Josh Zeman talks to 14 cinematographers, gaffers and grips about their favorite new gadgets.

Every year equipment manufacturers come out with loads of enticing new gear, but the true mark of any particular item’s usefulness is the extent to which it’s adopted by working crew members. We asked a dozen grips, gaffers and d.p.’s to tell us what’s in their kit, their equipment package, or simply their film wish list.

 

ROB BAROCCI, d.p.
On the One, Club Dread (second unit), Super Troopers (second unit)

There’s this really interesting new piece of grip equipment that I like to use whenever I’m in Miami. It’s a homegrown, custom item developed by a guy named Evan Nelson called an e-slide, and it’s a metal sliding base for a camera. It can be mounted on a dolly or on a crane/jib arm (it has a sliding Mitchell plate adapter on linear bearings), or it can be used freestanding. You can rest it on two stacks of apple boxes. Depending on the position of the base, you can get lateral or horizontal camera movement just like a dolly on a track. But because you don’t have to lay track, it’s really quick and adjustable, which is great when there aren’t that many hands on your crew or you don’t have the time to move the track all over the place. It comes in lengths of two foot, four foot and six foot. If you’re in a tight hallway and you have to move over a railing it works great. If you’re pushing over a table, the camera can get right over it. When you have to hold on to an over-the-shoulder shot, the operator can just make the adjustment rather than the dolly grip. And with the six-foot sliding base, you get more travel than you would with an eight-foot piece of track because there’s no dolly in the way taking up four feet. It’s a really quick way to get six feet of travel.

Lowel's Rifa-lite 44 collapsible softlight.

My new favorite light is a Lowel Rifa 44, which is a collapsible Chimera but in an umbrella form. It’s a light and soft box all in one, and it’s amazingly easy and quick to set up. I tend to use it for an eyelight, especially when you realize you need one at the last second. The light comes out of the diffuser with a nice wraparound quality because the bulb is not being projected on the center of the diffusion. It’s being centered because of the shape of the bulb and the reflective quality of the housing, and the falloff is more gradual and flattering. The front diffusion is made of spun Teflon glass, so it’s flameproof but has a nice translucent quality. They have thinner diffusion and other egg crates of varying degrees. You can snap this thing together in a minute because it literally opens like an umbrella. It’s just a 50-300 watt, soft-light source, but what’s important is the construction and small amount of space it takes up.

Kodak's Vision2 500T film stock.

There’s a new Kodak Vision2 500T film stock (5229/7229 color negative). This new stock significantly reduces grain while keeping the same relative contrast as 5279. But one of the places where I’ve seen it shine the most is in 16mm. It gives a really nice, clean look with soft colors. I’ve shot music videos and docs using it, and I’ve even pushed it a stop. It looks fantastic.

 

MICHAEL BARROW, d.p.
Human Error

I’ve been using the Kamio Ring Light from Kino Flo. It’s a matte box and ring light combined and it runs off of a battery or a.c.  Any kind of ring light is customarily a “beauty light,” and this one is built directly into the matte box and is one of the most versatile that I’ve seen.  Something we make at Xeno Lights is our own version of a Triffid, which is a frame that fits on a nook light, and it makes your conventional nook light into a very small soft light.

 

HARLAN BOSMAJIAN, d.p.
Lovely & Amazing, Saving Face

P&S Technik's PRO35 lens converter.

I think the P+S Technik PRO35 lens adapter is the best thing out there. It’s the only way to get 35mm depth of field while shooting video. I don’t know why, but the prime lenses for video cameras wind up looking exactly the same as video zoom lenses — you get the same depth of field. But the P+S Technik adapter is now literally changing the way things can be shot on video. It’s the closest thing to 35mm you can get, and I think that if the image is lit well, 85 percent of the people would be hard pressed to tell the difference. The one drawback is the adapter itself sucks up a certain amount of light. You lose about a stop to a stop and a half. You have to shoot at a low f-stop, and if you get past a 5.6, you start to see the glass in the adapter, the mirror that is spinning inside the thing. You start to see the apparatus that is creating the image. I used it with a Canon XL1 on the Showtime spot for Dead Like Me, and it’s been airing all the time.

 

JIM DENAULT, d.p.
Heights, Maria Full of Grace

For me the biggest revelation recently has been DVD dailies. Now we’re not watching dailies on VHS in an old motel room anymore. Originally, if you wanted something that was at least okay it was Betacam. But now with DVD, the resolution is about comparable with Betacam dailies, although the color is still more compressed. Another cool dailies format is the DVHS, the JVC hi-def video system that works on VHS-D tapes.

Arri is coming out with a single-chip HD video camera that is going to make hi-def competitive with film. They are taking a 35mm camera and putting a chip where the film would be, meaning that the light hits the chip instead of film, but the viewing system still involves a ground glass and a lens. And the chip is the size of a 35mm frame — the depth of field is the same. And since it has a single chip, all those back-focus problem are solved. All the hi-def cameras now are just video news cameras that are made to record hi-def. The way these video-camera operators work is completely different than a film d.p. But when this thing comes out, it will make hi-def a viable medium for film production.

