Just had another look at it . . quite wonderful!

Grazie

Was he really saying that you only lose a stop with this? That's not terrible, especially if you've already got the budget to choose between 6KW and 12KW HMIs... ;-)

I've been lighting a series of interviews using a pair of 4-tube Divas for key and N9 on the windows (Yes, I do cut it for one interview). I'd have to double the Wattage of all my lights if I lost a stop at the lens, but the advantage of being able to dial the windows in as the light changed would be worth having our producer pay more for lights. Well...worth it in my view anyway.

A roll of ND is about $100-$120. How much is this material?

Rob Mack

Had a hands on with this system at NAB, great idea for solving a problem of limited scope. Thing is the more I think about it the more narrow the limited scope becomes. There's one morning TV show down here that has a large window onto a public space that's part of the set, there's a place that might use it except you'd want all the polas on all the cameras to track as the light varied.

Bob.

"I still want my contra rotating infinitely variable ND filter lump!"

Ya know you can buy them?

Arri make one, no doubt at some astronomic price but someone else has recently started to sell one at a more realistic price. I'll see if I can find a linky to it if you're interested. Saw it mentioned in a forum at DVInfo for the Canon 5D.

Bob.

Rob, I hope you're sitting down :-)
A place called Stage Lighting Store has it for $829.69 for a 56" x 8' roll.

BTW, here's the Rosco VIEW FAQs.

Mike

Oops. Just priced it on the web. A 56"x9' roll is about $700.00 bucks vs a 20' roll of N9 at $125.00-ish. You'd have to make a case for using this because there are limited times when it makes financial sense.

Rob Mack

Yeah. Saw that. I think I could make a case for using it but it'd be so rare for me that I'd forget the stuff existed.

Rob

It seems like the multicamera shoot would be a hard sell. These might be good uses:

- A daily or weekly video message with a window in the background and a lighting setup that stays in place all the time. Traffic reporter, financial advisor, etc. One camera, same shot all year.

- A feature film that will use the same set for a week or more and use it for several hours of the day. This system would save the trouble of changing the gel during the day. It also helps you to keep the same stop on the lens throughout the day. Polarizing gel and filter is probably a problem with dolly moves.

For the situation in the promo video, he was talking about dropping from 12k to 6k HMIs, and probably saving an hour or more every day, as well as freeing up a grip or two for other work. There's a savings to all that, although a weekly rental on a light is often just a 2-day charge.

I'd think this'd be tough to meter if you were shooting film.