squig

14 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Sometimes a shotgun can sound ok indoors, but at their core shotgun exist to because they reject (to an extent) the sound coming in from the sides.

Think about a room with a lot of hard reflections, think about all that sound coming back as reflections and hitting the microphone, do you really want to be rejecting the actual sound you want to record??

I probably need to do a vBlog one day in a super bad room, showing side by side a shotgun vs hypercardioid. As I suppose if you've never ever tried it before, you might not notice it in isolation. 

The NTG-3 has a fairly wide pickup pattern compared to a 416, which is party the reason I bought one, you don't have to be quite as precise booming. I haven't used it indoors but I did try my NTG-1 indoors and it wasn't great. I used an NT-3 instead, quite heavy but it sounded OK.

32 minutes ago, Richard Bugg said:

 I'm not sure I really need a hypercardioid as the NTG3 seems to be pretty good for sit down interviews indoors so I'm equivocating a bit. In the end I'll probably spring for the Gefell.

The Audix SCX1-HC is a pretty cool little mic for indoors too, I've got one in my kit. It's small enough to hide too.

4 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Don't make the mistake of thinking the Zoom F4/F8 pre amps are in the same quality league as the old Zoom H4n era pre amps. 

Not at all! The Zoom F8/F4 is unlike anything else Zoom (if it had a "Sound Devices" label people would be climbing over each other to buy it!!) has ever made before, it is nearing the same broad class as various Sound Device pre amps are in. 

 

But that won't be the only project you'll ever use it for? Think about future uses you'll have for it in the years to come (as audio gear will last you years and years, unlike cameras).

Hehe, I've still got my H4n, haven't used it since film school. I know the new Zooms sound way better, but I've got very good ears (I was a record producer in a past life) and I love the sound of Sound Devices. I was doing 16 track digital recording in the 90s and we used to put everything through valves to warm up the harshness of 16 bit.

I've been working on this feature for seven years, it's hard to think of anything beyond that.

2 minutes ago, Richard Bugg said:

I'll second the D50 (and now D100) as a very, very good relatively small recorder. Good features, good build quality, great sound. Despite the lack of XLR it can be used with external microphones that have a 3.5mm plug, such as the Rode NT4 (stereo), NTG4, or the Rodelink receiver for example. As you suggest it can be used with a mixer as the recorder. It seemed to be pretty expensive for me when I bought it, but it's one of those things you buy once and it will do the job for decades. It works well on top of my camera for general run-and-gun shooting, either as second sound, or simply as a mic feed with a cable into the camera. It's great for chasing the kids around! I was wondering what the modification for the AKG was that you mentioned and how it stacks up compared with other hypercardioids such as the schoeps CMC641. I've also been considering the Gefell M310 as a more economical alternative to the Schoeps. It gets a pretty good wrap here. I'm not sure I really need a hypercardioid as the NTG3 seems to be pretty good for sit down interviews indoors so I'm equivocating a bit. In the end I'll probably spring for the Gefell.

The D50 is a very good recorder but the weak link is the mini jack. I got a custom cable made for it with a locking jack on the Mixpre-D end, but mini jacks suck arse and I'll never be comfortable with it.

The AKG mod was done by Jim Williams, something I came across after a lot of research when I was looking at getting a Schoeps, I was lucky to pick up a pair of them pretty cheap. I don't have a Schoeps  to compare the AKG to, but I do have an AKG C 480 and the modded C 460s blow the C 480 away. The C 480 isn't bad at all though.

27 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Please spend the relatively small extra $250 to get the MixPre6 instead of the MixPre3. Or if cost is a factor, just get the Zoom F4 instead. (which is a better unit at the same price, and can take 6 inputs at once to record, just like the MixPre6)

Are you meaning the RodeLink Filmmakers Kit?

I wouldn't trade a Sound Devices pre-amp for a Zoom. You're right on the growth aspect; if I can scrape up the extra $ for the 6 I will, but SD resale value is very good so I can always upgrade when I need to.

