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LensMeAHand

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  1. Most are owned by the studio I work with. The owner brags how he's never gotten rid of a camera—hence the abundance of old tech.
  2. This past week, we were planning to shoot with two Venices, each equipped with an E-mount lens. I thought, "No problem, I'll just remove the Venice's PL-mount, exposing the E-mount, and we'll be ready to go." However, it becomes tricky when you need to adjust the aperture. The lenses we were using did not have a physical aperture adjustment, and could only be adjusted through a camera. I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to do this, and nothing came up when I searched Google, so I thought I'd post here for future Googlers. The only way to adjust aperture on an E-mount lens is to set assignable buttons for the adjustment. It's in the Project section of the full menu (which can be accessed by either holding down the menu button, or by pressing the menu button and the selection dial simultaneously). Anyways, hope this helps someone out in the future!
  3. I agree—totally outdated. It would be a huuuge pain to work with on a real production for all the reasons I listed in my post. But also, I can't deny it's fun to play around with 🙂
  4. Read on to see how you can ensure you retain the quality of your clips when using Catalyst Browse. For years, I’ve been stabilizing footage in Catalyst Browse the wrong way and just realized it. And with the way the settings are presented, I’m sure I’m not the only one making this mistake. Transcode settings in Catalyst Browse Here’s the thing—you glance over the transcode settings, see they’re all set to “Same as source”, and reasonably assume that your footage is going to come out the same as the source. But no. Read carefully On the Format drop-down, "Same as source" shows XAVC S, even though I shot the clip in XAVC S-I. This is misleading. You press export, and when you load the clip into your editing software, you can see that the bit depth has devolved to 8-bit, from the original 10-bit. The only reason I realized this is because I noticed some banding in a gray sky on one of my clips. So what’s the solution? Well, if you don’t want to pay for Catalyst Prepare, the only option that retains both your resolution and bit depth is to export the video as a series of DPX stills, which becomes a pain if you have audio baked into the footage because then you’ll have to relink the audio track when you bring the DPX sequence into your editing software, making for extra post production work. Showing ‘Same as source’ when it’s actually not the same as source is just like showing 24fps when the camera is really recording 23.98 fps. Come on Sony, don’t deceive us!
  5. Recently, I was given a Sony FDR-X3000 Action Cam, and with a ski trip planned for the weekend, I thought, “what a great opportunity to test this little guy out.” The 4K pocket camera was released in 2016, but I sought to find out if it had any relevance today. The Sony FDR-X3000 Action Cam My initial impression was favorable. The camera boots up instantly, and there are REC lights on the top, front, and side of the camera, so there are no doubts when you’re recording. It’s light, portable, and the design is aesthetic. Since I didn't have the optional add-on monitor, I couldn’t see what I was shooting the whole day. But when I offloaded the footage that night, I was a bit disappointed. Ungraded footage with the Action Cam mounted to my snowboard via a suction cup I'm guessing the shaking of the snowboard brought out the worst of the Action Cam's rolling shutter, which is quite bad. The footage with the camera mounted to the snowboard was unusable. Fortunately, the handheld stuff came out better. Handheld Action Cam footage with a quick color grade And with a little stabilization in post, some of the handheld shots came out super smooth. Action Cam footage with a quick color grade and post stabilization in DaVinci Resolve Most handheld shots were unrecoverably rough. However, I only realized after the trip that I had the Action Cam set to Standard stabilization, when there was an Active Stabilization mode. Perhaps this would have resulted in even smoother footage. Regardless of its stabilization, the Action Cam was disappointing for other reasons as well—like how grainy and noisy the footage got when you weren't shooting in bright daylight. Looking back, I think my expectations for this tiny $400 camera were simply too high. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how the same type of shot would look with my a7sIII, so I took it instead on the second ski day. Putting the a7sIII’s weather resistance to the test Without any gimbal or even handles on my cage, the internal gyroscope made all the difference in the world. Even the shakiest shots were recoverable in Catalyst Browse. Unstabilized a7sIII footage with color grade (50mm lens @ 1/200 shutter speed) The same shot stabilized in Catalyst Browse After this comparison, I saw no real use for the Action Cam for myself personally. The alpha cameras are small and light enough to fit in a backpack and hold with one hand, yet they give you more color depth, more dynamic range, more room to stabilize in post, etc etc. I'll concede that it’s not exactly a fair comparison, pitting an a7sIII + lens that will set you back a couple grand, versus an Action Cam that cost only $400 when it was new. In fact, the Action Cam was not designed to compete with DSLRs—its main foe was GoPro. And I have to say, watching side-by-side videos on YouTube of the Sony vs the top GoPro in 2016, the Action Cam looks better. Better stabilization, better colors, better exposure. But I feel like the consumer market would opt for a GoPro, simply because of their adhesive mounts that allow you to easily stick them to anything. To mount the Action Cam to my snowboard, I had to bring a Wood's Power Grip suction cup, which kept coming off because the scratches on my snowboard didn't make for a smooth enough surface. Plus, when you have to carry around a big suction cup (and if you want to adjust your angle, a tripod head as well), the camera isn't exactly a pocket cam anymore. So here's to you Action Cam. A beautifully executed, well-designed piece of technology that unfortunately doesn't have much use in 2023.
