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Ivon Visalli

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Everything posted by Ivon Visalli

  1. Ivon Visalli
    Guy, thank you for your very enlightening explanation. Are you able to share any production stills or frames from the finished film?
  2. Ivon Visalli
    Good luck, Samuel. If you ever make it south down Long Beach way, give me a holler.
  3. Ivon Visalli
    Oh, now this is getting good...
  4. Ivon Visalli
    So, that's exactly the point I want to challenge Rakesh. Is it really your experience that most (more than 50%) of people that use their gear to get work are uninterested in developing their skills? That's not something I've experienced. Most of the camera people I meet tend to be camera and film freaks of one sort of another. Their skills and knowledge definitely vary, but still I see a passion beyond just getting gear and getting gigs. I mean if you just want to make money, there are more straight forward ways than production. I will say I see a lot of posturing on sets, where people tend not to show their cards as to experience or knowledge gaps, but I will forgive that as anytime you're working you tend to do everything you can to keep working. I mean in general, I keep hearing about camera dilettantes, but I have yet to meet one.
  5. Ivon Visalli
    Please note that there are some of us that intentionally use gear in lieu of talent because we're not there yet. I hope to be a very talented cinematographer some day, but I am not there yet. Maybe skilled would be a better term as talent often implies innate abilities. So, I hope to be a skilled cinematographer some day. Until then, I must work for free/cheap and give my gear away to continue to perfect my skills. I don't think we should disparage those of us taking this route. An interesting perspective from Matt Workman... https://youtu.be/4KJ5vzxefRw
  6. Ivon Visalli
    I also like depron and use it in front of some open face Lowel's (you have to keep it from getting too close to hot lamps as it will melt). It is a bit of a light hog and I see at least a stop of light loss when using it, but it has a very nice diffused quality that I like. I had never seen it used or heard of it until last year. Fortunately I was able to get a few sheets of the 3 mm. I didn't realize they had discontinued selling it. Does anyone know of any other source or if RC will bring it back eventually?
  7. Ivon Visalli
    Rather than losing 2/3 stop by covering the zebras in CTO, they began using tigers. I think there was a special position created within 600 for those camera ops.
  8. Ivon Visalli
    Thanks for the info, Satsuki. Also just finished the Art Adams article about head room that you posted. Great read.
  9. Ivon Visalli
    Can anyone recommend a good shoulder pad for moving a tripod with camera mounted? I have a shoulder pad for hand held work, but it requires getting it strapped on. I'm looking for something that hangs from or is secured to the tripod for quick moves. The tripod legs I'm using are the Sachtler ENG-2.
  10. Ivon Visalli
    In some rare instances a distributor will package a number of shorts together and distribute them as a "shorts collection". In general, you need to have been recognized at a film festival or fit the theme of the collection (like horror shorts). Here's one example: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mantis-Parable/dp/B003OUPY1S/ref=sr_1_28?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1460091525&sr=1-28&keywords=shorts+collection
  11. Ivon Visalli
    A few thoughts: Polarization - basics of light polarization, polarized reflections and polarizers (circular and linear) and how they work De-bayering Algorithms - advantages and disadvantages of different de-bayering algorithms Lossless compression - how raw compression works and how does it stay "lossless"
  12. Ivon Visalli
    Look at the movie "Savate". Although shot in the US, it's directed by one of your countrymen: Isaac Florentine.
  13. Ivon Visalli
    Some good suggestions here already. If you do meet with him, I would also suggest making notes after your meeting about what was discussed. I would also make sure you have an e-mail trail that shows that you arranged a meeting and if/when you met with him. I wouldn't be overly concerned about him ripping you off, but it can happen and you want to take reasonable precautions in case something does occur.
  14. Ivon Visalli
    Some interesting commentary on the movie "Truth" from cinematographer Mandy Walker. http://variety.com/video/truth-cinematographer-mandy-walker-video/
  15. Ivon Visalli
    Nice article. Thanks for that.
  16. Ivon Visalli
    Hi Michaela, Thank you for that information. I agree, I don't like the manufactured rain covers and would prefer something simpler. I also work in Los Angeles, so have had very little use for one. Even when I worked in NY, we moved to a cover set on the rain days we had (though a tarp was used to cover camera and gear if it ever drizzled). I appreciate your tip about using clear plastic, thanks.
