[John Sharaf]

Jeffrey,

The most elegent solution to supplementing available fluorescent lighting is to “poison” a 4′ Kino Flo instrument with the same globes as are in the ceiling and bring the light in from a conventional floor mounted position; then selectively turning off some of the globes directly overhead (to eliminate the overexposed nose and deep set eye look). White balance and go!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Thomas,

I find in general that half the usual filtration is what’s appropriate for HD, such that the 1/8th Promists act like a 1/4. I use ProMists, Soft FX’s and small amounts of Classic Softs, but usuallu only upon the insistance of the client or subject, preferring to shoot “straight”. Of course for “effects” the sky’s the limit. Be careful to judge the effect of your filtration on a large native resolution Hd monitor.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Oraxio,

Shooting in cars can be tricky! The only simple fix to your problem is to either use a polarizing filter (properly oriented to comnpensate for the angle of reflection) or perhaps to stage the direction of car travel to minimize the light on the windsheild itself.

Otherwise the solution pecomes exponentially more complicated; namely “roofing” the area from the windscreen forward and using artificial (day)light to illuminate the actors in the front seat. This will necessitate towing the car as the drivers vision will be obstructed by the rig and the lights in his/her eyes. Power for the lighting can be carried in the tow vehicle, either 120 batteries/invertor or a generator.

Another alternative is to “process” the shot by shooting on a stage or other controlled area, with a blue or green screen in the backround, shooting plates to composit into the screened area and recreating the daylight lighting quality on the car and the actors.

Hope this helps!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Zeliha,

The real question is “what’s the difference between 59.94 and 60?”

This all started when color was introduced to the broadcast signal. The additional requirement of the “color burst” meant that the video frame rate had to adjusted to 29.97 to fit it all in (basically 1000 divided by 1001).

Since that time all NTSC color video has been at the “fractional” frame rate of 29.97.

Even though your HD video is not NTSC, the reality is that it will be downconverted to be editing (offline) and exhibited on Standard Def broadcasts, so the frame rates must conform to the NTSC standards. There will eventually come a time (many years from now) when these fractional speeds will go away, but only after abandoning the current archive of NTSC origionated sync sound material.

It’s really about the sound now, because all TV sound is recorded, edited and transmitted at this 29.97 frame rate; if you shot the picture at the “whole” frame rate, the sound would be out of sync.

The confussion comes in the camera speed setting sections of the modern HD cameras. Panasonic has made it simpler than Sony, by allowing you to set the “systems frequency” at either 59.94 or 50/60 (depending on the particular model). Once this setting is established the frame rate is referred to by the whole number thereafter (24, 25, 30 or 60). Suffice it to say that you always want the 59.94 setting if you are shooting for a NTSC market (or filmout that will be edited in a 24fps timeline). The only reason to set the camera at 50/60 is to allow a 25 or 50 frame rate for PAL.

The Sony cameras offer all the speed in the selection menu (23.97, 24, 25, 29.97, 50, 59.97) and some of the older cameras offer 30 and 60 too, but these would never be used and have been eliminated from the F900R menu, acknowleding how long it will be before NTSC disapears completely.

There is one occasion when you might consider shooting “hard” 24; that is when you are using your HD camera to shoot MOS (without sound) material for filmout that will be inserted directly into A&B rolls of film negative for conventional film printing, but this too is becoming almost moot, as most films are finished electronicly in a DI (Digital Intermediate) process and only “filmed-out” or transfered to actual film at the very last stage.

It might be helpful to know that even film that is shot at 24fps essentially becomes 23.97 when converted to video/digital in the telecine (even though the with the pulldown it more accurately is described as 29.97).

Suffice it to say that this is a very esoteric discussion and the real answer can be summarized to be as I stated earlier that you always want to shoot the “fractional” speeds (even though they might be referred to as whole numbers, unless you are shooting for PAL or 25fps filmout (European Standard – because the power there runs at 50hz vs. our 60hz, so the timing is different, meaning for example our electric clocks would run slow there and their clocks fast here!).

I hope this helps.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Paulos,

The main advantage is that you can use glass intended for 2/3″ camera which is more professiuonal and better designed and engineered. Your lens investment is also futureproofed for when you later buy a 2/3″ camera (which you surely will).

The disadvantage is that the lenses designed for the bigger imager (2/3″) will be more telephoto when used on the smaller imager (1/2″) so that it will be next to impossible to make a wide angle shot, especially to do so for 4×3 use or for 4×3 protected area.

Hope this helps!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Zeliha,

The whole idea of “DV” (and subsequently DVCPRO) is to import, edit and export in the “native” codec. This way there is no longer any destinction between “off-line” and “on-line”; you only edit once.

It is therefore the normal workflow to do all this without “converting” to SD or HD-SDI at least until the output. This will preserve the quality best!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Peter,

You are very well informed as regards this new “500” camera, which as far as I know was just introduced this week here in the states. We’re you able to see one? You describe the iomager as 600K, do know the actual dimensions?

Thanks,

JS

[John Sharaf]

Russ,

More or less! The “2000” camera is positioned to compete with the 2/3″ XDCAM when it comes to market. I suspect the price of the P2 camera plus five cards will equal the list price of the 2/3″ XDCAM of approximately $33-35K (plus optional boards). JMHO.

[John Sharaf]

Yeah, just like it’s little brother the HVX200; it’s basically a Standard Def CCD imager, but with pixel shifting it increases the “resolution” so that they can make HD out of it. Common sense tells you that they’re not going to give away a more expensive imager or compete with their own $26K product (namely the “2000” P2 camcorder). I stand to be corrected, but at best I’d say the imager is like 800×600?

[John Sharaf]

Russell,

Absolutely not! Please note carefully that although the camera is 2/3″ imager, it’s HD formats are “interpreted” by pixel shifting a SD sped’d CCD. The P2 “replacement” of the Varicam will be a high-end product, hopefully offering a 2.2million pixel imager that will natively offer both 1920×1080 and 720 formats onto the new AVC codec which effectively doubles the capacity at DVCPRO100 quality or doubles the quality to D5 like specs. It would be nice to see higher frame rates like 120fps too!

While the origional Varicam was positioned as a “cine” camera replacement, it’s likely that other models in the future will evolve for that purpose, which 35mm sized CMOS imagers that will allow the use of film lenses. The evolved Varicam will probably bring film-like features to the high-end of broadcast work.

It’s dificult to predict what the camera manufacturers will do, because they are often driven by marketing concerns rather than what is technically possible, thus the confussion about what a $14K 2/3″ camera really is meant for!

JS