David Grantham

Thanks for such well-considered thoughts, folks. Sometimes I need to attend to the camera with both hands for an instant. Wouldn't leave it there, but I can't hold it up at that moment nor take time to go over to wherever there's a stand or bag. I've fashioned a pair of light aluminum 'kickstands' attached to a double-clamp on the rig's rails. Just a pair of camp tent-pole connector tubes jammed onto splayed hook-eyes (over nuts ground down for a tight fit). They swing up out of the way alongside the mounting plate leaving the handle accessible, or down (against another clamp as an adjustable stop) to from a triangulated base. To be fool-proof they will soon get a bent-wire holder to keep their deployment (and retraction) held fast. And it would be best to connect them together so they can be deployed with one swipe. But they work very well! And add almost no weight. I'll upload a photo sometime.

Maybe folks can save me from reinventing the wheel a stand for a wheel. I need to support a tricked-out Fig Rig -- which has the stability of a unicycle -- in a more-or-less horizontal orientation when it's set down for a moment. Permanent legs/outriggers will compromise ergonomics and versatility. A cradle/c-stand/tripod has to be set up in one place, which compromises the convenience and efficiency of roving with the camera. This -- apart from being out of production and unavailable -- is a problem with the useful (but ungainly) cradle designed for the rig by Sinivision. Maybe quick-attachable/detachable collabsible kickstands of some sort on the rig's crossbar (or -- probably better -- on the rails). Like the Upstand bike kickstand (but out of the box its size and angles probably aren't right): attached a link but our site seems to delete it - it's a tent-pole-collapsible carbon-fibre tube which magnetically quick-attaches/detaches over a small angled tab with a narrow diameter collar which attaches over a bike hub skewer (or small bolt - like the one on rail thumb-tighteners).. The Fig Rig improves my camerawork, and the curved bottom and lower grip (which create the instability) provide a versatile grip and pivot points for panning and tilting while stabilized on a surface or object. But if I set the rig down for a moment to attend to it (with both hands) or to something else, it's only stable if the back of the camera rests on the ground (if I lean it back), or the lens area (if I lean it forward). Thanks for any advice/thoughts.

Thankyou very much, David. Yes, I'm assuming soft light's the only feasible effect I could get from a versatile setup in the room. (I'll have to experiment to see how I work with sunbeams in the shot coming through the gelled windows, but that's a problem of a higher order.) YOur suggestion encourages me to think further. As to LEDs, a light would be about 9' above the floor over the window, and I wonder if that would be an okay height both in terms of a natural effect emulating the window's light diffusing in and bouncing around and - given what I hear about LED's fall off - providing an even enough light not to limit the blocking in the room. It would seem easy to rig something decorative to cover an LED panel either all the time (if it lets enough light through) or only when it's in the shot. I expect the light would be turned off at these times unless - when dimmed - the assembly passed as a practical sconce or wall-mounted luminaire. The cost of enough LED panels looks steep though, so I am also considering an array of CFLs with some soft-box equivalent rigged over them. Unless I could practically build (I'm a designer...) a decorative sconce-like enclosure only about a foot deep, I suppose I'd have to just put a typical deep softbox enclosure over the CFLs. In that case to conceal it I'd simply remove the box and cover the light with something decorative. A small soft quartz or incandescent light might work wonders and even emulate hard sunlight in some circumstances and could easily be concealed in a practical housing, I suppose. But it would make that little room very hot very quickly. I suppose a diffusable led spot might work...

