NZ Video News Dec 2010 by Grant Cummuskey

DECEMBER 2010

Vol 165

The Larger the Better! – Sony’s F3 is here Finally, its Christmas for the “short depth of field” artists of the video industry – Sony have a pre-production model of their 35mm sensor, purpose built video camera for the television market. You can find out all the specs by going to the web but what’s it like to use? We are at Sony New Zealand with David Colthorpe and Scott Webster who is sitting here for the first time in Sony colours. It’s a perfect timing actually, because Scott has experience with 35mm lens adapters and video cameras over many years, and one of the first tasks he was given was to have a close look at the PMW-F3 on a shoot in Australia. Ed: Scott, what are your first impressions of the camera? Scott: Well the F3 is going to be an entirely new beast really. For people who have worked with Sony cameras before, th is is something new and very exciting for them to lay their hands on. The pictures are absolutely stunning. Seriously, if anyone’s caught any of the online samples that have just recently come out, I think we’re all very surprised at how good this sensor is in this camera, and how well this camera performs. It is really amazing. Ed: Now is this an entirely new sensor for Sony, or is it one that’s been developed from the F35? Scott: No, this is specifically designed for the F3 camera.

new

sensor

Ed: But the actual camera itself, you were saying, has some physical outward appearance of the EX camera range?

Scott: Yes … you could offhandedly say it’s an EX3 with a 35mm sensor but really, it’s a lot more than that. You can see its heritage has come from the EX1-EX3 range and anyone who has picked up an EX1 or EX3 will be totally comfortable with this camera and be up and going within seconds. Ed: So does that sort of give us an idea of its direction in the market – that this is something that’s going to compliment the standard television camera range of Sony in that professional broadcast area? Scott: Yes and no. It does compliment the EX range; it can also fit in with the PDW-700s and the F800 – it can work nicely cut in with that material … but it is the first time that Sony has released a camera with a 35mm sensor that is within the price range of people who have shot with the EX3. For example, I would see its use with those people who have used a lens adapter on the EX1 or the EX3 and have always wished for something that they could use to get those pictures without that lens adapter on the front. But it also has the added bonus of the S-Log and dual link outputs from the rear of the camera, which is an upgrade coming in April. This will take the camera to a whole new level in terms of what you can do with it. It’s a very flexible tool and really can’t be pigeonholed with our other products. Ed: We’ll come back to the S-Log later, but the positioning of the camera I would see as being with people who are used to using a television camera. They will immediately be familiar with it, and the workflow it puts out means that it can be used by production facilities that are used to a normal video production

NZVN articles on-line at <www.nzcrews.tv> P12 Gencom installs two big ones P19 You are invited to a show P28 It’s all GO at Protel P34 Going on about GoPro

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is extensive. In the standard television area that we all know and love, there’s cameras from one end to the other; in the 35mm area, there’s been the F35 for a number of years now at that top end. Perhaps I could say at the bottom end, you’ve actually had a DSLR that has recorded 1080 images, but you’ve never made a song and dance about that?

David and Scott.

workflow – it just gives you that shallower depth of field that some people are looking for with the 35mm sensor?

David: Well, you’re quite right, we have a comprehensive range of products so we can speak with some authority about where we think one product is most suitable versus another. We’re not protecting just one particular arena of activity and therefore I think it goes without saying that we really do believe that an optimum solution for video production is a video style camera, rather than a digital SLR. A digital SLR is a fabulous product, a fabulous tool for still imagery, and to have video shooting capability as an auxiliary function is handy, but I don’t think any manufacturer of digital SLRs could honestly say they were optimised with video in mind.

Scott: Yes, that’s exactly right. As I said before, anyone who has shot with an EX1 or EX3 will pick this up and go, but maybe if they’re not used to shooting with prime lenses, or depth of field calculations that are required when shooting with a sensor this size, that’s certainly something that they’re going to have to get their heads around when using this camera.

Ed: So for that purpose, you’ve developed 35mm video cameras?

Ed: So on the workflow side, the postproduction is going to be really easy but, as you say, for people who have not used a camera with shallow depth of field, there’s going to be some learning involved in the production workflow?

Ed: But you don’t see the F3 style taking over from the standard video camera range?

