John Sharaf
Forum Replies Created
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Craig,
PL mount lenses can be very large and heavy, so serious “support” is required to keep the alignment correct and the lens mount from being damaged. This has required after market suppliers like Solid Camera, Hot Rod Camera, Element Technica, Zacuto, Chroszeil, Vocus, Arri and others to design complete systems for this purpose, not to mention balancing the load on the tripod head.
A prime lens can weight 4-6 pounds and a large zoom like a 12X Optimo is 24 lbs and almost 18″ long, which creates a lot of leverage. Even full sized movie and digital movie cameras require a support system for these lenses, the lens mount adapter you mention is just one part of the necessary kit.
JS
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Todd,
I’d rather chime in on your reply!
I’d recommend the Sony F3, especially now that they’re essentially including the S-Log and 444RGB features for free (thanks in large part to the competition of the C300). I’ve been using F3’s for almost a year now and am very happy with their flexibility, sensitivity and great rendition of skin tone (watch the Katie Couric interview with Eva Longoria this week on GMA – all three shots with F3’s), and on the horizon is the new NEX FS700 which is a 4K version of the FS100 and kitted out with the Solid Camera add-ons becomes a very robust, compact 35mm sensor PL-Mount camera for about $12K. The imager must be related to that in the new F65 camera.
The recording format weakness with the FS100 (and lack of full quality output spigot, which also hampers the C300) will be accommodated with a full 444-10 bit or more output in the FS700. You’ll probably also see this camera kitted out with Solid Camera accessories at the Sony booth at NAB. You still need this type of 3rd party kit to convert the NEX’s to PL mount, but with adapters (unlike the C300) you can use any mount (E,PL, Nikon, Canon, etc.).
While 4K exhibition in the near term will be limited to high end cinema use, the ability to “down-sample” from 4K to HD will defiantly enhance the image and minimize moire and artifacts, and find additional use in VFX’s. There will be lots of 4K stuff at NAB this year.
JS
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Now that more information has been forthcoming, I’d consider using the off camera windows as the key source and 4×8′ B&W Foam core to control the negative or positive fill and other unwanted spill. Maybe use the one tungsten light with daylight correction and diffusion for eye lite or scratch lite. Just a thought.
You’ll still need the proper amount of ND window gel (likely ND.9) to see out the on screen window. Mount it on the outside to eliminate reflections.
In some cases, available light is the best and most elegant solution.
JS
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Marc,
Two possibilities:
One is that the detail is turned off already. The skin tone deatil feature merely subtracks the detail in the keyed area from the overall detail setting. Perhaps your detail level is so low or off that it is therefore having no effect.
A second possibility is that the skin tone detail level, the control which regulates the amount of detail subtracted in the key area is set too high so that even though the effect is turned on and the keyed area determined the amount of reduction is not enough.
Good luck,
JS
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Hi Brad,
First rule of motion picture globes is never touch them with your bare fingers, always use pice of paper or clean gloves, otherwise the grease on your skin will remain on the globe and cause a failure such as the one you describe. I’m not accusing you per se, but someone must have mishandled the globe. They’re cheap, just buy another (and a few spares too).
Good luck,
JS
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Perhaps it too obvious, but if they have a capture card, they can always bring in as base-band video, although this defeats the benefits of file based media and ties up the camera (if used for playback) and cards for an additional amount of time; but might provide a stop gap until they do decide to upgrade their FCP system.
JS
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Laura,
Check the GAMMA setting in the PP menu. It sounds like one is on 709 and the other is in one of the CINE settings; this would account for differences in brightness and saturation.
JS
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Richard,
The F3 can be made into a run-and-gun camera configuration with the proper accessories; such as Element Technical Shoulder Mount Kit, Hand-Held Handles mounted on LWS rods, Abel Cine VF Mod and Sony HDVF20A Viewfinder, Anton Bauer Matrix Battery Mount, etc.
The lenses for this camera and the NX100 as well are the critical and difficult part, especially for hand held. Still lenses, by virtue of the small size and short range of focus arc are less than ideal. I use a Zeiss 15.5-45 LWZ for handheld, it’s a proper focal range and weights just 4.5 lbs. Other lenses I use on the F3 are the Alura 18-80 and 45-250 as well as the Angenieux 24-290. All these lenses require serious 15 or 19mm Studio Support and accessories including a tripod capable of carrying such weight.
JS
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Richard,
The best B Cam for F3 is another F3. This is always the best choice, a duplicate of the main camera. In some cases of course, budget dictates otherwise, if that’s the case, your choice of the FS-NEX100 makes more sense than any other camera. If you’re careful with the exposure and engineer the cameras to match, the 8 bit/ 10 bit won’t matter, in this case especially so, because the NanoFlash is only an 8 bit device anyway!
For my dollar, I’d rather shoot two F3’s onto the internal cards at 35Hb that one F3 and a NEX100 onto two Nano’s. I use the F3’s and internal recording for network broadacst all the time.
JS
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I can not recommend the ARRI Locaster LED light more highly.
At first glance they may seam too small in shape, but I find them very useful for interviews and other reality shooting when pressed to use a small box of lights. They are adjustable from 2900-7000K and +1/-1 Green and are fully dimmable, and can be powered by the mains or on-board batteries.
The thing that makes them most unique is the cover glass etched with millions (?) of micro-lenses which both aim and soften the many LED’s behind them into a single source.
Like all ARRI products, you’ll pay for the privilege!
JS