i want to take a picture, with the same quality & DOF of a common Arriflex. Wich CAM?

[Roberto Lanczos]

If i want the picture quality of a common Arriflex or those popular panavision used for movies. Wich photo camera do i need, to match those pictures ?

I need to make some experiments and compare lightning and stuffs, with celluid.

I don't know how to explain, i mean, i want to have the same contrast radius, same depth, same color saturation, like a was shooting a movie with that. Is just that i want to take pictures only.

All the infomormation about ASA used in film, Shutter Speeds & any other thing that i can setup in a normal photo camera, will be useful for me.

Thanks in advance.

[Richard Alvarez]

Some versions of movie stock, are also sold for use in 35mm photo cams, but not all. In fact, few are. If you want to shoot stills that look 'exactly' like what you would get through a panavision cam, it's not going to happen. The reason being the size of a 35mm still image, is different than the size of a 35mm film image.

Having said all that, a 35mm still photo will be your closest approximation to a 35mm film image.

[Roberto Lanczos]

Ok let's forget about resolution then. I'm more focused on the response to light.

I want to be sure that i'm not getting more contrast or probably darker images, than i would probably get with a 35mm cam used for movie purposes.

What do i need ?

[Boyd Ostroff]

<<<-- Originally posted by Richard Alvarez : The reason being the size of a 35mm still image, is different than the size of a 35mm film image. -->>>

I'm not so sure about that. It's been so long since I've used any type of film camera that I can't get real specific, but my father was an avid camera collector and I still have a big trunk full of his prizes in a dark corner of my basement.

During the 60's they introduced some smaller 35mm cameras which they called "half frame." Regular 35mm still cameras orient the picture with the top and bottom adjacent to the sprocket holes. The half-fram cameras are rotated 90 degrees from this, like a movie camera. This also had the advantage of taking many more photos on a standard 35mm film roll.

Now I'm not entirely sure if the height of the frame on these cameras is the same as a movie camera aperture, but it would be more similar than a regual 35mm still camera. Looking at a book on old cameras from my Dad's collection, it lists the following as half frame 35mm cameras:

1959 - original Olympus Pen
1961 - Petri compact E
1963 - Canon Demi
1963 - Minolta Repo
1963 - Olympus Pen F (this was evidently the first half frame SLR)
1964 - Pen W
1965 - Pen D
1965 - Fujica Half
1966 - Olympus Pen FV (SLR with meter)
1967 - Olympus Pen FT (SLR - said to be the best of the bunch)
1972 - Ricoh Auto Half SL

[Charles Papert]

Well, what do you plan to do with this image once you have captured it?

We are used to seeing film images in two ways: projected in a cinema, or transferred to a video medium. If you are planning on making prints, they won't look exactly like either of those since they are a different medium.

The still images that one sees in magazines from the set of a film are taken by a dedicated still photographer who uses either digital or 35mm cameras and shoots from alongside the motion picture camera. They don't use special film or processing techniques. They do tend to use similar speed film as the motion picture stock, but not necessarily (they sometimes shoot some black and white even if the film is in color).

If you were to see frame blowups in print (the actual motion picture film negative printed as if it were a photo negative), which is rare unless you are looking at an article about film restoration in American Cinematographer, there is definitely a different look than the conventional film stillls, but also differerent from that same image projected or telecined. For instance, if one was to do a frame grab from a DVD and print it out, then do a contact print from the original negative, the contrast, color and saturation would be markedly different.

So it's hard to say what would be the route to take to emulate the look you are going for. Motion picture film exposes at 1/50 of a second, but that may produce image blur in a still frame that isn't a problem at 24 fps. And incidentally--the images from an Arri or a Panavision camera are going to be essentially identical; it's the film stock and the lenses that create the look.

[Kurth Bousman]

Still 35mm film is 24x36mm, which is about 1' x 1.5". 35mm movie film has 2 basic varieties , silent and academy , both smaller than still film--.98 x.735 and .868 x .631 inches. Boyd , I never heard of that . It's smaller or bigger than 110. I guess that's what I get for living in Mexico. Even 30 years ago , I was out of touch . K

[Boyd Ostroff]

http://www.cameraquest.com/olypend2.htm

Half Frame 35's are often pretty much forgotten today, but they sold in the millions during 60's to mid 70's. _ Half frames use regular 35mm film, but get twice as many pictures per roll because the film format is 1/2 the standard size.
.....................
Ironically the 18x24 we call half frame started out as a full frame 35mm movie camera format.

