hastily back-tracked. We owe it to ourselves and the next generation of cam ops to fight exploitation such as this.

  2. With depressing inevitability, the Dartcharge website has crashed on its first day of operation and I'm currently unable to pay for Suzanne's crossing of the QEii Bridge this afternoon. Bloody shambles!

  3. Zuikos are great lenses. I've personally only ever used them on 35mm and super 35mm sensors/film, but they should work just fine with a smaller sensor (with a corresponding alteration of apparent angle of view.) In fact, Zuikos have been used on many well known stop motion films (such as the Aardman films.) You may also want to consider c mount lenses (with a suitable adapter.) This may prove slightly cheaper.
  4. Set gamma to Cine D, matrix to "normal" (if you're grading in post) or "cinelike" if you're not planning on grading. It also makes sense to dial down the detail level and maybe reduce chroma by a notch or two. This will give a flat look, similar to tecnicolor Cinestyle, suitable for maximising dynamic range when you grade in post. There's plenty of information about Panasonic gamma settings in The DV Rebel's Guide, available as an ebook on Kindle. The book talks about the HVX 200, but the info is just as relevent to other Panasonic cameras. Also, there are plenty of scene file recipes to be found on the net (mostly for the HVX200 and HPX170 but easily adapted to other Panasonic cams.)
  5. The longest day of the year, and a rare Saturday off for me, so not best pleased to be woken at 5am by a magpie flying in through the bedroom window! As a confirmed ornithophobic, I beat a hasty retreat, leaving Suzanne to guide it to freedom using an empty toy box!

  6. Feeling a bit stir-crazy after 5 days here in the pru hosp. Must have dropped a couple of dress sizes, judging by how my gown is now flapping around my regions! V impressed with the staff, who are doing great work under very difficult circumstances. This week, of crs, has seen their employer the sth london hlthcre trst dissolved- bankrupted by blair's pfi fiasco. The nhs has been a political football since its foundation, but we lose it at our peril.

  7. Many thanks for all this splendid info. Yep, given the choice we'd much rather have chosen Kodak's 500T. However, we got a really good deal on some Fuji Eterna as part of an "end of the line" deal. We got 3 cans including processing and scanning to Apple pro Res, all for the princely sum of £500. (Not sure what that is in dollars these days, but it's a good deal any way you look at it.) Now Fuji MP has been axed, it's gonna have to be Kodak on future productions. I'll certainly take all this info into account when we shoot. It's a very low budget production, and we don't have the luxury of being able to shoot much in the way of tests, I'm afraid.
  8. I guess you'll be shooting colour then de-saturating at the DI stage. Different stocks will render each colour slightly differently, resulting in slightly different tones once converted to B and W. I think the only way to predict would be to shoot some tests.
  9. Yep, that's pretty much my plan (hoping to run a couple of 20W bulbs off a 12v scource.) But, as I'm a bit of a duffer at DIY, I was just wondering if there was an off-the-shelf solution?
  10. Hi, Wondering if anyone has any experience of pushing fuji's 8673 stock to 1000ASA? Is it better to push the stock, or correct for under-exposure in the grade? I'm looking to shoot in very low light conditions, but I want to keep grain as much under control as I can.
  11. Hi, I've been asked to shoot a scene in a cave, to be lit entirely by a parafin lamp that the performer will be carrying. The shot is to be a handheld tracking shot, with the peformer framed head-and-shoulders walking through a tunnel. I need enough light to illuminate the performer's face, and tests with a real lamp show we simply don't have enough lumens. So, does anyone know where I can hire a fake lamp that would give a greater power output? (I'm based in London, UK.) We're using Fuji Eterna 500T, which I'm pushing by a stop, shooting 1/50s at 25fps. Even at that high speed ISO, it's still a bit under-exposed, hence the need for an alternative solution. Attached is an exosure test shot, taken on a Canon G12.
  12. With small cameras such as GoPro etc, you can achieve great results by mounting the cam on a mechanical device such as a clockwork oven timer (for timelapse panning shots.) In fact, you can buy ready-made devices on Ebay specifically dsigned for this purpose, for reasonable money. With ingenuity, it should be possible to apply similar techniques to tracking shots-maybe mounting the cam on a toy railway carriage on tracks, with the carriage pulled along by string (the string being wound onto a spindle on the clockwork oven timer.) ie motion control on a tight budget!
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