Brian Drysdale

You should read this thread: http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...=19385&st=0

I'm not saying these are the cheapest prices, but the high end Nikkor lenses that have similar speeds to the Master Primes cost £850 to £1000 each in the UK.

It gets worse on a long form production, what's OK for a couple of days just annoys after a week or two. People do end up falling out etc., not over anything big, just lots a small things piling up for time.

Yes, the time considerations are usually worse with the crew of 4 because in practise you've got less resources: it takes a certain number of man hours to achieve something and you've got less people. Never mind that they've got experience on their side and know the short cuts. That's not allowing for external financial pressures on people who aren't getting paid for a long period because they're working for a percentage (which usually means getting paid nothing). Having worked on low budget, small crew productions the schedule is relentless.

Yes, with the still lenses you don't get f1.4 lenses with shorter focal lengths than 35mm. Usually the wide angles are around f 2.8, which means they have no speed advantage over a zoom lens.

Some of the London rental companies (I believe Samuelsons was one) had set(s) these lenses in their rental fleet. I'd expect they were re-barreled etc, I've never used them, however, I can't see these companies not doing a lot of reworking on them to get them mechanically up to spec regarding having new scales etc. These companies built up a reputation serving the needs of film camera people, so there'd be a lot more these than just putting a bog standard stills lens onto a film camera. I believe they were mostly used on commercials for the image they created. From memory I don't think they cost any less to rent than the normal cine lenses.

Best value for money doesn't mean you're going to get the best quality images. An instamatic camera will give you pictures, however, the SLR will give you better quality pictures and versatility. Which you use will depend on the job in hand - the holidays or a fashion shoot.

I expect the comparison is more between a mass produced car and and the racing version of the same car. One functions fine for day to day commuting, whilst the hand built racing version pushes the limits of performance. What might be acceptable on a reality show, wouldn't be acceptable on a drama. 35mm non telephoto stills lenses have been used on 35mm film cameras, but they've been modified rebuilt versions that weren't cheap. I believe this was done more for the look than any cost saving. Also, they tend to be slower than the cine lenses, especially the wide angle lenses. If there's a market depend I expect the lens manufactures will bring out budget versions for cameras like the RED. However, I expect that the camera people will continue to push for the highest quality glass because it does make a difference, especially when you're pushing it to its limits.

It depends what's going to fall over the edge when you factor in the extra costs of costing HD. I was DP on some short films last year, which were shot on HDCAM as against the same scheme, with the same budget the previous year shot on SD - both years were for delivery on Digibeta. On the HD series you could really tell that the budgets were being strained and resources that you had available the previous year you could no longer afford.

A lot will depend on the backup being provided by the rental company. At the very least, the kit should include 3 or 4 hard drives, a proper V/F option, 4 to 6 batteries, charger and number of other accessories. Although, given how much I can rent a DVW 790 with a ENG lens from a well known rental company for, $500 with the RED zoom would compare.

Yes, I'd imagine 10 years would be about right. Betacams have a similar life, becoming increasingly unreliable if they've had a full working life. Although 5 years old seems to be the longest I've seen rental companies having them in their fleet. With the RED I'd expect you'd have replaced quite a few hard drives before the camera module itself would be running into reliability problems. I suspect technological advances will be the issue there and how upgradable that is. How good value the $500 rental is will depend on what lenses etc you're getting as part of the package - I'd assume a RED zoom lens at least. The US rental prices I've seen for the similar priced XDCam HD vary from a lot lower to a bit higher. I agree about the life expectancy of the HDV prosumer cameras and the knock on effect on rental coats. Even getting one fixed is a high percentage of the purchase price.

I've noticed that the HDV cameras don't hold to these formulas. The daily rental rate on a JVC HD 100 seems to be around a 1/3 or 1/4 that of a Digibeta camera.

One of the JVC range (HD110, HD200 or HD 250) are another alternative. They give a more filmic image and have manual lenses, although for drama you might want to use the wide angle 13x zoom which give better picture quality and less breathing when pulling focus. You should really have a hands on test with these cameras to see which works best for you and your film. Currently the next cameras up are the XDCAM HD range, which I suspect will break your budget, but might be be worth costing.

No problem, just transfer at 25 fps to film. You might want to do a pitch shift on the sound for projection at 24 fps. However, listen to it first, because you can get strange effects on sustained notes with the pitch shift and it might be better not doing this.

