[Todd Terry]

Yeah Jason, about six feet sounds about right.

That doesn’t sound too long, but it seems sufficient for most everything we do. Plus our sticks can go up about six feet high as well, so it can fly a camera pretty high when needed. We have also adapted a 10-foot A-frame ladder so that a crane can be mounted on it, getting quite a high shot. I think I’ve only used that a couple of times, though.

One of our issues is that we use everything from the larger HDV cameras to 35mm film cameras… and some of them are pretty heavy, and we use really heavy tripod heads as well… so we have quite a load on the end of the jib (I’ve never weighed the camera/head combo but with the heaviest camera plus accessores plus the head it’s probably 45lbs or so)… a jib with a six-foot tongue or so is about as long as one would want to want to support that much weight, at least on one of these lightweight jibs. Plus the fact that the Porta-Jib telescopes so it can be any length (no sections in set lengths) makes it a good choice for us.

The Porta-Jib is quite a bit more robust (although substantially less expensive) than the Microdolly jib…. but that comes with its own price: the Porta-Jib weighs three times as much as the Microdolly (30lbs vs. 10lbs). Although I almost always heartily recommend the Porta-Jib, if you use a fairly lightweight camera and you plan to do a lot of lean-and-mean run-and-gun one-man-band traveling, it is probably overkill for you and the Microdolly might be worth looking at.

Also, not to confuse the issue with another product, but Doug Underdahl at Long Valley Equipment makes a darn nice jib, at like half the price of either the Porta-Jib or the Microdolly (https://longvalleyequip.com)

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I will let others speak to all your various technical requirements, but one thing that you didn’t mention is the lens.

If you think you will be perfectly happy with the stock as-it-comes-on-it video zoom, then it is not a factor. BUT, if you sometimes like the option of choosing different/better lenses (either directly or with a depth-of-field converter) keep in mind that the EX has a permanently built-in zoom lens… whereas the XLH1 has interchangeable lenses. Now, understandably that is not a big deal at all to a lot of people, but as for me personally I almost never shoot with the stock zoom (or any zoom, actually) so it’s a big deciding factor for me. Unfortunately, that’s one of the reasons that I haven’t considered the EX, and won’t (I love everything else about it). We have, however, shot with the XLH1 for about a year and a half, and continue to be extremely happy with it.

[Martijn Scholte] “i think both have the hd-sdi out before the compression?”

I can’t speak for the EX, but the XLH1 definitely does have pre-comp HD-SDI out…. use it all the time.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Nate Graham] “I’ve noticed that on The Hunt for Red October every time they do a rack focus there’s an odd sort of distortion.”

Hmmmmm…. dunno what that was. Haven’t see that film in a while, but next time I catch it I’ll look out for that. Maybe the lenses were breathing, maybe they specifically selected a vintage set of primes (probably anamorphics) for their certain “look,” which happens often. If I recall, the DP on “Red October” was Jan de Bont, and he certainly knows what he is doing so anything that happens on screen was probably done on purpose by design.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Anthony Miles] “Thanks Todd,
Do you have to calimate the P+S technic or does it just hold with PL mount lenses?”

Hi Anthony… you just put the PL mount lenses on the P+S Technik Mini35 and you are good to go. There is an easy to use backfocus adjustment (although it requires an allen wrench), and I check it every now and then (maybe every three or four weeks with a good monitor and test chart) but it is always spot on and has never required additional tweaking since the first setup.

I actually cannot say enough good things about the P+S Technik… it is one of the best built, best designed, and easy to use pieces of equipment that we have ever had. They only downside is the price, they are waaaaaay expensive and thus quite painful on the wallet. We paid a fair bit more for the converter than we did for the camera itself (and we have one of the more expensive HDV cameras, XLH1). I really wrestled with making that big and painful an investment (especially since I knew lenses were going to cost even more than the converter), but it has paid off in spades and I am completely happy with the setup.

I think these lens converters are pretty much like most any other equipment in our industry…. you get what you pay for. A P+S Technik may cost ten times as much as a Brevis35 (or a Letus or whatever), but if it is ten times better then it can be worth it, depending on your situation. My recommendation is aways this: for real hard-core cinematograhers who are out there in the trenches shooting every day on mid-to-high-end projects, P+S Technik is the way to go… hands down. For others… say guys who do not make their living as full-time cinematographers, or maybe are trying to shoot an inexpensive indie feature, or simply can’t afford to spend that kind of money… there is a rental market for the P+S Technik Mini35s, and you can find them in some rental houses. Or… play with some of the cheaper ones, many people do get good results… just budget in a lot of time for testing in advance, and a reasonable amount of time for tweaking during the actual shoot itself.

