GH2 What's in your GH2 bag? (feature)

I'm confused on the whole ND filters thing. I'm not sure what to buy to make sure its going to work.
 
I carry ND4's and ND8's. It's not really worth buying a variND filter unless it's a tiffen, heliopan or a singh-ray, and they're expensive
 
Ideally you'd have a matte box which had filter slots. If your going to be buying threaded filters you have to make sure that they are the propper size to fit your lens or a larger size so you can use step up adapters to make them work. Say you have a lens with a 52mm filter thread and you also have a lens with a 77mm filter thread, you'd want to buy a 77mm filter and a step up ring from 52mm to 77mm so that the filter would work with both of your lenses. Stacking filters is where it can get tricky, because some filters, polarizers or a vari ND (Which I DON'T like because it will soften the image, but some people like to use them) for example, require them to be able to rotate. When you have more than one stacked on top of another and not locked the way they can be in a matte box then you run the risk of them rotating freely without your knowledge causing all types of problems. You can use the old gaff tape trick and gaff them in place but this is still less than ideal.
 
here's a stupid question.. my lenses use 52mm lens caps.. does that then mean they would use 52mm filters?
 
I have a mattebox but it does not have filter slots. Its brand new, so I won't be changing up for a while.
 
Did a feature a couple of months back - link is below - to an extended trailer that was for folks who worked on the film. All i had was the gh2 and the kit lens 14-42 one tiffen 6 nd - rode 3 shot gun - tascam recorder - tripod and a car suction mount. Turned out to be not too bad. So I thought anyhow.

http://vimeo.com/33961713
 
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The reason to maybe think of trading your matte box up for one with slots is that buying filters is like buying lenses. Good filters LAST. Cheap filters will add all kind of bad variables into the images you make (Color shifts etc) and buying good filters (even screw on filters) can cost a lot of money. Having all your filters match is important as well, different brand filters can have different looks. I prefer Tiffen myself and use their filters exclusively, think of it like buying a set of Zeiss lenses, you want the glass to match. A good rule of thumb is, if your in this for the long haul, then buy well, or expect to buy again. Just price out buying a 4x4 matte box and a set of ND .3, .6, .9 a nice polorizer and one ND grad for that matte box vs buying a nice set of screw on filters and your only going to pay a couple hundred more. Maybe it seems like a lot, but if you use it on one paid gig it's going to pay for it's self. I always hear people say that a matte box makes their rig "LOOK" more pro, maybe that's because pro's use them to control the images they make... Just a thought.
 
Hi Kevin, your film looks good. Did you use a hack? What scene file settings did you use? What was the budget?
 
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