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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 :)

Why cine lenses?

Buy still lenses and rent cine lenses when you need them. That's what we did and it's working out great!
 
FMG battery said:
sj (sanjin) represents the best this community has made for this project.. several thousands of customers..

and you david mullen or john brawley and your elitist way of doing filmmaking?.. what are you doing among the crowd?
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errr...

Making films...What are you doing ??

jb
 
jon erwin said:
Buy still lenses and rent cine lenses when you need them. That's what we did and it's working out great!
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Good plan. That was my plan too. I've been so happy with how SLR lenses worked out for me I haven't bother renting PL lenses yet. I did finally do a day with an Optimo and a set of Ultra Primes (because someone else required them). Nice, I guess... but my best still lenses are very good mechanically and don't breath. Once I get a programmable follow focus so I can set the throw as I see fit for each lens I'll be content. Focus is workable now, but that should be better.

I sorta hope thread's like this scare low budget people away from RED because PL is out of reach for them. Less competition is good for all of us already in the club - well played gentlemen. :alien:
 
The Op asked a pretty simple question, which i think was pretty comprehensively answered. Then it seems like people with agendas want to start justifying a stance.

It's great that you can use these lenses on RED. But to argue that it's elitist to simple choose one lens over another is ridiculous.

Yes sanjin i too own a lens baby and am not afraid to use it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/471878983/in/set-72157600093842073/

But it's unlikely you'd shoot a whole film with it ! It's a bit of a desperate stretch i think to somehow infer this as proof for the supposition that many seem to back, namely that cine lenses aren't worth the buck.

It seems to be the owners that back this position while the renters seem to feel differently about it.

You use the lens you can afford to use and that best suits.

jb
 
I'm not saying that there is something "wrong" with using still camera lenses, I'm just pointing out -- along with other people with experience -- the reasons why traditional narrative cinema focus-pulling is easier with cine lenses designed with that style of shooting in mind. And even though it is easier, it is still hard work to pull focus with 35mm depth of field for a high-resolution digital camera.

This has been a busy year for me -- three features back to back with no breaks followed by a TV series that I'm in the middle of. I'm in the equivalent of Day 140-ish of shooting. And the last three projects have all been digital -- two RED movies and now a Genesis TV series -- and so I've been watching focus-pulling on a big HD monitor every working day since June. So I see focus mistakes all day along, month after month, with some of the best crews around town.

Today, my AC was surprised when I told him he was misfocused by about three inches on a medium waist-up shot made on a 35mm lens at T/4. But I could see that on an HD monitor. The other day, I spotted another medium shot that was off by a few inches and it turned out that the back-focus on the lens had gone out. But the AC was shocked that I could spot that on a monitor because it was not a close-up.

Even when we are correctly in focus, I can tell which side of the eyeball the focus is on in a close-up.

This is what I've been dealing with month after month, so excuse me if focus is much on my mind lately -- that's the curse of staring at a large HD monitor all the time and seeing every focus mistake! I'm writing this after wrapping a 14-hour day, and recalling one of the last set-ups, a 75mm shot of someone leaping into a swimming pool and coming up from the water into a close-up, at T/2.8. I'm surprised that most of the takes were sharp about 80% of the time in that one considering the odds. But some days I spend a lot of time on the walkie-talkie from the DIT tent telling an AC to pull forward or back by one inch as I stare at a 24" HD monitor... Like I said, my life for the past several months.

It's not "elitist" to accurately view the pros and cons of various pieces of equipment available -- that's basically part of my job, to gauge the effectiveness of a piece of gear, to know its strengths and weaknesses. And occasionally, though some may be shocked to hear this... the more expensive version of some gear IS the better-made, better-built, better-designed option. Sometimes it isn't. Most of the time, it's more a question of picking the right tool for the right job within your budget constraints.

I don't have a problem with still camera lenses being used to shoot movies. I just have a problem when the focus-pulling issues involved with such a technique are white-washed or ignored rather than addressed head-on and dealt with.

In my mind, the real elitists here are the ones who don't want to look at the issue objectively, dryly and technically... but want to make it a political issue. There are real design differences between still and cine lenses that affect how you work with them, and those differences have to be recognized and addressed.
 
David,

Thanks for your nice reply.

I only can say that you are absolutely right.

And of course that with an ordinary sport car you could buy in any shop around

you cannot enter in the races like a Nascar, 24 Hours of Le Mans,...

It would not be allowed and even possible because your car is not made for this type of racing.

Simply your consumer "sport car" doesn't reach a professional racing requirements.

You would need a special and professional custom made car for that type of race.