Scott: Yes, if they’re not familiar with that film style of shooting, it’s something they’re going to have to up-skill with in terms of getting the best result out of this camera. Ed: Now you were giving me an example before where a DOP might require an F stop of say 2.8 for the production. With this camera, how do you achieve that through the production, and what is the value of having, for example, a 2.8 F stop? Scott: It’s all about achieving that shallow depth of field in terms of setting your stops and controlling that with ND filters to ensure your exposure is still correct. The camera itself has two ND selections built onboard, which is a first for this style of camera. Usually with cinema style cameras, to add or take away ND you put a matte box on the front and you add or take away NDs as required for the stop, for the scene that you’re looking at. But the stops that you work at and the effect that you create are the DP’s choice; they may vary from scene to scene or they may set a constant stop for as much of the production as they want. Ed: So if you want to achieve a great depth of field on a bright sunny day, you have to stop down the camera, which lets more light in, but then you add the NDs to set the correct exposure? Scott:

Correct.

Ed: We’ll take a pause from the short answers here, by going to David. David, the Sony line-up of cameras

David: Yes, that’s our competence and very much something we’ve perceived as a requirement in the industry.

David: Well life increasingly becomes more and more interesting, more complicated and diverse, and digital content creation is no different! There’s an increasing range of media types and styles of production. This is another tool to fulfil these requirements. Ed: What I’m trying to get him to say is that this particular camera is not a camera for every man; it’s not a camera for every situation. The workflow required in the production area where you have to be careful about where your focal point is, you have to have your talent in the right spot, otherwise you can have a picture that’s totally out of focus. Whereas, with a standard television camera, with a zoom lens and auto focus, it’s a piece of cake? David: Exactly, so there’s a requirement for both types of approach – smaller sensors with a large depth of field; larger sensors with that opportunity for creativity. One is not better than the other, it’s simply that one is a tool that suits one application and one is a tool that suits another. Having said that, obviously we do recognise that there is a trend towards the large sensor look and the F3 is a fabulous tool to deliver that look very easily. You can literally pull it out of the box and get on with life – very easy workflows, very familiar controls and functions. Ed: It’s good to have the buttons in the right places. But for people who are perhaps news freelancers doing corporate work, the professional side of camera use, in fact this is not really the camera for that sort of production?

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image from that S-Log flat negative that you’ve captured. S-log compresses both highlights and shadow areas leaving the mid range flat and linear. It is still important that you get your exposure correct as you want to use the linear part of the curve as much as possible. The original footage captured will look quite flat and washed out and not very appealing when viewed without a LUT ( that’s a look up table ) applied but your colourist will love you for it when it comes time to grade. Ed:

So S-log is a future development for the F3?

David:

Yes, expected in April.

Ed: And another development that should make a big difference to the versatility of this camera, is the development of a zoom lens? Scott: Yes, this is something I haven’t seen before on any Super 35mm sensor camera. The F3 has an electronic mount very similar to the EX-3; in fact the PL mount on the camera is an adapter that is removable leaving you with a front end very similar to the EX-3. Now if you see shots of the camera, you’ll see on the right side there is a zoom rocker built into the camera body itself, and in future developments Sony will introduce a range of zoom lenses that can be fitted to the camera where you will have video ENG zoom lens like controls over a lens designed for a Super 35mm sensor. This is a first. Ed: That’s not a 35mm lens that’s been developed for a DSLR?

the reasons why the F3 is so extraordinarily noise free. It has very low noise characteristics and also very high sensitivity as the area of the effective photosites, that portion of the imaging chip that functions as the light sensitive area, is extremely large. Also you don’t have the artefacts that are related to the line skipping readout that a digital SLR is obliged to employ to achieve video images. Ed: So a dedicated video camera, whether it’s an F3 or a 700, has a sensor that has a lot of pixels, but it also has the ability to refresh that sensor fast enough so that it keeps up with the high frame rate? David: That’s right. The point is that it’s a cine dedicated sensor and the photosite on each pixel is much larger, the effective gathering area of each pixel is much larger, so you benefit from the sensitivity and reduced noise. You also obtain the benefit of the video optimised readout of the sensor, which means that you don’t have any unusual characteristics or aliasing or peculiar motion portrayal when panning. Ed: And I guess the last question is one that people who have tried to use a DSLR for productions will know all about, and that is audio. The F3 has got a proper audio system built-in has it? David: Yes it does. It goes without saying that the F3 has 16-bit, 48-kHz linear PCM uncompressed audio. It has XLR connectors for microphones and level setting and metering and 48 volt power for the mics. NZVN

