Aaton 4k

[Simon Wood]

Originally Posted by Bob Hart

Simon.


The SI2K is essentially the digital equivalent of a Super16mm film camera. Some standard16mm lenses will work on it but not all.


My lenslist is comprised of older lenses :-

Cinema Products Ultra T* (apparently were made by Kowa in Japan). 9mm which requires a small modification, 12.5mm, 16mm, 25mm all work fine. Depending on how worn or how carefully refurbished they are, there can be a little spiral "walking" of the image when pulling focus over a long range. For practical purposes you would not notice it in most situations.

Kinoptik Tegea 5.7mm. This is an old lens, I think in the ballpark of the CP Ultras. It is not quite as sharp as the CPs wide-open. It is a rectilinear lens so all straight edges remain straight. With a Super16mm image, the signatured diagonal stretching of the image seems greater, most apparent with movement of a subject across the frame.

Nikon lenses I use which come up to 16mm sharpness, 58mm f1.2 Noct-Nikkor 7-blade iris, 28mm f1.4.

I have tried some old Taylor-Hobson Cooke Speed Panchro Series 2 35mm primes, 28mm 50mm and 70mm which came up to the sharpness of the Noct-Nikkor on a resolution chart. They are a bit flary. They had all been fungus damaged and repair by myself so good specimens should be better for contrast.

They are weird to focus. The little angel wings on the barrels are not focus levers but to hold the lens barrel from turning in the ARRI standard mount whilst the focus barrel is rotated.

COOKE SPEED PANCHRO SERIES II ON SI2K FRAME 9 By Bob Hart On ExposureRoom


Angenieux 17-75mm zoom. New-old-stock is being vended by Whitehouse Audiovisual in PL-Mount, the original CP-Mount and I think also in C-Mount.

Angenieux 10-150mm zoom. This vignettes at wide and at approx 25-35mm through the zoom range. Not so sharp an image.

I also have an old TV-Nikon ENG lens. This vignettes the corners on wide and again about 25mm - 35mm in through the zoom but not as much as modern HD ENG lenses. The ENG lenses I have played with are fine for faux cinemascope framing but you lose some of the ability to reframe vertical in post. A little soft but quite acceptable.

That's quite the collection of unusual lenses - must be a nice system to work with! I've always loved the look of 16mm film (and had a lot of fun using it in the past).

Do you know anything about these old Kiev 16mm cameras from Russia? They have 3 lenses on a wheel (which can be unscrewed) I was wondering could the lenses be adapted for digital cameras like the SI2K? I see a number of them for sale on ebay these days (sometimes just the lenses, other times the whole camera):

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Kiev-16-Y-Came...78804584970480

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Lens-Vega-7-1-...item2562ccafb4

[Heath McKnight]

This is an interesting camera, digital and film! I thought I heard rumors about 10 years ago that ARRI or Panavision wanted to introduce a film camera that could shoot in HD and the film magazine would be swapped out with a hard drive that looked like a film magazine. I can't remember where I read it, but it seemed like science fiction to me at the time!

Heath

[Brian Drysdale]

Here's an Abel Cine video blog:

Aaton Penelope Delta Offers Beyond 4K | CineTechnica

The 100 ISO will be neat with an optical viewfinder, you don't want heavy duty ND filter pack using that. The Arri Alexa with the proposed optical V/F could have problems if it's only 800 ISO.

[Brian Drysdale]

It seems that the Aaton Delta Penelope has now evolved into just a digital camera, rather than a hybrid Film/digital camera.

http://www.aaton.com/files/delta-p_sept-2011.pdf

[Heath McKnight]

That makes sense -- cheaper and easier; the reality today is most indie filmmakers and many production houses are using digital only. I know of one company still shooting film, because their owner/DP is an old die hard 35mm film guy. But they recently bought a RED ONE and started shooting with it. Guess even he's willing to go digital.

Heath

[Mark Kenfield]

Looks like a lovely camera, and they've boosted the latitude up to 14 stops now!

I loved my brief affair with the Aaton A-Minima during university. It just felt so natural to use.