35mm adaptors only affect DOF? at DVinfo.net

Amos Kim · August 19th, 2006, 12:47 AM

Do the 35mm adaptors affect anything other than DOF?

Jim Lafferty · August 19th, 2006, 01:27 AM

Dynamic range, too. Provided they're made properly.

Frank Hool · August 19th, 2006, 01:35 AM

Angle of View if You will. You can use different lens which may have toghether with Your 35mm adapter wider or more tele focal length as Your camcorder originally allows.

Cole McDonald · August 19th, 2006, 08:46 AM

They seem to soften the image slightly as well...which DV tends to need.

Ben Winter · August 19th, 2006, 09:06 AM

DOF provided by the adapter also has the added knack of obscuring background which DV tends to render poorly. The lack of resolution in DV makes backgrounds look bad so blurring them out completely using the adapter gives the impression of better resolution.

Dennis Wood · August 19th, 2006, 09:11 AM

Yes Ben! I've always been distracted by DV's poor resolution where visual angle increases. Not only can you decide to omit an undesirable background, often an issue when you're not building $$$ sets, but attention is focused close, where DV resolution does look a lot better! Now if someone could analyze how DV compression itself responds to bokeh areas ....

Bob Hart · August 19th, 2006, 09:49 AM

I had an early enthusiam for shining added light upon the GG either with white light or coloured but in the end it was not very useful. Seemed to have an effect of lessening contrast and bringing things out of black but was not very controllable and tended to aggravate flicker on my home made disks.

I haven't pursued this any furthur.

Steve Witt · August 19th, 2006, 09:50 AM

Hello JIM LAFFERTY,
Is Dynamic Range another term for "angle of view"? What is Dynamic Range?

Cole McDonald · August 19th, 2006, 10:01 AM

The dynamic range is the number of steps from black to white. The human eye can see tons of range, 35mm film has about 1/10th of what we can see and DV has about 1/10th of that. So images tend to almost be posterized if they're not lit correctly, Digital wants good lighting moreso than film even.

Steve Witt · August 19th, 2006, 10:13 AM

Thanks for the explanation Cole. It seems that these adapters do alot more to help use achieve the results we are looking for than just DoF.

Amos Kim · August 19th, 2006, 11:52 AM

video has 5 levels of dynamic range.... does the adaptor increase it to 7?

Cole McDonald · August 19th, 2006, 12:57 PM

it cheats by lowering the lights so they fall closer to the darks and more within the range allowed by DV. we still have the 5 stops cause that's all we can get with DV period. It's just simple math/encoding technology, DV only can store a finite number of values for each color component. We, as videographers need to find ways to work within that limitation...and by controlling how much difference there is between light and dark, we can make it nearly indistinguishable from film...the only time it fails to look like film is when we get it wrong.

You can look at most video and see that the lights are blown out or the darks have no detail. To combat that, we need to underexpose our highlights a smidge (not much) and make sure we pour more lights into the dark parts of our frames. By lighting the shadows, we can get more details in our highlights while still having a more limited contrast range. We are basically stretching our mids by cheating our blacks up and whites down.

August 19th, 2006, 12:47 AM	#1
Amos Kim Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 335	35mm adaptors only affect DOF? Do the 35mm adaptors affect anything other than DOF?

August 19th, 2006, 01:27 AM	#2
Jim Lafferty Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Brooklyn, NY Posts: 636	Dynamic range, too. Provided they're made properly. __________________ Realism, anyway, is never exactly the same as reality, and in the cinema it is of necessity faked. -- J-L G

August 19th, 2006, 08:46 AM	#4
Cole McDonald Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Sauk Rapids, MN, USA Posts: 1,675	They seem to soften the image slightly as well...which DV tends to need. __________________ Web Youtube Facebook

August 19th, 2006, 09:06 AM	#5
Ben Winter Trustee Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Hollywood, CA Posts: 1,675 Images: 1	DOF provided by the adapter also has the added knack of obscuring background which DV tends to render poorly. The lack of resolution in DV makes backgrounds look bad so blurring them out completely using the adapter gives the impression of better resolution. __________________ BenWinter.com

August 19th, 2006, 10:01 AM	#9
Cole McDonald Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Sauk Rapids, MN, USA Posts: 1,675	The dynamic range is the number of steps from black to white. The human eye can see tons of range, 35mm film has about 1/10th of what we can see and DV has about 1/10th of that. So images tend to almost be posterized if they're not lit correctly, Digital wants good lighting moreso than film even. __________________ Web Youtube Facebook

August 19th, 2006, 01:35 AM	#3
Frank Hool Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Barca Spain Posts: 384	Angle of View if You will. You can use different lens which may have toghether with Your 35mm adapter wider or more tele focal length as Your camcorder originally allows.

August 19th, 2006, 09:11 AM	#6
Dennis Wood Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 916	Yes Ben! I've always been distracted by DV's poor resolution where visual angle increases. Not only can you decide to omit an undesirable background, often an issue when you're not building $$$ sets, but attention is focused close, where DV resolution does look a lot better! Now if someone could analyze how DV compression itself responds to bokeh areas ....

August 19th, 2006, 09:49 AM	#7
Bob Hart Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: PERTH. W.A. AUSTRALIA. Posts: 4,477	I had an early enthusiam for shining added light upon the GG either with white light or coloured but in the end it was not very useful. Seemed to have an effect of lessening contrast and bringing things out of black but was not very controllable and tended to aggravate flicker on my home made disks. I haven't pursued this any furthur.

August 19th, 2006, 09:50 AM	#8
Steve Witt Major Player Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: kentucky, USA Posts: 429	Hello JIM LAFFERTY, Is Dynamic Range another term for "angle of view"? What is Dynamic Range?

August 19th, 2006, 10:13 AM	#10
Steve Witt Major Player Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: kentucky, USA Posts: 429	Thanks for the explanation Cole. It seems that these adapters do alot more to help use achieve the results we are looking for than just DoF.

August 19th, 2006, 11:52 AM	#11
Amos Kim Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 335	video has 5 levels of dynamic range.... does the adaptor increase it to 7?

August 19th, 2006, 12:57 PM	#12
Cole McDonald Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Sauk Rapids, MN, USA Posts: 1,675	it cheats by lowering the lights so they fall closer to the darks and more within the range allowed by DV. we still have the 5 stops cause that's all we can get with DV period. It's just simple math/encoding technology, DV only can store a finite number of values for each color component. We, as videographers need to find ways to work within that limitation...and by controlling how much difference there is between light and dark, we can make it nearly indistinguishable from film...the only time it fails to look like film is when we get it wrong. You can look at most video and see that the lights are blown out or the darks have no detail. To combat that, we need to underexpose our highlights a smidge (not much) and make sure we pour more lights into the dark parts of our frames. By lighting the shadows, we can get more details in our highlights while still having a more limited contrast range. We are basically stretching our mids by cheating our blacks up and whites down. __________________ Web Youtube Facebook