Red Epic-X #5232 "Spike"

[Steve Sherrick]

Phil, love that photo of your Epic and Spike!

Your posts are always a highlight of Reduser, so I look forward to seeing what you are able to achieve with your Epic, especially in terms of texture experiments.

Also, thanks for the details on the swing away options, sonething I have been meaning to look into for my O-box.

 

[Phil Holland]

Thanks all. Been having a blast shooting a large variety of material since picking up the Epic.

@Steve. It's sort of neat having it swing away now. It's also neat not needing to as well. OConnor should make something so it can officially go with the O-Box. I hope they do at at some point.

Phil,

16:9 doesn't seem to be wide enough for me, at least for what I want to shoot most of the time(personal projects).

I agree. Commercially speaking though there's going to be a lot of 16x9 UHD 4K displays out there and that's why i "know" I'll be using that a lot. I've been digging 2:1 a hell of a lot though. I've always been a fan of 2.40:1 though. It's not for everything, like I wouldn't shoot a romantic comedy that way. But for personal and serious work I love that format. I do wish I saw more 2:1 out there though.

And when some one like you is that Filmmaker that takes such a tool in hands, it is a true pleasure see the results... Look forward to see your film on EPIC Phil!!
And I guess I'll see you soon in LA!!
Those btw are some really nice and very detailed frame grabs Phil, love them!!

Thanks Ketch. Please do hit me up when you get into town. If I'm not swamped it'll be great to welcome you to LA.

Really like the scooter shots...can't get those everywhere.

Interested in your use/plan, for a matte boxe and filters sizes, currently and going forward. The wider end at 6K and even FF 5K, at, say the 19mm end of the Cabrio, is an issue.

Tough call at the moment, but I'm actually really not worried about it. I think it's going to depend largely on the glass and matte box combo you end up using, but I already know I'm somewhat safe for most standard length primes and zooms at the moment. In reality though, with the Motion Mount on it's way I'll be likely using the matte box more for the flags and might go down to something with one filter tray or *gasp* none. Which is interesting actually.


Time for some more frame grabs.

Here's some low light burlesque action grabs shot on Panavision Primos all at T1.9. Which is some of my favorite glass out there optically speaking. Mysterium-X handled this just fine. Dragon's only going to make "rough shooting conditions" like this look better MX 5K 2:1 at REDCODE 5:1.


















Practicing wild focus pulls really pays off when shooting constantly moving subjects.

Here's one off the Panavision Primo 150mm T1.9 Prime, also wide open.



And the setup on that:




That little tripod is something called an "Induro Dual Range Hi-Hat" which I picked up while on a small "gearing up shopping trip" with BigLu in Hollywood recently. It's pretty much replaced my cast iron hi-hat at this point and it hold up to 200lbs, which is nuts. It handled that PV Primo 150mm just fine and it's a hefty lens.


Lastly a couple in grabs from something I shot recently with my Schneider Cine-Xenar III Primes. Mostly at T2 and T4. Mysterium-X 5K HD @ 5:1.











More soon.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Wow Phil, you weren't kidding when you said your Schneider lenses had the Leica feel to them

 

[Paul Harb]

Jumbo's Clown Room??

Thanks all. Been having a blast shooting a large variety of material since picking up the Epic.

@Steve. It's sort of neat having it swing away now. It's also neat not needing to as well. OConnor should make something so it can officially go with the O-Box. I hope they do at at some point.




I agree. Commercially speaking though there's going to be a lot of 16x9 UHD 4K displays out there and that's why i "know" I'll be using that a lot. I've been digging 2:1 a hell of a lot though. I've always been a fan of 2.40:1 though. It's not for everything, like I wouldn't shoot a romantic comedy that way. But for personal and serious work I love that format. I do wish I saw more 2:1 out there though.




Thanks Ketch. Please do hit me up when you get into town. If I'm not swamped it'll be great to welcome you to LA.




Tough call at the moment, but I'm actually really not worried about it. I think it's going to depend largely on the glass and matte box combo you end up using, but I already know I'm somewhat safe for most standard length primes and zooms at the moment. In reality though, with the Motion Mount on it's way I'll be likely using the matte box more for the flags and might go down to something with one filter tray or *gasp* none. Which is interesting actually.


Time for some more frame grabs.

