Miniature photography

[Ruairi Robinson]

Hey, just curious about one thing. The S35mm size chip is a great advantage, and this is not remotely a complaint, but the one time it definitely will not help is with miniature photography - where narrow DOF really does not help at in creating the illusion of grand scale. Was wondering if this had been considered at all, and what the best workarounds would be...?

(couple of theoritical future projects which might require vast amounts of miniature sets, and I want to start thinking about it now...)

Cheers,
R.

[J. Bernard Vallon]

Crop your sensor, and/or shoot at f22. But if your gutsy, here is a cool workaround:

Given how inexpensive old nikon primes can be compared to cine lenses, buy a set, cut them open (gently) and replace the aperture blades with a fixed-sized near-pinhole aperture. Something like f90. Light the bajesus out of your subject. Remember any lens can become a macro lens if you pull it far enough from its native focal length, so if you have to, get a 2x nikon tele adapter, and break the glass out of it so its a macro adapter (i'm sure they make these, but when i did a photography experiment with the above rig, i couldn't find any fast enough, and smashed a crappy old 2x adapter).

If you want my assistance id love to fly out to Ireland for a project.

I got some awesome results from some rusty old watch gears:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvallon/179430464/in/set-72157594185350867/

[liquidigital]

Ruairi you are one badass dude. I have a perfect script for you, wish I had the money to pay for you to direct it. It would need miniatures too. Lots of miniatures. lol Anyway, nice stuff.

[jbeale]

...replace the aperture blades with a fixed-sized near-pinhole aperture. Something like f90...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvallon/179430464/in/set-72157594185350867/

That's certainly one approach- although I believe that good lenses start dropping in resolution already by f/5.6 due to diffraction effects, and that's one reason why f-stops beyond f/22 are seldom used as far as I know.

[chuck colburn]

As jbeale said using very small stops leads to acute diffraction limitation with a resulting degradation of image quality to the point of making the image worthless. An old trick is to mount a long focale length copy or process lens in front of the taking lens to act as a very high quality diopter. The lens clear apreture needs to be larger then the front diameter of the taking lens so it wont vingette (sp?). This also allows you plenty of working distance from the object being photographed therefore making for easier lighting of the subject. Long focal length (400-600mm) copy lenses can be picked up fairly cheap nowadays.

Here's one that would work with smaller primes and you would not care about the oil on the iris leaves as you leave it wide open all the time and control your stop with the taking lens.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ASTRAGON-300MM-1-4-5-LARGE-FORMAT-LENS-8X10-NO-RES_W0QQitemZ260156827664QQihZ016QQcategoryZ30076Q QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Another one we use to use as they use be dirt cheap back when was the Kodak Aero Ektar designed for 10"x10" roll film cameras that were used for aerial photography work.

[Jeff Coatney]

