Special Lens Used in MirrorMask?

[Jonathan Stevenson]

I don't know if many of you have seen the film, but it's incredible. At one point in the film, they used a special lens (which they discuss in the special features) but the name of the lens now escapes me. The shot starts up close on a drawing on the girls wall and dollies backwards to reveal the girl sitting on her bed, however the lens creates this "Gulliver's Travels" kind of effect where the girls head looks massive. The lens achieved extremely close focus, also very wide angle but without too much fish-eye distortion. It was shaped like a very long tube, like a telescope. It was something like a telescoping or periscopic lens.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I want to do a shot like this for a RED feature I'm shooting next fall. Thanks!

Edit: After extensive googling, I've found that it's called a snorkel lens/ probe lens/ borescope lens. Does anyone have any footage they could share here? I would love to see what they're capable of doing. I know they're mostly used for commercial product shots, but I love the way MirrorMask used it and I'd like to do a few similar shots. Thanks!

 

[Johan Malmsten]

I think the name you are thinking of is the "Frazier"-lens system. It's been used in films like Stuart Little to get deep focus plates for macro-style shots with both the animated mouse (and it's live-action surroundings) and the people it talks to at the same time in the same shot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frazier_lens

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06t8TGAffNA

I'm not entirerly sure about the optical physics, but it does seem to work...

 

[Jonathan Stevenson]

Yeah, sounds like there's several systems such as this. Innovation optics also makes a 2/3's version called Optek I think. I'm really excited to get my hands on one of these sometime if I can. I can't find any footage of one in use in a narrative fashion, only in commercial product shots. Again, if anyone could direct me to some clips, I'd love to see it in action more. Films, commercials, what ever. Thanks!

 

[Jonathan Stevenson]

bumpity...

 

[James T Mather]

I have used the Frazier and Revolution lens systems on several occasions - they create (due to some clever optical wizardry) a "near" infinite depth-of-field effect - commercials went through a vogue a few years ago where, for example, a miniature car in the foreground was as sharp as the real one in the background and at the end of the commercial the actor would lift up the smaller car - revealing the optical trick.

The systems come at a price however - you need to light to T22-32 to really get the benefit - this means your tiniest eyelight becomes a 4k cinepar and frequently minimum 2 18ks are needed to get any kind of keylight.

I shot a beer commercial a few years ago where we shot 45 deg shutter, tornado camera (1000fps) and frazier lens on product - putting an 18k as an in-camera backlight through the glass (IE: looking into the heart of the light) was barely visible at full spot straight into the lens! Nightmare. The ascam burnt himself on boiled Heinieken that day.

The frazier system (panavision) can spin (which you can attach a remote to) so the image can rotate without rotating the camera (used in a few music vids).It can focus extremely close (macro) and uses (AFAIK) Nikon or stills lenses at the end of the system (on the end of the tube) - Focal lengths are a little "off" from the norm - 16mm gives 12mm or thereabouts etc. Its wiest open setting (which is not recommended) is around, I think, T8 - It also has (paradoxically) very "precise" focus requirements at the wider end or the shot is blown (I think because it is utilising so many optical layers). Also "panning" becomes more like tracking because the lens is so long.

EDIT: FOUND youtube stuff on the system
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06t8TGAffNA

 

[Mitch Gross]

Abel also has the HD Scope, which is a periscope/borescope system with very fast T4 optics. Designed for 2/3" B4 mount, but also will cover 2K in PL with an adaptor. And we have sent it out with an Abekus adaptor to full 4K PL but there is about 2.6 stops of light loss.

 

[Jonathan Stevenson]

Thanks guys. I'm actually not interested at all in doing any kind of forced perspective tricks, so I'm not concerned with having to light for a T22.

Mitch, I saw your HD scope, looks good, however I'm more interested in the type of system that can be configured with a straight scope OR the elbow angles. From what I can tell, the HD scope can only be used with the elbows, is that correct?

The biggest problem I foresee is finding a place in Denver to rent one of these things. Seems like they're hard to come by.

 

[Mitch Gross]

The HD Scope has the elbow built in, but it orientable across two joints so that it can still be pointed straight ahead if desired. Sorta looks like a "Z" in this mode. It is all arial imaging so the contrast is excellent and the overall image is very clean and sharp. No crazy chromatic aberration like on other systems. The HD Scope intercuts with conventional lenses quite well. And we are happy to ship it to you in Denver from either our NY or LA office.

For those that don't know the HD Scope, here's some info on our website:

http://www.abelcine.com/store/home.php?cat=857

 

[Jonathan Stevenson]

Thanks for the response. What I'm looking for is more like this...

There are no elbows at all. Do you guys have any products similar? The "Z" shape will get in the way of some of the shots I want to achieve...

 

[Mitch Gross]

Sorry, no. Sounds like you want a Cine Wand.

 

[Johan Malmsten]

[...]
The systems come at a price however - you need to light to T22-32 to really get the benefit - this means your tiniest eyelight becomes a 4k cinepar and frequently minimum 2 18ks are needed to get any kind of keylight.
[..]

This is something I've read as a footnote every time the Frazier is discussed which makes me wonder... is there a real difference between a normal lens at T22 and a frazier at T22?

To test this I picked up my 24mm Nikkor 1:28 prime lens, attached it to my ye olde Nikon FM, set the focus-point to the closest possible (0.3m aka 1ft), set the aperture to the tiniest (F22), lit my textured living-room-wall with a couple of 500W work-lights for ocular convenience, and put the eyepiece to my eye and pressed the lever for aperture-preview (or the whatit'scalledidontknow)... And as expected, as far as I can tell, most, if not all came into focus. Right to the point that I think I had focus all the way to the edge of the glass. But the image really is too dark for me to do a reasonable assumption of that.

Now, the Frazier does have a lot of other neat things going for it, like the ability to rotate the image and not the camera. But I wonder. If people are renting fraziers to do the forced perspective-tricks. While the tricks could just as easily have been done with a normal lens at similarly closed down stops (as my assumption goes). Wouldn't the added cluster of lens-elements just either degrade or at least darken the image when light is the one thing that the system so desperately needs?

Feel free to educate me if there's something fundamental I've overlooked:001_huh:

When I read about snorkel-lenses in the beginning of my vfx-self-studies, the thing they where chosen to do was mostly to fly over models in cases and situations where the whole camera wouldn't fit through. The light-problem in those cases where then solved with the classic sollution of roasting the models with all the light you could get and then adjust the framerate of the MoCo-system to compensate for the light that's still needed. Though this of course isn't applicable to living actors (unless they are trained to compensate for the fps-factor with their acting of course :blink