Daniel Meier

Hi there. Just a general question that arose yesterday. As I never worked with negative film stock before. What does negative film (35mm, 16mm) look like, when coming straigh out of the lab. Is it as flat looking as nowadays digital Log footage?

Just a little fun clip I made while messing around with Magic Lantern Raw for the first time. I still have to dig in that topic. Next time I'm going to test the Dual ISO feature and 50 fps. Pretty amazing what the Canon 7D is really capable of. Having this camera for six years now it's quite a surprise to see that there's still room to enhance its image quality! Did you guys have experience with Magic Lantern? I'm kind of confused by how the flares jump around. Is this due to ML Raw? Is it doing some random stabilization? Or is it the IS of the Lens (Canon EF 24-105mm 4.0) I've never had this happen in normal record mode.

What about using a Shift Lens? Wouldn't that work as well?

I exposed with a Zebra being set to 95%. Then I just opened up or stoped down the lens. This was shot with a Sony FS 700. Just FIY. @ Robin: I did a color correction in Premiere to make it look like REC 709. (contrast, black pedestal, white point and saturation adjustments)!

That's exactly what the Wolf Crow video was trying to say. And I guess you can kinda see it in my sample footage. The shot being exposed correctly (with white being at 95% IRE) looks best in terms of noise and clipping compromise. Although Sony recommends to put white at 59% IRE. Look how muddy this shot ended up.

What about 16mm these days? Isn't it nearly in the same price category for development, telecine and film stock (apart from camera purchase) as Super8?

Hey folks, just been wondering how much ADR is being used these days in movies. Let's take for example a conventional Hollywood drama. How much of the dialogue is actual recording on set and how much is ADR (percentage)? Any idea, I'm just curious?

Are there Super8 cameras that can be operated on a steadicam? Or is there only the possibility to trigger it handheld or while having the switch pushed down? What's the most common way to trigger the film transport ("record button")?

Great! Thank you all for your contribution! Now I'll have plenty of flicks to watch. Could you suggest some good Western movies?

Thanks Nick and Zac! Nick, your workflow using After Effects and expressions is pretty smart! And the sample footage doesn't even look that bad. How many frames where you able to scan at once?

I can't thank you enough for your contribution! You guys are awesome.

I'm looking out for movies from the 1920's to 1980's, that you think, a filmmaking person should've seen in his life. You know, the masterpieces of cinematography as well as little treasures only few know about. I'm thankful for every input! Cheers, Daniel

Do you guys have any experience on using a still photography negative scanner for Super8 negatives? Maybe it's possible to scan let's say three stripes of 18 frames at one time. Then you'd crop them and have 54 frames with just one scan pass. Are scanners able to do this? Or do the negatives always need to be put in those mask trays to cover the non-scan area?

I'm a complete rookie regarding Super8. And despite the rising prices for development and telecine, I still want to give this format a try and dive into the topic. I've never worked with analog film for cinematography (only 35mm film for photography). And it seems very compelling to me. I read some threads on this forum to get some information, however it's still hard for me to choose the right camera model that suits my purposes, since there are so many different out there. Maybe you guys can help? I'm looking for these features/requirements: - 18fps or 24fps and 48fps - manual exposure (since I'm using a sekonic lightmeter for correct exposure readings) - wide variety of accepted stocks (particularly negative) - price limit: 200€ / 220$ Nice to have features are: - interchangeable lenses (could you name some common lens mounts?) - adjustable Shutter Angle (if this is excisting for Super8 cameras after all) - Servo Zoom - Autofocus I'm also worried about the conditions of used cameras. Are there dealers out there that offer guarantee for working cameras? What should I look out for when buying a camera, that is supposed to work fine.

Bloody right! You can post the next frame.

As we all love movies, I thought about starting a little quiz in here. I'll start with posting a still from a movie's first shot. The next one who guesses from which movie it was taken, can throw in another still frame of a different feature. And so it goes on and on. I hope this isn't getting too challenging:

He basically did as follows: - Take an 18% graycard an light it evenly (without any hotspots) ideally with a tungsten source - take an incident reading of the incoming light in front of the graycard - match the f-stop value, ISO and Shutterspeed in your camera - look at the resulting image, the camera is producing - if the graycard on the image is lower than 50% (in this case a histogram-value of 128) you need to calibrate your meter to a positive value (e.g. +0,5 EV) - if the graycard appears to bright dial the calibration down (e.g. -0.5 EV)

Nice work, Hunter! I was always digging your Happy Medium stuff anyway. I have some questions about the clip: Were you allowed to mix some digital footage in (VX 1000)? Can you name a few shots that were captured on Kodak's Vision 3? Did you apply some grain in post? Or was it captured like this? What was the image resolution of your digitized files? TIA, Daniel

In many traditional 2D animation film's credit roll there appears the title director of photography or cinematographer. Can somebody tell me what they really do, when working on films like that? Do they scheme the lighting and camera movement and communicate it to the art director/animators?

I just made this test video, because I also wonder, what is the best way to expose Slog. In my case Slog 2. But I think it's applicable to Slog3 as well. I find that exposing your white to 95% to 100% (which means correct exposure to an 18% grey card) gives you the best of both worlds. Acceptable noise and no white clipping. Might be also helpful links: http://www.xdcam-user.com/2014/08/exposing-and-using-slog2-on-the-sony-a7s-part-one-gamma-and-exposure/

Not quite... See this link: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=3529

Thanks Sat. We might even keep the stairset out of the frame and just concentrate on the downstair area, just to keep things easy. I forgot to mention those: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61V%2Bat0ldfL._SL1500_.jpg We use them as practical sources. Letting lights hang down from of the ceiling might be difficult, since it is that high up. Another thing that popped to my mind is the humming noise of the ballast. Are there low-noise/silent ballasts out there for HMIs, that wouldn't even affect silent passage of the music? If I'd want to hide my ballast in another room, what max. cable lengths are available?