SI2K in Western Australia.

Bob Hart · September 21st, 2009, 09:38 PM

Steve.

Thanks for your advice. My personal preference would be as you suggest, use the batteries. Steve Rice has a five hour battery and two v-mounts good for about 35 minutes each.

On the shoot the other night, there was a lot of standby time due to intermittent rain and we went way overtime. There was insufficient time before the next call to completely recharge the batteries.

I tried running a 12v power feed from a car into the location which was in bushland however the cable run was too long and too much voltage drop.

In regards the use of the term "underscan" I may be misusing it.

The SI2K image which the HDTV displays is a smaller rectangle inside the available screen area. This may be due to limited choices available on the HDTV. I won't know until I test on another display. As long as a director can have a video split, it is all that matters.

Bob Hart · October 24th, 2009, 08:17 PM

For those with an interest in things Western Australian, here is a link to a rough grading test of some footage shot for Steve Rice's project by Jim Frater yesterday. These are not the better shots but ones which I copied to my computer. (See Below).

"I BELONG TO THE SHADOWS" - PRE-PROD PROMOTIONAL TRAILER ROUGH GRADING TEST. By Bob Hart On ExposureRoom

The shakycam imaging of the first shot is intended to represent the view through a sniper's telescopic sight or binoculars and would have a vignetting effect added.

Maxtor compact "One Touch" USB drives are proving to be a bit cranky. Out of three, one no,longer works at all, one seems to abort out of copying an entire directory and one is satisfactory. Two do not work at all on my XP computer or another computer at work, but are okay on another and also a laptop tested.

The "My Book" style drives which require separate power seem to be fine, with no failures so far - touch wood.

Andrew Smith · October 27th, 2009, 04:15 AM

The only thing I can spot is that it looks like he's already hit the ground and died (and completely still on the feet/boots) by the time the food tray drops to the ground.

Apart from that, nice work.

Andrew

Steve Nordhauser · October 27th, 2009, 05:41 AM

Bob,
Very nice. I would find it interesting to see the same shots after grading.
Steve

Bob Hart · October 27th, 2009, 11:32 AM

Andrew.

The clip I posted is only my own rough assembly of some of the shots. I think Steve's directorial intent is that the girl remains frozen until the officer hits the floor then drops the tray. The sniper has sent a bullet past her left ear. She has been expecting it but is still shocked. In retrospect, she should have reacted even if having expected it.

I have not seen the other shots. These include a bullet injury painted into the officer's forhead, so all this is likely to have been covered.

Steven.

My "grade" as such, consisted of applying default look and bringing the whites up in the waveform. I am not the editor, who will likely work from the raw image. The lighting in the mirror shot was daylight spill through wide stable door and window plus one overhead camera lamp covered by a plastic cup.

Bob Hart · November 3rd, 2009, 02:58 AM

For those interested, here is the pole rig we used for the in-air shots a while back. In this instance it was used for in-car shots.

Camera operator, Steven Rice.

Driver-Actor, James With.

Pole front-end locates in a large foam wedge in the gap between windscreen and coaming (dash). The operator holds the other end.

FOOTNOTE: Image changed for one of better quality.

Andrew Smith · November 3rd, 2009, 03:23 AM

Hi Bob,

That's quite interesting. And I realised after typing that it was a rough edit for the purpose of grading. (slaps self on forehead)

Actually, I thought what must have happened is that the girl was the assassin with a gun held under the tray ... which is why the baddie gets shot when he has opened the door and is facing the girl.

I do appreciate the clips that you post. It's all very interesting.

Andrew

Bob Hart · December 3rd, 2009, 10:56 AM

Due to the smaller cams being committed to other projects, I took an SI2K out to chase aircraft last weekend.

It was the full camera/recorder unit assembly. After using the lightweight cameras I found it a bit of a handful and was lagging behind the action or overshooting a lot more. I am inclined to think I was unaccustomed to the mass and a whole lot of reflexes have to be re-learned.

Also, the Sigma-for-Nikon 50mm - 500mm f4 - f6.3 zoom is not a good choice for the SI2K It is not because of optical issues. The images are nice enough but the two-piece design of the lens is the achilles heel.

It breathes, not the image but actually. When the front section moves out during a zoom movement, there is a lot of air sucked into the body of the lens through the mount.

The lens picks up dust very quickly in its life and blows dust onto the sensor cover glass when you pull back to wide view. When you use it on an older Nikon FM2 SLR film camera, you may get dust blown into your eye through the viewfinder eyepiece or the doorseal gap.

The Mini head operated remotely on the cable is the next test for ground-to-airs.

