Methods for silencing your camera

[Martin M]

Have anyone got any tips on silencing the noise produced by the camera while shooting ?
I want to use my Nizo professional for a small short film, but I'm worried about all the camera noise.

------------------

[Nigel]

Make a Barney out of leather and foam. Good Luck

------------------

[Matt Pacini]

My best tip for silencing a camera, is to sell yours and buy a Nizo 6080 (or 6056, or 4080).

Those are the quietest S8 cameras made.
O.K., so you're not going to do that.

The best ones are in fact, from REAL leather, with dense foam inside, and soft velvety material facing the camera.

If you can get hold of Broadski & Treadway's book, they have an excellent method for building a good barney.

I suggest real leather instead of vinyl though, and the real thick, saddle type leather.

I've made a few blimps and barneys, and the real leather, lots of foam, and soft stuff up against the camera is the best method.
The blimps, you would think would be best, but the camera noise actually transfers through the hard material.

The B&T book basically says this: (I'm doing this from memory, so try it out before cutting expensive leather)
To lay your camera down on a big paper bag that has been cut & flattened out (one big sheet).

Wrap it around your camera, and mark on it, guessing what it would be with a couple inches of padding inside. (Make it 2 inches bigger in all directions).

Then, get a pretty big piece of vinyl (test with vinyl, but for the real one, use the leather).
Cut out the leather.
Get a bathroom carpet, the kind with rubber backing.
Cut that out about 1/2 inch or so smaller than the leather outside.
Lay the leather piece out, and cut a piece of velvet type material the exact same size.
Lay the leather outside to outside with the velvet (this is tricky, basically, you're starting with it inside out, so the seams will be on the inside).
Sew this together, with one side open, so you can turn it inside out, (to where it will eventually be), then stuff the inside with your cut out carpet piece.
Sew the remaining side closed, and you're done!
Well, not really.
I just remembered, you want to sew some velcro strips into the leather before sewing anything else.
figure out where they work best.
Remember, the lens puts of a lot of the sound, so you either want to make it cover as much as the lens as you can (while still being able to focus) or making a separate barney that slides over the lens after you set focus!
Nifty, eh?

Hey, I saw a Barney, that was apparently made for Super 8 Sound in the 70's, (I think) for the Nizo 800, on ebay.
I bought it, and my 6080 barely fits inside it.
Unfortunately, it is missing the glass cover over the front of the lens, or it would be even quieter.
These are rare, but I've seen one more show up on ebay, and I tried to get that one too, but was beat by the legendary illovox. (How many ebay items have YOU lost to that guy? Jeez!)
That would work better than what I just described, but again, you may wait a year, or forever before one pops up again, and you will be bidding against me AND illovox!

Matt Pacini

------------------

[Mercutio]

Matt;
Thanks for the barney info, very useful.
I too have lost bids to illovox (he must sit around all day waiting for the last second to bid that extra penny to win the bid).

------------------

[MrObvious]

A long time ago I was negotiating with illovox for a Beaulieu 2016 camera (pretty rare) and he really jerked me around. He gave me a price for the package but only on the condition that he didn't tell me what was in the package. When I demanded a list of equipment he finally sent it to me and told me that now the buyer, since he had reevaluated everything in the package, wanted twice as much money. And then he told me somebody in Texas bought it, but a search revealed he's still trying to sell it to this day. Really soured me on his business.

Marc

------------------

[Matt Pacini]

Yeah, we emailed back & forth for quite a while about filmmaking in general, and equipment specifically.
He was supposed to get me a couple things, but I always had to wait, and I got impatient and just bought it on ebay.
I think what he does, is he tries to find buyers first, then looks for the stuff, obviously, on ebay partially anyway.
Seems like a nice guy, but I think if you agree to buy something from him, he's just out there on ebay bidding on what you could be bidding on anyway...

Hey, I should mention this:
Out of the 5 or 6 blimp/barneys I made, the best working one ended up being what I used first, before I made any from scratch.

I got a Sega CDX leather carrying case, stuffed the pockets with dense foam (the kind they sell for excercise mats, about 5/8 in thick), and sewed velcro strips in 2 or 3 places to seal the camera up.
I flipped it upside down, unzipped it, just kind of set it over the camera, with the lens sticking out one end, and the eyepiece sticking out the other, and then sealed it close with the velcro straps.
The only thing I've had that works better, is that custom made one I mentioned, which is made from REALLY thick leather, and also encloses the lens.

So just get one of these cases (if you can find one), and do that.
It works really well, and it's veyr quick to get off when you need to change film (which is often!).

Matt Pacini

------------------

[ulrichsd]

Matt,

If your barney covers the lens and everything, how do you zoom and adjust focus? Do you have to take off the barney for every shot?

Scott

------------------

[Martin M]

Thank you all for your tips !

/Martin

------------------

[Matt Pacini]

The Barney I bought for the Nizo 6080, I haven't actually used shooting yet.
It's made for the 800 & 801, and those lenses are completely enclosed, so you would have to reach up inside it, partially removing it to focus.

The other one, the CDX case, it kind of hangs over the unit, with the zippered section on the bottom (not zipped up, which would be impossible anyway), with the velcro holding it closed.
I would loosen one of the velcro straps (the front one) and could easily reach in and focus or zoom.
I never, ever zoom during a shot, so it's not that hard, and only occasionaly pull focus within a shot (if I can help it), and just out of coincidence, it seems when I need to, it can be an MOS shot, and I leave the barney off.
The other ones, though, are quite big, bulky, and really make it difficult to focus and change film.
Especially the blimps. Really slowed down my production.

Matt Pacini

------------------