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What is this stills cam used in major Hollywood films?


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DSLR's make noise when you take pictures. You can't have "noise" on a film set. So yes, all "set" photographers have special boxes that wrap around their cameras to prevent "noise" from getting in the audio recordings of the films they work on.

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Mirrorless cameras with turned on electronic shutter only and all sounds off still not good enough? :)

Established pros don't use them yet. They're still on Canon or Nikon DSLRs.

But probably not- they still make some sound. You can't blow a $50,000 take and keep your job.

 

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"During the shooting of a movie, the sound engineer is very strict and

needs absolute silence to ensure the control of the sound captured.

Photographers have to use a blimp, it’s a sort of box in which you put the

camera in, it is noise canceling. That’s very expensive, heavy, very restrictive

regarding the controls and is then annoying to use. The Sony A7RII is a little

revolution of its own.

 

It is quite surprising at the beginning and you have to get used to it as

you’re not sure to have pushed enough the shutter button."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOURCE: Being A Movie Set Photographer: Alex Pixelle

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I seem to recall a stills photographer telling me that the auto-focusing, when necessary, wasn't fast enough yet on the mirrorless cameras that they tested, or there was some other sort of issue when not using the physical shutter in the camera to keep it silent.

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I seem to recall a stills photographer telling me that the auto-focusing, when necessary, wasn't fast enough yet on the mirrorless cameras that they tested, or there was some other sort of issue when not using the physical shutter in the camera to keep it silent.

 

That's part of the problem. The other part is the mirrorless cameras for some odd reason, aren't fast enough either. They don't have enough cache memory, so the buffer fills up fast and strings of repeat shots aren't possible.

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Many years ago. More than 10 I think. I worked on a fairly major feature film. The stills person was one of the top Hollywood guys and he was using a "digicam". Before we called em' "mirrorless" he was using an "all in one" digital camera with a fixed zoom lens.

 

Sure, it wasn't a low light situation, but it was probably only 6 mpx. And it was silent, without a blimp.

 

So, it's happened. At least once!

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here it is common to have a short separate photo session after certain key scenes and the stills photographer may also take photos when the actors are rehearsing the scene.

I have never seen a sound blimp used here when shooting on-set photos but mirrorless cameras with electronic shutters are much more common than few years ago.

 

one of the problems with taking the stills during the actual shooting is that the best angles may be reserved for the movie camera and one only gets some mediocre off-axis photos from the side which is not very productive compared to having a possibility to separately shoot photos after the scene with possibility to direct the actors for the stills only

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Established pros don't use them yet. They're still on Canon or Nikon DSLRs.

But probably not- they still make some sound. You can't blow a $50,000 take and keep your job.

 

 

 

I dont think thats true so much these days.. the stills guy I work with alot.. on corps not features.. but we still cant have shutter noise recorded !.. has switched to Sony A9,A7rIII,from Canon.. and there is really zero sound when shutter sound is off.. AF on these new generation camera,s is very fast and accurate .. not just the Sony ..

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Established pros don't use them yet. They're still on Canon or Nikon DSLRs.

But probably not- they still make some sound.

 

No, they really don't - not the ones with an electronic shutter and a "stealth mode". However, the e-shutter can suffer from jello. And Sony have an appalling reputation for support among stills photographers, although I think they're trying to fix that for pro's now.

Edited by David Mawson
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Established pros don't use them yet. They're still on Canon or Nikon DSLRs.

But probably not- they still make some sound. You can't blow a $50,000 take and keep your job.

 

 

I just bought 2 C-stands from this guy. He sold his DSLRs and switched to the FUJI X-T2*. He was very glad to be rid of his sound blimps.

 

I dare you to tell him he's not an established pro (after you look at his portfolio). He just finished a pilot for a show that got picked up by ABC. The star is a former Miss America turned award-winning actress.

 

The sound guys all love him.

 

*I shoot with the X-T1, among other cameras. I'm not in the motion picture industry.

Edited by Chris J. Zahller
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