[Dan Brockett]

Their legs have a spreader, which makes my life difficult. It may or may not make your life difficult depending on what you shoot and where you shoot.

I do a lot of run and gun, outdoors in urban and natural settings and spreaders of any kind are a hindrance. I also like that the Miller will go so low that the tripod bowl adjustment is hitting the ground all of the way up to something like 69-72″ high, very versatile. No need for a high hat and I have been in situations where I can shoot over crowds because of the great height options on the Miller Solo DV legs. I have dragged my Sachtler/Miller combo all over the world over the past year and it has been perfect in almost every situation.

Those Sachtler legs don’t go tall enough or short enough for my shooting style but may work for you fine, we are all in different shooting situations.

Enjoy the head, it’s a keeper.

Dan

[Dan Brockett]

To me, the appeal of the HPX is that it is an amazing camera for not a lot of money. Figuring the body alone is $10,400.00, if you bought a $22,000.00 lens, while I am sure that it looks amazing, to me it undermines the whole reason for purchasing a low cost camera like the HPX.

I could live with the breathing on the lower end CAC lenses. I own the HVX-200, but I rent and shoot with the 500, 2000 and HDX-900 regularly. The HPX is very good and the footage intercuts with the HVX very nicely. Same chips, similar electronics, gamma and codec are identical. HPX is better in low light, cleaner because of 2/3″ chips but you really only notice it on interiors or low light. Of course, HPX has shallower depth of field and better lenses, but as far as colorimetry and look and feel, the two cut close to seamlessly in my experience. I have the Letus Extreme for the HVX so I can actually get shallower depth of field but I am told that Letus is coming out with a relay adapter for the HPX as well.

While the HPX is good, you are approaching a price point where you should consider a RED if you are a filmmaker. But of course, the HPX is superior to RED as an ENG/EFP tool. So it depends on what kind of production you are in.

Best,

Dan

[Dan Brockett]

I own the HVX-200 and have used it with the DV-6SB for a year. It works superbly, even when I have my fully loaded Letus Extreme, rails, matte box and follow focus, which, when paired with the Nebtek monitor, aproaches 20lbs. But I also use it with just the bare HVX, works perfectly either way.

Love my Sachtler but if you want the hot tip, pair the DV-6SB head with the Miller Solo DV legs, it is an awesome setup.

Dan

[Dan Brockett]

Hi Kevino:

Wow, small world, I returned from New York last night. shooting with our Reflecmedia System, which I brought all of the way from California because of the lack of rental units available in New York.

My suggestion is to contact http://www.birnsandsawyer.com

Yes, I know that they are in Hollywood but they can and do ship stuff to New York for us all of the time for shoots. We bought both of our ChromaFlex systems from them and they were both rental units. I assume that they have replaced them in their rental stock.

New York, because it’s a smaller rental market than LA, never has seemed to have this system available. I only know of two houses in LA that rent it, it’s still a relatively rare and inknown system. I have been very happy with it and have been using it a LOT over the past year or so, it makes greenscreen on location with minimal crew and lights a reality and it’s super easy to use.

Best,

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Yikes!

What a mess. Tom Wolsky told me that the version I was pointed to was also 1.1 (Calligraphy). But after installing the 1.1 version of Calligraphy, an item called Title 3D shows up in my broswer? I am totally confused. Bottom line is that FCP is working and booting without that stupid warning anymore.

Not sure which version is which and what the differences are and I have no Intel Macs to see if this version works.

All the best,

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Hi T.S.

You are a freakin’ genius for your suggestion. I re-installed and voila, there it was.

Thanks for the solution.

Chris, no offense taken.

All the best,

Dan

Providing value added material to all of your favorite DVDs

[Dan Brockett]

Hi Ty:

Very expensive with wimpy output compared to tungsten or fluoro. They are cool but I am waiting a few years for them to reduce price by at least half and double or triple output. Also, Barry Green reports that at least on the larger Litepanels, a noticeable shift in color when dimmed. I have used the smaller ones bit I did not dim it so I cannot comment on if the smaller Litepanels have the same color shift.

Have you looked at the VidLEDs? Not nearly as cool as the Litepanels but so much more affordable.

Best,

Dan

[Dan Brockett]

Hi Leo and Ty:

“The color temperature problem is really unsolvable by any practical means. Gelling the windows is far too time-consuming and very difficult to do transparently enough so that it does not show. Gelling the lamp with full blue knocks the output down to a meager level even with a 1000W lamp. There is no way include a day-lit window in the shot without profound blowout. If this is your artistic preference, fine; if not, it’s not acceptable.

I think most of us have to shoot people in offices with large exposures of windows and the only viable options are HMI or beefy fluorescent fixtures.”