I just worked on a miniature shoot over Christmas and I learned a few things from it that I think are worth sharing. First of all, the DOF issue will kill your attempts to pull out a successful image if you don't do your homework. The DP on the shoot had basically no experience with shooting miniatures and made some fatal mistakes that the Producer ended up paying for out of his own pocket. Using a huge Arri 535 seemed counter-intuitive, but for this particular production it was all they had to work with. Although the lighting was fine, the DP used a snorkel mount to get the lens low enough to the miniature to achieve the desired scale. This seems like a good idea until you consider that the snorkel alone cuts out nearly three stops or more. The minimum focus distance wasn't taken into account apparently so much of the foreground was out of focus. This was exacerbated by the use of fog and what seemed to me less light than was needed to achieve a sustainable stop that could deliver sufficient DOF in a single take. The scale of the miniature is also very critical. I found that a 1/6th scale (12" GI Joe scale -for those of you playing the home game;)) miniature delivers the most bang for the buck. The scale we used was 1/12th, which hindered our ability to deliver credible DOF, but made for a smaller (read: cheaper) miniature. Miniatures are a fantastic way of gaining production value and one need only reference Peter Jackson's King Kong to see this ancient art form reach it's fullest digital fruition. But lack of skill in building, painting and shot planning will kill all your hard work. We also shot indoors in a low-ceiling room, which in hindsight was another strike against getting useable footage because it limited the type of instruments and the amount of raw candle-power that we could dump onto the surface. Had we shot the same miniature (which looked fine) outdoors and in 1/6th scale, we could have captured some usable footage. As it was, since the producer only had funds for a single-day shoot, coupled with the fact that we could not see the results until the film was processed, the day was a nearly complete waste of time and money with the possible exception that we (or at least I) learned so much from it. We also shot some HDV(!) footage, which delivered great DOF but was still unusable due to the fact that the GOP produced such bizarre motion artifacting that it could not be salvaged. In the final analysis, it really pays to experiment on a small scale (dollars, not measurements) and be very circumspect about what you really want to achieve with the shot. In my opinion, when a shot combines live-action and miniatures, you don't shoot for the amazing camera move to sell it. The scope of the shot and the reality you've created by combining the two scales is what you should rely on. The fancy camera move will telegraph "fake" and just cost you a fortune in post for little or no payoff unless you have Jacksonian resources, which let's face it, you probably don't have if you're considering miniatures in the first place. The shoot I was on also points out another failure, not of planning, as this shoot was extremely well-planned, but one of blind certainty. Obviously the plan we used was flawed at the outset because it was based largely on conjecture and while that did not have to be fatal to the experiment, it ended up being so because it was coupled to an overly ambitious shot list. You really have to throw assumtions out the window and really just slog through the trial and error. The level of math required can be decieving and one miscalculation can doom your work. The VFX supervisor's experience worked against him on this one because he trusted his assumptions with certainty and clearly in hindsight his certainty cost him the whole day. When you're shooting miniatures as a novice, a good strategy to use is experiment, experiment, experiment and assume your assumptions are wrong until proven right.

[Álex Montoya]

Interesting thread.

[PaulClements]

Interesting post Jeff.

A 1080p feed to a large monitor from a digital camera such as Red would certainly have helpted to highlight these problems earlier in the day then I guess.

Cheers

Paul

[Ruairi Robinson]

Thanks for the replies :)

Another question. If I were to shoot, say a helicopter shot for real, and then track the shot in 3D, is it possible to feed this tracking information to a motion control camera, that will repeat the move on a miniature set, in order to blend the two?

It's a long ways off, but if it happens, believe it or not, I may in fact have peter Jackson levels of resources at my disposal. (Hows that for teasing!)

I've worked with CG a lot, but not with miniatures. Or Bigatures :)

R.

[Ruairi Robinson]

If you want my assistance id love to fly out to Ireland for a project.



Cheers for the offer :)

(If it happens it won't be in Ireland though!)

[Álex Montoya]

Another question. If I were to shoot, say a helicopter shot for real, and then track the shot in 3D, is it possible to feed this tracking information to a motion control camera, that will repeat the move on a miniature set, in order to blend the two?

Shouldn't be a problem

[Michael Brennan]

Shouldn't be a problem

If lens angle stays constant and the lens has been calibrated then tracking is straight forward.

In respect to feeding data from the gimbal into a 3D app the issue is understanding how the heli is moving in relation to the subject.


Lens, Pan tilt and roll data from the gimbal will only get you so far then you have to track.

However I've used a prototype system that figures out the movement of the heli through the air to a fairly precise resolution and lays this over the gimbal data.. live!

Its good enough to mix a live CGI model into the wide shot during an orbit!


Mike Brennan

[chuck colburn]

Another idea to help shooting small stuff is to use a tilt/ shift lens to help achieve increased depth of field in a given plane.

