Streets of Omaha

This was done basically as a spoof ala The Sopranos series intro with additional footage for "seasoning".

My friend, actor Jerry Murray, drove with me around some of the streets of downtown Omaha that resemble in a bit that New Jersey look, so to speak. Shot some city landmarks along the way.

Done in HD 720p at 24fps using the HVX200 with the Letus Extreme and Canon / Nikon 35mm f/2.8 zoom lenses and primes.
Timed in After Effects and film-looked with our Proceso Cinematico Digital-PCD.

Filming the Alter Ego video

So finally....the Utopía videoclip was shot on monday.
The day was packed with details that made it a frenzy one in production anecdotes.

Lighting took quite a while as the place was big and the main power box was a bit far from the shooting sets. We had a late start and had to push my singing shots to the end of the day and overrun our schedule ending time by three and a half hours. We wrapped for the day early morning the next day. Besides of that, it was good to see all the band together after years of being apart.

Establishing shots were done in 720p at 24fps using a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM, medium and tight tele shots were done with the Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD and Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF zoom lenses all using the Letus Extreme.

The HVX200 delivered beautiful colors and details but had to lower the V-detail a bit to get rid of the "video" sharpness and get closer to film edge-quality.

Tried far to hue the colors in-camera as not to overload post-production and rendering times. So far, on today's tests, it's giving me five hours per minute of video.
The Jib-arm bringed those floating shots I so love and raising up to 12 feet, it sure brought production value to the shots.
As always, my good old friend Aguinaga was with me on the lights and it was a good thing to work once again together after so many years and like on every job, he is quite ready for light directions I might have. Most of my latter work was done with him under and I must say he is not only a great professional but a great friend.

Here are some pics of the shooting.
The second day of shooting will be on the weekend.

Here below is a first color grading test of random clips from the video.

Nikon zoom fixed again

I took the Nikon zoom lens for repair and the guy did well. He dismantled the whole lens in parts and found that the problem was the the Manual/Automatic switch: it wasn't clamping well enough and it became loose, leaving the focus ring to spin freely without engaging the focusing internal motors.
This was the ofending part: The switch that didn't clamp well.
I have another Canon 35mm f/2.0 Prime lens that the focus ring didn't work as well. Dismantled the whole thing also.
It seems that it has the internal spining mechanism broken. I bought it refurbished in the US and I still have the warranty but it's too much hassle having it sent there, paying shipping and waiting for weeks to have it fixed, so just went ahead and took care of business myself. The guy sure seems to know what he's doing. Gotta pick it tomorrow though.
I just hope the Nikon lens doesn't become broken again and this time its fixed for good.

UPDATE: Went to pick up my Canon 35mm Prime and it works fine at last. The Nikon zoom lens is not giving me any problems either. Hope it stays that way.

Found a bargain Nikon zoom lens

I bought a Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR lens a month ago. I guess it was second hand but it looked like new. The quality of the picture is quite good and decided to buy it after reading some reviews. But Im kinda short on the far end of the zoom range. I cant get tight shots from far away as 75mm isnt enough so I need to go shopping.

Some days ago, while searching for weeks for fast zoom lenses on a local market (cant go higher than 2.8, the Letus eats up 1/2 of a stop) I found a nice little (big actually) Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF lens. It looks amazing! It's condition was quite abused (the focus ring was loose, the zoom ring was jerky and it stuck often) but it looked repairable. Besides, the price was tempting (less than 1/4 of its actual price new) and it seemed repairable. So I told the guy if he could have it repaired and if done well I'll take it. He agreed.

That lens is really huge. Almost the size of the Canon XL 16x II, and the good news it can keep a 2.8 stop in all it's range. It can also go down to 22. I checked the glass under bright light and I didn't see any scratches and dont detect any aberrations either.

I called the guy yesterday and he has it repaired. Im just waiting for the Nikon Lens Mount from Letus to arrive tomorrow to have that huge lens installed on my cam rig!

