HVX + M2 in MiniDV mode (from short film)

Patryk_Rebisz

Patryk_Rebisz

Veteran
Here are a few stills from a short film i just shot (with fellow DVXUser as my AC):

http://www.patrykrebisz.com/maxim/aliens.html

It was shot in SD fomat with HVX200 + M2

(SD was chosen for ease of editing as it was director's first film so i didn't want to throw too much technical BS on him, originaly intended to be shot with DVX100 but it broke day before the shoot so we shot with HVX instead).
 
Looks great- just curious which lenses you've got for the M2. I'm thinking about buying one and have been looking into some Nikons recently. I've been asking people with the adapter who's work I admire in hopes I'll find some common lenses and just get those.
 
Those were Nikon lenses. With M2 getting the bestest lenses possible is very important so you don't get vignieting and slow speeds.
 
Nice Work man!

I understand the M2 losses some light, how much? and how much light did you needed to light these scenes? What's the wattage of the outside shot HMI backlight?

There is still some vigenting, was that intentional? And did you used diffusion or just shot straight with the M2?
 
It's the lenses that eat up the light. I mean the light loss is quite significant. In the shots where you see both of them standing in the kitchen there si a 500w bulb not far away from the top of the frame... Wow! It needs so much light.

Originaly i was going to make the night yellow but when i placed those HMIs outside and was wide open i realized i can't loose extra light by geling the lights.
 
I have been looking at night exteriors alot latleya nd I have been realizing people seem to use daylight balnced light as a harsher backlight....and it looks right...but why? ahha I donno if that made sense but when I have light night exteriors up till now I always fill with daylight or "moonlight" as thats what is natrually happening and then key/backlight with tungsten or red or something with color to emulat street light....just curious what your thoughts are on that....the shoots look very nice, and specifics on lighting setup you could share...what lights?


thanks


Jake
 
I actually assumed they were nikons for some reason, but my question was really about which lenses in particular you have in your kit and which lenses you used in this - you clearly have some good lenses, so any info as to what they are, so I could buy the same for myself, would be great. Thanks.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
It's the lenses that eat up the light. I mean the light loss is quite significant. In the shots where you see both of them standing in the kitchen there si a 500w bulb not far away from the top of the frame... Wow! It needs so much light.

Originaly i was going to make the night yellow but when i placed those HMIs outside and was wide open i realized i can't loose extra light by geling the lights.
Click to expand...

What apperture where you shooting at? in the Nikon lenses? What HMI's were outside, what wattage?

thanks again.
 
Those are great Patryk. The HVX in SD mode is quite impressive. As is your use of it.

With the night shots you could have balanced to 5600k and pushed the color temp in post. This would work best in the 4:2:2 space, though.

Though it sounds like the director wouldn't be savvy on that.

Cheers,

:beer: Matt
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
originaly outside shots were going to be yellow-orange like in thise shots:
http://photographs.patrykrebisz.com/p_spaces1.html

but i didn't have enough power so i had to go with "uncorrected" daylight (those are 1.2s HMIs).

We used 35mm, 50mm and 105mm, but only the 50mm was a super speed at 1.8.
Click to expand...

Those are sodium vapor lights. It's tottally different form the blue night aproach. And it's a lot better to start from Tungsteng than from HMI's. I think lee has now a gel that corrects Tungsteng to sodium vapor, but it does loses a lot of light.

If you want to recreate that sodium vaport look, my advice will be to use an open face 2K or something like that, and use the gel. It gives the film a whole different atmosphere than uncorrected HMI's that are used a lot in night situations too. But the story needs to call for it. Not knowing the story I like what you did.
 
Hello all - I am the fellow dvxuser from the shoot.

It was great working with Patryk - he has got a great sense of light. Truly a pleasure to work with.

The lenses we had available were 28 2.8, 35 3.2, 50 1.8, 105, 2.8 135 3.2

actually I gotta check those stop numbers - they are my lenses but I forget when I am not near them. Unfortunately you will get some vignetting when shooting wide open - the only way to avoid that is to zoom in on the image element more (losing image) or blast lights to make it less noticable. This is the biggest negative of using lower cost lenses.

They did require a lot of light - but Patryk managed to keep the levels high enough. You do need to be careful pulling focus though - sometimes I needed to make 1/20th turn adjustments when the actor would lean in a bit just to keep the eyes sharp - and this was in SD.

Key thing with the M2 is the setup - I bring a focus chart on set and go through the side to side and up down setup everytime I put the camera up for the day. I then use the focus chart to fine tune the corners - this is the key thing to do for maximum sharpness.

The m2/hvx combo is great together as long as you have the proper lighting
 
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