Buying a mattebox - how many stages?

[MattC]

I've been looking at the Chrosziel two stage mattebox on the recommendation of the guys at Able CineTech. But I'm wondering if two stages are enough? This would let me use two filters correct? That doesn't seem like much?

Let me know what you guys think.

Matt

[Prairieboy]

Two should be enough for you. It is pretty rare that you would go beyond that. Although there are DPs out there that will use more, most the time the third or fourth tends to be a colour correction, or ND filter that you can take care of in camera.

[J.R. Hudson]

I'm guessing for a camera such as the XL2 or DVX for that matter that 2 is more than enough for our needs. I use a 2 stage and have never found myself saying "It would be cool if I could put 2 more filters on!"

Figure it like this? Everytime you add anotherpiece of glass, the image gets degraded just a tad bit more.

[Erik Olson]

Film guys will scoff at two stage set ups, but they can't just white balance like we can. Getting the proper color balance on film stock requires wrattens and plus thises and minus thats and / or scene-by-scene timing in post to fix it.

With our cameras, you point at a white card or the sky or someone's vaguely clean tee-shirt and you've often eliminated at least one filter position.

I haven't yet needed three, but very often use an ND6 and linear polarizer together. Coincidentally, when I'm shooting a grad for a sunset or something, it is often dark enough that I drop the polarizer and ND opening the rear rotating slot for the grad.

Interiors, more often than not, are adding more light situations, not taking light away situations - so you can throw in your cons, nets, mists or whatever.

With all that said, if you can get additional stages for less than $50 or $100 a pop and not encroach on your aperture, I'd still strongly consider doing so. If it bumps the price by much more than $150 a stage, I'd go with two and be done with it.

My $02,

e

[MattC]

Thanks guys!

[MrBirdBoy]

Hey,
I am one of the guys that will filter in camera over white balance anyday, The DXV is 3200k balanced. Always shoot the 32k preset and use filters to color correct. The blue channel is SUPER noise prone... Back to matte boxes, I have a 2 stage Chrosziel, but I machined an Arri filter holder in the shade & use the 138mm in the donut for diffusion & some ND's & pols. Anyone who sez 2 is plenty has never learned the craft of photography. DV, HD, DigiBeta are fine 'till you add any filer in post, then all recompression poo hits the fan. I have a Black Magic 10 bit card & color work in the matte box is always a better look to me.

My 3 cents.

Steve ,

Sorry for the long sentence, I've been working to much. :-)

[thisiswells]

My typical outdoor filter scheme is:

Schneider Maui Brown 1 (like the Maui Jim sunglasses.. it is beautiful)
Polarizer

I wish I had another two slots for:
ND Grad or Blue Sky Grad
Black Pro Mist or other Diffusion thing.

Problem is when you start adding that much glass you are bound to suffer from reflections.. which really stink. You can sometimes get a manufacturer like Tiffen or Schneider to custom make a filter that has several filters in it for you of the ones you like, but the price is somewhere between $700 and $1100. A friend of mine had a 81, Coral 1, ProMist 1/2 made by Tiffen to avoid such getting reflections. Sometimes they'll even do a one-off of something like a half grade, like a Coral 1.5 instead of a 1 or a 2 but they are expensive.

For me, a color and a polarizer works well and I add the grad and diffusion in post. The Vocas/Century matte box is another good, yet often overlooked option opposite the Chrosziel. With rods, it's about $300.00 less than the Chrosziel. Hope this helps,

brian wells

[matthewd5]

i've never heard of the maui filter, its like a tobacco filter but a little darker?

i love the antique suede and of course the black pro mist series.

i've never seen a mattebox that fits the dvx that holds more than 2 filters.

there have been a few times that i wished i had the ability to put a third filter.

i played around with filters one day, i setup my camera at a busy scenic intersection in northampton, mass (its a quaint medium busy college town and i tried all my filters to get a real world dvd to see what my filters look like in the real world.

the fog+magenta was very nice

matthew

[thisiswells]

Never used Tobacco to comment. Maui is a deeper brown shade than the antique suede.
I do have an Antique Suede 1.. Would be happy to take a picture of the two side by side.

I'd like to see the fog+magenta combo. Sounds cool.

[MattC]

Never seen the filter, but I do love my Maui Jim sunglasses!

Ok, so if I WERE to by a matte box with more than two filter stages, which one should I be looking at?