My Aaton XTR XC

[Stephen Perera]

About time I post a pic of my Aaton again. No electronics just a battery - thanks to @Tyler Purcell for the 3D printed battery adapter for modern V mount battery - no monitor etc and the parfocal, shoot open or stopped down no problem, Cooke Varokinetal 9-50mm T2.5 lens which I shoot everything with.

 

Edited June 11 by Stephen Perera

[Phillip Mosness]

Looks great.

I've never used the Cooke zoom on mine. Seems like a focal range that covers most prime sets.

Have you compared it to other zooms?

[Stephen Perera]

2 minutes ago, Phillip Mosness said:

Looks great.

I've never used the Cooke zoom on mine. Seems like a focal range that covers most prime sets.

Have you compared it to other zooms?

No no no I'm at the very shallow end of the pool haha I use the one lens and thats it...it's a beautiful lens, love it.....gives me all I want...wide angle and telephoto ish

[Steve Switaj]

On 7/17/2024 at 8:27 AM, Stephen Perera said:

...it's a beautiful lens, love it....

Indeed it is. 

And, as an aside, if anybody out there is looking for one to call their own, I just so happen to have one that I'd be willing to make someone a good deal on.  Just CLA'd by Ken at Stone Cinema Engineering early this year.

Sadly, just don't use it any more.

Edited July 19 by Steve Switaj

[Stephen Perera]

7 hours ago, Steve Switaj said:

Indeed it is. 

And, as an aside, if anybody out there is looking for one to call their own, I just so happen to have one that I'd be willing to make someone a good deal on.  Just CLA'd by Ken at Stone Cinema Engineering early this year.

Sadly, just don't use it any more.

what do they even go for these days???

[Steve Switaj]

On 7/19/2024 at 4:53 AM, Stephen Perera said:

what do they even go for these days???

 

I think realistically about $2000 (US) in the typical B-mount.

The super16 conversions or a PL mount goes for a bit more.

The downside is that they juuust cover their format at the wide end, there's no room to fudge it if you're on an electronic camera with a bigger sensor.

They are really are nice lenses, though. I think they were easily the best 16mm zoom of their generation, literally a half-sized version of Cooke's classic 35mm 5:1.

They had that Cooke look, and were a really great lens for portraiture. Plenty sharp enough, but not too sharp, contrasty, enough, but not too contrasty. Kind of like having a wee little bit of black pro-mist in there.

[Stephen Perera]

that's a great summary of the lens Steve....

 

 

Edited July 24 by Stephen Perera

[Stephen Perera]

and a few more

 

[Stephen Perera]

and more Cooke-ing

 

[Stephen Perera]

and a bit more

 

[Stephen Perera]

and more?

 

[Don H Marks]

I'm a film-only, still photographer, more so than movie maker. Stills from your movie stand alone as great photographs. Very nice work!!

Edited July 24 by Don H Marks

[Stephen Perera]

9 hours ago, Don H Marks said:

I'm a film-only, still photographer, more so than movie maker. Stills from your movie stand alone as great photographs. Very nice work!!

very kind of you to say so Don. We're two of a kind then.....film only stills photographer. Life long film evangelist. Kodak be thy name haha

[Jon O'Brien]

These images are beautiful!! What's more, your'e an artist!

Film is soooooooo good. How can the digital heads not see it?

Edited July 25 by Jon O'Brien

[Tyler Purcell]

6 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Film is soooooooo good. How can the digital heads not see it?

No money, that's why they shoot digital. 

It's really the only reason we do. If I had the money, I would shoot everything on film. 

[Aapo Lettinen]

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

No money, that's why they shoot digital. 

It's really the only reason we do. If I had the money, I would shoot everything on film. 

Yes, money and logistics. Sometimes heavy cameras but fully built cinema camera is heavy anyway no matter what format it shoots. The accessories just add a ton to it.

Sometimes one needs to shoot digital if there is not enough light for film. But even then one could shoot some part of the movie on film by selecting scenes which benefit from it the most.