Rohan Dadswell · December 3rd, 2009, 02:56 PM

Hey Bob,

The couple of times I've done in aircraft shots I've split the SI-2K - kept the recorder at my feet and had the smaller/lighter set up on the shoulder. It gave me more room to move in a small space but still had enough weight to help keep steady.

Bob Hart · December 3rd, 2009, 10:03 PM

Rohan.

Yes. That's what we did for an in-air scene. I thought about it for the ground-to-air but was concerned about the cable as I have a tendency to wind them up around the tripod when chasing aircraft overhead.

Bob Hart · December 5th, 2009, 11:03 AM

Here is a link to a finished product, a music video which culminates in a car blow-up which was shot I understand with JVC GY cameras and the SI2K for 1280 x 720 slow-mo. I posted a link to the "kaboom" a while back.

YouTube - Slow Gun

Bob Hart · December 16th, 2009, 08:00 AM

The 2Ks have been used on two 2009 Tropfest shoots so far over here. Both are pro-bono which means no money, just lunch, however it does achieve a profile of sorts.

If you look closely you will see the most bars---d elevated camera rig in the entire universe.

Due to no budget but a request for high overheads and a in-tree shot, a Photax light stand was turned upside down, the shaft inserted into the spare panhandle hole on the Miller tripod and the camera head remoted, lackied and safety-gaffered onto the other end, then the light stand elevated.

A dog to pan, tilt and trim focus but a good solution on the day. Let's see you do that with a RED or a Cinealta.

Both shoots trouble-free except for the second when I hung a toe in a power cable just as the camera finished writing the file.

The clips are still being recorded to files okay but something changed in the settings and I have confused them even more relating to time-code. So it is probably a reflash of the C:\> drive needed to fix it. Any hints as to how I may be mismanaging the timecode settings will be appreciated.

The clips now do not lay out in sequential order, so the last clip is hard to locate for on-set playback - my mismanagement most likely.

Here is a link to some behind-the-scenes stills of the most recent effort, worktitled "First Person Shooter" by Ed Love who also directed. It is a story of a teenager coming to grips with the death of his somewhat estranged father and their reconciliation when he comes back to put things right.

MobileMe Gallery

The stills were shot by the father of the teen actor on the most amazing mobile (cell) phone I have ever seen. It can surf the internet and it has a Garmin style GPS looking screen in it as well.

Rohan Dadswell · December 17th, 2009, 12:30 AM

Hey Bob,

Had the same issue on a music clip that I shot last weekend.
Whenever the camera was powered down the windows clock would reset to a different time, meaning that the timecode would also reset. Thus the last shot wasn't the last shot when it came to playback & checking. A moment of great panic ensued before we figured out what had happened.
I'm assuming that there is an internal battery that has gone flat but I haven't pulled the camera apart to find out.
There is meant to be a new version of the camera software coming out shortly - I'll re flash the drive then.

Love the high camera rig - it's what makes the SI-2K so much fun.

Bob Hart · December 17th, 2009, 09:09 AM

Rohan.

Thanks for that lead on a memory battery. It never even entered my head but makes sense now. The camera has been at rest for a few weeks since I did the ground-to-airs at Serpentine and Murrayfield.

Going back over the order of those clips, I also found them to be randomised.

This camera body has to be one of the oldest of the current series body style as it was P+S Technik's demonstrator, so an expired battery makes perfect sense.

It has that well-used look, all corners polished off and a few dents, which took me to the manufacturing method when I decided to do a bit of panelbeating. - Even those little side vents which look like pressed grilles are CAD machined.

Our original scheme for the high shots was to use a boom pole but the soundman did not have a spare. Now a little hot head unit to go on a boom pole would be the duck's guts. I shall have to get on it.

Nice shots in your clip. What lighting scheme did you use?

Bob Hart · December 20th, 2009, 07:43 PM

Here is a link to the unlocked trailer clip.

REVISED TRAILER VERSION By Bob Hart On ExposureRoom

To the purists, - yes the forest shot is softer. It was shot on a Sony HVR-Z1P with AGUS35 35mm adaptor and 135mm f1.8 Sigmatel lens.

To the audiophile, the 78rpm record recoveries were aquired via a modern Stanton electronic disco turntable with Ortofon 78 stylus and given some cleanup in Syntrillium Cool Edit Pro v1.5, which is still a favourite audio program for me. ( Cool Edit was aquired by Adobe and became Audition and now seems to have disappeared. )

As far as was possible, de-RIAA, then the original equalisation curves were applied. Parlophone recordings in particular come up very nicely if they are not too damaged.