I need to buy and set up a pair of semi-permanent low-temperature lights (CFL? Kinoflo? LED?) in some sort of controllable-throw diffusing configuration (Softbox and grate? Diffusion in front? Square? Strip-box?) mounted out of sight but near (usually above but perhaps below also/ instead) two large windows in a small room to augment the light coming through these gelled windows to simulate the windows lighting the room. The arrangement should be dimmable in some way and - ideally - disguisable as a practical or decorative element so as to not be obtrusive when it has to appear in a shot. This is one of my living spaces and will be shot in often - ideally I'd set something up which can stay in place and contribute to the decor. The room's 13' x 11' with a 10 foot ceiling - the two 6' high x 2' wide windows face south and east. It would be great to be able to have the ability to adjust the throw of the light so as to adjust the darkness of the walls. I'll need to make an excellent choice - retaining continuity despite changes in sunlight penetration will be challenging enough. (The plan is to shoot south and westward when the penetration's as desired, and the opposite way when it's not.) It's going to take some experimentation, of course, but it would be great to get some ideas to help me narrow down the options and maybe decide which of these demanding objectives might require some compromise. I'll be using an FS100.

I need to buy and set up a semi-permanent low-temperature light (CFL? Kinoflo? LED?) in some sort of controllable-throw diffusing configuration (Softbox and grate? Diffusion in front? Square? Strip-box?) mounted out of sight but near (usually above but perhaps below also/ instead) large windows in a small room to augment the light coming through these gelled windows to simulate the windows lighting the room. The arrangement should be dimmable in some way and - ideally - disguisable as a practical or decorative element so as to not be obtrusive when it has to appear in a shot. This is one of my living spaces and will be shot in often - ideally I'd set something up which can stay in place and contribute to the decor. The room's 13' x 11' with a 10 foot ceiling - the 2 6' high x 2' wide windows face south and east. It would be great to be able to have the ability to adjust the throw of the light so as to adjust the darkness of the walls. I'll need to make an excellent choice - retaining continuity despite changes in sunlight penetration will be challenging enough. It's going to take some experimentation, of course, but it would be great to get some ideas to help me narrow down the options.

On my micro-budget HD dramas I sometimes need to fill in shadows on the spot, usually in closeups. Interiors mostly but I'll need this for exteriors too - maybe more. If a light can provide fill in longer shots, so much the better, but it's for the closeups where it's crucial. I'm looking at a couple of on-camera LED options. From what I can tell all specs are the same but for the proportions. One's 4.5x7.5", the other 3.5x10". (Any smaller light than these and shadows are visible with movement.) . Any recommendations? NO local source to try each out, and I'm wondering how the performance will vary between the much narrower/longer one and the squarer one, but I"m leaning toward the longer - seems to me it's the least likely to cause shadowing around a nose (though perhaps at the expense of evenness in the frame vertically...) (Not inclined to go with a ring light because I don't see the absence of any shadowing being worth giving up the possibility of lighting from a direction. Open to challenge on that.) Any thoughts, experience? thanks.

(The plan for light-weigth lights at the ceiling is actually to build a light weight cluster of CFs and remove some of the CFs rather than scrim.)

I'm developing a strategy for regular handheld verite style shoots in this beautiful but tricky little space - Day for Day and Day for Night. Shoots will regularly be a day long - so natural light will change and it's usually sunny here. Windows will move in and out of frame quite regularly. The room's about 11' x 11' with a 10' ceiling, and two 6' x 3' windows. One window faces west, the other south. Sunbeams usually pour right in. It's the fourth floor - can't do anything outside. Layers of ND option: For a test I darkened all but a patch of window with shadow cloth and added layered soft gel under tinted plexiglass on the windows, (which of course darkens the windows and the sunbeams and other light which enters.) 1K of artifical light bouncing around in the room creates suitable ambience for day. To create night I underexposed ambience a stop and add another layer of gel on windows and boosted wattage in practicals. This was tested with a c-standmounted 1K bouncing off the ceiling, but I want something out of any shot. So for a light source supported at ceiling level in this situation I'm thinking a scrimmable (to balance as ext condtions change) softened/bounced 1K source mounted above the 9' point, (and likely reflective material on the floor if I can keep it out of the shots - probably not.) A very light weight light would be best. I'd rather build a couple of light-weight rigs out of CF bulbs and PVC pipe for this, but I can't see how to scrim that. Never used any sort of soft box, but maybe this is the place for one (thought I'm not sure how to scrim that, either.) Rosco View Option: I'm also considering rosco view soft gels (under clear plexi) for the windows, but it's expensive (this is super-low budget.) Natural light (which isn't affected as the cross-polarization darkens only the gelled windows) could then do most of the job lighting this small room, but I think I'll need some major light to balance ambience with the undiminshed brilliant sunbeam-lit surfaces. Day for night will be tricky as the rosco view darkening method would create a great imbalance between windows and the full-power daylight they let in. It would then be a balance between darkening the windows in that way, and using ND on the camera to darken ambience and make the sunbeams seem like moonbeams. I'm not sure I would then be able to make the practicals bright enough to sell that it's night. A challenge for a beginner (I'm probably missing something,) and whatever I do will be a compromise, but I'd welcome suggestions.