Scott: No, this will be an entirely new lens range built specifically for the PMW-F3 to take advantage of the ability to control a cine zoom like an ENG lens. Partner this with ALAC ( automatic lens aberration compensation ) on the camera and you have the ability to produce vastly cheaper cine-style zooms than have been traditionally available. Ed: Just give me the difference between a PL mount and a DSLR type mount? Scott: A PL mount ( and PL stands for Positive Locking ) is a universal standard for mounting lenses onto film cameras and it makes perfect sense for the F3 to have this mount for its 35mm sensor. It allows any 35mm lens that’s been developed for the film industry, to be utilised on this camera. The F3 PL adapter also has connectors for the Arri LDS and the Cooke iData lens information systems. Ed: Now David, in terms of the sensor inside an F3, one of the issues I understand with a DSLR camera that’s recording HD video, is that in fact the sensor size is big enough, but what doesn’t happen is that the images are processed fast enough so that the end result is good clear video. Some problems occur because the sensor is a still image sensor, but in fact what you need is a true video sensor. Is the F3 in that true sensor category? David:

Yes it is.

It is a Super 35mm cinematography sensor, designed for that purpose. Unlike a digital SLR which has very high resolution for still photography, it does not require to skip lines, so the actual effective surface area of the digital SLR sensor in relative terms is probably a third or half of the sensor size of the F3, and this is one of Page 10

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Gencom installs two Big Ones We are at Eden Park, the hallowed turf … well actually there’s a big hole cut out of the middle of it at the moment – it looks as though they’re installing a cricket pitch. But we’re not here for cricket, we’re actually here for that “pointy” ball stuff, “The Rugby World Cup” and to talk to us we have Glen McCracken, ICT Director from Eden Park and Ross Knowles, Systems Integration Manager, from Gencom. Ed: Ross, this is a big screen job, Gencom’s the integrator – what have you actually had to integrate into the Eden Park facility here?

went round the houses again, measured it again, and then finally they came up and our guys measured it and they said “It’s within 3mm overall” and I just stood there and I thought I don’t know how you could get it anything that accurate, but they did, and they did really well. That was on the first one, and we had a similar process on the second one. It took a week or two to get there, but they got it dead right, and that made the installation a breeze; it just made it so much easier. It sounds easy, 3mm out of 10, 12 metres, but that’s a phenomenally tight tolerance. Ed: Was it important? I mean if it was 15mm out, would you have seen any difference?

Ross: Well this is a joint venture with Panasonic. We’ve taken their LED screen elements and we’ve assembled them into the large structures that you see out here in the ground that were built by Fletchers. We’ve been the glue in that process as it were. There is quite a lot more to it than simply putting the LED screens in place. We were also involved in designing, sourcing and installing the ventilation fan system and the louvers that protect those ventilation fans and the incoming air filtering system, and the electrical distribution within each screen. There’s 100 kVA there; when those things hit full white and that’s a lot, so there’s a massive switchboard in there with controls and a distribution breaker – the whole business. So although they might just look like a simple big screen in a red box, there’s really a lot involved. We took the product elements from Panasonic, installed them and worked alongside all the other contractors – predominantly Fletchers who are the main contractors onsite, and made sure that everything was designed to fit and work correctly as required by Panasonic.

Ross: There are a number of issues, the main one to do with the ability to keep the water out of it. These things are effectively the front wall on a large enclosure that we don’t want water getting into, so to get all the elements to seal correctly, the tolerance and flatness had to be adhered to. The other one is with LEDs and lines of scan effectively, you don’t have to get far out before you can start picking that up. The human eye is very good at picking up inconsistencies in pictures like that, particularly horizontally, so if you get a gap or if things are slightly offset, you can see them, but sitting from here you would probably get away with a 8-10mm tolerance and not pick it up. But at different parts of the ground you would start noticing those things. So to get the perfect registration we’re looking for, you needed that tolerance, but more from a physical point of view, from waterproofing, from structural integrity and all of that, that was all important. Ed: So there’s that experience, that expertise there that you’ve built up over the years that’s enabled you to just go that one extra step, rather than a huge leap?

