[Todd Terry]

Sadly, that means nothing to me.

You might ask over in the Audio Pros forum where they have more knowledge in that realm, and there’s much more traffic than in this one as well (sadly we get almost no traffic in here in the Canon Forum anymore…. which I choose to see as a glass-is-half-full kind of thing, meaning Canon users are not having many problems these days).

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

That is mysterious. Any time that I’ve experienced a hum in my Canon (C300 PL) we’ve been able to trace the issue, which was invariably a mic cable… either the cable itself was bad, had a bad connector, or was picking up interference from something else… such as the mic cable was crossing a power line, or was too close to an HMI ballast, or something like that. It sounds like you have eliminated all of those as a trouble source.

It’s probably not the answer you want, but it sounds to me like you have done all you can do on your end, and the source of the trouble doesn’t lie with any “operator error” or anything like that. Sadly, I believe it is “Send it back to Canon” time for repair.

I think your speculation about the fan is a valid one, since the problem seems to come and go. I don’t know of any other electronic voodoo going on with the camera that is sometimes on and sometimes off, other than the fan (although I believe with my C300 that the fan automatically goes off when you roll… it seems that way to me). But being that the fan is a mechanical thing with a motor it would seem logical that it turning on and off could cause some sort of interference, maybe an internal connection to it is loose or something.

Yes that does sound like something that is fixable in post, but you are right in that you don’t want to have to do that, nor is that the best route. Getting it fixed right is the best option. Fortunately I have always found Canon repair to be quite good and pretty speedy.

Good luck!

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

NICE Mark!

Strangely enough, I haven’t used my “one HMI” setup in a very long time… until yesterday when it was the right thing in my bag-o-tricks for a setup that sounds awfully similar to yours… looked great.

The only difference in what you and I did was that I used a 1200w fresnel and a white 4×4, my usual setup for that (If I had had a Joker 800 with a beamer that would have worked just as well or better).

It really is the world’s simplest setup… yet I’ve had even seasoned DPs (and I mean guys who make movies) see it and go “Hmmmm…. never thought of that,” probably because it’s so minimal.

Glad that worked for ya!

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I’m not sure what the problem with your footage might be (hard to guess without seeing it), but I don’t think you did anything wrong.

The “shutter increment” which you say was set at 1/4 doesn’t have anything to do with, well, anything, if you were shooting at 1/50th.

Let me back up… ok the 1/3 vs 1/4 setting is only affecting the amount the shutter speed changes, when you change it. First of all, that setting is only changeable when you have the shutter speed set to “speed” mode, and since you said you were shooting with a 180° shutter, that lets me know you were shooting in “angle” mode, rather than “speed” mode. In “angle” mode, the 1/3 vs 1/4 option is grayed out, you can’t even change it if you want to.

That being said, these days most people probably shoot in “speed” mode rather than “angle” mode. I would imagine that “angle” mode is really probably only used by old-school shooters who were used to shooting with real film in a variable shutter camera. But that being said, it’s really all the same thing, those different modes are just different ways of expressing the exact same thing. For example, if you shoot at 24fps as we do here in the colonies, a “normal” shutter speed would be 1/48th, which is exactly the same as a 180° shutter. The end result would look no different because it is exactly the same.

If you were in “speed” mode, changing from 1/3 to 1/4 only affects how much the shutter speed changes with each click if you click it up or down. That’s all.

So, I don’t think you did anything wrong. What is considered a “normal” shutter speed (which is the equivalent of a 180° shutter in a film camera) follows the equation “one over twice the frame rate.” Here in the 24fps world, that makes a normal shutter speed to be 1/48th of a second (one, over 2x the 24fps frame rate). So, since you are shooting 25p with a 1/50th shutter speed, that is exactly what it usually should be. But… back when you were shooting in angle mode, if you were shooting 25p with a 180° shutter speed, that is 1/50th of a second… it’s exactly the same…. and makes no difference whether the increments were 1/4 or 1/3.

I know that’s a long and probably very complicated answer, all to say “You did nothing wrong.”

If there is an issue with the way the footage looks, it’s probably something else. Hard to say without seeing it.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Greg Ball] “I don’t understand the anger and rudeness from a professional anger counseler. That,s just asinine.”

It’s really pretty simple….

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T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Hi Gunleik… maybe you could list the particular cameras you need to add to your list?

For example, I pretty much shoot only with the C300, and I’m guessing you already have that one so I wouldn’t be of much help… but others might.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

You’ve got three things going on that affect your exposure, that all work in concert: The ND ring on the lens, the aperture of the lens, and the sensitivity of the chip (the gain).

[Johnny Laty] “When the density ring is off it means it’s taking in as much light possible.”

Correct. In most circumstances (especially interiors), you’ll want no neutral density added, which means you’d want it set to the “OFF” position. You’d generally only want to add ND in extremely bright conditions to keep from overexposing you images, such as exteriors in direct sunlight.

[Johnny Laty] “So how do I make sure my iris is wide open? Isn’t that the same as the density ring?”

No, they are two very different things. The iris is controlled (as best as I recall, I haven’t used the camera in a very long time) by a little vertical thumbwheel on the left side of the camera body. Roll it one way and it closes the iris, roll it the other way and it opens it up. In dim conditions you’d want to open up the iris to let more light in. The iris is what you would normally use to tweak and fine tune exposure.

[Johnny Laty] “So I use the pop up gain knob to brighten the image at night if need be.”

Correct. The goal should be setting it to 0… but if even with the ND filtration set to zero, and even with the iris wide open, if you aren’t getting adequate exposure then you can start clicking the gain up. Remember that the higher you goose up the gain, the more noisy/grainy your image will be, so raising the gain should definitely be the third thing you resort to if images are too dark, after you’ve made sure there are no ND filters in place and that the iris is wide open. You shouldn’t see much image degradation (if any) if you pump the gain up to +3 or +6, but higher than that with the H1 and you’ll start noticing it.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I will completely and totally defer to Dennis here… good advice from him.

My milieu is much more single-camera cine-style DP work… Dennis is a thousand times more the king of the studio-type environment than I am, I know just enough to get by on stage without totally embarrassing myself (usually).

Among the best of his advice above was “you MUST hire people who know what they’re doing.”

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

If these are just for wall washing green screen, there is no need to buy bi-color instruments.

Bi-color heads are going to be more expensive (and not as bright) as equivalent single-color instruments, so that’s where I’d put my money. Especially since you are going to need lots of them for a stage that big (especially one that tall).

I also wouldn’t buy kits like that to rig a studio either, you’d be much better off just purchasing the heads you need for a permanent stage install. With those kits you’re also buying stands, cases, and batteries… things that are not needed at all for instruments needed for the lighting grid.

I won’t recommend specific instruments, though… that’s what you’ve got a gaffer for, who knows the space and your needs, budget, uses, and all that jazz.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

If these are just for wall washing green screen, there is no need to buy bi-color instruments.

Bi-color heads are going to be more expensive (and not as bright) as equivalent single-color instruments, so that’s where I’d put my money. Especially since you are going to need lots of them for a stage that big (especially one that tall).

I also wouldn’t buy kits like that to rig a studio either, you’d be much better off just purchasing the heads you need for a permanent stage install. With those kits you’re also buying stands, cases, and batteries… things that are not needed at all for instruments needed for the lighting grid.

I won’t recommend specific instruments, though… that’s what you’ve got a gaffer for, who knows the space and your needs, budget, uses, and all that jazz.

T2

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