I've tried something different and it appears to work. Working on the inside of the windows, I layered soft gels (dry) between 1/8" tinted plexiglass and the window pane. A set of new and temporary window stops (3/16' x 3/16") hold the plexi in place, affixed with outdoor carpet tape for a strong but temporary bond (if not left on more than about a day. It will however remove any already weakened spots of existing wood finish and touch-up will be required.) The plexi has to be cut a bit smaller to allow it to expand and not want to bow out with the heat of the light it absorbs. Probably the gels too. The stops conceal the resulting light gap. And everything stays perfectly flat. No wrinkles at all. It helps to be able to snap out this entire window sash and assemble all this with the pane lying flat. I've added up to 3 layers of soft gel in there, and the gels come out just as perfectly flat as when I put them in. Stored between sheets of stacked plexi of this identical size (I'l be making 16) in a box of the same size should keep everything in great shape (This is a very dry climate so that should help.) In this case I'm going to be shooting many projects over a year in the space, so it's worth it (not very $, actually) to mill and stain these stops and cut all the plexi (that's the $$ part, even with standard industrial tinted plexi from one batch - can't afford that many hard gels.) Many other materials would work for glass stops other than wood. The whole assembly actually appears to stay in place just with friction but I'm not trusting that. The attached images show only one layer behind the tinted plexi to balance when so much light is still coming in (an uncorrected pane is visible above the corrected one.) When the space is darkened with all the windows gelled and the space lit (1k in this 12x12 room) I have to add another layer as I light and open up. And yet another soft gel for DFN (maybe a blue one.)

The latest is that - according to my local gel supplier - this should work (and allow me to reuse the gels if I also store them between layers of plexi.) So I've ordered a piece of plexi to test and will report, but if anyone's tried this - and/or has tips - please let me know.

Thankyou Georg. I'm assuming from the above (and from 35mm reputations) that the Tokina and Tamron would have visibly lower quality? Thanks to your suggestions I've discovered that Tokina and Tamron in fact do have the shortest mid-range 2.8 lenses I can find (16 - 50 and 16- 55.) Cheapest, too, at about $600 ($900-1000 with converter). There are 17 to 55 / 2.8s from Nikon (about 1800 with converter) and canon (about 1400 with converter.) thanks DG

Speaking in those terms, I need a (max) 12mm to (min) 40mm zoom. Can find it neither designed for Micro 4:3, nor for 35mm cameras. Doesn't appear to exist. So it appears I have no choice but to down-adapt an existing lens. (Right?) And if I do, I'm wondering what to expect in terms of DOF. Also; in the long run I'd like to wokr out the bugs to taking the HDMI image out, so that would be quite a good image which (I wonder?) might lose some leica quality.

Not - I'd imagine - if you want the window in the shot... but thanks.

If my lovely 70-210 Angenieux f3.5 (nice shallow dof) Leica R mount lens is adapted to a GH2, x2 (the nature of the 4/3rds adaptation) it becomes a 140 - 420. If I put a .2x fish eye converter in front, it's now a 28 - 84 f 3.5 ; the specs I'm looking for, but with the shallow DOF of the telephoto (which I think could be great for what I need.) (Perhaps at the expense of decresing the sharpness by magnifying the imperfections of the fisheye.) I wonder if I'm predicting the results accurately... Thoughts welcome. There's nowhere nearby with the gear to test it.

Even used dry (plexi/pressure to hold it in place?)

