Albion Hockney

Was just curious about this as I have a small shoot with out an AC soon. Is there a special type of velcro used for camera AKS that is easily removed? What is the process for placing velcro on camera/AKS when returning to a rental house?

Thanks for the replies - just going to run a camera test.

...the strength - I understand it is subjective and there are a lot of variables at play - but they do have similar properties and in a broad way the amount the image appears filtered can be compared. yea phil, that is the reason they seem to be more "organic" I think... its less of a bloom around light sources and more just an overall base level of fog. Finally was able to find some tests online - the only good comparison I saw was from Schneider and the strengths seemed comparable to BPM - that said a test of Tiffen BPM vs Low Con in stronger strengths showed a BPM 1/2 to be not that far off from a Low Con 1 in the base fog level so I'm still guessing a bit. My guess is 1/4 Tiffen Low con is probably close to Tiffen 1/8 BPM and since the highlights won't bloom as much you can get away with a little stronger strength.

Just asking what comparable strengths are, thanks!

I have been using BPM 1/8 and 1/4 a lot to add a little softness to the digital images from the new cameras - but I have been curious to try Low Con filters as I have heard they might look a little more organic from a few shooters. Was curious if the strengths are similar from BPM to Low Con or if you need stronger Low Cons? IE what Low Con is comparable to 1/4 and 1/8 BPM

...I just wanted to say - I have had jobs on the A7s for doc style interview and I know some people who have shot low budget features on them. A7s picture looks to me far superior to Black Magic- especially in circumstances where you have limited control of lighting. the latitude is stronger and color rendering has more depth. Surprised by some of the the posts here - I'm not the only one with this opinion. I'd recommended going online and looking at all of the footage out there.

Hmm interesting, seems like there are a few different causes - and that basically the sharper lenses got the less it was apparent (however linked those two things are). I wish I had a wider focal length that was similar to the helios, because the helios is pretty decently sharp stopped down a bit and has a very strong version of the effect.

So most people are now familiar with this "swirly bokeh" effect. It is most famously very visible in the Helios 44-2 58mm Russian lens - and now Lomography has made the Petzval lens. After some research I found the effect can be traced back to older lens designs that didn't correct for Field Curvature. My knowledge doesn't go much pass that - and I was curious if anyone knew when lens designs started to correct for "field curvature" and if there are any sets of early cinema lenses that exhibit some of these effects. I was looking at tests of lenses like Super Baltars, Lomo's etc and I didn't notice too much of the effect - but it can be hard to find good tests. for those unfamiliar here is a very clear example. http://www.clickinmoms.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/outdoor-portrait-by-Megan-Dill-840x560.jpg EDIT: after seeing more tests - I have noticed the effect in both Cooke Speed Panchros and Kowa Prominar sphericals

yea, I think this is exactly the case. Deakins likes somewhat "clean" imagery - his digital films all look great and I don't think for the way he works he is loosing very much in the digital process (a tiny bit of latitude and a little of color depth - but he seems to work the alexa really well). that said - I wish he would keep his opinion to himself because producers etc will use anything against you when trying to go film "Roger Deakins doesn't need film"

I thought it might be interesting creatively to really use that new space. For example I thought about the idea of having a very dark night scene using the bottom half of the latitude and then cut to a bright daytime scene that could have highlights that are almost uncomfortably bright - like when you walk outside on a sunny day.

if a 4k HMI is the biggest light you have, your first challenge is creating a base exposure for the "cloudy"look that the 4k HMI can over power and look like sunlight. Even on an actually cloudy day it is unlikely a 4k will be enough light for that wide a shot. If it is just one shot you can grab quickly I would suggest shooting during magic hour after the sun has set and use the blue ambiance of the sky as your base cloudy look (you will have a very small 15-30min window or so to get the shot though) If that doesn't work for you you are going to be very limited in options - if a 4k HMI is your biggest light I am guessing you won't be able to take on large scale rigging either and any other option would probably include a very large setup. For instance, you could shooting during daytime and rig large nets and flags over head of the set to cut down the light levels (with a shot that wide your in 20x territory though). Your idea to put diffusion over the light to create the cloudy look might work in a close up, but honestly it is not a very good approach because the light on a cloudy day is very very soft. Think about what the source of light is on a cloudy day, Its the whole sky! so it is a very very big soft light - to mimic this generally people would bounce lights into a huge frame (like a 20x, or use balloon lights). For the appearance of the sun all you need to do is mimic the look of the sun coming from behind a cloud. which when you break it down is really just a big light coming out from behind a flag. so all I would do is get a setup that works for your base exposure, position the 4k in a place the mimics the position of sunlight that you like and with a flag close to the lamp slowly raise it to reveal the light. the closer the flag is to the light the softer the gradation will be as you lift it, sunlight generally appears slowly and with a lot of gradation when it comes from behind a cloud so I would probably keep the flag pretty close and find a good trick for a soft smooth reveal. the mirror idea is also nice and will help make a sharper source - depending on what HMI's you are using the beams can be kinda nasty looking so you might want to test some of the lenses if it is an HMI par or put it through a very light diffusion like OPAL to clean it up a little. for the slit of light look I would place other flags around the light to control it and give it the shape you want.

