Intercutting between vintage and modern lenses

[Matt W.]

I might need to intercut between a Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 and some old Nikon lenses. I realize this won’t be as big as the difference between Cooke S3s and Master Primes… but having worked separately with both of those I am a little worried…

Obviously some of the heavy lifting will be done in post, but are there any tricks on set? I suspect the saturation will be much better with the newer lens...

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Shoot some tests, maybe you can build a simple LUT to match them better, otherwise I think it's just a matter of figuring out the look of each type and whether there is anything to avoid, like certain f-stops or pointing into certain light sources, etc. It would also help to use the two types of lenses in consistent ways, like wider shots with one and close-ups with the other, rather then intercutting a close-up shot on one type with a close-up shot on another type. Unless your tests show the difference to be minor.

I did a Red movie using Zeiss Ultra Primes and Angenieux zooms, a common combination, and the one thing that caught my eye on the monitors was just that the Zeiss lenses were colder, the Angenieux zooms were warmer.

 

[Matt W.]

Thanks, David. I'm a fan of your work and your posts are invaluable to this community so I appreciate you taking the time to answer.

I've worked on set and in post with most of the commonly used lenses (S3s, S4s, UPs, MPs, C Series, Angie zooms, Angie Optimos, Aluras, Nikon, Canon, Primos, weird Panavision rehouse Leicas and zooms, Rokinon, even), and I try to study their characteristics. Your observation makes a lot of sense to me, even though I doubt I'd catch a subtle difference in color temperature on the monitor myself. To me it seems like cutting between lens sets is something that can be addressed well enough in the grade so long as you can work around it on set to avoid giveaways, despite the importance of picking the right "hero" lenses for a given production to create a feeling. I do remember working on a job that combined UPs and one of the studio Aluras and in that case they looked similar but had very different distortion characteristics, weirdly. But my eye is untrained and so that's all I saw. Again, it could be corrected in post.

That said, I notice vintage lenses bloom more. And often have more distortion. Or better bokeh, or "nisen bokeh" in the case of the S3s, and yet those are among my favorite lenses.

So I was considering adding a glimmer glass or Tiffen HDTV filter to introduce more flaring and glare, also to increase the shadow dynamic range, but that would cut back on control of those same things in post. It would be steadicam vs sticks fwiw.

I guess I will have to try it out!