Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Going WIDE?

Tom Lowe

Tom Lowe

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 5, 2007
Messages
8,520
Reaction score
1
Points
0
with scarlet, one of the issues is going to be: how wide is the fixed lens? with my HV20, i was very disappointed by its lack of ability to shoot wide. even with the wide-angle adapter thing, it wasn't wide enough for the stuff i was shooting -- traveling up and down the narrow, towering canyons of lake powell on a boat.

i saw in the new AC a zeiss digi prime for 2/3" that is 3.9mm/T1.9.

PICT1654200.jpg


In 4:3 format, the lens’ angle of view is 98.2 degrees horizontal, 81 degrees vertical and 111.8 degrees diagonal. In 16:9 format, the angle of view is 103.6 degrees horizontal, 70 degrees vertical and 111.8 degrees diagonal.
Click to expand...

i imagine this thing is pricey, though?
 
As I also talked numerous times about, I'm hoping for a wide lens.
Wider is better then longer tele.

Also, the wide must not distort the image like many consumer lenses on prosumer cameras do. They have to be real wides.

I think 3.9mm is overkill for the Scarlet, it's a focal length that isn't really used that much. I believe that 15mm is wide enough or else the image gets distorted. 15mm at the far wide end of the lens. It's 8x zoom from that.
At 3.9mm we don't get much on the tele end.
 
yeah but don't you have to recalculate the focal length based on the 2/3" chip? the diagonal angle of view mentioned for this 3.9mm is actually very close to the diagonal angle of view of my 10mm lens on my APS-C DSLR. i shoot all the time at 10mm on my DSLR. i love that focal length for landscapes.
 
i think this 3.9mm is actually about the same as a 15mm or 16mm on a full-frame DSLR like the 5D, right?
 
Because they make a fixed lens, 15mm will be 15mm noting else...
That's what I learned through the other discussions about the lens.
What I mean is how a 15mm lens is on a canon full frame 5D camera.
So whatever the actual math is, 15mm as the image is on that camera is what I think is the best minimum focal length.

That should mean that an 8x zoom lens is 15 - 120mm. Or is that wrong?
So if you think that 3.9mm lens is 15 - 16mm on an 5D, then we want exactly the same :)

arrinick said:
15 ain't wide.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is... I'm not talking about how the 2/3 sensor crops the image.
I'm talking about how 15mm is on a full frame camera.
You should know that a wide focal range is considered to be around 35mm and lower. 40 - 70mm is I think "normal" and 70+ is tele.
 
30 mills is wide on a medium format camera, but thats not what we are talking about is it? As you said, focal length is focal length so, stop doing goofy conversions and learn how the different formats behave, and use the correct terminology. Ahhhhhhh!!! I'm in the scarlet section! oops.....
 
Wide? Yes please. The wider the better.
 
3.9mm is rarely used -- the equivalent in 35mm filmmaking would be a 10mm lens, something used only occasionally, like those 9.8mm tracking shots in "Clockwork Orange" (in the music store) and "The Shining" (in the maze).

The 5mm Zeiss Digi-Prime is similar to a 12.5mm lens in 35mm movies -- I've used that lens on the F900 but only occasionally. But if you're into that Terry Gilliam sort of super-wide angle look (his movies are shot in the 12mm to 18mm range), it's a good lens.

I'm carrying a 14mm lens on my current 35mm movie and only occasionally use it, it is so wide-angle -- normally I use the 17.5mm lens for my wide-angle shots. The 18mm was popular when it came out in the 1950's and was used by Welles on "Touch of Evil" and a lot of "I am Cuba". Normally I never go below 17.5mm (Primo) or 18mm for my wide-angle shots because it gets rather unnatural looking in terms of how it makes rooms look. So I carry one wider just in case, but rarely use it. In 2/3" photography, that 18mm look for 35mm would be around 7mm.

I use the wider angles more often when cropping Super-35 to 2.35, to get that Cinerama effect. In this case, using a 16mm, for example, isn't so bad if it's being cropped top & bottom to 2.35.

