T.STOPS

Red Scarlet: The Gateway Drug.

2012-02-17T11:44:00.001-05:00

I am surprised.

I am surprised by how much i like the RED Scarlet. Like is too soft a word. I adore my RED Scarlet. This comes as a surprise to me not because i was expecting a bad camera, i just wasn't expecting something that i would come to be so fond of.

I will return to this point in a minute, but first, I want to talk about the path to RED, and why i chose to purchase an additional pro level camera.

For this past year I was happily shooting on the Sony F3 with sLog. The F3 is absolutely astonishing. I recently shot a feature film with it, and it performed amazingly well, beyond belief. The shoot took place from october 15th though November 10th. The Canon/RED November 3rd announcement hit during our closing weeks of production and my DIT and I discussed the offerings from the big players. The choice seemed clear, 4K for $20,000 all in. The F3 had certainly earned its keep and is still one of the most flexible tools i've ever owned. However, as a business owner, I want Tstop Cinema to remain on the cutting edge of cinema technology. Not that i was at all unhappy with the F3, but I have a formula, If (Rental Cost) X (#of times used per year) > (1/4) X (Item New Purchase Price), i buy it. I had used a REDMX and Epic 9 times this year. Thats around $11,000 in rentals. The formula said get a RED. I put down my deposit and waited......

Some weeks later before I received my camera, I tested a RED Scarlet with Ryan Koo of No Film School. This accomplished a few things, first since I had not yet received the RED, I had a chance to see if I even liked it. Should I change my mind I can always get a refund from RED, they are really good in that sense. Second, I got a chance to see what it was capable of interms of image, ergonomics, functionality and over all performance. You can see the film we wound up shooting on our first outing here:

I liked it. Yet, i wasn't completely sold. There were some issues. The camera does not come with a standard thread spacing on the base, so using my basic accessories proved difficult. MatteBox, Follow Focus, filters, additional monitoring etc... all out the window. The RED needs additional accesories to make it function in a basic manner. Nothing too horribly expensive, but still. Really? I need a $100 riser to make it "standard"?

I decided to keep my order, and play it by ear. Since I had a low order number, I'd at least have the ability to sell the camera for cost in the event I wanted to get rid of it after it arrived.

Finally, three weeks ago, my Scarlet arrived, with the 5" LCD. I purchased the Wooden Camera Anton Bauer back plate. I had originally planned on using the RED base production pack to remedy the lack of standard mounting points on the bottom. Waiting for it to arrive, I put the scarlet to good use, and started day one on a eight day shoot. The setup below, is without the base plate riser, with the camera bolted directly to a Element Technica 19mm Hybrid Plate. This presented a quick solution, and massive problem. Yes the Cooke 18-100 T3 Varotal, could now mount.... however, the camera was positioned way too low, and thus neither matte-box nor follow focus could fit under the lens. My 1st AC improvised, and turned the Obox into a clamp on Matte-Box.

This problem had to be remedied. I cancelled my base production pack from RED and had the Easy Riser, Rubber handle, and Easy Stick over nighted from Wooden Camera. I could not be happier. Ryan at Wooden Camera has been nothing short of spectacular with regards to customer service.

Day one of this production, "Where is Joel Baum?" a film from blossoming director Pearl Gluck, required a carefully rigged car mount. Seen above and below, Key Grip Rob Smith, made us a courtesy blind to cover up the camera while it was rigged to the back of a pick up truck to avoid unneccesary attention. 1stAC Ali Cengiz peeking over the blind looking for his Donuts, and double checking the rigging. We used as a focus monitor the SmallHD DP6 monitor. This was invaluable, because the RED 5" LCD does not articulate in the most convenient way. Having a fully flexible, 720p monitor made focus a breeze for my AC. The Scarlet outputs a full debayer clean 1080p signal, looks amazing on the DP6.

One Quick note, just as a bit of perspective, i carried the RED to set this day in the same bag i normally take my 5D in. The ENTIRE Scarlet fit in a Canon DSLR bag, WITH batteries! The small size and light weight really are huge help to 1st ACs who have to wrangle the camera all day.

Despite the crude build that first day, we got some great images!

The Rest of the film just looks spectacular!

Once "Where is Joel Baum?" was finished, I immediately used the RED on a commercial for a national cable TV provider. Green screen, 4k Quad HD, and full DIT on set. Here is where some of the pitfalls of RED come into play. The huge data rate mixed with the transcoding step had left us a bit backlogged. The director wanted 4k ProRes4444 at the end of the day. We had a little glitch with the Rocket card and the current RCXpro build, and with some overtime, eventually fixed the problem and delivered the footage on time. When using Green Screen, I think its particularly important to shoot on primes. The flat illumination (no vignetting) of the iPanchros, mixed with the massive resolution and 16bit REDCODE RAW; made for some excellent plates that keyed flawlessly.

Thoughts on Exposure:

The Scarlet has the latest incarnation of the Mysterium X sensor. Red rates it at a very healthy ISO800. While i dont disagree with the rating, the nature of RAW recording lends itself to a few quirks. The truth is the camera is a ISO320 camera, but its a clean 320.... meaning boosting the signal up to the equivalent of ISO800 gives little noise penalty. This is where exposing for a RED gets interesting. What your essentially doing by rating and shooting the camera at ISO800 is "under exposing" the sensor at its native ISO320, thereby protecting the highlights, and then artificially boosting the signal back up to "ISO800".

There is no other ISO other than 320. In fact, with RAW, the only control you have is focus, aperture, frame rate and shutter speed. EVERYTHING else is meta data..... Dont go thinking that by setting your ISO @ 250 you are going to get around the need for ND filters. All you are doing then is over exposing the sensor at its native 320, and clipping all your highlights. Nothing is for free.

That said, the camera is quite the performer. The highlight roll off is very natural, and the dynamic range is quite useable. I dont think its anywhere near the 13.5 stops that RED claims. It feel much more like my F3 in non LOG mode which is about 12 Stops.

Remember, If the situation ever arises, HDRX can always give you a helping hand if your contrast is surpassing the capabilities of the sensor. Its not perfect for every scene, but it has its uses. I will go into FAR more detail on HDRX, and the Scarlets minutia in the next post.

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Now to return to the Title of this post. The Scarlet: The Gateway Drug. The RED scarlet for all its capability, makes you want an EPIC.

I will tell you why. Ever since i got the Scarlet i have not stopped using it. Photography work, commercials, narrative films, corporate, cine-doc, you name it.... there is nothing i've come across that it hasn't been perfect for. That said, there is always that moment when you need just a little more... 5K, high Fps, HDRX in all frame rates, lower compression..... etc. I came to this realization when shooting some stills for a group of dancers. (see below) I shot in 12FPS 5k to get the maximum resolution and quality. The yearning for 48FPS HDRX was great. I think RED has gotten themselves a future Epic customer.

Some 5K Stills: Shot in 100% natural light. No modifiers at all. Not a bounce, not a flash, not a light. just the sun and the space. The Scarlet may not have the most dynamic rane in the world, but its highlight rendition is just wonderful!

Thanks for checking out this lengthy (but BRIEF!) over view of all the Scarlet has to offer.

Please feel free to follow me on twitter @timurcivan and @tstopcinema

Thank you for reading!

If you are interested in supporting the "Where is Joel Baum?" project on Kick Starter, please click HERE!

More on the details of the Scarlet, and a comparison with the Sony F3 coming up!

Anticipation.

2011-12-21T01:31:00.002-05:00

The RED scarlet is an interesting camera. People rushed in droves to buy an untested, brand new camera sight unseen, with no sample footage, or reviews. Simply on RED's good name. I too am one of those people.

As the weeks wear on with no camera, and $$$>$15,000 in red's hands, i wondered, what the hell am i buying? Why have i given so much of my hard earned money to a company that cant tell me when i will receive the product i paid for....

I received a call from a fellow filmmaker Ryan Koo of No Film School, his Scarlet Ti-PL had arrived, but being a DSLR film maker, he had no PL lenses.... I am awash in PL glass as i have a problem.... i am a Glassaholic. We figured why not join forces and fire that sucker up.

I brought along my Cooke iPanchros, Ryan brought his scarlet, Co director Raafi Rivero of The Color Machine supplied us with location and actors and voila! We had the makings of a short film. Just shooting a film is always a great test of a new camera. The scarlet was barebones, it had no side handle, or top handle. The biggest challenge that day was how to pick it up.....

First impressions, the boot time is quick, the weight is low, the profile is small. With my iPanchros i think the small size, amazing optics, and light weight really lends itself to the system. Ryan wrote up a 1 page script, and instead of a boring test, we shot a micro short. Whats better to see how a camera performs than to actually use it on set....

The camera you see above, is the entire package. 3x 3 hour batteries, 2 tiny 128gig SSD REDMAGs, and set of light weight lenses. This sub 11lbs package gave us, top tier optics, 16bit 4k RAW, and it fits in the palm of your hand. I seriously was impressed. Simply being able to handle a camera so small that gives you EVEN in its smallest form, the best image it can, makes you want to work harder for the shot and find the best angle, composition and locations...

We had a tiny lighting package and a great location, a good combo. This basically gave me a chance to see if i like the damn thing i already paid for... the Verdict? I LOVE it. Its liberatingly small. DSLR small... but with no compromises. 24p is GORGEOUSLY detailed and nuanced... 48p in 3k is too.... 2k @ 60p is useable, but it really crops far into the image, and i fear it dammages image quality a bit.

There are a few first impression cons... the heat sink blows hot air up your nose when you hold it .... this gets ANNOYING FAST. Also the heat fans are loud as sin, they literally drone on like a hive of bees...

The rest will come together as Ryan and co, oversee the edit.... To be updated soon....

An Examination of: Small HD DP4 EVF

2011-12-06T03:01:00.002-05:00

Pardon my hiatus friends, thankfully i've been very busy shootin this last few months.

One tool i've been using on a regular basis is what i like to call the "Light meter for the digital age". That is to say a small, high quality monitor. In this case the Small HD DP4. This is a truly unique monitor, that holds an interesting place in my tool kit.

I won't spend too much time on specs, other than this brief over view. Its a 800x480 16:9 1080 capable monitor, with HDMI, and component inputs. MSRP at SmallHD is $749 with the EVF attachment included. Its specifically designed to be used with an eye cup attachment that turn this small monitor into an EVF (Electronic View Finder). This is extremely advantageous to the modern digital cinematographer, because more often than not, the digital cameras we use tend not to have viewfinders that are in logical, or convenient places. More often placed on as an after thought it seems. At last we now have a system that gives you freedom to place the EVF where ever you wish.

Physically the DP4 monitor has a fantastic fit and finish. You could say an almost "MacBook Pro" like build. Smooth milled aluminum, with a silky texture, beveled edges, and all power, and buttons are smoothly contained in one body. The removable Eye Cup, is also thoughtfully designed, but is made of plastic. The eyecup has a great feature, a rare earth magnetic locking mechanism. Its an elegant means of securing the evf in its open and closed positions. You can see the magnets in the image above on the left side. The unit comes in a very sleek black box, with a short HDMI cable, 90 degree HDMI adapter, USB cable, collapsable sunshade, screen protector, EVF eyecup, rubber eyepiece, wall AC power unit, and a screen wipe.

I have a lot of ground to cover, but right now i want to talk about using the thing....

In the 4 months i've had this monitor, ive brought it to every corner of the USA and soon, will be taking it to Africa to complete a feature film i am DPing. I have not had a single electronic hitch. It is reliable, rugged, and stands up to abuse quite well.

Whats awesome about the DP4 is this: as a SmallHD DP6 user for about a year. I have grown spoiled by its high resolution, plethora of tools, and beautiful build quality. When i received the DP4 i was not expecting it to perform to the same standard as the flagship monitor, figuring the lower priced unit would be lacking..... Truth is, it performs slightly better. Its color accuracy is better, its latency (the refresh rate, and speed of processing from the camera signal) is almost nil, and despite the "lower" resolution, its smaller size makes it appear to be equally sharp. Its like they shrunk a DP6 and added more features. Its my new weapon of choice for travel jobs. Its half the size, weight, and gives me all the same tools. At the same time, if i ever need it, its a EVF for bright sunlight use, or handheld. Some early DP4 adopters will be pleased to know that the Rubber eyecup has been updated, and eliminates a lot of the problems associated with the old system. The old cup would fall off rather easily with a small bump, and when using diopeter or ND on the eyepiece, it made the problem worse. I JUST received the new eyecup, and its a godsend. Love it. In fact, i had to re write a portion of the article to mention the fact that this problem was solved. So, hats off to you SmallHD. Thank you for listening. You can see below, the old rubber cup on the right, and the new improved design on the left. The portion that connects to the EVF is longer, and is built like a bellows to adjust to various accessories for the EVF eye piece. Very secure and comfortable.

I want to return briefly to its latency performance. All monitors have latency issues. Its the simple physics of the onboard computer processing the image, scaling it to the panel then displaying it. (as informed from the manufacturer) The DP4 has one of the most powerful image processing circuits in the business. What this means is you get the least amount of lag in the image from the camera. This isn't a big deal when using it in "normal monitor" mode, with no eye cup, but it can be disorienting when using a EVF with one one shut in hand held mode, if your movements aren't matching what you see. it can be a dizzying experience.

Apart from the physical standpoint, the tools it offers are phenomenal, AND flexible. I have used the DP4 on Jobs ranging from short films, big budget commercials, documentaries, a feature film, and corporate video. I have used it on, the 5D, F3, RED, 7D, and the HPX 170. This is why i call the DP4 the "Digital Lightmeter". I take it on every job. I know its image, and its tools are perfect for the modern workflow, especially its 2 types of false color. The DP4 was the first to include the new kinds of false color, False color HL and False Color HML.

The difference being that the FC HL, stands for High/Low. It shows a black and white image, with only the clipping points being represented with color. Pure clipped black (signified by Blue), and pure clipped white (signified by RED). This is critically important when shooting dimply lit scenes, and being able to isolate the "black" out from the rest of the FC range, is helpful in establishing your fill lights, and knowing where you are losing detail. On the contrary, the white clipping indicator of FC HL is equally important in out door scenes so you can see exactly where your video signal is getting lost.

