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  • 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 :)

Is the future FF35?

Tom, not that I am anti-FF. I just saw 'Lawrence of Arabia' for the first time ever and it was amazing, the larger format really shined. So I would definitely love to shoot it, I just think this idea that everyone is going to ditch s35 because FF is the new pro format is a bit silly
 
Shawn Nelson said:
And yet the RPPs are not FF, nor are the majority of professional cine lenses.

With what cinema lenses is this FF revolution going to occur with? Is Red going to release RPRPPs. Really Pro Red Pro Primes?

EDIT: with Red advertising their RPPs as the lenses of the future (with great coverage and all that), it seems they dont think cinema is going to rush headlong into FF territory, otherwise the RPPs would be FF. Funny to even say that "s35 is good enough" :)
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For some people s35 will be good enough for everything they do in their career. Its kind of like shooting 35mm or 65mm on a feature. The ones that have shot in 65mm look amazing and the difference is huge. So I would imagine that FF35 features are going to be the same thing...kind of. I only say kind of because if you wanted the closest thing to the difference between 35mm and 65mm it would be more like s35 5K vs 9K. But I still think 6K FF35 will have its spot and sure not everybody will be shooting it. But I think the ones that do it right will really blow people away with the quality of the picture.
 
I think the only real impediment will be the availability worldwide of good FF35 cine-style lenses. And that really is only an issue for wider-angles, the longer S35 cine lenses will probably cover FF35. If you are going to tackle a format will less inherent depth of field, or even if you match S35 depth of field by stopping down, most crews are going to want cine-style lenses for the work.

But I don't see a takeover of FF35 over S35 for all feature work, it will probably be more like the current percentage of people who shoot anamorphic versus Super-35, maybe a little better than that. But it really hinges on the optics. If the choice is limited to still camera lenses, a lot of people are going to stick to S35 and cine lenses. It has nothing to do with still lenses being sharp enough either, because most are pretty sharp.
 
Andrew Walker said:
I think people are going to start finding that out here really soon.
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Yep. Exactly.

Shawn I understand where you are coming from with rpps but this is a much bigger issue. If you get a chance shoot timelapse on a 5d2 and you will be sold on ff35.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
But I don't see a takeover of FF35 over S35 for all feature work, it will probably be more like the current percentage of people who shoot anamorphic versus Super-35, maybe a little better than that. But it really hinges on the optics.
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That has got to be the most reasonable sounding comment thus far. I'm no one to doubt David. Features though are but a tiny fraction of the total production that goes on every day. Television and small screen productions far outnumber features, and Red adoption in that market space is much higher due to cost.

It seems reasonable enough to think if a cash strapped production can put an adequate set of still lenses on set indefinitely for less than 10K they will definitely be pushing for that with increasing frequency. In that light, maybe still glass will push the adoption of the sensor. How's that for an odd hypothesis? It seems to fit with the current bottom up trend.
 
Yes, there are companies that rehouse still camera glass all the time for cine work. The Duclos-Tokina zoom is a rehoused Tokina zoom, for example. I think the Zeiss Compact Primes being released are rehoused Zeiss still camera lenses.

Not a cheap process of course, you are just using the glass from the lenses and putting them in new housings. Because to make the lens "cine style" it's often about using larger barrels that rotate more from minimum to infinity in order to space apart the distance scale.
 
Scott C. said:
It seems reasonable enough to think if a cash strapped production can put an adequate set of still lenses on set indefinitely for less than 10K they will definitely be pushing for that with increasing frequency. In that light, maybe still glass will push the adoption of the sensor. How's that for an odd hypothesis? It seems to fit with the current bottom up trend.
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Well, they can do that now with the Red One, you can use still camera lenses and just crop the image circle to S35. So if someone was cash-strapped for lenses, they also may be cash-strapped enough to buy the S35 version instead of the FF35 version. So I'm not sure I buy the argument that it will be people on a tight budget that will the biggest adopters of the FF35 format. Unless they also have a lot of still camera work and need the camera to do double-duty.
 
Red sold to the cine community as it is today...and not to the areas it may go.
They helped create a demand for s35 lenses and pitched in with their RPP's to meet that demand.
Tomorrow is another day.

As we're been brought up on the idea that the Red revolution is here to democratise the world and now they're producing several grades of Reds that may compete against the other, the notion just seems a little strange to us.
Or are we at a crosswords where FF35 cameras will put pressure on the s35 cine markets from the low and high ends?
Shawn Nelson said:
.....it seems they dont think cinema is going to rush headlong into FF territory, otherwise the RPPs would be FF.....
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Why would they produce an expensive FF35 cine grade camera without cine lenses to drive it? This is really a deafening silence.
You can't market s35 & FF35 lenses/cameras at the same time unless you have set up different product lines. Maybe Red are doing that.
However I don't hear of a Epic X successor which is s35....another deafening silence. We will see how amicably s35/ff35 co-exist over the next year.