In most 2/3" photography, the wide-angle end of the zooms are either 5mm or 7 to 8mm. There are a lot of (approx.) 5-50mm zooms and 7-150mm zooms. My favorite zoom in 2/3" is the Panavision Digital Primo 8-72mm, which is the equivalent of a 20mm to 180mm range in 35mm -- you can shoot a whole movie with just that zoom, and a few wide-angle primes for Steadicam work.

Most of my 2/3" F900 HD features were shot on the 8-72mm Panavision zoom, plus I carried a few wide-angle primes.

I think the Scarlet should probably have something around a 5-50mm zoom on it.

The widest-angle lens that tends to be used in 35mm anamorphic photography is the 35mm and 40mm, similar to shooting Super-35 on a 17.5mm and 20mm for the wide shots (but with a lot more barrel distortion with the anamorphics.)

My point is while some of you may be fans of what I would consider ridiculously wide-angle lenses, to make the Scarlet zoom start at something like 3 or 4mm would probably limit the other end of the range (without getting into breathing or size problems), making it less useful for the majority of people who are going to use it. 5mm is wide-angle enough for 95% of the people who are ever going to use the camera -- like I said, that's similar to a 12mm lens in 35mm cinematography, and most people rarely go below 18mm except for odd shots, like commercials or music videos with extreme wide-angle effects. In 35mm narrative movies, a 12mm lens gets a bit "wacky" because it creates such an unnatural perspective on a room.

5mm on the Scarlet would be like a 2.5mm on a 1/3" DV camera.
 
I'm sure I am going to get flamed for saying this, but to me, Scarlet will be most useful as a portable outdoor nature/landscape and maybe sports HD camera. I just don't see this as being ideal for cinema photography for features and shorts, etc, because of the DOF.

It would be ideal for nature shooting though, since DOF is rarely an issue. Especially if it had interchangeable lenses. Imagine how great Scarlet would be for shooting lion kills in East Africa, for example. If you could strap a serious zoom on it, Scarlet could give you breathtaking 2K final images of lions killing zebras, crocs chomping wildebeests, etc. Planet Earth-style shooting. Scarlet's portability, recording formats, overcranking, and RAW would all be hugely beneficial for this type of remote shooting.

But again we're back to the same issue - interchangeable lenses.

As for shooting 10mm, 75% of my timelapse/landscape shots are that wide. It's a very useful length for some purposes, even if it's not that useful for cinema, as David pointed out.
 
The HV20 zoom starts at 6.1mm, which is like a zoom that starts at 12mm for a 2/3" camera, or 30mm for a 35mm cine camera -- so I can see why you'd be frustrated. It should probably have started at 3 or 4mm.

As for the Scarlet being good for landscape and wildlife, well those two genres are sort of opposites (often landscapes are shot wide-angle and wildlife captured with extreme telephoto) so I'm not sure how one fixed zoom lens is going to satisfy people used to pulling out a 600mm lens to shoot some faraway zebra or a giant sunball setting, but a super wide-angle to capture some mountainscape or fish-eye shot of clouds rolling by. The Scarlet would need a 3mm to 300mm zoom range, which is a 100x range. Most zooms are pushing it to give you a 15x to 20x range without distortion and size problems.

I can see Scarlet more as a B-camera in those situations, something in your bag you can grab quickly when you see something in nature to shoot and don't have time to set-up the RED ONE.
 
Yeah, no, I mean I agree with you. My scenario of Scarlet being great for landscape and wildlife (and maybe sports) would depend on it having interchangeable lenses. But imagine if it did? Scarlet could truly be the "Varicam Killer" when it comes to shooting Planet-Earth style stuff.

I've been dreaming for years about taking a year off to shoot lion kills or chimps in Tanzania/Kenya. Scarlet seems like it could offer a killer package for that type of shooting, but again, only with interchangeable lenses. :(
 
Tom said:
Yeah, no, I mean I agree with you. My scenario of Scarlet being great for landscape and wildlife (and maybe sports) would depend on it having interchangeable lenses. But imagine if it did? Scarlet could truly be the "Varicam Killer" when it comes to shooting Planet-Earth style stuff. :(
Click to expand...

