August 2013
www.tvbeurope.com
“If only you could remote iris the lenses…” wrote one exasperated television director
although many are currently happy with HD, he says. Before the arrival of the F55,
some multicam productions were shot using Canon’s C300 (HD) camera, such as an eight- camera Alicia Keys video Procam was involved with late last year, but most such productions now prefer the Sony 4K camera, partly because most C300 models have been sold with EF lens mounts, which restricts the choice of lenses to mainly those designed for stills use. Although there are some PL-mount C300s in use, they are a minority. The F55s can all be fitted with PL-mount lenses, which are much more suitable for video use (although they do cost a lot more). However, “the issue with these
cameras and lenses is that they are still film style. You can’t control the camera in the same way you would a broadcast system camera.” Even Fujinon’s new Cabrio PL-mount lenses (the ZK3.5x85 85-300mm and ZK4.7x19 19- 90mm), which have a detachable servo drive unit so that they can
be remotely controlled for zoom and focus, can’t have remote iris control via OB/Studio system type OCPS. Similarly, the F55 can’t be used with a remote operational control panel. “It would be a lot more usable
if you could rack all the cameras with a vision engineer and have a TV cameraman doing zoom and focus with controls he is familiar with, and do away with the camera assistant,” says Badham. “But, the manufacturers aren’t offering this. You have to have a camera assistant to do iris and focus, which doubles the labour bill, puts equipment costs up (focus pullers need monitors and sometimes wireless links), and makes it harder to position the cameras because of extra space demands.”
He comes across numerous
directors who’d like to do multi- camera shoots with these large sensor cameras, but producers don’t want to pay for camera assistants and film style zoom, focus and iris controls. “But when they can afford it, it looks very sexy.”
Live productions make the
producers even more nervous, because they want one person to control the iris on all the cameras, so that everything matches. The lack of standard broadcast remote controls on the cameras and lenses makes it a lot more difficult to justify using large sensor cameras (or 4K, as there are no 2/3-inch UHD cameras) for live or as- live productions. “The differences between film- style and television-style shooting have been massive for a long time. But now that the two disciplines are converging, it’s a pity the manufacturers haven’t realised that,” says Badham. “How come lens and camera manufacturers didn’t think TV OB people
TVBEurope 41 The Workflow
would want to use this kit in television set ups? We have many clients who’ve said ‘What a shame they haven’t gone that one step further to allow us to work with these cameras this way’. It is frustrating, but I am sure it will happen eventually.” He recently got a three-page
email from an exasperated director
wanting to shoot like this: “if only you could remote iris the lenses…” He’s hoping Sony and the lens manufacturers will work together on addressing this.
www.boxx.tv www.procamtv.com www.rossvideo.com
LiveEDL is also an option on the Ross CrossOver 16, seen here with frame
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