WELCOME TO RIVER DAVES PLACE

Current Situation - a picture thread

Tank

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“Snowed” at the beach here today. Not really snow but hail. But enough to build a nice cover.

Crazy.

The pic of the street with houses is ocean drive. The pic of the beach is snow covering the sand. Not white sand lol.

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CarolynandBob

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Ha yes Benderson. They practice down in Osprey but the events are usually at Benderson. Are you at Lakewood Ranch?
No just south of there on Fruitville Rd. At Sun Outdoor Sarasota AKA Sun-N-Fun.
 

HBCraig

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The boy and his ad for his NIL deal

 

Xtrmwakeboarder

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Let's do a RDP meet up next year at the race.
I’m down. My buddy in Lucas is looking at picking up a wave crusher soon after his divorce is finalized. We’ll have to do a DFW lake meet up too.
 

toto

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I’m down. My buddy in Lucas is looking at picking up a wave crusher soon after his divorce is finalized. We’ll have to do a DFW lake meet up too.
Hell Yeah - I have been wanting to do that for the last couple of years since we have been out here.
 

DWC

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A handful from today…. Turned out to be a pretty damn good weekend. Put a new belt and headphone hanger on the dirt car. Hit Home Depot for some stuff around the house. Dog park and then home for a quiet evening.


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C-Ya

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My current situation……. My new docking set-up. It is perfect. Not one line needed. Easy to get on and off the boat. Looks clean too. I am all happy.

I still have to get my other power pedestal turned on. I also have my bottom cleaner coming to power wash the sand out from under lift, just to make sure it goes down all the way at low tide.

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Dan Lorenze

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My friend and I donated our time and gear to the Chapman Film School last week in Orange County. Little did these students know that they would have the industry's undisputed top dog camera guy shoot their school project, I'm his Camera Assistant, I was pulling focus on his steadicam with my gear. It was a great day with some bright young folks with big hopes and dreams.

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Desert Whaler

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My friend and I donated our time and gear to the Chapman Film School last week in Orange County. Little did these students know that they would have the industry's undisputed top dog camera guy shoot their school project, I'm his Camera Assistant, I was pulling focus on his steadicam with my gear. It was a great day with some bright young folks with big hopes and dreams.

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Rad . . . . could you explain 'pulling focus' . . .
 

Dan Lorenze

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Rad . . . . could you explain 'pulling focus' . . .

Sure, It's basically controlling the focus on the lens of the camera, along with zoom and iris. But on roaming cameras it's done remotely/wirelessly. Cinema cameras and lenses are now being used for broadcast purposes, just like the Superbowl halftime show. But when you use a cinema camera (large format/full sensor) with a Cine lens it creates an extremely shallow depth of field making the focus very difficult to be sharp. So a focus puller or (1st Assistant Cameraman) will do the job. If you ever watch NFL or Golf on TV and you see a really weird shot where the quarterback is in focus and all the background is blurred? That's what I'm doing now, only on live TV shows. It's similar to your DSLR cameras shooting HDR with auto focus, but we use bigger cameras and a focus puller. We us all types of Prime lenses (means no zoom) and also zoom lenses. Lens changes are a pain, so I always try to sell a zoom lens as it changes size on the fly. I set up a station with my focus controller and monitor in the pit somewhere out of the way and pull focus on the Steadicam.
 