  17. Ivon Visalli
    That's really nice stuff Carl. Really shows the core issue of bit depth and dynamic range. Low bit depth doesn't stop the dynamic range from being expressed, but it does limit the fineness of the steps between black and white. Your two left-side images show that a bit depth of 2 didn't stop the higher dynamic range "camera" from finding white and gray more accurately (I'm especially looking at the white on the bridge of the nose with the lower dynamic range image). Once in post with our friend dither, the image from the higher dynamic range camera is able to retrieve more detail in the background. Though I kind of like how the lower DR image is blown out. Carl, do you know how many stops of dynamic range are in the original image? Are you able to add the chroma back into the dithered images, I'm just curious how they look in color.
  18. Ivon Visalli
    Yes, it's working now. ... they know you're on to them.
  19. Ivon Visalli
    Clicking on the links didn't work for me either :(
  20. Ivon Visalli
    Alas, Carl, ever since you posted Mr. McDowell with eyes wide open, I have been unable to view any of your attachments.
  21. Ivon Visalli
    Well, I actually prefer some limit to DR. At least at this point in my career. Given a few locations I've worked in, it's very nice that parts of them roll off into black :-)
  22. Ivon Visalli
    Here is where it would be great if someone from a camera manufacturer stepped in! My degree is in electrical engineering, so I have some experience with ADC and digital processing, but not a lot. Now I'm totally speculating, so I'd love to be corrected by someone with actual knowledge of the engineering (or if someone has access to designs I'd love to review them)... I think you already hit on it in your previous post. Looking at the curves you supplied earlier, there's a suggestion that for the Alexa the ADC is capturing in 16-bit and then the curve is implemented in 10- (or 12-) bit through digital processing. I used Excel to generate the curve. If you have Excel, load values for X and Y in two columns, highlight the columns and select "Insert Chart". You'll be presented with different choices. You want a scatter plot (X vs. Y) with a line through it.
  23. Ivon Visalli
    Hey Tom, I think you got it in your last post, but to be clear... bit depth does not determine DR, but there is absolutely a link between bit depth and a good image. I don't think any of us have argued otherwise. I think Carl even said, you can produce an image from a camera with 20 stops of DR with a 1 bit depth. It's an interesting image, but not a faithful image. Your example shows a log curve where each value is halved from the previous one. Try a curve that doesn't do that. Something like this: 40,960 > 1023 20,480 > 942 10,240 > 862 5,120 > 781 2,560 > 700 1,280 > 619 640 > 537 320 > 455 160 > 370 80 > 281 40 > 183 20 > 55 10 > 27 5 > 13 That's a curve that looks like this:
  24. Ivon Visalli
    Hi Tom, Bit Depth will absolutely limit the usability of images as DR increases, so yes Usable DR < Bit Depth. However, it doesn't limit the sensor's ability to see a wide dynamic range, it simply limits how finely you can slice the DR up. 20 stops of range can be chopped up into 1024 slices or 3 stops of range can be chopped into 1024 slices. One image will look terrible, the other acceptable. If I read your analysis correctly, you are defining the limits of what acceptable slices might be, not range. To use your example, there's no reason why you couldn't map 40,960 photons > 1023 17,815 photons > 512, 5,017 photons > 256... 20 photons > 1, but the image may not look right. In a camera with 10 bit output, they don't stop counting at 1023, they set the white point at 1023 and the black point at 0 and map the intervals in between. That DR might be 8 stops, it might be 12 stops. The bit depth defines the intervals. The OP was asking (two years ago!) how high DR was being fit into limited bit depth. The answer is log curves. At some point as DR increases, even log curves won't produce acceptable images if bit depth stays fixed, so they will be forced to increase bit depth. My question for the experienced cinematographers, do we really need to be chasing higher and higher DR? Are you generally using all the DR your camera permits now when you shoot? I recently worked with a cinematographer who said, "if I can't see into the shadows, I throw light in there". Isn't that our job, to produce a pleasing image within a given DR?
  25. Ivon Visalli
    Hey Carl, I can't see the pics.
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