Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I don’t know anything about the Genarays, Rick… I was not familiar with those until you mentioned them yesterday, I checked them out briefly and they look pretty cool.
Yes I like idea of the built-in umbrella holders on them. A little while back someone in a COW forum, I can’t remember who, was hatin’ on umbrellas… said something to the effect that they were the sign of an amateur or someone who didn’t know what they were doing, or a good way to spot a still photographer who is trying to do video. I completely disagree with that… I love umbrellas and use them all the time. If you are in a situation where you don’t have to worry about spill too much (such as a bigger location) or don’t need control like eggcrates and such, then an umbrella and a softbox will give you pretty much exactly the same results. And while a softbox takes a few minutes to put together, you can open an umbrella in literally one second. So I use them a lot. I have some silver ones for reflected use, but usually I shoot through them with the silk ones. I also have one that I hacked by replacing the silk with my favorite “shower curtain” material, so I have a harder softlight (or is that a softer hardlight?). I also have a blue reflective one that converts tungsten to daylight, but honestly it eats so much light that I never use it… maybe once or twice if that.
It’d be interesting to figure out a battery solution for the Genarays. It’d be theoretically easy since they are 12v, but the heads look too small to actually mount a brick on, and I wouldn’t want to have to cable to a separate battery. Smaller 12 or 14v power tool batteries would probably work (probably DeWalts or Milwaukees). That’s a pretty easy hack, you buy one of their fairly cheap rechargeable flashlights that uses the same battery and use that to build your battery receptacle. That’s a lot lighter weight than a full AB brick. A lot cheaper, too.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well it’s purely a matter of taste, but I like soft backgrounds. There was such a desire for shallow depths of field for a while, that there eventually seemed to be a backlash, with a lot of people hatin’ on it. Those folks all pointed to the “deep focus” movies of the Citizen Kane era, where everything in the frame was razor sharp. I never heard anyone mention the (to me, obvious) fact that those films were all in black and white… which I think makes a big difference. By the time you add all the visual info of color to your brain, I don’t think deep focus works as well. So I generally choose soft backgrounds.
You can soften BG focus in post and simulate shallow DoFs, but it’s a heckuva lot of work, and more suitable for very short form things (commercials, etc.), and not so much for long-form pieces like your veterans’ narratives. Those would just be too much work.
There is the option of using a DoF lens converter to restore a 35mm depth of field (I did this for years with my P+S Technik 35mm converter). They are not in much use anymore thanks to big-chip cameras (my lens converter cost me $13,000 only about 6 years ago… today it’s virtually worthless, I could hardly give it away). But honestly you sound like you have a lot on your plate wrestling with the lighting already, and considering they are a fair bit complicated I would not recommend them for your use. If you want to know more info, you can search and track down a couple of articles I wrote on depth of field for Creative COW magazine, or just search “DoF” or “Depth of field” in the forums and you will find literally hundreds of postings and suggestions.
But honestly… for what you are doing I wouldn’t sweat it too much, and just do as much as your camera will naturally do. Just stay away from super super busy or patterned backgrounds and you’ll be ok.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Patrick Bronte] “What would you do if you went to someones home and the only room available was a lot smaller and doesn’t have the depth to it like that in the photo? “
Well, sometimes you just do what you can. We usually gravitate to the bigger of available spaces, but sometimes even that is not enough. We do a lot of healthcare stuff, and are forever being jammed into tiny doctors’ offices, etc. I can’t count the times that we’ve shot in an office but the camera wasn’t even in the room with us… I’ve had to put it out in a hall as far back as I could without seeing the door frame in the shot. There’s a lot of “make do,” and it often has to just be “good enough.”
[Patrick Bronte] ” add would be a white reflector on a stand to catch some of the key light in order to offer some soft light to the opposite side of the talents face. What do you reckon?”
Yep, that can work.
[Patrick Bronte] ” the only issue I’m going to encounter is that I’m not going to be able to achieve that look of having the talent in sharp focus and the background being blurred out “
Depends on your camera… my backgrounds are soft because I have Super35mm-sized sensor and I’m shooting with my lens wide open with a fairly long focal length. Getting that look is a challenge with a smaller-sensor camera (where the chip is usually only 1/3″) just because of the principals of physics and optics… the smaller sensor means everything is sharp. You can help that a little, make sure you are shooting with your iris as wide open as possible (adjusting lighting levels up or down to get proper exposure). Then put your camera as far back from the talent as is convenient, so that you are zooming in and using a longer focal length… with the talent as far from the background as possible, too. Sometimes that can make the scene look a bit visually “compressed,” but will soften the BG.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yep Rick, those are the exact lights. I will tell ya though I paid a lot less than that for them (I don’t remember who the particular seller was).
They were listed for about that same price for a pair but with the “make me an offer” option. I think I offered something ridiculous like $325 and they countered with something like $380.
I figured at that price, even if they lasted two shoots they’d be worth it… but they’ve been going strong for a year or so. So, for anyone interested in those, they certainly can be had for a lot less.
And, master… no. Maybe loose-canon jack of all trades, but master of absolutely none. I’m ok with that.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Actually I don’t think that is true at all… Canon has made a huge effort in the 4K realm, both with the C500 and with DSLRs.
It’s just that they are not goosing up your present 1080 camera to 4K. Can’t really fault them for that… all that would really do for Canon is hurt their sales of the C500.
