Michael Maier

It's sort of a question that's so specific you should probably only be asking the DP when it comes time to shoot. He should have an idea of what ASA he's working with for interiors, which will in turn give you an idea of what light levels you will be working with.

 

Most DP's light by eye, first and foremost. And when shooting video, I've seen many who usually adjust the exposure at the last second. So as long as you work together and get the contrast ratios the way you want, you shouldn't have to worry too much specific ASA.

Yeah, but I find it very useful and important to work with the same T-stop through a scene rather than setting the exposure for the shot, specially with a 35mm adapter where you will be changing lenses.

Thanks for all the input. Yes there will be people pass in front and we are not locking down the shots.

Yes I was hoping the brightness from outside would be enough to light them, but I would avoid shooting when the sun is directly hitting the windows because this would send green spill in. About the glass inside turning *mirrorish* I could spray from the inside instead covering the glass surface to avoid the mirror effect. Also, maybe sticking a mirrored film on the outside could maybe reflect most of the excessive light back to avoid spill?

I'm wondering if building a small box outside the window would be a better approach? Although the box would be basically how deep the window whole or frame is in the outside. I couldn't rig a bigger box as we are on the 6th floor.

I have to say as well that most of the time the window is covered by the blinds so we can only see what's visible in between the blinds blades.

How well would painting the outside of window glasses green work for keying?

We have a window where we can't put a green screen behind it but need to key it out to put a different background behind it and I was wondering if this would work? Thanks.

But I really don't think I underexposed the tests. All I did was try to get the effect in camera. It did have a lot of shadows but I didn't really underexpose them.

Is to light it brighter and get the effect in post the only way to get a clean noiseless low key shot with these cameras ?

Importing the clips into the Avid and playing them directly off the DVI port into the same monitor via HDMI doesn't demonstrate any of that jitteriness, but the computer is outputting 1080p, not 1080i. But since ultimately most audiences will be seeing letterboxed 480i DVDs, I'm pretty damn sure the pulldown jitter is going to be there. It's so bad that I can't even consider the 24p mode viable, but I hate the 60i mode.

Yes, the camera doesn't record pulldown. At least not in HQ mode. Not sure in SP mode as I never use it. But as the component output is an analog signal it has to convert it to interlaced. Component is really not a good way to monitor progressive HD. You should have a SDI monitor for that on set. Then you will see no interlaced effects. But in any case you only see that because you are looking at an analog signal. In fact, this is not present in the footage you recorded.

Has anyone noticed a similar artifact on other 24p cameras - DVX, HVX, etc? This is pissing me off so much, tomorrow I'm pulling out my good old DVX-100 to compare it. I know it never looked this bad in terms of pulldown.

Maybe on the DVX100 it's less obvious because it has 1/4 of the resolution so you are allowed to be more sloppy when panning.

As with any 24p camera you need to be careful when panning, just like with a film camera. If you are not you will see the jitter. I never notice any when it's panned right with the EX1.

Another question. Do you guys find yourselves under exposing or slightly "over exposing" to get the best and most flexible image for post manipulation? I have always under exposed SD video a bit, but there seems to be two different schools when it comes to the F900. Some swear by under exposing while others say if you under expose you are wasting data and you should slightly over expose without letting the image clip. Just get it slightly towards the right on the histogram. I personally hate video clip so I'm always more comfortable under exposing a bit, which I did in the tests. Maybe that was what caused noise and I would have been better off if I had over exposed a bit instead and brought the levels down in post?

Hey Michael,

 

What you need to do for your low light scenes is shoot with hypergamma 3 and set your gain to -3 db. Then when you go back to a more high contrast scene go back to 0db gain and hypergamma 4. If that does not help then you should put the camera back into a standard gamma table 5 and coarse gamma 0.45 and check your shadows again, if it is still too noisy send it back to the rental house and ask them to take a look at the camera for you, because the gain might be set too high on the optical head block.

Thanks Elhanan.

I will give it a try . We still have more tests to do.

I used the hyppergamma 4 with -3db too.

I like using -3db as much as I can.

I got a gig to shoot a feature with the F900 but I have never used any of the F900 cameras before.

We shot some tests yesterday and it came out quite noisy in the shadows, specially given the walls in one of the sets is very dark wood. All together a pretty dark room and there are many scenes taking place in this set where the only light source should be a desk lamp and moon light, or a desk lamp and day light breaking through the blinds. As I'm not familiar with the camera I shot the tests with it pretty much on default with the exception that I used Hypergamma 4. I'm starting to think we will have to shoot it bright, get the contrast ratio close enough and get the dark room effect in post.

