John Sharaf
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Eric,
If you like the look you can create with yout Letus, by all means use it. The issue is whether all the interviews in your doc will be done the same way? Visual continuity is an important concept. If you will be doing all the interviews with your kit, by all means, but if some will be done by others, perhaps in other cities and they don’t have access to similar gear, then you might think otherwise.
JMHO
JS
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Adrian,
Many folks plan to “filmout” their projects but very few do. Unless your “film” will be marketed and distributed to conventional cinemas there will be no need to do so. To get a film look for digital projection or DVD release is of course another matter and the principal reason why most people shoot at 24.
With your camera that does not offer this frame rate you really have two other choices; 25fps as you mention and 30p. You can shoot and edit in 25fps and convert to 24 at the end, but it will affect the actual time length and audio pitch which probably will not be noticeable. For that matter, every movie that is shot in 50Hz country at 25fps on film has to make the same correction when shown in America (or else just plays a little slow).
Another choice is to shoot at 30 (really 29.97) fps, this will result in a more seamless workflow and still have a very filmic look. Of course actual filmout will not be very effective, but you must consider how realistic that option is.
In both cases (25 and 30) make sure the shutter is on and at 180 degrees to give you 1/50th or 1/60th of a second exposure to best recreate the motion effect of shooting film.
If you do decide to try 25, please test the complete process to completion to make sure your NLE platform will perform as expected.
Another option is to beg, borrow or rent a camera that does shoot true 24 (23.97).
JS
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Stephen,
I’d recommend contacting Dale West in Miami. He’s a freelance cameraman and has his own production company. If he can’t supply the kit, he’ll refer you to a grip lighting vendor that will. Because of logistics, in such a case, I usually recommend to my clients that we hire a local grip/electrician with his own kit and transport. By the time you spend (or pay) for pickup and return, it won’t cost that much more and you can always use an extra hand, especially out of town and you’ll end up eating lunch at a better place than you’ll find by yourself.
Write Dale at:
“Dale West”
Tell him I gave you his referral.
JS
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I think you’ll find the 60p shutter off to be the best compromise for both watching at real time and frame by frame. If you were to do a test I would try 1/120th second or 180 degree shutter for comparison. Also keep on mind that the display you watch on is a consideration, with LCD’s having a faster refresh (some even 120 MHZ) than a CRT. Most likely you’re watching on LCD though.
JS
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Mark,
Are you sure they didn’t give you the 2/3″ version of that lens, 20×8.6 by mistake? The Sony 1/2″ bayonet mount on the camera should accept the 1/2″ Fujinon lens 20×6.4BERM but this lens as you might know, is a standard definition lens and not ideally suitable for a HD camera like the F350.
JS
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Rick,
At 60p or 60i the default shutter off is 1/60th of a second. that would be best. Once you turn shutter on you’re shortening the exposure and making very frame sharper and more subject to strobing with movement.
JS
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Tom,
This is a very common problem in the educational production community. I bid a sale just today to a school in New Orleans with the same budget request. I recommended EX3 for them. Another, and perhaps better choice for you might be the PDW-F330. It is a full sized, very robust camera and the XDCAM optical disc media is inexpensive ($20) and archival, so no downloading and copying from expensive memory chips. Also, inexpensive ($2500) disc readers called PDW-U1, instead of VTR’s connect to you NLE for faster than real time import.
The company I work with for sales offers these cameras in bstock with a YH18x6.7KRS lens for $10500.
If you’re interested feel free to contact me off list:
john at sharaf dot net
JS
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Justin,
It’s dirty head, cleaning is complicated, best fix is return to Panasonic. They’ll clean head and replace rubber rollers. Sorry, but it will cost about $300 plus shipping, but there’s really no other way.
JS
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Of course you can plug in and power a 48v mike into the two audio inputs on the back of the camera; it will not power older 12v T power mikes. With line level from portable outboard mixer, make sure switch on audio input is on “line” and line up headtone at -20Db on camera’s meters. Good idea to also listen at camera headphone out to normal speaking levels to check for distortion and/or monitor audio with headset or earpiece(s) while recording. A competent audio person will know all this.
JS
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Mark,
The best policy is to get it right on the original photography; both exposure and gamma. This is because the recording in DVCPRO100 has only 8-bits of color depth, essentially 256 shades of each color and does not holdup well to post color correction. The P2 Varicams (AVC-I) and HDCAM-SR cameras on the other hand have 10-bit or more than 1000 shades of each color and it’s a whole other story, as do some of the file based recorders recently introduced.
For your purpose of 24p be sure to invoke the shutter to 180 degrees (or 1/48th of a second) and on Film Rec/Film Menu use the Dynamic range control of 200,300,400,500% as necessary to control the highlights, knowing that as you increase the % you are also desaturating the color and raising the gamma crossover. I tend to crush the gamma as I go to higher Dynamic Range numbers (higher gamma numbers like .50, .55 and .60).
Another technique would be to shoot everything at 500% Dynamic Range and instruct the editor to turn on the “Film Gamma Corrector” function in the 1400 deck on transfer into NLE. This will give them a good “look” during editing (function does not exist in 1200A). Also turn on same function in Panasonic monitors on set to help visualize what you’ll be delivering to the editor.
Whatever you do, you should test the entire workflow just to make sure everyone is on the same page.
JS