Ed: Okay, so you’ve installed large LCD screens now – any particular technical interest in such a large screen? Ross: Well it’s just a big version of a small project, but Panasonic had dictated that the tolerance in the steelwork that everything mounts on inside that structure that you’re looking at, was 3mm. That was 3mm out of a flat plane, that was 3mm out of plumb, that was 3mm tolerance over a 10 metre x 12 metre steel structure. Now that sounds … you know 3mm, an eighth of an inch whatever, doesn’t sound like a lot, but over a structure that big, it is a phenomenally tight tolerance and I had doubts from day one that it could be achieved. The guys from Cullen’s who built it, Fletchers who were involved in the installation of it, said it could be done, and so I took their word for it and from day one I think it started, the worst tolerance was about 14mm. So each time we’d measure it painstakingly; our structural engineer guys measured it all, and they started off 14mm right-o, they worked on it and they got it down to about 7 or 8mm and then all Page 12

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It’s all GO at Protel Avid Pro Tools shows, AJA Ki Pro Mini demo and a new Auckland showroom. I asked Ken Brooke to tell me more. Ken: Well, we had a showroom out the rear of the building, which really wasn’t suitable for customers. As you walk in the front door, it’s obviously nice to see all the products. Customers like to have a good look while they’re buying other bits and pieces, so it’s certainly got some advantages for customers and ourselves. Ed: Well it’s certainly captured my interest … I‘ve seen some things here that I didn’t know that you had. There’s of course Petrol bags and a Vinten tripod or two and Datavideo gear, but also lots of audio gear. I didn’t know Protel were so much into audio – being a video man myself! Ken: We do have a lot of audio equipment to offer; in fact half our sales are audio equipment. We offer the Avid Pro Tools series of products; the Genlec Active speakers; and recently the KV² Audio product for musicians; and obviously all the accessories that go with Pro Tools. Check out our website for a complete list http://www.protel.co.nz/audio.html Ed: Now Gavin’s going to tell us just briefly, something about the KV² Audio speakers. There are two ranges of speakers from KV² Audio and some are branded KV² Audio and others are branded KX. Why have they done this?

“Come one and all” says Ken.

Gavin: So KX Audio is the entry level range of active loudspeakers. It’s basically hitting a new price point that their previous KV² range was not reaching. So, yes, these particular boxes have the same type of design philosophy as the higher end units, but are manufactured in China, whereas the KV²s are all made in Czechoslovakia. It’s basically just a new entry price point for a premium brand really. Ed: And on the subject of Pro Tools, I understand recently there was a show for people who are interested in Pro Tools? Gavin, you were there in Auckland … popular show, happy customers? Gavin: Yes, we had a great turnout both from Avid Australia ( basically the whole team from Avid Australia came across ) and we had a very good range of people attend from your home musicians right up to audio post professionals. So we’re really happy with the turnout. Ed: What were the highlights of the Pro Tools upgrade? Gavin: It was a huge release for Avid, basically opening up the whole platform, offering support of both ACO and core audio compliant interfaces; so not actually locking users into having to use Avid interfaces is quite a huge thing. There is also unification of the Pro Tools line so there’s no longer LE and M-powered, it’s now just a single installer for the entire Pro Tools range, and a whole lot of new features … increased track counts, OMF/AAF import and export; multitrack Beat Detective and MP3 option are all now standard as part of Pro Tools’ line. Ed:

And a better integration with Media Composer 5?

Gavin: Yes, certainly a lot better. Things like Media Composer 5 now has i-TAS support but those settings can actually be translated directly into Pro Tools via AAF along with automation and a whole lot of features. Ed:

Gavin is Mr Audio at Protel in Auckland.

Is there a new Mbox Mini …?

