[Tony]

Kindly ask the engineering department if you could read the operation manuals of the gear you will be exposed to so that you could start to get a grasp on the specific gear.

In addition check the websites of the various manufacturers who have equipment at the facility you will be interning at and see if they have any information or teaching materials available for download.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Yes two options,

1)Add a star filter when shooting to add additional cool vertical and horizontal lines.

2) shoot with an better quality camera that has no vertical smearing such as a FIT CCD camera or high end IT CCD.

You don’t get something for nothing.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Thanks for the update Jeff,

But do keep in mind shooting under water within a protected sealed camera housing is quite different in contrast to shooting on the surface while exposed to a severe wind chill factor and sub zero temperatures.

Constant exposure to ice, rain, snow non stop are just some of the environmental conditions any camera would have to endure out in the harsh artic.

Another note most experienced “film people” in the field who are working with a qualified AC will take the time to apply a thermal protection blanket over any camera (film or video) to minimize the build up of heat onto the camera body when it is exposed to heat or rain for long periods of time such as an extended break.

Not all digital video cameras employ a fan to cool down the camera head so it is vital to make sure the external camera temperature is keep within reasonable means.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Unless your doing alot of shooting where the camera body is exposed to the elements I see little merit with the full body cover as it limits the air cooling to the camera which is essential. For rain protection I use a slip on generic rain jacket that cost me about 35 bucks and works like a charm.

Sort of like wearing cold weather gear on a hot summer day. Imagine how long it would be before you would pass out.

FYI I did a month of shooting in Alaska and none of the camera (D600’s) had any cold weather jackets to protect the camera body. Not a single one of the D600’s even went down. Instead the problems were with the lens zoom motors slowing down or not responding due to the cold weather exposure. The humans had a harder time dealing with the freezing cold than the cameras did overall.

The porta brace body cover in my opinion make access to essential vtr and camera operations cumbersome not is not worth the overpriced cost for it .

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Hi Michael,

I can’t say if that is the case here in the states as I only rent the camera.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

John,

Considering you will be on a tight budget why waste the money on the massive hours of dubbing when you can digitize directly from the 1200A via firewire while downconverting to dv 50 or dvcpro.

You should be much more selective on what you digitize to save on overall drive space.

You might consider making DVD window dubs and have a logger make detail logs on what should be digitized instead of capturing everything.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Yes, 1200A will even autosense what the original recording was on the HDX-900 on the fly during playback.

In other words if you mixed 720 and 1080 on the same tape the 1200A will figure it out and playback properly.

Of course you still need to set up the proper menus for outputting via firewire or downconverting etc.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Please make sure the person you are morphing to the Hulk is wearing expandable underwear or else you may witness things no one should have to recall in their worst nightmares.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Another unrelated assignable switch feature which is missing from the 900R is the ability to “assign record, or lens return to assignable switch #2.” The 900H/3 allowed mixing the two functions to either assignable #1 or 2.

Currently only assignable #1 can have either record or lens return assigned as one of the many options.

Which leaves the turbo gain switch as the only option for assigning the “record” function to the operator side of the camera. It is standard practice over here to have the two assignable switches to lens return and record which makes it a major bummer that the 900R cannot do this.

However I have discovered a problem with the 900R when A) assignable #1 button is set to “lens return” and B) turbo gain is set to “record” when you activate the assignable #1 button the “lens return” function will not operate. Pressing the turbo gain button will allow the record function to operate however.

It is the combination of the two functions (lens return and record) to the assignable one and turbo rec which cause this hickup to take place.

I have tested this on several 900R to verify the problem.

Have you seen this issue on the 900R camera heads over there Michael?

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Michael,

I did some research on the effects of microwave exposure recently and found the results to include effects on the brain.

Were the six BBC cameramen exposed or worked close to microwave transmitters etc (ie handheld camera operator with microwave transmitter mounted onto camera)?

Tony Salgado