An ode to the A1
 

I have been up for the last 3 days shooting the first half of my short film, "FARE" on a Canon A1 with the Redrock M2 and some Nikon lenses. The film takes place in a moving taxi-cab at night and in a downtown urban center (in the middle of winter).


Anyway, we have 3 more days of shooting, then a month of editing and sound, so don't expect any footage anytime soon (well, maybe a taste next week).

I am not writing this to gloat, but simply to sing the praises of the XHA1. The lowlight performance, even through the M2 adapter is great. We have not used any GAIN at all with only minimal (in car 9" kino banks) and with a 1.4 nikon lens set.

The camera also holds up well to the -20 weather and the hustle bustle of our set.

The images it produces are so Sharp and filmic that I have fooled some folks into thinking it was 35mm and I could not be happier with it.

Basically, if you don't own an XHA1, buy one. Amazing camera. I wasn't sure, but now i am sold.


Matt

Where'd you get your equipment from? Do you rent those lights or buy them?
Also I can't wait to see some grabs or footage! A lot of the digital shorts I've seen that were made in by people from Toronto look like crap. Looking forward to seeing the progress of a good one.

Most all rental houses have the small Kinos.

I found the XH A1 very good in low light too, much better than I expected. I thought the M2 would eat a lot more light, however. That's nice to know, because I have a lot of old Nikkor lenses and have been thinking about the M2 or one of the others, eventually.

Yeah Bill, I thought we would have more problems too, but apparently the XHA1 and M2 is fine for night stuff (with some lighting)

Flipped Image
 

How are you dealing with the flipped image? Do you have a solution, or are you just 'dealing' with it. If so, is this something you get used to?

I used to shoot stills with a 4X5 view camera, so I like to think I could deal with an upside down image...but you don't have to follow action with a still camera, so I think I might want a monitor that flips.

The Letus 35 is one of the inexpensive adapters that has the image flip function built in, just like the really pricey one. You might check it out.

Wow, good to know. I thought they all had the flip-image problem (aside from the Mini35). Thanks!

I use a varizoom componenet SWIT monitor, mounted upside down, and then flip using cineform (as I capture it flips).

No biggie.

That's a good idea--a small LCD monitor mounted upside down. Simple solution.

yup. Although, make sur eyour monitor at least has 800X400 lines, otherwise focusing is not really possible.

Most only have 932X240

It's the horizontal lines which make it possible to focus. Fulll 851X480 is perfect.

The SWIT 8" has enough (via component) the Marshall 8" component (or SDI) has enough, and several chinese imports (Xernarc, Lilliput) make high-pixel count monitors.

Samsung is introducing a full 1080p monitor which should be interesting.

Panasonic makes one, but it costs like $6000


The Varizoom Swit can be found on BHphotovideo.com for about $1000 and can be powered off any brand battery (buy your camera specific mount) and there you go. Is a great monitor (Even shows overscan and can flip the image 180 degress for right-side-up viewing)