PRESS RELEASES FROM JOHN SHARAF PHOTOGRAPHY
January 6, 2010
ONE STOP HIGH DEFINITION SOURCE

To keep pace with the ever changing and improving High Definition landscape, John Sharaf Photography has accepted delivery of the first Sony SRW9000 HDCAM-SR Camcorder in the US. This camera is the first compact one-piece camera to offer 10 bit, full raster, 444 and S-Log recording inn a compact one-piece design. Previously only the Sony F23 and F35 cameras did this, but their form factor and cost were prohibitive. Now digital filmmakers have a no-compromise option at a reasonable price. By leveraging existing kit that includes cine style Canon lenses, fiber cable systems from Telecast and extensive engineering and monitoring from Evertz, Leader and eCinema, John Sharaf Photography is now offering its clientele the most nimble digital cinema production kit presently available.

This camera is especially suited to visual effects assignments as well, especially blue and greens because of it's 10 bit recording and full 4:4:4 color sampling. With the option cards that are already installed the camera both records and is able to out put the 4:4:4 signal to monitors and/or directly to computer for on the set compositing. Sony is fully commited to making the HDCAM-SR the new standard for digital cinema and has lowered the tape stock price by 25% as an incentive.

The addition of S-Log recording, which gives the camera a 12 stop dynamic range, makes it a legitimate replacement for film in many applications. The camera also has built in look-up-tables (LUT) which convert the S-Log to standard HD video (709) for client viewing and to create dailies on another medium (like HD-XDCAM). Sony will shortly announce an extended editing function to allow the user to create their own LUT's and import them to the camera for "custom" looks.

For this who do not need 10 bit recording or not willing to use an HDCAM-SR VTR for ingest, John Sharaf Photography still offers F900R's, PDW700/800's and the Panasonic Varicams. All the same lenses, engineering and monitoring still applies.

Please feel free to contact us directly for a demonstration or quote.

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December 5,2009
JSP OFFERS LARGEST HMI TO PLUG INTO THE WALL

John Sharaf Photography is please to be one of the first lighting vendors in America to offer it's customers the new ARRI 1800 watt HMI. This light is touted to be the "largest" unit that will run off of a typical 20 amp household circuit, and eliminates the need in many cases for a generator and the extra cable, transport and manpower needs that comes with it.

The migration of ballast technology from larger units allows the 1800 watt device to "turn on" as a 1200 watt unit with 150% power draw, thus not blowing the fuse on power up. Once the light stabilizes at 12 amps, you'll hear a click and notice the light is much brighter; it's now at 1800 watt full power. From there you can dim it down to 1200 without changing the color temperature. The design of the instrument itself also takes advantage of R&D that ARRI has done with reflector design. The same "MAXI" design which they have implemented in their 18K HMI is used in this unit as well. Furthermore the reflector can be field-changed into a PAR lamp so it's actually two lights in one. Our units come complete with the conversion kits and the PAR lenses required in that configuration.

We've added Avenger crank-up stands for these and our 4K Pars that easily lift the units to 16' and have speedrings and ,medium Chimeras available as accessories as well.

When used with our inventory of eight 800 watt Jokers, you can light an extremely large practical location off of 6 household circuits. Another advantage of these lights is that they will endure a long cable run with typical #12/3 AC stingers, as they all only need about 90 volts to turn on and run at full color temperature.

Please feel free to contact us directly for a demonstration or quote.

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August 4, 2009
TOUR DE FRANCE FILMED WITH 3 PDW700'S


Patty and John Sharaf just returned from a sixty day shoot in the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland for 8 Second Films LLC based in Seattle. They covered the Tour de France and related events with three Sony PDW700 cameras shooting 24p on HD-XDCAM Professional disks. Along with a producer and crew of four French technicians and two interns we shot over 200 hours of interviews and documentary materials without a burp from these new cameras.

While these cameras were designed primarily for broadcast use, and the later version (PDW-F800) meant for Digital Cinema, as it carries the CIne Alta badge, the 700's at the time we left did offer a 24 over 60 frame rate (like the Varicam) and it was this format that we used. Upon our return, Sony made the 1080/24p option available and all three cameras have since been upgraded. In tests before we left, we compared the 700's to the Varicams and found them to be sharper, and the media had about 50% more capacity (45 minutes vs. 32 minutes) at the same cost, which was a significant amount considering how much we knew we would shoot. In addition the Hyper Gamma curves in the 700 offered very similar highlight control to the Varicam's Dynamic Range controls, and were used extensively for day exteriors.

The film is in post-production now, look for it next year in a theater near you!

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