Turtlerock Forum

Someone has just asked me an interesting question about trying to reduce the noise of their stills camera makes so they can shoot on film sets. He is looking at possibly custom building something to put over his cameras and was wondering if I knew of any suitable materials.

He may get his camera scanned and then CNC a casing, or make get something stitched up - is anyone aware of any suitable materials or equipment that might help in this scenario?

Waterproof casing?

Is it a digital stills camera? The reason I ask is that with the digital stills camera you just turn those pesky sfx off in the camera menu

If they are far enough away from the boom/talent then noise shouldn't be an issue, or they should just shoot during rehearsal/blocking and not while camera/sound is rolling.

Jason Dirckze wrote:
If they are far enough away from the boom/talent then noise shouldn't be an issue, or they should just shoot during rehearsal/blocking and not while camera/sound is rolling.

probably this.

dont want a camera person walking around during a scene, may cause Christian Bale-isms.

If it's a digital point and shoot jobbie, turn the sounds off in the menu. If it's a digital SLR, the sound is mechanical and you can't do anything about it within the camera itself. All of my Digital SLRs have a bloody loud mirror and shutter noise, I love it the sound, but it's bloody loud. For the film-set and TV shoots I've done, I hired an underwater casing (actually 3, 'cause I used 3 cameras) and packed it with tontine. It's worked pretty well each time (no complaints from directors/crew) but its not 100% silent, and those cases are a bugger to use, just big and akward... I had to use 3 camera's 'cause changing lenses in that setup was a massive bugger, so I used separate cameras with the 3 lenses I wanted to use and away we went.

The suggestion to shoot during blocking is a good one, however, the real "magic" happens during the "takes" so it's great to be able to shoot then as well! Another option is to just get a really nice fast and long lens and shoot from well behind the action. A lot of great shots can be had and you're nice and far away from the boom.

Dave

[quote="TimS"]He may get his camera scanned and then CNC a casing,quote]

Ouch.. that would not be cheap.

May be worth looking into the latest mirrorless/interchangable lens cameras that Olympus (EP-P1) , Panasonic(DMC-GH1) and Leica (M9, M8.2) are making - in theory they should be pretty quiet without the moving bits and slr needs.

Cheers

Wow I am just about to buy the Panasonic Limix Gh1 for still shots and digital Hd movies.
The new F1 looks just a little better but you have buy a good lens to match the GH1 which brings it up to the same cost. I think I prefer the larger image senor on the GH-1 then the F-1.
I saw the GH-1 one for AUS$2499 which is a lot cheaper then the $3299 most other places are doing it.
Anyone actually used one yet as it has the slient lense?
Cheers