OT: Terry Gilliam's TIDELAND / 12mm wideangle at DVinfo.net

Nathan Shane · July 9th, 2007, 06:29 AM

Okay, this weekend I got a new 27" HDTV and decided to rent/buy some new widescreen films I've never seen to check out the quality of the HDTV. Well, I'm a big Gilliam fan and watched a film of his called TIDELAND. I was completely blown away by the colors, image sharpness, and depth of field. The subject matter may be too abstract, eccentric, and lengthy for most...but the visual images in the film are spectacular to me.

There was an additional disc that is a behind the scenes, and in that feature, they talk about much of Gilliam's visual style comes mostly from using 12mm wideangle lenses...which I assume is a little bit wideangle and not too extreme.

So where can I find a 12mm wideangle lens for the HV20 that doesn't cost a fortune?

Henry Cho · July 9th, 2007, 08:04 AM

12mm, in 35mm photography, is almost as wide as you can get. it's definitely an extreme lens and would create immense spaciousness, and bring along a good bit of fisheye distortion as well.

Nathan Shane · July 9th, 2007, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Henry Cho

12mm, in 35mm photography, is almost as wide as you can get. it's definitely an extreme lens and would create immense spaciousness, and bring along a good bit of fisheye distortion as well.

Anything about wideangle lenses is new to me. Hmmm...in TIDELAND, there are many scenes where you can tell it's somewhat fisheye but not too extreme at all, enough to where it looks natural enough to look at. Perhaps they crop out a good bit of the overall image that has the extreme fisheye distortion and keep the center parts of the image where it appears to be less. Just a guess on my part.

Boyd Ostroff · July 9th, 2007, 09:37 AM

I have this Nikon 14mm lens for my D80 DSLR: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._Angle_AF.html

It's a perspective corrected (rectilinear) lens and there is remarkably little barrel distortion, so I think you can make a high quality super wide lens but it comes at a price.

I'm not familiar with the specs on the HV20, but if you look in the manual it should give a 35mm equivalent for each end of the zoom range. For the sake of argument, let's say it's equivalent to 28mm on the wide end. For your camera you would need a wide conversion lens which attaches to the front of the built-in lens. These are rated by the amount of enlargement/reduction they produce. So using my made-up number, a .45x wide conversion lens would get you in the ballpark (28mm x .45 = 12.6mm).

Of course it isn't quite that simple because Gilliam is using a 35mm movie camera and the aperture there is smaller than a 35mm still camera. But you get the idea. Unfortunately most of the wide conversion lenses out there will give you a lot of distortion for something this extreme. It may be an interesting effect to use, but probably not great as an all-purpose lens.

July 9th, 2007, 06:29 AM	#1
Nathan Shane Regular Crew Join Date: May 2007 Location: Addison, Texas Posts: 178	OT: Terry Gilliam's TIDELAND / 12mm wideangle Okay, this weekend I got a new 27" HDTV and decided to rent/buy some new widescreen films I've never seen to check out the quality of the HDTV. Well, I'm a big Gilliam fan and watched a film of his called TIDELAND. I was completely blown away by the colors, image sharpness, and depth of field. The subject matter may be too abstract, eccentric, and lengthy for most...but the visual images in the film are spectacular to me. There was an additional disc that is a behind the scenes, and in that feature, they talk about much of Gilliam's visual style comes mostly from using 12mm wideangle lenses...which I assume is a little bit wideangle and not too extreme. So where can I find a 12mm wideangle lens for the HV20 that doesn't cost a fortune?

July 9th, 2007, 08:04 AM	#2
Henry Cho Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 516	12mm, in 35mm photography, is almost as wide as you can get. it's definitely an extreme lens and would create immense spaciousness, and bring along a good bit of fisheye distortion as well.

July 9th, 2007, 09:37 AM	#4
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	I have this Nikon 14mm lens for my D80 DSLR: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._Angle_AF.html It's a perspective corrected (rectilinear) lens and there is remarkably little barrel distortion, so I think you can make a high quality super wide lens but it comes at a price. I'm not familiar with the specs on the HV20, but if you look in the manual it should give a 35mm equivalent for each end of the zoom range. For the sake of argument, let's say it's equivalent to 28mm on the wide end. For your camera you would need a wide conversion lens which attaches to the front of the built-in lens. These are rated by the amount of enlargement/reduction they produce. So using my made-up number, a .45x wide conversion lens would get you in the ballpark (28mm x .45 = 12.6mm). Of course it isn't quite that simple because Gilliam is using a 35mm movie camera and the aperture there is smaller than a 35mm still camera. But you get the idea. Unfortunately most of the wide conversion lenses out there will give you a lot of distortion for something this extreme. It may be an interesting effect to use, but probably not great as an all-purpose lens.