1 Man 1 Red & A followfocus

[Stephen Williams]

DOF is always a game of balance. Sometimes we can live with the sharpness loss. It's certainly viable to shoot at F11, especially if your intended result does not need extreme sharpness and resolution. I am almost certain that a RED camera with a good lens at F11 beats the heck of a HVX or something like that... But, good reminder, nonetheless!

Hi,

I find it's always good to test lenses to find their sweet spot. With state of the art motion picture lenses, they will be at there best almost wide open. Most still camera lenses will perform best stopped down in the F4-F8 range. Owning some ND filters will be a good investment.

FWIW I don't think I ever stopped down a lens past T5.6 in 2006! I mostly shoot between T2.8 & T4, thats on 35mm.

Stephen

[Gibby]

Mr Sleep

You seem determined to shoot RED and your justifications are well thought out. I admire your dedication and am confident you will overcome any of drawbacks and difficulties you may encounter as a one man shooter with red.

I think your idea to purchase a cheap camera to practice with before getting the RED is by far your best. I am sure you will finish with a beautiful product after completion.

Good luck and have fun.

Well said Finner....

FWIW, I will use my RED One camera systems in a broad range of cine-style and EFP-style productions. Some will be large-budget, where I'm directing a crew of 40-50, using my two RED's + multiple other RED One cameras, some will be mid-sized productions/crews, and then I will regularly shoot stock footage and very small productions by myself. In the right configuration, and using it correctly under the circumstances (especially shooting with available natural light), RED One can be simplified down for one-person operation. Stuart English has already stated that most cameras and camcorders are more difficult to use than RED One, because RED One's menus will be simple and intuitive, and that RED's focus assist/720p LCD & EVF/histogram will be effective and straightforward to use. He added that the knowledge curve will be in learning the nuances of manual lens operation. Those who have a decent knowledge of manual lens use, should readily be able to use RED One alone in it's lightweight configurations.

Being highly modular, we can make RED One as large and complicated as necessary for a production (thus necessitating a large crew), and the very next hour re-configure RED One for mobile, single person operation. RED's broad range of formats supported, from 2540p down to 720p, and lens options, from S35mm down to 2/3" B4, capably support that modularity, and enable a range of crew sizes, from large down to single-person operation.

To me, the most attractive concepts of RED One are it's modularity, flexibility, and utility. That enables me to use RED One in the broad range of projects that I produce, direct, and shoot. We can configure RED One as complicated as we want or need, and we can configure it as simple as we want or need.

When I'm not busy with a project, I'll be constantly packing one of my RED's and a DSLR into one of my mobile field backpacks and heading out to shoot stock footage. I just love shooting and licensing stock footage has always been one of the key elements of my business plan. I almost always do my stock footage (and stock stills) shooting by myself using natural light.

[firewallet]

FWIW, I will use my RED One camera systems in a broad range of cine-style and EFP-style productions... Stuart English has already stated that most cameras and camcorders are more difficult to use than RED One, because RED One's menus will be simple and intuitive, and that RED's focus assist/720p LCD & EVF/histogram will be effective and straightforward to use. He added that the knowledge curve will be in learning the nuances of manual lens operation. Those who have a decent knowledge of manual lens use, should readily be able to use RED One alone in it's lightweight configurations.

Being highly modular, we can make RED One as large and complicated as necessary for a production (thus necessitating a large crew), and the very next hour re-configure RED One for mobile, single person operation. RED's broad range of formats supported, from 2540p down to 720p, and lens options, from S35mm down to 2/3" B4, capably support that modularity, and enable a range of crew sizes, from large down to single-person operation.

To me, the most attractive concepts of RED One are it's modularity, flexibility, and utility. That enables me to use RED One in the broad range of projects that I produce, direct, and shoot. We can configure RED One as complicated as we want or need, and we can configure it as simple as we want or need.

This is what gets me so excited about this camera system. The fact that an experienced shooter can take immediate advantage of the REDs' modularity and hyper specifications to effectively create multiple streams of revenue for it's owner/operator --- well, its insane.

The next four months are going to be a wild ride. ... Anybody need a roommate for NAB?

Feliz Natal,

Andrew

[taubkin]

Hi,

I find it's always good to test lenses to find their sweet spot. With state of the art motion picture lenses, they will be at there best almost wide open. Most still camera lenses will perform best stopped down in the F4-F8 range. Owning some ND filters will be a good investment.

FWIW I don't think I ever stopped down a lens past T5.6 in 2006! I mostly shoot between T2.8 & T4, thats on 35mm.

Stephen

Hey Stephen. I personally don't like shooting F11 or F8, and Im VERY aware that lenses don't perform all that good stopped down. I'm actually deaing with this right now, in a short film that is sopposed to have almost everything in focus all the time. I don't even know why they are shooting 16mm (standard!) since an HVX would be MUCH MUCH more suited for the job.

Nonetheless, for documentary shooting, I wouldn't want to go very far on NDs, and would try to keep my lens around F8, give or take a little. I like shooting narratives at F4, myself.

Owning some ND filters is a MUST, unfortunately, even though we could just rate the camera faster, and deal with the noise, I still think that controlling the light hitting the lens is very important, even when shooting digital (or video).

BUT I'm just saying, that sometimes (it has happened to me while ACing!) you want extremely broad DOF, and when that happens, there is no other solution than stopping down the lens... Right?

Anyway, it's great to be able to get into those conversations, especially, with experienced people who are certainly not afraid to give his two cents for the newbie starting out (in this case me).

So this is not me being stubborn, but actually trying to learn something. You would say that with your regular set of rental lenses (Zeiss superspeeds in good condition, or similar) you would NEVER shoot F11?

[Stephen Williams]

So this is not me being stubborn, but actually trying to learn something. You would say that with your regular set of rental lenses (Zeiss superspeeds in good condition, or similar) you would NEVER shoot F11?

Hi,

Personally I would not, once 10 years ago I used T16 and that looked like s*%t, relatively speaking! For timelapse I use a ND 3.0 (10 stops) so I do try to avoid closing down.

Outside I would normally think 50 ASA, ND 0.9 (3 stops) T4-5.6 split (sun) giving about 0.5 stop overexposure. When the weather changes I can keep the stop about the same by just changing or removing the ND. When Lighting a set if I was using a zoom I would light to T4 and for a prime T2.8 (Super Speeds), or T2 using Cooke S4's. I don't like the Bokeh of S4's stopped down (See Casino Royale and you will see my point). As the Cookes transmit more red light they give the impression of more DOF than the Zeiss which transmit more blue light. FWIW red is less sharp on film, so to make Video look more like film you should blur the red channel slightly.

Stephen

[Gibby]

Some good points Stephen. For narrative cine-style work I follow a similar T stop path. For EFP and ENG-style work, using natural light, I tend to shoot around f5.6 to f8 for medium to deep DOF, then use a lot of ND to open up the iris for more shallow DOF for certain types of creative b-roll. I agree with your assessment of the usual sweet spot for cine lenses. I find that my 35mm still lenses and 2/3" EFP and ENG lenses do quite well even up to f8, and occasionally adequate up to f11 if I'm seeking deep DOF, although their natural sweet spot seems to be around f5.6