Michael Rodin

Judging by what he's written, he's an amateur. See, this poor bastard doesn't have a slightest idea of what DI actually is. I could say the same (and more) about digital "future is ours/films is dead" fans who believe in this kind of bullshit.

It's bullshit.

Guess we should assume T2,8 brings a 18% (or more likely 11%) grey card to a "middle grey" IRE specific to the camera and the gamma curve. So we're "correctly exposed" and the whole "6 stop shadow latitude" thing starts to make sense. Then "6 stops underxposure latitude/range/whatever they advertise" means something like: what meters at T0,3 will be completely buried in noise, what reads T0,5 will show a little low-contrast detail, T0,7 clearer detail but desaturated and so on. All at the same T2,8 aperture. But this is what the manufacturer thinks their camera can deliver. How deep can you go into the shadows in practise, you find out through tests.

Hardly. When the "look" is completely done in color timing, it's called amateur filmmaking.

I've commented on those videos. Here's what I had written: No profanity or whatever. And they've deleted it, even my seemingly harmless photometrics comment. Sly ones.

For a "very high quality" you need a gaffer with a decent G&E package. And, well, a DP who can shoot. It will matter much more than the resolution. HD is usually enough for interviews, 4K (without some heavy diffusion) can be too much - do you really want to see every defect on interviewee's skin? I've even projected SD interviews (shot on an Ikegami camera with cine lenses) on big screen and they didn't look way too soft. If there're no exact requirements for masters/deliverables, why not ask your DP about his preferred framerate?

There's a mistake. It's not YJ18x9 (which I've shot with - moderately shitty cheap lens) but YJ19x9 which seems to be a newer design. Don't buy these YJ lenses - they were never good to begin with, and crap by today's standards. Canon 13x9 is a solid high-end lens, a workhorse. This one is a very old version though: external focusing, likely different glass compared to newer 13x9s. It can even have CA corrected differently as it's obviously for tube cameras - it clearly reads "BVP3" on the label (which is an ancient Sony dockable), no matter what they say in the eBay ad. I'd avoid it. That's a once-expensive aspherical Fujinon. They're never bad unless they're beat up. Haven't shot on this particular one so can't comment on its quality.

You must be confusing it with HL55 or some other old all-analog camera. HL59 came out much later than BVW400, about the same time as BVW-D600. And the camera Macks bought is a 'V' version, which is one piece and the final Beta SP camcorder. Don't know about the US either. In Russia it was mostly Anton Bauer and some NP1. NiCd was sometimes preferred (over lithium) as it could sustain high loads better in cold. HL-V59 specs say it draws 29 watts, so a 65Wh AB Propack should give you 2 hours of runtime. Mine ran for some 70 minutes as far as I remember, but I had (and actually still have) a dockable version.

It starts to get annoying. I've written it: matching a couple dozen color vectors doesn't cut it. Once you have a human face in frame, it doesn't look remotely like HL59. It's off topic, but… Do you actually believe Alexa looks "indistinguishable from film" after grading? CCDs are completely analog like any plumbicon, saticon, HARP or whatever tube. Pre-knee circuits (which are responsible for highlight handling) on CCD cameras are analog too. So are the pre- and gain-up amplifiers. Then there are A/Ds, DSP, D/A of course, but the output is analog again, and it goes to a deck/triax which are mostly analog, too. 1) It's not when you crop, it's when you downscale the image. This basically makes Red work like an old Sony F35, but with worse colorimetery. 2) We aren't on RedUser, why spread Jannard's fantasy tech specs here? It has never had 16 stops. These bullshitters even claimed 20 stops once, should we believe that? For your information, it was very hard to reach the S/N ratios of CCD on CMOS. CMOS is inherently weaker in DR/noise parameters. It's easier to make one or four very linear, low-noise external preamps for a CCD than millions of internal ones in a CMOS.

Make sure your lenses' focus and t-stop don't get stuck in that cold. You can try using heavy-duty NiCd or NiMH batteries (if your rental still has them) as they tend to handle high loads at low temperatures better than lithium. By the way, if you'll be using HMIs in that cold, keep in mind that newer flicker free ones can have problems with striking at -30. Better strike them inside the truck or get old ones with double-ended globes and choke ballasts.

Good to know. Means the cameras were chosen by shaders and photographers, not producers. If it were that easy, you could reproduce anything with Red using a 3D LUT. I know of Ukrainian guys who tried it, namely recreating a Soviet tube camera (KT132) image with Red. Didn't look "real". You can't 100% match an HL59 - it distinguishes more colors than Red MX does. And it's not only colors - highlights play a big role. To reproduce how HL59 analog knee works, you need to shoot with a lot of highlight "headroom" (to apply a knee-like curve in post) and still have enough exposure for shadows to look clean. It can be the moment you realize Red doesn't have enough latitude for that! It's likely cheaper to buy an actual Ikegami broadcast camera than simulate it.

