Hi,

I'm about to dp a short feature with the HD100 / 200 with Sgpro adaptor and Nikon lenses.

The film will be transfered to 35mm anamorphic (2,40 to 1) at Technicolor, and I managed somehow to get some budget for a 2 mins tests.

So, any ideas what should I test to get a good knowledge of the limits of this camera?. I've completed a small list of things I would like to know:

- Emulsion test: Macbeth chart, gray card, human skin before a white / black background, two 1k's at 2 meter, 45º. Expose at key and bracketing 6 stops over and under. With fujinon stock lens alone and with the adaptor. I'll try to have an astro to check IRE values, but still learning the damn gizmo.

- Filage: Normal and fast moving subjet at 1/48, 1/50, 1/10, etc.

- Resolution chart.

- Flare: I need to know how the lens behave with sunlight and practicals, how ugly they are, etc.

- High fequency / banding / stair -stepping / moirè. Just to know what not to do.

- Some interior and exterior test shoot just for the look.

- Some 60p slow motion, just for the shake of it...

Anything I'm missing, anything senseless.

All opinions appreciated. Perhaps I could scan the negative and publish it somehow, just for info.

Cheers,

Jose

I wouldn't use a 35mm adapter for a film out. It's OK for TV, but it's going to degrade your image. Even on the high end F900 cameras people tend to go for the highest quality HD lenses if they're going a film out rather than use a Pro35. On the JVC you're fighting for all the image quality you can manage for a film out, even more so if you're cropping to scope.

Hi Brian,

First, thanks for your reply.

That's why I'm doing the tests both with and without the adaptor. I'm loosing a full stop with it, and nikon lenses are not exactly the perfect solution, but the story really needs a cinematic dof more than a crispier image... and, at least in the monitor, I like what I see... ;-)

Jose

One thing concerning corrections in the post before filmout: do never pull your blacks to 0, or pure black. Always leave some space on the left of the histogram. Otherwise, the shadows that look OK on the video go into the lower part of the sensitometry curve of the negative and get all sorts of bizzarre tints - as there's no negative that has identical R,G and B gamma in the toe of the curve. Try to keep all your image in the straight part.

I had to learn it the hard way - trying to colour-correct a 100-minute film whose DI was done in a studio that claimed to know what it was doing.

Good luck!

Hey Jose,

I am very interested in what you discover with your tests. Please keep us informed and if you could include some pics it would be great. Thanks!

Well, test was shoot and should be printed this wednesday. It's just a day before the shoot, so maybe I won't be able to post the result in a week or so.

http://www.contacontos.com/test.mov is the url to a H264 small version of the test. It's 2 minutes long, but I've chopped it down to fit in my server.

I basically tested the Sgpro r2 with nikon primes and the fujinon alone. I've used cinelike, tim dashwood' amelie (thanks!),'Angel' presets (thanks!)and paolo ciccone true color 3 (thanks!), bracketing exposures from 5,6 (at key) all the way up and down in 1/3 increments.

I've also included some shots from Xan, a feature I dped, and 3 shoots from Tim Dashwood hd200 tests (wide and cinevert).

In all cases, white balance was done before touching the matrix.

Rendered in uncompressed 8bit 1280 x 720p and delivered in uncompressed tiffs. Will have it xferred via crt and arrilaser at Technicolor and Iskra, cropping to 2,40 aspect ratio.

Will let you know!

Jose

Hi again,

Back from shooting (quite bruised and with a toe broken by the jib), grew quite confident with this camera.

A day before shooting went to see the tests at Deluxe, and really got impressed. The output was done via arrilaser directly from tiff sequences, a minute in 1,85, then the same images cropped to anamorphic 2,40.

I'm trying to get all my ideas ordered in a longer post, detailing all methods used and options, but my conclusion by the way is that this camera is a really serious option for filmlike production, even in anamorphic.

Let me know if any of you has any questions or whatever. Will post back!!.

Jose

P.S. Have a look at the weblog (galician / spanish only, sorry) 12007.blogspot.com

José, estaba siguiendo tus post y he visto tus pruebas preliminares. He quedado impresionado, pero no muy satisfecho.
Sería bueno si puedes exxplicar un poco el procedimiento mas a detalle. Los usuarios en español (somos pocos pero los habemos) te lo agradeceremos.
Me interesa en particular el tema de los negros, tu ajustaste la camara en modo filmout?? o sólo usaste el TC3 de Paolo??
saludos

Finally got some time to post the conclusions I got from the tests. I'll try to put them as clear as possible (I'm in a 8-day week, 5 hours of sleep per day--). If any of you has some specific question I could answer, please let me know, and I'll try to answer it here.

