Weisscam HS-2 initial impressions

Weisscam HS-2 initial impressions

I was just trained on this thing and I've got to say, it's pretty amazing. The first point that comes to mind is that I learned the entire camera and accessory operation as well as the workflow in a single morning session. It's an incredibly intuitive system unlike another very popular High Speed Camera. As of now there are really only two practical high framerate video cameras available so you can't discuss the Weisscam without drawing comparisons to the Phantom. Being a trained Phantom operator who works with the camera often, I will readily admit that the system isn't without its problems. It produces amazingly rich images though and once you wrap your head around it and are aware of the shortcomings, it's actually fairly simple to operate. The point of this post is not to compare the Weisscam to the Phantom tit for tat though, I just want to share with you my first impressions. Newly available to the east coast through Tamberelli Digital, Weisscam HS-2 powered by P+S Technik.

It's big. It's boxy. It's ugly. It also makes some very pretty pictures and in 1080p can shoot 2000 frames per second which is already twice as fast as the Phantom HD. It's also incredibly light sensitive. The camera has 2 workflows, HD video and RAW. I'll get more into that in a moment but the exposure index rating for HD Mode is 400 ASA. In RAW it's 600 ASA. I was shocked we were able to do table top work at 2000 fps using only 2 - 2k watt HMI's and at a stop of T5.6. Absolutely incredible technology.

Here's the Specs from their site. My revisions are in quotes.

• 1.500 fps in 2K (RAW)

• 2.000 fps in 1080p

• 4.000 fps in 720p (not available yet)

• Super 35mm format

• Single CMOS sensor

• Interchangeable lens mount

• 12 bit RAW uncompressed

• 10 bit YCbCr 4:2:2 & RGB 4:4:4 (not available yet)

• Output: HD SDI single, dual link & Gig E (camera interface)

• 600 ASA sensitivity (400 ASA for SDI workflow)

• 10 F-stops dynamic range (more like 8)

• 16GB / 32GB onboard memory

The camera is designed to output it's captured frames in 2 ways - HD-SDI and RAW. The HD workflow is very well tested and seems to be the preferred method for dealing with Weisscam footage. Basically you record to the camera's on-board 32GB buffer, you then very quickly and easily mark your in's and out's on the wireless touch screen hand set, you can then use the same hand set to paint a  look on the video or tweak the blacks, gamma, etc.

Once your ready to capture, via HD-SDI you play the corrected video out in real time to a 10 bit 422 recorder like Sony SRW-1 HDCAM SR Deck or Panasonic AJ HPM-100 P2 Deck where it's recorded on the fly. This is a very straightforward and rock solid way of dealing with the footage. The only real downside is that you're baking the video and everyone on set has to be patient while the frames are recorded in real time. If you have a good eye and know how to read your scopes, you can record a very robust image using this method and because it's 10 bit 422, you have plenty of latitude in post production. Tamberelli sends their Weisscam out with the Panasonic 110 P2 deck (with the AVC-I board) and have recommended this workflow if you don't have the intention of shooting RAW. The RAW workflow involves the Weisscam DM-2 DigiMag.

Just like the Video Workflow, the first portion of the capture process is identical. You record the event and then trim the clip, instead of playing the frames out of HD-SDI you play them out to the DigiMag via the RAW Link connections (BNC) where the RAW 422 12 bit picture data is recorded in real time with Standard RAW Mode or twice as fast in Fast RAW Mode. The DigiMag is really not like the CineMag on the Phantom HD at all which transfers huge amounts of data in a few seconds. Whatever workflow you decide on for the Weisscam, there is a bit of downtime involved in between takes. Also the DigiMag takes a very long time to download its 2 TB of data over USB. It's an overnight process. Not a quite yet a practical workflow for rigorous production in my opinion. 

First impressions were very positive and as I work with the camera more, I'll be sharing my thoughts here as always so please check back for updates.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Phantom v12

Phantom v12

I recently shot a promo for Starz Encore using the Phantom v12 and wanted to share a few thoughts regarding this sorely under utilized camera system. First of all, what's most amazing is that it delivers excellent quality 720p HD video at a shocking 6,900 fps. For this project we were mostly blowing up glass and ceramic objects and at this extreme frame rate, it’s like you’re seeing into the inner workings of the universal laws of physics. The minute beauty of it is just incredible.

Here is the clip:

http://www.starz.com/Promotions/FearFest

The stop motion segments were shot with a Canon 40D and the rest was shot on the V12. I have some additional footage that was not used in the spot that I'll be posting eventually.

If anyone reading this isn’t familiar, Phantom is pretty much the go-to cine-style video camera for high-speed applications. Part of the reason Phantom is so useable to production professionals is because of one of my fav NYC rental houses, Abel CineTech, and their unique relationship with the camera’s creator, Vision Research. Abel’s staff has done a first rate job of taking a camera that was designed mostly with military engineers in mind and turning into something that slides seamlessly into the camera department. Just have a look at the new Phantom HD Gold for a perfect example of this.

