Suggest A Cinema Camera

Charles Papert · September 7th, 2010, 11:24 AM

Would be even funnier if it wasn't so damn true (like the Xtranormal clips like "cinematographer vs producer").

p.s. the numbers on the lenses DON"T mean anything, at least on still lenses. But point taken, the indie crowd is used to ignoring them anyway (they never meant much on a 1/3" camera).

Dylan Couper · September 7th, 2010, 10:14 PM

Oh yeah, forgot that the indie crowd (and yes I include myself) never rent the lenses where the numbers mean something,.. just the ones with with the F-stop closest to 1...

FocusLite 2.0 is coming. It'll have a rear spoiler that goes up when your aperture opens past f2.8

Charles Papert · September 8th, 2010, 12:36 AM

One of the parlor games I occasional play to keep myself occupied on set when my focus puller runs out the tape measure is to try and guess what the distance is. My own focus pulling career was brief and uneventful (meaning I wasn't very good at it) and a hellaciously long time ago, but this sort of thing can rub off over time. It's fun to be able to estimate a distance within a couple of inches. Fun for me, because I don't have to do it for a living!

Every now and then I think about the scene in "The Shining" where Nicholson is running through the hedge maze and the Steadicam is preceding him in a medium shot. From what Garrett Brown has described (and I can well imagine), it was extremely difficult to run through ankle-deep styrofoam snow with the rig in Don Juan, taking corners and trying to keep Jack dead center in the frame, the way Kubrick liked it. But then I think about Doug Milsome pulling focus with the barely functional first-generation WRC-4 wireless controller (I had one myself years ago and it was all but unusable), running somewhere in front of Garrett, pulling focus all but blind. That shot was on a 50mm, no better than a 2.8 and probably even less, and yet when Jack leans into the camera, the focus is dead on--you can see it racking with him. Amazing job.

Sometime soon I'm going to start posting some behind-the-scenes videos--one of them will demo how the Preston HU3 is able to map the Zeiss ZE lenses so that instead of having 6 vague numbers on the barrel, it interpolates down to inches so you can pull focus with dead-nuts accuracy. It's sort of magical.

Brian Drysdale · September 8th, 2010, 02:35 AM

A full frame 35, *76mm lens at f1.4 (having an equivalent Angle of View to a 35mm motion picture 50mm lens) can't be too far off in depth of field terms to the f 0.7 50mm used on "Barry Lyndon, Also focus pulled by Doug Milsome.

Untitled Document

* I suppose the nearest to that being a Leica 75mm Summilux-M f/1.4

Rick Presas · September 29th, 2010, 12:48 PM

The camera is only a (small) part of what makes a movie look "cinematic"

Framing, movement, lighting, and overall composition are what make the "cinematic" look.

What it boils down to is you can have a RED Epic, an ARRI Alexa, Sony F35, or whatever the flavor of the month camera is, in inexperienced hands it will look amateur. I've seen a few indie films shot on RED that look absolutely horrible in spite of being shot on what's considered the holy grail of digital filmmaking.

Likewise, I have seen AMAZING results from a simple HV40.

It's whats in front of the camera and who's behind it, not the camera itself that makes a (video) look like a (film)

September 7th, 2010, 11:24 AM	#16
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	Would be even funnier if it wasn't so damn true (like the Xtranormal clips like "cinematographer vs producer"). p.s. the numbers on the lenses DON"T mean anything, at least on still lenses. But point taken, the indie crowd is used to ignoring them anyway (they never meant much on a 1/3" camera). __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

September 7th, 2010, 10:14 PM	#17
Dylan Couper Wrangler Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Vancouver, British Columbia Posts: 8,314	Oh yeah, forgot that the indie crowd (and yes I include myself) never rent the lenses where the numbers mean something,.. just the ones with with the F-stop closest to 1... FocusLite 2.0 is coming. It'll have a rear spoiler that goes up when your aperture opens past f2.8 __________________ Need to rent camera gear in Vancouver BC? Check me out at camerarentalsvancouver.com

September 8th, 2010, 12:36 AM	#18
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	One of the parlor games I occasional play to keep myself occupied on set when my focus puller runs out the tape measure is to try and guess what the distance is. My own focus pulling career was brief and uneventful (meaning I wasn't very good at it) and a hellaciously long time ago, but this sort of thing can rub off over time. It's fun to be able to estimate a distance within a couple of inches. Fun for me, because I don't have to do it for a living! Every now and then I think about the scene in "The Shining" where Nicholson is running through the hedge maze and the Steadicam is preceding him in a medium shot. From what Garrett Brown has described (and I can well imagine), it was extremely difficult to run through ankle-deep styrofoam snow with the rig in Don Juan, taking corners and trying to keep Jack dead center in the frame, the way Kubrick liked it. But then I think about Doug Milsome pulling focus with the barely functional first-generation WRC-4 wireless controller (I had one myself years ago and it was all but unusable), running somewhere in front of Garrett, pulling focus all but blind. That shot was on a 50mm, no better than a 2.8 and probably even less, and yet when Jack leans into the camera, the focus is dead on--you can see it racking with him. Amazing job. Sometime soon I'm going to start posting some behind-the-scenes videos--one of them will demo how the Preston HU3 is able to map the Zeiss ZE lenses so that instead of having 6 vague numbers on the barrel, it interpolates down to inches so you can pull focus with dead-nuts accuracy. It's sort of magical. __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

September 8th, 2010, 02:35 AM	#19
Brian Drysdale Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Belfast, UK Posts: 6,152	A full frame 35, 76mm lens at f1.4 (having an equivalent Angle of View to a 35mm motion picture 50mm lens) can't be too far off in depth of field terms to the f 0.7 50mm used on "Barry Lyndon, Also focus pulled by Doug Milsome. Untitled Document I suppose the nearest to that being a Leica 75mm Summilux-M f/1.4

September 29th, 2010, 12:48 PM	#20
Rick Presas Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Brownsville Texas Posts: 74	The camera is only a (small) part of what makes a movie look "cinematic" Framing, movement, lighting, and overall composition are what make the "cinematic" look. What it boils down to is you can have a RED Epic, an ARRI Alexa, Sony F35, or whatever the flavor of the month camera is, in inexperienced hands it will look amateur. I've seen a few indie films shot on RED that look absolutely horrible in spite of being shot on what's considered the holy grail of digital filmmaking. Likewise, I have seen AMAZING results from a simple HV40. It's whats in front of the camera and who's behind it, not the camera itself that makes a (video) look like a (film)