[John Sharaf]

Rich,

You keep coming up with good exposure questions!

Obviously at the “start” of each scene/shot you should adjust the exposure to an optimum setting. Sometimes of course as you move around, into and out of the light or from from frontlight to backlight the exposure will change, and you should make smooth adjustments to the iris just as you do to the focus. It helps to anticipate these changes by looking with your other eye as you move about and time the change of the iris to match the change in light. Over time and with practice you might be able to do this so it’s not noticable; a good camera operator can certainly do this better than the auto iris! I can tell from your question that you are sensative to the problem of making the adjustment at the wrong time and ruining the shot.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Rich,

Bottom line is expose to see the necessary shaddow detail, the area above 108 ire will be “clipped” by the camera to prevent further overexposure and no detail will be present there. All cameras, even your consumer model have clip circuits, although they might not be adjustible.

This problem of dynamic range and compressed highligts is only dealt with in the latest high end SD and HD cameras where “cine gamma” curves compress the highlights to mimic the way film looks and as a result hold some detail in the overexposed areas. One can not expect an inexpensive consumer camera to do the same thing. Think “compromise” in prices yields compromised picture quality, it’s a natural law of video photography!!!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Michael,

If you shoot the origional at 30p, then whatever conversion method you use will interpolate the two successive progressive fields into identical interlaced fields, which subjectively should preserve some of the progressive look even though it is now displayed in interlace!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Ray,

I’m not sure that what you’re describing is a sync issue! Others have reported similar monitoring problems using the 1200A in the edit room situation. I think it’s a deck/FCP issue. Please let us know if you’re able to solve it.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Bruce,

Yeah, your CCU worked fine with my cameras. I’m not sure it was connected to the one that had just had the software upgrade, but whatever controller that camera was connected to did work fine, so I’m not inclined to think it’s an upgrade issue.

Let’s get together and sort this out!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Leo,

I’m so “on-board” the Varicam train that I now have three units in my fleet; so I sort of have to rent them out to other folks, usually camerapeople I know or who are referred to me. I’ve been in this type of boutique rental business for a long time now, mostly with Ikegami Beta camcorders and Joker HMI lights, so I’ve developed a method, based on trusting my feelings whether I’ll rent to a particualar party or not. I usually ask about the type of show, what they’ll be shooting, how big the crew is, etc. If I get any sense that the production company is ill financed, slipshod or that I’ll have trouble collecting the rental bill, then I just don’t do it.

In addition I have a rental agreement which I boilerplated from one of the big rental houses that I make the client sign and in addition I always require a proper insurance certificate for liability in the amount of one million dollars and equipment insurance to the value of the rental; so far I haven’t had any insumountable problems using these safeguards.

Also, on occassion, I subrent through another established rental house, but traditionally they only pay about 60% of the discounted price on a three day week, so I net about 42% of book price daily or 1.3x book for a week. For a Varicam body, that’s only about $650/week, so I don’t cherish this type of business and neither should anyone else who thinks these type of rentals will pay for their camera. the best scenario continues to be foe an owner/operator who can generate several days of business per week or more!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Rodrigo,

The EC3 is a very valuable accessory for a Varicam system; it does access all the menues and it’s actually easier to navigate through them with a remote controller whilst looking at a monitor rather than thru the viewfinder. Furthermore it’s very reasonably priced. I’d suggest a 30 meter cable in addition to the short one meter version than accompanies the unit.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Only if you want it to look like video!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Ray,

When I was faced with this issue, I was also concerned about distributing the sync, time code and video (both HD-SDI and downconverted NTSC for monitoring). After considerable research I purchased an Evertz frame and all these cards which fit inside; it’s become my HD infrastructure and eventually anyone who is doing multicam HD production will need these things, either you can piecemeal them or come up with a neater systems type solution!

JS

[John Sharaf]

James,

The comparison you request really does not compute, because the tungsten equivilent of the 1200 HMI would be a 5K unit or a 10K unit if corrected for daylight (in order to match intensity and color as you specify). The largest convenient fluorescent unit is probably the Kino Wall of light and with daylight tubes it probably would equal or surpass the 1200 HMI. Furthermore it’s advantage is the smaller footprint in exchange for the large source size and also it’;s current efficiency.

There are some DP’s and LD’s who prefer the tungsten source because of it’s predicable color over HMI’s and fluorescents, but with video, I’m confident that I can white balance any varients or spikes away.

I agree with Leo, when he says that outside of the studio, it’s obvious to favor the fluros and HMI’s because of the lack of heat, daylight capabilities and efficiencies. If they were the same price as tungsten units we wouldn’t even be having this discussion!

JS