CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
I'd agree. If you are going to include the original Varicam, the F900 has it's place alongside it.
I shot this feature on the F900 back in 2005. Had a brief theatrical run.
I shot this feature on the F900 back in 2005. Had a brief theatrical run.
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Does anyone in LA have a Sony F900 to lend for a few days?
David W. Jones
Veteran
Classic Digital?
How about tube?
Ahh the fun of parking Plumbicons on a white wall to remove the burn-in before shooting the next show.
Sorry, don't miss it!
How about tube?
Ahh the fun of parking Plumbicons on a white wall to remove the burn-in before shooting the next show.
Sorry, don't miss it!
Run&Gun
Veteran
You beat me to it. I shot Lord knows how much in the early 00's on the F900 before I bought my first VariCam(27H)
Until the HDX-900 came out and you were a freelancer shooting HD in the broadcast/network world, you owned an F900 or VariCam.
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That sounds like an awful routine.
Sensors are so clean and shooting raw, we hardly even have to black or white balance. We have it pretty good.
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I remember getting screamed at by the director my first time on a tube camera when I zoomed out too far and included the studio lights. "LIGHTS!". Good times.
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So true
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@CharlesPapert
@nothing
@Run&Gun
@Imamacuser
What are some of the attributes you like about the F900?
Also, Charles, you at the helm of any camera is cheating, you bring a lot of craft and style no matter what gear you are using.
@nothing
@Run&Gun
@Imamacuser
What are some of the attributes you like about the F900?
Also, Charles, you at the helm of any camera is cheating, you bring a lot of craft and style no matter what gear you are using.
Run&Gun
Veteran
Some of it may be nostalgia, because the F900 was the first HD camera that I shot with, but it just had a great picture right out of the camera without any special set-up(which you could do, if you wanted)(and Sony has not always been known for this, especially back then. Anyone that has ever shot with a BVW series Betacam straight out-of-the-box knows just how bad Sony cameras could be if not set-up). Remember, these were the days before Log or RAW. And everything we were shooting(except slo-mo) was 24p. So to look at a live picture on a monitor and see a beautiful, “widescreen” HD, 24 frame film-like image coming straight out of the camera in the early 2000’s when we were still mostly shooting 4:3 SD on Betacam and most “film look” was done in post, it was really something.
And I really like the “Panavision” curves/looks that Mike has in his Panavised F900, that he posted several months ago.
And I really like the “Panavision” curves/looks that Mike has in his Panavised F900, that he posted several months ago.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
When I was testing the F900 to do the feature I mentioned earlier, the director and I had been discussing a 2:39 aspect ratio for the film but at the time the anamorphic options were quite limited. I shot a test with an anamorpnic adaptor Clairmont had at the time and also shot with 2:39 framelines in camera, then we filmed out the tests (so: 1:78 to 2:39 via anamorphic adaptor, and 1:78 cropped to 2:39). I had each test strung up on their own projector and in the screening room had the projectionist line them up so they were the same size image, then we just alternated between the images by having the projectionist block one projector image and then the other (a bit jerryrigged, but it worked)! We were all surprised to see that the differences between the two were much more subtle than expected, certainly more so than one would have expected between anamorphic 35mm and S35. We chose the 2:39 crop option as it was going to be faster to work with on set. I saw the film projected several times in various theatres and it really held up quite well. There were a few scenes of additional photography shot on Genesis which was brand new at the time (early 2006) and they did admittedly look sharper, but in the same way that a lot of people currently favor vintage glass, the slight softness of the F900 transferred to film had its own charm.
Eric Coughlin
Veteran
I remember when I got my first Betacam back in 1973. I was negative 15 years old at the time and living in limbo. I refinanced in advance the house I would eventually buy in 50+ years from then in order to purchase the camera. My first job was filming a descent of fetuses from limbo to the womb at the annual stork gathering. While those who had been born and grew up found the Betacam to be a dream of ergonomics, for my bodiless soul I didn't find the ergonomics to work so well as I couldn't even lift the camera. I tried telekinesis but that didn't exist so eventually I had to cross the plain and hire a camera operator with a body from the beyond to man the camera while I DPed. This worked for the first job until the limbo police discovered what I had done and deported Francis back to the other side. I was again stuck with a camera I couldn't operate so I had to come up with a solution. I ended up hiring drones (storks) which was great because they could get footage from both sides given their job type and I went on to have a successful career for another 15 years. Then it all ended.
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Your Sci-Fi short was pretty good- why not use your creativity and write+shoot more? And maybe meet David Lynch for coffee haha.
Eric Coughlin
Veteran
Cause writing and shooting self produced short films costs time and money (which = women), while DPing for hire makes money. Only so much time and money can be spent on side projects so I just do a few per year. It's a lot easier to make money as a freelance DP than it is as a writer/producer. Both are fun, but may as well spend more time on the equally fun but more profitable venture.
I'd have to venture from producing shorts to producing features to be able to turn a profit, and that's more of a leap. Perhaps some day. In the meantime, shorts are a good stepping stone to features.
While it's true hourly/project-based work pays for existence (+ non-relationship relationships), and paid creative work tends to be nothing or a lot (like real relationships), where creative (IP) scales to on-going licensing/royalties leading to true freedom, something to think about long term when one has all the gear required to produce it and the creative energy to create it with ease: very low risk of time and money for a potentially large payoff. I'm working on following my own advice: iteration is the key to getting quality up and finding the right audience/market(s).
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That is pretty clever. Kind of McGyver with the A/B’ing projectors. Also, i am trying to imagine tiny little anamorphic B4 lenses with tiny little oblong bokeh balls, but you probably had something else going on.
Pretty cool to hear this. Makes me really want to try the camera out, and reinforms the movies that were shot during that time on it.
Sadly, the F900 is still associated with “ruining” Star Wars, and therefore our child hood.Haha. ‘Once Upon a Time in Mexico’ dissapointed me at the time, but watching it now, i like the visual awsthetic.
Russian Ark is still one of my favorite films.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
I think it was a Canon 1.33x adaptor that you used with the spherical B4 primes. I cannot picture it or remember anything else about it. You didn't get a lot of classic anamorphic effect, it was really about maximizing the sensor so when shooting widescreen you aren't throwing away image area by cropping (which of course is what anamorphic was originally designed for , not to look cool, ha).
Run&Gun
Veteran
Wasn't Russian Ark the one that was just a single, massive 'oner' for the entire movie? I remember reading about it back in the day, but I still haven't seen it.
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It was technically a three-er. Two takes they cut short, and the third take was “the oner”. Pretty cool to not have any editing to deal with.