Century Optics once made a relay lens for mounting Nikon primes on B4 cameras. It compressed the image circle and must have been an APO design (to correct for different FFDs of red vs green vs blue), but was very slow - you lost some 3 stops on it. There was also some (I guess German-made) relay lens which adapted FD primes to B4/B3. Only worked on telephoto lenses with rear element deep inside the lens. All this stuff is extremely rare and rarely cheap. DOF adapters like Pro35 actually converted PL to B4 while maintaining the FOV, but they've got they own issues - they add diffusion, lower contrast and so on. Canon J9x5,2 can be focused on a filter in the mattebox with the macro ring.

Actually the first one-piece was the BVW200, if you feel like giving a history insight. Dockables weren't replaced by camcorders, they co-existed 2000s major network news did NOT have the fuzzy "analog" look. VHS recordings of them did. But if you want to replicate what was broadcast, you don't want to shoot with a BVW300. You'd have a camera they used. And they used BVW-D600s. HL57s, etc - not 80s tech. Hitachi was quite rare, but Ikegami was an industry standard. In what way? HL59s were the workhorse cameras in 2000s. A lot from that period was shot on them, so it's accurate to use them for a 2000s news reconstruction. Have you tried? OK, maybe it's easier to get a "misadjusted BVP5" look, but try replicating Ikegami colors. Sony hasn't managed yet. I've written it here already… Color, shadow/highlight properties were still there, since color coding and gamma correction in broadcast were standardized. And they're what constitutes a "look" Latvian networks are still shooting Beta SP in 2016. It actually looks better than digital shot on cheap cameras. Tyler, what OP is trying to replicate is late pre-HD NBC. There were no old one-piece camcorders like BVW300 there. Neither there were low-end cameras like DXC637. Yet there was a lot of HL59s in use.

If BVW300 actually replaced something from the past, it was tube cameras or some old crap like Sony BVP5s. BVW300 is almost 30 years old, it predates HL55 and pretty much any dockable camera used in 2000s. HL cameras weren't made by Hitachi, they're Ikegami. HL59 is not an in-to-out digital camera. It's digital-processing. All hi-end Betacams used by major networks in 2000s were digital processing. HL59 doesn't look "analog" or "digital", whatever it means, it looks like an HL59, nothing more. I've directly compared an all-analog HL43 to a digital-processing HL59. There was no distinct "look" difference. Sure, HL59 was sharper and less noisy, with better colorimetery, but you couldn't say one looked "digital" and the other "analog". Only thing I can remember seeing on Beta SP with underscan engaged on the monitor were white dots from drum heads switching on playback. Switching happens between lines/fields and doesn't affect the image.

There are also B4 primes, but you'll never see them on ENG cameras. These get as fast as T1,5. What film DoPs used to love about 2/3" format (mostly they hated it though, for many reasons) is the ability to shoot wide open on zooms without really compromising the image. Most B4 lenses are aspherical and APO, so even at max aperture you don't get a very soft image with a lot of color fringing.

They go up to F1,6, but since they're very complicated (just imagine: APO retrofocus zooms, 65mm FFD) designs they're T2 at best, and most are around T2/2.8 as David said. Prisms themselves (inside the camera) are rated around T1.9.

It's B4 on that camera. As you've just got the best SD camera, it makes sense to buy a nice lens. Canon YJ series are crap, low-end Fujinons aren't much better. I'd recommend: Fuji A16x9,5 - high resolution, quite warm, doesn't flare much, but breathes a lot. Canon J9x5,2 - ultimate wide angle lens, on the cold side. Better than most HD glass. Evolved into a cine version. Breathes moderately. Extremely sharp for such a wide lens. Some slight CA. Used it a lot on HD cameras - didn't look too bad compared to Digiprimes. Fuji A8,5x5,5 - sharp, contrasty, little CA. Nikon 20x8 - sharp, very little CA. Canon J15x8 - the workhorse, sharp, contrasty. and generally all the hi-end Fujinon AT2 aspheric zooms.

Good choice! Do you already have a 2/3" lens?

Yes, these Ikegamis are quite beat up. You won't find as many beat up Sonys as they too shitty and fragile not to fall apart after some rough use. :) The HL59 actually was the industry's top camera. Try it. If you haven't shot with an Ikegami before, you'll be impressed with how natural the color is. Much better than F23 or Viper, it's more like Alexa colorimetery. By the way, Alexa electronics were likely co-developed with Ikegami, as Ikegami are ARRI partners and are manufacturing a studio/OB version of Alexa. HL59 is a digital processing camera, not digital in-to-out, so SDI out only on triax base station.

