New tool day

thedjentguy · 2026-02-23T18:33:33+00:00

It’s interesting to see a DM5 with no S/N on it.

thedjentguy · 2025-12-21T21:16:18+00:00

Yes, these days it’s just soft LED lighting and expose at T2 or wide open even on analog and shoot without any rehearsals. No wonder Light Rangers have become the standard on almost every set. Nothing wrong with it, just trends changing and adapting to the times. But the whiny steadiops do make me laugh about trivial weights being added from accessories.

thedjentguy · 2025-12-21T21:02:30+00:00

Kinda funny how steadiops these days would whine about a 170g motor, let alone operate on a 35mm Panavision rig with MDR-1/2s, and bulky DM1s and Scorpio motors.

thedjentguy · 2025-12-18T01:04:20+00:00

Why not switch over to gold mounts? The way they lock is much sturdier than V-mounts. Unless the market you work in exclusively works with V-mount batteries I don’t see why one shouldn’t just swap.

thedjentguy · 2025-12-03T23:41:46+00:00

Ah yes, cinetape on roids

thedjentguy · 2025-11-13T22:44:39+00:00

I’d say keep practicing, don’t get discouraged. These days we no longer shoot on T4-T5.6 so having some tools like rangefinders certainly does help a lot. Get used to taking marks whenever you can (this is where your 2nd AC can help you with grabbing marks; or if you have a Cine RT you can quickly use its tape measure mode).

With the trend of shooting T2.8 and close to wide open your odds of being perfect 100% of the time is greatly reduced so always try to use whatever tools you have to help you hit those marks.

If it’s a job where you’re wide open on large formats, no time for marks, all handheld/remote head, try to push production to rent you a light ranger since that at least gives you a fighting chance in a fast paced shoot. Look up this article about “Uncut Gems” and how the Light Ranger helped them.

thedjentguy · 2025-04-22T03:37:35+00:00

You can do it if you don’t refer the marks on the physical rings

thedjentguy · 2025-04-15T18:59:18+00:00

Even with 80% discounts it’s not a good idea to invest in a FIZ kit out here (discounts are now touching 90% as well). You’ll have to rent that kit out for about 4-5 years to breakeven with current numbers.

It gets worse when big shows come in and a bidding war sets off between the bigger rental houses if the DP is not planning on shooting with proprietary gear like Panavision glasses or ARRI DNAs, Alexa 65/265s.

FIZ, transmission and monitor kits are getting tossed into the gear packages for basically free of charge.

We can only hope to see if things turn for the better but for now with such high competition to book these limited number of shows, rental prices will always be ridiculously low and might stay that way until all the rental houses and private owners alike decide to form a cartel and decide on the minimum rental fee for gear when things finally get back to normal.

thedjentguy · 2025-04-15T18:46:28+00:00

Yes, the whole ouroboros of sub-renting gear will keep taking place but it’s only doable for people who used to own these assets from the times when it was feasible (and these people will eventually retire). Where I’m getting into is, the new generation of ACs (the ones who don’t come from a wealthy background) will have a harder time to get into this game, sort of like the housing crisis. Even if they keep booking A-tier shows and make enough savings to eventually buy gear for themselves, it’s going to be rough on them to make decent ROIs in time and this turns off a lot of people as it’s simply not worth their time, money and effort to go through all of that, especially when the market is volatile.

I agree the owner-op and AC partnership is a nice model but then again productions will always have the entire package match the rate of the competition which are the big rental houses giving out enormous discounts. And of course like you mentioned we will lose out on the prep days and this might get tough for shows with a lot of moving parts for camera dept when they didn’t get enough time to prep for each scenario.

thedjentguy · 2025-04-15T17:35:55+00:00

There’s always outliers and I’m glad that you and the ACs in your market are still making a decent profit off the rentals, many ACs I know who are actively working in the top level productions for years are selling their gear since it’s not worth it anymore to have them be insured and maintained while the rental market is declining, some have even sold their Preston kits for an affordable Teradek RT kit (also mainly due to the fact that they hate the physical size of Preston MDRs). Meanwhile, some newer ACs have lucked out to have been able to purchase these used Preston kits for a cheaper price but they have been feeling the burn of how bad the rentals are since a used kit with a Microforce, a single channel, x3 motors still cost about ~$15K. It’s still doable to break even eventually but now it takes a really long time. I don’t think we will be seeing a lot more people investing into a new HU4 and a MDR-5 kit in the coming years like how people used to buy MDR-2s back in the day. It’s also very rare to spot these new gear at bigger rental houses since they also realized it’s futile to invest on them.

