F-(<)1.0

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I'm looking to shoot some incredibly shallow DOF footage. Are there any lenses out there that don't have an aperture? Or should I shoot a stacked focus but in reverse?

I don't want to use a tilt shift. Any ideas?

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

What about those Leicas with sub 1.0 apertures?

 

[Ace]

Summoning Sanjin...

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Leica Noctilux is f/1.0. Where is Sanjin, when you need him? ...must be early morning in Vienna...

You may consider Master Primes, which are 1/2 a stop slower, but pulling focus should be easier.

 

[George A.]

The old Noctilux was F1.0.
The new version is f.0.95. Quite good.

There is also an old Canon F0.95 (much softer).

All are 50mm lenses.

 

[David Wyatt]

I wonder whatever happened to those f0.7 Kubrick/Zeiss Barry Lyndon lenses...I heard they were at Joe Dunton's for years (& Panavision recently took them over)...hmmm

Having said that I doubt you could use them on a Red without some extreme modding skills :-(

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Super Farron f/0.87

Super Farron f/0.87

You CAN purchase a Super Farron in I think 36mm, 50mm, and 76mm, its f/0.87 and T/ 1.0.

http://home.flash.net/~otd/super.htm

Its a double gauss like a Ziess Planar. They come up on ebay sometimes for about $500 to $700.

I guy in Poland was selling a clean one, made in Germany even though the company is in the east coast of USA, maybe under contract.

We have a big f/0.68 lens but its 150mm and has no DOF, its a silly lens. We could make a DOF adapter with it since it covers 70mm area and get a better field of view.

Its hard to get above T/0.9 from any lens, you add more elements but you do not increase the light transmission. The f/0.7 lens used with the WA adapter for Barry Lyndon (1975) was probably between T/ 0.9 and T/ 1.0 due to the light loss from the WA adapter in front and the many elements.

When you measure the T/ stop of fast lenses you need to be careful because there is sooo much flare that it lifts the image, so you need a small target on a black field to test the actual transmission.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

BNC mount

BNC mount

I wonder whatever happened to those f0.7 Kubrick/Zeiss Barry Lyndon lenses...I heard they were at Joe Dunton's for years (& Panavision recently took them over)...hmmm

Having said that I doubt you could use them on a Red without some extreme modding skills :-(

They are in BNC mount I think as they were used on a BNC.

They might hit the OLPF filter though as they only have 4mm of "backfocus" clearance above the focal plane from the back of the lens.

If you have a BNCR mount for your RED you can try them, BNCR and BNC are about the same without the spinning mirror in place.

There is the problem of the "plate effect" on fast lenses and the thickness of the OLPF and sensor cover glass, it introduces NEGATIVE spherical aberation so it may be softer than normal and the focus marks would drift when the f/ stop is changed.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Having said that I doubt you could use them on a Red without some extreme modding skills :-(

...Like taking a few minutes to install a PV mount, or BNCR? EDIT> Dan thinks they're BNC, and they may be... If available anyway.


For super shallow DOF, your best bet is probably the Noctilux. There's also the Nikkor F1.2 50mm that is commonly available and it's very shallow when wide open. Although the difference between it and a T1.3 50mm Master Prime is negligible, if any. I suppose it depends on how narrow you want your focus to be. The micro 4/3 Noktor f0.95 might be an option too, depending on what sort of coverage you need. Panavision has a couple T1.0 options -- A 50mm and a 35mm I think.

The Super Farrons that Dan mentions might be an interesting choice, I don't know much about them. There is one on eBay right now -- looks to be in very rough condition and it seems they're asking way too much for it. I know of some fast ~T1.0 C-Mount lenses, but they are designed for technical or engineering applications and actually have deeper DOF than you would expect. Similar to the silly 150mm that Dan mentions.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Leica Noctilux is f/1.0. Where is Sanjin, when you need him? ...must be early morning in Vienna...

You may consider Master Primes, which are 1/2 a stop slower, but pulling focus should be easier.

Pawel,

as we all know well it's not so easy to pull focus on f/0.95 or T1.0.

Have a look at my old example on Vimeo:

Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95>>>

Also you can download 720p version from there.

Leica Noctilux f/0.95 and Voigtleander Nokton 50mm f/1.1 are both pretty sharp wide open.

Of course Noctilux is a bit sharper with better contrast at all apertures and 10 x times more expensive than Nokton f/1.1.



And right now I'm in Ibiza, Spain.

Btw, by chance I "met" Giorgio Armani in Dalt Villa (Ibiza old town) and did some of my favorite paparazzi shots :laugh: of him and his newest yacht (MAIN):

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Thanks Sanjin that clip is useful. It tells me that I probably need an impossibly open lens to get the shallow level of DOF I want. Stacked focus it probably is. Either that or 3D depth extraction and post-DOF.

 

[Nick Gardner]

can tilt/shift lenses get you where you want to be? sounds like the simplest solution.

Nick

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

can tilt/shift lenses get you where you want to be? sounds like the simplest solution.

Nick

Never really happy with tilt shift. Too many occluding props I want to stay in focus.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Thanks Sanjin that clip is useful. It tells me that I probably need an impossibly open lens to get the shallow level of DOF I want. Stacked focus it probably is. Either that or 3D depth extraction and post-DOF.

How shallow do you need to be?

Is the camera stationary for the shot?

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Thanks Sanjin that clip is useful. It tells me that I probably need an impossibly open lens to get the shallow level of DOF I want. Stacked focus it probably is. Either that or 3D depth extraction and post-DOF.

Gavin,

T1.0 lenses like a Noctilux f/0.95 or Nokton f/1.1 at close up portraits can give you almost like an anamorphic shallow depth of field effect.

 

[ericyoung]

Never really happy with tilt shift. Too many occluding props I want to stay in focus.

The other way is to make out of scale props and cheat distances.

 

[Daniel Browning]

I'm looking to shoot some incredibly shallow DOF footage.

Easy! Any old macro lens will be capable of even thinner DOF than an f/1.0 lens. If that's still not enough, grab a microscope; the DOF is thinner still. If your budget allows, go for a scanning electron microscope. DOF doesn't get any thinner than a single atom.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

The other way is to make out of scale props and cheat distances.

In this case I'm trying to avoid props in order to use a real world environment as a 'miniature' set.

How shallow do you need to be?

Is the camera stationary for the shot?

Macro levels of DOF.

It's a jib shot in a forest so tilt shift would be obvious and post DOF would require a lot of roto.

 

[David Wyatt]

...Like taking a few minutes to install a PV mount, or BNCR? EDIT> Dan thinks they're BNC, and they may be... If available anyway.

Hmmm...I'm not sure it would be as simple as that - didn't the rear element of the lens supposedly come within 4mm of the film plane!? That would suggest potentially removing the OLPF and its housing :scared:

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Hmmm...I'm not sure it would be as simple as that - didn't the rear element of the lens supposedly come within 4mm of the film plane!? That would suggest potentially removing the OLPF and its housing :scared:

If that's true, then it would be a serious modification and not one that could really be done. Or at least wouldn't be worth it by an end user just to use a couple obscure lenses. The OLPF and sensor block are manufactured as one unit. Jarred did have a RED One without OLPF that he was using for IR shooting... Perhaps that could be rented? I believe the OLPF resides about 9mm in front of the sensor.