I don't understand the place these lenses fill. The rokinon glass is sub par to even canon L series in most focal lengths. for the price point used cine glass seems like a much better buy. I often question new Zeiss CP2 purchases vs older Zeiss super speeds even though sometimes a more modern look is desired. Maybe nice for a rental house to have as a cheap option for entry level/corporate production that needs PL cine lenses

I have yet to see any films in the new "Dolby Vision" or any of the HDR televisions yet. I was curious from people who have what their thoughts are. It seems like a really big step forward as the discrepancy between cameras ability to capture a large latitude and then display it has always been an issue - even with film projection. Has anyone shot material of their own and viewed it in this way? Will this change any creative choices you would make when shooting?

Yes, for the most part this is true - if you are using higher end lenses like Master Primes/cooke s4's you might have some issues but even then the element is inset a little bit.

if you do the inch to millimeter conversion 4x4 filters are just over 100mm wide and the diameter of Cp2's is 114mm so you might have some issues. That said I don't think it would be much of a problem unless you are really wide focal lengths... just make sure the matte box has an opening wider then 114mm and you can get a the right clamp ring/donut to use those lenses. If you are building a kit and want industry standard gear though 4x5.6 is the standard and I would go in that direction.

Alot will depend on as david said the other light levels you are working with. If it is a cloudy day its going to be a lot easier to get punch out of the lights. If you have the whole of the windows in shot on a sunny day that is a really huge setup and I don't know if 6ks would make the grade if you are balancing exposure with the exterior - also of course depends what shooting stop you are going to be at and how overexposed you let the windows go. This is something you can figure out with basic photometrics though. On the tech scout I would meter the interior ambiance toward the windows and also figure out roughly the distance between where the talent is at the press conference and the windows in the background. Then with that knowledge I'd decide how many stops over the ambiance I want that back edge coming through the windows on the talent (if you play the scene like you are exposing for the interior ambiance and have bright sun coming through I'd go for something like 4 stops over key) and then just use a photometric calculator to figure out how big of a light you need to get that stop. http://calc.arri.de/calculator

When I need to determine how big of lights I need for a bounce I always just take 2-3 stops off - it's a little drastic, but it keeps me safe as I have many times not had a big enough light.

Phil most consider a 50mm lens on full frame 35 "normal view" directly between wide angle and telephoto. In filmmaking or with super 35mm sensors that lens is the 35mm. Obviously "normal" view is up for debate but this as far as I know is the general consensus - maybe I'm wrong though?

^HA!

That example looks like it could have been Red to me - but who knows maybe C300. If that is the look your are trying to achieve you can certainly do it on a Red. Its just the lighting and production design...which is certainly not Pro-sumer looking at all. It also is not shot at a high FPS. that looks like 24 or 30P

How wide is your shot? The scale you are talking about I think requires bigger lights if you want something like a hard slash of sunlight and a shot wide enough where you see the windows. Slashes of sunlight are generally direct (no diffusion or something like opal maybe 251 for a softer look) but generally people do a slash of sunlight and then hit talent with a soft side key from same direction. you might be able to do the slashes with something like JoLekos (800w HMI with source 4 style configuration for shafts of light) with some small flags and then do a soft side key with a a few 1.2k hmis through heavy diffusion/large frames lining the wide of the church - I think the idea of controlling spill on the far side of the church might not be necessary unless this is a super small church with big white walls...if so yea that is a good idea I'd line it with solids. If you want to be wide enough to see the windows in shot then I think you are on a different scale where you need 4k's or so - does sound like a pretty small church so maybe it doesn't need to be too big to get right. If you do come through the windows I would do it on high walkers too so you can get the lights at good height and maybe catch the stain glass, but make sure to have grips to keep that safe.

HA! put it really far away and hope sound doesn't complain - been there a couple times. the EU generators are not that bad though you can generally work around it I think. I have had them right outside of windows powering HMI's with no problem at all. the problem really becomes more of an issue when shooting outside in non urban areas

ha that first still looks really 90's though.

I think when you underexpose you just need to know you can't correct it (lift it) much in post. there is no reason a camera should be excessively noisy if you underexpose it unless you are working with higher ISO's or lifting the footage in post. at a cameras native iso it should render the lower exposed parts of any frame decently - if the camera is a bit noisy in general you can always lower the iso to get a denser image. some cameras do get muddy though or because of lower latitude don't show much information in underexposed parts of the frame so it can be hard to work with them to get a darker look. I have pushed the red 3-4stops and its ok - C300 seems ok at 2 stops or so as well to me.

In an interview for the film "Carol" in the discussion of using 2 perf 35 vs 16mm he says: "The advantage of shooting 2 or 3-perf is that the lenses in 35mm have more of a spherical feeling, roundness and shape than what you get from 16. I use 35mm lenses when I shoot Super 16 to maintain that." as far as I know 16mm lenses just have smaller image circles so I wonder if there is much validity to what he is saying other then the fact that 35mm lenses are far more plenty full so you have many more options and can find lenses with better characteristics.