critical difference between still and cine lenses

[Kadir Koymen]

a still lens is designed to drop the image on a film which is larger than 35mm motion picture frame.
I am curious what happens when we use a still lens with mini35. Theoratically it should drop a larger image on the ground plate and edges of the frame is lost causing the still lens look like a longer lens than it is.
I mean when we use a 24mm nikor prime lens even with mini35 adapter, the image we get should be cropped cousing the angle of view to decrease and look like a (say) 30mm lens...
I dont know if I managed to express my point but I would be gladful if anyone can correct me or back me up about this.

I am planning to buy my mini35 in october.

[Bob Hart]

Nobody else has stuck their head up to reply so here is something for the meantime.

I could be wrong on this so don't place too much truth in my comments.

The Mini35/Pro35 family as I understand things provides an image of about 21mm diameter (corner - to - corner) off the groundglass. But don't take my word for it. Look up their website and download their .pdf files which are very good guides on how things work.

This image area is much smaller than an SLR still-camera frame and slightly smaller than the motion picture 4:3 frame, so your assumptions as to available field of view for a given focal length are correct.

That said, there may be compensating optics in the Mini35?Pro35 which project the full 24mm x 18mm motion picture image within the smaller 21mm corner-to-corner frame. I don't know enough about the Mini35/Pro35 to comment with any authority. I just know that it works.

In practical terms a 50mm SLR camera lens yields a similar field of view to a 85mm lens, a 28mm looks more like a 50mm. Furthur down the posts on this thread I think you may find another comment on this subject.

Some of the alternative moving groundglass home-made devices which generally follow the Mini35 and Pro35 principle and erect or flip the image to appear correctly to camera have eventually arrived at a similar imaging area as the practical way of doing it.

Some others which do not flip the image, go for a field of view closer to the full still-image frame size.

The P+S remains the most fully integratable system and will do the job consistently and predictably.

Groundglass based relay imaging to video is a unique niche craft which has to be learned and practiced. It probably presents a similar learning challenge as moving from film based imaging to video imaging or vice versa.

[Frank Hool]

Academy frame and stillphoto frame ratio is 1.6x So exactly like You recalculate SLR lens for DSLR.

[Richard Alvarez]

Yes, still lenses will yield a 'longer' result than their cine counterparts.

Also, understand that still lenses have 'clicked' or fixed f-stops. Whereas cine lenses do not have fixed f-stops. This is important if you are changing aperture through a scene. Not impossible, just more difficult.

[Kadir Koymen]

thanks all for oyur answers.
Under this circumstances I have to find a way to buy some cine lenses instead of still lenses.
Thanks again,

Kadir

[Bob Hart]

Sorry Richard.

For an identical focal length, the cine lens and the still-camera lens should yield about the same field of view to the smaller motion picture gate. But don't take my word for it as I am not an industry practioner.

For the purposes of learning before doing, good quality still-camera primes should be adequate.

Flange to focal plane on the still-camera lenses I think may be shorter than for some cine lenses. Is flange to focal plane on 35mm PL mount 50mm? Nikon F Mount is 46.5mm.

[Tina Eaton]

Yep - Frank is right. SLR lenses on the P+S are about 1.6x, just like going to the aps size on a digital SLR. Which can be a bit of a drag at the wide end, but, wide angle adapters in the still world are very reasonably priced. Older manual focus Nikkors and Canon FD's have exceptionally nice glass - on the same set I compared Nikkors next to Zeiss t1.3's on the P+S, we could not see any real difference except $$. And there's a company selling sets of Canon F2's and Nikon F2's that are all geared up, stepped up to 80mm OD on the front and those annoying detents in the aperature ring are taken out.
For someone who just wants a decent set of workable primes for the P+S.
or the redrock micro without breaking the bank - check out RP lens co. at
rplens.com.

[Toenis Liivamaegi]

Only real concern these days is the lens breathing with SLR lens as far as I can see.
In the other hand you can see breathing even on $10k 2/3" broadcast lenses. If your content is interesting enough nobody will pay attention to breathing neither.
New Zeiss ZF`s are the sharpest color corrected manual focus SLR lenses out there at the moment.

Cheers,
T

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Toenis Liivamaegi

Only real concern these days is the lens breathing with SLR lens as far as I can see.
In the other hand you can see breathing even on $10k 2/3" broadcast lenses. If your content is interesting enough nobody will pay attention to breathing neither.

Not sure about that. Few things are more distracting than an undesirable zoom effect coming along with focus on a dramatic tear shot.

The 10k broadcast lenses you mention are zooms. Zooms are much more prone to breathing than primes. On primes it’s much easier to avoid it.

[Michael Maier]

This test is a real eye opener about numbers on paper. It shows the new Zeiss is not that all mighty after all: http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/zeiss_85mm/index.html

[Gustavo Acosta]

If you are shooting any type of subject matter where you might need to pull focus, the only sensible choice for me is cine-style lenses like the Zeiss super-speeds or Cooke S-4's if you have money to burn. Because the barrels turn 270 degrees or more. it is infinitely easier to follow focus on a moving subject or camera move. My impression from having used the PS-Technik on at least a dozen shoots is that the aberrations of photographing an image on a ground glass negate any subtle differences in sharpness between different kinds of lenses.

One other note. I've found that to maintain a full range of contrast it is helpful to crush the blacks slightly and dial back any cine-gamma setting to avoid an overly low-con look.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Gustavo Acosta

If you are shooting any type of subject matter where you might need to pull focus, the only sensible choice for me is cine-style lenses like the Zeiss super-speeds or Cooke S-4's if you have money to burn. Because the barrels turn 270 degrees or more. it is infinitely easier to follow focus on a moving subject or camera move.

My feelings exactly! I will trade that for microscopic extra sharpness any day of the week. Specially based on your remark bellow.

Originally Posted by Gustavo Acosta

My impression from having used the PS-Technik on at least a dozen shoots is that the aberrations of photographing an image on a ground glass negate any subtle differences in sharpness between different kinds of lenses.

Besides that it will also always be limited by what your camcorder lens can record anyways.

Originally Posted by Gustavo Acosta

One other note. I've found that to maintain a full range of contrast it is helpful to crush the blacks slightly and dial back any cine-gamma setting to avoid an overly low-con look.

Well, even if you get an overly low-con look you can always add more contrast and crush blacks in post instead of in camera.