I have been using Sony's F3 camera on a regular basis with the sLOG function, which gives you a wider dynamic range. I have been living by the false color as an exposure tool, as it gives me a "wysiwyg" interpretation of my exposure. Critical for maintaining all the information the signal has to offer.

The beauty of false color is that it is useable on any camera system with a HDMI tap. I will be using the DP4 as a EVF on my soon to be delivered RED scarlet. The beauty of the DP4 is that its scaleable to every camera system i've come across.

Lets take the DSLR for example. I shoot with the 5D every so often, and we all know about its short comings in as far as its drop to SD resolution while recording, and lack of proper exposure tools in video. The DP4 solves these issues for me and even saves my eye sight by not having to strain my eyes looking at a tiny screen on the back of the DSLR. The DP4 like the DP6 has scaling presets built right in, clearly labeled, Canon REC, Nikon REC, DSLR Playback. No more guessing, losing portions of your screen, no more taping monitors, no more hassle. Speaking of taping monitors, how many times have you been trying to shoot for scope, only to find your self marking the monitor with tape for framing. Finally the DP4 has built in marking lines for 4:3 and 2.35:1. Very very handy. I just shot a feature film that was to be cropped for scope, and the marking lines saved me for the handheld scenes.

Lets take this one step further. Anamorphic lenses are now all the rage with the indie community. The built in custom scaling options mean i can de squeeze the image and still be able to focus, frame and use my exposure tools. Makes shooting with anamorphic, not only possible, but simple and easy.

Power: The DP4 has some VERY convenient features in this department. Its power system is completely built in, That is to say, no need for removable, battery plates. Unlike the DP6 which has the removable Canon battery plate, the DP4 has built in canon battery plates and a DC power input, that are counter sunk, and flush with the back of the monitor. When not in us they are out of the way and safely tucked behind the monitor. The DP4 can run on one single canon battery for almost 3 hours. I wound up shooting a short concert for a friend, as a favor, nothing major, just the 5D. So i grabbed my 5D, and stuffed the DP4 into the camera bag, and ran out the door. I forgot to bring spare canon batteries. I was faced with a dilemma. I had one half charged Canon battery and one fully charged battery. I figured, get the concert in the bag, so I put the fully charged battery in the camera, and though "Run the DP4 for 20 min or so, till the battery runs dry". An hour later, the DP4 was still running strong off a single half charged battery. The DP4 does have a slot for two batteries, so the runtime with both, is close to 6 hours. I usually use a D-tap cable to power the DP4 and 6, so i rarely use the Canon batteries. When attached to a AB 90wHr battery, the DP4 has remained on for over 12 hours, with the battery indicator on the battery showing 50% remaining charge. Great on power.

I now want to take this time to discuss some of the problems and issues i've encountered.

Despite all the positive atributes, not every product can be 100% perfect.

The main issues are as follows:

1: The lack of a built in diopeter is somewhat of a pain. It is recommended to buy a separate screw on diopeter. The problem with that is it makes the end of the evf a little longer.

2: Sun light burn. The optics in the eye cup are actually quite nice. The edge to edge sharpness is great, and the image is sharp. There is however a caveat, if the sun ever finds it self at an angle perpendicular to the panel with the EVF component covering the panel, it can focus the suns rays and like a magnifying glass burn the panel. With a little care, and utilizing the ability to fold up the EVF, its easily preventable, you just need to be aware. Small HD recommends buying a screw on ND6 filter for the end of the eye cup. It cuts out just enough sunlight to prevent burn, and allows you to comfortably use the brightest setting of the monitor, where its contrast ratio is the highest, and thus performance is best. It does however interfere with the Rubber eyecup, and if you need to use a diopeter and the ND the rubber eyecup will be difficult to attach without tape.

3: 1080 24psF. The DP4 does not display 108024psF. (at least the unit i have) It will view 59.94 1080i no problem, but the screen goes black when PSF is used. this presents a problem when using a KIproMINI with a camera like an F3. The KIpro will record 1080 59.94, but it will require an additional step to remove the pull down in post, making it less convenient. Not the end of the world, but an inconvenience nonetheless. The Sound Devices Pix 240 ProRes422 recorder however, will automatically remove the pulldown and convert the footage in to 24P onboard, making the issue non existant.

In conclusion; Every camera nowadays has an HDMI port, and if it doesn't, chances are you're using an off board recorder that can convert an SDI signal to HDMI. Reflecting the increasingly smaller and smaller cameras, a small monitor that keeps the weight and size of a rig down is a blessing. The high image quality, tools, ergonomics, customer service, convenience and flexibility the DP4 provides the shooter is fantastic. The simple fact that like its big brother the DP6, the DP4 can grow with you, and be used on every camera system you come across, from the GH1 to the Epic.

UPDATE!!!!
The New Eye cup will be shipping this upcoming week! Starting 12/19/11, Maybe even earlier! Check www.smallHD.com for more information.

Until next time,
I will be reviewing the Duclos 11-16mm T2.8 Zoom!

Sony F3 - sLog Testing

2011-09-05T14:48:00.004-04:00

Today we will be looking at sony's sLog Update for the Sony F3. This camera represents so much imaging power in such a compact package. The whole rig weighs in at about 17 pounds. Roughly the same size and weight as my old SGpro REV3 setup, when hooked up to a HVX200.

Tools:
1 Sony F3 w/ sLog update
1 Ki Pro Mini
1 set Cooke iPanchros
1 DaVinci Resolve

We recorded with sLog 3G444, out the standard SDI port with the LUT turned off into the KI pro Mini.

The interiors with the candle and lamp tests, are shot recorded Dual link 444 into a Blackmagic card in uncompressed capture. ( with exception to the shot of Tom sitting at the table with the heavy back light, that was to Ki Pro as well)

KI PRO Mini Courtesy of Next Level Pictures

Using the Small HD DP4 to gauge exposure in sLog. Luckily the HDMI works when using sLog.

Objective, to discover where sLog should be exposed, How it should be treated in post, and what the difference between 709 standard Gammas and sLog in post, and acqusition.

From previous testing the F3 w/ sLog clips to white @ 6 stops over key. Using this information i metered the brightest highlights in each scene to +6 stops, JUST touching the clip point ( or what i thought was the clip point). The dark end of the scale fell to where it fell.

The goal being to see how far down you can drag up the image, and how conservative i have to be with using fill light to maintain an image in the black section of the scene.

OK, So here's the skinny. You have to expose just as carefully as you would with any other medium. The sLog w/ Offboard capture gives you incredible room to adjust and manipulate later, however like every camera, the closer you get to perfect in camera, exposure wise, the more Oomph your image will have after delogging. That said, 10bit 422 ( and especially 444 capture) gives you and INSANE amount of room to fudge.

For kicks we recorded the REC709 180% LUT as well and tried to match them to see if matching was possible. The Footage can be massaged into a similar looking image, but the highlight quality, grain structure, and shadow retention goes out the window. If you need a very high dynaic range shot with and F3 and dont have sLog, if you at least have a KI Mini, you can get SOMETHING.... it wont be as pretty, but it'll be there.

These compositions are boring, very boring, but they are carefully chosen. to reflect situations i've run in to the last few years, on various shots that have always bothered me and made me wish i had the "Infinite Dynamic Range" as MacGregor so eloquently put it. Well, for the most part, we have that now, at an indie price point. Yes, the Alexa is better.... by about a stop. (when you hit the 13.5+ zone 1 stop actually becomes a lot) but at 1/3 the price, this is terrifying performance. And the fact that i own it, and its paid it self off in 3 months, and i dont have a 70k mill stone around my neck is simply phenomenal.

The thing when shooting sLog thats tricky; it goes against every instinct you have as a DP. You have to under expose, so far down that you think "Theres NOTHIGN THERE!!!!! WHAT THE #$%^ I'M DOOING!?!?!?!?" but use your exposure tools, use your false color, use your wave form. Skin tones stay at 35IRE, High lights on skin @ 40-45 IRE. Dont worry, its ALLLLL there.... The trick is to use spot meter to see how many stops you are from one point to another in the scene. Get a Grey card, light your set, get your highlights to about +6 stops over key, then set the Grey card @ 35IRE with the waveform. You should be set.

The truth is i dont know why, but for some reason, color information, because of the sLog, is more accurate, pleasing, and is retained all the way up to the clipping point. Even 10bit capture on regular 709 doesnt have the same amount of detail in highlights. Its just not retained in the same way. Pay attention to the highlights in the forearms in the "dramatic" lighting shots.

I highly reccomend downloaing the 2gig low compression version to really see in full resolution whats going on, and how Frigging sharp the F3 really is.

Now that Daylight is covered, lets see what happens when the sun goes away....

Below you will see, sLog raw Tiffs, and graded Tiffs. Feel free to DL and grade. For reference, i shot the skin tones at about 35 IRE to Uncompressed Quicktime - 3G 444 sLog, @ 0dB F16, with a 2k Par with double diffusion, and in the shot is a 40w Compact fluorescent. no Fill.

The skin tone is metered at a T16, with the highlight +1 stop, and the fluorescent bulb itself is +9 stops, and the top of the puppy's head is +3 stops over key.

I am flabbergasted that i can own a camera that has this much imaging power.

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LOG Out of camera:

RAW Log TIFF File.

Delogged

RAW de-LOG TIFF File

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0dB RAW LOG

Cooke Panchro @ T2.8

1 foot candle.

RAW Log TIFF 0dB

0dB DE-Logged

DE-Log TIFF

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+6dB

+6 dB RAW Log TIFF

+6 dB DE-LOG TIFF

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+12 dB

+12 dB RAW Log TIFF

+12dB DE-Log TIFF

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+18dB

+18 dB RAW Log TIFF

+18 dB DE-Log TIFF

In reality i'd be hard pressed to go above +6dB in LOG. it does get quite grainy, though +18 dB in a dire situation is shoot able, and grades rather well considering the source, and technical extreme its put under.

Lots of people balked at the price tag of $3,680 for a "firmware" update, but the simple truth is, its worth EVERY penny. The F3 which already has a stellar image, just suddenly jumped up in the ranks. It Jumped up so high, that i actually am going to use it on a feature film i'm shooting in the coming months.

Check back soon!

I will be releasing the plans for free for my "Anamorphic Looks Device"

And i will be reviewing the Small HD DP4.

Follow me on twitter @timurcivan

www.tstopcinema.com

-T

An Examination of Lenses: Carl Zeiss Compact Primes MK1

2011-07-14T05:21:00.001-04:00

image from www.en.panalight.ro

So as promised I am finally looking at something other than a Cooke.

On the slate today, the Zeiss CP - 1 Set. I chose to review the CP1's, as opposed to the CP2's for a reason.

One, because i have a set of CP1's..... but more importantly, they are true PL primes. The CP2's have interchangeable mounts that can prove a bit tricky to collimate. The CP1's i have are accurate to the inch, so for the sake of testing and working with them, i went with what i know works perfectly. I will amend this later with the newer CP's at a later date to reflect the differences in the update.

Since they are so accurate in terms of focus, let me talk about build quality and ergonomics. The primes are very light weight, under 2lbs per lens, and all the same size, with matching focus and Iris locations. All have 114mm fronts, very handy when quickly changing lenses as your mattebox and follow focus can remain in the same position. In my opinion, the light weight of the lenses is a double edged sword. Yes they are easier to handle, and make for simpler stedicam and handheld work, yet they have a "hollow" thinness to the metal that just makes me grit my teeth. They will probably last a life time, but every time you handle them it just doesn't feel right. Somethign like when you handle carbon fiber tools, or camera accessories. I know they are strong and durable.... but they just feel to light and it doesn't instill confidence. The focus and iris both rotate smoothly with a long rotation, however with resistance that is vastly different than the Panchros. My AC for the job i just did with them, (a newbie), having pulled focus on my Cookes, when pulling on the CP's asked if somethign was wrong with the follow focus, noting the additional friction. I had to set him straight that the silky, lack of resistance you get on Cookes is not the norm. This isnt to say they are stiff by any means, they just aren't as silky smooth as the Panchros.

The witness marks are plentiful, and accurate. However despite the long rotation, you still wind up with 3/4 of the barrel rotation representing minimum focus to about 6 feet, with the remaining 1/4 for everything between 6 feet and infinity. Not a big deal on the wides, but murder on the 85mm. Especially that the 50mm and 85mm are both T1.5.

As you can see, for a nice close up, the 85mm just looks great. This was shot @ T1.5 1/2, and my AC was having difficulty keeping the singer of this music video in focus not so much because of the narrow DOF, but because of the fact that the 6" he moves back and forth is almost a 1/4 turn on the lens barrel, and even more on the follow focus. However, there is a certain beauty to a fast lens in a tight closeup.
That said, the real kicker is that the disparity of the Tstops, while not REALLY a big deal..... kind of is. Let me clarify. The lens set is as follows. 18mm T3.9, 21mm T2.9, 25mm T2.9, 28mm T2.1, 35mm T2.1, 50mm T1.5 and 85mm T1.5.

This basically means i have to light to a T4. I mean, you have to light the scene to your slowest lens, unless its a one shot kind of deal where you aren't going to be switching back and forth. So, as i see it, if im going to be lighting to a T4, why even make the 50 and 85 a 1.5? Ah HA! but then again, its AWESOME having a 50mm and 85mm at a T1.5...... The problem being you can't just switch from one lens to the other when youre lit for one. It is frustrating.

The CP's optically speaking are decent. They all suffer from significant softness, and very strong chromatic aberration wide open, and depending on the lens, all the way down to a T5.6. The biggest culprit of CA being the 50mm, 85mm, and 35mm lengths. Notice the pink/magenta CA on the sequins on the shirt. Shot with the 85mm @ T2.0.

100%

All of these lenses are soft wide open, including the 18mm. Yea, the T3.9 18mm needs to be stopped down to be sharp. This was extremely apparent on a EPIC shoot i did last week, with the CP's. Punching in for focus with the 25mm wide open, just never looked sharp in the focus assist until it was stopped down to a T5.6. When edited, and output to 1080p for delivery, the softness is reduced, but had the shot been screened at 4k, it would have looked soft. I shoot primarily on the F3 so the 1080p image looks ok if shooting wide open, but not as razor crisp as Master Primes or Ultra Primes in the Zeiss family.

These 1080p screen grabs are good examples of how when reduced to 1080, or captured at 1080, the images come back together rather well.