I wouldn’t call it a little effort at all.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Rick Wise] “That case must weigh a ton with all that gear. “
Not too bad, and it’s fairly maneuverable. I think it weighs less than our regular camera case (when traveling with full gear), which is a bit larger. The only “ugggh” grunting moment comes when lifting it in and out of the truck. I find that is a convenient time to take an emergency phone call or answer an urgent email, and leave it to my guys.
[Rick Wise] “Which LED lights did you chose?”
I’m almost embarrassed to tell you, Rick… because I always harp on buying great gear and avoiding junk. However, I’d never owned or really used any LED lights before, so I bought some really cheap ones just to test the water… and I got really lucky with them. We bought a couple of these “Aura” instruments made by “Proaim.” Who knows who really makes them… they are some Chinese or Indian made instruments. They are kinda knockoffs of the LEDZ Brutes, with 24 of the bigger LEDs instead of a thousand little ones. We paid almost nothing for them, on eBay. They came with stands that I immediately threw away… ha.
I did, however, get VERY lucky with them. Turns out, they are great. Quite well built, very bright and punchy, fully dimmable, and will run about 6-8 hours on a battery. Color is great, no green spikes at all… right at about 56K° or maybe slightly higher.
I did do a few mods… firstly I cracked them open and did some wiring so I could add a AntonBauer goldmount to the back of each. I also added an umbrella mount to the top (hacked some eBay parts I bought), and drilled holes in the filter frames to allow use of softbox rods without a speedring….
I have a third small LED instrument I travel with that’s more “legit,” the Switronix TorchLED. It’s small, actually built as an on-camera light but we almost always use it on a stand… it’s a convenient back or hair light. Bi-color, fully dimmable, runs for probably about three hours on its battery. Highly recommended.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Only speculation, but my guess is that even if that were technically possible (which I kinda doubt), I don’t suspect that would be something that Canon would explore.
No doubt their answer would be that they already HAVE a 4K solution in the C series, the C500.
When anwering early complaints that the C300 did not have an interchangable lens mount, Canon did reply that they already had an answer for users of the EF version who also wanted to use PL lenses. That solution being to buy another camera body with the other mount.
I doubt Canon is going to do anything that will help them sell FEWER cameras.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thanks Rick…
Then you might get a laugh out of the extremely ridiculous (but workable) travel system we came up with for these 60 back-to-back interview shoots…
I took all the usual stuff we usually travel with, and pared it down to the absolutely positively can-do-without-it “must haves”… not just losing the jibs and dollys and sliders and butterflies and such, but the real “must haves.” I probably excluded a good four-fifths of what we usually travel with, or probably more.
Then I dug out an old smaller case that wasn’t doing anything, and figured out how to puzzle-piece everything we needed in it, and in such a way that it was easily grabbable/accessible. I tricked the case out with these plywood “sideboards” and put lots of hooks, posts and PVC tubes on it.
It definitely looks like Rube Goldberg meets Frankenstein (meets Roto Rooter), but I can pretty much instantly grab anything we need…
That carries C300 body, plates/rails, matte box, follow focus, filters, four primes and one zoom, handheld rig, camera batteries, three LED lights and batteries, three Matthews stands, two umbrellas, sticks/head, spider dolly, mic/boom/blimp/windjammer, headset, reflectors, and some other stuff I can’t even remember.
The last of these shoots is tomorrow. I can’t wait to get back to “full-gear” mode where I don’t have to worry about whether I’ve got something (and can get C-stands back, along with frames and silks and stuff I thought I couldn’t do without). But… part of me likes traveling light, so I’m going to keep this setup around for the down-n-dirty shoots.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Patrick…
I was on a shoot this morning and had to do a setup very similar to what you’ve been talking about, so I pulled a couple of screen grabs and took a couple of cell phone pics of the setup.
We are having to shoot interviews with SIXTY different business owners in our community for a Chamber of Commerce job, and we are having to do these really fast… so we have tried to come up with something where we can zip in to an interviewee’s place, shoot, and be packed and out within 20-30 minutes or so. For us this has meant a lot of available light, and daylight LED instruments that we can throw up quickly and run off batteries. We’re not even taking C-stands, due to weight… just collapsible Matthews stands. Also, I almost always shoot primes, but in this case I’m using a 37-140mm Foton zoom to avoid having to change lenses and to be able to change focal lengths on the fly. There’s not even time to take the “dead cat” windjammer off the mic, which we would usually do for interiors.
It’s not a perfect look by any stretch, but as you can see it is perfectly acceptable. And this is an example of a “natural” setting, as opposed to putting talent in front of a neutral or limbo background. The grabs are uncorrected and ungraded, straight from the camera from a shoot abut an hour ago…
The four at the very bottom are other business guys in this series, all with the same exactly lighting plot…
That also shows the backlight position that was discussed earlier… lower and to the side opposite the key. You can see how it gives a bit of highlight splash to the right side of her face, and mimics what you might see from a practical window for a fairly natural look.
As I said, not perfect lighting by any means, and more controllable instruments would be nice… but with this setup the actual DP work took less than three minutes, and on this gig every minute counts.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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That makes sense, John… and I would certainly hope so. I didn’t know about any coating on the globe itself, just the little glass surround thing.
I’ve heard of some anecdotal evidence of some burns from bare Jokers, but who knows if that is actually true. I’ve never had need to use one bare before.
I think some people are more sensitive than others… after a day with even regular HMIs, sometimes my eyes feel a little funny… not quite burned, but sort of “sensitized.”
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