  6. Couldn't agree more. The design struck me as something conceived in 2000—I was shocked to discover it was made as recently as it was.
  7. I’m working on a low-budget project next week that's slated to use one RED camera. For dialogue scenes, they want medium and medium closeup shots for each actor, along with a wide. I offered to bring my Sony a7sIII because I knew having another camera would save time, but the producer is worried about colors not matching. So I did some tests to see just how well the Sony and RED color sciences could match up. Here are two stills, both using the same lens, with the subject the same distance away from the camera. White balance and exposure were kept consistent between both cameras. Red Helium 8K on the left / Sony a1 on the right With only a color space transform to Rec 709, the two shots look wildly different. The Sony footage is darker, and the reds are more saturated. However, by using a color chart to color match in DaVinci Resolve, we can get a lot closer. Nearly identical The color chart helped to get these shots looking almost exactly alike. The RED footage has slightly more saturation in the reds, but with a slight adjustment, you can get them even closer. Desaturated reds and slight S-curve on the RED footage. Increased contrast on both shots. After two quick adjustments, they look pretty darn close. When you're cutting between shots and not viewing them side-by-side like this, they will appear exactly the same. I assume the colors in the RED footage look slightly more vibrant because it was shot RAW, versus the a1 that was shot in 4:2:2 XAVC. If I had an Atomos Ninja V to record RAW from the Sony a1, the comparison might be a lot closer. In an ideal world, we would always be able to shoot with matching cameras, but it doesn't always work out that way. Having a color chart on hand can save a lot of time matching shots in post. However, there are some things to watch out for... The color chart can present a challenge when you’re shooting a backlit subject—if there’s not enough light on the chart, the camera won't record enough detail on it, and DaVinci won’t be able to match with it. Also, if you're working with miniatures or macro shots, you'll need a compact color chart, but that won't always fit in the shot either. Sometimes you can get away with copying the grades from similar shots you've corrected with the color chart, but if not, you're stuck tediously matching by hand.
