Daniel Stigler

Be sure to get a camera with single frame capabilities. I think the Eclair NPR does the trick, but i'm not sure.

I assume you want to buy a second hand lens. I see Kilfitt Macro Kilars on eBay for 150-200 $ every now and then.

Hm, i had a look and found a music video ( ) i shot as DP. Honestly i don't care.

You can ask Geckocam (www.gecko-cam.com) or P&S Technik (www.pstechnik.de). Both are located in Munich, Germany and offer some service for Aatons.

That depends on the lens you are putting on the camera. You will have to get a macro lens.

I check the lenses during prep and if one should be off (which rarely happened to me) i ask for another one.

I'm used to do 5-7 minutes a day for television series which is pretty tough. On musicvideos and commercials it varies widely. All musicvideos i worked on were shot in either one or two (long) days. The fastest commercial i did was half a day, the slowest 5 days with one shooting day where we did 1,5 seconds of screening time.

The blimped BNC weighs 122lbs, the unblimped NC 70lbs.

The longest lens with a PL mount i know of is a 1000mm. As far as i know there are two of them available in Germany. Vantage makes a huge zoom that goes from 150mm to 450mm.

Check www.arri.com The last cameras they introduced were the Arricam Studio and Lite, Arriflex 235 and the Arriflex 416. In that order. The 435 was updated as well.

I'm deadserious. http://www.thedopshop.com/item.cfm?itemID=211

From what you wrote so far i can see that never before loaded or unloaded a mag. So i have to say again: Get a shortend and practice loading in daylight without the bag until it feels safe. Then practice in the bag. It won't take you that long to figure it all out but it is time well spent. When labeling the mags use a different color of tape for each emulsion; that way it's easier to avoid mistakes. There are a lot a differences in what people write on the mag labels. I like to have the emulsionnumber, the sensitivity and kind of stock, amount of film loaded, batch number, mag number and roll number(for example 100T, 5212/046014.014.13/122m/Mag2/#26). Write the roll number on the label when you thread the roll. This might seem like a lot of numbers to some people, but in case something gets wrong it makes it easier to findout what might be the reason.

Tell your gaffer to check the HMIs with a flickermeter when getting the gear. I have set cameras to all kinds of combinations of shutter angles and running speeds (and ramps) and there never were any problems with flickerfree ballasts.

To compare a reading taken with an incident lightmeter to a reading taken through the camera (spot) the camera needs to be pointed at a greycard. Did you do this?

The only brand of changing tents i ever came across is Harrison (http://www.cameraessentials.com/). Like Rory said, it would be a smart plan to start with a bag. When using the bag slide in both arms, point one arm up on the inside and open the sleeve of that arm with the other hand. You will feel air streaming into the bag; then let the seam close again. That way you avoid vacuum effects, that make working in the bag a little harder. At least for me. Get a shortend to practice loading and unloading.

A lot of current HD cameras aren't as fast as 500 ASA filmstock is. This might be one reason the companies selling these videothings never give a sensitivity rating of their sensors in ASA.

You could experiment with older lenses, for example Cooke S2s. They are rather soft and vignette whith open Iris.

I also think the problem might be the open aperture. A while ago i worked on a low budget show. We shot with an SRI and old Zeiss Standard primes. The stuff we shot at day (T4 - T8 i would say) came out fine, while everything shot at night (T2) looked pretty soft. I'm sure this wasn't due to poor focusing...

This was discussed a couple of times already, i think. Does it really make sense to get "serious" gear? You will have to rent it to serious productions that can pay you enough so you get even. But along with that there will be serious demands, like a wide variety of accesories, prep space, etc... And then you are running a serious rental business. By the way: i know one DoP in Germany who owns a 435 (a tuned up Advanced). He's good friends with the ARRI guys and tests a lot of their new developments. And many others who own BL1s, IICs or 16BLs they rarely use on paid jobs or rent out.

I use a XXL backpack raincover you can get at hiking stores. It covers the whole camera. What do you use to shield the batteries?

In Germany S16 is the standard for TV series and TV movies. Nearly all of it is shot in that format. A couple of years ago when the HD craze was on the rise producers were really crazy about it believing all this nonsense like you don't have to light HD and it's all a lot cheaper, blablabla. Now they learned their lessons and it's all back to film. In commercial work, which i do mostly these days, it's 90% 35mm.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Are you talking about the markings on the groundglass?

You are moving from camera operator to AC? How come? Be aware that you will get a lot of the stuff you'll need for AC work at hardware stores, photo stores, hiking and sailing supply stores and special tools can usually be bought from camera rental places which you will have to visit anyways to prep the gear. It makes no sense to buy your own tape. It's a standard on expedables lists (along with eyecushions, Kimwhipes, DustOff, ...) and production pays for those.

When i first shot with a IIC i hooked it to a 12V battery. I could clearly tell from the running sound that speed was changing wildly. I got 16V batteries and shot the steadytest again...

If you stick to an exposure time of 1/48th for each frame i am sure the effect will look just like with 24fps. But this effect also depends heavily on the amount of offset (of course) and what your actual picture will be. Are you shooting at night or at day? Is there anything moving in the picture, what colors are the moving parts, etc. If you can't do tests you should better check with production if the smear effect can be done in post.