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Stuart Allman

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Everything posted by Stuart Allman

  1. I know at least three people who have them and use them as their main lights. Maybe they just don't have an equipped rental house near you. They don't dim. You have to use standard Arri/Mole scrims or ND gels to dim them. The form factor is actually easier to handle than most HMIs - you can grab the housing without gloves (but not the heat sink!). They fit standard Arri barn doors. They're also lightweight - at least the 250W versions are. Once you see them in person they'll probably seem pretty obvious and less "weird." I'll be producing a tutorial on the plasma lights for a local rental house this summer. I might post a link here if no one objects to it as advertising - which it isn't meant to be. Stuart Allman --------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  2. Andrew, I would highly encourage you to try the Hive lights before forming an opinion. I think in general they work very well and provide much better color rendering than HMI and many types of LEDs. The Hive rep claimed that the 250W Bee/Wasp outputs as much light as a 400W HMI, but I've never verified the photometrics. I find they are more than bright enough for indoor lighting and occasionally throwing a light through a window. The lights also have just enough color temperature variation to mix with most daylight times and even very blue moonlight. They don't work well for mixing with tungsten. The latest mechanical design of the lights are just as practical as any HMI. There's nothing too unfamiliar about them. Head, ballast, cables, on/off switch. I think their biggest issue is that they aren't as-available in rental houses outside major markets. Stuart Allman --------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  3. Mark, I know, right? The rental shop I blog for has a good relationship with Hive, so I hope to get a demo model down to do a video about it this summer. I use the Bee and Wasp all the time on shoots. For me, the 250W Bee has been more useful. With the new Wasp they provide plastic lenses to go over the PAR and the plastic melts and/or turns yellow, especially if you use a scrim on the light. The lenses are also kind of wonky - they don't quite work. I'm interested to see if they fixed that issue since a 1kW light will melt plastic pretty quick. The other problem I commonly see is that their front protective glass cracks due to shock and vibration. It looks like they changed their "box" form factor, so hopefully they fixed the glass problem as well. It's not expensive or difficult to repair, but it's just a pain to have to do it. The plasma lights don't have all the horrible color rendering problems HMI's do - at least the ones I've experienced. It looks like they even improved the spectrum on the new bulbs, so I look forward to testing that out as well. I like not having to melt the talent's skin off, unlike when I use tungsten to get good color rendering. Stuart ------------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  4. Phil, When it comes to equipment one-up-manship there's no winning. There's only degrees of losing. Stuart Allman -------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  5. Claire, I think you'll find that "little" lights do next to nothing outdoors. Some basic grip equipment I might recommend includes the following... -6x6, 10x10, or 12x12 diffusion frame with silk and ultrabounce - large polystyrene bead board - fold out circular bounce (4') - 4x4 black solid - c-stands (sorry Phil) - quacker clamps - 4x4 shiny board (if sunny) - lots of sand bags - at least one grip with a strong back and biceps Without a budget for 18k's and the associated mess, you'll want to shape sunlight in my experience. If it's good enough for Roger Deakins it's surely good enough for me! Stuart Allman ------------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  6. Amanda, I might just take you up on that the next time I head north for an ASC talk. They seem to be on hiatus lately. Maybe we can trade some balloon knowledge for tutorial knowledge. Unfortunately I won't be going to NAB this year, otherwise I would stop by your display. I'm always scheduled for a production out of town during Cinegear and this year is no exception. :( Stuart --------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  7. Amanda, As a person who produces a lot of gear video tutorials, this may just be my perspective, but I would like to see some YouTube tutorials on balloon systems. Even an introduction to the basics might clear up a lot of questions for cinematographers and producers. I certainly don't have the budget to rent your products at this time, but I always like to have knowledge in my pocket (or easily accessible) when the time comes. I accept that it generally takes experienced and well trained professionals to make a set safe, but I still think it might be good to democratize some of the knowledge of how your systems work. I'm sure quite a few professionals on this site would appreciate it. Stuart Allman --------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  8. If you take a look at our CRI tutorial you'll see that the HMI we were using doesn't have that much in the infrared spectrum. Tungsten has oodles of IR. Daylight has proportionally less than tungsten. https://vimeo.com/124724589 Stuart Allman --------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  9. I use the internal ND's, but I noticed some magenta creeping into black fabrics last time we used tungsten lighting. It doesn't appear that the internal ND filters reject IR very well. Normally I use plasma or LED lighting, so it's not an issue, but we're back to using tungsten more often now. That's mainly why I'm interested in solving this issue with more modern ND filters. Trying to color correct excess red out of dark fabrics is very hard when your main talent is African-American with very dark skin. We do a lot of video production tutorials, so I might have the option of contacting the companies and asking for demo units if we do a video about them. Some companies are much more open and responsive than others. Stuart ---------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  10. I mostly use Sony cameras, like the FS-7. I occasionally see a Canon camera, but that's about it. I don't plan on using the Red or Arri cameras. Mainly I'm looking for an opinion of whether the 2x price difference is really worth it for non-studio and non-broadcast work. I've seen plenty of favorable reviews of both products, but there has to be a gotcha somewhere, given the price difference. The Tiffen filters I have seem to work just fine with a custom white balance, but I feel like it might be time to upgrade to a more modern technology that handles color neutrality better. Stuart ------------------------ illuma.blogspot.com
  11. Any recommendations on Formatt Firecrest ND filters vs. Mitumo TrueND filters? I'm never going to have Meryl Streep or George Clooney in front of my camera, but I am looking for an upgrade from my current set of Tiffen water white ND filters. I haven't found a direct technical comparison yet. I have a 4x5.65 matte box, so I can use either. BTW - the Tiffen 0.3-IR1.8 set is for sale. PM me if interested. Stuart Allman ------------------------------ illuma.blogspot.com
  12. Rob, Convergent Design (Odyssey 7), Video Devices (PIX-E5), and some of the newer Atomos products have LUTs for S-log built in. We used the two former recorders with Sony cameras this last weekend. Stuart Allman ------------------------------ illuma.blogspot.com
  13. Roger, Look at renting equipment from a DJ company or live event production company. American DJ (adj.com) makes LED lighting equipment with this effect built in. I'm sure if you contact them they can recommend what you need to rent. Generally it's pretty cheap. Being in Atlanta I imagine you should have plenty of live event and club DJ vendors to rent from. S.
  14. Sunbounce.com (a german company) makes large diffusion panels that are sort of like fly swatters. A single grip could walk along the sidewalk and hold it. They primarily market to still photographers, but it's all the same. I like the hard light look you produced. It's bright and poppy and matches the music and dialog well. The initial branch-alorus makes the shot feel more real, like they just really exited a restaurant. Don't stress it. The spot looks great. Stuart -------------------------- illuma.blogpsot.com
  15. Vivek, Here is a car mount tutorial I produced for Video Gear. https://vimeo.com/143569490 Stuart Allman ------------------ illuma.blogspot.com
  16. Daniel, I wish it was as simple as that. The 18% gray point is dependent on the camera vendor and picture style you use. So you need to do your homework and find out where YOUR camera vendor puts 18% gray with YOUR picture settings. For instance, if you use Sony's hypergammas then your 18% gray IRE value will be at 33 or 40 IRE. When I set the FS-7 to S-log3 and use the rec.709 800% monitor viewing LUT 18% gray comes out at 44 IRE (the mathematically correct value by my spreadsheet calculations). If you're using S-log2 or C-log then 18% gray is recommended to be at 32 IRE. A Red camera might have completely different 18% gray targets...so use these tutorials as a starting point, but don't assume 50 IRE is correct or you might find your images all over exposed. The reason we concentrated on one specific camera and one specific picture style in the log gamma tutorial is because Sony explicitly recommends 41 IRE for 18% gray exposure. It's well documented. You just have to find that documentation for your camera and the picture style you use on it - then walk through the same process we present in the video. An easier way to do this might be to just set your camera in auto exposure mode in front of the gray card and find out where it sets 18% gray with your picture settings. The compensation factor is going to be lens dependent, so you'll have to test every lens in your arsenal. Stuart Allman --------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  17. Tyler, I've met Shane a few times and he comes across as an enthusiastic storyteller and it was a pleasure to talk to him. The promotional