The 18mm in action:

The 50mm:

I am in the middle with regard to their flaring characteristics. They don't flare poorly, but they do flare a lot. Similar to the early Zeiss Superspeeds in quantity, but not in quality.

The image milks up significantly, and there is a blue/aqua flare ghost. This isn't the flare ghost that comes from the OLPF, no, that's green. This is a bizarre aqua flare. They all do it, and they all do it differently. Each lens has its own distinct flares. Where as with S4's, Ultras, Panchros etc... The flares looks somewhat similar in texture and scale, the CP's are completely different in color, shape and quantity. The 18mm flares if you look at it wrong.

That said, when CP's are not flaring, and stopped down a stop or two they do exhibit phenomenal contrast. Blacks are black, and whites don't bloom in any way. They do milk out when wide open however. Especially the 50mm and 85mm. I am curious to see how the performance in the CP2 T2.1 50mm and 85mm compare. This is what happens when you flag every light source off the lens, and stop down... look at those blacks... perfect.

This is a test shot with stand ins.

A dancer.

Its almost too clean.

This is the life you have to live with Compact primes. One extreme to the other.... fast Tstops, or slow Tstops... Soft and milky or crisp and contrasty.... They are so darn inconsistent.

That said, it can also be a blessing. Shooting them wide open is like a built in promist, want it clean and sharp? add a light and stop down to a T4, and you will have a super rich, contrasty, razor sharp image. Want it Soft and ethereal? put in a scrim and open up.

Overall, i find that i am so spoiled by the Panchros and how consistent they are. From T2.8 all the way to T16 its the same image. The range of "look" you get with a set of CP's is considerably different. I can only describe the looks as neutral but slightly warm. The longer focal lengths don't distort, but the shorter ones do a bit. Breathing is low, and the bokeh is absolutely gorgeous. There are somethign on the order of 14 iris blades to keep the bokeh perfectly round and buttery at all Tstops. This is one area where the CP's excel. They have "Canon L series" like bokeh. Smooth and clinical looking, but in a good way. This will make many in the DSLR crowd happy, because the bokeh they enjoyed on the Canon camera with Canon lenses, is attainable in PL on other platforms at an affordable price.

Over all in the end, i like the CP's. They have quirks, but i like quirks. Perfect lenses would be boring. If you want perfect, look into Master Primes. I for one am perfectly happy living between my Cookes and the CP's.

Till next time where i look into the Duclos 11-16 T3 Zoom! Its so much fun its almost wrong....

-T
Dont forget to follow me on Twitter @timurcivan or @tstopcinema
www.tstopcinema.com

An Examination of Lenses Part III: Cooke 25-250 CineVarotal MkI T3.1

2011-06-06T09:37:00.002-04:00

In this installment of the Examination of Lenses series, we will be looking at a venerable lens. The Cooke Super Cinevarotal MKI T3.1 25-250. (Special thanks to Mike Ross who provided the lens, and i promise i will review something other than a Cooke in the next article!) This was the lens used to shoot the original Superman film. Being a product of the late 1970's this lens certainly has the character and look of that period. Zoom lenses from that era, the pre computer age, completely hand made, with all the flaws and perfection unique to a hand made product, have a distinct feeling to them. Somewhat soft, with a dreamy dramatic look. The Angeniuex's had it, the Cookes had it, and the Lomo's certainly had it. This lens is no exception. Unlike contemporary zooms that perform consistently all the way through their range and apertures, (Angeniuex DP Rouges, Optimos, Allura Zoom, Fujinon Zooms etc) This lens really needs to be kept a safe distance from its extremes. Full wide, and full telephoto both cause the lens to act up, as well as wide open apertures. The artifacts happen far more on the telephoto end of the lens, than it does on the wide, however in the video below, you will see that at 25mm it does display some softness in the corners. The Cinevarotal seems to behave far better in terms of flare performance and sharpness when stopped down past a T5.6.

This shouldn't be surprising, considering the lens is thirty years old. I personally found the flaws, to be part of its charm. If i'm shooting a period romance drama, i definitely would shoot on this lens, wide open even. The softness is so kind to the talents complexion, and the reduced contrast gives the sense of antiquity. There are a few caveats to watch out for when shooting on a Cinevarotal, the lens has a lot of purple/green chromatic aberration on the long end of the lens. Its pretty robust from 32mm-200mm @ T4+, but once you go wide open, or past 200mm it gets very "quirky". The last 2 clips on the the video, really demonstrates the performance difference between, wide open and stopped own. The shot of the couple with the dog is wide open @ 250mm, and the shot of the monument is also 250mm, however @ T8.

Notice the couple shot is a dreamy soft romantic "optical disaster" by Arri Master Zoom standards. The monument shot however is far more acceptable by todays standards.

Mechanically the lens i used was sound, and despite its age, it was well taken care of, and the focus and zoom mechanisms were practically brand new. One interesting mechanical quirk is that the focus ring, has a small metal housing that covers part of the focus ring, and within it, is a mechanical dampener. Essentially a small toothed wheel that has a friction element to it, that slows down and tightens the feel of the focus ring. Very odd, but it gets the job done. Now based on the photo above i'm assuming i don't have to mention that the size of this lens is daunting. It weighs in about 20 pounds, and is the size of a 3 liter pepsi bottle. In studio setups, or narrative that requires no hand held, i'd not hesitate to shoot on this lens.

Some things to be aware of....

It will not cover RED EPICS 5k until you reach well into its Zoom range. Even then, the 5k Frame is looking into the far edges of the image circle, not a place lens manufacturers ever intended the film plane to be. So use it with an Epic at your own peril. On Red MX, F3, Alexa, AF100 and FS100 you should have no trouble whatsoever.

These test images from a RED training seminar show the vignetting corners of the Epic with the Cinevarotal. Stills Courtesy of Mike Ross.

50MM

75mm

250mm

In Conclusion, This lens has tons of feeling, character, and just enough "trouble" to keep things interesting. Just what I look for in a piece of glass. After all, nothing is more boring than absolute perfection.... There are contemporary zooms that are as sharp as primes, have zero breathing, don't flare and weigh in at astonishingly low amounts. However by eliminating all the "flaws" they also scrubbed out all the character. This lens, just like its smaller brothers the Cooke Varotal 18-100 and Varotal 20-100, are character incarnate.

Next Time Zeiss Compact Primes.

Sony F3: First S-Log Test!

2011-04-19T14:59:00.001-04:00

"What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas"

Photos by: Chris Dowsett

Well, not this time. I attended the 2011 NAB conference in Las Vegas Nevada this past week. Seeing as i never attended a NAB before, my good friends Khalid Mohtaseb and Jon Bregel saw to it that i joined them on this trip. Its great that i did. We got ourselves in to an adventure that could only be described as a digital cinematographers dream. While visiting the Abel Cine Tech booth, our good friend Andy Shipsides was more than happy to point us in the direction of the newest addition to the Abel family of cameras. A Sony F3 with a spectacular improvement; a blue Element Technica top handle replacement.... but that was the least of what made this particular Sony F3 great.....

Now you may be asking yourself, "Why, in that photo above, it sure doesn't look like the Abel Cine Tech's booth....?" Well it isn't; let me tell you why. That camera you see above, is one of only two Sony F3's in the world with the now infamous S-Log 444 Dual link firmware update. Andy, was so kind as to let Khalid, Jon and I borrow the camera for the night. With less than 12 hours, to plan, coordinate, and shoot, we called in the big guns, our friends Brad Burke, Steve Birne, Tyler Ginter, Jeff Levine, Chris Dowsett and last but not least the amazing Vincent Laforet to help create a proper, effective, and true to real working conditions camera test. This crack team of some of the most talented individuals on this earth, all pooled their collective resources to come up with an attack plan for this once in a long while opportunity to test a new piece of revolutionary equipment. When presented with this fantastic camera out of the blue, the reality hit us that in order to test a camera, you need certain things. The fact is we had a room full of DP's and not a tripod, lens or matte-box between the three of us....

First, before i finish the story allow me to explain what S-Log is, and why its so darn significant. The Sony F3, a phenomenal 1080p HD camera already, records 8 bit 35mbps XDcam to SXS media cards. This is the standard recording media for all mid range professional Sony cameras working right now. When Sony created the F35 Camera a few years ago, they built a full super 35mm Sized CCD sensor capable of producing some of the best images in the digital cinematography world. This was a camera designed from the ground up to be a full cinema style system that records to the highest quality footage to HDcam SR Tape. ( it also costs about $250,000) The standard XD cam recording format would not cut the mustard with such a high end camera. The problem being that video systems in general are not able to capture the wide latitude of exposure that film can. Sony thought of a clever solution. They created S-Log. Its a way of compressing a wide latitude of visual information into a video signal by flattening the contrast, and recording it all onto the pristine quality of HDcam SR.... What all that means in English its that the final product looks A LOT BETTER in the end... Much more like film, and much more natural to the human eye. This feature was only available in the world of super high end motion picture cameras.... Until now.... For the first time, we the common film maker, have access to the tools Hollywood uses.

Ok, back to the story...

The ideas started flowing, and we settled on a few situations that we wanted to put the camera through, and see how S-Log footage came out the other side. We decided we wanted aerial shots at twilight, night exteriors, different skin tones and sunny skies to really push the camera to its limits. Like the resourceful magicians we all are, we all split up to the different vendors at NAB, and explained to them the unique situation we had before us and asked for their support... These vendors are the real heroes behind this collaboration. Without people like, Eric Kessler of Kessler Crane and Jared Abrams of wideopencamera.com, providing us with monetary support to make the realities of a helicopter shoot happen and the simple necessity of a crew van and driver. In addition to monetary support, we received unwaivering and generous support from brands like Cooke Optics, Angenieux, Carl Zeiss, Miller, Element Technica, O'Connor, ARRI, Tyler Camera Systems, Lite Panel and last but not least Anton Bauer.

Our gear list could only be dreamed about!!!!!

Imagine if you will, a Sony F3 with S-Log, recording dual link 444, into a Cinedeck, mounted to a prototype Element Technica top handle conversion for the F3, sitting on a Element Technica, 19mm Rod setup, supporting a set of O'connor Orgips and Obox, next to a brand new ARRI FF5 follow focus, connected to any number of ARRI Master Primes, Ultra Primes, Cooke Panchros, AND the biggest surprise of all, the one of a kind prototype Angenieux Optimo 45-120.... Yes, thats right, not only are we the first to use the F3 with S-Log, but we are the first DP's to EVER shoot on an Optimo 45-120!!!!

We had the privilege to use on this project:

Arri Master Prime: 25mm T1.3

Arri Ultra Prime: 8R 8mm T2.8

Cooke Panchro 18mm T2.8

Cooke Panchro 100mm T2.8

Angenieux DP Rouge 16-42 T2.8

Angenieux DP Rouge 30-80 T2.8

Angenieux Optimo 45-120 T2.8

This is a dizzying array of optics. All the major players, all the major glass.....

The 8R is simple a marvel of engineering. It literally sees almost 180 degrees with as little distortion as you can have on a lens with a focal length like that. What was really interesting, was seeing all the different glass being used at the same time. Its SO rare to have Zeiss, next to Angenieux, next to Cooke.... What I did find, was that there is a marked difference in the performance of the lenses. However, it wasn't a matter, oh this lens is better... its more like, "Wow, thats beautiful....." ( change lens) "Wow... Thats beautiful" but this time, for a completely different reason. There is no denying the sterile slick sharp perfection of the Master Primes, but the warm, golden Cookes just bring the image to life, while the Angenieux's bring out a nostalgic, cinematic look that beckons to a different time.

Once we actually got down to it, the night was a mad dash of helicopter shots as the sun was setting, shooting with our wonderful model Mallory Sherrill on a hotel balcony, and in the streets of Vegas, rigging a makeshift carmount for the 8R time laspe shots, Going to a wedding.... Seriously.... and then finally as the sun was rising we shot our other wonderful model, Linda Carriel at the uber-modern Cosmopolitan Hotel. Our producers and Production coordinators Brad Burke, Steve Birne and Tyler Ginter put their talents into overdrive to keep this production running smoothly, and without any major hiccups. I must stress, productions would not happen without producers, PA's, AC's and production coordinators. These individuals are equally important to the shoot as the camera is.

All of this work led up to this. The final product from all our collective labor.

I intended to go to NAB to have some fun and maybe oogle some lenses. Never did i think i would be part of something this much fun and ground breaking.

I wish to extend my thanks to my good friends at Next Level Pictures, Khalid Mohtaseb and Jon Bregel for joining forces with Tstop Cinema and creating something that will help grow the film making community. I wish to especially thank Eric Kessler and Jared Abrams for giving us the boost to get off the ground, and make this whole thing happen. Thanks to Vincent Laforet for lending us his talent and expertise in aerial photography, and helping us secure the necessary equipment for the shoot. Finally, and with every bit of importance as the names that have gone before, i wish to thank the tireless efforts of Brad Burke, Stephen Birne, Tyler Ginter for producing the living hell out of this production, and to the Crew of FreshDV, Matt Jeppsen and Kendal Miller, and last but not least, the phenomenal Chis Dowsett who took all of the beautiful photos you see above.

Thank You for reading, and please feel free to comment, and ask any questions. I will answer to the best of my ability.

-Timur Civan

www.timurcivan.com

Timurcivan @twitter

Tstopcinema @twitter

Examination of Lenses Part II: Cooke iPanchros

2011-04-06T04:46:00.001-04:00

Picking up where i left off with the Cooke Varotal 18-100 T3, i figured it was only fair to continue with the Cooke line. The beauty of lenses in the digital age is that they are the last organic component in the image path. We used to have the wonderful magic of photo chemical emulsion film, to conclude the path of the light rays, but in the future, the film production world for the most part will be all digital, and most likely RAW, meaning the capture is absolute and consistent. No happy accidents in the chemical conversion of light to silver crystals.( or unhappy accidents for that matter...) As we have seen from the Varotal, some vintage lenses impart a lot of character, while some of the newer high end lens manufacturers aspire to optical perfection. This is fantastic because we can choose lenses specifically for their optical character.

Personally, i'm a Cooke guy. (In case you cant tell already.....) Their warmth, contrast, and the smooth roll in and out of focus really makes warm and fuzzy inside. Thankfully, these beautiful attributes translate to digital quite well.

