American Cinematographer - October 1996 - 11

Cool running helps
with tabletop food

Important use for Strobes:
they run cool, so they make
tabletop food shots easier.

Another benefit of cool running
is that ice

cream

won't melt as

quickly and lettuce doesn't wilt.
on refrigerated
beer bottles stays there longer.
The condensation

Steam is easier to control.

Preview the

lighting

To

light the steam rising from the
soup, you use the Preview Box and
the Sync Box to run all the heads
at 61 frames per second without
running the camera. At that speed,

Clairmont Strobes
available in

strobe flashes look almost like

are

regular AC light. You can look
through the camera and position
the heads for the effect you want.

London at

Sammy's.

Clairmont Strobes
work well with

The Preview Box also lets you
switch each individual head on

Panavision

cameras.

and off while the Strobe

system is
running but the camera isn't. And
there's

a

Low Power switch

on

each

Powerpack that gives you one
stop less. Both the Preview Box
and the Sync Box are cigarettepack size, easy to hand-hold and
adjust while you're looking
through the camera.

Multiple heads,
multiple cameras
The

Sync Box automatically relays

sync signals from the camera. It
has settings for flash rate (marked
in

frames), film-and-eyepiece or
film-only, 35mm or 16mm. You
can run multiple heads from one
camera or use multiple cameras
and multiple heads, all in sync.

No

change in exposure
aperture, even
if camera speed changes
during the shot
or

Whatever your camera speed,
a strobe flash fires in far less time
than the shutter is open; so it's
the flash and the T stop that set

If you're using T5.6 at
fps, T5.6 will also be correct at
any other speed, provided the
flash recycle time is fast enough.
With our Strobes, it is fast enough.
You can even set the T stop and
then change from, say, 5 fps to
150 fps during the shot and there
will be no change in exposure.
exposure.
24

Strobe and speed:
not the same thing

Helpful Powerpack
Each Strobe head has

separate
Powerpack that draws 10 to 13
amps (at 110 volts), depending on
flash rate. It weighs 46 pounds and
is shaped like a suitcase (6 inches
wide) with

a

carrying handle on
top. It has a red light and a beeper
to warn you if you don't have a
proper ground. There's also a
ground lug and a wire that you can
connect to a water pipe. A yellow

image of movement requires a
short exposure; our Strobe's
pulse flash lasts 1/50,000 second.
Obviously, high camera speed
isn't needed to clarify detail. You
can combine strobe and speed,
of course-ours goes up to 150 fps.

Energy and screen time
Here's what the veteran

Chandler says: "Strobe light makes
liquids come alive. You can really
see what's going on, in sharp
detail. And with strobe light, you
don't need to use ultra high speed
to get that effect," says Mr.
Chandler, "So you can show more

Two ways to make detail clearer:
slow things down (expand the de¬

in the

tail)

action

or

sharpen things up. A sharp

same screen

time and the

keeps its energy."

a

light and a different beeper
warn you if the voltage is too low.

tabletop

Director/Cameraman Ralph

CLAIRMONT
CAMERA
Hollywood, Toronto, Vancouver * (818) 761-4440
American Cinematographer - October 1996

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