Incidentally, you can occassionally find P+S Technik converters cropping up on eBay (usally an older 200 or 300 series) and I have seen them go in the $3-4K range.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Hi Jase…

Yeah Porta-Jib makes really great stuff… lots of people swear by them.

As far as counterweight, I’ve never been that big a fan of the “cage” type systems that say you can “use anything” as counterweight… they are just not as secure, plus most “stuff” you find laying around doesn’t have anywhere near the same mass as real weights, it’s simply hard to find stuff thats heavy enough. I’ve seen some jibs that have water bottles as weight that you “simply fill on location”….but water actually only weighs about 8 pounds a gallon and we usually use about 35-50lbs of weight so that would be a LOT of water. When traveling (at least when far enough to require air travel), we combat it this way: we don’t travel with the weights, we leave them at home. Then when we get to location, one of our first stops is something like a Kmart, Wal-Mart, Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods, etc. For 15 bucks you can buy more than enough plain ‘old cheap barbell weights (which is basically all the Porta Jib weights are, except they say “Porta Jib” on the side). After the shoot, we just ditch them on location. We’ve given them away, trashed them, or left them in hotel rooms. It’s a lot easier than traveling with them.

The same for dollys and track… we travel only with dolly wheels, push bar, track connectors, and flexitrack. In our location city we buy (or have our client provide) a piece of plywood and quickly throw our own dolly together. And we buy a few pieces of ABS or PVC pipe for straight track (literally two bucks a piece). Shoot’s over, toss it, and head home.

As far as traveling with big equipment, I have put those days behind me as well… it’s just so hard. Now if we travel we ship almost everything, at least the big and expensive stuff. We have our “traveling gear” pared down to the bare necessities, about six medium/big road cases (when shooting 35mm film there are two extra cases). We FedEx them “hold for pickup” and when we arrive in our destination city we go to the FedEx office and load ’em up. In a cross-country example, it generally costs us about $2500 to get our gear there and back (we plan shoots carefully so we can use FedEx three-day service…a lot cheaper). The gear is always waiting for me with no hassle, and I have never once had anything broken or go missing… which is something I can not say about the airlines.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Thanks for the info, Anthony…

I don’t know too much about the Brevis35… I’ve just toyed with the idea of trying one.

As I said I have use my P+S Technik almost every day for almost two years now so I’m very familiar with DoF conversion… but my experience has been limited to one converter and one camera. Interesting to hear other views about other ones. I’m learning that, like a lot of cinema gear, you seem to get what you pay for. I also probably would forget to turn the darn thing on… my converter starts and stops when you pull camera trigger, so it’s easy to get lazy.

Interesting observation about turning a Canon upside down. I’ve never noticed that. We shoot with an XLH1 daily and I know that it doesn’t have that pecularity. I do have an HV20 that we have had for about six months… but we bought it just as a crashcam and to be honest I’ve probably switched it on about five times (although always impressed). I’m gonna turn it upside down tomorrow and see what happens… if I can find it!

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Nate Graham] “What makes a good lens, well, good?”

The only thing that makes a lens “good” is whether it shoots good images to your satisfaction.

That being said, cheaper lenses are generally mass produced, without the same attention to detail and quality control that that is available in high-end cinema lenses. High-end cine lenses are typically sharper and somewhat more contrasty than inexpensive lenses. High end cine lenses are designed to “resolve” an image at a higher quality (since they were designed for actual film), whereas video cameras typically have lenses that will resolve only for video-level resolution, if you’re lucky (be it SD or HD). Motion picture lenses are generally made/assembled by hand by guys you would more consider craftsmen…. the optical elements, coatings,
machining and all of that will be surperior. Of course the lack of mass production comes with a price… they can be very expensive. Often times on a real film set the lenses can be the most costly thing around… a single prime can be worth more than the camera itself. A matched set of primes most certainly will be.

Some cinematographers really do know their lenses well, and can tell just by looking that such-and-such movie must have been shot with a particular model of Cookes because it’s more contrasty, or that film must have been shot with so-and-so model of Zeiss because it is wamer… etc. Most of us can’t tell.

The “best” lenses are generally primes, largly because the more glass an image has to go through, the more the image degrades. Primes have just a few elements in them, whereas zooms have a whole boatload. Zooms typically are much slower than primes as well. That’s not to say there are not good zooms, as there are some out there. Really good ones are quite costly though.

