Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[Brian Tucker] ” I also “thought” i needed the barn doors but not sure if I actually do.”
You might find a use for them now and then, but as a sorta general rule barndoors are just next-to-useless for LED instruments. Because the instruments are actually dozens (or even hundreds) of individual little light sources, barndoors cannot be used to cut like they do with other single-source instruments. It just doesn’t work. I’m sure one day there will be an LED fixture that works like a conventional fresnel with a single source and doors can cut properly.
For most LED instruments now, you have to cut with flags and such… and usually the farther the cutters are from the instruments, the better.
[Brian Tucker] “I take it since you used an umbrella/diffuser barn doors were not important to you? How do you control spillage?”
Yes I primarily only use the LEDs when either direct hard light or very soft light is needed. The umbrellas I use are simply larger than the output area of the lights, so I don’t get any direct undiffused spill from the heads at all… just even soft light. If any of that needs cutting, it’s done with flags.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Brian Tucker] “They also make these lights as well which I am looking into but no reviews online”
Well here’s your first review… they’re great. Those are the exact instruments I use.
I will say though that I paid about half that for mine. They were on an eBay auction that had a “Make me an Offer” button… and I offered something ridiculously low, and the seller countered just a bit higher.
Couple of slight differences… mine came with V-mount battery plates on the back and those appear to have none. I took them off anyway and replaced them with Anton-Bauer goldmount battery plates.
I also fashioned umbrella holders for mine, and drilled angled holes in the filter holder pieces to accept softbox rods.
They were discussed more here…
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/47/860539But yeah, they’re not LitePanels but for the price they are great little instruments. The only downsides were the stands… which I fully expected to be crap and was proven correct. Like most bargain instruments, the stands are worth throwing away and not much else. We didn’t care because we never intended to use them anyway. I almost always use these fixtures on C-stands.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yeah, in hindsight that has me wondering, too…
Because doesn’t this camera have a three-year warranty?… and it was only released in November of 2011 so wouldn’t all C300s still be under warranty?
I seem to have developed a problem of my own today on my C300PL… on a shoot we lost the HDMI output (which we use to feed an external monitor for clients and critical focus). At first I figured we just had a bad cable (and no spare with us), but testing with another device showed the cable is fine. The monitor is also fine, too.
Digging into the menu I also see that the SDI output line is flashing with a very irregular pattern (not that we were using the SDI spigot at all, just noticed that). No idea if the two are related.
I thought about trying a full factory restore, except I have bunches of the external buttons assigned to specific functions, and I didn’t want to lose those in the middle of a shoot.
Anyone else seen this?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hmmm… that MIGHT be a tall order. It might be doable if you have ALL the files, which is the question.
Do you ONLY have the .MXF files? Or do you have the other associated files with each clip as well?
The file structure of a C300’s card is:
-A root folder called CONTENTS
-Inside that is a CLIPS folder (usually CLIPS001 by default)
-Inside that is an individual folder for EACH of your clips (each named something like AA2123, usually with successive number)
-Inside each individual folder are the associated files for that clip, there are six of them….In that clips folder is the .MXF file… plus five other small associated files: .CIF, .CPF, .THM, .XML, and .SIF.
If you have all of these you can manually rebuild the card. Time consuming if there are a lot of clips, but it can be done.
If you are missing these other five files for each clip, it MIGHT work to rebuild the folder structure on the card but with only the .MXF file in each clip folder. I’m not sure if that would still work or not, but would be easy enough to test with just one or two clips. If that DOES work what you’d likely lose is the metadata and details for each clip, but they might still read otherwise with the Canon XF Utility… I just don’t know. Never tried it. But the good news is that your .MXF files are still intact with all of the video/audio.
Here’s an example of the C300 file structure that I just happened to have handy on my computer… you’d need to reproduce this structure exactly….
That first folder (20120426130028) is the backup folder on my computer. You don’t need that. The first folder you’ll need in the root of the card is the one called CONTENTS.
Hope this helps….
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yeah, you’re going to need proper lighting to do that, no way would I attempt it with the dim modeling lights from strobes, especially with that camera.
Admitting that I am not a still photographer by profession and never use flashes, I’ll have to say that I’ve never seen any modeling lights on strobes that appeared to put out anywhere near what a 300w conventional tungsten light does. But even if they do, that’s not enough to do the job, or at least not do it well by any stretch.
Even if you can get it within the range of acceptable exposure, you will likely have your ISO jacked up to the max… which you understandably said you did not want to do.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Craig Alan] “What did you use to cut off the top of the bolt and drill the hole in the fixture to accomadate it? “
Bolt head was cut off with a metal-cutting blade in a reciprocating saw. The hole was drilled with… (spoiler alert)… a drill bit.
