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Hi everyone, I have an upcoming shoot in Malaysia, pretty near to the equator so the sun is mostly high and bright in the sky and I am thinking of ways how to control the sun without fighting with it. I have a scene where I have an air-well (hole in the ceiling) that allows sun light to come straight down, but I would like to be able to control the angle of the light falling on to the set. Do you think its possible to do this with 2 4x4 mirrors so that I can take advantage of the sunlight throughout the whole day and control its direction coming on to the set? I have done bellow a small crude plan of what I mean. Theoretically I guess it makes sense but practically I have no idea if it will, has anyone tried something like this before and did it work? In the plan bellow I have numbered 2 diffrent set-ups: 1) If we have nice direct sun light and no clouds. 2) If the day is cloudy and there is no direct sunlight. The plan bellow is not up to scale the height between the air-well and the subjects is probably 20ft. This is the effect I am hoping to achieve with the 2 mirrors. P.S We are planing on building our own 4x4 mirrors any tips would be much appreciated as I really haven't worked with mirrors that much. Thanks a lot! Boris

Hello everyone! I'm one more time asking for your help on this forum! I'm shooting a short-film and I got this shot in which the camera dollies left filming photos that are framed up on the wall. It's kind of a close up and I don't want to see my reflection in the glass of the frames, then the camera stops as we see the reflection of the actress in one of the frames. So I was thinking of maybe removing all the glass except on the frame in which we're supposed to see the reflection of the actress and then re-add the glass in post using after effect, but is that possible? And how much of a headache is that going to be? Has anyone ever done that in post? If I use a filter on the lens to remove reflections I'm not gonna be able to see the reflection of the actress on the frame... Any ideas anyone? It's a scene taking place in daylight, in a pretty bright, white wood living room. Thank you so much!

Hi everyone! I'm shooting a music video very soon and the client is looking for this in-camera effect. Almost like kaleidoscope. I understand there are some type of mirrors involved but not sure how to achieve it. Does anyone here have any suggestions? Thanks, Jonas

Hello, I haven't had a chance to use mirrors on sets yet. My question is : if your goal is to reflect a light source onto the subject, to extend the virtual source to subject distance for fall-off reasons, or for any other reasons, how does the area of the mirror influence the lighting ? especially for Fresnels, or any relatively small and harsh sources ? Unrelated PS : David Mullen, please come and show The Love Witch in France, I want to see that film !!

Hi you all :) I'm trying to figure out the exact timing of the mirror vs. the registration pins in camera using Mitchell type of movement and 170° shutter angle. My camera is a Russian made Soyuz US3N so it is not a exact copy but close enough to some mitchells. Generally, when are the reg pins supposed to engage in Mitchell movement and when they should retract compared to the mirror edge? I have to be able to time this myself every now and then because of lubricating etc. so can't ship it to a camera tech. The movement should be in factory specs so no need to adjust it, so... Are the pins supposed to engage just a tiny bit before the shutter opens so that the pins retract a moment before the shutter closes for film transport and the claws start to transport film a tiny bit before the shutter is fully closed, or... ...are they supposed to engage at the exact moment the shutter opens so that the shutter can fully close before film transport begins but the tiny moment the shutter opens may have some instability when the pins are centering the film, or... ...is the timing in the video about right? to me it looks like it is just a tiny bit off and the pins should engage just a tiny bit quicker after the shutter has passed to ensure the stability of the start of the exposure. but am I then risking instability at the end of the exposure? This is pretty difficult trial and error to time because of the wormgear like gears used in the camera but I can live with a little off timing :rolleyes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BITn7xuDses I also asked this at Motion Picture Technology group on Facebook, let's see what they think... :lol:

Hello All, A fellow Super-8 fan here. I've recently dug up an old Canon Auto Zoom 318M and gave the unit a bit of a clean up - cleaned inside the battery compartment, resoldered some weak joins etc and so forth, anyway, the camera is in what I think is good opperating condition it seems, motor runs nicely, zoom works (can be seen from outside the lens) except for the view finder. I believe the mirror had been dislodged long before I got my hands on it. It was ratteling around but was able to get it out safely when I took one side panel off (It was just floating were the trigger is). What I'm looking for is a repair manual or even a direction to a site if anyone has a repair or disasembly detailed. I can't for the life of me remove the left hand side cover (battery compartment side), hoping that I will be able to re-fit the dislodged mirror for the viewfinder to get this little beauty operational again. It seems useable as it is, however I wouldn't want to waste valuable film by just guessing. Any help would be much appreciated. Ross