I do sometimes shoot in these office situations but I usually throw a 12′ wide piece of Duvetyne over the window. Doesn’t change overall color temp but makes it so that you can actually get some punch out of a CTB covered 1k in close-up shots. It’s easy, I rarely try to compete with daylight streaming through windows unless I have HMIs to play with.

“A diffusion of the same size as a Chimera in front of a Kino Flo 400 will produce the same degree of softness.”

Sure, the same degree of softness but definitely not the same throw or wrap with a Diva with diffusion on it. I find that when I put diffusion on the fronts of Divas, they lose so much throw that they become almost useless past a couple of feet away. Pair this with competing with ambient daylight levels and IMHO, Kinos get just as wimpy, if not more on the output as a tungsten with CTB.

Case in point, I shot an interview with pop artist Ed Ruscha a few weeks ago in his Venice studio. The room featured two large skylights. The BG elements we ended up including in the frame happened to put Ruscha directly underneath one of these skylights. I keyed his interview with a small Chimera with an Arri 1k open face punched through full CTB. With the Chimera placed about 3 feet to Ruscha’s face, I was able to obtain a perfect key source that blended nicely with the daylight.

Nothing wrong with Kinos, I like mine. But I do not like the color renditions of the KF 29 Kino lamps and I do not think that they match tungsten instruments very well. The Kinos are expensive for what they are, I am much more satisfied with my homemade Diva 200s than with the real Divas I have rented. If Ty can afford more than his stated $1,500.00 budget, the Kinos or Moles are great but for sticking to his budget, I feel that they are not the best recommendation.

Best,

Dan

[Dan Brockett]

Hi guys:

While I feel your pain, you are suffering from the grass is always greener syndrome. If you are a pro, buy the gear and make money with it, a new upgrade of processor or a free 8 GB P2 card are nothing in comparison to the profit that your newish gear should have made you.

There will always be a newer faster Mac just a few months away. If you are a long time Mac user, you can usually (not always) logically predict when the new models will be announced, if not necessarily when they will be shipping.

As far as the 8GB P2 card, sure, it’s nice, who wouldn’t want it, but OTOH, wasn’t it nice having a shiny new kick ass HVX for the past few months? I bought four of them this year and between the revenue they have generated and the revenue they have saved over renting Varicams and F900s, they have been worth their weight in gold. We bought 10 8GB P2 cards this year. Expensive? Sure, but not in comprison to “real” HD gear that we thought we might have to buy in 2006.

And if you buy an HVX before NAB, you will probably have kittens when the new killer HVX-200A with built-in cappucino machine is announced at NAB, but will ship until January 2008. It’s never going to end guys, get used to it.

OTOH, if you are a hobbiest, well, yep, damn, you bought too soon, wait until 2009 when the HVX-300A is introduced! 😉 As for me, I am making money and shooting better looking images than I ever thought I could.

Best,

Dan

[Dan Brockett]

Hi Leo:

Good points you made. Just as an addition, the Chimera kit that I recommend is also available as a 750 watt and 1,000 watt bulb setup for a few bucks more. I find the 500 watts with a small Chimera is more than adequate for most interior situations where I can control ambient lighting. I agree that if you must deal with ambient daylight, either the 1K tungsten or the daylight balanced lights are a better bet. But with the additional cost for the Kinos or Moles, we then crowd out Ty’s budget for the rest of the needed gear.

I have rented the Divas many times and recently built two of my own homemade Diva 200s. After testing them, I have a few observations. The quality of light from a Diva is quite a bit harsher than a small Chimera with an eggcrate. The Kino has less wrap and much shorter falloff than with a tungsten instrument. True the Divas can accept the KF29 and KF55 biax lamps but honestly, I am discovering that the KF29 lamps look pretty bad, with either green, pink or magenta spikes. The daylight KF55 lamps are better, I recommend NOT using the 55 watt biax lamps in the KF2900 Kino flavor at least. I would still like to test some other brands to determine if this is a Kino issue or a 55 watt Biax issue.

The other drawback is that if you are using a Diva with the KF55 daylight lamps, what is Ty going to use as a hairlight and BG light if his key source is daylight balanced? I guess he could go very orange but that might not suit the project. IMHO, if you go daylight whether with HMIs or fluoros, you need a full daylight kit of at least two if not three or four daylight instruments. As you know, gelling a tungsten instrument with full CTB or dichroics cuts the output, usually to about 50%. I am also skeptical about the ability of accurately color balancing daylight Kinos with CTB or dichroic treated tungstens.

While Kinos and Mole fluoros are nice lights, I think for Ty’s limited budget, they are a door to a more expensive solution than his budget supports. The full Diva 400 kit is close to $1,100.00 to $1,200.00 isn’t it? Doesn’t leave him much to buy other lights or gripology.

All the best,

Dan