Oscar, si te parece continúo este post en inglés, o más bien spanglish, y respondo a tus cuestiones en castellano en el siguiente, o buscaré ese foro en castellano de la jvc en el que creo que estabas colaborando (me equivoco?).

OK, so:

0) Test details: We used both a HD201e and one of the first hd100E to arrive to Spain. Both with the stock lens (fujinon 5,5-14), no filters, and alternatively with the SgPro lens adaptor with a nikkor 50mm prime lens and f3.5 75 nikkor zoom (not the best glass, by the while).

Subject was placed at 2 meters from camera, and ligths (2 fresnels 1k) were placed at 1 meter from subject in a 45º angle from subject, both hor. and vert. Lights were a bit old and used (I was using a media school, so...) so if any of them was close to 3200k it was unintentional :-)

Background was a white poliestirene reflector and a black velvet piece. We also add some golden props and a red costume to be used in the film.

Camera was rated at 160 ASA by comparing the auto iris reading with an incident meter. No white balance was used, but the 3200ºk preset, to preserve the color matrix values.

We tested the following scene file recipes: Default cinelike 24p, Tim Dashwood Warm Green and Cinevert, and Paolo's TrueColor V3. Thanks!. We also tested the scene file created for the feature film.

Key was rated at 5,6 and we bracketed all the way down and up in 1 stops increments.

Some scenes from my short feature Xan, A despedida (xanadespedia.blogspot.com), shoot with the HD100 fujinon were also included just to see some real footage. I also had to include some of the m2t generouslly shared by Tim Dashwood with his hd200 / cinevert tests because of some problem with my original tape.

Footage was edited in a Final Cut Pro station, ingested via firewire, edited in a HDV 720 24p native project (no AIC), sequence duplicated and reconfigured to uncompressed 8 bit (I didn't use 10bit for this to avoid dithering, but really don't know if I could have gained something by doing so, opinions?). Output to uncompressed TIFFs without YUV processing.

Transfer was done on Arrilaser (according to tech, it did all the uprezzing and lin-log colorspace conversion), on what I think was 5201 50 ASA vision 2 negative, maybe intermediate, but I have to confirm.

Test was cropped first to 1:85 and then another copy was cropped and fitted in the 2:40 anamorphic image.

The mov I've shared here suffered from poor compression and a gamma shift (directly outputted from FCP) I was unaware until already uploaded it to our server (4 hours before taking a plane, so...) so it is not a reference of color, latitude, quality... it's just a demo of what I was trying to do, not of what the camera is capable of.

Please note I'm speaking here of my impressions and opinions after the tests, so I cannot offer more scientific data than how I think it look according to my tastes. I heavily encourage you all to conduct your own tests, if possible.

1) FILAGE AND GRAIN -

I've tested around 6-8 cameras for filmouts, and this is, along with the varicam, the closest to film I've found in 6 years. The filage is virtually indistingible from the motion blur produced by a 35mm camera with a standard 180º shutter. I've recently shoot some 35mm tests (my experience with this format is still 'on the works') and I really think that, for a 'average' scene,it would be relatively impossible to distinguish from 35mm originated material, with non educated viewers.

The grain is really nice when is well managed (eg to avoid banding) and much more organic than what can be found on other cameras (hvx200, f900), and the colors, particularly with the true color and cinelike settings, are really close to what I expect in a film print.

2) COLOR SPACE

This is a 8 bit lin and heavily compressed camera, so I would try to get the closest image possible to what I want in camera instead of trying to get as much latitude as possible (I have no balls to show a muddy image to clients, trying to convince them I will fix it in post, a 550 EUR an hour of lustre).

3) DETAIL

As always, the gurus in this board are rigth. Get the detail waaaayy below. I won't deactivate it, -7-8, never off. I was gladly surprised by some long shots that simply could have been shoot on film.

The image got softer with the anamorphic print, but less than I expected. I wouldn't use the sgpro adaptor in an anamorphic project, but after seeing the tests, I would definetively go for it for an 1.85 project, for me, the slightly softer image is an acceptable price for the shallower dof. But check back focus almost with each setup.

4) LATITUDE, ASA RATING AND LOW LIGHT

The 'scientific' tests I tried give me an asa rating of 160ASA. My experience while shooting almost doubles it. It is heavily dependent on the scene file choosen, with the true color v3 gaining almost a stop over the cinelike. Why?. I simply dunno.