Desert Whaler

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Sure, It's basically controlling the focus on the lens of the camera, along with zoom and iris. But on roaming cameras it's done remotely/wirelessly. Cinema cameras and lenses are now being used for broadcast purposes, just like the Superbowl halftime show. But when you use a cinema camera (large format/full sensor) with a Cine lens it creates an extremely shallow depth of field making the focus very difficult to be sharp. So a focus puller or (1st Assistant Cameraman) will do the job. If you ever watch NFL or Golf on TV and you see a really weird shot where the quarterback is in focus and all the background is blurred? That's what I'm doing now, only on live TV shows. It's similar to your DSLR cameras shooting HDR with auto focus, but we use bigger cameras and a focus puller. We us all types of Prime lenses (means no zoom) and also zoom lenses. Lens changes are a pain, so I always try to sell a zoom lens as it changes size on the fly. I set up a station with my focus controller and monitor in the pit somewhere out of the way and pull focus on the Steadicam.
Cool . . . so do you have lighted focus points in the viewfinder or display to aid in where your focal point is? . . . or are you doing it all by eye?
Since you're using a prime lens, does the person who's carrying the camera do the focus also ? . . . or is the focus being done remotely?
Does the person pulling focus control zoom and aperture at the same times as well? or are they strictly focus?
Sorry for the thousand questions . . . . just trying to wrap my head around it, as I can't imagine how difficult it must be to do well.
 

Dan Lorenze

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Cool . . . so do you have lighted focus points in the viewfinder or display to aid in where your focal point is? . . . or are you doing it all by eye?
Since you're using a prime lens, does the person who's carrying the camera do the focus also ? . . . or is the focus being done remotely?
Does the person pulling focus control zoom and aperture at the same times as well? or are they strictly focus?
Sorry for the thousand questions . . . . just trying to wrap my head around it, as I can't imagine how difficult it must be to do well.

These are all great questions... Yes, range finders are used to measure the distance from the lens to the subject, and that info goes back to my focus hand unit with the exact distance, so I have to turn the wheel to match that distance. But it's not in my monitor, another company makes that system and it's totally amazing, but it's not really meant for Steadicam or other roaming cameras as much as it's much heavier. Before a gig I have to manually program a lens into my hand unit and motors, because all the lens marks need to match what I'm doing on my hand unit, Infinity on the lens needs to match infinity on my hand unit. But for this little school project I had no time to program the lens data into my hand unit, so, I just focused by the monitor. In fact, I almost always focus by my monitor by eye because it doesn't lie, I have layer of Focus Assist built in to the feed and it pops when things are in focus, it's really obvious and so nice. You probably have that too on your cameras.

Zoom, all the operators I work with want to control their own zoom, so an adapter is added to their zoom controller and it attaches to my motor on the lens.

Iris, this is a tricky one... Yes, I can totally control the iris by myself but there is a Video guy in the truck outside that wants that control. So, another wireless RF motor attaches to the iris barrel on the lens. The signal from that motor goes to the camera's video transmission antenna's and gets hard wired back to the truck via fiber optic cable and goes inside the truck to video where the video guy has his own single channel hand unit to ride the iris. Crazy.... But in a perfect world we will just set the iris, get the look and leave it alone without a motor on the iris wheel. Lighter is always better for the operator but it's not always up to us.

You asked about the prime lens, camera operators will almost never do their own focus on a prime lens, the depth of field is such that when a nose is in focus the ear is out of focus. It's so critical... And the longer the lens is the harder it gets, just like the iris, when the iris is wide open it makes focusing extremely difficult. Especially on a camera that is moving all around the place. That's why I love wide angle lenses and T stops around 3 or 4, it gets easier. But that doesn't sell the shot, the director likes it when the subject is in focus and everything in the background is totally blown out. It's a crazy trend than I'm hoping stays.
 
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Desert Whaler

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@Dan Lorenze . . . Wow . . . that's nuts.
I can't imagine the amount of time someone would have to spend to become proficient at any one of those jobs.
There's not an 'easy one' in the bunch.
I'm always surprised at the technology advancements in 'consumer level' cameras, even the high-end ones . . . but what You're doing is not even in the same ballpark.
I really respect that it's not a 'set it and forget it' skill set . . . no wonder so many people in the film industry don't ever make it.
 

HubbaHubbaLife

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Annual Christmas tree burn at the shore... a little late this year made for super dry wood... I might've been a bit close and kinda froze up but took one for team ... had to push backwards to flip out of chair... if wind had changed direction I'd be toast :oops:
 
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