Attempting Home Telecine of Neg Stock, Tips?

[Tscan]

I'm going to transfer some neg on my new Sony HDR with the workprinter setup. The Sony HDR-HC9 is one of the few new HD models I was able to find that still had the negative art feature. So I'm able to invert my image, set white balance and exposure before capture. I also have an array of gels... in every color if I incude my sample pack. I'm wondering which color might best neutralize the orange mask. I was thinking blue, but I heard of some using green?

[carllooper]

If the choice is between green and blue then the answer is probably blue.

But it depends on exactly how you intend correcting for the orange bias.

Using the subtractive colour model, the opposite of orange is blue. And using the additive colour model, the opposite of orange would be somewhere between blue and cyan (blue/green)

So either way you would want a colour that is more blue than green, but depending on your strategy and choices, it might be 1/4 of the way from blue to green.

[christoph]

hiya,

the full CTB (LEE 201) works pretty good. you can also add 1/4CTB or CTO to get closer, but since you probably want to do some fine tuning in post anyway it doesnt really matter. if you use a tungsten lightsource, you need at least two layers.

++ christoph

[Wade]

The one time I did it worked pretty well. I used one Rosco Tough Plusgreen 50 which almost completly eliminated the orange mask. Light source was a 12v halogen lamp. http://www.vimeo.com/12388996

[miles&jules]

Hi Wade
We transferred this standard8 neg this year. We found that our cameras both sony fx1 and a panasonic gs400 did a better job shooting without the incamera neg effect on.
If you transfer on a mac you can hit control+option+command+8 and it inverts the desktop. This does your neg reference so then you can play with the exposure compensation/contrast in the menus of your camera. to get the right look. Our panasonic doesn't let you do this if the neg effect is on. So there is more manual controls without the inbuilt digital effect. Then you just use a invert filter for your video in post
Hope this helps.
miles
http://vimeo.com/15738297

[avplumber]

miles

my jaw hit the floor when i saw your "control-option-command-8" trick. i just spent a few hours last night telecining some Super 8 negative of a buddy's wedding from last summer. if i would have known this trick, i definitely could have set up the camera better.

Tscan, my process, before Miles' revelation, was to use full CTB over the light source (i'm using a workprinter XP). hopefully your camera is light sensitive enough. i've dealt with a few cameras that aren't. it's really rough, but i've gotten the best white balance by hitting the white balance button over a fully dark image (in negative, this would be white). this usually happens at the beginning of the roll. it's rough though.

i then take the clip to Final Cut Pro and apply the invert filter.

the resulting image is usually a shade of amber. i then color correct in Apple Color which can easily fix the amber hue. the bigger issue with negative is controlling the exposure. making sure blacks are black (by overexposing the neg whites). most cameras won't let you control the shadows in the same way that you can control highlights. if your highlights are too low, you open the aperture, increase ISO, etc. but if your highlights are correct, how to do control your shadows? with many cameras you can't do this easily. many cameras have "picture profiles" or similarly named features that mainly adjust the gamma curve. since these are designed for non-negative imagery, you can't really get an ideal curve for negative.

i need to shoot a chip chart on 500T, and then sit down with Miles' neg trick, and set up my camera (Sony EX1) with a new gamma curve for negative.

btw, i always get blue grains in areas of black. i key them out in Apple Color.

e

[miles&jules]

Hi Wade
Glad you liked that one! Is the macs secret weapon for us home telecine people. Exposure compensation is what I use on in the picture control menu.

I also use a brighter light for neg. We use a 12volt 50watt halogen sitting about 3inches from our defuser (white plastic vhs cover) sitting about an inch behind the film.

my menu picture adjustments on the little Panasonic are -
-sharpness max
-colour 5(half)
-Exposure 5(half)
-Contrast 7

Shutter 1/100
Auto Aperture

hope this helps
Miles

[Tscan]

Fortunately with the Sony HDR i'm still able to adjust exposure and even white balance. I have some V3 200T stock... I was thinking of shooting a white surface and grey card at the front end, so I can set the WB and work the exposure on the video camera from that. I do it with reversal, and it really pays off. Going to experiment with some older 50 ft reels of 200T this week while my wife and baby are out of town, will post some results-

[avplumber]

hey Tscan

with negative, you can't shoot a white card and white balance the camera, since it will be inverted. you're better off shooting a foot or 2 with the lens cap on to get a some unexposed area (black), which will come out white after processing and you can white balance with. remember to use some color balancing gel like CTB. most cameras can't white balance far enough to counteract the color shift in raw negative film.

e

[miles&jules]

Hi
I think shooting the white card is a good Idea...it works to. I white balanced of a white board and it worked fine. I think the camera must get fooled.