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Motion mount vs ND glass

A

Alberto Guglielmi

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I read around a bit, but I would like to get some opinions from REDusers who used the motion mount.
I usually shoot at 24 or 60, sometime 72. Small crew, minimal setup. So I was considering the Canon motion mount rather than a set of ND filters.
Currently i am getting by with 2 screw-on filters for different lens size, but it is limiting me.

Any reasons to prefer ND glass from the motion mount?
I understand that past 4 stops it gives issues at wider apertures, and that it is better at lower fps. But I don't see much reasoning against it.
Why it is not more widely used around?
 
Motion Mount is MUCH, MUCH cleaner. Period.

If you are ok with just needing 4 Stops of ND, then the Motion Mount is unbeatable, as far as we're concerned.

Our colorist LOVES it.

Never underestimate how much cleaner BEHIND THE GLASS filtration is, especially from the Motion Mount.

I don't care what anyone says, but in our experience...front mounted ND's always have some color shift - even our amazing Firecrest ND's, especially in blazing sun and in trying situations like on the beach or in high attitude mountains.

But we did a comparison on a recent job and subbed in a Motion Mount in these same grueling scenarios, and our colorist was BLOWN AWAY by how much cleaner, consistent and gradable the footage was.

We are huge fans.

We just always keep it in Global Shutter mode, limiting us to 4 stops. In pure ND mode (up to 8 stops), we found the "skew" slightly unappealing. Also the Global Shutter mode seems to keep the Motion Mount in a "happy" place.
 
Nick,

What do you mean by Skew? Are you commenting on the standard rolling shutter on the camera or does the pure ND mode add another artefact? Thanks in advance.
 
I love the motion mount(s) PL and EF and I too keep mine limited to the 4stop limit. I had one little issue when I first used it as 96fps or something 180deg there was some funny flickering and I did not notice it and it kind of boned me and I had to re-shoot the shot with everyone wondering if I knew what I was doing! I stripped it off and used static mount and firecrest filters on the re-shoot.

For sure get the motion mount but keep a static mount handy for low light situations and if you ever get into my flicker territory.
 
One other thing to consider is that with the Motin mount you loose 1 Stop (at least, i believe) by having it on. So, your F2.8 lenses become F4 lenses the moment you put it on. With a traditional ND you can remove it and have the full aperture range of the lens. If you know you will be only shooting with a good lighting package or in an outdoor only scenario then the motion mount makes a tone of sense. If you might go from bright outdoors to indoor interviews in the same day, or night shoots, then know that you loose a stop of light with the motion mount attached.

If the Motion mount only lost a 1/3 or a 1/2 stop I think everyone would have one, but a full stop is a lot to give up.

David
 
David Battistella said:
One other thing to consider is that with the Motin mount you loose 1 Stop (at least, i believe) by having it on. So, your F2.8 lenses become F4 lenses the moment you put it on. With a traditional ND you can remove it and have the full aperture range of the lens. If you know you will be only shooting with a good lighting package or in an outdoor only scenario then the motion mount makes a tone of sense. If you might go from bright outdoors to indoor interviews in the same day, or night shoots, then know that you loose a stop of light with the motion mount attached.

If the Motion mount only lost a 1/3 or a 1/2 stop I think everyone would have one, but a full stop is a lot to give up.

David
Click to expand...

The logic is right but the Fstop remains the same but the T stop change.


I think the Tstop is brought down by 1.3 when using the motion mount. It creates artifacts when used on lenses when shooting with iris open and the more so the more you apply it. So the scope for the motion mount is rather limited. As it cuts light when you want it and it only provide quite limited ND without giving artifacts.

To me the cool thing red could do with this tech would be to make a set of infront of lens motion filters that just conneted to the Dtap an ctr port of the camera. Then we could pull it out of the mattebox when not needed an I assume that would also get around most of the artifacts.
 
Tom Gleeson said:
Nick,

What do you mean by Skew? Are you commenting on the standard rolling shutter on the camera or does the pure ND mode add another artefact? Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

On a long lens (200mm), we found that ND added skew. May have been a firmware issue? (We dont regularly update).

However GLOBAL SHUTTER modes were ROCK SOLID and noticeably improved what minimal rolling shutter the camera has - we were VERY impressed.
 
That's right Bjorn,

The F-Stop does not change, the amount of light transmission does. 1.3 stops is a lot.

I guess i was was making the point of how much light you loose off the bat with the MM.

I also forgot about the fact that you can't really shoot wide open aperture with the MM attached, further limiting its use in some situations.

David



Björn Benckert said:
The logic is right but the Fstop remains the same but the T stop change.


I think the Tstop is brought down by 1.3 when using the motion mount. It creates artifacts when used on lenses when shooting with iris open and the more so the more you apply it. So the scope for the motion mount is rather limited. As it cuts light when you want it and it only provide quite limited ND without giving artifacts.

To me the cool thing red could do with this tech would be to make a set of infront of lens motion filters that just conneted to the Dtap an ctr port of the camera. Then we could pull it out of the mattebox when not needed an I assume that would also get around most of the artifacts.
Click to expand...
 