Could anybody give any advice in how to get the best out of the camera and how to avoid noise and image degradation when shooting low light scenes? There will also be night exteriors.

Yes. We've had a few shoots successfully match looks between these two cameras.

Mitch, did you think the difference was apparent?

I'm wondering if well shot, if one could tell them apart on the big screen.

The 200 definitely gives a better picture. It has a deeper bit depth to its DSP, which yields superior color rendition. The CA13 adaptor allows the use of 16mm format PL mount lenses. It is very sharp and loses almost no light, but it does not provide any change in depth of field. It is designed to allow you to use very good optics to bring out the best in the camera and does so quite well. The 100 is a good camera and works well with the Mini35. That device loses about 1.5 stops of light and uses 35mm format lenses, providing the shallower depth of field of that format. It is nice but not nearly as clean as the other system. I like the 200 and the CA13.

 

Motion blur should be the same. The 200 will allow more option in overcranking. Lattitude is about 5 stops on the 100, 6 on the 200. I like a vectorscope but only if you really know how to use it. Zebras work fine on both.

How would you rate the CA13 and Mini35 with the JVC cameras in terms of ASA?

The indifocus is what it is, an el chepo piece of ...uh, sub standard gear. I would never consider using one for a serious shot. I would never consider using one at all to be honest. Get the Redrock one which I hear is pretty solid, probably the best of all cheap ones. That's as low as you can go andstill expect any quality.

I hope for you indiefocus has a good return policy.

Yes, I have the Redrock whips. They are great and I see no difference from the Chrosziel ones. Besides 3 of the Redrock whips (3", 12",18") coast as much as only one of the Arris or Chrosziel. Really great product and great price. But Redrock doesn't make a crank (yet) which is what I'm looking for.

I'm not sure what the "new" industry standard mount is referring to, as I've only come across the <1/2" Arri-type mount we all know and love.

 

Thanks for the review Michael!

Yes, I'm also not sure what standard they are talking about, but if you look at the picture of their knob, that port doesn't look like an Arri port. Specially that it seems to be way too small to be 1/2", unless that knob is like, huge.

Guys, I've known about the indiefocus for a while already. I was also participating in the "affordable focus lever" thread and the reason I didn't post about indiefocus is that their accessories don't have a standard port and won't fit Arri type gear. They have a proprietary port (why beats me) which is a pentagon or hexagon (not sure right now) with a magnetic on the end and will only fit the indiefocus FF. At least that's how it used to be, unless they have just changed it, although I doubt it. On the top of that, I know their whip is horrible. It has a lot of play and you need to load it up before it actually starts spinning the FF knob.

The indofocus was the first of the el chepos FF units that have now flooded the market. It's older than the Redrock one. But it's also the worst quality one, the el chepos from all el chepos.

Did you get any quotes yet?

Well I guess it is not going to get better than that. If you think it through, it probably doesn't cost much less than that to make one. Materials+labor+tax etc. $67 is pretty good.

Any ideas of where they are based or anything that could help finding some contact info like phone number at least?

I don't think C.S.E is Cinetech. I saw one and it looks nothing like the Cinetech one. Cinetech is colored and has a ball spring. C.S.E is all black and has a latch.

For the record I just found out a company called C.S.E. makes the cheapest of all levers. But I can't find any resellers online. If I knew what C.S.E meant it could be easier. I'm pretty sure the C must be for Cine though:D. :D

To bring the thread back to topic and in answer to the original question, no, the accessory port is not the same size as any of the socket wrench sizes. The actual port size is not 1/2" but rather just under 1/2". So it fits lose in a 1/2" socket wrench fitting. Chris must have measured his wrongly or not used a caliper. Arri would never make it that easy for DIYs out there. They had to make it just slightly different enough for it to be a specialty part.

Did you guys found that outlet for a speed crank or is filmtools the only place?

You can pretty much use any stand with a 5/8" stud as a C-stand. I normally use a MSE back light stand for that.

I third that speed crank outlet question and also a whip outlet.

Yes, but I think for the price I found the MKII($60 including shipping) I can't even buy batteries for the Pcam. :)

I guess it's a non brainer.

So it sounds like I should just save my money and go for the MKII for 1/3 of price. I don't need HD (just 35mm) and the new features don't really interest me. If not even the MKIII is that useful I may as well save some money too since the MKII does all what it's needed i.e. DOF calculation.