PRO35: short review and images

[Martin Munthe]

I've just wrapped an upcoming feature film using the HDW-750 and a PRO35 with Zeiss HS Primes. It was a three week shoot all in a studio set. I must say I'm a big fan of the process. And the design of the PRO35. I didn't use a zoom on this shoot which I regret a bit. I'll do o the next time. The noise level on the PRO35 is however a problem and I would like to see less "grain". It adds to an already noisy camera. We had to cover it using blankets quite a lot. We used a remote handle to start both the camera and the PRO35 at the same time and I don't know if this was broken but sometimes the PRO35 failed to start wich gave us a few problems. Here are some screen grabs using J-H3 firewire down conversion. Keep in mind that these images are heavily compressed with resulting artifacts. http://www.operafilm.com/index2.htm I can provide HD rez versions later.

[Charles Papert]

Looks very nice Martin. Thanks for reporting on the issues you faced. I've been thinking about getting the cable interface for my Mini35 that triggers both camera and the groundglass motor but I have had concerns about reliability, as well as having to light the scene through the static groundglass which can be distracting. The simple solution is to keep it running continuously, but now that I am an owner it is less attractive from a wear-and-tear perspective!

Talk to me about the noise issues (I'm guessing you mean audible noise) with the camera...was it the tape drive?

[Steve Cahill]

cable interface for my Mini35 that triggers both camera and the groundglass motor . Where is this available from?

[Charles Papert]

It's listed in the manual. I'm sure it can be ordered through ZGC (www.zgc.com), although I think nobody has yet!

[Martin Munthe]

It's audible noise and it's mostly from the PRO35. I haven't measured the strength of the noise but for certain shots it's impossible to record audio without temporary blimping. Perhaps that's something fo P+S Technik to concider. A blimp solution. Couldn't be impossible. I've never had the opportunity to use the Mini35 so I can't say if there is a difference. The PRO35 is very compact.

Overall I was pretty pleased with the performance of the 750. I had people warn me that it didn't have the lattitude of the 900 but I didn't have any real problems with it. There was really only one thing that bugged the hell out of me with the 750. Everytime the battery is warning low levels it stops recording. In other words it's no warning. The camera is still powered up for a hile but when you press record the record light lights up but the tape doesn't run. It took us a few days to discover this and we where missing a couple of takes that we had to reshoot. Battery warning means switching battery right away. Even if it's in the middle of a recording.

We used a rig for hand holding (my guess is it's an Arri but I'm not sure) that connect to the camera and the PRO35 for starting both simultaneously. That didn't work most of the times. I can't tell if it's the rig or the PRO35. It should all be standard 9-pin connections.

[Nick Hiltgen]

Martin for your next shoot there's a menu in the 900 that allows you to adjust the battery warning indicator (I.E. you can set it to go off earlier so you don't get the problem you were speaking of) I'm not positive it's the same on the 750 but I bet it is. What types of batteries where you using? Also where you powering the pro 35 off the smae battery that was powering the camera?

Was the noise really bad? Did you guys consider the digi primes as opposed to the pro35 at all?

[Martin Munthe]

Thanks, Nick. I'll check that battery setting in the menu next time. Completely missed it (...or theres a small chance it's not there in the 750). We used Lith-ion batterys and they powered both the camera and the pro35. Sometimes also an LCD display.

I never considered the digi primes since I was really going for a low light 35mm look. I wanted backgrounds to be out of focus on medium shots using the 35mm and that's hard to do using the digi primes. My main reason for it was the set we built. Parts of set looked really good out of focus.