Brenton Lee

THIS too. If you can save the cash to get a plate, a few AB batteries and a dual charger then you're on a winner. Thats my plan, the Varavon battery pack is just a temporary measure to save me punching through EL20's.

the BMPCC is my go to camera while I'm in that stage of 'shooting everything i can' and picking up anything on a moments notice. I absolutely love it. I saved up and bought 12mm + 25mm Zeiss Superspeeds and 50mm Optar Illumina Primes and a 8-64mm Canon zoom. (Obviously this all required a PL adaptor) I gotta say, I'm really very happy with the results and relatively speaking - they weren't that expensive. I've got those four lenses for less than $4000. Just gotta keep an eye on the forum market places and eBay. As far as the battery situation goes, I bought one of those Varavon battery packs and it can film for 4+ hours. I have to change SD cards (Shooting 422) before I change the battery pack. So for $200 thats kinda paid for itself.

I give up.

I've only used a cine tape a few times but found that, as mentioned by david, if you don't have a pretty good mental idea of distances then a bad reading can throw you off pretty quick. I swear one time the brim of the subjects hat would throw measurements out by 4 or so inches when he moved his head up and down, that's how accurate it was. It would be easy to freak out, adjust for the change then buzz his face when the cine tape flicks back to that.

Not to be a party pooper ... but I have an SR3 with a video tap and it's basically useless. The video tap sounds great in theory but it's just not that great in reality. I literally never use it.

I did 2 weeks of the 8 or 12-week course ... I did Camera Assistant and Camera Operator. I have to say, the Camera Assistant class exceeded my expectations so much. The teacher had been a 1st AC since 1984 ... there wasn't a trick he didn't know in regard to digital / film / focus pulling, etc. AND he knew how to teach. Class didn't 'start' till 9am, but he'd be there at 8am ready to show people stuff they wanted to learn ... and he'd be there till 9pm still teaching. Panavision supplied gear (an Alexa and Millennium) and a tech who also knew his stuff. By the end of the class, a bunch of inexperienced people left competent at focus, loading film, threading cameras, setting actors marks, slating, filling in camera reports etc, setting up cinetapes, calibrating wireless FF like the Preston, doing lens tests and camera tests like you would in a rental house .... organising equipment, labelling, doing stocktake. It was quiet phenomenal. A huge part of it was also safety, set etiquette etc too. The second week was 'Camera Operating'. Again, a very experience and knowledgeable teacher. It was an equal blend of 'theory' and conventional technique but also of being progressive and creative. It was almost bordering more on being a DoP / Cam-Op. The exercises were good - everyone left confident in working on dolly and job moves, working on location, etc. I also had a chance to see what the other guys completed on their 8-week course and it was pretty amazing. They shot super 16mm film which was processed and scanned before the end of the week. They learned really impressive lighting techniques ('location lighting' and 'feature film lighting') with a huge range of equipment. They also did a whole week of steadicam ... The other units go a lot into the fundamentals of cinematography and visual story telling. If I could go back in time, the 8-week program is exactly what I would do. It might seem like a lot of money but holy cow .... the access to equipment, knowledge etc is second to none. There is no way you would regret spending that money in a few years. The class was diverse ... 5 or 6 guys, 2 women ... everyone from all over the world, Australia, El Salvador, Qatar, all across the US too. Also, the food was amazing. I give MM 8.5/10.

Thats weird ... mine are dark yellow haha.

Yeah kinda, just something for beginners to identify different cable names and their use. Whether it be XLR, Fischer, Hirose, Lemo, RJ45, bnc/din/smb. It's just that I was in a workshop this week full of people new to cameras and there was a lot of 'hey i need one of those little cables with the half moon bit and the two pins' etc etc.

Hey, another punishing newbie question but it's probably something we all deal with at some point. Does anyone have any good reference material whether it be online or print, that deals with identifying connectors, cable types, their specs, usage ...etc? Obviously I could refer to every manufacturers website every time i need to identify something but hopefully over the years someone put a reference book together already? Any help is appreciated!

Hi! If anyone has any ND Filters they'd like to sell, please holler at me. After 4x4 size only, especially 0.3 / 0.6 / 0.9 / 1.2 Not really looking for graduated filters Prefer Tiffen / Schneider or any other reputable brand Won't try and rip you off. Prefer to buy in US or Australia Can pay asap via pay pal PM me, thanks!

