Combining film and F900

Has anyone a recommendation for intercutting HD and film transfered to HD?

Can I get away with 16mm or do I need to shoot 35mm--some of the car mounts, etc. would be a lot quicker/easier in 16mm.

Any recommendations on film stock? Speed?

Best regards,

James Wallace IA 669 DP

I shot HD and super 16 for a short and I used 77 the 320 ASA film stock. It boils down to what are you going to do with it??

if its going to Film it may not be as apparent.

if going to TV then I might choose a finer grain stock as the Grain may stand out a bit more on TV than when transferred to Film when everything will end up on Film.

Also shoot the same chart for both mediums that will also help.

B. Sean Fairburn HDDP LACA

What is the best chart to use for HD?

Thanks in advance.

Elliott

-- Bright Blue Sky Productions 4811 Rivoli Drive Macon, GA.

The charts from DSC Labs ( www.dsclabs.com ) are wonderful. Lots of different sizes and options available, and customization if you wish it as well. Plus, it's easy to get the owners on the phone for questions (always a big plus for me).

Disclaimer: I am a satisfied buyer/owner/user of their charts, and they sent me a lovely little resolution chart to try out for free, but I would have recommended them anyway. Just very well made stuff.

Bob Kertesz BlueScreen LLC

>35mmHD always seems to look better than 16mmHD. That's just my eye talking.

As for methodology:

Match your exposures with the DSC charts as Bob Kertesz recommends (like Bob and many of the folks at CML, I'm a big fan of both the charts and the people that make them), and then use one of the new CELCO-HD printers and print your HD to the same Camera Stock that you used for acquisition. (So I guess 35mm gets two votes.)

The trick is to be very contentious about matching both your DoF, shutter angle (exposure) and your knee when you shoot and then time your HD just a bit flat when you're in post. There's a zillion little tweaky nuances that you'll discover on your own but the more you test, the better it will match.

A very common giveaway in matching film and HD is motion blur. There is a great set of postproduction tools that uses fuzzy logic to evaluate the temporal displacement of luminance groupings and then give you the ability to exactly match a preexisting motion artifact. Short of that, you're down to doing the field math.

Scott Billups - LA DP / VF

I use Gamma and Density's chart and have been very pleased with the results. Ibelieve Yuri is still offering it to CML members at a discount.

Jessica Gallant

Los Angeles based Director of Photography

Cinematography Mailing List

West Coast Systems Administrator,

I have just join the list, and I'd like to present myself. I'm Fabien, training engineer at Sony-Broadcast&Pro France (as you can read, my English is not so good and I hope it won't be too difficult for you to understand me).

I'm preparing some courses about the camcorder HDW-F900 for operators as well as maintenance engineers. So I'm very interested in listening to any operator's needs or interrogations. I may help about standards, technical specifications and limits, hardware, etc...

Has anyone a recommendation for intercutting HD and film transfered to HD?

As I'm not a professional operator I don't have a lot of "on the field feed-back" yet. So I can't really help concerning the problematic of mixing film rushes with digital ones, sorry :/

Someone in the 2K post-prod domain may have a lot of things to say about that.

To preserve a "natural look" when shooting with a digital camcorder you have to care about the "detail functions" : be sure to set the general detail level to the factory preset (0) or even less (test and set to your convenience).

(rem : The detail functions are very useful when the display device is a simple TV, but are not needed when the final destination is film except for special effects)

Furthermore, when it's possible, any (additional) setting of the camcorder should be validated with a sequence transferred to film.

Have a good week end

Fabien

My suggestion will be taking into consideration a number of things.

Cost- less than $350.00 about as much as a good Meter.

Size- the same size as a slate and fits in a front box.

Functionality- 11 step Gray scale, & Color Bar ITU 709, & Back Focus, & Flesh chips, & Frame Chart for 1.78, 1.85, 2.35 and 4x3

Durability- rigid glossy surface, smudges wipe clean and will not fade as fast when left in sunlight or under lights.

Usefulness- helps on the set to align cameras then record the chart to help during color correction and film out.

Its the DSC labs chart made by the skillful hands of Mr. David Corley

http://www.dsclabs.com/front_box_series.htm

For all the reasons mentioned I mentioned above This chart cant be beat and should be in everyone that works in the HD Camera Dept should have one in their Back Pack.

For engineers I recommend the bigger chart with Cavity Black for precision black setting.

surf the site, and Band Pro sells them also. Go see Michael Bravin.

B. Sean Fairburn Director of Photography Castaic Ca

I don't work for DSC but use their charts in Prep, during production, and through color correction, to Film out as a source of consistency all along the chain.

Regarding detail levels on the F900 even the 0 setting is too high for my taste.

O is not equal to off as you must go into the negative numbers to lower detail.

Other cml'ers work with detail levels anywhere from -50 to -70 with good results. Keep in mind if you are adding soft filtration that a test to film in advance is essential to view how much diffusion will affect the image on a large screen.

Tony Salgado

Thank you Tony for these precisions,

You are absolutely right, I didn't mentioned it but the "0 value" does not means "No detail correction signal". It's a "nominal" correction meant to sharpened the image on little (or inaccurate) screens and also to counterbalance the low pass optical filter between lenses and CCDs (this filter designed is to prevent aliasing phenomenons).

If you switch off this function you'll see the "definition" coming from the TRI-CCD optical head block, witch looks like an unfocussed image !

rem : that's not the only "detail function" available, there's also crispening (formerly coring), level dependant , aperture...

T> Regarding detail levels on the F900 even the 0 setting is too high for my T> taste.

May I ask you what typical values are you using for the detail level when returning to film ? It slightly differs from one operator to an other.

Thank you

Fabien

I've kept the detail off for my film out material.

Ian Ellis DP Austin TX f900 owner

A good idea since there is a difference between perceived sharpness and resolution.

Walter Graff

Director/Cinematographer/Producer