focus chart: where can i download it?

[Roberto Leone]

I would like to print a big size focus chart for my studio, where can i download it?

 

[rupertmac]

Here you go:

https://claclaclack.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/siemensstern_n314_cl_v3.pdf

 

[Christopher A. Bell]

Here's the real question: Are most consumer printers going to be able to print it sharp enough/high enough rez on normal printer paper to be truly useful? But maybe some of the large format commercial printers at some of the commercial print/office shops(like FedEx Office/UPS Store), maybe?

Haven't had to buy a focus chart in a really, really long time. I have a stack of nice, decent sized charts from Fujinon, that they would send back with my lenses whenever I sent them in for clean & checks and overhauls.

 

[Roberto Leone]

i have a good, highest resolution printer, no problem

 

[Phil Holland]

I generally print my charts at 600-1200dpi. But heck, we use dollar bills sometimes taped onto a wall.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I generally print my charts at 600-1200dpi. But heck, we use dollar bills sometimes taped onto a wall.

Dollar bills are MONEY.

 

[Brian F Kobylarz]

Slightly off topic - but I do miss the China Girls in the leader.

 

[Phil Holland]

Slightly off topic - but I do miss the China Girls in the leader.

I have a lot of neg and prints, mainly from the 2000s, but a bit in the 2010s. I can't say I've stared at any women more than our LAD girl.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Arri lets you create framing charts for free, and they have focus targets in them:

There are commercial companies with large-format printers (even Staples and Office Depot can do it), and then you can nail that to a rigid piece of plastic or wood and use it as a focus/framing chart on set.

Slightly off topic - but I do miss the China Girls in the leader.

I still throw in the "Digital Marci" in the leader at the head of our projects just for tradition, even though pretty much nobody sees it.

They did eventually track down who "Marci from Kodak" was. She was immortalized thousands of times in the film leader of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s...

https://sites.google.com/site/donutscience/Home/kodakmarciefinallyidentified

 

[Phil Holland]

"Marci from Kodak"

Deluxe used Marcie way back. At R&H we used the Kodak LAD girl you have there. Never found out who she was, but it really depends on where you were working who your China/Leader/or whatever girl was. Marcie and her I think were the most common in Hollywood at least when I was coming up.

Here's a site of Leader Ladies, some toys, and occasional fellow:

https://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/projects/leaderladies/

The more interesting thing to me is during my career we had two LAD targets ever, if I recall right we revised our target when Vision3 came around, but not immediately. Hit the dailies with the densitometer to figure out if they were NG or not, order reprints if necessary. Use gels on the lightbox if they could be reasonably corrected. This stretched across our two Luxes, Solitaires, and eventually the Arrilaser.

And for the perversely curious, and certainly nobody is asking, we used the Solitaires to film out 70mm 15-perf IMAX. But even more interesting was when we would put the 4x5, 4x6, or 5x7 slide camera head on. Shot out some extremely high resolution press stills that we used to send to media outlets. One of the last ones of those I did was a composite of a 16K render of Aslan from Narnia against a background panorama I shot in my hometown on the Phase One P25 with a smidge of a matte painting to make it feel more like New Zealand. Scooby got about a dozen unique slides, but Narnia just had that one and it was printed in the trades during the era.

Solitaires are a bit archaic, but they are still out there recording primarily larger than VistaVision formats mainly for IMAX releases. Don't know what they take per frame these days as I left that part of things long ago, but back then it was about 1.5 minutes or so per 70mm frame to record.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Solitaires are a bit archaic, but they are still out there recording primarily larger than VistaVision formats mainly for IMAX releases. Don't know what they take per frame these days as I left that part of things long ago, but back then it was about 1.5 minutes or so per 70mm frame to record.

I asked about Solitaire when I was at ILM in 2004, and they kind of shrugged and said they had one in storage but they didn't use it anymore. I think the Arri laser recorders pretty much killed it (and Quantel Domino), plus the market for recording out to film is greatly diminished these days.

Deluxe used Marcie way back. At R&H we used the Kodak LAD girl you have there. Never found out who she was, but it really depends on where you were working who your China/Leader/or whatever girl was. Marcie and her I think were the most common in Hollywood at least when I was coming up.

We had a custom D.I. chart at Technicolor, but I don't have permission to post it. Everybody in LA has their own proprietary setup leaders and so on -- EFilm's is particularly impressive.

But as far as a Focus Chart goes (which is what the o.p. asked for), I think Arri is the best bet. I regret that there are a lot of young cinematographers that don't shoot color charts or framing charts at the beginning of the day, because they're infinite useful in post later on. I like to use them just as a check, to make sure we haven't screwed anything up during the final color session.

 

[Simon Dunne]

The fiddle head chart from DSC is an interesting take on the star chart.

BBC Chart 61 had it's uses, but you need something a bit more inclusive for better skin coverage. They nailed the neutral gray background/dress though. Helps on the scopes.

 

[Remington Chase]

The new charts with Vanta Black are impressive, used to be a big problem getting good blacks with clunky velvet boxs strapped on.