But also it doesn't mean that with your "sport car" you cannot have a sort of "sport drive".

For sure you could get a "feeling" but it would never be like in a real race.

Even if you could buy $1 Million Dollar Lamborghini Reventon.

It's not a car made for professional racing.

Also if I could remember well there were made some films about it in Hollywood and Europe too...


A Plot: One handsome rebellion driver entering in the race with his inferior car, experiencing many up(s) and down(s)

with a lot of tension, before and after the race is having a bit of romance with one beauty blonde (or brunette, or black hair)

and he is of course a winning at the (happy) end... taking both a beautiful woman and a racing trophy.


So still photo lenses are not made for cine professional shooting.

But it doesn't mean that with digital tools like RED camera you cannot get a "feeling" about cine shots using still photo glass.

Many things you could not be able to control and perform with it but somehow you could skill privately

with affordable digital camera like RED a couple of motion picture shooting basics for a fraction of the price.

The same for a sport car racing with the Chevrolet Corvette, Audi A8 or Lamborghini Reventon.
 
I don't disagree with anything you just said. There are lots of reasons why one would use still camera lenses for a cine shoot -- cost, size, weight, special features, a unique look, etc. You just have to deal with certain focusing issues involved with those lenses, that's all. It can be done, and it has been done. Look at Kubrick and how he adapted many still lenses for his movies. But he also knew what he was getting into when he did it, and he had his reasons -- it wasn't just because he felt there wasn't any real differences between cine lenses and still lenses. Look at "Barry Lyndon" and "The Shining" -- even after adapting the f/0.7 Zeiss lens to fit onto his Mitchell camera for "Barry Lyndon", he shot most of "The Shining" on Zeiss Super-Speeds. He used still camera lenses when he couldn't find a cine lens to do the job, but when there was a cine lens available that did what he needed, he used that.

I think the high cost of cine lenses is the main reason why some people feel it is "elitist" to use them or prefer them instead of an adapted (cheaper) still camera lens. But I'm not viewing this from the issue of cost, even though that's a completely valid reason, I'm talking about other things like design, construction, etc. and how it relates to day-to-day filmmaking chores.

Even your average Hollywood production has some percentage of shots made on adapted still camera lenses, particularly telephoto shots. Look at the rental catalog of any company like Panavision -- anything over 200mm is usually a Nikon or Canon. Same goes for many super wide-angle lenses, macro lenses, lightweight zooms, etc.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I don't disagree with anything you just said. There are lots of reasons why one would use still camera lenses for a cine shoot -- cost, size, weight, special features, a unique look, etc. You just have to deal with certain focusing issues involved with those lenses, that's all. It can be done, and it has been done. Look at Kubrick and how he adapted many still lenses for his movies. But he also knew what he was getting into when he did it, and he had his reasons -- it wasn't just because he felt there wasn't any real differences between cine lenses and still lenses. Look at "Barry Lyndon" and "The Shining" -- even after adapting the f/0.7 Zeiss lens to fit onto his Mitchell camera for "Barry Lyndon", he shot most of "The Shining" on Zeiss Super-Speeds. He used still camera lenses when he couldn't find a cine lens to do the job, but when there was a cine lens available that did what he needed, he used that.

I think the high cost of cine lenses is the main reason why some people feel it is "elitist" to use them or prefer them instead of an adapted (cheaper) still camera lens. But I'm not viewing this from the issue of cost, even though that's a completely valid reason, I'm talking about other things like design, construction, etc. and how it relates to day-to-day filmmaking chores.

Even your average Hollywood production has some percentage of shots made on adapted still camera lenses, particularly telephoto shots. Look at the rental catalog of any company like Panavision -- anything over 200mm is usually a Nikon or Canon. Same goes for many super wide-angle lenses, macro lenses, lightweight zooms, etc.
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David,

you rock again.

Thanks for the excellent post.

All the best.
 
When we talk about the issue of cost, remember that lens represents maybe 1% of the film budget, maybe less. Yet, accurate and repeatable focus is absolutely critical to the efficiency that more often than not accounts for far greater percentage of the overall cost. I am not a big studio and I also need to borrow money to get all the equipment that I need. Yet simple economy dictates me that I use good quality cine lenses. It saves money in the long run.

If and when I need a still lens for particular shot, I would use one, but certainly not for cost reasons as it is likely to cost me more in time and effort.
 
Pawel Achtel said:
When we talk about the issue of cost, remember that lens represents maybe 1% of the film budget, maybe less.
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Some people here are strange. Some seem to think your standards are standards.
 
Better picture quality? Picture? Of course, not.
 
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