[James T Mather]

Ruairi - shoot using a Frazier lens system - at T32 pretty much infinite depth of field (Pv has a set) or (if you'er considering the Red) - shoot using the Revolution (the PL mount equivalent). Also the lenses are smaller and rigged (snorkel like) on the systems as to enable you to get "close" to the minatures for low angle POV shots. need a lotta light though.

[Michael Brennan]

Bear in mind that the Frazier lens good though it is, does not alter the law of physics and does not offer any greater DoF than other snorkels.

2/3 inch format offer much greater DoF for a given T stop angle of view.

Cram 12 million pixels into a single chip 2/3 inch format, add a remote head so no prisms or optics needed and you'll have a wonderful miniatures camera.

For the money you spent a Iconix HD mini camera recording onto SRW1 could have been a better choice for limited budget....
Not full res HD by a long shot but OK for miniatures and easy to rig....

Mike Brennan

[Stephen Williams]

Bear in mind that the Frazier lens good though it is, does not alter the law of physics and does not offer any greater DoF than other snorkels.

Mike Brennan

Hi Mike,

The Cinewand gives S16 DOF on 35mm with their snorkel system.

Stephen

[Gavin Greenwalt]

You also might be able to eek out an extra bit of DOF with a tilt shift lens depending on the situation.

[garageman]

So I hear your in talks to direct a live action version of Akira Ruairi? Best of luck with that and well done.

[astro]

Hey, just curious about one thing. The S35mm size chip is a great advantage, and this is not remotely a complaint, but the one time it definitely will not help is with miniature photography - where narrow DOF really does not help at in creating the illusion of grand scale. Was wondering if this had been considered at all, and what the best workarounds would be...?

(couple of theoritical future projects which might require vast amounts of miniature sets, and I want to start thinking about it now...)

Cheers,
R.

Motion control. Multiple passes for focus. Lots of work for compositer though. Miniatures for King Kong and LOTR were done like this. Those minatures were shot for 2.35, mostly using ultra primes.

Not all minatures need to be shot at deep stops like 22. Alot depends on the scale of model and what each shot is. Miniatures "focus" is extremely subjective, you'd be surprised what you can hide in the shadows or in the ambience (smoke).The circle of confusion is your friend.

Fraizer, Revolution systems are useful when you can't get a camera in the set.

Get a big lighting budget ,know what you can get away with and be pragmatic.

Andrew.

[Drew Suppa]

I'm about to embark on a motion-tracking venture with miniatures as well. There's a couple ways around the DoF issue (listed above, with stopping down), but one way not brought to attention here yet is the following:

2/3" Cameras
http://www.abelcine.com/store/product.php?productid=1000520&cat=327&page=1
(but who are we kidding? we want the good stuff)

35mm Cameras
http://www.pstechnik.de/en/skater-scope.php

This allows you to fly the camera body away from where you'd like to shoot, allowing you to get into tighter spaces with the lens itself. I've found it very useful for motion tracking miniatures, as well as doing lock-offs.

What do you guys think? Any experience with P&S Technik gear?

[M Most]

Thanks for the replies :)

Another question. If I were to shoot, say a helicopter shot for real, and then track the shot in 3D, is it possible to feed this tracking information to a motion control camera, that will repeat the move on a miniature set, in order to blend the two?

It's a long ways off, but if it happens, believe it or not, I may in fact have peter Jackson levels of resources at my disposal. (Hows that for teasing!)


Possible, yes. Sensible? That depends on what it is you're shooting, and the resources you have at your disposal.

[Joe G.]

In my situation, I don't need a snorkel. I just need maximum DOF in order to keep an 18" long subject in perfect focus even with a ratio of 1/12th or 1/15th.

Has anyone done this?

What would be the optimum setup to achieve this trick?

Would the Scarlett's 2/3" sensor be an option (or would the lens not work out even with adaptors ... or is Jim giving it interchangeable mount???)

[Dj Joofa]

Over cranking (frame rate higher than 24 fps) has to be used in inverse relation (sqrt, I think) to the ratio of the size of the miniature and real world objects.