October 24th, 2009, 08:17 PM	#62
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	"I Belong To The Shadows" For those with an interest in things Western Australian, here is a link to a rough grading test of some footage shot for Steve Rice's project by Jim Frater yesterday. These are not the better shots but ones which I copied to my computer. (See Below). "I BELONG TO THE SHADOWS" - PRE-PROD PROMOTIONAL TRAILER ROUGH GRADING TEST. By Bob Hart On ExposureRoom The shakycam imaging of the first shot is intended to represent the view through a sniper's telescopic sight or binoculars and would have a vignetting effect added. Maxtor compact "One Touch" USB drives are proving to be a bit cranky. Out of three, one no,longer works at all, one seems to abort out of copying an entire directory and one is satisfactory. Two do not work at all on my XP computer or another computer at work, but are okay on another and also a laptop tested. The "My Book" style drives which require separate power seem to be fine, with no failures so far - touch wood.

October 27th, 2009, 05:41 AM	#64
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	Bob, Very nice. I would find it interesting to see the same shots after grading. Steve __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

November 3rd, 2009, 02:58 AM	#66
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	For those interested, here is the pole rig we used for the in-air shots a while back. In this instance it was used for in-car shots. Camera operator, Steven Rice. Driver-Actor, James With. Pole front-end locates in a large foam wedge in the gap between windscreen and coaming (dash). The operator holds the other end. FOOTNOTE: Image changed for one of better quality. Attached Thumbnails Last edited by Bob Hart; November 3rd, 2009 at 04:49 AM.

December 16th, 2009, 08:00 AM	#72
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	At play with the SI2K - Tropfest. The 2Ks have been used on two 2009 Tropfest shoots so far over here. Both are pro-bono which means no money, just lunch, however it does achieve a profile of sorts. If you look closely you will see the most bars---d elevated camera rig in the entire universe. Due to no budget but a request for high overheads and a in-tree shot, a Photax light stand was turned upside down, the shaft inserted into the spare panhandle hole on the Miller tripod and the camera head remoted, lackied and safety-gaffered onto the other end, then the light stand elevated. A dog to pan, tilt and trim focus but a good solution on the day. Let's see you do that with a RED or a Cinealta. Both shoots trouble-free except for the second when I hung a toe in a power cable just as the camera finished writing the file. The clips are still being recorded to files okay but something changed in the settings and I have confused them even more relating to time-code. So it is probably a reflash of the C:\> drive needed to fix it. Any hints as to how I may be mismanaging the timecode settings will be appreciated. The clips now do not lay out in sequential order, so the last clip is hard to locate for on-set playback - my mismanagement most likely. Here is a link to some behind-the-scenes stills of the most recent effort, worktitled "First Person Shooter" by Ed Love who also directed. It is a story of a teenager coming to grips with the death of his somewhat estranged father and their reconciliation when he comes back to put things right. MobileMe Gallery The stills were shot by the father of the teen actor on the most amazing mobile (cell) phone I have ever seen. It can surf the internet and it has a Garmin style GPS looking screen in it as well. Last edited by Bob Hart; December 16th, 2009 at 08:00 AM. Reason: error

December 17th, 2009, 12:30 AM	#73
Rohan Dadswell Major Player Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Canberra Australia Posts: 228	Hey Bob, Had the same issue on a music clip that I shot last weekend. Whenever the camera was powered down the windows clock would reset to a different time, meaning that the timecode would also reset. Thus the last shot wasn't the last shot when it came to playback & checking. A moment of great panic ensued before we figured out what had happened. I'm assuming that there is an internal battery that has gone flat but I haven't pulled the camera apart to find out. There is meant to be a new version of the camera software coming out shortly - I'll re flash the drive then. Love the high camera rig - it's what makes the SI-2K so much fun. Attached Thumbnails Last edited by Rohan Dadswell; December 17th, 2009 at 01:24 AM.

September 21st, 2009, 09:38 PM	#61
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	Steve. Thanks for your advice. My personal preference would be as you suggest, use the batteries. Steve Rice has a five hour battery and two v-mounts good for about 35 minutes each. On the shoot the other night, there was a lot of standby time due to intermittent rain and we went way overtime. There was insufficient time before the next call to completely recharge the batteries. I tried running a 12v power feed from a car into the location which was in bushland however the cable run was too long and too much voltage drop. In regards the use of the term "underscan" I may be misusing it. The SI2K image which the HDTV displays is a smaller rectangle inside the available screen area. This may be due to limited choices available on the HDTV. I won't know until I test on another display. As long as a director can have a video split, it is all that matters.

