Dear friends of the 35mm adapters,

I have just finished principal photography for a short film set in a small bar. I used the FX1 (Pal) with the SGPro Release 2.

The lightning was fairly low budget with a simple 500W Flood, a 300 W Video Light (semi flood ish), 3 60W Spots rigged on special little tripod mounts (very versatile & easy to move) as well as 7 regular 60W pearl bulbs (replacing the original 25W warm ligting in the bar). This was completed with a diffusor brolly and a standard reflector. I think this kind of equipment can be raised for most Indie Video shots.

Sachtler Fluid Tripod was used, the dolly was (intentionally) left in the car.

The SGPro / FX1 combo performed excellently and took the harsh conditions of field work without moaning. It was easy to focus on the ground glass of the SGPro when it was not switched on, afterwards focus (on the FX1) was left this way which worked fine. SGPro switched on the grain disappears and the images instantly look a lot more stunning. Focus assist (magnification) was used to then determine the correct focal point for the lenses used with the adapter.

My lens collection:
Canon FD 24mm F2.8 still photo lens
Canon FD 35mm F2.0 still photo lens
Canon FD 50mm F1.8 (backup) still photo lens
Schneider 75mm F2.0 Arriflex mount cine lens (adapted to FD mount by myself)
Canon FD 70 - 210 F4.0 backup lens

I missed the focal point slightly on some shots (eg."the polisher.jpg", see below), but nothing vastly out of focus. I also tried to stop down (f2.8 to f4 most of the time), as it increases contrast and image quality and looks more filmic. The lighting described above was sufficient to stop down.

Overall I am very happy with the performance of all of my equipment, but the FX1 / SGPro was truly a stunning couple. This is a big step for me as it is both the first time I used my entire equipment in one production as well as surpassed both my 16mm and previous video work in image quality.

I have posted some stills here (only flipped, some of them slightly cropped (no more than 10% magnification), no colour correction yet)

I would like to post some HDV compressed original footage (just short bits) but I don't have webspace in the moment. Maybe someone can advise on a suitable file server.

More stills and shots of the set to come.

I am very much looking forward to your thoughts. Constructive criticism is also very much appreciated.

all the best,
tom

Nice grabs Thomas. Good to see the SGpro used in a full production.

Regarding focusing the FX1, I recommend spinning the GG first, then focus the FX1 using the Focus assist (magnification) and peeking option. For me this is a safer bet that you are infact at the sharpest point.

Thanks a lot, Wayne.

Regarding your advice, spin with a lens on or without?

Yes, I used peaking. In fact it was more helpful with the SGPro on than it is without the adapter.

Hi,
Yes I should have said with the 35mm lens attached. I get itchy feet focusing on stationary GG first, I like to know that the focus is set to its sharpest.

Any online footage we can see?

Frames look awesome!

Any online footage we can see?

Frames look awesome!

Thanks a lot. I would like to post a few very short HDV compressed bits so the ones interested can get an impression of the real (moving) quality.

Anybody got a good free fileshare page to recommend?

The final movie may be available, though rather heavily compressed, through YouTube. But that's still under discussion.

rapidshare.com is a good choice.

Ok, here we go:

http://rapidshare.com/files/10995874/SGPro_FX1_shot_Thomas_Richter.M2V.html

File is 42 megs, 15 seconds, 1440*1080, HDV compressed. It may require renaming to .mpg . With my PC it worked fine with VLC, even as M2V.

This is very, very close to the stuff originally captured. Image degradation from second generation encoding is negligible. Just flipped and trimmed.

Please tell me what you think.

Was this SgPro or Sgpro r2? I have to say the grabs look a bit soft... Was backfocus correct? What sharpness settings did you use? Otherwise looks nice.

Steven

Steven, this was with the Rev2.

I like it, nice and clean and shows the bokeh well.

Steven, you are right. Sharpness is definitely an area I need to work on.