JVC will be offering a 16mm lens adapter for their HD 110, HD200, HD250 cameras. Looks like it will be available in a couple of months and it doesn't have a ground glass screen. The pictures I've seen from it look very good.

I'd be extremely careful about filming in a culture I don't understand, the simplest thing can cause a near riot. All good documentaries have a considerable amount of time invested in them doing research, building up relationships and trust before a frame is shot. The news organisations usually have an infrastructure of local drivers, runners, translators and journalists who they rely on and who know the risks of filming in certain locations and situations. If you're on your own you won't have these, which only increases the danger.

Looks interesting. A couple of errors: the basic RED camera body is $17.500 not "$15,00 - $18,000" and the SI-2K is being quoted at around $20,000, not "$30,000". However, I suspect both will be roughly around same price in a similar configuration shooting 2k.

If the lights belong to you, there's not reason why you can't replace the 16 Amp connectors with 13 Amp plugs. The alternative is to have some adaptor 16Amp/13Amp cable tails made up, either by an electrician or if you feel qualified yourself. You can just plug the RCD (most DIY stores have them) into the wall socket, then plug the tail into the RCD. You'll also need extension leads, nothing damages lights like not having long enough extensions. They just keep falling over otherwise. http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Plu...240v/index.html However, I can only see an adaptor to a 13 amp socket here and I've only seen tails being used with the 13 Amp plug on sets. A local electrical wholesaler who supplies the construction industry etc. will have the 16 amp connectors.

You could check with the Rory Peck Trust. http://www.rorypecktrust.org/ They offer safety training for people wanting to work in war zones and lobby on behalf of people who cover wars. My first sound recordist, together with his brother filmed the evacuation of the American Embassy at the end of the Vietnam war, where they flew helicopters from the roof top and then then dumped them over the side of the aircraft carrier. News film rushes would be couriered out to the lab. Sometimes the biggest risk was giving them to a competing news organization to be delivered - the rushes mightn't arrive at the far end of the flight.

Whenever I've shot B & W in daylight, I never bothered to correct the tungsten to daylight and there was never any problems regarding exposure. It was commonly done on the B & W feature films, you can see loads of production stills with tungsten lights being used as fill. I even did it on a Digibeta commercial that was going to end up in B & W - only problem there was the agency rather liked the look and the director had to persuade them to keep to the original B & W idea. You could shoot a quick test on the glasses shot if you're worried about it.

A few of our camera assistants are having problems in making the leap to clapper/loader because there aren't that many film shorts being funded. Used to be they got the break of having "done it" on the shorts. They're working as assistants on video and HD, but can't get that start on the film work, even on the few documentaries because the producers don't have the confidence in them

I shot a couple of shorts on a DSR 500 as part a series of shorts for young people that also had shorts shot on a BVW300 on Betacam SP. Although it was cropped for 16:9, the BVW 300 held up extremely well and had a very nice look. The BVW 600 series has the same camera head as the old DVW 700 DigiBeta camera, so given a good lens, I personally would take some persuading to use a 1/3" CCD camera instead.

Unless you're an engineering student looking for a project I wouldn't bother. There's quite a lot of precision machining and given how much fussing there is over the flaws of the manufactured gear heads, you'll be into quite a lot of trial and error with prototypes before you'd be happy. Off the top of my head, I think the deeper arc would the same as pushing a car up a steeper hill. You could also find the tilt could override the gears, so you couldn't leave the tilt wheel unlocked.

The lock off head looks a lot smaller than a gear head and the arc on a gear head the tilt section is shallower than the head you've illustrated. Not having costed it, but from past experience from getting off one components manufactured in a machine shop I suspect it would cost you a lot more than buying a used gear head to modify this.

Looking at the picture it's what you'd use when you just want to "lock off" the camera on say a car mount. It's not intended that you'd pan or tilt with the camera on the head. It's got a low profile, so it would be ideal for use on cars etc, when you want to keep the camera as close as possible to the actor's eye line. People commonly just lock off their normal heads for these types of shots, but with bowls etc., these can be quite high, so compromising your shot on some camera rig set ups. This head would be a lot cheaper than a normal head. However, I wouldn't consider modifying it to a gear head, although in the past you could get your Arri friction head modified to a fluid head