[John Sharaf]

Randy,

Having been to many Varicamps as a consultant and vendor, I can assure you that it would be helpful to you as a 900 owner-operator; all of the HD and video tutorials are appropriate to any camer that shares conventional video controls (ped, gain, gamma, detail, matrix, etc.). Furthermore, I think you’ll find yourself in the company of many others like yourself who are 900 owners as opposed to Varicams owners at any current or future Varicamp. The instructors are fully informed about the entire Panasonic line and will have used the 900 in real world application, so they are capable of discussing similarities and differences to the Varicam.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Yes, 60p with shutter off is 1/60th of a second. 30p with shutter on and set to 180 degrees (half shutter) is 1/60th of a second. The two will look completely different, even though the shutter speeds are the same; at 60p there are 60 slices of action per second, yielding a live or video look, at 30p there are thirty slices of two-frame groups per second, yielding a more filmic look.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Ray,

In the hands of a skilled engineer, a proper DSC Chroma du Monde Chart, an HD Waveform/Vectorscope and a high quality master monitor (viewed in proper lighting conditiond) these two cameras can be made to match, but it’s always easier to use two of the same cameras! Two similar cameras from the same manufacturer can usually be made to match, this is because they often share the same chipset and electronics.

JS

[John Sharaf]

James,

Ray has the right idea; when you shoot at 30p (aka 30fps) you must always invokea shutter of half or 180 degrees to yield a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second to recreate “normal” motion artifacts as might expect at 24p with a 180 shutter or at 60p with shutter off.

Without turning the shutter on at 30p, you’re getting a default shutter speed of 1/30th of a second which will reveal quite a bit of motion blur when you look at indivifual frames, as your keyer is doing!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Rick,

This is an excellent solution to shooting where practical location is lit by many overhead fluorescents. We call it “poisoning” the Kino Flos by lamping them with the same globes that are in the ceiling; just white balance and go. Often you’ll want to unscrew the lamps just above your talent to eliminate deep eye sockets and/or bright noses. Very elegent, fast and cheap!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Rock,

There is no one answer to your question; the proper interval rate is determined by two factors, the ultimate length of the shot you want to create and the period of the action you wish to compress.

For example if you wanted to show a building being built that will take six months (180 days) and you want the shot to last one minute, you’d take one burst of ten frames (the minimum) every three days (presumably at the same time of day so you wouldn’t have to change the exposure).

On the other hand if the action is shorter, say for example, the sun traversing across the cityscape, where the action might take six hours (you begin six hours before sunset) and you want the shot to last 30 seconds (30×60 frames per second) it would be five bursts of ten frames each minute.

One thing to remember is that this type of photography really beats up your camera; the heads are spinning constantly and each burst of recording requires an insert edit where the deck backspaces, and you’ll have a post production chore creating a sequence by pulling one frame from each burst of ten,

I think a more common method these days of accomplishing HD timelapse is with a high quality difital still camera; some of which like the Canon’s have an intervalomenter accessorie. This methos is in many cases more appropriate than leaving $60000 camera mounted and unattended over a long period. Also when long shutter speeds are required, such as doing an interval recording of stars at night, this becomes the only method to do so.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Bill,

I often use a “single net” stretched in a frame like a 12×12′ for this purpose. Although it in theory only cuts a half a stop of exposure, because it’s a black object in the shot it seems to control more than that. You must be careful that it does not create moire patterns as a heavier (ie double net) would and that it’s stretched taught in the frame. Furthermore you have to control direct light and sunlight off of it as that will illuminate the black and reduce the darkening effect. In conclusion, I’d recommend this professional material rather than any old cloth you might pickup at the textile store, inless you’re going for an “effect”.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Ty,

The Ianaro “Red Head” has been the basic open faced quartz light in Europe for many years. It’s rugged, safe and reliable, but like all open faced units is rarely used without either diffussion gel attached to doors, or a bounce source or in a light box like a chimera. Rather than get rid of it, if I were you, I’d get a couple more and build a compact location lit around it.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Jan,

Does one have to enter this command everytime you powerup or does the controller remember your intention to save the settings once it’s been instructed to do so?

JS

[John Sharaf]

Goodman is wrong about the “double system sound production” part; the other parts are correct.

JS