Something to consider...

[Andrew M.]

But I have shot many Nikkors at that resolution digitally and know exactly what to expect. At the moment it's the Nikkors that are the known performers not the cinema lenses.

Evin, You shot many still pictures, I presume?
I did many as well, up to 16MP sensors.
We have to remember that cine screen is much larger than the material that we look at while shooting the stills.

I have seen some statement that there is no point of going with the resolution more then 60 Lp/mm on the film material because human eye is only 6 to 10 Lp/mm.
Hmm… I guess guy forgot that we can turn our head ~40 deg right or left easy, when we are in the cinema. We do not tend to do it when we are watching the printed material or even HDTV. Home theater screens though are getting bigger and bigger so we want to have these crisp, tons of details materials.

Second statement I have seen was that some lenses are to sharp (Nicon’s)
I think RED is too sharp for these guys all togheter.
Too sharp for what shots? Not for Nature or Science films?
If you want soft, add some softenees in post and whatever art look and fill you do want.
But once you have soft lenses then, forget about the shoots that needs the details.

My experience with sill camera lenses is that all of them have it’s sweet spots and if picked wisely and used with limited zoom range and stop range, all will deliver 150Lp/mm

 

[Evin Grant]

Evin, You shot many still pictures, I presume?
I did many as well, up to 16MP sensors.
We have to remember that cine screen is much larger than the material that we look at while shooting the stills.

Viewing distance is relative, I routinely print 2'x4' from my D2x and Nikkors and view them from two feet away. That is about the same magnification as a scope projection from the front section, and the movement and temporal resolution of projection will work in my favor on the Red.

 

[Andrew M.]

Viewing distance is relative, I routinely print 2'x4' from my D2x and Nikkors and view them from two feet away. That is about the same magnification as a scope projection from the front section, and the movement and temporal resolution of projection will work in my favor on the Red.

I agree and that’s why we moved above 10MP for large format.
At this size, prints from 8MP will not look great and lenses are more and more crucial factor.
What they say, the human eye has 1' (minute) angular resolution?
Now convert it to pixels

 

[Andrew M.]

the movement and temporal resolution of projection will work in my favor on the Red.

Actually you touched interesting subject.
Temporal will add to the sensor perceived resolution, so lenses have to deliver even more when sensor gets better? (pixel is in slight offset while moving)
Also I have noticed, for 100 deg shots looking on the stills that do not move, it doesn’t bother me if details on the edges are bit of focus or curved.
The same on the moving picture will bother me, especially if it is long shot.
Maybe because it is not only the still picture out of the ordinary look there but the whole movement of the object and perspective play is off.
I am more forgiving to the out of the order item on the large still picture that on the movie screen.
Should be other way around.
Is that me or you do have the same impression?

 

[Evin Grant]

Actually you touched interesting subject.
Temporal will add to the sensor perceived resolution, so lenses have to deliver even more when sensor gets better? (pixel is in slight offset while moving)
Also I have noticed, for 100 deg shots looking on the stills that do not move, it doesn’t bother me if details on the edges are bit of focus or curved.
The same on the moving picture will bother me, especially if it is long shot.
Maybe because it is not only the still picture out of the ordinary look there but the whole movement of the object and perspective play is off.
I am more forgiving to the out of the order item on the large still picture that on the movie screen.
Should be other way around.
Is that me or you do have the same impression?

It's just you. Or more to the point it's you thinking you see this. When it's your own tests your scanning the screen fore every little imperfection but almost all of them are hidden by the process. Watch the Bullit HD-DVD and you'll see what lens abberation really is. I've never seen CA that bad in a movie before.

 

[Paul Hazlett]

I think we also have to view this topic in the context of using red in the first
place. When your client walks on to the set, what he sees is going to be totally alien in the first place. Whatever your shooting, Movies, eng, Doco.
having a red camera there is going to be the first jolt, but once you the client
sees the image and you are able to bring the clients vision to life, they will buy in.

I had the same problem with perception when I first bought a dvx100 for clients that did not want to spend the money on a bigger rig, once they saw
the images they came to terms with the method. The main thing is YOU have to be good enough to make it happen. Red and all the cine lenses in the world
will not make you (put favorite director here), you have to have the skill to make it happen.

