The Brick Wall Test

[tom hardwick]

OK Guys, you've bought your new camera or you're thinking about a replacement. Well here's a simple test that will tell you if the camera's OK. Shoot a brick wall.

That's right, set up the camera perpendicular to a brick wall. Use the best, most solid tripod you can lay your hands on.

Film this wall. Zoom from telephoto to wide angle and vice versa. Do a lap dissolve in and out at the same focal length. Film at all the film speeds. Shoot in auto exposure and bracket - shoot the same wall half a stop up and half a stop down. (Keep accurate notes. Stick numbers to one brick to tie the results to the notes later).

View the processed film on a good projector and look for any instability in the image. Does it weave, flutter or bounce? Does the exposure remain constant during a take? Does the dissolve imperceptably merge so that you're not aware of the two mixed scenes?

If the lens claims to be a 5x zoom, then one brick filling the screen in telephoto should be 5 bricks wide at wide angle. And at the extremes is the sharpness OK? What about the barrel and pincushion distortion. Any vignetting?

If you're able to use ND filters you can check the lens for shaprness at wide apertures. If the camera's been dropped shots wide open at max wideangle will show varying sharpness across the frame.

Is the auto exposure OK or is one of your backeted ones better? The exposure of the wall should be the same whatever FPS you used, including single frame.

Is the wall critically sharp at full tele? If not it could be the viewfinder's rangefinder that's at fault. Is the motor zoom smooth in both directions? In manual zoom too?

The wall can tell you a lot.

tom.

[Hanthx]

Tom

Excellent idea!
I think when you've overcome the hump of knowledge that needs to be absorbed as a cinematographer, its always advantageous to do test shots on the performance of your camera, whether it be a Beaulieu Super 8mm camera or a Aaton 35mm.
Thanks for the advice, I will do so when I purchase my next camera of any medium.
Scott