Thanks Gary, well if that's the case then I should consider my wide Leica lenses. But I'd have to use a .5x wide angle converter to get them back to their intended length, which feels like a hack. But maybe any loss of resolution wouldn't be aparrent down resed toHD from the CMOS res. What do you think? Compared to my leicas, I can't see any wider faster zoom lens (my ideal for what I'm doing) in this list of four thirds lenses. http://www.four-thirds.org/en/microft/lense.html I don't see any wider faster fixed-length lenses either. Yeah I know what you mean about focus. Come to think of it, more likely I manually focus (esp at wide aperature), dial in a correction to ensure that I'm not blowing out any highlights and let AE take it from there. When I'm focussed on the performance it's hard to monitor all the adjustments (the other day my finger was in the frame of the tiny test camera I"m using to shoot rehearsals and I didn't notice it most of the time. But no budget means I'm the entire crew)

Thanks Georg. Been to that site. I'm pretty sure I read that lenses were effectively lengthened in the adaptation process from Leica to Canon. Maybe on that very site... I'm shopping for a DSLR. The long takes, possible (but arduous to accomplish) HDMI out, and non-moire features of the GH2 are appealing when compared to the Canon. But less bokeh is a big strike against it There are 3 versions of the Elmarit 24 - I'm not sure which one I have as that site names them identically. Wonder if all are minolta-based? Others I have: Vario Elmar 35-70/3.5 Macro Elmarit 60/2.8 Telyt 250/4 Also third party: Schneider Kreusnen PA 35/4 Angenieux 70-210/3.5 In reality though I'm not sure I can effectively shoot my little handheld dramas without at least one of either auto-focus or auto-aperature, so the leica lenses may keep gathering dust anyway no matter what camera I get. I love the bokeh so maybe it'll be a Canon, short takes, and no tweed jackets.

Anyone been using them happily? On a GH2 the adaptation doubles the focal length, (which defeats the usefulness of a 24mm, for example) and i can only find one compatible (55mm) front of lens wide angle converter which would then decrease the effective length by the same amount. By Optex and $30 so I wonder about quality. On an EOS adaptation seems to increase the length 1.5x. But most wide angles aren't compatible. thanks for any comments. (it's R series Leica lenses I'm wondering about, BTW.)

Thanks Jon. Do you think if I sandwich my layers of ND film (dry) behind plexiglass and the window pane the film will stay a) looking right and B ) reuseable?

And... The bronze plexi isn't appreciably darker So I'm thinking 1 layer of 13% plexi (-3 stops) over 2 layers of ND9 (2 x -3 stops) for DFD and another layer of ND9 (-3 stops) for DFN. (In all the above I'm talking 9 stops reduction for DFD, and 12 for DFN. Seems high, but that's what my tests show for optimal indoor exposure. Usually at 1/24 at about f5 (so I can use a portrait length standard lens) But never having used window gels I don't know that they won't stick together or wrinkle. If I use a firm stop (I think I can) to keep the plexi firm against the glass I mght be able to solve the second problem. onward..