Here's some low light burlesque action grabs shot on Panavision Primos all at T1.9. Which is some of my favorite glass out there optically speaking. Mysterium-X handled this just fine. Dragon's only going to make "rough shooting conditions" like this look better MX 5K 2:1 at REDCODE 5:1.


















Practicing wild focus pulls really pays off when shooting constantly moving subjects.

Here's one off the Panavision Primo 150mm T1.9 Prime, also wide open.



And the setup on that:




That little tripod is something called an "Induro Dual Range Hi-Hat" which I picked up while on a small "gearing up shopping trip" with BigLu in Hollywood recently. It's pretty much replaced my cast iron hi-hat at this point and it hold up to 200lbs, which is nuts. It handled that PV Primo 150mm just fine and it's a hefty lens.


Lastly a couple in grabs from something I shot recently with my Schneider Cine-Xenar III Primes. Mostly at T2 and T4. Mysterium-X 5K HD @ 5:1.











More soon.

 

[Phil Holland]

Wow Phil, you weren't kidding when you said your Schneider lenses had the Leica feel to them

Heh. I have some better examples that are less "commercially" inclined, but yes I feel they got a bit of that.

Jumbo's Clown Room??

Good lord no. Jumbo's would be a hell of a place to shoot in due to it's compact space and somewhat annoying mirrored walls. This was shot at Harvelles in Santa Monica at one of the more modern and well choreographed burlesque shows in town. A bit different than the standard fair.

 

[akash adhikari]

Hello Phil, Congratuletions, I'm also hoping soon...

 

[Phil Holland]

Wow Phil, you weren't kidding when you said your Schneider lenses had the Leica feel to them

Today I was asked about my Schneider Cine-Xenar III Primes and I wanted to actually show what I was talking about here from the Schneider Xenon FF-Prime thread, from which I said:

The more I shoot with the Cine-Xenars the more I'm enjoying the way they draw. When I was thinking about purchasing them I did a lot of technical tests just to see what they could do, but now after a few shoots with people and different lighting setups I'm really digging the look. They do have an "energy" about them. There's nothing really like these on the market when it comes to that aspect. Been shooting mostly between T2 and T5. Did some VFX elements at T8 a bit back though and that also had a nice flavor, even though the subject matter was very flat. They got a bit of that Standard Speed, Leica-esque draw and tone, and a bit of PV Primo "containment" in there with proper and consistent mechanics. A unique look. I know where they rank on my personal list of what cinema glass I enjoy. Heh. I'll have to break down that top 10 one day.

My only real quibble with these is that they should have just labeled them as a T2 set. I get the reason for this level of precision in terms of actual markings and the pride that comes with it, but nobody else does this. And believe me even on some of the higher end pricey glass there's easily that level of variation across a set within individual lenses. But you didn't hear that from me.

I wanted to elaborate a bit on this and share a few notes on these lenses, because to date this is still one of the biggest purchasing decisions I've had to make. I've used damn near every cinema prime around and I found some unique things I liked about these that were hard to put my finger on.

So here's an actual test I threw together to show just "lovely" these are which pretty much influenced my purchase decision:




That's one hell of a matched set in my opinion. Because of that it's got this nice neutral and natural feel. It also sort of points out why theses should just be labeled T2 primes.

Some other notes from earlier tests and shooting.

I found that their flare control was pretty impressive and the image doesn't explode. This is a Baby 1K aimed at the lens above her head. I can make it flare worse, but I dig this particular level of control within a lens:




This image sort of points out what I like about the draw on the lens. What's in focus and how it rolls out of focus off your subject.




Deeper apertures like T8 here also provide an interesting feel. Really like the feel to the texture as well as the color. The focus here was on the front most brick:




Then there was this image which literally was the very first frame off my new Epic Spike.



That's my ugly mug, but there's something captivating about that test shot that I like. Mostly how the raked soft light held detail in the skin and didn't freak me out

Add to that the solid mechanics, consistent gearing, alarmingly accurate scales on the lens, nice close focus, and 3 telecentric designs (50, 75, 95) that don't breath while focusing then the buying decision became a bit easier. The 18, 25, and 35 seem to all have "unique properties" but the look itself matches nicely. I'm glad I took my time testing and thinking about it though. Took about 3 months total to really pull the trigger as I was looking at other glass as well. Mainly I looked at at a small set of Zeiss Ultra Primes or Cooke s4/i Primes. Really couldn't lose any direction I chose here actually.