stuff seems to emanate from education company his wife manages (as far as I can tell). She's just trying to be an effective marketer, but I agree that sometimes it can come across heavy handed. I paid more attention to his website back before he did the whole pay-to-play web-isodes and now the public content is more often feels like advertisements for his website sponsors - an inevitable and disappointing financial reality of his social media success, I guess. That said, I direct/write/produce...everything except host, a series of web tutorial videos for beginner filmmakers for a local rental company (I'm not an employee - have a barter with them). We give the content away for free on Vimeo and YouTube in hopes that education solves problems, and when people need problems solved in our local market they think of the company. It comes back to business, but in a more subtle way. The downside is that we don't get access to equipment like the Cooke or Leica lenses because no one is sponsoring us to rent this equipment for demonstration. We also have to beg to get demonstration models to stand in front of the camera since there's no budget to hire professionals. Obviously I don't have any type of recognizable name for myself so there's no sense bartering for "exposure." So I guess my point is that I can't be overly critical of what he and his wife are trying to accomplish. If I had a chance to access high end equipment and hire professional model talent I might think about showing some gratitude to sponsors as well. As for the accuracy of the content, well... we all try our best. I always believe in listening to opinions, but verifying the information myself. There's no shortcut to experience that I've been smart enough to find. Stuart Allman ------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  18. DXOMark.com has the t-stop ratings of still photography lenses. I recently did a part two tutorial of the video I posted earlier, which pretty well agrees with what you're finding. https://vimeo.com/152077612 ​ I also spoke with the folks at Sekonic. They explained that camera manufacturers put their 18% gray point at camera vendor specific IRE levels. So Sekonic expects you to calibrate your light meter to your camera and lenses. The best they can do is calibrate their meter to the ANSI standard since they don't know which camera and lenses you're using. Add on top of that the f-stop to t-stop compensation factor and you'll need to do the calibration to get things working properly. I found that with a Sony FS-7 and my group of Zeiss ZF.2 primes I had to use a compensation factor of anywhere between 0.6 and 0.8 stop (lens dependent). So your finding of 0.6 stop isn't too far off from what I would expect. When I first bought a light meter I thought it was plug-n-play too...until my images started coming back too dark. Stuart Allman ------------------------------ illuma.blogspot.com
  19. Domenik, I had a thought about your challenge and I thought I would throw my thought experiment out there. First, I agree that you'll likely have to cover the general area with diffusion (or something heavier) of some sort to give yourself a soft general fill - or just shoot on a dark cloudy day since it's still winter. When I've seen the sun come and go it's typically a slow transition with the light fading in and becoming a hard source. So what I would propose it to use your 4k behind a 4x4 sheet of 250 or 216, but a reasonable distance away so you can still think of the source as hard light. Then simply swing open the barn doors of the 4k fixture by hand (with gloves!) when you want it to fade in. The diffusion panel is the light source so you should see the light slowly fade in and become harder. Since the diffusion panel is a reasonable distance away from your actors the opening of the barn doors shouldn't create a pattern, as it might with just the lamp alone. You might have to play with the HMI lens to get the effect right. You might also have to gel the HMI to get the warmer effect of sun. These are just my thoughts, so please don't flame me if it doesn't work! ...but let us know if it does. Stuart Allman -------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  20. Dan, I'm struggling with this decision myself. The main problem I see with the FS5 is that it lacks a rec.709 monitor LUT while recording S-log3. The FS-5 has a fixed monitor "LUT" that only increases contrast so you can pull focus, but lacks any way to detect color problems on set. I've personally come to rely on the rec.709 LUT in the FS-7 as a way to sanity check my exposure and lighting while recording S-log3 internally. It's difficult to give that up, however it's also difficult to give up another $2500 US for that one feature! I've mainly used the smaller Atomos recorders, but when we tried to use the Shogun we had a lot of problems with thermal shutdown on multiple rental units. We also had a problem with a cracked screen due to the lack of a protective bezel. My friend bought the Video Devices recorder and hasn't had any of those difficulties. Just a heads up. Stuart Allman --------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  