Cooke iPanchro Prime lenses:

iPanchros are an interesting set of 6 lenses, 18mm 25mm 32mm 50mm 75mm and the 100mm. They are for the most part a brand new line for Cooke. Released in 2009, with the 18mm only added to the set this year, and a 135mm planned for next year. In this case, new is good, VERY good. They are designed from the ground up with an pedigree unlike any other, an inherent consideration for digital workflow and robust quality in mind. iPanchros are tiny dynamos of optical power. Not the fastest lenses in the world, the entire set is T2.8, but that compromise enabled some interesting by products. Cooke prides itself on creating lenses that match ( as far as physics allows) as closely as possible. The iPanchros are no exception. Using a Panchro, is like using a S4 that opens up to a T2.8. Literally. Its the same aperture components from the S4 series, transplanted into the optical chain of the newer smaller lenses. What this means is, that for half the price, you can have lenses that match S4's optically in every way except a T2.0 aperture. Sharpness, contrast, flare, bokeh, build quality* and color. They match so closely, that my friend and fellow DP Ryan Patrick O'Hara, when comparing the iPachros to the S4's, found that they matched so well that the differences were akin to the difference between different sets of S4's.... not a completely different product line. That says a lot when talking about the quality of the design, and the stance behind these lenses. The choice of a T2.8 aperture enabled the engineers to focus on consistency and performance. Far more important factors than speed when using cine caliber glass.

*( about build quality, you get the same exceptional S4 build quality and award winning focus design)

The image itself is warm, contrasty and sharp.... but with a certain.... intangible quality that just gives the sense of richness that defines the "Cooke Look". The lenses specifically have built in a subtle warming filter that is targeted at the skin tone ranges. ( i swear the Cooke tech told me this in person) ( Cooke look, is printed on the box the lenses come in.... awesome) This video is shot on Sony F3, with Cooke iPanchros and the Duclos 11-16mm Zoom. Immediately below is the extended ungraded version to show off the natural look of the lenses.

Ungraded:

The Panchros are fantastic to work with. As a DP, the T2.8 stop is no bother whatsoever. I light to a T2.8 - T4 when shooting anyhow, as i feel an aperture wider than that looks somewhat awkward, and is difficult for many 1st AC's to pull focus with. The modern crop of digital cinema cameras all seem to run a base ISO of 800, and if you turn on practically any lamp on set you are hitting your exposure.

My AC's love the lenses because the focus and aperture rings are smooth as butter, the witness marks are accurate to the inch, and the finish of the lenses just ooze quality. My AC was so impressed with the feel of the lenses that he said he wished he could pull focus on them every day. The reason for this glowing review is that the focus design is such that, unlike helicoil lenses, where the focus marks get closer and closer together as the lens nears infinity, the Cookes use a "eliptical" design, that makes the focus marks far more linear, and thus pulling focus is far easier and more accurate. ( i don't really understand the focus design, all i know is that my AC's love them...)

Strengths and flaws:
This is some lowlight testing footage which shows a few interesting things....

These scenes were shot with the Sony F3 at max ISO, in river side park w/ sodium vapor lamps. (The black and white testing is for a film i'm shooting this week, and i need to see how the color image translates to black and white.)

Aperture/bokeh:
This was for the most part shot completely wide open. This is the cool thing about Panchros, they are designed from the ground up to be shot wide open. Where as most lenses need to be stopped down for peak performance, understanding the T2.8 aperture is a working stop the engineers designed the lens to perform identically to a S4 stopped down to a T2.8. The only difference being that there is a small round matte behind the iris giving you the option of round bokeh wide open, as seen in this video below, or if you so choose the classic Cooke "flower" bokeh. Technically the Panchros seem to open up past T2.8, but the round matte gives you an option for round bokeh or not, while maintaining a T2.8 aperture. As you see below, the distinctive Cooke bokeh in effect.

Flare:

The Panchros do flare a tiny bit, but not nearly as bad as Super Speeds or the Cooke Varotal ( mind you "bad" is purely subjective, in a rock music video situation, huge flares are eagerly welcomed... in a narrative film, not so much.) you can see some flares from the street lamps, and car headlights. I feel however that shooting at such a high ISO was more the culprit. I've been using the cookes for several weeks now, and i have distinctly noticed that they are pretty much flare free.

Color:

Color rendition is a bit warm, but freakishly consistent within the set, and matches the color tone of the 18-100 very closely. They look, better than real life in that everything has a "glow" to it..... If you need absolute optical precision that represents the real world exactly..... Master primes or Ultra primes are a better choice, but if you need beauty or drama. This is the place to be.

So in wrapping up, this look at the Cooke Panchros, a few things come to mind. They are small, light, built to last, and perform like a lens three times the price. However, the Panchros do something that the S4's can't, which is important in the upcoming future. The whole Panchro set covers RED S35 5K. From the 100mm all the way down to the 18mm, they offer full coverage up to 33.1mm. Also, while we are on the subject of digital cine cameras, the "i" in iPanchro.... thats the idata protocol. Its a way for the digital camera to record in the meta data, what focal length, focus distance, and aperture setting the lens is set to. this is mission critical when doing digital composite work, where the 3D effects artist has to account for the lens information when creating the effects. Instead of relying on script notes, he can just read the metadata. The iData can also be used in the 3D steroscopic world, to help sync 3D rigged cameras together. The tight standards that cooke builds their lenses to with regard to color, contrast and sharpness, means they are an excellent choice for 3D film productions.

Ever since i got these lenses i have felt like i won the lottery. Every time they come up on the camera, and i look at the monitor, i go to heaven just a little bit, and hopefully continue to do so for many more years to come.

Feel free to comment, follow me on Twitter or visit my website, www.timurcivan.com

Next up.... Duclos 11-16mm T2.8.....
"It goes to 11...."

-T

Examination of Lenses.

2011-03-21T19:18:00.000-04:00

The influx of the 35mm sensor cameras over the last few years has created a vacuum in the cinema lens world. Used lens prices are sky rocketing from the demand, and many manufacturers are scrambling to get high quality, "cine" style lenses to market at a price point low enough that ownership becomes an option.

In this post i'm going to examine every PL lens i can get my hands on. I am not going to be putting lenses on MTF projectors, nor will i shoot test charts. Practically every modern lens manufacturer can produce lenses that far exceed the optical resolution that the sensor on any digital cinema camera can capture. I know they are sharp. Instead i am going to focus on the visceral. What does it look like, more importantly, what does the lens feel like. Story telling visually, requires emotion in the image. The state of the camera market being as it is, the cameras impart less on the image by way of character. The real deciding factors in creating the look optically is the Lens, the filters, and the lighting. I am a HUGE believer in getting the look in camera. Taking chances, and knowing what you want on set. I challenge the directors of the world to make the choice to shoot with a blue filter and ancient Lomo's, instead of adding blue an a vignette in post!!!

Check back as I will update this post as often as i get to test the lenses.

First up:

The Cooke Varotal 18-100 T3 Zoom.

A legendary lens. Roger Deakins himself said its his favorite Zoom. ( if you know me, you know i worship the ground he walks on) I can see why. Its organic, sharp but handles the image with out feeling harsh, solidly built, ergonomic, and has.... character. First off it is so forgiving to portrait shots because of its Sharp/softness. The skin texture and detail is there, but not overwhelming. Speaking with the Cooke lens tech who checked out my lens, he said Cooke designs the lenses to naturally emphasize skin tones. Its like a built in warming filter that only effects certain wavelengths of light. (very subtly of course) That added with its lovely deep contrast, and you have the recipe for "The Cooke Look". It has the distinctive Cooke Iris. Most Cooke lenses have Iris blades that create a bokeh pattern that resembles a flower or sunburst. See the video below. It has carried through to the S4's S5's and Lastly the iPanchros. Its sort of a signature in every shot, " This was shot on Cooke glass". I think it looks great.

The focus roll off from the points that are sharp, to the out of focus bokeh is quite smooth and gradual. Take note of the focus in the shots of the street in the Second video, "testing the filters". there is no point with absolute perfect focus. Focus rolls in, and out with a nice smooth transition.

The lens is heavy around 13 pounds, and made of high grade aluminum, and most likely brass in the internals. The lens comes with a tapped hole in the focus, and zoom rings for a snap zoom lever, pictured above. The focus rotation is more than 270 degrees, making focus pulling easy and accurate. The Varotal also has a close focus of 26" from the Focal plane. Taking into consideration that the Varotal has a length of 13", this means you can focus, 13" from the front optic @ 100mm. This is a 12 degree field of view, almost rendering the lens a "macro". This is a screen shot @ 100mm T3 at i believe 3 feet. The lens can get even tighter.

One of its coolest features is the internal Filter system. A small trap door opens up, and a device that looks like a threaded monacle pops out. You screw in special 30mm filters, and voila`! Filters that will never flare from the sun, freeing up precious matte box filter trays, and only weigh a few grams.

This video is an example of some of the effects the filters have on the image.

The Varotal opens up to T3.0, a bit faster than its older predecessor the Cooke 20-100 T3.1. In the 1980's when this lens was first made, most film stocks sat in the ISO250 range for tungsten. A T3 aperture was considered pretty fast for a zoom. Especially one with the range of an entire standard prime lens kit. In todays shooting environment, with camera sensitivities, and image quality reaching unheard of levels of performance, a T3 aperture is not only adequate, but hardly feels like a hindrance in any way shape or form. I use a Sony F3, REDmx, and hopefully soon will have the pleasure of working on Epic, and Alexa. All of these cameras have standing ISO800 base sensitivity, and the some of these cameras, the Epic, Alexa and Especially the F3 hardly lose image quality when gained up. The test below is shot on a F3 @6400. Mind you i was in Cine gamma mode, and the overall image is darker and lower in contrast, I also was testing the Sepia 2 internal filter wich absorbs 1.5 stops of light. Had i shot in Rec 709, and no filter i most likely would have been over exposing the shots by about a half stop. The room with the model sitting was lit by one 40w bulb, the TV and a laptop. All the filters mentioned above were in play.

Under controlled lighting conditions the Varotal did its very best. The image is sharp, and color; especially skin tone rendition is perfect. Shot on F3 w/ 1x 250w softbox, and a 150w pepper hair light.

Here is a grab of the "before": to show what the raw footae looks like when using a "soft Con" filter to help emphasize the dynamic range, and give me a better "negative" to pull of the composite above.

Thats all i can think of for now. I will be updating this Lens series with the Cooke iPanchro set, Zeiss CP1 set, and the Duclos 11-16mm PL lens very soon!

-T

Read my latest article for Zacuto.com!

2011-03-15T17:47:00.001-04:00

Click here to read the Zacuto.com Article!

Enjoy folks!

Tstop Cinema LLC's First official production!

2011-03-01T20:29:00.000-05:00

This was started some months ago, but it is finally finished and ready for the world to take a peek. I'm very proud to present the official video of the DEVImoves Workout, by Bhavani Lee.

Its just a quick peek, but its a great first project for a new year!

Congratulations Bhavani on the launch of your new venture!

Directed by: Timur Civan
Director of Photography: Khalid Mohtaseb
AD: Thomas Wong
G&E: Philip Warren, Adam Chinoy
Hair Stylist: Shlomi Mor
Costume: Robert Suresh Singh

Perfomed by:
Bhavani Lee
Jorja Rivero
Galit Adani

Shot on Canon 5DmkII
Kessler Crane
Kessler Cine Dolley

Simple resolution test of the Sony F3.

2011-02-23T23:56:00.002-05:00

This is a shot of a standard lens resolution chart. It measures the resolution of lenses in lines per millimeter on the film plane.

This is from the XDcam on board Codec. ISO800, with a Cooke iPanchro 50mm @ T5.6, 180 degree shutter. Cine like 1 Gamma.

The formula of Lens millimeters x 60 = Focal plane distance was used. Which came out to 9'10" and 1/4 inch from the chart to the sensor.

As you can see, the camera will alias at hyper fine detail. However, we are talking line pairs that start reaching the resolving power of the 1080p format. This camera is sharp. It resolves cleanly 31 lines per millimeter on the sensor itself. This is good for an HD camera. This chart is used to test lens sharpness, but since we know the lens will out resolve the sensor, its nice to see where the sensor hits its peak, and what happened when we go beyond. This isn't measuring numerically what the camera resolves, but what happens to the fine detail its pointed at.

It will however alias blue, as you can see. None of this is disappointing as its happening at a difficult to encounter frequency. Perhaps only in the widest deep focus shots of city scape will you encounter straight lines that have such a tight frequency.

I DID NOT EMBED THE VIDEO FOR A REASON!!!!
Download the source file on the Vimeo page. Its uncompressed QT 1080p straight from the timeline, about 1.5 seconds worth that you can loop to see whats really going on on your home NLE. The link to the Video file.

Click Here: http://vimeo.com/20314787

I shot the test chat with some flags to create shadows, so you can see what the shadows look like on the XD cam.

More detialed tests coming.

Sony F3 - Preliminary Tests

2011-02-20T23:44:00.002-05:00

My DIT/Colorist friend Tom Wong, and DP's Khalid Mohtaseb, Jon Bregel and I took the time to run the F3 through some simple preliminary tests. This test was more or less for Tom to see the noise floor and clipping points of the Sony F3.

This is verbatim his thoughts. Once he supplies me with some visuals i will post them up.

"initial findings with the f3, not entirely scientific but gets the point across.

the camera is primed for these iso's

280

400

800

1100

1600

3200

initial tests we had time for and attempts.

used my mac pro with decklink card to do uncompressed quicktime capture at 422 10 bit for the best quality the camera can output right now.

f3 with panchro 75mm

subject was in front of a window, we shot 2 shots at each iso, one where we severely underexpose the subject by almost 8 stops to see how much detail stayed in. another by 4 stops where detail would definitely be there but we can assess what functional working iso's would be chosen as the work horse iso's. IE, how much we can crank the iso's before we deem it unusable.

under exposing by 8 stops at all iso's had clipped the blacks and there was no detail to dig up. but the findings with noise were consistent with the 4 stops under exposed.