Sharpness was set to 11 on FX1 (I think thats pretty much default and in my experience the best shot). I like the sharpness on "kiss so close.jpg" and "what a look". They are, in my opinion, spot on. But on these shots I used my arri mount -> FD mount conversion, so Backfocus was correct.
The FD lens shots are not good enough yet, but I'll have to calibrate the backfocus on my unit -> lets see what comes out then.

I also was a the low end of lightning for the amount I stopped down (F2.8 - F4), and the FX1 isn't at its sharpest in low light.

A benefit is, that apart from the grain, you can hardly notice any artifacting ;-)

PS: And I used skin tone softening 2, maybe that had an effect as well.

Thomas,

Thank you for posting this. Would you mind stating which lenses you used for what shots? Specifically the frame grabs.

Also, how did you like the Canon FD's you used. Ironically I'm looking at getting a set with the same f ratings and was curious if you ran in to any lighting issues using these where lenses with lower f ratings might have helped.

Thanks again,

Ryan

PS: And I used skin tone softening 2, maybe that had an effect as well.
When shooting with the FX1 and the SGPro, I did find that the skin tone softening did cut the sharpness a bit. I have no resolution charts to back that up, mind you -- just personal observation and preference.

What did you shoot in on the FX1? 60i, or any of the Cineframe modes? I found that some resolution is lost in the FX1's Cineframe modes, but not enough to make me dislike the images I make. And did you use any of the Cinegamma modes? It doesn't look like you did, but I was just curious.

All in all, looks good.

EDIT: Just finished downloading the actual footage, which looks excellent. The stills aren't as strong as seeing it in actual motion. Nice.

I just wanted to point out as Robert has that you should not view stills from a production and expect photo shoot quality!

Remember first that the video is in motion, the shutter speed is ONLY 1/48th (or 1/50th for PAL, 1/60th for NTSC), and that the depth of field means objects in motion can peer in and out of the DOF range very easily.

I'm always weary of posting stills because they hardly ever reflect the actual quality of the product or in this case the video.

Good stuff otherwise!

Thanks a lot for the praise :-D

I think this post also told me a lesson to rely more on posting footage than on posting stills (good advice, Dennis). Its just that I love stills because I always compare them to the SD days and not to digital SLR footage. But to be honest, most cheap 6 mpixel digital photo cams would have problems to resolve this well with that amount of lighting (exagerating a little).

Robert, footage was shot with FX1 Pal, Cineframe (25p). Of course this does cost some verical resolution, but I have found quite a few members on this forum (and even Clint Eastwood) use this method to get usable cine feel.
Thanks for the hint, I will avoid skin tone softening in future.

Ryan, I am very happy with my lens collection. What I do is to zoom in as far as I can, so the 24mm is closer to 28, the 35 closer to 42 and so on. This has two advantages: the midlle of a sperical lens is always better than the rim AND you get more DOF.
It's true, I want more DOF to make it look more cinema. Hardly any hollywood DP would use the lens wide open the entire film, you rather would want it at F4 to F8. I zoom in and use F2.8 or 3.2 or 4 making the difference less noticable.
I found the FD 24mm F2.8 lens a good compromise. The 24mm F2 has virtually the same lens design (11 instead of 10 lenses in almost the same assembly). Just with the F2.8 the optical elements are a little smaller and they are sooo much easier to get. Get some lights from the money you save ;-)
Bar Kiss, Drama and polisher.jpg were shot with the 35mm, the rest shot with the 75mm. I'll post a 24mm shot later today.

All in all, I am not overly crazy about real resolution, I just want it to appear sharp, as for example the "what a look.jpg" definitely does.

All the best,

tom

How does something like this look?

Notice how once you do some basic color correction "sharpness" can actually appear... well sharper!

Ah the tricks of the trade.. "sigh"

That looks very good, you have very well demonstrated why you got a real mini 35 and I don't ;-)
Ok, just kidding with the second part. Did you use unsharpen mask and some multi gamma CC or go further than that?

