The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Famous Recording Studio

pfigen

Member
Capitol A. One of the most iconic rooms in recording history. Analog (yes, tubes) Neve 88SR board. Sinatra's favorite Neumann U47 in front of the piano. Straight on shot a three shot stitch with the 24 t/s. Three quarter shot with the 17mm. 5D3. Exposure ranges from 15 sec. to 1/30th pre-blended prior to stitching.

Even after triple checking on the near fields on the meter bridge, they had the wrong speakers, so I shot these Yamaha NS10's in my studio and dropped them in instead. Sometimes even when the clients are in the room with, they miss important details.
 

robertwright

New member
very nice-! I have shot some studios in NYC over the years, I was late to the party- I had a friend who shot for SSL for many years, he shot all the iconic rooms in North America that had SSL consoles, and as you know, many of them are now gone, condos, etc....

He shot them all on 4x5 transparency- only at the end moving to digital.

I've never stitched panos for this kind of thing, plus the added exposures for detail, it gets mind boggling putting it all back together. Generally I add supplemental lighting to get it in one shot. Your result is very clean though.

Recently watched on netflix the Dave Grohl doc on Sound City, and his love for the Neve console which he bought eventually. If you haven't seen it its worth a watch.
 

pfigen

Member
The last time I shot the rooms at Capitol, they were done on 4x5, both transparency and color neg. This is one area of photography where digital excels at. I used to spend a lot of time lighting, but now I try and use as much of what's there and add only what's necessary. In this case, it was a couple of Arri 650's bounced against the ceiling and nothing at all but the room lights in the live performance area. It takes dramatically less time today than it did fifteen years ago. As far as the post production goes, it just takes being organized and doing things in the right order, and even though you're dealing with thirty images or so, the basics go together in about an hour and a half.

Yes, I've seen Sound City several times on Palladia. Paula, who worked there for about ten years and who is featured in the film, is now the head of the studios at Capitol. Small world, isn't it?
 

robertwright

New member
yes it was a ton of work- type 55 to get focus, lots of lighting- I still have a bunch of hand wired clip lights on dimmers- 50W spot, flood, for little accents on the black cones, I use them sometime in other interiors.

Not having the arri's I usually gel my strobe to tungsten to do what you are doing, provide room fill. And then yes, derive as much as possible from the existing room, including the board itself.

Its fun work because its iterative problem solving. Digital has really helped I agree. Tethering to a laptop makes it really easy to find the problems.
 

pfigen

Member
Before I had the Arri's I generally just used the modeling lamps. I have a set of dimmers for the Arri's, as they are usually too bright when balancing with ambient. For me, these new lenses in combination with even a modest 22 megapixel capture, when combined with stitched images, give better overall quality than drum scanned 4x5. Back in the day I was only peripherally aware of the effects of diffraction or how sharp or not a Super Angulon was in the corners. I think a lot of us shot at far less than optimum apertures and didn't get the full benefit of the film size. Hell, in the straight on shot above, I also did a separate focus for the countertop at the bottom of the frame, which is apparent on something as small as a 16x20 print.
 
Top