October 27th, 2009, 04:15 AM	#63
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,016	The only thing I can spot is that it looks like he's already hit the ground and died (and completely still on the feet/boots) by the time the food tray drops to the ground. Apart from that, nice work. Andrew

October 27th, 2009, 11:32 AM	#65
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	Andrew. The clip I posted is only my own rough assembly of some of the shots. I think Steve's directorial intent is that the girl remains frozen until the officer hits the floor then drops the tray. The sniper has sent a bullet past her left ear. She has been expecting it but is still shocked. In retrospect, she should have reacted even if having expected it. I have not seen the other shots. These include a bullet injury painted into the officer's forhead, so all this is likely to have been covered. Steven. My "grade" as such, consisted of applying default look and bringing the whites up in the waveform. I am not the editor, who will likely work from the raw image. The lighting in the mirror shot was daylight spill through wide stable door and window plus one overhead camera lamp covered by a plastic cup.

November 3rd, 2009, 03:23 AM	#67
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,016	Hi Bob, That's quite interesting. And I realised after typing that it was a rough edit for the purpose of grading. (slaps self on forehead) Actually, I thought what must have happened is that the girl was the assassin with a gun held under the tray ... which is why the baddie gets shot when he has opened the door and is facing the girl. I do appreciate the clips that you post. It's all very interesting. Andrew

December 3rd, 2009, 10:56 AM	#68
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	Due to the smaller cams being committed to other projects, I took an SI2K out to chase aircraft last weekend. It was the full camera/recorder unit assembly. After using the lightweight cameras I found it a bit of a handful and was lagging behind the action or overshooting a lot more. I am inclined to think I was unaccustomed to the mass and a whole lot of reflexes have to be re-learned. Also, the Sigma-for-Nikon 50mm - 500mm f4 - f6.3 zoom is not a good choice for the SI2K It is not because of optical issues. The images are nice enough but the two-piece design of the lens is the achilles heel. It breathes, not the image but actually. When the front section moves out during a zoom movement, there is a lot of air sucked into the body of the lens through the mount. The lens picks up dust very quickly in its life and blows dust onto the sensor cover glass when you pull back to wide view. When you use it on an older Nikon FM2 SLR film camera, you may get dust blown into your eye through the viewfinder eyepiece or the doorseal gap. The Mini head operated remotely on the cable is the next test for ground-to-airs.

December 3rd, 2009, 02:56 PM	#69
Rohan Dadswell Major Player Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Canberra Australia Posts: 228	Hey Bob, The couple of times I've done in aircraft shots I've split the SI-2K - kept the recorder at my feet and had the smaller/lighter set up on the shoulder. It gave me more room to move in a small space but still had enough weight to help keep steady.

December 3rd, 2009, 10:03 PM	#70
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	Rohan. Yes. That's what we did for an in-air scene. I thought about it for the ground-to-air but was concerned about the cable as I have a tendency to wind them up around the tripod when chasing aircraft overhead.

December 5th, 2009, 11:03 AM	#71
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	Here is a link to a finished product, a music video which culminates in a car blow-up which was shot I understand with JVC GY cameras and the SI2K for 1280 x 720 slow-mo. I posted a link to the "kaboom" a while back. YouTube - Slow Gun

December 17th, 2009, 09:09 AM	#74
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	Rohan. Thanks for that lead on a memory battery. It never even entered my head but makes sense now. The camera has been at rest for a few weeks since I did the ground-to-airs at Serpentine and Murrayfield. Going back over the order of those clips, I also found them to be randomised. This camera body has to be one of the oldest of the current series body style as it was P+S Technik's demonstrator, so an expired battery makes perfect sense. It has that well-used look, all corners polished off and a few dents, which took me to the manufacturing method when I decided to do a bit of panelbeating. - Even those little side vents which look like pressed grilles are CAD machined. Our original scheme for the high shots was to use a boom pole but the soundman did not have a spare. Now a little hot head unit to go on a boom pole would be the duck's guts. I shall have to get on it. Nice shots in your clip. What lighting scheme did you use? Last edited by Bob Hart; December 17th, 2009 at 09:12 AM. Reason: error

December 20th, 2009, 07:43 PM	#75
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,476	I belong to the shadows pre-prod promo trailer Here is a link to the unlocked trailer clip. REVISED TRAILER VERSION By Bob Hart On ExposureRoom To the purists, - yes the forest shot is softer. It was shot on a Sony HVR-Z1P with AGUS35 35mm adaptor and 135mm f1.8 Sigmatel lens. To the audiophile, the 78rpm record recoveries were aquired via a modern Stanton electronic disco turntable with Ortofon 78 stylus and given some cleanup in Syntrillium Cool Edit Pro v1.5, which is still a favourite audio program for me. ( Cool Edit was aquired by Adobe and became Audition and now seems to have disappeared. ) As far as was possible, de-RIAA, then the original equalisation curves were applied. Parlophone recordings in particular come up very nicely if they are not too damaged.