[Craig Alan] “Did you file the end of the bolt so it would’t have a sharp edge?”
Yes I spun the bolt while touching the cut edge to the wheel of a bench grinder to clean up the cut and put a small 45° bevel on it.
[Craig Alan] “I assume the strip aluminum was needed to support the cheap metal of the shop light? “
Exactly.
[Craig Alan] “I was concerned about buzz “
Me too, but turns out mine are perfectly silent, and as I said no flicker. Maybe I got lucky. It’s a gamble, but at least a very low-dollar one.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Craig…
No, I’m not using Kino bulbs in my DIY instruments. The only thing I’ve ever put Kino bulbs in is a real Kino fixture.
Honestly for greenscreen work I’ve never found color temp (or the green spike that some flos have) to be at all critical. So we just use the bulbs from the same hardware store… couldn’t tell you the brand. They are available in (approximately) both daylight and tungsten temps, and we have sets of each.
I never use these instruments to light people, but I’ve found the color more than accurate enough for more than greenscreen work… non-green wallwashing, etc. In fact, whenever we are called on to do a white limbo background, these are what I use. If I am doing Kino or HMI or LED lighting I’ll put the more-or-less daylight balanced tubes in them… if I am doing tungsten lighting I’ll use the other.
You can (kinda) see a couple of them in use in the behind-the-scenes photos from this commercial shoot…
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news082.html
In the middle photo on the left you can see one of them on the floor shooting up, wall washing. Near the middle of that same photo you can see a vertical one on a stand. This shoot was a mixture of real tungsten and tungsten-balanced LED lighting, so we had the warmer bulbs in the flos.
Maybe I got lucky with these. When I first bought them, since they were $15 fixtures I figured the ballasts were junk (either noisy or flickery) and I’d have to replace them… but I haven’t had to. I have noticed some “phasing” when shooting film (my 35mm camera does not, sadly, have a variable-angle shutter), but not real flickering. No flickering when shooting video, either… I don’t even have to shoot clearscan with them.
Give ’em a try.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yikes…no, never heard of that. I shoot with a C300PL every day (well, maybe three days a week), and never had any troubles of that kind. Or any kind really, it has always performed flawlessly.
Hope they get it fixed, pronto. How does the problem manifest itself? Is there a warning of some kind that the fan is dead?… does the camera overheat? Just lock up? Want to stay on the lookout here.
I’ve sometimes wondered about the C300 fan situation. I’ve seen a number of posts on various forums (mostly older ones) with people complaining about the fan noise… being described as not nearly as bad as RED, for example, but still noticeable. My C300 is as quiet as a mouse. You cannot hear it running at all (I’ve even taken it into the audio booth to listen). You simply cannot hear it, unless you press your ear to the body… and then only barely.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Tyler Grutsch] ” I think we are going to try a 1.2HMI from cool lights. “
Well, I have a 1200w HMI from CoolLights (mine is a fresnel, but I think they only offer PARs in a 1.2 now). I’d say it is perfectly fine for use YOURSELF… and yes, Richard is a good guy. BUT… you said you were looking for instruments for your rental inventory. I’d be a bit wary of renting that fixture out. The build quality is not nearly what you will get with a higher-end instrument. Now, I’m NOT knocking it a bit, I actually love this instrument and am a fan of CoolLights. But you do get what you pay for.
A rental instrument really needs to be built like a tank, because we all know how renters treat them. When’s the last time you rented a lighting head that looked shiny and new, like it came right out of the box? Almost never… most are pretty beat up. For a rental head I’d buy something that can take that kind of punishment… an Arri, or Strand or something.
The CoolLights ballasts are serviceable (they’re Chinese-built Arri knockoffs) but are not A+… I’ve been through a couple of them. They can tend to blow fuses if they don’t get really clean power (or ventilation), and you have to remove several screws and open up the unit to change fuses that are on one of the circuit boards inside. I’m not sure I’d want a renter doing that.
Again, they ARE good units, I’m a fan, and I’m glad they are around and are a good choice for budget productions. I’m just not sure they are the best choice for rental inventory.
Hope I’m not being a wet blanket…
T2
P.S. No, never had the pleasure of shooting in Montana.
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Your CPA’s last statement was what I was alluding to in my previous post, and what I would expect to be true…
…that you can do/charge/bill for two different jobs… the production itself, and the disc copy of it. In that case you’d only charge sales tax on whatever you charge for the disc. I don’t THINK you’d even have to wait the six months, six days, or six minutes… I’m not sure what the difference would be if you did it all at the same time. Just invoice them individually to make sure there is separation.
Just my guess…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