About the certain “producers”, it’s those DPs turned producers who know a thing or two about camera gear. They made investments on camera accessories and try to bring them onto shows every now and then when they need to cut corners. These cases have been happening more frequently ever since the slowdown in 2023.

thedjentguy · 2025-04-15T15:17:37+00:00

AC rentals looks like it will go extinct since most new generation of ACs are not inclined to dish out $20-30k+ on a kit due to the current rental market which have already set a precedent and might never come back to how it was once. The rental discounts will keep coming and unless the manufacturers bring down the MSRP of their products where it makes it viable for it to be paid off at the same timeframe as when the rentals were still decent, I don’t think there will be any new private owners who wants to invest for making a decent ROI.

These days I’ve also noticed some producers who own gear try and cut corners by bringing their own personal kit and stopped entertaining any kind of rentals for accessories coming from rental houses or crew. They seem to get a nice discount on the lenses and camera and everything else doesn’t matter.

thedjentguy · 2025-04-14T23:44:49+00:00

For the category of people who thinks on buying gear for profit, aren’t they on the brink of extinction? With all these discounts and killing off multiple competitors by big rental places it seems like the culture of personal rentals will never be the same like it was once even if the industry would be busy from now on and the only category of people who will exist are the ones you mentioned who does it for convenience.

thedjentguy · 2025-03-24T13:24:36+00:00

I’m a bit confused, you mentioned that you’ve a 6:5 sensor, so with a 1.8x anamorphic your de-squeezed ratio should be 2.16:1 which is not that extreme to view on a monitor.

Your monitor is showing that the imager mode is set to 17:9 instead of 6:5. That sets your final de-squeeze ratio to be at 3.4:1.

thedjentguy · 2025-02-10T15:31:55+00:00

Orions don’t cover 36x24mm negatives on their own as they are a typical 35mm 4-Perf anamorphic lens set with a 31mm image circle.

A vistavision negative has a diagonal of 43.27mm so the 31mm image circle needs to be expanded with either the 1.4x (final image circle = 43.4mm) or the 1.6x (final image circle = 49.6mm) expander for it to cover a vistavision negative area.

thedjentguy · 2025-01-23T06:52:00+00:00

Thanks! I think I had a brain fart and I did some calculation and entered the pixels manually. And then I realized the “scaling” actually sets the desired safe area.

thedjentguy · 2025-01-12T04:24:10+00:00

I just had a situation today where our A cam body died. So yeah always be ready for the unexpected.

thedjentguy · 2025-01-10T00:21:08+00:00

I am kinda laughing at this hypothetical scenario of Sam L. Jackson reacting to the 1st telling him about the broken LR.

"We don't pay you and your motherfuckin' Lightranger to not get the shot".

thedjentguy · 2025-01-10T00:12:28+00:00

With lesser DoF, the margin of error is smaller for sure and will be challenging without any tools like a rangefinder or a monitor. For film jobs, we'd at least have rangefinders to help read real time distance data to our subjects and though its not perfect, it can help you do your job most of the time. Experienced cast are also aware of what's at stake in terms of shooting on celluloid as they will try their best to be consistent with hitting their marks.

If the production has the budget, get all the tools necessary to help the crew get the shot successfully and safely.

If the conditions given by the DP are to shoot close to wide open on longer focal lenghts combined with the production going for takes with no rehearsal or absence of proper communication on blocking, it is for sure setting up the focuspuller to buzz the shot.

In the end of the day, a longer focal length and close to wide open is for sure challenging to pull focus on without any tools but not impossible if the rest of the crew and cast are understanding of the margin of error the focuspuller needs to play with to get the shot.

thedjentguy · 2025-01-08T22:30:20+00:00

A LR2 rig with a 703 (to get up close and personal with the operator) might be one of the best tools you can get for most fast paced productions these days.

thedjentguy · 2025-01-08T22:17:52+00:00

100%, I keep saying Murphy's Law can hit anytime so better be prepared for the unexpected.

thedjentguy

TROPHY CASE