  8. The Sony F35 Last weekend, I had an opportunity to spend some time with a rare gem from Sony's hall of fame. Released in 2008 with a sticker price of $250,000, the Sony F35 was the first CineAlta camera to come with a PL mount, meaning it was a serious contender for cinema primetime. It featured a 5.8K sensor, but unfortunately the output was downsampled to HD. I spent a few hours playing around with it, and found that while it had its upsides, it was not without its flaws. The Good: Battery Life: a 155Wh battery will last for hours. No need to lug around a block battery or stress about constant battery swaps. The Look: I love the look of this camera! More on that later... In-Camera Speed Ramping: This is a pretty neat feature—you can setup the camera to change framerate mid-take. So for example, if you started a shot at 4 fps, you'd have a timelapse full of motion blur, but then you could transition to 24 fps and be back to real time speed in the same shot. The Bad: HD footage: You have no room to digitally zoom in post, and unless you're cropping to 4:3 or 2.39:1, you have no room to shift your framing in post either. It's not all bad though—HD files consume much less hard drive space than 8K footage. White Balance: There are only two settings for the white balance: Daylight and Tungsten. Just like shooting on film! No built-in ND: We are spoiled with today's cinema cameras that let you effortlessly flip through ND filters with the push of a button. Not so with the F35. You have limited control of the exposure with a gain setting, but that won't save you from an obligatory mattebox and filter set. No internal recording: The F35 was designed to be accompanied by an SRW-1 recording unit, which mounts to either the top or rear of the camera. But this recording unit was the same size as the camera! The F35 is huge and weighs as much as a sack of bricks—I can't imagine doubling its size (and probably weight too). However, in 2023, I was able to use an Atomos monitor to record 4:2:2 footage. If you want to record 4:4:4, you'll need an Odyssey or possibly one of the new Atomos monitors. The Ugly: Size & Weight: It's exhausting just to carry this camera—I can't imagine shoulder mounting it for more than a minute. It's larger than today's cinema cameras as well, meaning you'll have a harder time getting it on a gimbal or into small spaces. Frame Rate: Again, we are spoiled by today's cinema cameras that can shoot 120 fps and beyond. The maximum frame rate on the F35 is only 60 fps. Menu: I think this camera gave Sony its reputation for bad menus that it can't seem to shake (even though the current Sony menus are great). These are the buttons you'll be pressing to navigate the horrible menus Not only is the F35 menu system slow to navigate through, it's also unintuitive. You'd think you'd be able to quickly scroll through the different menus with the dial to the right of the screen. Nope. You have to press the Page and Set buttons to go back and forth between menu pages. Then to actually change a setting, you have to hold the Set button for three seconds—then you can turn the dial to cycle through options for that setting. On a film set where things need to move as quickly as possible, this camera would not be advantageous. Now, it may seem like there's a lot more cons than pros, but I want to talk in-depth about the biggest pro of them all. I found the look of this camera to be unique and wonderful. Here are a few stills from the footage I shot: Ungraded still converted to Rec. 709, shot outside on a semi-cloudy day Graded and color-corrected still, shot through a window on a cloudy day When the S-LOG footage is converted to Rec. 709, the reds are way too saturated. Adjusting the reds before the color space conversion leads to a normal looking image, which becomes quite pleasing after a slight color grade. This shot was originally underexposed. After brightening it up and adding some contrast, it looks really grainy, but in a cool way. Almost like film! I was shocked at how much I liked the look of this nearly 15-year-old camera. Maybe I'll use it for a project in the near future. Hopefully my back won't give out while carrying it. Has anyone else used the F35 (recently or back-in-the-day)? What were your experiences with it?
  9. This week I was on a shoot where we used a Rialto 2 for some handheld shots because of its relatively light weight compared to the Venice 2. However, we ran into a problem mounting a follow focus and monitor on the Rialto 2. Here's the issue—there's a 24V output on the front of the Rialto 2, but our monitor and follow focus ran on 12V, and we didn't have a step down converter. If you haven't used the Rialto 2, you might be confused when nothing comes out of the 24V output on the front of the Rialto 2. Looping power and video to make use of the Rialto 2's outputs You have to loop power and video ouputs on the Venice 2 in order to get anything out of the front outputs on the Rialto 2. And with that in mind, we realized you don't actually need to send 24V through the 24V connection. So we built our own cabling to run 12V into the Rialto 2. The 2-pin Lemo connected to the Venice 2's 12V power, and the 3-pin connected to the 24V input that ran to the Rialto 2 The 3-pin Lemo carried the 12V from the Venice, and the D-Tap split off to the monitor & follow focus There are three things to keep in mind about this setup: (1) a 24V to 12V step down converter would be a much better solution, as you would have twice as much amperage, allowing you to power more accessories. (2) if you also find yourself in this pinch and decide to go the custom-cabling route, make sure you connect ground to ground on the 3-pin lemo or else you run the risk of shorting out the camera. Pinout for the 3-pin Lemo on the Venice 2 And (3), these are dangerous cables to have. So if you build them, you should mark them as such, so that someone doesn't unknowingly fry an expensive piece of camera gear down the road.
