Usually it is the second AC’s job to keep the lenses clean, but with shrinking budgets many cameramen struggle to keep their optics spotless. Fortunately, a new start-up company, Visualnary inc., has come up with a web-based lens cleaning service.
Greatest news is, that they currently offer the 3 first cleaning cycles for free. No need to sign up. Simply put your lens’ front element in front of your computer screen, carefully aligning it to the middle. Avoid at all cost to let the lens touch the screen, but do keep it as close as possible for best cleaning results. Once you are ready to go, visit Visualnary.com.
(Actually, this service also works on other glass-based technology, like viewfinders, glasses and the iPhone.)
It’s probably been in the cards for a while, but we have ordered our Red One camera. Sometime before the end of the year (fingers crossed), we’ll be able to churn out pictures at such high resolution that they can be used for digital cinema. We’ll be able to use variable frame rates. I’ll be able to chose from many different lenses. We’ll be able to tell our stories better.
Just to give you an idea of the firepower of this camera, look at this picture, showing proportionally the full size of the Red picture, and in comparison that of Standard Television 4:3. It is about 6 times the resolution of even High Definition Television. And it meets or succeeds the specs for digital cinema (Norway is aiming to become the first country in the world to be completely digitized in cinemas.)
But it is not stopping here. Red One is also a very low-noise camera. Here is a 1:1 crop from an image exposed at ISO 2000. Click on the image to see it in full. (Read more about this here.)
This is nothing short of amazing, and will enable us and many other documentary makers to tell stories that simply couldn’t be told before. Brace yourself for a whole new world of clarity.
For comparison, here is the same 1:1 crop at a modes 320 ASA/ISO:
And for further comparison, here’s a framegrab from our current camera, a Sony DSR-570, which is the best DVcam money can buy. Properly exposed. You’ll see noticeably noise in the background. More than the Red even pushed to the extremes.
(Framegrab from our Documentary “Words and Shadows” with the former prime minister of Norway, Mr. Odvar Nordli.)
Here’s an interesting example of what you can do with high-speed filming (though I would have used more fill- and eyelight):
Found a great paper by Canon on lens theory, which also explains the common terminology used in lens construction. The paper also includes an extensive collection of graphs showing the optical resolution of all Canon lenses, both wide open and at F8.
Great resource if you have a Canon stills camera, or a Red One with the very soon forthcoming Birger mount (video link).
Busy and exciting times here, thus only irregular updates.
At times you find yourself in a situation where you need to know where the sun will be at a given time. It might be that you need to film a sunrise, simply to know when the light starts in an unknown location, or to calculate shadows.
On a Mac or Windows machine, there is a $87 program called SunPath, which holds information for about 40.000 locations world wide. If you have an internet connection, you can also go to Sunposition.info, which will draw a nice map of the sun’s position, or use the Sun tools on timeanddate.com, which offers a variety of tools:
Just to give you an idea of the firepower of this camera, look at this 
