Mini35 Footage Matching Question
 

I originally sent this to Charles Papert in an email, but he asked me to post it here in case others were interested. Sooooo...here it is:

I'm going to be working on a mini35 shoot (my first) where, due to budget constraints, we'll have to match footage shot with the mini35 with steadicam footage shot without one. We'll probably be using the mini35 with a dvx100a in squeeze mode and the steadicam with a dvx100 in letterbox mode, so the uprezz-ing process alone will probably add some of the needed softness and I figure setting the master pedestal higher (0 without the mini35 instead of -5 or whatever with it) will help emulate the light diffusion inherent in the mini35.

Since long shots shot at wide angles (as the steadicam footage will be: 4.5mm) normally has a deep depth of focus, I figure this will be okay, but I'm just wondering if you have any advice. Ideally, we'd like to match the cameras as close as possible while shooting, but obviously color correction is possible in post.

Is this even worth pursuing? Are there any issues I should be aware of?

Off-beat question here, and I'm not up on diff. between DVX100 and DX100A, but why don't you just shoot them both in squeeze mode? Because as I understand it, squeeze mode is just stretched letterbox mode.

DVX100 has no squeeze mode, and I've found that squeeze is just a tad sharper than letterbox.

Charles said he'd answer this. Thankfully the shoots not for a while so I guess for now I'll just wait for his response.

Matthew:

Having done just what you are describing, although with XL2's, it is certainly possible. I would be a bit wary of "punch-in's", i.e. the same angle from different focal lengths that may be cut in consecutively from the two cameras, as matching will be more of an issue, but overall you shouldn't see a visual jump. I would recommend spending time with both camera setups testing your theories and matching via the menu parameters (a good monitor is a must here), but it sounds like you have a good handle on things to try. I'm not sure I get the squeeze mode vs. letterbox thing however.

It's not something to worry about, but I'll try to explain anyhow (even though it doesn't matter.)

Squeeze mode (100a) records a true anamorphic 16:9 image, but it only uses the center of the CCD so it doesn't have full 16:9 resolution like the XL2 does. It basically looks and behaves like a less-sharp XL2 image.

Letterbox (100) records a letterboxed image, which appears identical on 4:3 TVs but is actually just a 4:3 image with black bars at the top and bottom. The same number of pixels are used on the ccd, but fewer are recorded, (720X372 not anamorphic, versus 720X480 anamorphic) so resolution is nominally lower due to compression artifacts, colorspace (less chroma resolution), etc. etc. and scaling this up to anamorphic resolution further softens it.

I shouldn't have even bothered including that part in my description of the set up, but there you go.

Anyhow, I appreciate the advice. I'll try to keep the steadicam moves to wide shots (4.5mm) with the subject far from the camera and not cut in with similar footage.

Another way to say it is that the so-called 'Squeeze' mode is actually simply the exact same footage from letterbox mode, stretched vertically to fill the entire window.