 

[James T Mather]

Vis a vis earlier posts regarding Nikkors "breathing" -

Yesterday (yes, good Friday - apparently it's "not a bank holiday" according to the producers but a common law holiday and, as such, not subject to crushing OT - but I digress ) - At the last second on the recce the director opted to get a zoom.

For S16 I would generally use the Canon 8-64 but the PV tech said that I should try the Zeiss 10-1 - better optically- in the spirit of adventure I used it (Had a set of Superspeeds in the case as well) - we popped the Zeiss on and, yes, it's clean optically (less milky on the long end) but oh-my-god the breathing on focus pulls looked like something from a spaghetti western. It was crazy and, I would have said, unusable for anything but a film composed entirely of statics.

Now I have recently been mucking around with the SGpro and the Nikons (f2 - 28, 50, 105) - and have to say that there is very little in the way of breathing with these lenses. They look to me similar to regular cine lenses in that regard - certainly not objectionable - and definitely usable. Breathingwise, in comparison with the S16 Zeiss 1-10 - they look like Masterprimes.

Just my 2 yen.

 

[tj williams]

This is a really interesting thread....
All The nikons have the marks very close together on the barrel.
in close there are not very many marks. Sure Nikons can make great images
sure they don't breath all that much....... So we use them in the movie and then......We dolly in, pan over pull focus to the star... she does the best take of the day and... it's soft.... Someone comes down on the 1st about it and he/she says...... You know what they are gonna say.......

Maybe RED will re-house a bunch of Nikkors or Canons??

 

[Michael Hastings]

Focusing on the hollywood set and rental cost of Cine lenses

Focusing on the hollywood set and rental cost of Cine lenses

TJ I will be doing mostly wildlife and documentary stuff, but since part of my idea of getting a RED is to try doing some low budget features,let me ask: On a normal film shoot is the focus puller using only the marks or does he/she have some sort of viewfinder? What I am driving at is will we be in a better position with RED since we can give the puller either the LCD or the viewfinder to see focus (maybe with whatever focus expansion magic that RED is supposed to show us at NAB?) Does this then become less of an issue also given the use of follow focus extensions that could provide finer focusing through gears.

BTW IMHO it seems to me that in any major budget picture it would be foolish to use anything but the type of Cine lenses everyone is used to and the cost of renting those lenses would be trivial in the overall budget.

On the other hand on a low budget feature, maybe everyone knows there will be a few more of those snafus.

For the low budget feature i.e. 250K to 2.5Mil, what would we expect to pay to rent a set of the high end lenses - I can read a rental price sheet but what about the real world of longer term rentals and/or availability of these lens packages already owned by a DP. In other words if it is going to cost $20K to have a set for a 25 day shoot on a 250-500K budget do we instead use our own still primes and spend the 20K on a few days of a somewhat known TV actor instead? Or are there sufficiently good deals to be had, that it wouldn't cost that much?

This is a really interesting thread....
All The nikons have the marks very close together on the barrel.
in close there are not very many marks. Sure Nikons can make great images
sure they don't breath all that much....... So we use them in the movie and then......We dolly in, pan over pull focus to the star... she does the best take of the day and... it's soft.... Someone comes down on the 1st about it and he/she says...... You know what they are gonna say.......

Maybe RED will re-house a bunch of Nikkors or Canons??

 

[Evin Grant]

TJ I will be doing mostly wildlife and documentary stuff, but since part of my idea of getting a RED is to try doing some low budget features,let me ask: On a normal film shoot is the focus puller using only the marks or does he/she have some sort of viewfinder? What I am driving at is will we be in a better position with RED since we can give the puller either the LCD or the viewfinder to see focus (maybe with whatever focus expansion magic that RED is supposed to show us at NAB?) Does this then become less of an issue also given the use of follow focus extensions that could provide finer focusing through gears.

This is what I'm counting on.

BTW IMHO it seems to me that in any major budget picture it would be foolish to use anything but the type of Cine lenses everyone is used to and the cost of renting those lenses would be trivial in the overall budget.

Of course, as it should be.

On the other hand on a low budget feature, maybe everyone knows there will be a few more of those snafus.

