[John Sharaf]

You must already own the switcher, but some, including the Panasonic 400A which I own have built in frame shaker to sync the incoming signals. At the very least, if your does not have this capability, you could use an outboard frame shaker. i think the AJA FS1 will do it and there must be other less expensive options.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Shooting stars un the night sky requires very long shutter/exposure times. This is best accomplished with a digital SLR with intervelometer function.

JS

[John Sharaf]

I’m sorry, After Effects. I’ve heard of people doing slomo conversions with this software.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Dano,

Just as I suspected; your big problem is first the quantity of light, you don’t want to or might not even be able to control the exposure outside without using ND filters and camera gain (not sure how mich minus gain is available on your EX, but my PDW700’s allow as much as -6Db). Then comes the color issue.

If it’s daytime, it’s likely the window spill will overwhelm the tungsten (if it’s coming from practical lighting not supplemental motion picture lighting – and if it is you should consider using daylight balanced mp lighting like HMI or blue tubes in Kinos). Mixed color temp can look good, as long as the overwhelming daylight is the principal color on the faces. It’ll be fine to let the tungsten burn warm on the wall right behind a lamp for example.

Another choice is to go entirely with the daylight and turn off the table lamps and practical overheads. I don’t recommend auto tracking white, and apparently it is a flawed feature on the EX. When you need continuous action, your best bet is to do it editorially, that is, shoot from the outside in and then move inside and shoot matching action in the other direction (out), then fix it with a cut. Otherwise the onlt alternative is to properly light the interior to be in the range of an iris pull.

Changing the iris, as long as there is proper exposure in and out can be done successfully with a little practice, being careful to notice exactly where it needs to be done. Like I said earlier it’s like playing a musical instrument or like pulling focus (which you might have to do too).

JS

[John Sharaf]

Ryan,

I think you’ve hit it on the head; that there is no dedicated software to extrapolate the 60p into 24/30p. That does not mean it cannot be done. I believe AE does this, and in lieu of “a” frames, can use the time code “00” fields to identify each unique frame.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Dano,

Tell us what the context of your shoot is. For example, are you going from outside (daylight) to inside (fluorescent)?

That is what the auto tracking white balance is really designed for, although these are other and sometimes better methods.

If you’re goiong outside to inside, or visa versa the amount of light and the color of the light can both be issues, such that you might have to roll in/out a ND filter as well as color correction. It’s kind of like playing a musical instrument; you might have to change a filter and throw a switch. If you tell us the situation, we can write the musical score.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Ryan,

Yeah, if your client is NatGeo you probably will have to bite the bullet and buy the 24p option, but you’ll make your money back on a regular account. Although my understanding is that they (and other picky 1080 networks) still accept Varicam for origination? My own tests comparing the 700 to Varicam at 24p show the 700 to be sharper both from the camera and also in the recording, requiring turning down the detail, but otherwise was able to matrix a very good match.

As regards the 720 60p for slomo, I don’t understand why there would be any difference between the 700 and a Varicam, except of course that there is only the one off-speed rate of 60 on the 700 vs variable frame rate on the Varicam. What method did you use to convert to 24/30?

JS

JS

[John Sharaf]

Yeah, I have to second what Terry says. Very tactfully put. The skill to that and not get ruffled makes for a great DP or LD.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Yes, you can add SD recording in IMX35/40/50 & DVCAM, 24p as options to 700, but you cannot add duel filter wheels, image invert, user gamma, variable speeds 1-60 (although half res at 30-60 in 1080) that comes with the 800. Two different cameras that make exactly the same picture and recording but a few features add $11000 to cost vs $6600 in options.

Benefit is small, although I really do like the duel filter wheel (just like PDW510 and 530 distinction) and could possibly use the variable speed function. User Gamma allows Steve Shaw’s curves which are more aggressive than Hyper Gamma 3 & 4.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Tim,

While Band Pro is efforting such a tradein/upgrade program as you suggest, I doubt very seriously that they or you will be successful or that you would find the terms that result workable.

At best, they will want to depreciate your camera at the usual 3%/month and then apply that to the full list of the new camera, and despite Sony’s promise of June delivery, just remember last year at this time when they said the same thing about the 700 and the cameras never appeared in number until February and March this year. Although 24p is only of interest in the US and Australia and the big 700 backlog was because of European delivery of cameras that already came with 25p/50i.

There still is a program in place that would buy back PDW510’s after 18 months (if you bought in a two month window last spring) against a new 700 at this 3% per month depreciation, so that figure is well established. Do the math, you loose again. You never win with Sony as regards pricing, features or service. The are only superficially interested in what the customers want when they’re planning cameras (unless you are a large network and plan to buy 100+ cameras) and once you’ve bought you’re stuck.