Microcrystalline Wax Techniques?

[Bill Porter]

Originally Posted by Frank Ladner

Ben: Regarding Fast lenses - (as I understand it) the closer the ratio is to 1:1, the faster the lens. For example, 1:1.8 is faster than 1:2. You want fast lenses when using these types of adapters to lessen the appearance of grain.
Telephoto lenses are usually 'slow', having bigger numbers like 1:4 (and the numbers change - they are lower on the wide end and higher on the telephoto end)

Actually it's not the closer the lens is to 1:1, it's the smaller the number, period. There are even lenses with an aperture of 0.95(!) It's all just simply a ratio of focal length to aperture diameter.

It's true we want fast lenses with these adapters is to lessen the appearance of grain but the other reason is of course just to make use of the adapter itself for the ol' shallow DOF thing.

An interesting thing about lenses is that if you compare the ratio of focal length and aperture to some common number such as a 50mm focal length lens, the depth of field is scalable. For example, a 100mm F4.0 lens has the same DOF as a 50mm F2.0 lens. This is why it's not so bad that we are "stuck" with so many slower telephoto lenses. And, the faster telephoto lenses have REALLY shallow DOF.

I personally, from experience, like to spend mroe and end up with a shorter lens with as big an aperture as possible. Anybody can do the "get far away and zoom in" approach and it's not that beautiful to me. The look is very distinct; the background looks enlarged and looming right behind the subject. What is more compelling is to move in close and shoot wide open with a 50mm F1.0 or a 24mm F1.4. You get the panoramic and non-enlarged background, with shallow DOF.

[Kurt August]

Want more? Remember the candlelit scenes in Kubricks 'Barry Lyndon'.

"The Zeiss 50mm f/0.7. The fastest lens of all time. Only three exist in the world, custom-made by Carl Zeiss Oberkochen for NASA to be used in the Apollo program. Kubrick, incredibly, found a way to acquire two of them, and then hired an engineer to find a way to adapt them to an old cinema camera they had chosen especially for its ability to be modified for unusual lenses. Reportedly, the rear element of the Zeiss was just 4 mm from the film plane, so to be able to focus it they had to do some extensive modifications to the camera body housing and the lens itself. On the second of the two lenses, they ingeniously fitted a reduction lens meant for projectors to get a wider angle of view, around 36.5 mm.

Apparently, even operating the lens was a scientifically precise endeavor. The f/0.7 aperture made it a full two stops faster than the previous limit of f/1.4, but it also made the depth of field impossibly thin. They made focusing adjustments mathematically, using a tape measure to aide in calculating the distance from the film plane to the actors, who had to hold very still during filming lest they move out of the razor-thin focus field. The camera they were using wasn't a reflex design, so they didn't know what they had until they got the film back. Also, the light from the candles was so dim that even at f/0.7 they had to push the film a full stop to 200 ISO."

source:
http://verba.chromogenic.net/archive...ks_50mm_f.html

And further:

"He pushed developed the common 35mm color negative stock of the day, 5254 (100 ASA) by one stop, to 200 ASA. He had candles made with three wicks in them to triple the output of light.

So if you had 800 ASA film stock and an f/1.4 lens, plus the triple-wicked candles, you'd get the same exposures as Kubrick. Certainly it's possible to shoot that way in HD with a really fast lens (like a f/1.6 Zeiss Digi-Prime) and a +6 db boost to the gain. You might not even need to do that since the video will have more problems handling the flames than the shadow detail, so you could underexpose more and get away with it. But with digital, you won't hold the same detail around the bright candleflames as film negative can. You can try tricks like using an ND grad filter on the side of the frame with the candles though.

David Mullen, ASC "

source:
http://www.uemforums.com/2pop/ubbthr...=&fpart=2&vc=1

I just love this stuff. Please, don't give all the credit to Mr. Kubrick. Give some of it to the engineers and John Alcott. Kubrick was incredibly well informed and he saw what was possible, but nobody can pull these things off on his own.

Hope I didn't go too far off topic.

[Leo Mandy]

Dan, not at all - you effort and knowledge in this is appreciated. It takes guts for someone to spend the money you have on R&D and turn around and say - yeah, well, it sucked because I am out a quite a few bucks, but at least it worked.

[Bill Porter]

Kurt,

LOVE to read that stuff. If you ever find more stories this neat, do post!

Mandy,

If it works, it never sucks that we are out a few bucks. It only sucks when you are out a few bucks and it didn't work.

[Oscar Spierenburg]

I just came to the conclusion that it couldn't have been just luck that I had no dust in my last three waxed glasses.
This is what I have done differently: in stead of melting the wax in 'some room' on a electric hot plate, I melted the wax on a frying pan on the stove in the kitchen.
That's the difference. I think the area around the stove is greasy and the dust in the air sticks to the walls. Also, usually there aren't allot of dusty things in a kitchen.

[Alexandre Lucena]

Hi Oscar, I wonder if you could post a MCW adapter set up guide in 10 easy steps for us all.

BTW. please include tips on how to grease the kithchen.

[Glen Hurd]

First of all, the best grease comes from sardines . . . ;)

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Alexandre, is the first part also a joke? Because I already have made a guide into microwax
http://members.chello.nl/a.schultzev...g/wax/wax2.htm

Note that everything that tastes good greases your kitchen. Don't turn on the cooker hood!

[Alexandre Lucena]

Thanks for the link Oscar. I will give it a try, but i will set up a tent made of thin plastic film(found in the kitchen!) and PVC tubes over the table to protect from dust. I will try set up a lab like box where you put your hands
with surgery gloves. BTW which one do you think produces the best results
the parafin or the MCW?

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Microwax (MCW) is more than two times better when it comes to grain. Besides that, it's the same to work with (just like beeswax by the way).
On my site you can compare the two.

[Alexandre Lucena]

If I am not mistaken the movietube uses a mixture of 5 % beewax and MCW.
Is the patent with drawings thread still availuable ? Does any one Know how
much the movietube cost?

[Matthew Wauhkonen]

The movietube will be around 10 grand I think.

Some varieties of microwax are grainer than beeswax, some are FAR finer. The beeswax colored microwax is amazing. I can't get significant grain to show up on it at any aperture settings.

[Oscar Spierenburg]

I checked movietube.com again and it got screenshots and clips. The patent page seem to be gone though. I never saw anything about beeswax and microwax mixed, only that the first patent text said a mixture of beeswax and Paraffin, which they apparently changed to microcrystalline (see the website)
Anyway, we can get the same results as the movietube. My glass is fine, but I am going to make e new one soon which will be bigger (the bigger the screen, the smaller the grain on DV)

[Alexandre Lucena]

10 grand is an awful lot of money. I planned to buy one for xmas, I imagined
movietube was considerably cheaper than ps thechnik as it doesn´t employ
moving parts.

[Bill Porter]

Originally Posted by Matthew Wauhkonen

The movietube will be around 10 grand I think.

What gave you that idea? It's a little under $7700. And as for "will be," they (Movietube) are now saying it's available.