blimping a camera

[ulrichsd]

Hey Dogstarman,

Before you cut holes in your camera case you might want to put the camera back in the right way, stick the lens out of the zipper and zip the sides up as far as they will go and run the camera to see how it sounds.

The only reason I recommend this is because when I made a blimp out of 2 cardboard boxes, the sound was a lot quieter when it was completely closed off by the outer box, but when I cut a hole in the outer box so the entire lens could stick through, the audible camera noise inceased substantially.

HTH,
Scott

[This message has been edited by ulrichsd (edited August 07, 2001).]

[Alex]

I wonder if it would be possible to find material that would insulate sound yet act as a front camera lens filter, since a lot of sound comes out through the lens.

-Alex

[dogstarman]

ulrichsd,

No, I know... I did that. The lens has gotta' stick out somewhere though... the reason I put it in backwards is because the 514 has a REALLY stubby, tiny manual zoom arm, and it in VERY close to the body. With the lens sticking out the zipper (this is getting very phallic... and I'm the middle of writing a paper on The Crying Game...), you can't zip it up at all, because then you can't get anywhere near the zoom control. The bottom of the bag is flat, so by cutting out a hole for the lens there, I can push the camera as far as it can go into the bag, so the body is right against the interior padding, thus giving me pleanty of clearance for the lens and zoom control. Also, having the eyepeice at the zipper end allows me to totally conceal the eyepeice if I'm not looking though it, thus no light bleeding from the SLR veiwing system when shooting...

I also turned the bag inside out and cut some of the interior lining so I can put another layer of soundproof padding in there... also along the sides, where it's not padded at all.

As far as a clear material that deadens sound better than glass: seems like plexiglass or fiberglass would, but I don't especially want to shoot throught a 1/4" sheet of fiberglass... talk about glare. Also, anything big enough to effectivly cut down on the sound would seriously limit camera movement on way or another... Just a thought.

[dogstarman]

Dale,

You used a 514xl-s: what model/ brand mattebox did you use, where'd ya' get it, and how much, if I could pry? Did you just use a clear, coated- glass filter on the thing to reduce sound, or did you actually use filters in it? I should proably get one, but I've run into nothing but dead ends, and the idea of replacing my collection of Tiffen and Cokin filters with MEGA-expensive 4x4 filters is a big expense I'm not sure I want to get into.

[This message has been edited by dogstarman (edited August 08, 2001).]

[dogstarman]

Where'd the thing about Clerks being shot on 35mm come from? He said that with such authority...

[rollemfilm]

no, a simple mattebox will do.....

[Alex]

But glass still lets a lot of sound through the front of the lens...has anyone ever heard of another see through compound that might insulate better than glass?

-Alex

[Matt Pacini]

Well, sorry about my comment about Clerks being shot on 35mm, but I read an interview with kevin Smith early on, right after the film came out, and he said he rented a 35mm camera and shot it on B&W film.
He absolutely said nothing about 16mm, so maybe he was stretching the truth at the time for credibility.
I thought it seemed strange that he would go 35mm, then shoot B&W, so the 16mm makes sense.
As far as the blimping goes, when you guys say you did a test, and it was OK, did you just listen to it, or did you actually record dialog in a scene, do a video transfer, sync up and play the video on a TV or monitor?
I ask this because I have not been able to silence anything yet down to an acceptable level, for actual shooting. I was very disappointed in my film, Lost Tribes, because I just never got the camera noise completely silent, unless I was outside, and moved the camera way back & telephoto'd in for Close ups, or unless I shot through a window to the interior. (Great idea for sound, but it limits your compositional choices).
If you don't mind hearing the camera in a scene, then I guess it's fine for you, but I want to hear absolutely NO CAMERA NOISE at all, in my audio, because it damn near ruined my movie!
I bought a barney (made by Super 8 Sound about 20 years ago), on ebay that was made for the Nizo 801, and it completely covers the lens, and on the front, it uses I think a regular clear camera filter mounted in the front of the barney.
If the glass is isolated from the lens itself, (like this one is), it shouldn't transmit hardly any sound at all, and a matte box is absolutely NOT for quieting a camera down, it has nothing whatsoever to do with it. In fact, if anything it makes the camera noisier, by acting as yet another object connected to the camera to transmit vibrations.
I don't know why this keeps coming up, because I've owned matteboxes, and they are NOT for quieting the camera, and they do nothing about it at all.
I've been using the barney I just mentioned for my Nizo 6080, and although it's a tight fit, it makes the camera absolutely perfectly silent, in a dead quiet room. I mean, at about one foot, if you're quiet, you can barely hear the camera, and this is awesome. It's the best blimp/barney setup I've ever seen.
For your info, it uses real leather on the outside, the real thick stuff, like saddle material, very stiff, then it's padded with something (I'm not going to rip it apart) that makes it about 3/4 inch thick, and has felt on the inside.
It almost completely encompasses the camera, has leather flaps on the back & bottom with shoestring type ties to close off the air space around your hand, or tripod.
Still, when I put my Nizo 801 in it (which it was built for) you can still hear the camera. (The 801 is a little quieter than a Canon 1014XL-S), so nothing is perfect.
I would copy that design though, if I were to make another barney. Use the real thick genuine leather. I think that's the big factor, and line it with good foam, maybe even sandwich some sheet metal between two pieces of foam, and make sure that there is no open space anywhere at all.
Matt Pacini