A great deal of it has to do with fit/finishing/machining, too, not just the optical elements themselves. Many people try to shoot video with DoF converters and use SLR still lenses, and readily learn the difference in inexpensive lenses and higer-end cinema lenses (although some people still do it with great success). Firstly, the “fit” on the SLR lenses (even good ones) do not have nearly the tolerance of cine lenses. Some even “wiggle” a bit… which is inconsequential for still photography, but a killer when shooting motion footage. Many SLR lenses, even expensive ones, breath a bit (the image size changes slightly when focusing), whereas good cine lenses should never breath. They can be difficult to use, too, especially for racking or follow focusing. This is because to go from near to infinity on an SLR lens you only have to turn the barrel a tiny bit, whereas a cine lens will make almost an entire barrel turn to go through its focus range.

A lot of still lenses DO have excellent elements in them, it’s just that they were not mechanically designed for cine use. For example, four of the superspeed lenses in my primes set are Leitz lenses, and started their life as lenses for Leica still cameras. The actual glass in them is second to none, but they would not have been useful for motion work because of the reasons I mentioned. However the optical elements were rehoused by Panavision, and now they have the right mounts, gear rings, focus travel range, collimation, engraving, and all that good stuff… so even though they were once still lenses they are now as good as any cine lenses that started life that way.

I could say a lot more, but those are the basic points. Again, what makes a “good” lens is if it looks good to you. And price isn’t always a factor… some excellent primes will easily cost as much as a new car, but I also have some excellent Russian LOMO cine primes that were dirt cheap (maybe only a few hundred bucks a piece) and they give stunning results as well.

It seems a lot of people are catching onto the fact that using cine primes on an HD camera (often with a DoF converter) can give stunning results. I’m basing that guess on the fact that the market for cine primes has really dried up. A few years ago you could sometimes find a decent small set of superspeed primes in the $10-15K neighborhood. Today unfortunately you can easily pay twice that or more, if you can find them. If and when RED finally releases their primes they will go for about $20K/set, which might be worth looking at. Incidentally, they will also have an 18-50mm zoom for $6500 and a 50-150mm for $8500. They are both T3… which is reasonably fast for a zoom, but pretty slow compared to primes.

There are two test instruments that you should use to make your final and most critical judgment….. your eyeballs.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Bob Cole] “it’s the common wisdom that you should use a monitor to ensure accurate focus when you shoot HD, I would like to ask the HD shooters out there, “What do you use?””

We use the tried-and-true old-school method that has served Hollywood well for a century and continues to do so…

A tape measure.

Keson and Lufkin tape measures are pretty much the “industry standard.” There’s nothing more low tech, cheaper, or accurate (providing of course your lenses are accurate… most high-end cine primes are spot on, but the engraving on cheap lenses can be quite a bit off so it’s important to test them). Just remember that you measure from the subject to the film plane (or sensor plane), not to the front of the lens. Most all film cameras (and high-end lens converters) will have an engraved line showing the film plane, and often a hook for the tape measure. With video cameras you have to more-or-less guess, but you can do so pretty accurately.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

This is a continuing issue, there have been many posts on it in the past if you want to do a search for more info…

BUT, the bottom line is…

IF you shoot with the Canon XLH1 AND you shoot HDV AND you shoot in “24f” mode… then you MUST use the camera as a source deck (or another Canon camera, even the little HV20 will work).

There are decks that will play back the Canon 24f footage if you shoot standard def, and there are decks that will play Canon HDV footage if you shoot at 60i… but with the HDV/24f combination there are simply no decks made by anyone that will play it.

Gotta use the camera as a source deck.

Sadly.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Well, I am of the opinion (as I have been for years), that “videographer” and “videography” are made up words.

But they seem to have crept their way into both the vernacular and the dictionary, so accepting that:….

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Also known as the Director of Photography. This is the person responsible for getting the image, creating the lighting, etc. He/she may also operate the camera, or may have a camera operator that works under him. In the very strictest sense, a cinematographer works on film productions, although the term is also often applied to digital cinema productions. Feature films, commercials, industrials, whatever… if they are shot on film the guy is the cinematographer.

VIDEOGRAPHER: Again, in the strictest sense, this term describes the position that is equivelant to the Cinematographer, except when shooting video instead of film. However now the term has come to describe most anyone who his holding and shooting with the video camera.

PRODUCER: This is gonna be the guy (or gal) who cordinates everything, gets all the ducks in a row, and makes it happen.

DIRECTOR: This person creates the scene, works with actors, defines blocking for actors, defines camera moves, works with the DP to compose the shots… and is the person most responsible for taking his vision and putting it on the screen.

I list these last two positions because for very small crew or corporate work you may have one person doing more than one or even ALL of these jobs simultaniously. Ergo, if I were a one-man band shooting a corporate gig and doing all of those jobs… I would probably call myself the Producer (or perhaps Director). If, on the other hand, I were shooting a corporate gig but someone else was calling all the shots and they bascially hired me to show up and shoot exactly what they tell me to, then I guess I would call myself a Videographer.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com