280 iso

the truly clean iso. you can dig deep in the shadows, and can pull it up really hard and find little to no noise. on a normal working color grade, I probably wouldn't bring up any noise at all doing several contrast expansions across the board. and i typically pull up and crush down blacks on various areas of the shot a minimum of 2-3 times on shots to really fine tune the image.

of course there will be noise when you jam up the gain in post, but that just makes it unusable all together because it's milked out and ugly. i would recommend this iso setting for interior lighting if you have the lights for it, studio work, green screen, vfx in general. basically when you have to or want it to be the best image possible. a lot of cameras hide their noise in the blacks even at low iso's and fool the user thinking it's a clean signal, but in this case that doesn't happen.

400 iso

the "work horse" iso I would like to call it for interior and exterior work. This is probably the true sweet spot of the camera, I need to assess the dynamic range more, but I'll need a step chart for that. but i find that though there is just a hair thin line of noise, it is unnoticeable to the naked eye, and you'd truly have to pixel peep and push the image in post hard to bring up the noise. in a typical grading session, this would be the iso that can give production a easier day, and post production plenty of room to work with to manipulate and fine tune the image.

800 iso

this is where the noise starts to creep in, and again it's is highly tolerable at this ISO, i wouldn't say it's clean at this iso. but it looks very good. i wouldn't push the blacks up as hard as I would as 400 in his iso, but it is a workable iso for exterior lower lit situations where you need to gain the exposure. interior too when push comes to shove. but even if the image in post had to be pushed a little hard and the image got noised up a bit, a light denoise plugin like neat video will clean the whole thing up perfectly.

1100 iso

i would deem this the emergency iso. noise is here, it's not awful, it's not a lot. but it's there, you see the speckles, and it's lightly layered in there. you don't have to look hard for it, but it's one of those things you can live with easily. this is if you are really in a jam, and production isn't doing something right...

1600 iso

again it's not awful, but you see solid noise in this case. a simple crushing of blacks, maybe neat video will get rid of almost all of it. I personally wouldn't shoot on this iso, but i can see a lot of people finding it absolutely usable according to your tolerance to noise. as a colorist and DIT, i wouldn't recommend it just because it doesn't meet my personal tolerance.

3200 iso

yes, there is noise, and we are back to, it's not awful. if this was a 5d at 3200 iso, there would be banding, tons of colored noise polluting the image, absolutely unusable. even straight out of camera 3200 iso on the f3 could easily pass broadcast standards in noise levels. I personally find this iso to be unusable, for most people's standards, but the image doesn't fall apart, it's not completely polluted. it's one of those, you want to avoid shooting at this, there's probably no reason ever you should be shooting at 3200 unless you are in a dimly lit club or whatever, but still if you have to use it it's not a unusable shot. denoise, clean up work in the grade, you can get something decent out of it.

other findings

we also did a sxs record while doing the computer uncompressed capture. the comparison wielded obvious and expected results

the 10 bit 422 had much better color and skin tone rendition. gradation in color, and fidelity in the color with hair, skin, the whole nine yards was obviously better. the xdcam 35 mbps looks very good, but the compression adds noise to the image the color mushes together more (4:2:0) and you lose detail too in the finer details. fine hair, skin, etc.

the sxs looks very good and will be aesthetically pleasing for a lot of people, but in the end with the capabilities of what this camera can do, i treat it only as the codec for editorial, and wouldn't use it for the online when it comes to putting on the big screen or tv. that's just my subjective opinion, lot of people might find it more than acceptable.

in conclusion, some more obvious than others.

consider your absolute work horse iso's

280, 400, 800.

the higher iso's is tolerable according to each person that uses it, but honestly in the biggest of emergencies it's not a disaster if you have to use them. but if you are shooting a feature film, you should be able to light at a 280, and 400 most of to all of the time, and 800 when it's a rushed night/day. and have little to no issues in post.

xdcam codec is very good, we've all see now good it looks on ex1, it actually resolves more than i thought it would, but not enough to my standards for truly top grade work. 8 bit, long gop, mpeg compressed 4:2:0 is still just that. an off board recorder is completely recommended if you want the best the camera can give right now. which is a lot. and I can't wait for s log 444 to come out already. "

I personally felt the F3 was acceptable up to ISO1600. Tom is far less forgiving than i am. Then again he is a DIT and Colorist. He lives by the scopes. I go by what looks good on the monitor.

To give some reference, he feels the F3 @ ISO 1600 looks as clean as the Alexa @ ISO1600, which in his opinion, is too noisy. To the rest of us, it looks amazing. There will be images from the test posted in the next couple days. our model did not give us permission to post what we shot today. we will re shoot the test tomorrow with someone who is willing to be on the Interwebs.

Official excitement! - I got my new Sony F3

2011-02-18T06:10:00.002-05:00

I am beyond ecstatic. I took delivery of my Sony F3 today. Somehow i managed to be lucky enough to get a hold of the camera, and take it home seemingly weeks before some distributors even receive them to sell! I cant spill the beans as to who sold me the camera, but i am grateful and happy to be able to share some of its finer points.

This camera is the back bone of my new company, officially going live on March 1st, Tstop Cinema LLC.

Any how back to the fun......Getting the camera home, and like building any new camera the game of getting all the pieces to fit is sort of a mix between a jigsaw puzzle and Lego's. Luckily i have a brand spanking new Zacuto baseplate and a whole slew of new parts to make it all work.....( who doesn't love brand new gear!) I owned a lot of Zacuto gear from the 35mm Adapter days, and i'll be damned if they didn't come in handy. If you're one of 3 people in the film world that doesn't know about Zacuto support gear, its essentially a camera support system that offers you a ton of flexibility in assembling your camera package.

Adjusting, amending, adding, subtracting, balancing and counter balancing, i managed to get all my new accessories mounted, clear of all the essential parts powered up and fully functional. As the camera booted up for a couple seconds, the Monitor came alive. The images this camera produces are almost alien. Beautiful, organic and clean. Its weird, its something i've never seen before. There are no artifacts! If the image is static, it looks like a still photo. Heres the kicker, it somehow manages to look completely grain less, yet organic, natural and realistic, without looking like plastic. Sony cameras in the past have to my eye looked like plastic. That is to say dry, with unnatural color and tones. The complete opposite is true of the F3. I have not been so moved by a digital video image like this since the first time i saw Alexa footage. The F3 has a clearly visible wide dynamic range that you can feel as you operate it. Parts of the image that normally burn out with ENG style cameras, HDSLR's and pro-sumer HD cameras are miraculously retained. the F3 image looks like a RED-MX, but with a soul. That soul is the big surprise here. The DVX100, long revered for the "Mojo" of its image sadly is obsolete.... However that intangible "Mojo" is alive and well here. This is exciting as its so essential in narrative film making for a camera to have some emotional impact on the image it captures. I imagine the Cooke iPanchro lenses i bought are helping somewhat in this department. The Cooke "look" as its called, is surely bringing out what is great about the sensor in this camera.

On the technical side, the F3 is an amazing performer. Let me tell you a brief anecdote. Earlier, after a rushed camera check out, before getting the whole system safely home, I built the camera and hooked it up to my 46" Panasonic plasma in Studio REF mode. Switching the camera on, the screen came alive, and on it was a lush gorgeous image. My jaw dropped, and i thought to myself, WOW i cannot believe how clean, and rich this image is... BUT, it looks amazing now, lets see it with the ISO blasted up to the limits. Wanting to see the breaking point, i reached for the side of the camera and pushed the "gain" ( ISO) switch to "H" or High, but to my dismay it was stuck. Truthfully, it wasn't stuck, the camera was ALREADY in "H" at ISO 3200 no less.... Its performance is astonishing. Just for some reference, 3200 ISO looks like my 5DmkII around 640 ISO. Based on what i saw in a room with ambient light at ISO 3200, i could probably shoot my next project @ ISO 3200, not tell anyone, and no one on set, or in post would be the wiser as to what ISO i set the camera to. Its that good. I cant wait to test this out further. This weekend will be great!

As i gather more data i will surely continue to add to this post, check back often!

-T
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www.timurcivan.com

Chance of a lifetime. Photography in Iraq.

2011-02-04T15:02:00.000-05:00

This past twelve days have been a spectacular adventure. I was hired by my longtime friend and DP Khalid Mohtaseb, to join him on the photography journey of a lifetime. We went to Karbala, Iraq to shoot beauty footage of the Ashura religious pilgrimage to the shrine of Imam Hussein. A mass pilgrimage of over nineteen million people to the small southern Iraqi city of Karbala. Normally, Karbala has two and half million people. Its the equivalent of the entire population of New York City, and half the residents of the tristate area simultaneously converging on a small town in the midwest. Many of the pilgrims walk to the holy city, some on bare feet, starting as long as two weeks prior to the great celebration and walking over 500 miles, in some cases, there were reports of pilgrims coming from as far as India and Pakistan, again, on foot. The people of Karbala, some of the most giving and good natured people i've ever had the pleasure of meeting, respond to this influx by essentially doubling capacity of their city on the streets itself. They build makeshift tent structures, outdoor kitchens, and temporary facilities that cover all the bases of human life. Food, water, shelter and medical assistance, all free of charge. This isn't a government funded project, the citizens themselves pouring out what little resources they have to assist, and comfort the pilgrims. The showing of compassion and kindness is overwhelming. This is made all the more significant by the fact that this country had been war torn, and until recently under a dictatorship. Politics aside, its safe to say the people of this region have never had an easy ride.

My specific task was to document in photos my own perspective. I was asked to take pictures of what i found interesting, what caught my eye, and what i found beautiful. The city, the locations, and the shrines, while all amazing some how seemed insignificant as compared to the people that made this celebration unique.

Here is what i saw.

The road:

Pilgrims walking to Karbala from Najaf.

The Road from Karbala to Najaf.

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The night in Karbala: This is the feeling of the place. There was no electricity at this moment, and what power there was, came from generators and fires.

The market place.

The early morning street cook. Getting ready to start handing out tea to the pilgrims.

The roadside tables, being prepped for a full day of cooking, and charity.

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The Day:
Karbala Comes alive, in full support of those seeking religious fulfillment. The make shift living spaces empty out, the constant cooking begins. The smell of food, millions of plates of food fills the dust and smoke in the air. The overwhelming smell of woodsmoke wafts over your senses, your eyes burn, your nostrils constrict, and you can taste the fire. You cant quite tell from the images below, but the men with steaming cauldrons, are literally everywhere. They are evenly spaced, about 20 feet from each other, up and down every street, and boulevard in the city. There must have been 5,000 make shift kitchens cooking at the same time.

The most common mode of transportation in a crowded city.

Tripe stew. Despite its looks is quite delicious.

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The Pilgrims.

The devoted traveled all this way, and despite exhaustion, weary feet, and several bombing attacks on the road to get there, they were high in spirit, and more than willing to pose for a shot.

The man pictured above, followed me around or about three hours, helping me with my bags, and bringing me a never ending stream of delicious tea.

This gentleman above posed for over 30 pictures, patiently until I was happy with this one..

The Crowd waiting to get into the Shrine.

Emotionally over come by the moment. Reaching the Shrine of Imam Hussein, and mourning his death.

The young man above struggled for over 5 minutes to climb that silver gate, and kiss the door post of the shrine. I was fortunate eough to have caught it.

A young shiite, joyful with her father and awestruck by the event.
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The Shrine:

The shrine marks the locations where the grandson of Prophet Mohammed was killed, and his followers were buried. This is one of the most sacred locations in Shia Islam next to Mecca.

The inside of the largest Shrine. Its capacity at the peak of the celebration must have been 10,000 people.

The great shrine in the early morning, not quite as crowded.

The Ceiling dome of the Great shrine.

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I shot all of these images on my 5DmkII, with six lenses for the most part. The Canon 24-105 F4L, The Canon 50mm F1.4 USM, Canon 85mm F1.8 USM, Helios 44-2 F2.0, The 1908 Wollensak CineVelostigmat F5 and the Canon L F2.8 70-200 Zoom.

We also used a Kessler CineSlider with motion control for some timelapse/dolley work, and the 12' Kessler Crane for all the motion work. When the time comes, i'm sure Khalid will post his motion work over on his blog.

Khalid And I getting Jib Shots in the Main shrine.

Khalid Monitoring a timelapse....

This was the trip of a life time. I am Honored to have been a part of it. Thank you to all involved, Khalid Mohtaseb, the ever critical Susan Modaress, Rami Faris, and Ahmed Mohtaseb.

-Timur

Review: Shoot35 LTD's CINEbox R1 Matte Box.

2011-02-03T21:46:00.002-05:00

Based on my exuberance for Shoot35's CINEfocus Follow Focus unit, Wayne has sent me his next brain child to test out. The CINEbox R1, a professional matte box for the masses. I base that argument on its price alone, approximately $644.00 based on the conversion rate from 399 GBP. I have to admit, a trend i notice with Shoot35's gear going all the way back to the original SG35 35mm adapter Wayne was selling back in 2006 is that you see its price and have a certain expectation of performance and quality based on that price. Consistently, time and time again i have been left dumbstruck every time i receive one of his new products. They simple have the fit, finish, polish, and thoughtful design of a far more expensive unit. I swear the man has elves on his side....

The first thing that strikes you about this company is the attractive, high quality presentation of the equipment. See below. Yes, it comes perfectly fitted in "shoot35 RED" foam. You open the shipping box and get; "hey... thats nice....." feeling before you even open the box. Classy. Naturally it comes in the foam fitted flight case that Wayne has always provided with his gear. Hes just spoiling us now....

The CINEbox is a perfect match for the plethora of lenses the average professional HDSLR or AF100 shooter would come across. Zeiss ZF's, Canon Lseries, Nikons, etc... The appropriate lens step up rings for the bellows are available on his website. The bellows of the CINEbox is a standard 80mm. Meaning Zeiss Superspeed PL lenses should fit the bellows without the need for a step ring. This is a common lens rental for bigger productions in most parts of the world. Convenient.

In terms of basic function, its a hybrid of swing away and clip on style. There are not many matte boxes that can claim that much flexibility. The swing away mechanism is pretty tough, and holds stable when locked down. I can see it eventually loosening a little, but its built with a tensioner in the hinge to remove slack. Very cool. The speed benefits of a swing away matte box are great and usually reserved for more expensive units. It really makes changing lenses a breeze. I think the Redrock is the only other low cost swing away. I didn't get the clip on function accessory, but based on the manual, you simply unscrew the swing away arm, and replace the bellows with a hard mount, clip on mechanism. It doesn't seem like something to do switching back and forth during the day. IT seems better suited to choosing the style of matte box you like and parking it in that configuration for the day. The bellows is held in place by several tiny screws, hence its "field strip" ability is limited. No one wants to drop a tiny screw in the grass on a location shoot. That said, its really 2 matte boxes in one. A swing away, and a clip on, for $644. Cant beat that.