[ulrichsd]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Courier, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Matt Pacini:

As far as the blimping goes, when you guys say you did a test, and it was OK, did you just listen to it, or did you actually record dialog in a scene, do a video transfer, sync up and play the video on a TV or monitor?

I ask this because I have not been able to silence anything yet down to an acceptable level, for actual shooting. I was very disappointed in my film, Lost Tribes, because I just never got the camera noise completely silent, unless I was outside, and moved the camera way back & telephoto'd in for Close ups, or unless I shot through a window to the interior. (Great idea for sound, but it limits your compositional choices).

If you don't mind hearing the camera in a scene, then I guess it's fine for you, but I want to hear absolutely NO CAMERA NOISE at all, in my audio, because it damn near ruined my movie!

I've been using the barney I just mentioned for my Nizo 6080,

For your info, it uses real leather on the outside, the real thick stuff, like saddle material, very stiff, then it's padded with
Matt Pacini<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I haven't synced up anything to video yet. One of the benefits of our sound it we have a lot of gear. Not just one mic hooked up to a minidisc. (I've never used a minidisc so I can't comment on the sound quality). But we are recording on an older professional reel to reel with 4 good mics and a mixing board so you can monitor the sound with headphones.
It's nice to know people who have cool shit. But I did go back and listen to our tests with a pair of headphones and, you can't really hear the camera noise (camera was about 6 feet from mics) with the shirt and cardboard wrapped around the camera and the 2 coats on top. BUT, you could still hear the camera (softly) when rolling next to the camera, especially the audible "click" of the camera stopping and starting. So we still have a few more sound tests to do before filming.

Scott

I think there were only 2 scenes in lost tribes where I could really hear the camera noise, but I remember thinking then "Hey I better really do something to make the camera more quiet."

[This message has been edited by ulrichsd (edited August 11, 2001).]

[Matt Pacini]

Yeah, there were a couple scenes in Lost Tribes with camera noise, but the other problem was that there were many more scenes where there was camera noise, and I had to do significant filtering to get rid of it, and the fidelity of the dialog is really bad because of it, and it sounded great when I recorded it. Very muffled sounding.
Also, you're in for the same nightmare I experienced syncing up the sound if you're using an analog tape recorder of any kind (like I did on Lost Tribes).
Don't get me wrong, I'm an analog freak too, but the fact is, they are too unstable, as far as drift goes to use for filming.
They sound awesome, but when you sync them up to your video in the computer, after 4-7 seconds the sound starts floating really badly. It's bad enough that the camera isn't sync sound, but you're multiplying the problem when you use an audio source that isn't either crystal sync, (like a Nagra or timecode DAT), or something with its own stable clock, like a minidisk, or any video deck. (Video decks run on sync signals, so if they're not stable, they won't work at all.) In fact, for a couple scenes I used a Sony Video Walkman 8mm video recorder to record just audio, and when I synced that up in the computer, there was very little drift. Trust me, it's a lot of extra work to sync up your audio when you don't have stable devices. Here's what I had to do: I would sync up my start points of the video and audio, using either slates, or just visually do it (door slams, footsteps are good for this), then when audio & video would start to drift, I would split that audio clip, export it to a file which I would then open in SoundForge, time stretch, or time shrink it, bring it back into Adobe Premier, then cross face between the old clip, and the new one. Of course, you have to do this from 3-15 times usually before you get it just right! Sounds like not too much work, until you're doing this for the 2nd or 3rd month straight!!!!! So trust me, dig up the $200-300 bucks for a minidisk recorder, or get hold of a video camera or video deck, & use that to record audio.
You DO NOT want to go through what I did, it was a huge stupid mistake, so don't say you haven't been warned!
Matt Pacini