24fps prayer
So I just read this post on ProVideoCoalition by Adam Wilt- and honestly, I couldn’t disagree more.
He basicly is saying that he can’t wait for the day when we are all shooting and delivering 60P content, and that 24P is an ugly holdover from a past era and should be done away with.
While there are some technologies that I agree with this concept on - my pal Aaron brought up the B&W viewfinders on ENG cameras. I mean seriously, I don’t see any advantage to them, and you could always turn the color off on your COLOR viewfinder to get the same look…
But I don’t see 24P going away ANY time soon, nor do I want it to. I like my videos to look good, and to me, what looks good IS 24P. Maybe someday some future generations of filmmakers will start a new film movement that makes 60P cool, but for now, they are not the films that look good to the VAST majority of filmmakers, and audiences (and I’m talking about audiences that can tell the difference). For the people who can’t tell the difference- who cares?!
You know what, let’s stop using oil paint because you can get a more life-like and detailed image with inkjet or an airbrush or something! That’s a great idea. Lets see how many oil painters and collectors want to make that change.
There’s my first rant on my first blog. Whoopie.
DXOmark DSLR Sensor comparisons
My friend John sent me this link to a website that compares the sensors on nearly all DSLRs. It’s pretty amazing, I sure wish they could do the same tests on a few video cameras…
Here’s the link:
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/DxOMark-Sensor/Camera-rankings
Video/Film Sensor Size Chart
After looking these up on wikipedia too many times, I decided to make just one chart that lists all the sensors size of the various DSLR, and video cameras out there, or coming soon. I actually never understood that Super 35 (s35 on this chart) is the size of regular 35mm movie camera film, and is significantly smaller than full frame 35mm film. I didn’t even go down below 1/2″ sensor size, because it’s just too depressing to see how small the sensor is on my HVX200.
Nebtek HD70
After spending a LONG time hemming and hawing, comparing the various options for HD on-camera monitors:
Carrion (amazing picture, great price, but heavy and larger size)
Panasonic (very nice, but equally very expensive)
Marshal 7″ (not bad at all, not very bright, heavy)
Totevision (questionable build quality, so/so picture)
IKAN 8000HD (crap picture, all plastic, very cheap, not really fair comparison)
Varicam/Swit (garbage)
I finally bit the bullet and bought a Nebtek HD70 for on-camera monitoring (and for future use in my yet un-built stabilizer). The picture is AWESOME- heads and toes above the Marshal 7″. It’s bright, and with a hood, works fine even in full sun-shine. They have an edge enhance mode that really makes pulling focus in a 85mm f1.4 nikon a snap. It has underscan, blue gun, bars, and various PAR modes (though I pretty much only use 16:9. There are multiple holes for tripod mount plates, or for other attachment methods, so it should work great on a stabilizer. The power and video i/o are in the back, and can be turned so they point sideways. It runs on 12v, or 7.2v through a smaller connector. It’s got an all metal case, feels quite tough, and has BNCs w/ loop-through. I paid just under $2k for it.
Now the bad-
I got it with the Panasonic battery adaptor (I have an HVX200) and my non-panasonic brand batteries didn’t work until I added a few strips of gaff tape to the battery mount to ensure contact with the electrical connectors. Nebtek said that both the adaptor and the off-brand batteries are made from molds of the panasonic items, and they use those molds far past when they should- thus the parts don’t always fit right. I’m not very happy with that answer, but with the tape it seems to work just fine.
It eats batteries pretty quickly, I’m using 5600mah units, and I get about 2 hours of use out of them. Not so great when they take ages to recharge. So I might be looking into a different battery option. Not sure yet. Price and weight of AB or IDX system is daunting.
Finally, when my camera is in HD mode, if I am WAY overexposing the frame, the monitor will freak out and think there is no video signal. It’s not really a big deal, since you’d never actually shoot with those settings, but it’s annoying when you are setting iris, or moving into a brighter area and you loose your picture till you dial back the iris. I guess I could look at it like a “feature” It’s lake a hard stop for when you blow 100+ IRE. Nebtek support has been good, and is working with me on this, so it’s still unresolved.
Home Built Steadicam
I lurked on HBS (homebuiltstabilizers.com) for years before getting up the gumption to try my own build. Now nearly 6 months later, I’m still planning things out. I’ve reverse engineered the Steadicam G50 arm, and am going to try that as my first shot. Why not eh?! If it works, I’ll be stoked. What’s more likely, is that I’ll learn a lot about machining, and use those skills to make some simpler items.
Here is one of my CAD drawings of the G50 arm mechanism. If I understand it correctly, (from reading the patent) I think that the red parts work as a cam to reduce the spring force as the arm booms to it’s maximum height- which makes certain the arm doesn’t lock up, or bump at the top. At the same time, it also lessens the force of the spring at the bottom of the motion- I’m not sure why this is, and might try to make a prototype to figure it out.
DIY Kinoflo
My first DIY lights- I bought some electronic ballast flourescent fixtures at Home Despot, then added some daylight balanced, high CRI T12 bulbs. Finally for the 2-bulb fixtures, I added some EMT pipe clamps to attach to lightstands, and for the 4-bulb, I bolted 2 fixtures together and added a 6″ baby plate on the back to attach to a mafer clamp on top of a light stand.
They work well, but they are kinda heavy, and hard to transport without risking breaking the bulbs.
HMI Softbox
I learned about DIY HMI lights from Richard at Coolights.biz. For my first attempt, I bought a bulb, base, and balast from an aquarium lighting store (hellolights.com). Then I got a cheap hot-light softbox from B&H. After some quick metalwork on a small reflector I got at the Rebuilding Center, I was able to mate the 2 pieces together. I added a stud and an old umbrella clamp, and voilla- a 250W HMI light that puts out ~900W in Tungsten equivalent lumens. It’s 96CRI and 6000K, so it generally matches sunlight.
Total cost: $350