D
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Well, they can do that now with the Red One, you can use still camera lenses and just crop the image circle to S35. So if someone was cash-strapped for lenses, they also may be cash-strapped enough to buy the S35 version instead of the FF35 version. So I'm not sure I buy the argument that it will be people on a tight budget that will the biggest adopters of the FF35 format. Unless they also have a lot of still camera work and need the camera to do double-duty.
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Right, and that describes where I'm coming from fairly well, so mine is more of a personal argument I guess. However if I were negotiating with a producer or client for a departmental budget, I might take the hit and accept the lenses but ask for the FF35 body, because the potential savings in glass, matte box and filters is in the neighborhood of 17K+, while the cost to rent the FF sensor over the s35 would be marginal. It seems like a logical strategy for a situation that I may actually find myself in this time next year.
 
Joe G. said:
FF35 / still lenses:

Can you get a follow focus with gears that steps up the turn radius, so that the teeny bit of range on Nikon lenses is converted to a bigger arc on the follow focus?

That seems like basic engineering. Do any of the follow focuses currently do this?
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Yes, increases it the backlash too....... basic engineering!
 
M Most said:
Define "soon." I see this transition taking at least 3 or 4 years, given the economic conditions and the fact that 4K DLP won't even exist until late next year. Film projection is the dominant theatrical reality for some time to come, no matter how much some of us may want it not to be.
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I'm sorry to be bringing up an old thread, but I just wanted to say something in regards to this comment.

4K DLP has been around for a long time, and they're in commercial use as we speak. I think the real problem is that there aren't many 4K products around.

I mean, hell, my local cinema had a commercial showing of a movie in 4K on a Sony SRX-R110 back in 2005, and to my knowledge, they've had the thing longer than that (beta-testing it, basically). I'm pretty sure they have several of them right now, but it's not like the D-cinema packages usually come in 4K.

Sure, this local cinema was the first in the world to own one, but I mean, it's not like it's new tech. I'm thinking 4K projection will not be a huge issue when people really start churning out 4K material.
 
John F.K. said:
4K DLP has been around for a long time, and they're in commercial use as we speak. I think the real problem is that there aren't many 4K products around.

I mean, hell, my local cinema had a commercial showing of a movie in 4K on a Sony SRX-R110 back in 2005, and to my knowledge, they've had the thing longer than that (beta-testing it, basically). I'm pretty sure they have several of them right now, but it's not like the D-cinema packages usually come in 4K.
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Sony SXRD and DLP Cinema are two completely different technologies. You're confusing resolution with technology. My comment was pointing out that the DLP Cinema technology - manufactured by Texas Instruments - was designed as a 2K chip. They have announced a new 4K version that will be available to their projector manufacturing partners (currently NEC, Barco, and Christie) next year. But all current DLP Cinema projectors are 2K by definition.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Yes, there are companies that rehouse still camera glass all the time for cine work. The Duclos-Tokina zoom is a rehoused Tokina zoom, for example. I think the Zeiss Compact Primes being released are rehoused Zeiss still camera lenses.

Not a cheap process of course, you are just using the glass from the lenses and putting them in new housings. Because to make the lens "cine style" it's often about using larger barrels that rotate more from minimum to infinity in order to space apart the distance scale.
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And the Zeiss contax/yashica lenses which became the ZF/ZE lenses which became the compact primes actually have very long focus throws even with out rehousing (gears would need to be added); operate in the normal direction; and cover FF35. The 50 and 85mm F1.4, 28mm and several others are all T* coated lenses that are probably optically just as good as the compact primes and many late 80s and 90s era cine lenses and are available used in EC for between 250 and $700.
 
M Most said:
Sony SXRD and DLP Cinema are two completely different technologies. You're confusing resolution with technology. My comment was pointing out that the DLP Cinema technology - manufactured by Texas Instruments - was designed as a 2K chip. They have announced a new 4K version that will be available to their projector manufacturing partners (currently NEC, Barco, and Christie) next year. But all current DLP Cinema projectors are 2K by definition.
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Ok, right, sorry.

In any case, the original discussion was if there was enough screens ready for it, right? Is that totally dependant on the DLP tech?
 
J.F.K.,

The problem w/ 4K digital project is that the projectors are very expensive and have nowhere near the expected life that film projectors have. Couple that with a dirth of 4K digital releases, like you pointed out, and that's why there are very few around.
 
There are a couple of issues with FF35 that I have in the context of this discussion.

One is that by the time you go to the ratios likely to be used most commonly, you lose much of the advantage.

Secondly, why FF35 rather than 645? All of the advantages that are being pointed out for FF35 are even more so for 645...
 
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