Rick Wise
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From your initial post, it sounds like you are the director and are hiring a crew with equipment. Is one of the crew a trained gaffer? If so, I’d start by talking to him/her.
The hospital probably has cool white fluorescents all over the place. That means these are roughly daylight-balanced on the red-blue axis. They also will have a green spike on the green-magenta axis. Neither of the kits you suggest has daylight units. That means you will need to add both some blue (probalby 1/2 CTB) and also some minus-green (probably 1/4) to each light.
A much easier way to go might be to rent 2-3 Kino Flos with daylight bulbs. However, you will still need some plus green to add to the Kino Flos so that they have the same green spike as the overheads. Then you while balance the camera to remove the green.
Somebody needs to find out what fluorescents the hospital uses. It is possible in some locations they use warm fluorescents, and in other cool. In that case, your kinos should include a set of tungsten-balanced bulbs as well.
As to the specific differences beetween the Arri kit and the Lowell, much depends, as Dennis points out, on which kit you get. In general, Arris are much, much heavier, and more sturdy. Lowel kits are great for owner-operators. They are light-weight and relatively easy to set up. They do not hold up so well in rentals where they are somewhat abused and so quickly broken.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
I just ran across this post on another, camera forum:
Well, being the owner of a couple of Canon XH-A’1s I can say that the feature set is impressive on these new generation units but the build quality is not. I’ve already had to dump 500.00 into the transport of one of them cause their basically built so cheaply. I’m thinking of getting rid of them, period. My PD-170 is great. Only thing I would miss is the 16 x 9 anamorphic SD format, since I like the look of 16 x9.
The only real outlet for me right now using HDV is the web. If u shoot HD, then you can get a much bigger, sharper image when posting on the web. Not dealing at all with blu-ray discs. That is going nowhere.and:
I don’t know about all you other independents and freelancers, but I’m getting ready to start production on my latest documentary project, a look the shrinking middle class and the current financial bedlam for which I plan on submitting to the next Sundance Film Festival, and I feel sticking with my current SD camera (DVX100A) and work flow is most appropriate and very reflective of these very difficult times.
About 16:9. The PD 170 will not do 16:9 nor 24p or 30p. The Panasonic DVX100b, which costs less, can do all of that. If you want to stay SD, I’d ask your local retailer if he can get the DVX100b camera for you, and at what price. I would also recommend buying from bhphotovideo.com, which I have found to be extremely reliable and honest.
Remember to buy at least 1 large extra battery, whatever camera you end up buying.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Ethan, you are kind of mixing apples and oranges. The PD 170 is one of the best SD mini-DV cameras made (I prefer the Panasonic DVX 100b) and the Canon XH-A1 is an HDV camera. If your store has the latter, you should know that this model is no longer made and has been replaced by the XH-A1s. The new model, with “Improvements over the previous model include higher quality zoom, focus and iris rings” sells for about $400 more. (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/589903-REG/Canon_1191B001_XH_A1_3CCD_HDV_Camcorder.html#features)
Many an SD-shot video has been turned into film in post, and some quite successfully. In the hands of the same filmmaker the Canon should produce better pictures.
As has been pointed out here and elsewhere many thousands of times, it is not the camera that makes the film, it’s the filmmaker. You would most likely be starting from a better position with the Canon.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Window scrims: Rosco makes a couple of versions. Rosco 3421 and 3423. Reduces transmission 2 stops. As long as you are not too close to see the shape of the holes, these work pretty well, and are easier to use than ND gels because the NDs tend to pick up reflections. The Black Scrim and Cinescreen are matt and so do not reflect. (I have not used either in many, many years. I’ve been sing HMIs inside to bring up the light level sufficiently to balance the exterior. However, your kit is all tungsten and does not have enough fire power to get into the outside ball park.)
Note that you do NOT want to make the outside the same T/stop as the inside. Overexpose the outside by two stops or more. Otherwise, the outside looks fake.
You also do not want to fully correct the outside color temperature. If you are shooting tungsten lights inside, a 1/2 CTO gel on the windows is plenty. That will leave the outside cooler than the inside, which usually works well. (There might be a reason, however, to want the insides to be cool too. It all depends on the story and the look you are after. In that case you would white balance with a pinkish or orangish gel over the camera lens to trick the camera into adding more blue. That takes care of the inside. Then you need to figure out how much you want to make the true daylight appear blue, or warm, and dose it with gels on the windows accordingly.)
If you gel the windows with a color-correction gel (which will cut down some light) and then add the Rosco Cinescreen on top of that gel, you will probably remove almost all the reflections on the gel.
Rosco has a new pola system for windows called Rosco View. The gel polarizes the light coming in the windows, and you apply their pola filter to the front of the lens. Then you rotate the pola to dose the amount of light cut from 0% to 90%. https://www.rosco.com/us/video/roscoview.asp This looks like a terrific but expensive solution. When the outside light drops near the end of the day, you can increase light transmission by a simple rotation of the filter on the camera.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Steve, any idea how this new deshaker compares to what Mercalli does? I have Mercalli pro, and love it for those times the hand is shakier than the eye. The only flaw is that it slightly reduces sharpness and I have to add some artificially.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Actually, can you give us a bit more information? Which composite mode did you use? Overlay?
(I presume you made the top line the parent to the bottom line.)
A somewhat similar (though actually different, and does not involve parent/child compositing) technique I find useful is to copy the rendered/color-corrected timeline to the line above; turn the top line 100% b&w, increase sharpness to “medium”; reduce the top to 25-30% level; the result then is a quite desaturated image, so I increase saturation on the bottom level to eye using the saturation slider in Color Corrector. The result controls over-exuberant highlights and adds a slightly more sharp and more nuanced picture than the original. The change is slight, but worth the effort in certain cases. Not nearly as much of a change as your method.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
More to the point would be a side-by-side comparison before and after. Fortunately on Vimeo there’s another video of yours that includes the same woods shot, before treatment.
Clearly the treatment enriches the shot significantly. Thanks for the idea.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Looks promising, but the promo video looks like late night used cars sales. So that makes me very, very cautious.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
This multi-cam syncing software looks to be phenomenal. I had to edit a 2-camera shoot a few months ago. One camera ran most of the time, and the other started and stopped. Syncing up the two cameras was a total nightmare. It looks like “PluralEyes” does the job in a flash. Great news they will be coming out with a Vegas version. Wow!
No more need to jam sync either…. Saves a bundle.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
JVC Gy-HD500U, https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/497873-REG/JVC_GYHD250U_GY_HD250U_Professional_HDV_Camcorder.html. You might also consider getting over your anti “prosumer” approach and consider either the Sony EX1 or EX3, both 3 x 1/2″ chips. Either will need some sort of shoulder support as they are not ergonomically designed. Good solutions for that problem start at around $65.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com