It's quite a bargain...I just hope the repair is not just a momentary "make-up" and down the road in some days it starts falling apart again. The place doesn't offer a warranty.

Letus Extreme 35mm adapter

So now, this thing is quite heavy!

Weighing like a medium size rock, Hyen from Letus sure made this thing quite solid and professional: Sharp look, black matte finish, battery compartment inside with a magnet door (very clever), vibrating Ground Glass, rotating interchangeable lens mount (for Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Olympus and even Zeiss PL mounts for 35mm lens), allen screws for tightening parts and included is an achromat for your specific camera, so I ordered the HVX200 Optimization Kit.

The HVX200 is known for sometimes not having a truly dead-center CCD chip so in some units, the ground glass screen will not be totally centered when attached to the camera. Mine has that small issue as I noticed, so I called Hyen at Letus Corp. He was very helpful in telling me the options (which included sending the camera back to Panasonic for fixing that which of course I declined....to much time), so I came back with my own solution: rotating the adapter 180* so it would be on the upper side (the Letus has this L-shaped kinda form) and then....the focusing screen was sharp center and framed! But that also arouse other problems: the adapter was now a bit high for the bracket support that holds the Letus in place with the rods, so I had to make my own in a metal workshop. Aluminum of course not to put more weigh on the already heavy kit. I had it the next day and problem solved!

Now, once the adapter was attached to the camera, the next step is to achieve sharp focus on the ground glass inside the Letus. This is achieved by zooming out all the way to the "wide" position (Z00 in the HVX200). What we get to see is the focusing screen way far inside a "dark room" and to the sides we can notice the prism system mirrors. Then zoom in more until we fill up all the viewfinder screen (and a little bit more to avoid vignetting depending on the lens used). We point at something bright and we focus until we get to see the grain in the ground glass. When that is achieved it's a good idea to write down the focus number and never touch the focusing ring again. Mine is at focus 0.95 and the screen is filled up by Z22.7 but it could differ a bit on some other camera units. You can see that sharp focus is achieved when you get to see the grain in the ground glass. In the picture to the left you can see the grain in the ground glass. The overexposed white spot top right is a bright lamp that I turned down with the dimmer after the pic. The Letus needs to be off by the way. Only turn it on when fully focused to make the grain go away but leave it off for now. Now attach the lens. For this test I used a two lenses: the Canon AF 22-55 f/4.0 and the Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 Prime lens. I chose those two different lens because of the difference in speed and see how the Letus handled range of apertures. Now, the focus chart helps to detect unevenness in sharpness or any fall-off on the sides. So far, so good. I don't see any side blurriness too much and it seems fine .

A Day at the Park

I love Nebraska!
Besides being the home of my beloved gorgeous woman, the wide vast plains and landscapes offer such a cornucopia of views for the filmmaker or any director of photography. I've seen online work of others in Oregon and Washington and really their landscapes help a lot with such a beautiful scenery (not to mention their great eye for beauty of course!).

I took the cam out in one of my free days to a park near Chalco in Omaha. The day couldn't be more perfect than it was. It started with a sunny warm-toned day, turning to a blueish cold cast as sunset approached and then the sky turned bright red (as the Atlanta sky in "Gone with the Wind") and....boom!! thunderstorms, lightning and rain. Being a tornado area it wasn't a good idea to be outside as those little-big fuckers could happen in any moment as it did those weeks I was there.

I just took some shots and played a little role in it to improvise a simple story of me in the park.

I used the HVX200, the Letus Extreme, Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 Prime lens and Canon EF 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM lens for the tight long shots.
Shot it in 1080 at 24p, used Premiere CS3 to edit it, color graded in After Effects and finished with our Proceso Cinematico Digital.
And below is what came out.
Enjoy!

An Evening at the Park


AN EVENING AT THE PARK from Juan Carlos Oganes on Vimeo.