The CINEbox has two independent rotating filter stages, in the 4x4 configuration. The fact that it only uses 4x4 filters can be a bit limiting as you get into very wide angle lenses on a large sensor camera like a 5D. Its certainly not a deal breaker, but it can be annoying if you plan on stacking lots of filtration with a very wide lens.

One of the main jobs of a matte box is to shield the lens from errant light striking the lens. The CINEbox has as an available option top and side flags for the affordable price of 79GBP, or $127.00 for all three. Usually these are expensive accessories. As you can see they are all easily removable with no tools, and have a nice feel.

To recap, for $644.00 you get, a great matte box thats robust, good looking, fully functional as a swing away OR can be converted to a clip on with very reasonably priced accessories, with 2 fully rotating stages, a flight case and most important of all, quality. Its well built and as i continue testing i will be sure to update this post with my findings about its long term reliability. I expect it to continue to surprise me for a long time to come.

warmest,

-Timur

Review: Shoot 35 LTD's CINEfocus Follow Focus

2011-01-03T23:58:00.000-05:00

The gracious Wayne Kinney of Shoot 35 LTD, provided me with his new CINEFocus Follow Focus unit to use on the production of "A Verse Before Dying". ( pardon the lack of a camera in the photo... i needed the 5D to take the picture and i have no other camera right now )

I have to admit, i am VERY VERY picky about what follow focus i use. I have never owned one for more than a month because i honestly hate almost all of them and refuse to pay money for somethign that leaves me feeling, well, blah. I have bought and sold, borrowed, and rented just about every follow focus on the market. The only ones i have found that i like are the Arri Studio FF4 Follow Focus a multi thousand dollar unit or the O'connor CFF1, again a multi thousand dollar unit. However, now for the first time in the indie market price point, the CINEFocus, which is modestly priced at 349 GBP, or around $540. I was an 1st AC for a long time and I've spent a lot of time with these things. The follow focus is a tool that has less to do with looks or brand, and more about feel. Its a moving part. Smoothness, movement slack, ease of use, and solidity are as important as its ability to turn the focus wheel.

The high end follow focus units mentioned above are both smooth, have very little slack, but more importantly have feel. That is to say you can feel the stiffness of the lens barrel, or whether there is an issue with the lens like any binding or grinding. Also another big factor is the response to small adjustments. The CINEfocus scored high marks from me in this feel category. There is almost no play whatsoever between the movements of the focus knob, and the transmission of that moment to the lens barrel. I don't know what kind of gears it has inside whether metal, or plastic, but they provide a very positive, active feel to the user.

The unit itself is well engineered, the marking discs are easily removable and held in place with magnets. A very clever solution to the occasional problem of the marking disc coming unseated, and the user not noticing. The Chroziel Follow Focus does this occasionally. If the marking disc is unseated on a CINEfocus, you will know because it will hang loose and swinging off the knob. It's either on, or off. No almost. The marking disc is a nice hybrid of the flat, and cone shaped marking discs. You can mark on either the frontal cone shaped surface or the top flat edge for off angles. The derlin is perfectly smooth, and cleans easily with standard dry erase markers. The .8 pitch gear is removable and you can reattach it to the other side of the post. The small steel pin you see in the photo below. This gives you some nice flexibility when allocating precious real estate on the 15mm mini rods. The only knock i have against the CINEfocus is that this operation requires tools. The tools are included with the follow focus, but still, a tool-less method would be welcome. Perhaps this is why the operational feel is so good, less wiggle room in the drive chain. If it came down to good feel, or tool-less gear adjustment, i would leave it as is, and retain the good feel. Another welcome addition could potentially be a reversal gear for Nikon lenses. I personally use mostly PL lenses so its not an issue for me personally, but i can see some AC's not used to Nikon lenses wishing for the option.

The marking point is 360 degree adjustable, you see it above in red. This is pretty standard, but shockingly useful, when the camera is up high.

As far as features go, the CINEfocus is a straight forward no nonsense tool. The simple basics, executed well. Some follow focus units look cool, some can do many things and have a lot of customization, but they often lack feel, and performance. The CINEfocus is thoughtfully designed, efficient, and robustly built.

I received the unit in an excellent locking flight case, in precut foam, with an extra marking disc and a few extra accessories to sample. The speed crank and accessory port on the Focus handle itself is industry standard. Its nice to know that parts are interchange able. The Arri whip that i have functions perfectly in the CINEfocus, the fit is snug with no play, but still isn't overly tight as can be the case with some other manufacturers components. This means the tolerances to the standard are very high. Thats a very good thing. Below you can see the close ups on the Arri whip and Shoot35 speed crank.

The Shoot35 Flex gears, the cine pitch removable gears for still lenses, are quite nice. The design is simple, flexible, and robust, and surprisingly, VERY affordable. Each ring costing around 50$ a piece. If you buy in bulk, more than 5 at a time the price drop significantly to around $30 a piece. This makes gearing all your still glass a possibility without breaking the bank. As you can see the clasps are milled out of aluminum, and they provide a tight grip on the lenses. I had used them on a Canon 24-105 F4L lens with great success. It takes seconds to attach, and once attached there is little reason to remove them. Similar to Zacuto Zip gears, they have a low profile and don't impede hand focusing, but at a fraction of the cost.

Over all, based on my time with the Shoot35 CINEfocus, i have to say i would definitely buy this product. It performs like a more expensive unit, and is actually one of the cheaper options on the market. I'm impressed.

-Timur

The mix of old and new: Director of Photgraphy Joe Taylor creates stunning images with a RED and Antique Cooke Lenses.

2010-12-26T22:53:00.002-05:00

Feast your eyes on this!

This entry is to profile director of photography Joe Taylor and the progress on his project "The Lonley Moan" a documentary project based on the real life locations and events that inspired Cormac McCarthy's fictional novel "Blood Meridian". The tale of the John Glanton gang, a group of government hired scalp hunters who performed their insidious deeds in the very landscape pictured. Joe Took his RED along with some Cooke Speed Panchro II/III's from the 1920's and 1930's and assembled the footage you see above. Its simply glorious stuff, and really shows the merits of working with a great eye, a great camera and a great set of lenses.

Initially Joe shot some 2nd Unit footage for the project with an Andre Derbie Parvo hand cranked 35mm film camera, and a 1" Tessar Zeiss lens. Unfortunately that footage is not up on his site, however, according to Joe, the images inspired him to experiment with the antique Cooke lenses and a RED. Thankfully he did.

Here are in his own words the visual basis for "The Lonley Moan".

"My approach to “The Lonely Moan” will be different than most historical documentaries. Although there will be some recreations, they will be sparse, drawn out affairs with very long takes that will deal mainly with Samuel Chamberlain’s flight through the Sonora Desert after escaping with his life after an Indian attack at Yuma Crossing. Another example of recreated moment of this lost long-ago time, will be of long, slow, one take walk through of a small dingy tavern set on a hot afternoon in Mexico. There’s an old barn/shed converted from a tavern near the Mexico/Arizona border that still has the bar, tables, even a little cubby closet stuffed with a few tables and even brooms and other from when it was a bar back in the 1920’s or earlier, when Arizona was still a Territory. There’s a description in Chamberlain’s account of walking into a bar in where one of his fellow gang members is playing cards half-stands from the table and pisses on the wall—the other members don’t care to notice and keep playing cards. That’s what I’m after in that scene. A moment so far removed from today’s sensibilities that it almost seems impossible."

The Speed Panchro's that Joe used were loaned to him, and were converted to PL from their original Newman-Sinclair mount. Cooke lenses, in case you don't know; are famous for their warm, organic look. There is an intangible quality that they lend to the image, which it seems regardless of medium, film or digital, still carries through to the final product. In Joe's noted;

"I like to sometimes, if the light is right, use a Antique Suede #2 filter that emphasizes the heat of the location, but only if the mood and light is right. The period Speed Panchros simply did not take to the Antique Suede. When I put the filter in front of the lens, which normally gives a slight, special golden look, everything turned a sickly green as soon as the filter dropped into place. Every one of the Cookes did this. It had to have something to do with these filters not having any coating on them. I would put one of my more contemporary Zeiss primes on the Red, and we were instantly getting a more desired look. Those old Cookes just would not have anything to do with color filters, no matter how slight the alteration."

The photogrpahy is sublime. The movement, the careful respect to color, the patience required to wait for the weather, light, location, and time to be right is to be admired. Joe made his mark on the film scene with his equally beautiful and haunting "Dead Lonesome"; viewable below. Dead Lonesome was Joe's first paying gig while he was still a student at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and showed all the signs of a talented and growing cinematographer.

I for one cant wait for "The Lonely Moan" to come to fruition....

Enjoy!

-Timur

A Verse Before Dying, Final Product. The first short film from the Panasonic AF100

2010-12-24T18:29:00.002-05:00

After a month of work and testing, the fruits of all our labor is done! Incredibly quickly i'd like to add....

Now you can enjoy the whole film, and see a lot of the lighting setups that i made for the various scenes. Lets examine the cabin sequence.

A majority of this scene is actually shot at magic hour, but to combat the loss of light, we were prepared to augment the lighting. I used a 4k HMI, and a 1.2k HMI with 1/2 stop straw gel to give it the warmth of sunset. A chocolate filter will do as well. I placed the 4k outside the door way to provide the main key light, and i placed the 1.2k HMI out side the window, impacting a white bounce card off screen to provide some fill, and give the sense of ambient light. There is also a third HMI, outside the slats of the window thats visible in the darkness of the other room in the wide shot.

Its a simple lighting set up, to give the sense of sunset.

I think it worked out quite well.

A good cause and a fun lighting challenge.... And possibly the First UV lighting MusicVideo on Canon HD?

2010-12-14T04:16:00.004-05:00

About a month ago i was hired to shoot a music video for Erasure's Re-master and Re-release of their classic 80's hit, "A Little Respect". Laundry Service Media, the production company in charge of the task presented me with a doozy of a shooting request. We wanted to shoot 9 people lip syncing to the song in 14 different locations within a 12 hour day. Thats 16 company moves in 12 hours. meaning we had about 40 minutes per location, that includes, lighting, setup, scouting, shooting, and breakdown. To make things even more challenging, Jason Stein the Director wanted a UV lighting setup, so he could use florescent make up to create some stunning effects.

The song has some history, as it was and still is an anthem of empowerment for the Gay community all over the world. The songs Re-release on I-Tunes is being used to raise money for the Hetrick-Martin institute, an institution that supports the LGBT community and provides a safe haven for anyone who needs it. In this case, its specifically targeting the rash of bullying that has been sweeping the public eye this past few months.

Getting back to the shooting, the challenges before us meant that we needed to choose the correct tool for the job. RED was out of the question as it meant moving two additional crew members around, to help support the camera, and PL lenses would have been too much of a hassle when you only have minutes in each location. We still wanted a high quality look, so the compromise was clear. The small light 5DMKII, was the logical choice. However, i had no idea how a 5D MKII would expose under some of the demanding situations i was about to put it through. Truth be told, it knocked it out of the park!!! check it out below...

Sadly the Youtube codec cant hold the saturated blue, i promise you the raw footage looks un believable clean, nuanced and full of rich color and life.

Keep in mind, 12 hours, 14 locations, and a busy city to get though.... i think what we pulled off was a miracle.

I found that when shooting for a clean UV look, any ambient light will immediately ruin your day. Its gotta be pitch black. We rented two 4x4 Kino's and had UV tubes put in them. For the scenes where Andy Bell ( Erasures front man) is lit with white light, and the background is in UV we carefully pin spotted him with a tungsten light and made sure to use black flags to soak up any spill. The scenes in total blue were just lit using the UV Kinos.

I set up the 5D at ISO 160, and used a 85mm F1.8 @f2.8. The low ISO and high power Kino UV lights, gave us plenty of exposure to work with. Its difficult to say reallly whats exposed, but the rule of , "does it look good?" really came into play here.

Here you can see how powerful the Kinos are, with UV bulbs, the spill alone is activating the white tape stuck to the walls of the Hetrick- Martin Institute.

I am not sure if this is the first Music Video shot on 5D mkII and UV light, but if it is, now you know it can be done, and it will look GREAT!

UPDATE: it seem we are not the first UV 5D video.... here it is... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBjDZMJUduo

A Verse Before Dying Lighting Setup 2 - Town

2010-12-12T22:36:00.004-05:00

We last examined the first interior setup of "A Verse Before Dying", this time lets take a closer look at the exterior scenes.

Camera:
The low noise, high dynamic range signal of the AF100 allows you a lot of room to internally prepare your footage for the post process. Much like the "superflat" settings of the 5DmkII and 7D, or the sLOG of the Alexa, or FilmREC of the Varicam, the AF100 has a sort of super flat built in. I know I said NEVER use it... But DRS1 is the first step towards retaining the maximum dynamic range in a high contrast setting. In testing with Barry Green, he informed me that the DRS1 setting, pulls down your high lights by about a stop, and adds approximatly 3dB gain to the shadows The ONLY time you can use this is outdoors, in broad daylight, at ISO 200. The 200ISO setting is so clean that adding the 3dB gain to the shadows is insignificant as far as perceptible grain goes, and the highlight protection is far more valuable in a sunlit setting.

This is why we have barely any over exposure in this film. I opened up till we hit 105 IRE on the brightest parts of the image, and if i could net it i did. The rest of the image just fell into a nice place, where with some simple fill, i was able to create a soft tone to the look of the film.

Here are the stills:

So for now we will focus on the basic coverage for the scene.

One man, back lit, one man front lit, and a wide. Essentially i allowed the front lit man, the "bad guy with the scar" to fall where he did in the sun and just gave him a slight edge light with a mirror board from about 45 degrees off angle from behind. I took careful measure to ensure he was perfectly exposed, to ensure he had a proper skin tone.

The wide again was practically untouched, except for a fill light on the man in the white shirt with a mirror board to camera right, reflecting the sun in his face.