Now comes in the artistic element: it was desired to have a very golden look and as the CC options with video are a bit limited, I already lit/white balanced it that way. The softness adds to the atmosphere though it would be bragging to say it was on purpose.

Actually the XL2 & mini35 is for sale now. The setup I have will be replaced with a HVX200 and 35mm adapter - I just haven't decided on which 35mm adapter yet. I've pretty well decided on the SGpro r2 but have some final points to consider. I'm not in much of a rush except I have a music video to shoot in March, worst case scenario I can always rent a mini35 series 400.

As for the frame it was just some simple curves and sharpen in Photoshop - although unsharpen mask (found in NLE programs like Vegas) would also work well. This is an extremely powerful filter and quite amazing for use on SD footage if/when needed. If you like I can redo the curves setting and email it to you to see.

As for your point regarding f-stop usage, I can't emphasize what you've already said regarding DOF use. When I shoot I always aim for f4. Not so much because it is the "sweet spot" of a lens we all know it to be but because the DOF is not overpowering or distracting to the scene! I can't stand 35mm footage shot at f1.2 with any lens. It looks completely amateur and very un-film like.

I think the myth regarding use of only fast lenses with 35mm adapters came from people noticing that an adapter with 2 stops of light (not even including the lens yet) darkened their footage so much. Most people would say, "man you need a faster lens" and open the iris to full but that means you're shooting wide open.. and for many technical reasons (and aesthetically to some degree) shooting wide open is not acceptable. What you really need is lighting.

All scenes need lighting even when it should not look lit.


By the way - Did you use a monitor on set or flip the LCD screen with some trick-flip method? What are you editing on - Mac or PC? What's your workflow like?

Dennis, I am one of the few Avid Liquid cutters out there. I really like this program, its a lot cheaper than Premiere Pro and offers good CC and HDV playback (my two most important features).
With my IBM core2 duo E6600 I get 4 HDV tracks running simultaneously.

I have a flip preset I can drag & drop at each clip after capturing/splitting (takes 2 secs per clip). It's a GPU real time effect, so I still get 4 layers of HDV, if I'd really need. From then onwards, I can work with the clips just like normal.

I did not flip the LCD at all. A simple no magnet no anything trick on the FX1 is to fold the LCD screen out, turn it, fold it back in upside down (LCD facing up). Past as certain spot, Image will rotate to show text/displays right side up. Move back a bit and it will "un"rotate, so text is upside down and image flipped. I will implement a mirror design on my LCD pretty soon, to get away from the "flip tricks".
I used the magnifying focus assist.

Ryan, some more shots as promised.

These are set in another "layer" of the plot and deliberately underexposed to look dull (dirty bar). The earlier shots were intended to look glamorous. This time I have added the lens in the filename. Again, no CC.

Ok, one more update for tonight. Tõnis Liivamägi was so nice as to host the first clip on his server. Thank you very much, this is a great gesture.

www.cinedof.com/sgpro/SGPro_FX1_shot_Thomas_Richter.M2V

I have furthermore uploaded a second clip, with some more footage (to get a bit of variance). This one is set in another layer of the plot (see last post). Apart from the shot lighting the cigarette in the end, which belongs to the "glamorous" layer. Look at the apperture discs in this shot! Awesome - props to Wayne's GG.

19 secs, 47 mb.

http://rapidshare.com/files/11137972/SGPro_FX1_shot_Thomas_Richter__2_.M2V.html

Congratulations Thomas and Wayne!

Damn it looks nice considering it was filmed in CineFrame mode of the FX1.
Even more so if this would be delivered in 720p or on PAL DVD.

Thomas, I uploaded your second clip to our server so everybody can download it as long as the bandwidth lasts:
Download the second SGPro clip by Thomas Richter (http://www.cinedof.com/sgpro/SGPro_FX1_shot_Thomas_Richter__2_.M2V)

I`ll try to watch those clips till I come up with at least some criticism, it`s hard you know.
I knew that on some day I will see a DOF adaptor footage where I can observe the bokeh characteristics created by the lens alone.

Cheers,
T