 

STEVE GAINER, d.p.
Black Cloud, A Dirty Shame, Bully

Probably the coolest piece of equipment I’ve worked with in the past year is the XR gyrostabilized head from Wescam. When I was shooting Black Cloud in Monument Valley for director Rick Schroder, the script called for tracking shots of our hero riding bareback across this rugged terrain. I could have used a Steadicam mounted on a truck, but then I would have been limited to one height. By mounting the XR on a 17-foot jib arm, I was able to not only change the height of the camera but also the angle I was shooting from, allowing for some really stunning moments. Our time was limited due to a dust storm earlier in the day, so I had just three hours to get all the riding shots for the movie. The Wescam crew was fantastic! Justin Webber and Steve Hertler had the rig up and running in minutes. I can’t wait to work with it again.

 

BEN GAMBLE, gaffer
A Dirty Shame, Mysterious Skin

Kino Flo's ParaBeam lights.

The Kino Flo ParaBeams are my favorite new light right now. They’re beautiful and almost as powerful as a 4K Zip light or a 1,200 PAR bounced. The ParaBeams also come with a silver egg crate rather than the typical black egg crate, so it doesn’t take as much of your stop away. Honestly, it does the work of four flags and four C-stands. It’s also a surprisingly cool light that’s very comfortable for an actor to stand in front of, which is important when shooting in tight, cramped quarters. The technology of the new Kino bulbs is very solid. The color temp is definitely more reliable, so you don’t have to worry about it going to green. Now you can dim them 50 percent and they’ll still maintain a consistent color temp.

 

DAVID GRIFFITH, Hand Held Films camera rental house

Cine Magic in Manhattan makes an accessory called the Snapshot, which is a Mamiya 645 medium-format camera with a viewfinder hood that mounts onto the lens of a 16mm or 35mm motion picture camera. With the Snapshot you can simulate in-camera the photographer’s process of taking a picture. This used to be achieved by shooting with a normal motion picture camera and then putting a matte over the image in post. Now you can go through focus, see the actual ground glass as well as the focusing center, and record the shutter moving in and out of the frame.

 

ALAN JACOBSEN, d.p.
Wet Dreams and False Images (doc), Room Raiders (TV), Eating the Scorpion (doc)

Videosmith's Mini Rover camera handle.

One of the best things I’ve found lately is the new Mini Rover handle from Videosmith for Mini DV cameras. I use it on the Panasonic AG-DVX100, but it also works for the Sony PD-150. It provides a much wider and stabler mass for shooting, and it makes the camera easier to hold and maneuver, especially when you’re shooting documentaries. Whereas the chassis used to force your hand into the side strap, these handles allow your hands to be in a more a natural operating position. It’s also good for shooting extended periods of time or over your shoulder. I’ll take the set screw off and put two handles on one camera.

Panasonic's TC-7WMS1 7" LCD monitor.

Panasonic has a new HD flat-panel 7" LCD monitor that I love. It’s not only bigger than the Astro but looks better too. It has a built-in waveform monitor that you can superimpose outside the image area — on the Astro the waveform kind of overlaps the image. To me it’s really a hybrid of the bigger HD monitors and a typical onboard monitor. I’ll mount it on the dolly or keep it on a C-stand right next to camera, and it runs on batteries. It’s also not as expensive. It’s become my high-quality field monitor for documentaries. Of course, the experts say you should always have a tube monitor when shooting hi-def, but in the run-and-gun world of documentaries that’s just impractical.

Dedo's DLH4 dual-lens light.

Also, the new Dedo lights are really great. They’re 200 percent brighter than the original Dedo, with a dimmer actually mounted on the cord. The lenses are also bigger as well. But Dedos in general are great for many reasons. They are a small, well-made light with an incredible floor-to-spot ratio and a very clean beam. They also have very clean fields of focus, cleaner than your average fresnel. And you can project patterns. These new Dedos use 24-volt bulbs instead of 12 volts, which increases the efficiency in the dimmer and allows the filament to be more robust. They were also able to make the ballast itself more efficient, and hence a better dimmer range. Those are brand spanking new and very hot.

 

MICHAEL MAYERS, d.p.
Bounty Hunter (TV pilot), The Lyon’s Den (TV series), The Education of Max Bickford(TV Series)

Lately I’ve been using a lot of those lightweight zooms that cover 17.5mm to 200mm. Both Panavision and Clairmont in L.A. have them. Panavision has a 17.5/34mm T2.8 Canon, a 27/68mm T2.8 Canon and an 85/200mm T4 Leica. Clairmont has a 17/35mm T3 Century and a 28/70mm T3 Century. They’re rehoused still lenses, and for TV they are just great. They’re not as sharp as the Primo zooms or the Cookes, but they’re plenty sharp and very versatile, especially when handholding or doing Steadicam. They’re lightweight, and the focal lengths break in better places than the Arri zoom lenses.