The lesson to learn, way better to underexpose with this camera. Lowlights seems beatiful, highlights over 100 ire, as all of you know, ugly at best. Better get your big highlights in post, in a log environment.

5) LENS SWEET SPOT

I've found it, for my tastes, around 4-5,6 with the fujinon. I've experienced some diffraction (seaside, f16, full zoom) and the color aberrations we all know.

6) 35 ADAPTOR (SGPRO) FOR BLOWUP

You loose a stop, and with the fujinon, is bulky as hell, but I would use it for 1,85 film out. Not as soft as expected, and really nice images. Have a try!.

Jose

Just in case you had any curiosity on how the thing ended, there's another post with images and a short movie to check.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=884093&postcount=133

Cheers,

Jose

Jose that's a lot of work, sharing all that info. Thanks for the time and effort. Congrats on your project. Looks great.

Thanks Jose for your detailed explanation, and to share your experiences with the camera for filmout.

Thanks for all the updates on your project. I've always been convinced that this camera gives you the most filmic look of all the cameras in its price range. Those grabs are just beautiful-very nice "film-stocky" grains.

Hey José, given that you lose some color when using the adaptor, having you ever raised the color gain on either Tim's or Paolo's scene recipes?

Cheers Jose.

I missed your earlier post with your impressions etc of the JVC201/SGPro setup and since we are using the same equipment I found it most interesting.

Your conclusion regarding the stock lens sweetspot being 4-5.6 confirms what I have been told -we were struggling for light and ended up opening the stock lens right up on a recent shoot, and had some issues with soft focus.

You also mentioning checking the backfocus on each setup. I am curious to know what you used for onset monitoring? Did you have a HD field monitor?

Dan

Thanks for sharing Jose - the reel looks stunning.

Forgive my ignorance but I'm not sure why you wouldn't use the SGrpo for an anamorphic/2.35:1 look but would for 1.85:1? If it's a softer image and the image is merely cropped what difference would there be?
I'm sure your answer will put me straight!

I'll second Dan's request for how you monitor on field. It's a constant bane of my life...I 'had' to shoot a building from a certain angle recently and at an early hour of the morning in order to get the footage to a client before midday. Unfortunately I was almost directly facing the sun and using the ND filters and closing the iris down resulted in soft images (despite checking back focus and focus assist). Not sure they grasped the basic concept of shooting against the sun...but the time was the most important aspect for them :(

Thanks guys for the kind words. I've spent years (2003) reading this forums in silence, just learning, so I'm really proud to finally be able to share something here!.


Thanks for all the updates on your project. I've always been convinced that this camera gives you the most filmic look of all the cameras in its price range. Those grabs are just beautiful-very nice "film-stocky" grains.

Hey José, given that you lose some color when using the adaptor, having you ever raised the color gain on either Tim's or Paolo's scene recipes?

I think it's still the most filmic camera under that 10000€ price tag, and I've tried them all:-). Of course is the knowledge of it what makes the difference. I've seen beatiful pieces of filmmaking in pretty much every camera since the first sony dv (did you remember 'The Dead' by starway pictures?).

About your question, this film wasn't shot with the adaptor, but with the stock lens alone, and very little filtration (NDs and POLA). In the film out test I found a small loss, but since I did the test to know how will these scene files react to the arrilaser process, I let them as-is to not invalidate the test themselves. It pretty much worked as an emulsion tests, I just follow the findings in the real shooting, since I cannot afford, or wait for, another batch or tests to correct what I found in the first ones.

Jose

Cheers Jose.

I missed your earlier post with your impressions etc of the JVC201/SGPro setup and since we are using the same equipment I found it most interesting.

Your conclusion regarding the stock lens sweetspot being 4-5.6 confirms what I have been told -we were struggling for light and ended up opening the stock lens right up on a recent shoot, and had some issues with soft focus.

Absolutely. The HD and this lens form a strange combination you must be very careful with.


You also mentioning checking the backfocus on each setup. I am curious to know what you used for onset monitoring? Did you have a HD field monitor?

Dan

Backfocus is a must. I admit I got very paranoid with it, but with a film out, your image will soften enough. I've been assistant camera in a small number of F900 projects so I was on guard. I asked for a collimator, but wisely production showed me the middle finger, so my assistant and I had to go with a focus chart and a lot of patience.