  10. Earlier this week, I was using a Venice 2 to shoot on a stage, and of course, when you know the camera won’t move more than 10ft in the course of a day, it’s much more convenient to use a power supply than to constantly swap batteries. Unfortunately, the company that rented us the Venice 2 forgot to include an AC adapter to power the camera from the wall. So I grabbed the power supply from a Blackmagic 12K, thinking it would work. It did not. Here’s the interesting part: The Venice 2 manual gives three different power ratings for the 8K camera: Unit nominal power consumption: 76W Nominal meaning the smallest amount it could possibly consume, which is irrelevant for our purposes Unit maximum power consumption: 100W The maximum power the camera body alone could consume Total maximum power consumption: 220W The total consumption of the camera body plus all the accessories and gadgets that could be drawing power from it The Blackmagic 12K power supply outputs 12 V at 8.33 A. Using Ohm’s law (Watts = Volts * Amps), we can determine that the Blackmagic power supply delivers 100 W of power. However, this was not enough for our Venice 2 with only a viewfinder attached. We weren’t even recording. We simply powered the camera on (with batteries and power supply connected) and watched the voltage drain as the power supply got really hot. The moral of this story is that you should make sure that your Venice 2 power supply can deliver at least 220 W, or else you risk losing power during your shoot.
  11. I’m glad I could provide some nostalgia. When others operate the camera, they instinctively treat it like a modern cinema camera and point it at the sun, and it causes me a great deal of stress!
  12. Haha it’s pretty awful really—50 ft of wires and boxes dragging behind the camera. I’m trying to consolidate the setup, but the DXC-M3A will always be dragging around some form of ball and chain
  13. Agreed. Lens choice is an important consideration in color matching. One of the reasons cinema lenses are so expensive is because they’re color matched to a set. Even with the same lenses, matching Canon and Sony will be easier if you shoot a color chart after every slate
  14. This is my Sony DXC-M3A, a broadcast camera from the mid-1980s. You might wonder why anyone would own such a dinosaur in an age of 8k resolution and 15-stops of dynamic range. But I think it has a certain aesthetic quality that's lost to today's lifeless digital sensors. The DXC-M3A doesn't have an image sensor; instead it has 3 pickup tubes that work like a CRT television to turn light into an analog signal. The beauty of these tubes is what drew me to this camera. The colors, the light trails, the chromatic aberration. It gives a look that lies somewhere in between film and digital, and is unlike anything else. After months of trial-and-error trying to get the RGB signal out of the camera (sourcing three different converter boxes and making my own wiring looms to connect it all), I finally have a usable camera that records straight to my laptop without having to degrade the quality by recording to tape (as was done in the day). My friend and I are planning to shoot a short film with this camera. I will post more as our progress unfolds.
  15. As a camera person, the last thing I want to do is to fuss with sound. Unfortunately, we’re sometimes stuck doing it alongside our camera duties on really low-budget interviews. However, Sony makes a sound kit that integrates with Sony cameras, making our lives a little easier. Since the receiver connects via the hotshoe mount, you have one less cable getting in your way. The Sony UWP-D11 package (URX-P03 receiver and UTX-B03 transmitter) on a Sony a1 The audio quality is great, and setup is fairly simple (see last paragraph). There’s a newer model (The URX-P40 receiver and UTX-B40 transmitter) that I haven’t used, but you should be aware that the new and old models are compatible with slightly different lists of cameras. New model compatibility (scroll to Overview section) Old model compatibility (scroll to Overview section) The biggest downside of the old model (I’m not sure if this is an issue on the new one) is the fact that the audio level can only be adjusted from the transmitter, which means you need to pull it off the talent’s waistband to make adjustments. Other than that, it's a great little kit which I highly recommend! I thought I'd also include some helpful hints for the old model (URX-P03 & URX-T03): To set the audio levels on the transmitter, you'll need to navigate through the menu by pressing the +/- buttons until you reach the ATT option. This is the attenuator setting and will allow you to adjust the level. To scan frequencies and sync receiver to transmitter, you'll need to navigate through the receiver's menu by pressing the +/- buttons until you reach the AUTO SET screen. Hold the SET button until the screen says YES. Then press the SET button again. The receiver will scan through all available channels and find the one with the least interference. When it finishes, the screen will display SYNC with a moving arrow. At this point, you’ll need to turn the transmitter on and place the receiver and transmitter next to each other, with their infrared ports facing each other. Select YES on the transmitter and they'll be synced and ready to go!
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