New Cinematography Reel

Yo!

Just completed this and wanted to test out Vimeo's embed feature. This is how I'll be hosting video on the new version of this blog which will VERY soon be available at www.negativespaces.com. I haven't officially gone live on this reel so it's basically beta. There are a few interlacey motion artifacts in there I have to address. For now, I thought I'd stick it up here anyways.

Ben Cain, Cinematography Montage from Ben Cain / Negative Spaces, LLC on Vimeo.

Shutter, Gain, and a Brand New Camera..

A quick post for a Friday afternoon. Last night I attended Sony's SRW-9000 and HDCAM SR 2.0 Road Map Seminar at Abel Cine Tech. There was a whole slew of interesting and insightful guests from the Japanese engineers behind the technology to post production experts to documentary and narrative cinematographers who use these tools in their daily work. Much food for the brain was offered up and I'll definitely be getting more into that at some point, particularly Sony's interesting strategy for what they consider to be a bullet proof future built around the evolution of HDCAM SR. It's all over the blogs so you can read about it on any of the sites covering the topic but basically what's going to happen is HDCAM SR will soon have a tapeless option as well as more flexible bit rates. The codec is the same but it will soon be recordable to either tape or to MXF wrapped files via solid state media (apparently up to 1TB). Both formats being completely identical and interchangeable. The hero camera of this system is the one piece SRW-9000 camcorder which will first be available with a tape drive and eventually will be upgradeable to solid state.

As cool as all this new tech is, what stuck out most for me from the seminar was cinematographer, Dan Marracino, talking about his working method. This guy is a hardcore documentary cameraman whose credits include work with Michael Moore (on Sicko and Capitalism: A Love Story) and Morgan Spurlock (on Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?) Apparently these directors don't like to use lights at all, not even a lite panel, so it's up to him to just use the camera to get what he can get. Doing a lot of this kind of work myself, it was refreshing to hear someone who has such an amazing career talk about struggling with the same issues as myself or anyone in the docu trenches. He was talking a lot about killing the shutter, gaining up, and using custom made scene files to find a pleasing (or at least acceptable) exposure in extremely compromised lighting situations. He also emphasized the obvious - knowing the limits of the camera and knowing how to expose are clutch. Also extremely important is knowing what can be done in post, particularly what can be done with under exposed skin tones can help you find the right exposure in the field.

That's the thing about documentaries, it's really so much more about the story and capturing raw, truthful moments. It's great when you can shoot beautiful images but the real heat of doing this kind of work is knowing how to use the RIGHT camera settings, WHEN. On these jobs there's rarely the time to set a light and as Mr. Marracino attested to, it's often inappropriate and possibly detrimental to the subject matter. He screened some work from Sicko that was shot in available light at a dimly lit restaurant. I believe it's the scene where the American ex-pats in France are talking about how wonderful French health care is (sigh... ). For this scene he killed the shutter (so 1/24" exposure), gained up 6 db, and used a scene file that was custom made to perform in extreme low light situations. Camera was a Sony F900 if I recall. Really the scene looked pretty good all things considered. It's always a tough call - what can you live with? Motion blur or noise? When do you realize that you just can't push the signal anymore? When do you give up? Ha never! It was refreshing to hear that on these big projects he's not afraid to gain up to +12dB if he needs to. I usually chicken out after +3 and start looking for any practical light source I can bring in that's unobtrusive. Being an OCD picture quality lunatic, that's what's always hardest for me when shooting these documentaries but ultimately, it's the story that we're there to capture. Quality is great if you can but sometimes you've got to be bold and really push it electronically. Of course knowing what you're doing helps and knowing what it will ultimately look like in its final delivery format can help you make critical decisions.

You can watch the scene from Sicko here on YouTube but it's crap web vid obviously.
Sony F900, 360 degree shutter, 6dB

Really this example isn't anything anyone who has shot docs or ENG hasn't encountered a million times. This is what we're up against - visually disgusting situations that we have to make look as good as they can. It's hard work and often times a thankless job. It's just nice to hear someone who shoots major motion pictures talk about wrestling with the same things that we all do and using the same solutions.