Here's some more general info:

http://www.subclub.org/shop/halframe.htm

And here are some details on specific models:

http://www.mediajoy.com/en/cla_came/...nft/index.html
http://www.mediajoy.com/en/cla_came/demi/index.html
http://www.mediajoy.com/en/cla_came/...ini/index.html
http://www.mediajoy.com/en/cla_came/...alf/index.html
http://www.subclub.org/shop/yashica.htm

Now I have no idea whether any of this has a bearing on Roberto's question (probably not :-), but it's all a part of photographic history...

[Richard Alvarez]

Boyd,

I knew about half frame cameras, I also know they are hard to come by in decent condition. I answered in the context of something he could attempt today or tomorrow if the need arose.

[Roberto Lanczos]

Ok Here's the thing.

I'm doing some tests, taking some pictures to lamps and comparing IRE limits with my camcorder.

All i want to do, is take a picture wich i could get the same IRE limits, as we see on traditional movie photohraphy.

I'm not worried about resolution. I just want to be sure i'm not getting darker images or probably more punchy, than a camera for movie purposes can get.

just wanna take some pics, scan them, check the IRE, and setup my camcorder to not push those limits. That's all.
------

And to do that, i got to use a photo camera wich could be able to archive that.
So.... Wich camera is good ?

[Carlos E. Martinez]

In a way this is a rather tricky question.

Even if Boyd's suggestion of using half-frame cameras is valid, it's not really important to what you seem to be after.

To start with you should try to get some Kodak film ends to use as your negative, as the regular film you can get at photo stores for "paper" prints it's a bit better and more "universal" than the types you use for movies.

You should make up your mind on using tungsten or daylight film, as the negatives will be one type or the other and come balanced accordingly. Kodak #5277 might be a tungsten type with a 320ASA sensitivity. Kodak #5246 might be a daylight type to pick. All are very fine grain. Or you can go for faster types, like Kodak #5279 or #5289. You may use an #85 filter to correct a daylight situation if you pick a tungsten negative, or a blue filter if you pick a daylight negative. The former is generally better.

Then set your camera shutter to 1/50 or 1/60, which corresponds to what most film cameras use.

Shallow depth of field is generally the most visible film-like characteristic, particularly in 35mm. As it is related to frame size, the larger the film frame the less DOF. This is more visible in 40mm to telephoto lens types and with lower stops. As a rule you should prefer sticking to the best stop your camera lens allow, which should be two stops from its maximum aperture. Say if your lens says it's F2, then you should have its best characteristics at F4. To achieve that you may have to use ND filters.

To view these images try to find a lab that will do contact transparencies from it, but you may try paper prints.

Let's hope this provide a starting point for your research.


Carlos

[Carlos E. Martinez]

<<<-- Originally posted by Roberto Lanczos : i want to have the same contrast radius, same depth, same color saturation, like a was shooting a movie with that. Is just that i want to take pictures only.
-->>>


To get all that is much trickier, particularly to get them all together. That should require years of experience and you can't really follow a single formula.

Handling contrast and saturation require knowledge of several tools, which we can't quite explain here.

Contrast has to do with handling the distance between the deepest black and the brightest white, something which film still can do much better than any, ABSOLUTELY ANY, video camera.

Film can handle about 12-15 stops between those extremes, but for that you will have to master the knowledge of reflected and incident light and how to balance them to get image continuity on the whole film, or at least a sequence.

Saturation will depend on that too, as it usually will mean some sub-exposure and lab work with the negative, sometimes needing extra processing.

For a start you should start learning how to shoot comedy, where contrast ratios are smaller (usually up to 3:1 between key and fill light) and relatively easier to handle. Then you can go to other ratios that will provide more dramatic light.

Light direction and light quality are paramount here for every genre.

Get yourself an incident light meter, like a Sekonic 398, and learn how to handle incident and reflected values. Then see how those values photograph. If I were you I would start shooting a face using the classical 3-point lighting, and then go wider and wider.

Pay attention to foreground and background and how they interrelate.

Keep the variables I mentioned on my other mail under control.


Carlos

[Rob Lohman]

I've moved the thread to our dedicated still forum.