Breathing with 25-250 HR Angenieux T3.5 Zoom

[Chris Fernando]

Good AM all (or PM for the Euros),

Two part question: just finished a 1st gig on a 35 shoot using the Angenieux 25-250 HR T3.5 and there seemed to be an awful lot of breathing when pulling focus on this thing, even on the smallest pulls at any focal length. <_< . Is this typical of this lens or is this par for the course with big zooms such as this?

 

Part 2: what can be done, if anything to reduce breathing when pulling, or is that something production/DP should know about when ordering their lenses (Do they have to live with all the breathing if a scene requires pulling?)? Thanks.

[Max Jacoby]

That is part of the design of the lens and therefore there is nothing that can be done about it. More recent zoom lenses, like the Optimo or the MasterZoom do not suffer from breathing anymore.

[Bob Hayes]

Lens breathing is a frustrating problem. What I do to counter it is to add a small move into the focus rack. You are usually racking to change the emphasis of the shot so a slight recomposition might not be that out of place. That movement can help hide the breathing.