Yeah the RodeLink. The talent's going to be rugged up in winter gear so size isn't really an issue; I'm more concerned with sound quality, and they don't sound too bad to me.

I roll with a Mixpre-D, tracking with a Sony PCM-D50, 2 custom modded (Schoeps-ish sounding) AKG C 460 B with CK 63-ULS caps, and an NTG-3. I'm looking at replacing the Mixpre-D with a Mixpre-3 to free up the PCM-D50 for ambience recording. Also getting a couple of the new Rode lavs.

21 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Also worth noting that you should set your AE project to 16 bit.... Think 8 bit is default?

You should set it to 32bit.

Anyone using After Effects/ACR be aware that Adobe disabled multiprocessing in CC2015. Rendering is way faster in CS6 and CC2014 on my 6 core Mac Pro. CS6 is a bit faster than CC2014. Make sure you have multiprocessing enabled in AE prefs.

8. You won't look like an idiot when you remember to pack your CF cards.

I quit modding for ML after a shit-fight with a fascist mod who got off on trolling noobs (and me). He doesn't appear to be very active these days; it's a much friendlier place without him.

3 hours ago, mercer said:

Yeah I am only having issues with chroma noise. 

Btw, do you like ACR better than Resolve? I use FCPX and only use Resolve as an intermediary to get to ProRes... but if I remember correctly, you can't export as ProRes in Adobe any longer, right?

Resolve is way faster than AE/ACR, but ACR produces a nicer image. AE CS6 is way faster than CC2017 (Adobe disabled multiprocessing in CC2015) and it exports to prores. I don't have the full version of Resolve so I can't say whether it's better or worse at removing chroma noise than ACR.

6 minutes ago, mercer said:

Obviously, I have to stop down to get the sun stars, so I guess I should Iight my actor as well and bring down the mids in post to create the silhouette. Thanks Squig, never had to do silhouettes like this. 

I DGAF about a bit of noise either, I usually add some. Noise on the Mk3 is quite organic up to 1600 ISO. I usually only get rid of the chroma noise in ACR. If I find I have to remove luma noise it's because I've underexposed. The only rule is: do some tests.

9 hours ago, mercer said:

However I do have a question for some of the ML Raw veterans out there... I tend to shoot a lot of silhouettes, and I am finding it tough exposing for them. The Raw histogram is telling me it is overexposed when the sun is in the shot, so when I close the Iris to get me some sun stars, even though it is still showing as over exposed, I am getting a crap ton of noise. I know @squig ends up with some dark footage, any ideas?

With only 11.7 stops at 100 ISO to play with, you have to make a choice between noise and overexposure. Canon DSLRs are really noisy at base ISO, unlike Nikons, which makes ETTR necessary. With limited dynamic range it's hard to avoid blowing some highlights. I DGAF if I blow highlights, it's only skin I'm really concerned about exposing correctly. Magic Lantern raw highlight recovery is pretty good, so don't be afraid to ETTR. Underexposing mids, particularly at high ISO, can get very ugly. Remember to reduce the brightness of your LCD (or ext monitor) when you shoot raw. Mine is set to the 2nd darkest setting. And if you're shooting actors, matt powder is your friend.

I bought my daughter an $80 Nikon; one of her shots was a finalist in a statewide photography competition. I recorded an album on a Mac in my attic and won a national award. Again: It's not the tools, it's what you can do with them. I'd shoot a feature with a D90 if that's all I could afford to shoot it with, and only a few pixel peepers would ever know the difference. 28 Days Later a case in point. If I shot it with a BMMCC even the pixel peepers wouldn't know the difference. There's a bunch of sub $1000 cameras that produce really nice filmic images. I'd love to have a C200, but it's not an absolute necessity. DPAF is a great creative tool, but fingers crossed Magic Lantern will crack digic6 and make raw DPAF a lot more affordable with cameras like the 80D.

On 07/06/2017 at 4:41 AM, tugela said:

If you are backing up on RAID and are concerned about storage, use 8TB reds. They are relatively cheap and easy to find. You can get stand-alone NAS servers at reasonable prices (or just make your own), with swappable storage. So, beyond the cost of the NAS case, you just pay for the drives. It definitely will not cost you $17K for 16TB effective backup.