The trickery begins with the back lit protagonist. Here is the lighting diagram for him:

I used a triple net, ie a single and a double net, to cut the sun off his shoulder, to help bring his white shirt back form the brink of going too far in to over exposure. I then took two mirror boards, with the hard side reflecting direct sunlight into a 6x6 silk to his right positioned low to the ground, to simulate the naturally occurring scatter of light from the white sandstone sand on the ground , and the white adobe buildings to his left. The mirror board is the unsung hero of out door light control. When pushed through a silk, its as powerful as a 6k HMI, perhaps even more, when its catching direct sunlight. When you start multiplying them up, 2,3,4 mirror boards, you can almost over power the sun in a close up. As you can see the light is soft and simulates what was naturally occurring in the location. Just a little boost to help the camera resolve the image more faithfully.

Photos courtesy of Nadia Caffesse, www.fulltiltphotography.com

Next up.... the cabin.......

Feel free to ask any questions....
Check here for more info....

-Timur

"A Verse Before Dying" Working with the AF100

2010-12-10T15:33:00.002-05:00

The Trailer for the film and how we got here....

This pastweek i have been fortunate enough to be among the first people in the world to use the AF100 under a professional environment, shooting director Stephen Mick's period short film, "A Verse Before Dying".

Panasonic USA lent us 2 AG-AF100 bodies. I had one setup for tripod, and dolley use, and the other was set up for Stedicam/Jib use.

Our list of equipment panned out as follows:
Camera Department:
2x AF100 camera bodies.
1 full set of Zeiss Compact Primes Series 1, 18mm T3.5, 21mm T2.8, 25mm T2.1, 28mm T2.1, 35mm T2.0, 50mm T1.5, 85mm T1.5
1 set of Duclos modified Zeiss ZF lenses. 21mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm
Nikon 50-300 F4.5 AIS
Lumix 14-140 OIS
Lumix 20mm F1.7
Voightlander 85mm F1.1

Camera Support:
Stedicam Archer system
Kessler CineSlider
KesslerCrane
Kessler Kpod and Herculese Head 2.0
Sachtler V20 and Sachtler sticks.
Bartek Wireless Follow Focus
Shoot35 Cinefocus Follow Focus
Chroziel MB450-01 mattebox
Redrock Mattebox

Monitoring/Recording:
Small HD dp6 monitor.
Panasonic BTLH80 7" Monitor.
NanoFlash Recorder

Lighting:
3ton Grip truck
4k HMI
several 1.2k HMI's
and a simple tungsten package
600 AMP generator.

The AF100 with CP1's, Shoot35 Cinefocus , NanoFlash Recorder and Zacuto System. Photo by Matt Gettermeir

There was no shortage of equipment, lenses, lights, crew or camera support. Essentially we removed every obstacle that can get in the way of a camera system performing to its maximum, to see what the camera is actually like. The truth is, the camera system was never an obstacle. The AF100, is so seem less a camera system that it simply steps out of your way. You never "Feel" the camera. IE, you don't find yourself making adjustments to the shot to make up for the short comings of what was until now, a series of hacks, and makeshift work arounds to get the desired image. I was able to spend all my time and energy on the shot, the lights and the camera movement. I remember working with the 5D mkII, or the HVX200 and 35mm adpater systems, there was always an obstacle. Whether it was the constant back focus checking on the ground glass, or struggling to make sure the sot is in focus with a 5D, or the avoiding of moire inducing scenes, the low effective sensitivity of the adapter solutions, and the loss in resolution and image quality.

Lets start at the exposure and lighting dynamics:
The camera is a great performer @ ISO 400, or 0dB gain. You can easily go as high as 800 with no significant increase in noise or grain. Whats interesting was that i found that i rarely went above ISO 320. Even indoors, at night, i found that ISO 320 was far more than enough to get an excellent exposure. The camera retains, with careful massaging of the scene file, exceptional latitude. I did not have a rear lit chart to actually test for myself, but producer and Panasonic expert Barry Green, a friend of mine, tested it and assures me the AF100 holds 10.5 stops. Thats incredible, and it certainly felt like it.

Lets look into some of the lighting setups i built for "AVerse Before Dying" and explore how the camera stood up to the paces i put it through.

The theory behind the lighting was that in the mid nineteenth century there were hardly any man made sources of light, other than candles, and fire. This means that even daylight interiors are motivated by the sun. I designed a lighting plan that performed what i call "Sunlight +". This is not a real term, just some thing i made up. It means using the natural light available to you, and assisting it with HMI's and relfectors to do what you need.

Starting at the Saloon Scene, lets examine how Sunlight + lighting scheme was worked out.

Starting off, the sun was naturally pouring in through a majority of the set for most of the day. The doors and windows on the south side of the set, created a base fill light that gave the room a flat wash, that gave us an exposure @ ISO200 and a T2.8 on the CP1's. I wanted to shoot at a T4 to give me the option to have the depth of field look its most cinematic. The mattebox had a 1/4 Black Promist Filter, which cuts a quarter stop. Lets examine the lighting plan.

The first setup was for the "actor" at the round table facing the window. The equipment used was a double net, a mirror board, and a 1.2k HMI for this segment of the scene. I flagged off the sun with a double net, from the window, to make sure the light that hits the actor is what i want, not what the sun forced upon me. Now that i cut down the sun, i had to create my own sun. This is where the 1.2K HMI, and the mirror borad come in. I raised the mirror board up, and had the 1.2k HMI on the ground on a super stand, looking straight up, and the Mirror borad bounced the beam of light, softening it, back into the window of the saloon, and lighting the actor. Here is the corresponding frame grab to see the effects.

Photo by Barry Green

Now lets examine the Next Setup, the Reversal on the bartender as pictured here:

As you can see from the diagram, this is Sunlight+ as it is intended, as natural as possible. The lighting you see here is about 50% natural, and 50% assisted. The Sun is beaming a hard, bright patch of light on the floor of the bar near the door. Since the daylight look is what i'm going for i placed a white bead board reflector on the ground to catch that light and throw it up on to the actor. I then took the 4K HMI, and skinned it with a 1/2 Straw filter to mimic the ambient light reflecting in the doors and windows off of the huge amount of straw that was just out side the door. This 4k added some shape and definition to the wall and the actors face.
This is the view outside of the door of the saloon.

It is important to keep in mind the color of reflected lights. The tint if the straw, needs to be compensated for when using pure color units in conjunction with the natural lighting. In addition i placed a 1.2k Unit pointed at the ceiling above the actor the add some fill light for the shadow side of his face.

The combination of these two lighting setups are visible here in the wide shot. They together create a natural, yet motivated lighting setup that we staged our actors in.

WIDE:

Once the lighting has been set to the appropriate levels for exposure, the time comes for adjustments. Using the waveform on the AF100, i had the gaffer Marcel Rodriguez adjust the lighting setup to make sure we hit the IRE levels necessary to take advantage of all the AF100 could capture. I had him walking the lights, reflectors and netting elements of the set to the degree of 1/10ths of a stop to ensure that we used all 110IRE the camera could record. The image may have looked a bit flat, but its ready for the color grading session we had planned for it.

Camera Support:
Once we had the lighting setup, it came time to turn on the camera and get it telling the story. I used one of my favorite tools of all time, the Kessler CineSlider, Kpod and Hercules Head 2.0... I used it to add some subtle movement to many of the shots in this film. The beauty is that the AF100 fully loaded is still so light that there is no perceivable flex in the slider dolley setup at all. This makes for smooth repeatable moves that have that "expensive" rock solid look.

Photos Courtesy of Matt Gottshalk.

This is all for now... I will continue this break down once i get the other lighting breakdowns down on paper.

enjoy, feel free to ask as many questions as you like.

For more Behind the scenes please visit DVXuser.com's Behind the Scenes Thread!

warmest,
-Timur

Pre Production on the FIRST short film to be shot with the AF100

2010-11-26T13:46:00.029-05:00

So sorry for the gap in posting everyone! However if you look below you will see why.... Yes thats a Panasonic AF100!!!!! in my Living room!!!! with no supervision!!!!!!

I am involved with a special first short film project using the Panasonic Af100 camera. I am starting pre production today, and I will be posting information as i get it. check back as often as you like!

The film will be shot in Texas, however i will be performing a full camera test w/ Schneider Optics Cine Xenar Lenses on Monday in New York. Thats when the juicy information will come out.... :)
First impressions:

Its light. Real light. It has lots of thoughtful convenient features, for example, a 3/8 and 1/4 screw thread on the bottom of camera. Simple, but necessary and sorely needed. Already hooked it up to my 26" Panasonic BTLH2600Wp prodution monitor, with a Duclos Converted Zeiss 21mm ZF lens... All i have to say is WOW. This camera is sharp, organic looking, and has great dynamic range.

Definitely more coming!

Some images from the testing phase:

UPDATE: 11/27/10

Worked with the camera today running some tests in daylight. I'm finding the scene file that work best for narrative film-making. This camera reminds me very much of an HVX200, in that a properly tuned scene file really brings the sensor to life. Its an approximation of what i always used on my HVX200 (visit my website www.timurcivan.com to watch my reels some of it is HVX200), my magic scene file as it were. I'm currently not at liberty to get into specifics, or post footage. This will come in a short time, but i will say this, The detail coring function works a lot better this go around....

The camera's 1080p slomotion capability is astounding. 1080 @ 60p looks BEAUTIFUL! Sharp, and without having to drop resolution to 720p it seems. This is only a good thing.

One thing that is certain from this point on, the name of the game is going to be glass... the better the lens, the more stunning the image. I used a couple different grades of glass in testing, and the difference is clear as day. Good glass makes the difference here. The camera is sharp enough where it matters.

( ask anything in the comments, i will respond! thanks for reading.)

Going out with the camera again tomorrow, but this time night exteriors and tungsten testing.

New Update Coming as soon as i get the ok from appropriate channels!!

Found out something very interesting... im re writing my review to reflect the new insight... its only GOOD!

UPDATE: 12/1/2010

Having spent the weekend with the AF100 i have a few thoughts.

The Af100 is actually going to change the way i work in this industry. It will change it in the same way that the HVX200 upon its release changed the way we all worked. You get, 35mm depth of field, beautiful, sharp, high dynamic range 1080/24P, long record times on cheap media, a stable codec, IT workflow, an SDI/HDMI out, a load of mounting points and a modular body that can be as big or small as you will ever need. For the first time you can deliver the 35mm look, with almost no compromises. Its all there!!!!! I no longer have to compromise "light weight and small" vs "easy sound solution and exposure tools" or "real SDI monitoring" vs " Non stanadard HDMI to SDI". Hell, the black magic sdi/hdmi converter doesn't even work with all monitors! Thats not really a work around is it?

I can now offer to a client all the look they want, with all the tools i need, at a price that makes it EASY to own. Plus it does some things that NO other prosumer HD camera does, 1080 60p recorded to AVChd.

Lets talk about the image first, a lot of folks are waiting with baited breath about how it looks, skew, rolling shutter, sensitivity, color, resolution, etc... Much like any other Panasonic camera you get a healthy dose of color, mojo and "feel". I referenced the HVX200 so lets start a comparison there. The HVX200 in 1080p was sharp... not blindingly sharp, but it resolved enough detial to look beautiful. The AF is different. It resolves a lot more detail, but when you tune the scenefile, it never looks over sharpened, it takes on a organic, natural looking image. Some of the other test footage has looked a bit over sharpened, but this is easily correctable by doing some scenefile tweaking. I was not able to secure a full res chart for this testing period so i cant give you lines of resolution, but thats not what i am looking for anyhow. I'm here to learn how this camera exposes, and behaves in preparation for a film. The AF has a pretty standard exposure curve for digital acquisition. Protect you highlights. The nice wide dynamic range of the camera in combination with a controlled lighting scheme really lends itself to some film like images. The AF100 has some of the DSLR super bright, smooth look, while at the same time retaining the realistic and natural colors of a varicam or HPX3000. Its unique, and great. Whats even better was that i had a revelation last night. The AF100 when i first received it was putting out some nice images. After some testing i rated the camera at a 320ISO as 400 ISO and up started to get grain creeping in. This wasn't necessarily disappointing, as i usually shoot my 5D at 320 ISO to get a super clean image and use able sensitivity. The AF was almost as good. Not amazing but almost as good, The image at lower ISO's was clean sharp and had decent color. I figured it would be tough to beat a full frame chip for low light performance anyway... THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED. It turns out the custom white balance button has what seems to be 2 steps. The first step is white balance, the second, "black balance". I normally black balance a camera every time i change anything or turn it on, gamma, frame rate, etc.... When I first got the AF100 i tried to execute a black balance but I didn't press the button enough it seems. I assumed the camera had no black balance function, so i operated as if it were calibrated. Black balancing the AF100 made it perform the way i expected it to. I now am re rating the AF100 very conservatively at a 640 ISO clean camera. 800 ISO looks spotless, but just to be safe, i will be working with it at a 640ISO under tungsten lighting setups. That is more sensitive than vision3 kodak film, and quickly approaching REDmx, Alexa, and 5D territory.

Image quality aside, the reason why the AF100 is a great camera is this; Ergonomics, convenience, Form Factor and Compatibility. I am an avid fan of the Canon 5D. I think it is an incredible camera for the price and image. I mean really, it just about puts top end performance in the palm of your hand for the cost of a weekend trip to Vegas. However much like a trip to Vegas, by the time you've spent 2 or three days with with a 5D shooting video you have a headache and you wound up spending a lot more than you thought you would to get the desired result.... SO! what does this mean for the AF100. The truth of the matter is this; The AF100 is so easy to shoot with! I forgot how much i missed scene files, XLR audio, focus assist, SDI HD monitoring, built in Waveforms, and being able to do it all without a complicated Zacuto setup. I did the math, my 5D package w/ monitor and zacuto setup, costs more than the Af100. Its too bright outdoors and i want to shoot at a F4.0? ND4 On. problem over. I have Canon FD lenses? No problem. I have PL glass? No problem... i need to switch between them, takes literally 2 seconds. No problem. This camera and the m4/3 mount make it possible.