David Battistella said:
I also forgot about the fact that you can't really shoot wide open aperture with the MM attached, further limiting its use in some situations.

David
Click to expand...

I think this needs some clarity. You can't shoot wide open on FAST APERTURE glass on a motion mount. Ie no 1.2/1.4 or f2 WIDE OPEN. But you can go wide open at 2.8 or f4. We do it all the time. No issues.

We use Motion Mount for EXTERIOR WORK, at an f4 / 5.6 / f8. Works amazing. VERY CLEAN.
 
Nick,

Can I ask for a clarification on the artefacts when using fast aperture glass? Wide open do the artefacts start showing at any ND value or do they start presenting after a certain ND value is reached? If you have the Motion Mount set to no ND value do the artefacts show at all at f1.4?
In regards to these artefacts how bad do you consider them? I have only ever seen one example and it did not seem that bad.
 
Tom Gleeson said:
Nick,

Can I ask for a clarification on the artefacts when using fast aperture glass? Wide open do the artefacts start showing at any ND value or do they start presenting after a certain ND value is reached? If you have the Motion Mount set to no ND value do the artefacts show at all at f1.4?
In regards to these artefacts how bad do you consider them? I have only ever seen one example and it did not seem that bad.
Click to expand...

We've honestly never seen the artifacts, ever. I'm just going from what I read in the manual, and from what I believe Phil Holland mentioned once when I FB messengered him asking for clarity.

We've used the Motion Mount on two big jobs past couple of months - both were OUTDOORS, and we were often btw an F4 and F8. We just didn't want to use ND, if we could avoid it.

Motion Mount worked like a charm (we had TWO on our last job, as it was multicam) and our colorist Jake Blackstone was VERY HAPPY.

Wish I could give you more info.

We've never had to go to a 1.4 on a motion mount - as we've needed it in OPPOSITE conditions...when it's been very bright (ie California Beach and Florida Jungle).

I can't stress enough that for 1.3 to 4 stops ND, the Motion Mount is unbeatable. IF we need more ND we add a 0.3 or 0.6 Firecrest on the front, but never more. Otherwise we just stop down.
 
Nick Morrison said:
I think this needs some clarity. You can't shoot wide open on FAST APERTURE glass on a motion mount. Ie no 1.2/1.4 or f2 WIDE OPEN. But you can go wide open at 2.8 or f4. We do it all the time. No issues.

We use Motion Mount for EXTERIOR WORK, at an f4 / 5.6 / f8. Works amazing. VERY CLEAN.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that clarity Nick.

David
 
Nick Vera said:
Stick with dedicated ND filters.
Click to expand...

Completely disagree. Dedicated ND's give you color shift, even the best like Firecrest. But the Motion Mount? Spotless. No color shifts. Pristine footage.

We saw it with our own eyes, with our colorist in the grade, and never went back.
 
Yeah,

You know what, if youre shooting at night of course 1.3 stops loss hurts and you would never use the thing but you would know this prior to the shoot anyway.
I am not sure about artifacts but there is a warning in the manual that suggests not going past 4stops of ND. Depending on your situation, like myself and Nick do, add a 0.6 hard ND or a pola and you are golden. You can quickly dial in 1/10th stop increments (if you want that fine tuning) and not have to take the 2mins to change a filter.
For me personally, shooting a lot in the water, I often setup in the pre dawn and 'guess' what the cloud cover might do at sunrise for the cliche sunrise surfer shot. Then inevitably the 'A' camera shoots that magic hour and I am given talent right at the end of magic hour and I am forced to open up my housing and grab the correct ND which in my situation eats up valuable time. Motion mount is amazing. i keep a 0.6 on there and use the thing wide open until i need to dial it up. Saved my bacon a number of times!

As for needing to swap it out for a static mount if you go indoors etc, really by now you guys should know it takes about 2mins to swap a mount. Its 4x screws and its done. Takes more time to swap and lens and filter so hardly a big deal.
They are a little expensive but for what they do and can do if you dig a little deeper, its money well spent.

As for wide open fast lenses??? Not heard about that til now but most of my lenses are 2.8 anyway. I might have to check this issue myself.
 
I am bumping this up, as I feel with the higher sensitivity of the Helium and Epic-W it might be even more useful. I haven't got one yet, but I have an order in for the Epic-W and I am seriously considering it again.

Did anybody tried it with Helium already?
 
I've been using the MM a lot for doc work.

The fact that it starts with 1.6 stops of ND is kind of a bummer, otherwise I would leave it on my camera permanently. As it is, I tend to just use it for exteriors, and typically I'm adding around 6 stops of ND as well as stopping down to at least f/2.8 or f/3.5.

I've never seen these mythical artifacts, even when it's super bright and I'm using 8 stops of ND on the MM.

The MM is great, *especially* for fast moving shoots like docs, where you need to quickly change exposure to prevent clipping at the sensor.

The only things that stop the MM being perfect for me are:
- not being able to dial back to 0 ND
- I see a little white balance shift when changing the ND value. Since the WB is metadata anyway, I don't really give a shit about that, but it's probably not totally ideal.
 
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