Gavin: It’s not just the Mini, the entire Mbox line has been refreshed, so basically brand new interfaces from the ground up, much better build quality, the sound quality itself has been brought up to spec to be more in line with the HD interfaces and built into SP4 Page 28

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storage cards and proprietary codecs that are used in their cameras. You can directly connect HDMI into it in 4:2:2 – or HD/SD providing you a higher quality recording to an SXS or a CompactFlash card or P2 Card. Ki Pro Mini supports all four types of Apple ProRes 4:2:2 ( including HQ,LT and Proxy ). It also provides you a lower cost alternative to some of the other products that are being used at the moment. Ed: But you sell them all don’t you Ken, so you can offer the customers that range? Ken: Correct, we can offer customers totally uncompressed 4:4:4 recorders, or the lower cost 4:2:2, and the cards to suit their cameras – whatever they want. The Ki Pro Mini price point is such that it enables this type of product to be financially viable to a lot more people; it is so much easier for editing, to ingest straight into your Avid or your Final Cut or your Adobe Premiere and edit the ProRes footage. Ed:

That’s it, it’s workflow isn’t it?

Ken: Yes and picture quality. As AJA puts it “Lens to Post in a Flash”. Ed: Now an item I spotted in the showroom has the name CalDigit. Gavin, you’re the man to explain why people should have a CalDigit RAID array rather than something from an ordinary computer company?

great product range from the brand new CalDigit AV drive, which is the first USB 3 and Firewire 800 combo drive, which is compatible on both MAC OS and Windows, and available with both PCI Express and ExpressCard 34 host Bus adapter cards, through to the CalDigit VR and VR Mini which are dual drive RAID arrays, right up to mini-SAS and direct PCIE RAID systems and shared storage. So, yes, a great range of products, very well built, and specifically designed for content creation. Ed: So do you just provide the boxes and people put their own drives in, or do you provide the complete package? Gavin: No, it’s a single vendor solution, so we basically provide the complete package ready to go. It’s very easy to configure and set up and manage. Ed: This showroom really is an Aladdin’s Cave. Another product that I see here that – well, it’s certainly a well-known product Ken? Ken: Absolutely. We sell Black Magic product and we keep the faster moving products in stock. We also have some demonstration stock for customers to trial if required. Ed: So that is important to you, you’re not just a one product supplier; you’ve got a range here, so a customer who has a particular need can come along and talk to you and not just see one product, but can see a range of products, and you can tell them the differences between “A” and “B”? Ken: Yes, absolutely. Often customers require quite a range of products to put a system together. We are able to source and offer a very wide range of products to create a complete solution for our customers. We have enough products in our portfolio to set up a complete Television Station excluding transmitter which we leave to others. Ed: Now one of the other reasons that I’m here Ken is that I’m really interested in one of your “hot” products of this moment, and that is a camera that doesn’t begin with “S”? Ken: Oh the little GoPro. Yes we’ve been selling quite a few of them. There’s obviously a lot of sports people in New Zealand who want to video in HD themselves and others skydiving, snowboarding, surfing, kayaking, skateboarding, cycling etc or they want a multi-camera shoot on vehicles, or just an extra camera to pick up background shots. The applications are endless. Ed: I’m keen, because I saw this at NAB and I thought “wow”, but the big drawback at the time was that it was NTSC only. Now we have a PAL firmware upgrade and I’m going to take one of these away and give it a try, and see if I can kill it, or if I can take some decent pictures with it – you never know. What are your predictions Ken?

Gavin: Yes. CalDigit is a US based storage company. They’re a single vendor manufacturer of storage, so they provide everything from the enclosures right through to the host Bus cards and all the other interconnects that you require. So basically just one source of support; rather than “mixing and matching” RAID cards to enclosures with drives, everything is provided by the single vendor. They pride themselves in all of the RAID products being hardware RAID. There’s several advantages to that – lower CPU overhead, lower latency, improved performance, and a

Ken: I don’t think you’ll kill it, because they’re actually built like a brick. I’ve just updated the firmware today, so let’s see if it works for you shall we? Ed: Do you think I’ll be able to take some good pictures with it? Ken: Oh yes, absolutely. Ed: You’ve got a lot of confidence in me as a cameraperson? Ken: Well you’ve been around a long time and have some experience haven’t you? Ed: Is that a prerequisite for being good? We will see! NZVN