Out of all this convenince, the most important part it in my opinion is the scenefile. Much like the HVX200, HPX170, HPX300, HMC150, the scenefiles are deep and intricate. I was able to dial in a scenefile that i will be using to shoot the film. I found the perfect balance between, deep blacks, high dynamic range, low noise, organic skin tone and accurate color ready for a grade.

One area that needs addressing is the field of view debate. To be perfectly honest, you dont feel the crop factor quite so much. Its quite similar to 35mm 3perf field of view. Which is quite standard. In 90% of film making you are sticking with three of four lenses anyway, the widest of which is a 25mm. Setting the Lumix 14-140 i was supplied with to 18mm, a standard Cine wide, the field of view resembled very much that of a 18mm on any number of 35mm sized sensor camera. You only really feel the difference when you go from full frame DSLR to the AF100. 7D users wont really notice it quite as much. This is coming from practical experince that ive been having over the last few days. I have never felt like i was "missing" a wide angle lens. The other positive by product of this is that the depth of field looks very cinematic, natural, and i guess you can say appropriate. Again this is dependent on the glass you are using. Great glass, yields great results. Cheap crappy glass... cheap crappy image.

The AF100 Wobble/Skew performance is excellent, almost the performance of a REDmx. The rolling shutter artifacts are greatly minimized. I had a shot with flashing police lights that i could not see flash banding in. This is VERY exciting. I will test it with strobe lights tonight.

Aliasing performance is great. It resolves fine patterened detial the same way any dedicated CCD or CMOS video camera would. Infact, its relieving to not have to worry about what the subject is going to wear, and whether there will be aliasing in their eyebrows, their hair, or clothing. Alising is one of those things that once you see it in the footage you cant unsee it. Its there with you forever, and you will be able to spot it a mile away. This is my relationship with my 5D. All i see is aliasing everywhere. Over all its a great image, but it does not hold up on a big screen. I recently shot a commercial, that was playing in AMC theaters. One insert shot was on 5dMKII intercut with REDMX. While the color and tone matched, the subjects striped shirt, eyebrows and beard werw an aliasing mess, and on a 80' screen its just awful to see the talents face constantly jittering. The solution to this problem is a godsend.

In conclusion for this segment of my experinces with the AF100, i am impressed. Panasonic did good. Real good. I cant wait to get this thing on set tomorrow!

This test was to see where i could break the cameras image. High ISO, Sodium Vapor mixed with blue neon lighting. A cocktail for a horrid mess. Problem is, the AF handles it REALLY well..... this is why I'm wowed. This is about as challenging a lighting situation you can imagine. This isn't about aesthetics. This is about seeing the camera break, then being surprised when it didn't.

Below is some additional footage, shot straight from the camera as it came from the factory. This purpose of this test was to see how the camera handles over exposure, back lighting and a preliminary test of slow motion capabilities.

12/2/2010
Myself and all the gear has arrived in Texas. Kessler Crane has graciously supplied us with a Hercules Head 2.0 and Kpod heavy duty tripod system for my Cine slider and Kessler Crane. The equipment is secure, stable and now capable of complex camera moves.... Wayne Kinney from Shoot35 has also supplied the production with his CineFocus r2 follow focus. I will be writing up a review and list of all the gear once we get it all organized, and checked out tommorow.

AF100 on a Kessler CineSlider, with a Shoot35 CineFocus, Chroziel Mattebox and Duclos modified Zeiss Primes.

UPDATE 12/2/10

Did some location scouting, and here is where we will be shooting this puppy....

UPDATE: 12/3/2010

Just wrapped day one, and i have to say the footage is looking incredible. I have been working with some of the most talented and dedicated crew anyone can ask for. I rest a lot of the powerful images the AF100 captured today on the remarkable crew of the production: "A Verse Before Dying" by Stephen Mick.

First and fore most let me shout out my camera and grip/electric crew.

1stAC: Taylor Rudd
Gaffer: Marcel Rodriguez
Key Grip: Brandon Boggs
Bestboy: Matt Gottshalk
Super Awesome Grip: Louis Moncivias

These guys have pulled together some lighting work that has been the subtlest, most natural, and accurate to my vision i have ever had. I thank them for physically creating the look of this film, and for adding so much to its visual impact.

Working with the AF100 is a such a damn joy. The Compact Primes we are using are razor sharp, consistent, and thankfully proper PL lenses.

Here is a list of all the great gear that i am fortunate enough to work with.
Camera Department:
2x Panasonic AF100's, 1 Prototype, and 1 production run camera.
Zeiss Compact Primes
Kessler Crane Special thanks to Kessler for supplying us with all the necessary components to create a killer look.
Kessler Cine Slider
Shoot 35 CineFocus Special thanks to Shoot 35.com for supporting the shoot by loaning us a CineFocus
Small HD DP1 Monitor
The Nano Flash Digital Recorder
RedRock Microsystems Matte box
Chroziel Mattebox
Zacuto Rail System.

Lighting Department:
4k HMI
2x 1.2k HMI
Basic Mole Richardson tungsten package
600 amp Diesel generator

In short we have lots of great toys...

enjoy the photos....

Anamorphic Look For the Indie Filmmaker.

2010-10-26T22:43:00.003-04:00

The goal of independent film-making is simple. Make the film you want to make, without answering to a studio. The beauty in this is the Auteur of the film retains the full creative control of the content of the film.

The down side, is that without a studio, the financial backing often is significantly less than one would receive in a studio situation. Today we can achieve stunningly good image quality from HDSLR cameras half the size, and half the cost of just the battery of a 35mm Motion Picture Film camera. There has never been a time where more image quality was derived per dollar in the moving picture. The HDSLR can offer the indie filmmaker a damn good representation of 35mm film's essential characteristics. Light sensitivity, shallow depth of field, low grain imagery, interchangeable lenses, 24P and the 60P over crank. All the convenience of tapeless Digital HD Video and most of the look of 35mm film. A dream scenario. The beauty of this is that everyone can now have the look of film, in a nice tidy 1080P package.

For many people looking to make narrative films, the 16x9 aspect ratio doesn't quite fit the scope of their idea. Enter the cine anamorphic lens. These beautiful, oft hand made lenses optically squeeze a wider image 2.4:1 aspect ration image onto the film plane. The problem with anything thats hand built, ESPECIALLY in the film industry... is cost. Anamorphic lenses as beautiful and desirable as they are come with a hefty price tag, both in terms of rental and support equipment.

One way around this cost, many indie filmmakers wanting that look often matte a 2.40:1 image out of their 16:9 footage. Thats great, but the difference is this. Anamorphic lenses provide certain tell tale characteristics, that get imparted onto the image. The two main characteristics are the bokeh and the lens flare. The bokeh on an anamorphic lens expands vertically as a point goes out of focus faster than it expands horizontally. The result is oval shaped out of focus circles, a by product of the front element that compresses the image horizontally.

That being said, why cant we take the amazing image quality of the HDSLR even higher.....

On a recent shoot i needed to match a canon 7D "B" camera to my A camera, a RED MX which was using anamorphic lenses. I devised a contraption that gives the standard spherical lens we all have the visual charachteristics of an anamorphic lens. There by helping to sell the effect far more convincingly. IE: the footage looks like it was shot on an anamorphic lens. The best part is that the contraption is relatively inexpensive. I am in the midst of patenting the concept, and i am going to give you guys a sneak preview of what it does.

This is the origination of the concept. I had to create a horizontal flare to match the elites. So i did using the simplest tool in existence. :) Its not perfect, but it made the little light over my head go off. This is a excerpt from the music video i devised the concept for. I hadn't integrated the second phase, that changes the aperture of the lens, so the bokeh is still that of a spherical lens.

Flash forward a few weeks:

I figured out how to control many aspects of the anamorphic effect. The intensity, and apparent "strength" of the effects. This is the state i'm at right at right now. Far more refined and getting more refined each day. It works better on longer lenses, starting around the 40mm. I have tested it on a Canon 50mm F1.4 USM, Canon 85mm F1.8 USM, Helios 44-2 58mm F2.0, the Jupiter-9 F2.0 85mm, as well as the 135mm FD, 200mm F2.8 SSC FD lens and pretty much any wide aperture lens. My goal it to have it fully functional from 35mm focal lengths and up. In general when shooting for a 2.4:1 framing, you dont go much shorter than a 35mm lens. Because of the aspect ratio a 50mm seems wider on screen because of the additional width of the frame. Having a functional 35mm should be plenty wide.

While the device doesnt actually squeeze the image into the frame like an anamorphic, when the image is cropped to 2.4:1 the combination of the lens effects, and the aspect ratio will help sell the effect for a fraction of the price of renting a single anamorphic lens for one day.

I figure this device will help many independent filmmakers create a beautiful high quality cinemascope effect for a low price, in camera in a fully customizable configuration...

If you think this is cool please email me, or comment!

timurcivan@gmail.com
www.timurcivan.com

enjoy!

Experince counts

2010-10-12T02:47:00.008-04:00

The beauty of cinematography is that the DP applies the techniques and knowledge he has learned from other cinematographers to his own craft. Sometimes it isn't a lighting gag, or an optical trick. Sometimes its just having a unique experience. Case in point, my friend, teacher and incredible Cinematographer Tim Naylor. Last week, he traveled to the city of He Yang, China to shoot a feature film. He took the time to write an exquisite account of his experiences so far. Here they are, verbatim. (with permission)

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"Dear friends and family

We just finished our first week of shooting. We're getting amazing footage but I wish things could move faster. While the technical crew are some of the fastest and most efficient I've ever worked with, in a land of no real labor law or overtime, the scheduling/planning has a bit o be desired. When you have overtime, like in America, production ideally plans not to waste a minute or pay for it in overages and meal penalties. Here, things work a little differently, you shoot until finished. When I asked my gaffer about traffic cones and rubber matting for safety, he gave me a quizzical look and then told my translator, "such things don't exist on film sets."

Being a school teacher film, we cast many children from 6 to 12 years old. Yesterday, we had a full class of kids putting in a 12 hour day right alongside the crew. Not single one, whined or weeped. They seemed to be actually having a ball as there were loads of dirt mounds, piles of corn husks, walls to pee on, puddles and sand for diversion.. Being virtually all village/farm kids, I've a feeling they've worked much harder. Our ex Red Army drill sargent now assistant director, corralled the "Hai Ze" all day. When he yells, they fall in line, immediately. When waiting off set, they are entertained by our "good cop" Zhong Lee, the 2nd AD. To my relief, unlike America, there were no "stage mothers" present. The parents dropped them off at the hotel in the morning and we returned them in the evening, conveniently exhausted. The "new age" parenting so prevalent in the West, full of praise and nuggets of self esteem to chew on, is an alien and offensive concept here. When a child extra misses their mark, even if it is his first film, they're scolded and immediately ordered to do better or simply replaced by another. No one, including the youngins, find this odd. During a wardrobe fitting at the hotel, one of our principal actors was mucking about and quickly found himself having a timeout and having to face a wall for ten minutes. The other parents didn't bat an eye, but seemed to find this the right way.

Other things that tickle me is the Chinese culture of rank and protocol. I have a hard time trying to open my own door to the production bus and no one (except the director) will exit the bus before me. Along those lines, the day before our first day of filming, the production held a "good luck" dinner party at a local banquet hall. Despite mountains of food at each table, no one dared touch so much touch a peanut until our guests of honor arrived. Half an hour late, they arrived - the Village Head and his right hand man and the Regional Minister of Propaganda and his two minions. Needless, to say, I was seated between them at the VIP table, along with the director and the lead actor. Within moments of commencing dinner, our dignitaries proceeded to offer me one mini shot of Chinese rice liquor (followed by a toast) after another. To refuse would be to lose face and bring shame upon my ancestors. To accept would be to toy with losing consciousness. This was no saki but the Chinese version of Everclear. So I complied and soon found myself pressured to appear on stage and belt out my rendition of "Feelings", much to the amusement of my hosts and to the shame of wedding singers worldwide.

My assistant, Chris, from the US feels he's spoiled. If I tell him to place the camera, in such and such a position, before he can lift a finger, a crew of "camera grips" descends upon the camera and does it for him. I feel the same with my chief Lighting Technician, Gaffer Lieu Li, a total pro from the big Chinese Xi'An Studios. After I establish the lighting style for a scene, even though his English is a bit worse than my Mandarin, when we set up for additional shots, his crew has the lighting more than 90 % "matched" before I can walk off and grab a cup of tea. At first, he tended to "over light" making some scenes look lit up light a Christmas tree with the soul of a commercial Chinese romance. But as soon as he realized I was lighting more natural, he quickly fell in line and began to execute my ideas while adding his own flavor. His Kung Fu is most strong but no match for my Monkey Style.

Perhaps another interesting note, is that even though we're shooting in a impoverished village of 2nd/3rd World conditions, unlike other poor conditions I've experienced, it's refreshing to see walls without razor wire or cemented broken glass along the top. My biggest fear walking the streets at night is getting run over by the silent but deadly electric scooters. Doors are often open or latched with a coat hanger or some makeshift minimal security lock. Live stock often roam freely and manage to make it home by dark. My assistant chased a band of piglets walking the lane. In New York, they'd end up on my grill by sundown. But there is a fiber glass lining to this relative crime free existence - the price for larceny is death. At 20,000 plus executions a year, you have to ask, do you feel safe?

Overall, everyone has been most hospitable. My two assistants on their first day were befriended by two co-eds who gave them an all day tour of the City we're in, He Yang. The curiosity towards we alien foreigners is never ending, and never hostile. During down time one of the six year old extras learned lines from R. Kelly's "Ignition-Remix" from the lead actor. He ran around all day uttering "Sipping on Coke and Run...give some of that Beep Beep, Toot Toot...". So far this may be perhaps the most impressionable adventure yet in my some odd years. We've three weeks to go and a ton of work.

That's all for now until next week,

Enjoy the pics.

Our Camera Cart.

Villagers watching themselves on video playback of their first scene.

Village Elders, playing well....Village Elders.

The Boy who would be R. Kelly watching cartoons during lunch.

My Director, Louyi Tang, thrilled about the big scene in which the kids collect enough water for the foreign teacher to take a bath.

Breath the air, check out the charm.

Our Director, Louyi Tang, thrilled about the big scene where the school children collect enough water so American teacher can take a bath.

Timothy Naylor

Cinematographer"

The man is a story teller.
Please visit his website to see his amazing work. www.timnaylor.com