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HD lenses for super16?


Scott W Larson

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Anyone have any experience using HD lenses for super 16? I am buying an Aaton soon and have to choose what kind of lens. I am wondering if the quality would be just as good as say a Zeiss zoom, and would I save any money?

 

thanks,

 

Scott Larson

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Anyone have any experience using HD lenses for super 16? I am buying an Aaton soon and have to choose what kind of lens. I am wondering if the quality would be just as good as say a Zeiss zoom, and would I save any money?

 

thanks,

 

Scott Larson

 

You'd also have to buy a converter to allow you to use HD video lenses on a film camera. http://www.abakus-scientific.com/Format_Converters.htm

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I have no experience at all in this, but if you do some maths you realize that it is not such an good idea...

 

HD-Cameras mostly have 2/3 inch ccds that's 8.8mm width, Super16 has 11.76mm width, not sure if the HD-lens will cover Super16.

 

HD-lenses are build to work with a beamsplitter-prisme behind it (3CCD), not sure if such a lens works straight to film.

 

AND it might be hard to mount such a lens on your Aaton...

 

cheers, Bernhard

Edited by Bernhard Zitz
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Im buying an Aaton that comes with no lenses. But the guy who is selling it has an adapter for video lenses (I believe its for lenses that mount onto a Sony camera from a PL mount). He shot docs for the BBC, who he said ran tests and determined the specs to be acceptable, and the lenses cover Super16. He wasnt trying to push me to buy it and he seems to know his stuff, so I believe it worked for him. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience using this for projection as opposed to TV. Might be something some of you might want to look into sometime.

 

Scott Larson

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Im buying an Aaton that comes with no lenses. But the guy who is selling it has an adapter for video lenses (I believe its for lenses that mount onto a Sony camera from a PL mount). He shot docs for the BBC, who he said ran tests and determined the specs to be acceptable, and the lenses cover Super16. He wasnt trying to push me to buy it and he seems to know his stuff, so I believe it worked for him. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience using this for projection as opposed to TV. Might be something some of you might want to look into sometime.

 

Scott Larson

 

I just did a test with my S16 Eclair ACL. I used my $20K Fuji 2/3" video lens - Sony B-Mount with a Century Optics transformer (2/3" to Arri B-Mount).

Everything came out fine. The lens worked at all focal lengths and f-stops. I had the footage transferred on a Spirit to DigiBeta.

 

The footage looked as good as the stuff shot with my Zeiss 12-120mm with an Optex conversion.

The largest screen I viewed the footage on was a 20".

 

I would test any 2/3" lens and transformer combination before doing any serious shooting.

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I have no experience at all in this, but

 

Posts like that make this such a great place to get information...

 

Relying on numbers is not the best method of finding anything out. People argue about the resolution of film... or the limitations of DV using numbers. Sometimes you need to just ignore them and judge for yourself and see if it looks good to your eye.

 

I have quite a few clients who use video lenses on their Aatons. SD glass and HD glass. It looks great.

 

If you really want to know... test it.

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