For me this came down to being the right set for me for commercial type work and totally suitable for a feature. Also, the lenses hit the technical marks I needed for some of VFX oriented work I do.


Anyways. Enough of my crazy lens nonsense. I turn 34 tomorrow. Light celebration and all that. Professionally this last year has been outstanding. Life changing actually. However, I feel deep in my heart that this coming year is going to be something more and a bit different. It's been an interesting journey moving forward with my Director and Director of Photography career. Working hard towards that for a while now. Don't think I'll stop doing the odd color job here or there and certainly not going to turn down consulting work. VFX Supervisor perhaps on smaller gigs still, did that a couple times this last year. Sort of comes naturally to me; we'll have to see where that goes. This year I hope to land more operating jobs as well. Maybe some tricky stuff. Been doing more professional writing work, which is nice to finally land a few punches with muscle. Couple concept gigs in there too. It's all up in the air really. We'll have to see how it plays out

 

[Domenic Barbero]

I bought that same induro hi hat a while back and have impressed so many people on set with it. Such a beast and sooooo incredibly functional. I like that we have a very similar set up minus the lenses. Great minds think alike.

 

[Adam Beck]

Anyways. Enough of my crazy lens nonsense. I turn 34 tomorrow. Light celebration and all that. Professionally this last year has been outstanding. Life changing actually. However, I feel deep in my heart that this coming year is going to be something more and a bit different. It's been an interesting journey moving forward with my Director and Director of Photography career. Working hard towards that for a while now. Don't think I'll stop doing the odd color job here or there and certainly not going to turn down consulting work. VFX Supervisor perhaps on smaller gigs still, did that a couple times this last year. Sort of comes naturally to me; we'll have to see where that goes. This year I hope to land more operating jobs as well. Maybe some tricky stuff. Been doing more professional writing work, which is nice to finally land a few punches with muscle. Couple concept gigs in there too. It's all up in the air really. We'll have to see how it plays out

Happy Birthday Phil, excited to see where your career takes you.

 

[BrendanLeahy]

Hey Phil, I'm curious about your packing situation for festivals. I know you shot Coachella a while ago while you still had "Skully", but wanted to see how you deal with hauling gear around (backpack, pelicans, or otherwise)? What does it look like and what is your average weight in gear that you have to lug around?

 

[Neil Dearman]

is that your setup too!!! I want that Lens!!!!

 

[Phil Holland]

Just popping in real quick.

I bought that same induro hi hat a while back and have impressed so many people on set with it. Such a beast and sooooo incredibly functional. I like that we have a very similar set up minus the lenses. Great minds think alike.

Yep. That was an easy purchase for sure. Love that little thing.

Happy Birthday Phil, excited to see where your career takes you.

Thank you Adam and me too

Hey Phil, I'm curious about your packing situation for festivals. I know you shot Coachella a while ago while you still had "Skully", but wanted to see how you deal with hauling gear around (backpack, pelicans, or otherwise)? What does it look like and what is your average weight in gear that you have to lug around?

Coachella was a bit of a marathon. Getting on and off the field required moving my Multi-Cart from Artist Camp to center field/center stage every day, which was about 1/2 a mile each trip way. Not fun in the sun with a couple hundred pounds of gear. I setup HQ backstage at the center stage as that's the sort of central location to everywhere and on of my primary gigs there was capturing something that went on at center stage. So simple choice there. Going on stage I pretty much shot with the CLUTCH or on sticks. Between glass, accessories, and sticks I sometimes was carrying around 65lbs. You aren't allowed to use carts during the festival hours for safety reasons, so it is a pickup and haul game. The downside to most of this is bands play at every stage and they are far apart, so it's hiking with the gear. Basically what I was carrying on me in a worst case scenario to each shooting node was a backpack with glass and other AKS, a tripod, and the camera w/ CLUTCH. I often just kept the camera on the tripod and ditched the shoulder bag to just sling the whole thing over my shoulder. That helped for speed. There were two times I also brought a small ladder with me in my left hand. That sucked, but I got above the crowd shots that I was after. Gloves and water. Without those things I couldn't shoot that show. Lost 16lbs during 3 days of shooting btw. Great workout

is that your setup too!!! I want that Lens!!!!

