[Mathew Farrell]

From a Resolve point of view, that’s a good idea, though every decent stills (and video) naming structure I know has a number sequence at the end. I suspect it’s something I’m just going to have to deal with for the time being.

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au

[Mathew Farrell]

Thanks Mike. I was wondering if pre-importing would solve it (but hadn’t got around to trying). It’s not the worst workflow, but also not as clean as it ought to be.
It’s the 21st century, and conforming is still painful.

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au

[Mathew Farrell]

[A couple of years later]

The “Show Individual Frames” option is a great solution, though I get this problem when importing am FCPXML with stills. How do we avoid stills sequences in this sort of instance?

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au

[Mathew Farrell]

Thanks for weighing in, guys.

It helps me to know I’m not alone, and haven’t just been ‘doing it wrong’. It’s dismaying, rather, that the answer is “yup, it sucks, deal with it”.

Cheers.

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au

[Mathew Farrell]

Yeah man, I’m convinced Sony read my post and hustled double-time to make that camera.

That’s the best, and in fact one of the only, arguments I’ve heard in favour of “skipping full frame”. Taking your thoughts a step further, I’d lean more on the gear side of it–that a lot of glass just didn’t have the coverage for FF and like you say, it wasn’t enough of a difference to get excited until 70mm came along. Kinda similarly, from a film-base, I wonder if full frame didn’t give enough detail advantage over super-35, but 70mm does, even though that’s a diminished argument in the days of decent digital.

Cheers for weighing in.

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au

[Mathew Farrell]

Hey Rohit.

Sorry I missed this earlier. Thanks for the solution, that’s greatly appreciated!

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au

[Mathew Farrell]

I’m with Rick – don’t change cameras. As a supporting tale, I know of long-term documentary projects that shot on a range of camera formats throughout the years. The post guys had to degrade the newer footage to try and match the legacy stuff.

The only compelling way to mix with newer cameras, in my view, would be for whole elements. For example, all your field footage is shot with your HVX, but your talking head interviews are shot on a newer camera in a studio.

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au

[Mathew Farrell]

A purely accademic answer here, but I’m with Todd – it’s not the frame rate, but the shutter speed. Shutter angle is just another term for exactly the same thing, and generally anachronistic these days (don’t misunderstand me, I prefer working in shutter angle). Same goes for clear scan – doing the same thing, but on a different measurement scale, and possibly different resolution.
The size of the filament should affect the severity of flicker, as others have suggested, but shouldn’t change the shutter speed at which it is visible. I don’t know how accurate the stated AC cycle speeds are (i.e. 48Hz and 50Hz), but multiples of these speeds should be fine, and anything that’s not a multiple should induce flickering. The severity of the difference and the size of the filament should both play a part in how noticeable it is. I guess figuring out these multiples is a good reason to be working if fractions of a second rather than shutter angle.

*EDIT*
Now I’ve typed out the above, it occurred to me that it should be the frame rate, not necessarily the shutter speed that shows flickering, since frame rate is the clock speed, for want of a better phrase, of the camera. The shutter speed is a slave to the frame rate. I guess if you’re on a flicker-pronse frame rate, dragging or closing the shutter a bit spans different AC cycles and averages out the flicker. How’s that sound?

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au

[Mathew Farrell]

I’ll echo Ben – you only get the X when you turn them too far. It’s an artifact of the polarisation (a vari ND is two polarising filters stacked. If they were perfect filters, they’d go completely black at one point (90 degrees). They don’t go black, instead you see the weird X pattern. The more money you pay (to generalise wildly), the further you can go (i.e. the greater the range of density).
Similarly, the more money you pay, the less the filter degrades the image (sharpness, and colour cast).
Buying one and leaving step down rings on the smaller lens is a great way to save cost. If time is critical, however, look at getting a filter for each lens. I’d think about getting them all in the largest size anyway so they’re completely interchangeable. Try to get the same brand too, so the any colour shift is consistent across your lens/filter range.
Another alternative to multiple filters is to get some of the magnetic step down rings, so you don’t have to unthread the filter, just pull them on and off to swap between lenses. They’re not cheap either, however.

I’d say vari ND is the best way for changing your exposure on the fly, allowing you to keep the aperture you want. The worse thing about them is that it’s hard to know exactly what stop your at, as the markings on them are cosmetic at best.

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au

[Mathew Farrell]

Hey Lenny,

No, you should only have to change your white balance when the lighting conditions change. White balance is effectively just a compensation for lights of different colours. Iris, focal length, focus, etc, have no effect on it.

Mathew Farrell
flowstate.com.au