I put a 12 terabyte raid 5 in my mac pro 2 years ago and it only cost $1000. A 16TB raid would cost about as much now.

9 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

How are you going to store a year's worth of the original footage? I am genuinely intrigued.

There's this new thing, they call it "tape".

iPad/iPhone monitoring and focus control is dope. https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/explore/cinema-eos-c200-cameras/versatility

The Varicam image is really nice, but the creative potential of DPAF and internal raw for $2k less makes the C200 a better option for film and doc work.

Won't be much change from $10,000 for the C200B in Aus, the C200 is likely to push $13,000. We should start to see raw internal recording on sub $5000 cameras from the big manufacturers in the next year. CFAST is still hella expensive, the new fast SD cards should be able to record raw light. Nikon need to pull their finger out, they won't want to be the last company to do raw; photographers will be all over raw video.

20 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

I get that a lot of pros read EOSHD but they will forever be a minority in the overall audience of 'cat shooters' as you so dismissively put it.

Erm, the derogatory subtext is yours, not mine. I was just having a laugh at all the negative comments. On spec it's purrfecto.

Isn't it just awful. You couldn't shoot cats with it.

1 hour ago, Zak Forsman said:

either incredibly stupid, or reckless...

I've been thinking about ripping the mirror box out of a 5D MK3 and mounting a speed booster in it.

10 hours ago, mercer said:

@squig did you say downthread that you always shoot ML Raw in crop mode? If so, is there a reason why? S35mm? Lens choices? Is the image better in crop mode?

Until the recent 3/4K developments I always shot 1080p 24p and 720p 60p crop. Now I'm keen to shoot crop 2.8K-4K 24p for a few reasons. I shoot a lot of low-key  stuff, the problem with full frame is you have to shoot at around f/5.6 to get good DOF, trouble is to do that you need a shitload of light or you have to crank the ISO. In crop mode I can get good DOF at f/2.8, and lower the ISO to maximise dynamic range. The image is better in crop mode because there's no pixel binning, there was noticeable (to a pixel peeper) aliasing in the old 720p mode. Also the ability to upscale to 4K is good for future proofing my work. I'm thinking about getting a Samyang 16mm or a Sigma 18-35mm to cover the wide end; I've got a Tokina 11-16mm but it hasn't lived up to the mythology.

Having said all that, I'm testing lenses in 1080p and 3K modes, the resolution difference isn't huge, and a lot of it is lens MTF. I'm shooting a GAMMA short in Aug/Sep, all this testing is to determine which mode I should shoot it in, it's likely I'll shoot a mixture, crop mode for very dark scenes and establishing shots, and 1080p for close ups and action.

8 hours ago, Zak Forsman said:

this looks great. wanted to share something I learned to do in resolve. see at the far left and right of your image the blue/red chromatic aberration along hard lines of dark and light? I get that with my Kowa B&H anamorphic too. but in resolve, if you split your image into red, blue and green channels, you can apply slightly different horizontal scaling to the red and blue channels to eliminate the aberration completely. it also sharpens things up a tad. and you'll get to experience the same, very satisfying, feeling I get everyone time I apply this fix.  

Cool, thanks, I'll check it out. I think ACR has a CA tool too. I'm quite CA phobic, A Clockwork Orange freaks me out.

I've been messing around with the 1.5x Iscorama shooting 4K scope 24p anamorphic (2304x1382 with a 25% upscale). With a 24mm Leica-r it's equal to 40mm full frame. Shot at 3200 ISO with ACR chroma noise reduction. Filmconvert Fuji 8553 LUT.

6 minutes ago, Zak Forsman said:

other than the lens, the biggest expense was having the aperture discs cut from a .4mm sheet of stainless steel. that was $180. to install them, I was quoted $400 per lens, but ended up rolling the device and doing it myself. $35 for the seamless focus gear and another $35 for the breakthrough photography step-up ring to get all the lenses uniformly to 82mm.

What do you guesstimate the f-stop is?