Panavision Primo Primes are Panavision's. That's rental only territory. I have the most on camera experience using Panavision Primos, Zeiss Master Primes, and Zeiss Ultra Primes. This year changed that drastically because I purchased a set of Schneider Cine-Xenar III Primes and I've been shooting with those mostly. A few shoots with the Leica Summilux-C Primes, which I adore. And of course a great deal of lens tests, which allow me to look a bit deeper into a larger variety of glass. Zooms have been the most educational for me this year as there's some stellar new glass on the market now. However, 2013 is going to go down as the year that at some point or another I shot with damn near every cinema prime available between prep, tests, and the more recent Dragon coverage tests I don't recall a time in my life where I shot with such a variety in a short time. That's been great.

I did recently spend a good amount of time with the Luma Tech Illumina S35 Super Speed Primes. I'm somewhat in the market for a set of fast primes, although I'm likely grabbing a zoom or two first just because that's a production reality. These have fascinated me for one reason or another. I'll do a more concise write up on my thoughts on these soon.


Dragon Incoming

If you've been following what I've been up to lately you may have noticed that I'm putting a lot of gear together. This is pretty much all preparing for Dragon's launch. Glass, support, CPU stuff, etc.... It's been interesting. More importantly I'm excited about it, which has certainly put a fire under my butt to accelerate a few things on my to do list and also delay a couple others. Mainly I'm holding off on building my new CPU and storage solution for just a bit longer as a I have a pretty decent system/solution at the moment. However, something I did need to take care of was upgrading my GPU, so earlier today I installed an nVidia Titan. It's certainly a boost all around.

Resolve 10 is coming very, very soon. And it's one of the tools I use for my color work (athough it might get used a bit more with the new editing features). It's been an interesting year on the color workflow front. Adobe CC with new and better support regarding Speedgrade's Lumetri Color Engine has certainly influenced my "speedier" workflows. I'm actually really fond of working with BaseLight as well, although I really wish FilmLight would make a version that was happy with Premiere Pro similar to their FCPX support.

One thing I'm grateful for though is Redcine-X Pro. That program is free and incredibly useful. This year I've been using it for one lights and even finished grades. It's also only been getting better with time. Last week at Gnomon we discussed Color Theory and how it applies to a post color workflow and it's nice to showcase the freedom we have these days both in capture and in post.


On that subject, here's a couple shots that go from as captured REDCODE Raw, to color corrected, and finished with a color grade all done within Redcine-X Pro.




And a more analogous palette on the grade:




The other thing I've been putting together has been fleshing out an additional field audio kit. I decided to go with the Zaxcom MAXX after learning more about it at NAB 2013. The day after my birthday I got the call to come pick it up at Trew Audio. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was informed by Zaxcom that I received the "official" first MAXX. Nice little birthday present right there.

(*note to self lose 15lbs)

I've got that jamming timecode nicely with my Epic and syncing in Redcine-X Pro, working on a wireless sync for that soon. I've used about 15 mics on it, love the preamps and Neverclip is about the most interesting feature I've seen on a field recorder in some time. I've mostly been using it with my Sennheiser MKH-416 and just finished up sampling and producing some freelance sound design work (monsters and banging sounds) with this combo. Loving it so far. A couple of things to tweak on the firmware for sure, but it's pretty much perfect for my needs.

Next week I'm bidding on a couple gigs after finishing up my last commercial shoot. Other than that waiting and preparing for Dragon.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

How did you turned 15mm Obox to 19mm Phil? where can i get Shoot35 adapter?
Also is that 1030D or Ds which tripod you are using with it.

 

[Isaac Marchionna]

1030D. I have the Ds and would suggest going for the DS if you have the cash.

Also oconnors bridge for 19mm works in conjunction with their 15mm adapter to get you to 19mm.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/743363-REG/OConnor_C1243_1118_Studio_Adaptor_19mm.html

 

[Phil Holland]

How did you turned 15mm Obox to 19mm Phil? where can i get Shoot35 adapter?
Also is that 1030D or Ds which tripod you are using with it.

I'd contact Shoot35, but it appears that little bridge got discontinued. I purchased it because it was the lightest weight bridge I could find.

And yep, as Isaac mentioned, it's a 1030D.

 

[Patrick Wieland]

Those color grades in RCX are insane!