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1080p and 170 degrees for other resolutions ) and you will see from the pictures in this article that you do get some distortion in vertical lines as you see in the house picture. The only way you can tell for sure where your frame is, is by setting it up, recording a piece, and then playing it back onto a monitor. Of course you only need a short clip to do that, but you might need to do it a number of times if your actual setting up position was critical. You don’t need a high definition monitor for this, because it has a connector with a simple RCA out, so you can even use the standard definition monitor just to get an idea of where your frame’s going to be. Accessories. It makes you Now one of the real advantages of this camera is the accessories that come with it, and although many products sell “accessories not included”, the pack that Protel have chosen to supply here as the most common, has a huge range of accessories. The most valuable one is the watertight case that comes with it, and this has two external buttons – one for the “Power On” and one for the “Record” position. I did a test with it on and with it off out in my garden and the quality of the pictures was indistinguishable. This plastic housing has a pivot point, and there is a stand that goes onto that, and then on the stand there’s a clip. This clips onto one of four sticker-based base plates ( two curved, two flat ) that come included and you simply peel off the backing and stick this where you want to place it. Now I wouldn’t recommend that you stick it onto the paintwork of your $200K Aston Martin, but certainly it gives you that option. There’s also a headband or straps that go onto any part of your body – you can even mount it on your wrist. Common positions for these are on helmets, and you can either use the sticker set-up or you can mount it with a strap, whatever way you like. And of course the beauty of this is that if it does fall off for some reason, well it’s a very durable case and also a very durable little camera, so it’s unlikely to get damaged, but if it does get run over, then you haven’t lost much.

Summary. There are other options than the Hero camera out there – some of them certainly not up to this standard, and others obviously of a higher standard, but at a higher cost. My take on this is that if you’re in any extreme sport situation, then this camera gives you that cost versus productivity equation that will enable you to take some stunning shots to add into a production without the risk of damaging an expensive camera. In terms of what it does, I would certainly give it 10 out of 10 in doing what it says it does, and that is providing a sporting high definition recording capability that if you want that fast action, then you set it at 720p 50 frames per second; if you want superb images at full high definition, then you have a 25p. Now there are lots of settings within the camera if you want to bother – you can go into the system and change the exposure settings as to whether you have it spot metered or centre weighted; you can even change whether it records an upside-down image. If you have to mount the camera so that it is upside-down, you can go into

look fatter on close-up! [No it doesn’t Boss! Ms Hellfinger]

The view from inside.

the settings and flip it around in record rather than having to do it in postproduction. Apart from framing, the only little difficulty I had with it was the connection to the computer via USB. Even though it says you connect it up and just turn the camera on and you’ll get a little USB symbol, a number of times my computer ( even though it’s running Windows 7 and it’s a Hewlett Packard, so it shouldn’t really be the computer at fault ) failed to recognise the device, and when it finally did recognise it ( after a number of “on and off” actions ) then the USB wireless connection for my mouse stopped! Finally I managed to get both the mouse and the GoPro to connect and away it went. It also failed a couple of times while I was trying to play off the GoPro – the connection would disconnect and then reconnect, so I found it advantageous to drag the files off the GoPro SD card and into the computer. Where to buy one. That’s pretty well it. You can find out more about this camera by contacting Protel because, once I give this back, they will have a demonstration model for you to see and try, or you can go to www.goprocamera.com and have a look at what they show there. My last word on this is that you buy one from a New Zealand dealer. “Yes”, it is available direct from the website and probably you would save a few dollars but, don’t expect anyone here to fix or replace it if you have a problem. I don’t imagine that there is a high level of factory testing of this camera, so the assurance provided by a local seller is very important in my NZVN opinion. Ed.

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soft boxes

HDD

camera pads media

windup stands

cameras

shoulder straps

pelican cases

Light panels

tripod bags

lighting

camcorders

gels

C stands

friendly

tripods

booms

professional

batteries

pens

production cases

adapters

SXS cards SR tapes

filters

wet covers

battery chargers

memory cards

fluid heads XDCAM

carry cases

super clamps

umbrellas

lens cleaners

spigots collapsible reflectors

clamps tripod repairs

camera body armour clapper boards

light stands

DSLR rigs

sales and service

video transmitters

gaffer tapes

consumables

lithium ion batteries matte boxes

eye covers

Filmiliar with the Filmily? Tim: (09) 3608766

318 Richmond Road, Grey Lynn, Auckland

tim.timlin@panavision.asia