Thanks for the hot tip.

It definitely looks excessive but the machining on the other side of the flange cuts in quiet deep so I assume the thickness of that chamfer was calculated to leave as much material on as possible. I will take Dans suggestion and measure it all up but I think you're right, machining the adaptor is the safest option.

As much as I loathe the desert (after working in mining it gets tiresome), there will never be a more beautiful marriage of red earth / blue sky than the outback provides.

Hello all, back again with another punishing and probably quiet obvious question. I have a PL mount lens, it fits beautifully directly into the PL mount on one of my cameras but does not fit in the PL-M43 adaptor I have for another camera. It appears that the chamfer at the rear of the lens flange is too big for the adaptor, making it sit too high / not seat right, thus not being able to turn the locking ring. I put some sharpie on the chamfer and the adaptor scratched it off, so i'm 90% sure that I'm on the right track. My question is ... do I have any other option aside from putting it in a lathe and making the corresponding chamfer in the adaptor a bit deeper? It would only need .5mm See photo to substantiate my terrible description of the issue. Thanks for any help. ps ... parts have since been cleaned, excuse the dirt ;)

It may well be the scan, but I had S8mm scanned on the same machine and it came back beautifully coloured so I assumed it was something I haven't done right.

Oh that's a good thing to check ... It's in a 400 ft reel so I'll set it up and look tomorrow. thanks for the idea.

Yeah, the filter holder is empty but is installed. I'm pretty sure if it's installed, light can't leak in that way. But you never know ... I'll make sure I double check and maybe even put some tape over that area to make sure for next time.

Hello! I fired of a few rolls of 16mm film recently, two of them came back heavily foggy and I'm pretty sure it's due to over exposure? If you can give me any tips or think it may be anything else, please throw your thoughts in - I'd appreciate it! Info - Both scenes were shot on a Bolex EBM, modded for S16. I used a canon FD lens, most likely 50mm on this one as it's relatively fast and versatile. Film was bought directly from Kodak, was stored in a cupboard for maybe 3 months. Shot and processed within a week. I was pretty careful loading and unloading, although there's a slight light mark on the side. The interior shot was on Vision 3 500T, the lighting was dim with only bulb in the ceiling and a crummy skylight. Outside the sky was very overcast but not entirely dark. Light meter on my lady friends face said 1.8ish The exterior shot was on Vision 3 250D, I can't remember too many details of the shot but it looks like it also has quiet a lot of of fogging too. I included an effort to clean it up too just to give you an idea of the finished product, but what can I make sure to do next time to get a better result? Thanks for any advice. Follow this link for the pics https://goo.gl/photos/ZpVS5VufA1V3F6iW8

I'm not any sort of expert but I thought most of that was cool!

I wish these were PL mount. =(

Heya, If you've got a spare hardcase / flightcase you're looking to get rid of and it would fit an Arriflex SR3, hit me up. Also looking for Cases for 3 x SR3 magazines but I think I'll have more chance of finding them from stores, but hit me up if you've got something that would work for the mags too. Cheers, Brenton.

I've never used a DSLR ... how do you get around having no control over the aperture??

bah. my apologies ... did another search and found this thread which is slightly helpful. i didn't realise how much easier it is to google things on this forum than use the internal search http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=21047 still, if anyones got a few cents they'd like to throw in .. feel free.

I quiet often use Canon FD lenses for filming with my BMPCC. It's not brilliant but gets the job done and a M43 to FD adaptor was easy to find and works quiet well. I was recently going to try and use the FD lenses on my Bolex EBM (super 16) so I ordered an FD lens to Bolex Bayonet adaptor. However, it has no mechanism to affect the aperture control lever inside the lens. Has anyone dealt with one of these before? Is there something obvious I am missing? I guess my option is to machine something up that holds the manual aperture lever in for me? Thats the only way I can manually set the aperture on the lens. I'll try and attach some photos to demonstrate my question. top on is FD to M43 and works well because it has the mechanism to hold the arm in. bottom is FC to bolex bayonet and it doesn't have the same mechanism. thoughts? throw it in the bin?

I have one and use it quiet often. Definitely order the extender plate thing with it. I also use an extra ball head.. The only real draw back is when you're raising it up (say you're following something and it's heading to the sky), at some point the wire will pull the head past its pivot point and the camera will fall all the way back.