Dejan Georgevich, ASC spoke as well and it would be a crime not to at least mention that. He spoke mostly about using the F35 on pilots and episodic. The guy is a masterful lighter and was one of the first professionals to use HD for narrative fiction on The Education of Max Bickford. Those images captured at 1440x1080 with Fujinon ENG zooms continue to hold up against a lot of what's being done with today's tools. Mr. Georgevich had one comment in particular regarding lighting and drama that I wanted to share. "The Contrast should Equal the Conflict". I really like that a lot and will try to absorb that mantra into my own working method.

ah here it is. Y2 Camera.

http://www.yolk.org/

The Y2 "Yolk". Can't find much else out there on this other than some threads on REDUSER. Anyone got anything to share?

Lumiere 4K Digital Motion Picture Camera (Japan)

"Lumiere is a new 4K digital camera system of 60 frames per second (fps) x 4096 x 2048 pixels 12bit raw images. This is a PCI Express external cabling based digital camera and the data rate is over 700MByte per second."

And if you care to read more..... in Japanese >>>

A reader brought this to my attention and I wanted to share and see if anyone out there has any more information on this. Looks interesting.

Here are the basic specs:

4096x2048pixels
60fps raw 12bit data
PCIe x4 external calling technology
Non compressed raw image data into main memory directly
External frame synchronize
Data capturing SDK

Image resolution: max4096x2048 pixels
Frame rate: 60fps, 60x1000/1001fps
Weight: 1250g
Image sensor: customized CMOS sensor, rolling shutter
Output format: RAW12bit (in PC memory)
Power supply 12V (supply from PC)
External frame sync: format 480i, 480p, 1080i, 1080p
input signal : CVBS, S-VIDEO (bi-level, tri-level sync)
Lens mount: Nikon F mount
GPIO signals: inputs 4ch, outputs 4ch (opto isolated)
connector: 12bins (HR25-9TR12S)
Interface: PCIe x4 external cabling
Power supply: 12V (supply from PC)
Power consumption: Approximately 24W
Dimensions: 114mm (width) x 114m m (hight) x 164mm (length)

I remember hearing about another digital cinema prototype camera recently, it was German I think, and yellow. Maybe the "Egg"? I can't remember where I read about that and I didn't think to keep a link. If anyone knows anything about that too, let me know.

Always nice hearing from you. Please feel free to send me anything that may be of interest. It's Friday isn't it? Happy Friday!

Canon 1D Mk IV Low Light Capabilities

I've been reading a lot about the amazing low light abilities of the Canon 1D Mk IV with it's extended ISO settings that apparently can "see what our eyes can't even see". Intriguing. Our ASC charts for Incident Key Light don't go beyond ASA/EI 3200 where you'll find that to expose for 18% Reflectance Gray with a T Stop of 1.4 you'll need 1 foot candle. These charts don't even account for <1 foot candle readings despite the fact that light meters can measure them down to 1/10. This makes sense from a film point of view where the fastest motion picture stocks readily available are 500 ASA. Rating them as such and shooting with a stop of T1.4, you still need 5 foot candles for optimum exposure. Up until recently, with the advent of digital cameras that can see in the dark, there has been no real need to expand upon these tried and true charts.

Open moon light is about .1 foot candle and the 1D Mk IV's expanded ISO of 102400 is 4 2/3 stops faster than ASA/EI 3200. Using the ASC charts as a guide, with a T Stop of 1.4 if my math is correct (4 2/3 stops faster than 1 is .048) that should be enough light to actually expose, albeit a noisy exposure no doubt, in available moon light. Has anyone out there had the opportunity to try this camera out in only available night time "light"?

Please someone weigh in. I'd love to hear from you guys more often :)

SCARLET GUI

Courtesy of Graeme Nattress @gnattress



nice eh? I think they've got the right idea.

New Site

The re-design is coming along nicely and we'll begin migrating the content over to the new site this week. Very excited as this blog is entering it's 3rd year. Lots and lots of plans for new content, tutorials, etc. Also, major cleanup of existing material. These DSC Labs Charts are incredible.

Hope everyone Stateside had a great 4 day weekend. I know I did ;)