Thought I'd activate this dormant string. I'm rigging my south-, east-, and west- facing heavily-windowed condo for regular shoots. It's a small place and the view from the windows is a big part of the appeal of the space at any time. A reusable material for darkening the windows makes sense. I've tested plexiglass, by using 4 layers of 60% (only stuff readily available) shadow cloth on all windows to bring down the ambience (as would plexiglass throughout) and shooting through netrually-tinted plexiglass layered at a 1'x1' hole in the cloth, on the sunniest day possible. (The cloth isn't feasible - looks like a big net to the camera from any spot in the condo.) Tested this in a 12' x 12' room with HVX200, DVX100, Nikon D90. 0 gain. Here's what worked best (HVX and D90): Day for Day: 3 layers 13% transmittance plexi (that's .2 % in total !) on S and W facing windows + 1K onto 10' clg in NW corner for room ambience Day for Night: another layer 13% plexi (.03 % in total !) on same windows + 1K same location for room ambience. Can't find a commercial plexiglass darker or thinner. A 7.5% product has recently been discontinued. These assemblies are quite costly (125$ for 4x8 sheet) so it'd be better to minimize number of layers. Minimum thickness of this plexi is 1/8" thus building the glass line out (3/8") to the frame for DFD and past it for the total thickness of 1/2" for DFN. Neither look right. Could apply some outside, but I can't think of a non-destructive way to reliably support layers of plexiglass on superheated window frames 5 stories above pedestrians. (And fewer layers would resolve this.) Other Options: Rosco's ND9 (about 10% trans.) is twice the cost of commercial plexi and would require just as many sheets. RoscoeView: Their RoscoView is super $$$$ ($1700 for 4x8) and if the camera rolls with respect to the window (as it can on a close oblique tilt) the polar filter has to twist or the window darkness changes. NOt as versatile as it seems, but the cost alone puts it in the stratosphere for my non-commercial short dramas. So here's my current plan: There's a darker Bronze plexiglass commercially available. I"m going to see if I can pull off DFD by sandwiching a complementary-coloured gel between it and the window (and hope to reuse that gel as much as possible) and add a layer of 13% plexi for DFN. Unless I can find a darker neutral grey plexi, this is the only other option I can see. The gel might sag, but the maximum pane size is only 32" x 26", so maybe not. Sunlight is often consistent where I live (calgary, canada) but changing outdoor illumination and sun direction will have to be handled with scrims on lights and good shooting plans. Testing on Panasonics may not have been the best choice as shadow noise meant I didn't want to use any gain. That would have allowed me to underlight or underexpose. But I figure worst case scenario was a good place to start. Doubling the light to 2K might help, but I don't think enough to remove another layer. And 1 is bright enough in that little space. So: onward with my testing. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks for the comments. The problem was a Premiere Pro setting for matrox Device COntrol. They are buried in several different places and all don't appear in each place. It turns out that Project>settings>Capture>DeviceControlSettings isn't the complete list of settings one would have every reason to think it is. There's also Edit>Preferences>Device Control>Devices>Matrox1394DeviceControl>Options> where Drop-Frame or Non-Drop frame is set separately for the Matrox Device Control as opposed to setting that for the entire project. Changed that setting and that appears to have fixed Batch Capture. My footage is drop-frame but this was set to non. That explains why there was actualy more of a problem capturing footage from long sequences with continuous time code (that's where Drop-Frame codes drops them out.) Incidentally, the canon HV30 I rented to test my tapes with couldn't be recognized by Premiere Pro - at least not on the early SP2 install I'm now working with. And yes, it's a PC.

Maybe so. Thanks for the idea. I know those that swear by that programme. I've just taken everything else off the machines in an effort to purify it for running PPro/Matrox on the advice of matrox and others, so that would be a last ditch effort.

I'm using Premiere Pro 1.5.1 with a matrox rtx.10 card, capturing in Adobe mode. Matrox mode (reputedly more reliable in this configuration) won't display 16x9 at the proper aspect ratio while previewing. I've recently done a clean install of windows and only this software, no luck. Just did another fresh install with only the first version of SP2 and am now trying that. I"ve rented a brand new Canon HV30 to see if that works, in which case it might point to the port on the XL2.

Sometimes the problem will occur on the first clip of a batch capture. Sometimes on the third or fourth. I can seldom capture more than that. Sometimes I can automatically capture one clip, sometimes not even that. The tape will always run back to a cue point well before "In" and begin rolling. Then no capture happens, the interface crashes, and the camera keeps playing. Sometimes it doesn't crash and I get an error message on the batch capture log, but it simply says that it failed to capture. Manual capture (hitting record on the capture interface while the camera is playing) always works, but it starts every clip at 00:00:00, so without the original code on the captured clip it makes finding the same location for more material later, and matching consecutive clips, difficult. I've been investigating many computer software and hardware resolutions without success. Even if I am batch capturing several parts of the same long take over a period when the camera did not stop, this is still what happens, so it doesn't seem to be related to time code issues related to stop/start while recording.