See, http://www.ebay.com/itm/WORKING-IKEGAMI-HL-57-PRO-CAM-HEAD-WITH-SONY-BVV-5-BETACAM-SP-REC-BACK/142089447942?_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982&_trkparms=aid%3D888007%26algo%3DDISC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131227121020%26meid%3De6dbb3fdf7af482dabe4732ea0b4d3d1%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D2%26sd%3D252623952029 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ikegami-HL-57-Digital-Unicam-Color-Camera-Free-Priority-Shipping-/232157142321?hash=item360da4dd31:g:JTEAAOSwB09YE2sd http://www.ebay.com/itm/USED-IKEGAMI-HL-V55-BETACAM-SP-CAMCORDER-WITH-VIEWFINDER-WORKING-CONDITION-/162238272032?hash=item25c6279220:g:Yx0AAOSwYIxX-WV7 And this is the absolute best of SD cameras, image-wise better than DVW970: http://www.ebay.com/itm/IKEGAMI-HL-V59W-CAMCORDER-DIGITAL-COLOR-BETACAM-SP-w-VF15-291-VIEWFINDER-/171875100173?hash=item28048de60d:g:7ioAAOSwDNdVubs~ Funny to see Ikegami cameras selling for less than Sony. It was no comparison between them back then, so inferior was Sony in terms of reliability, image, everything.

What do you mean by hits - dropouts? (Not picking. Don't know all the English terminology) What distortion? It has a limited bandwidth, chroma smearing, uses different kinds of filters to deal with frequency spectrum, S/N is lower than of any decent camera. But you don't see it much on a TV screen (which means Sony engineers have done their job well). What you clearly see is color reproduction, amount of shadow detail, how highlights and edges look - which all comes from the camera head, not recording part. It's silly to assemble a whole BetaSP chain and then get a camera no TV station was using. Get the real thing, it's just as cheap.

There isn't much of a look to first-generation BetaSP recordings. It's mostly the camera head which gives you a "look". That DXC637 will look vastly different to, say, an Ikegami HL59. It's like a Hi8 Handycam vs Alexa. Compared to hi-end Beta SP cameras, they are only cleaner and sharper, which you couldn't really see on SD Tv but might see on big screen. Again, Ikegami HL59 will look better than any Digibeta camcorder but DVW970.

1. If you can afford S4s, you can afford a truckload of filters. Some of your reference shots look like they have a light misty diffusion (i.e. 1/8 White Frost) or not so light where they have obvious blooming, other don't have much halation - for those you'd use Diffusion FX, or maybe older Black/Gold Diffusion. Try Soft/FX and Classic Softs as well. 2. What comes to mind first… Try light warm gels or cosmetics on keys, with heavy diffusion like 216 on small frames. Don't hesitate to raise your key higher, then fill slightly from below if needed. Use an eyelight if you key doesn't give you a sparkle in the eyes. Don't over-diffuse you window lights.

For the woman, I'd bring the key even more camera-right and a bit higher. This way if she turns her head more to camera-right she'll have the right part of her face mostly in shadow (apart from the eye and the "triangle", and her cheeks will be less pronounced. Then I'd fill a bit from below/camera-left so that the other cheek has a fainter shadow. Would scrim/flag the neck so that it's not explicitly sculptured. I'd add a back/hair light on the left as well. Why did you make the background right behind her so contrasty and leave the camera-right part of BG basically fall into the dark? This messes the frame up. Would be much better to do it the other way around: wash the left part of BG deep blue and a tad brighter than the darkest shadows on her face. No need for those two lanterns behind her - they only distract. Leave the candle on the right and accentuate it with orangey light (2CTO correction or so). I'd use a Dedo light from above for it. You can add a lantern to reflect in the mirror - maybe place it off-camera if possible. Or add a candle somewhere in the upper left corner if you like it, maybe then throw it out of focus. Then you could use some light misty diffusion (ProMist, White Frost) to make those candles softly glow. Your close up looks interesting. I'd move the chair a bit camera left and back so that the mirror is more frame-right. Would backlight the lantern which's reflecting in the mirror to make it clearly visible. The man needs an eye light. That high position of your key is otherwise OK as long as you don't let the eye sockets fall into darkness. Warm backlight looks good here.

Dockable decks are dirt cheap, no matter Beta SP, SX or DVCPRO. Nobody needs them anyway. Decent camera heads, especially 16:9 versions, are harder to find though. I'd rather buy a PVW deck. The mechanism is simpler and easier to service than on the BVWs, and they're pro decks with adequate electronics. They don't spoil your image quality the way UVWs do.