For the low budget feature i.e. 250K to 2.5Mil, what would we expect to pay to rent a set of the high end lenses - I can read a rental price sheet but what about the real world of longer term rentals and/or availability of these lens packages already owned by a DP. In other words if it is going to cost $20K to have a set for a 25 day shoot on a 250-500K budget do we instead use our own still primes and spend the 20K on a few days of a somewhat known TV actor instead? Or are there sufficiently good deals to be had, that it wouldn't cost that much?

You could probabl get some cheaper primes but they may not perform as well if they are older. So much of this is conjecture till we see what's what at NAB. I think personal projects and very low/no budget films are a perfect fit for still lenses. Otherwise a good set of primes S4/Ultra/Master should be a priority.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Evin:

I think we're on the same page.

I've worked with some major stars on the documentary side, but I've never been on a major motion picture set, so what do they do - I assume the DP/camera operator has the viewfinder so what does the focus puller use?

 

[M Olsen]

Evin:

I think we're on the same page.

I've worked with some major stars on the documentary side, but I've never been on a major motion picture set, so what do they do - I assume the DP/camera operator has the viewfinder so what does the focus puller use?

A good A\C uses a Reference monitor just for that purpose. They still use marks and distance references to do their stuff. A\C's that just rely on an LCD screen I try and educate .. there is no substitute for intuitively learning distance. The reference monitor is primarily useful for checking timings for focus pulls, shot size etc.
Having said that.. these (HD) days and this will apply to our Red shoots of course, someone will be watching a high res monitor and can comment on focus.
Thats my old school belief anyway and at the risk of sounding immodest I did a pretty good job !

 

[Michael Hastings]

Thanks, turnover.

RED will be revolutionary in a lot of ways, but there are a lot of techniques and methods that will remain the same - and there will be a lot of us coming over from the video world that want to learn whatever we can from the film pros.

 

[Álex Montoya]

What about the sensor area? I mean, 35mm SLRs use a bigger film area than cinema cameras... Does that mean that using a 17mm nikkor with the RED would equal around a 20mm prime?

 

[Evin Grant]

17-35mm Nikkor will be the equivelent of a 27-57mm in 35mm still format FOV.

 

[Álex Montoya]

Ok, thanks, Evin. I will pick the RED with the minimum and my first approach will be working with still lenses.

 

[Evin Grant]

Me too, untill my Red primes are ready.

 

[Rodrigo Lizana]

Zeiss makes lenses like the Master Primes and lenses like the ones on the Sony handycam cameras (or licensed the technology to Sony) but this doesn´t mean that their video or still photo line is near in quality to their cine line.
Zeiss cine lenses are amazing lenses. It´s true pleasure to work with and I´m yet to see a still 35mm lens that rivals their image quality not to mention they are build like rocks (considering they are glasses).

Can´t talk about the Panaisvon thought.

 

[Evin Grant]

If we could all afford Master Primes (Or if they were affordable) this would not be much of an argument. Of course if you hae the bucks rent the MPs. But alas most of us will not have that kind of money, even for rentals. My point is that you can get moust of the way there with still lenses. And you might be surprised just how well the do. In the end once you out resolve the sensor the rest becomes gravy.

 

[sully]

I have a dream..."I am hand holding my Red One with a 28mm lens at T3 following Helen Mirren on a moodily lit set. She is giving the most emotionally rich performance of her life. This is her best take. But instead of going to her old mark, she turns and walks toward me. Instinctively, I focus 'Clock Wise' as she nears me. However, the lens is a Nikon prime. I should be focusing 'Counter Clock Wise' to keep her in focus....Of course I ruin the take and the dream becomes a nightmare." Please, please, please...make a Leicaflex to Pl adapter so older cameramen (trained for decades on cine and video lenses that focus 'Clock Wise' for close up) can "instinctively" make the right focusing decisions under pressure.
Canon FD and Canon Eos lenses also focus the "Old Way" like Leicaflex, Zeiss, Cooke, and Angenieux. I agree completely with Evin that Nikon lenses will make beautiful images. For the price they can't be beat. But for older operators or DPs that do their own focusing, we need those Leicaflex lenses.