Prior to this job, my experience had only been with the Phantom HD, the far more commonly used Phantom camera that shoots 1080p at around 1000 fps. The new HD Gold is the upgrade to the original HD and was created to rectify some of its well-known issues – most noticeably noisy, unstable blacks. Having not worked with the Gold, I was expecting the v12 to perform similar to the HD and it certainly did. When you’re shooting at 6,000 fps you can expect to encounter a few additional curveballs though.

First of all, the v12 is an incredibly light sensitive camera. I was astonished by its flexibility. Granted this was a tabletop shoot so it wasn’t like I was lighting a massive set but I had 2 5k’s going through 6x6’s with Light Grid, shooting at 6,000 fps and I was not fighting for stop. I would safely rate this camera at 640 ASA. As with all high-speed videography, big lights are essential to reduce flicker. At such high frame rates, if you use any lamp smaller than a 2k, you will actually see the light cool slightly in between our alternating current’s 60 cycles per second. Lamps bigger than 2k burn hot enough that their intensity is not noticeably diminished in between cycles – ala NO flicker. 5k’s are a good choice for such high frame rates because you can easily knock them down if you want to work with less fps. Lately I’ve been using the iPhone App, PocketLD (Lighting Designer) by software designer Michael Zinman, to help spec out lighting packages for this sort of work. It will display the photometrics for tons of various lamps from Arri, Mole, Kino Flo, etc. at any distance you input. Extremely useful for figuring out how close your light sources need to be to get a working stop at 6,000 fps. Especially when you know that your going to be exploding canisters of paint and that you really can’t be any closer than 10 feet! 

The v12 has the same problem with the black portion of the video signal (pedestal) as the HD if not worse. This is the most critical aspect of working with the Phantom. You must do a CSR aka Current Session Reference aka Black Balance before every shot. Why Phantom has such an issue with the blacks, I don’t know. I do know that if you don’t do it, you can count on weird blocky banding and discoloration on your shot that will no doubt render it totally useless. The nice thing is that the v12 has an internal capping shutter so you can do the CSR remotely and not have to cap the lens unlike the HD (pain in the ass!) Love that feature. I did notice that the higher the frame rate, the worse the problem with the blacks became and sometimes they would start to give out towards the end of the shot. This is not something I’ve encountered with the HD and is problematic because there’s really nothing you can do to remedy it except trigger the shot so that the important moments are stored in the beginning of the buffer.

Other issues:

Blue Channel Weirdness. This seems to be a real CMOS issue and the Phantom camera is no exception. No matter how many times you black and white balance, it seems that blue channel is always a little boosted. We were doing some shots with a black curtain background that was very slightly reflective and that was all it took for the blue channel to go haywire. The whole image went completely blue and doing black and white balances did nothing to remedy. I switched the curtain out for black duvetyne with the matte side to camera and that seemed to fix it. Phantom cannot deal with black so if you’re using a black background, make sure it is as close to non-reflective as you can get and keep spill off it!

White Clip: The director had a few shots he wanted to get on a seamless white background so we lit it up and put the whites at around 100 IRE, not even clipped, and that seemed to overload the sensor. The image was taken over by horrible banding that black balancing had no effect on. It wasn’t until the white was at just under 80 IRE that a black balance removed the banding.

CMOS Smear at very high frame rates: On some of our more reflective objects, at very high frame rates, I noticed some smearing in the highlights. Any highlight that clipped or approached clipping had a little smear to it. The bigger the highlight, the greater the smear. This must tie in with the aforementioned white issue. There is no white protection or KNEE on the Phantom camera so when the whites go, they go hard and apparently make the sensor more vulnerable to the well known issues related with CMOS sensors. My remedy was to just to keep the specular highlights under control with lighting. Honestly it wasn’t such a huge issue but it was something that I noticed.

All and all the v12 is incredible technology and I cannot wait to work with it again. Blowing stuff up at 6,000 fps is why I got into this business in the first place :)

SICK!

SICK!

FROM ABEL CINETECH'S WEBSITE: New York, NY – October 13, 2008 – Panavision, the leading supplier of digital and film camera systems through its rental operations around the world, has announced an agreement with Abel Cine Tech and Vision Research for the acquisition of Phantom HD high-speed digital cameras.

The contract means that the Phantom HD cameras and custom accessories will be available for rent in a complete Panavised system package along with Panavision’s inventory of industry leading optics, including anamorphic lenses. Abel Cine Tech, the exclusive North American agent for Vision Research’s Phantom HD and 65, is supplying the camera systems, technical support and training to Panavision....

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