Film being super expensive is not true if one makes hybrid productions which combine film and digital. But most of the people, especially those starting out, are mindlocked that there is a very specific and only way how movies can be made and they don't want to plan carefully to make hybrid production possible so they tend to make up excuses to justify their choices like "you can't shoot 100 takes of every shot if using film" or "I need to be able to grade and edit the material in an hour after it is shot so that I can be sure we didn't miss it" or they are afraid that one gate hair would ruin the entire movie, and so on 😄

film camp often claiming that all digital looks bad and makes you lazy etc. Well digital can fit some projects perfectly and sometimes it just does not make sense to shoot on film, for example if the camera needs to be very small or lab is very far away like on different continent. Stuff like underwater shots, very low light, extremely low contrast, etc just don't make much sense to shoot on film because you will need to digitally manipulate the contrast a lot and grain texture makes it really difficult, basically necessitating removing the grain, making contrast corrections and then adding digital grain to make it look like film again. 

especially the very low contrast uncontrollable lighting like underwater and fog with possible bright highlights every now and then makes film shooting very unfavorable as you would need to add weird gamma curves and hundreds of % of midtone contrast which would explode the grain and can actually cause solarization type of effect on grainy image if contrast change is extreme

[Tyler Purcell]

46 minutes ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

Stuff like underwater shots, very low light, extremely low contrast, etc just don't make much sense to shoot on film because you will need to digitally manipulate the contrast a lot and grain texture makes it really difficult, basically necessitating removing the grain, making contrast corrections and then adding digital grain to make it look like film again. 

But that's specialty photography. 

I would also say that the look of "filmed" products, harkens back to an older time. So you'd WANT to shoot those underwater scenes on film to relive that look anyway. Where it's a pain, honestly if I did a film that had underwater scenes worth their salt, I would absolutely shoot on film and use the next bigger gauge up, so it wouldn't be as grainy when pushed two stops. 

[Giray Izcan]

As much as I love film, I can't deny the cost of it. Often times, it is prohibitively expensive. It costs about 850 dollars for 1000ft 35mm, 12-1400 dollars per page of script when everything is factored in. As nice as s16 is, it is certainly not 35 amd is still a look. This is assuming you're shooting 10:1 ratio, which is an ok ratio for most narrative projects - ideally, 20:1 would be better. If you had complex shooting situations or long dialog scenes, you would need even more to shoot properly without cutting corners. Having done it in the past, I just don't believe in editing in camera as you're shooting.. you're really shooting yourself in the foot by being a slave to a format. You need enough coverage to have a good edited film.

Edited July 26 by Giray Izcan

[Stephen Perera]

11 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

These images are beautiful!! What's more, your'e an artist!

Film is soooooooo good. How can the digital heads not see it?

very kind of you to say my friend from Oz.....good luck to ur rugby 7s team...was watching it last night!

[Stephen Perera]

Cookeing it again...my father, he's 86 now....

 

Edited July 26 by Stephen Perera

[Aapo Lettinen]

3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

But that's specialty photography. 

I would also say that the look of "filmed" products, harkens back to an older time. So you'd WANT to shoot those underwater scenes on film to relive that look anyway. Where it's a pain, honestly if I did a film that had underwater scenes worth their salt, I would absolutely shoot on film and use the next bigger gauge up, so it wouldn't be as grainy when pushed two stops. 

most of the older underwater stuff I have seen shot on film was either mediocre or plain bad looking. there was lots of opinions in 2000's already how video cameras are so much better for underwater, back then the top ones were F900 series gear so nothing compared to what is available today.

pool stuff may be pretty OK on film but if the water is not absolutely crystal clear and the lighting perfect the film would just be bad choice for underwater I think. unless it is some kind of art piece where you are not supposed to have clear vision anyway.

A typical "underwater scene" on a "normal movie" would be someone accidentally falling into water or a car splashing into water. so typically a kind of low angle silhouette towards the surface and something splashing in. that would work on film of course and very short footage amount available could do for the couple of takes of the single shot needed. Shooting other directions like sideways and downwards the contrast starts to lower very quickly and light levels vanish, so if wanting more coverage the film would already show its limits (unless again shooting in a pool with crystal clear water and controlled lighting and blasting 18k's into the water to get some base exposure)

[Tyler Purcell]

12 hours ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

most of the older underwater stuff I have seen shot on film was either mediocre or plain bad looking.

I mean, if you're just taking a camera in the ocean, you really shouldn't be expecting anything good, even with modern gear. As you said silhouette's would be ok, but anything else, meh. You still need light. Here in California, we have plenty of light. Just stay shallow and use a key light next to the camera. I would love to have an underwater housing for my Beaulieu to demonstrate this, but it's another hobby I don't have time or money to get into. As much as I love diving, it in of itself is very expensive and time consuming, if you do it a lot like I have. Maybe someday I can find an underwater SR kit and have some fun, they seem to be abundant.