On the show I’m on now, we’re using a lot of  Mole beam projectors. They give you the effect of a Xenon projector, and they are very spotty. If I want a shaft of light going through a window, it’s a great lightweight unit, much quieter than the Xenons. While the prices may be comparable to a Xenon, they come in both tungstens and HMIs, while the Xenon only comes in… Xenon. They have a great range, too. On the HMI the wattage range is from 1,200 up to 12K, and on the tungsten side the wattage ranges from 2K up to 20K. And you can actually dim the tungstens, which is nice. Also you can hang the units straight down, which you can’t really do with a Xenon.

Cartoni's Lambda tripod head.

The Lambda head, made by Cartoni, is a great new underslung fluid head. It’s easy for operators and assistants to work with, and, most importantly, it’s much beefier, so you can put a heavier camera on it, which is often necessary on low-budget shows where you can’t afford a more lightweight camera. Also the drag controls are very adjustable — a dial-in system as opposed to a screw-in system. There are seven tilt and seven pan settings. Having a good underslung head is a great advantage because of the awkward spots you often find yourself in. Trust me, when your camera’s hanging over a building, you need easy adjustability.

 

MICHAEL OTAÑO, d.p./camera operator
Corn(d.p.), A Perfect Murder (a.c.)

I’ve been using the P+S Technik 35mm adapter that allows you to use 35mm lenses with the AG-DVX100, PD-150 and many other digital video cameras. I’ve been using it with the DVX mostly, and I’m just floored with the results. Now I have the full spectrum of creative tools that I’m used to when shooting film. It makes the video camera a truly cinematic tool at low cost. With regards to the actual technology, the adapter incorporates an oscillating ground glass, which I think was originally designed as a director’s video viewfinder. P+S saw the potential and redesigned it for the new application that we see here. The first generation had a rotating ground glass, which was problematic, but the redesigned version with the oscillating ground glass is much better defined. It gives the video image a grainy quality yet without looking cheesy. It doesn’t look like an effect; it’s real and organic, and for me that’s the difference.

 

SCOTT RAMSEY, gaffer
The Manchurian Candidate, The Sixth Sense, Signs

On The Manchurian Candidate, we used a new light from Morpheus, the Panabeam XR2. It’s an automated 1200 watt wash light which was very versatile and much more powerful than the traditional automated lights. Something else I’m very excited about is the LED light panel from Lite Panels. It’s also extremely versatile, and it’s easy to hide and generates no heat. It has gel packs that take it from daylight to 3200. The kit comes with two units, and each unit has a battery that lasts up to two hours. And it can also run off a 12-volt car battery or be plugged into the wall. It’s ideal for car rigs, it’s a great little eye light, and it will be perfect for use with ENG cameras.

 

STEVE Ramsey,  gaffer
Door on the Floor, American Splendor

J.L. Fisher has a new jib arm called the Model 23. If you need to get the camera high or get a wide range, the Fisher 23 has a long arm with a range of 6 to 21 feet. It attaches to the center mount of a Fisher 10. For swing shots you can use a manual operating system, but with the higher shots you’ll obviously need a remote head. It’s a very nice piece of equipment, and the assembly is quick and easy. You need two people, but it takes only 10 to 15 minutes to assemble. While it’s not necessarily cheaper than a crane, there are some reasons to use this jib over a crane. Personally, I always prefer to use a remote hothead and a jib rather than a crane. I never like putting someone up in a bucket when you don’t have to, especially when that person is someone who is constantly needing to take light-meter readings. And you don’t have to have guys come in and build it, like a crane.

 

DAVE STERN, key grip
From Other Worlds, The Mudge Boy, Second Best, P.S.

J.L. Fisher's Soft Compound dolly wheels.

On these reality shows, having a light attached to the video camera is a big deal, and LED lights seem to be the new thing. Lighting companies are starting to stick LEDs on everything. On the show I’m on now they are using lights off a Web site called ledlights.com.

Dolly wheels: We all know J.L. Fisher. Well, J.L. has a got a new set of wheels called soft compound dolly wheels, and they are amazing. If your dolly grip has any experience with dance floor work, these wheels can save a lot of time resetting track. They are the perfect mix of soft and hard to keep the camera steady but still go over minor bumps.

 

JASON VALEZ, key grip
Bought & Sold, Particles of Truth

Golf cart.

Golf carts. I’ve found that golf carts work great as camera cars. In many cases they work better. For example, we gutted a golf cart and rigged two platforms off the front and back respectively. The cart was a four-seater, and with our new platforms it could handle a cameraman and a boom op. We were doing some shots of an actor running full sprint. He ran all day; onscreen it was about six or seven blocks. We were able to use our “dolly” for at least 18 to 20 angles. We were able to nail shots because everyone involved with the shot is right there together (d.p./camera op/ director/driver/dolly grip). The key is to get a battery-powered cart (better for sound, unless you’re MOS), have at least three hours to rig out and have plenty of hardware and speed rail. It’s also a good idea to get two, just in case you run out of juice. Or get a prerigged one — we didn’t know about this beforehand. In the future I’d rent one from Action Camera in New York.