Am I nuts? Indie feature on hmc40

I have an Hmc40 and in decent light it is excellent. Rather than investing in a 35mm adapter, I would pair it with a Gh2 body (which I also have) and a cheap, fast legacy lens or two off EBay.

Hmc40+GH2 intercut well and in combination are very, very flexible.
 
A used GH1 body would also work well and you can pick them up at less of a price than the GH2 ..most are hackable too!!! The footage works well with the HMC80 as well as it has the same "internals" as the HMC40.

Chris
 
Hello Thomas,

I went with the HMC40 and shot my little indie feature with it. Had a great time, and it's not such a bad little camera after all. Trailer here:
 
Shane , First the HMC40 with proper lighting will bring your images to a very large screen, I have seen mine on a 92" screen and you can touch the image, I'm sure it will fit any size.
Second, I found a great companion for those shots when shallow DF, or very low light capture is required a DSLR camera works fine, just watch aliasing and Moire , the HMC40 will not give you aliasing and Moire.
 
Hello Felipe, It was the first project I ever tried lighting. I shot, lit, made coffee, script supervised, directed, made props, for lol. I used a JTL 500w light kit (3 lights with stands) and 4 home-depot style tin-clamp lights (5.00 each) that I rigged up on the ceilings of the main location and just let them hang the entire shoot. I've watched it on a 52" screen. Looked great! The outside shots with this camera blew me away... Just natural daylight - Stunning images.
 
DEADLY PRESENCE (Unhallowed Bond)

DEADLY PRESENCE (Unhallowed Bond)

Our indie micro budget feature Deadly Presence (Unhallowed Bond) shot on the HMC40, will be out on VOD end of this year, and on DVD soon after. New trailer is up on Vimeo / Youtube.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Don't let the low light get you down either. Nobody in Hollywood, ok no true professional in Hollywood, would ever shoot a drama production without truck loads of lights used to sculpt the scene. There is way too much obsession with low light performance of cameras.
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I recall hearing someone ( one of the Directors I believe ) saying that the weekly electricity bill for lighting the Casino scenes in Ocean's Eleven was about US $ 100 000.
 
ShaneC said:
I don't have a 35mm adatper. Been looking into these as well.
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I am an old school 35mm adapter advocate. I got the Redrock M3 and I will say the light loss is negligible with this particular adapter. It's never been a problem in fact. Out in broad daylight I get great results with the ND 1/4 engaged and shutter going all the way up to 1/1000. It makes the image sharper, and in 1080i that's sharp enough, although it still doesn't match a DSLR for sharpness... even using Zeiss lenses, but hey, the colors are better, and a lot of people are now trying to make their DSLR footage to look "softer" in post.
 
Rather than selling my old HPX170 I opted for adding an M3 adapter to it. It may not match the better cameras of today, but it certainly took my HPX to a different level.

sexc1c.jpg
 
Cool set up EDV. If I jump into shooting another micro-budget feature that was the camera I was looking at (HPX170) also looking at the AF100.
I bought a Canon T3i. I just shot a music video on it (Posted it in the Canon APS-C Thread) Loved it, but don't think I would tackle another indie feature with it.
 
Great work on Deadly Presence. I really liked the cinematic "movements" of the camera. To me that is more important than shallow DOF. If nobody had told me I wouldn't have guessed it was an HMC40 :)
 
Thank you R Hudson. The only camera I had was the HMC40. I didn't know if it could be done, but i went with it anyways. The shots are mixed up between shoulder mount style-hand held, tripod, and dolly moves where I felt helped the story. To help solve some of my lack of DOF - in post I used PHYX Defocus oh so slightly on some scenes that seemed a little 'flat' to kind of 'blur' the edges of the screen, but again, only if I was trying to hone in on the subject matter for that scene. Some behind the scenes on my website in the 'stills' section if you guys want to check it out. http://www.maskedfilms.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=13810699
 
Cool stuff here!

To tell the truth I think it would be interesting to shoot a feature with the HMC-40 and exploit the deep depth of field in just about every shot. That is to say, decorate the sets so that there are things that normally would be blurred out.
 
The camera did fine for what it is and what the movie was, so we were happy with it! I have since sold it and have been shooting on the Panasonic GH4 with some vintage Minolta lenses.
 
The nifty 40 doesn't get much love at DVXuser so it's nice to see someone using it for a project. It's still a very good cam with a few limitations that we all know. Every now and then, I think I'll sell mine, but then I try to imagine what else I could get that would be better for the same dollars, and there isn't much.

Grant
 
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