What's wrong with the RED ONE being used instead of the Varicam for that sort of "Planet Earth" stuff? If those cameramen shot with Arri-SR3's and Varicams, surely they could deal with the RED ONE?
 
David Mullen ASC said:
What's wrong with the RED ONE being used instead of the Varicam for that sort of "Planet Earth" stuff? If those cameramen shot with Arri-SR3's and Varicams, surely they could deal with the RED ONE?
Click to expand...

It just seems like Scarlet will be cheaper and more portable. Also, isn't Scarlet supposed to offer more options for overcranking? I guess you could shoot windowed on Red One for overcrankage.
 
If I want wide alá Six Feet Under, how far on the wide side must the Scarlet be? I was thinking 15mm (based on my work with a mini35 adapter and my canon 17-40 lens).

And David, if a lens is 8x zoom, is it calculated so that you take the 15mm and multiply it by 8 to get the tele end? In that case it would be 15 - 120mm (is that right?).
And I'm talking 15 - 120mm 35mm (so I don't know what that would become when speaking 2/3).

I feel like I'm trying to educate myself at the same time as debating.. :)
 
yeah... the 2/3 equivalent of 15-120mm (I've been thinking more like 18-144 mm though, but the difference ain't that big) seems like the ultimate choice for the things I'm going for. And since I see a big market for red to market this as the Ultimate Crash-Cam I suspect that wider is the more wanted preference when choosing... And I like the Terry Gilliam look;)

But also I feel that one killer telephoto-adapter would be needed for the wildlife-shoots that needs focal-lengths of the hundreds of millimeters.

The middleground option though would actually be to do like the HV20 and provide a built in lens for the middle ground (30-240mm) and provide a wide angle adapter at .66x (giving a wide end at 19mm), maybe even .5x for extreme wides AND a Telephoto adapter at 2x (extending the high end to 480mm). All using high-speed RED-glass of course. It's slightly in the interchangeable lens-area but not quite since it's just adding glass on top of the existing glass.

Would be really nice if someone from the team would disclose what actual lens-length the zoom will use, so we can stop this part of the speculation. 8x zoom says nothing about where on the spectrum it sits...

And the sensor is bigger than 1/3 on the HV20... but actually how much that makes a difference isn't known I don't know. since the sensor is in fact a 4:3 sensor cropped for 1080p video (you can still shoot 2048x1536 images in still photo mode and see the added image area at top and bottom). And slightly cropped at the sides. So it's essentially windowed in the same way as the red windows its sensor.
 
I agree

I agree

Tom said:
I'm sure I am going to get flamed for saying this, but... I just don't see this as being ideal for cinema photography for features and shorts, etc, because of the DOF.
Click to expand...

I agree that it's not an ideal cinema camera, but because it's cheap, indie producers are going to be using it to compete against Ones, Epics, etc. They won't be winning many cinematography Oscars, but they'll be doing their best.
I also predict (at the risk of being flamed) that there'll be a dozen different 35mm DOF adapters on the market just days after Scarlet's final specs are announced.
I agree with Tom that Scarlet would make a great nature documentary camera, however it's going to appeal to documentary filmmakers in every genre simply because it will be inexpensive.

PS: how about we all get down on our knees and beg :pinch: Jim to make dedicated Wide Angle and Telephoto adapters (as jmalmsten suggested)
 
Brevis35 is good in that you can change the glass... so they might improve their glass and sell a "scarlet version", which is made specific for high resolution.
It's also the most lightefficient of the adapters so lightloss isn't a great issue with it.

I just don't see this as being ideal for cinema photography for features and shorts, etc, because of the DOF
Click to expand...

Either way, Zodiac is shot with a 2/3 sensor so if DOF is an issue for making big good looking features, is Zodiac in your eyes a bad looking non-oscar candidate in cinematography?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top