21. David, Bill Holshevnikoff came to town a gave a talk last year. He does a lot of work lighting news rooms. You might want to look him up and see his sample gallery. He has a few pictures of how he lit sets for news capture, which is the look I assume you're after. His live presentation had a lot of example pictures of nicely done news rooms. Just has David M. pointed out, the news room samples I saw had a lot of large soft sources so people "of a professional age" look good. The examples Bill showed us used a lot of 4' kino's (fluorescent and LED), but a series of zip lights would have the same effect - albeit with a much larger power draw. You might want to consider how much power you'll have available in the mall. Besides lights, you might want to consider how you are going to flag off the lamps so you don't create double shadows. Stuart ----------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  22. My first impression of your questions is that you really need to hone down what "warm, homely look" actually looks like. You're concentrating on the equipment before the look. Try going on 500px.com or a similar site and finding some inspirational photos for you and the director to review. Once you have that nailed down it should be pretty obvious what you'll need to do. Also take a look at Live From Abbey Road. That show had a nice look inside a studio, without looking complex. Some of the PBS music specials from the U.S. like Michael Buble or Tony Bennett are probably on Youtube. Those had a nice intimate feel. In the space you have I wouldn't bother with an HMI. Tungsten, fluorescent, plasma, or LED should be sufficient for the floor space you have to light. The first thing I would do is turn off the evil overhead fluorescents. It's amazing what you can do with some warmly gelled up lighting in a space like that. Some cheaply home made tungsten batten strips work wonders. If you try to use smoke or haze during a live performance there's a good chance you won't make it out of the studio alive. The musicians and studio owners will hate you. Stuart Allman ------------------------ illuma.blogspot.com
  23. Daniel, If you purchase the same 18% gray card linked on my blog post (illuma.blogspot.com) then you should have an accurate gray card. I have no association with Amazon or the card vendor. The long and short of it is to pick a specific camera picture profile on your particular camera, light an accurate 18% gray card uniformly, set auto-exposure on your camera, and record the aperture setting, then offset your light meter to that aperture. That should work OK with your FS-100 since it should base middle gray off 18% gray. The exactly IRE will then be irrelevant. This method takes into account both the camera and lens. I don't know if you can do this with the Canon DSLR since I'm not familiar with it's gray target (ANSI 12.5% versus 18%). Middle gray may also depend on the picture profile you use. As I recall the FS-100 has one "cine-gamma" like picture style. My experience with Sony started with the FS-700 so I can't help too much. Stuart Allman ----------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  24. Daniel, There are a couple things that could be going on here. 1. You're using DSLR lenses that measure aperture in f-stops instead of t-stops 2. The DSLR could reference ANSI standard 12.5% gray as middle gray instead of 18% (0.5 stop difference). The way to tell is to get a Kodak R-27 chart off Amazon and use it to measure both incident and reflected exposure. The Sekonic meter should show the exact same readings off of an 18% gray chart. If not, then it's out of calibration (doubt it). My L-758DR shows the exact same exposure numbers off an 18% gray chart in both measurement modes. Here are two links I recently helped publish on the subject. http://illuma.blogspot.com/2015/12/18-gray-cards-and-exposure.html ​http://vimeo.com/149538838 I've found that some manufacturers put 18% gray at 44 IRE and some at 50 IRE (and there are other variations too). It really depends on your camera manufacturer. Finding out where the camera believes middle gray should be is usually just a matter allowing the camera to auto-expose a uniformly illuminated 18% gray chart and looking at a luma scope. Non-cinema lenses also vary all over the place. We're going to do more tutorials on this subject on the Vimeo blog in the near future. Hopefully that will address some of your woes. Stuart Allman -------------------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
  25. Alexandre, I measured the extended CRI on the AADyntech lights at NAB this year using the Sekonic C700 and they all pretty much had a rendering average around 80. Fiilex has the Q1000 if you need more punch. Cineo has the TruColor LS and Maverick lights - the HS will be out of your price range. I don't know how well any of these compare to a 575W HMI. I use the Hive Bee and Wasp plasma lights quite a bit and they get compared to a 400W HMI. Mole was showing off some larger LED fixtures this year when we stopped by their booth. Stuart -------------------------- illuma.blogspot.com
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