Monitoring was another pain in the a.. I quoted an astro for me and a sony LCD for director. I had to reduce costs, so I keep the astro, with the slim hope that a standard CRT would be enough for the director. The shooting began without any of them, I shot blind the first day, and finally got a HDA sony LCD 9 inches. I hate them. I hate LCD with all my guts, but at least I had something to look at. Since them I bought a Marshall for myself, at least enough to check focus. The Dell 24 with a HDlink would be a nice option, less portable.

I found two things: The camera has way more latitude you can show on any of these sub-20,000 monitors, and that the analog out, camera LCD and viefinder all show different crop of the image, so I have to check compositing and 2,40 safe zones on the monitor itself.

[QUOTE]

Forgive my ignorance but I'm not sure why you wouldn't use the SGrpo for an anamorphic/2.35:1 look but would for 1.85:1? If it's a softer image and the image is merely cropped what difference would there be?
I'm sure your answer will put me straight!

[\QUOTE]

We all are learning, so don't excuse yourself.

I wouldn't use the SGpro or any other adapter on a 2.40 project because the softness of the adapter will add to the softness of the cropping. At least with the arrilaser, to extract a 2,40 image from a 16x9 master, you have to crop and resize it, so you end up with an even softer image. For me, this was unaceptable, at least for this project, since it was really visible in the tests.

[QUOTE]
I'll second Dan's request for how you monitor on field. It's a constant bane of my life...I 'had' to shoot a building from a certain angle recently and at an early hour of the morning in order to get the footage to a client before midday. Unfortunately I was almost directly facing the sun and using the ND filters and closing the iris down resulted in soft images (despite checking back focus and focus assist). Not sure they grasped the basic concept of shooting against the sun...but the time was the most important aspect for them :(
[\QUOTE]

I experimented something similar, shooting the backlight facing the sea reflecting the 'magic hour' sun. Adding ND's and closing down, I also ended with a soft image. I think it has something to do with difraction of the light with such a small aperture and the angle of the light, but perhaps somebody more knowledgeable than me could elaborate this.

A monitor is a must, and CRT should be the way, but as you know it's a lost battle. Perhaps the smallest Marshall, video-assist monitor could be an option, but shooting on sunny locations is imposible. I spent all the sea-shooting days completely wrapped in black velvet with the monitor to barely try to see something. They though I was nuts. And in these situations, I would relay more on the spot meter than the monitor.

Jose

We all are learning, so don't excuse yourself.

I wouldn't use the SGpro or any other adapter on a 2.40 project because the softness of the adapter will add to the softness of the cropping. At least with the arrilaser, to extract a 2,40 image from a 16x9 master, you have to crop and resize it, so you end up with an even softer image. For me, this was unaceptable, at least for this project, since it was really visible in the tests.

Thanks Jose - I was looking at it from the 2:35.1 matte crop in the NLE rather than such high end equipment as the Arrilaser (I've just read up on this). With the NLE crop I can't see how you're physically losing data and hence ensuing softness when the width (horizontal) remains the same.
I've tried the crop but think it might be 'honest' if wide angle, or 35mm adaptor options were used (and I've been asked to shoot an upcoming project in 2:35.1 but using the standard fujinon lens for the HD100 - I'll try and persuade otherwise but if that's what is wanted I'll have to go along!).

I experimented something similar, shooting the backlight facing the sea reflecting the 'magic hour' sun. Adding ND's and closing down, I also ended with a soft image. I think it has something to do with difraction of the light with such a small aperture and the angle of the light, but perhaps somebody more knowledgeable than me could elaborate this.

A monitor is a must, and CRT should be the way, but as you know it's a lost battle. Perhaps the smallest Marshall, video-assist monitor could be an option, but shooting on sunny locations is imposible. I spent all the sea-shooting days completely wrapped in black velvet with the monitor to barely try to see something. They though I was nuts. And in these situations, I would relay more on the spot meter than the monitor.

The thing is, it wasn't even the magic hour...they needed the footage by a certain deadline - I was to shoot a huge LED advertising screen but this and the surrounding buildings were just really badly lit - later in the day when the sun was facing them would've been perfect. They then slipped in that they wanted me to photograph (50 odd photographs...I'm not a 'photographer' and told them so) the site also...all for absolute peanuts. Essentially a pi** take I had no option of walking away from. Business lessons learned on this job!

Every time I take the camera out and especially on an upcoming film project I desperately wish for a small monitor - the siemens chart (on zoom out for back focus) is a royal struggle - I can't imagine how this is reliable on such a small LCD. Focus assist and viewfinder are often my only friends out there.
I'm going to give your reel another viewing, purely to provide inspiration for upcoming projects...if I can achieve anything remotely like what you've produced I'd be happy Jose.

Cheers.