Es or Primos wide open

[Jarin Blaschke]

I have a night-exterior-intensive short film coming up that will be shot in the anamorphic format with Panavision equipment. It takes place in and around Vegas and I need the real background lights of some locations to read well. Thus, I'm prepared to accept that a lot of the photography will be captured wide open to at best a 2.8. I figure that my only real options are either the E series or Primos, although I remember Dan Sazaki once praising the USGs - lenses available only in 35mm and 40mm though. Anyway, at such an open stop, which of the primary lens sets could I expect to have the flattest plane of focus? Also, I'd like to incorporate flares and ghosting (not veiling, though)into the look of the film - are the flare characteristics with the Primos much different than the Es? I think I'd prefer to use the Es, since there is a bit of handheld work in the film and from what I've heard, the contrast isn't as high as with the Primos - this would help when trying to get any traces of shadow detail from large, dark, uncontrolled areas of the frame. Any input would be appreciated.

 

 

Jarin

[David Mullen ASC]

Primos are pretty good wide-open at T/2.0 (other than the low depth-of-field). They don't get too distorted, too soft, washed-out, or flarey. I mean, they still tend to get that blue horizontal flare from bright lights but it doesn't get WORSE when shooting wide-open. They keep their crispness compared to C-Series shot wide-open.

 

Trouble is that for anything longer than 100mm, you'd still have to use a T/2.8 E-Series anyway, which are fine at night as well. I did a night shot with two cameras, one with a 100mm Primo and the other with a 180mm E-Series, both set to T/2.8 (since I had no choice with the 180mm), of a car driving straight towards the cameras, and the flare from the headlights was not too bad except at its worst (dead on into the lens.) The two shots matched well.

 

Steven Poster told me that he shot at T/2.0 with the Primo anamorphics for some shots in "Donnie Darko" without much problem, and Dean Semler did the same on some night stuff for "The Alamo" at T/2.0 with fires burning in the frame without too much veiling.

 

However, the Primo anamorphics are impossible to use for handheld shooting unless you are a masochist.

 

I don't know much about the high-speed anamorphics at Panavision but I suspect that they flare more at T/2.0 than the Primos. Maybe you'd like that look though. I don't know about their size and weight but they probably be similar to C-Series lenses. I'm sure some of "Heat" must have used them and I liked some of that flarey stuff.

[Jarin Blaschke]

Aside from the highspeeds, what lenses did Heat use? Cs? Is the 50mm E series a hand-holdable lens? I remember seeing the 50mm highspeed - it was surprisingly small.

[Max Jacoby]

I don't have the information at hand right now (my reference book is in the camera truck), but the Es are around 3 kilos. I remember the 50mm primo being something like 7 kilos, the other lenses are 5 kilos or so.

 

The USG come in longer focal lenghts as well than 50mm.

 

'Heat' also used Primos, both Primes and Zooms.

[Jack Linder]

Hi

 

My name is Jack Linder. Im a small time photographer here in town. Nothing too big but I get by. As a service to some of our clients we film events in 16mm. Events such as weddings bar mitsvahs, corporate events, birthdays, etc. I gotta be honest, not many people have taken advantage of this service and those who did were somewhat dejected. Anyway, I didnt want to make a topic out of this question so I thought this would be more polite. I was wondering if doing a pull focus with a high end panavison camera entails the same process as pull focusing an SLR still camera. Now I know you cant "pull focus" an SLR because it does not capture motion. However you can look through the view finder, focus on an object in the room, move around and change focus as the distance changes. This is good practice it gives you a "feel" for distance and space. Is there any diffrence, any added mechanics or skill with a sophisticated panavision?

 

A friend of mine said Rack Focusing is quite daunting.

 

Thanks

[David Mullen ASC]

The main difference (besides the fact that the barrels on cine lenses rotate in the opposite direction) is that a focus puller isn't looking through the eyepiece, plus often they can't simultaneously look at the moving subject AND the distance marks on the lens, so it requires some intuitive feeling for how much to rotate the barrel when something moves and THEN double-check the distance marked on the lens, etc. Lots of tricks...

[Adam Frisch FSF]

I do like to pull focus myself when I'm handholding in a "guerilla"-type filmmaking, grabbing shots left and right - and I've found out I'm not completely crap at it. Sure it's off many times, but they would have been with the best focus puller too. But that's the only time really. Actually, no, somewone walking toward the lens on a tight telephoto shot is also easier to do by eye, I think. Or maybe I've just not had very good AC's :D

[Mitch Gross]

Another huge difference is that on an SLR camera ALL the light is going straight to the viewing screen except for the brief moment that the single frame is actually captured and the mirror flips away. Most SLR cameras also keep the lens open to its widest aperture for the brightest image except when actually taking the photo. In cine work the viewfinder only gets light 50% of the time and the aperture must be set at the actual exposure all the time, so the image is substantially darker in the viewfinder, making it far more difficult to judge focus. The image is also flickering 24 times a second which makes the task even harder.

[Jack Linder]

Thank you

 

So I gather that the mechanics really arent all that diffrent, just the circumstances. Indeed focus pullng requires an intuitive talent. I heard two people had to man the focus ring regarding anamorphic lenses. I guess thats why in "making of" specials I see people measuring the actors from the lens with a ruler since one cannot use the eyepiece. On a movie like "thirteen" or a show like "cold case" the DP must have an option to use a view finder since its handheld.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

On big scary shows like that, it isn't often the DP who operates. Under some circumstances you'll still have a focus puller madly dancing around the handheld camera trying to keep out of the way, but you can also use radio servo focus devices. This sort of thing becomes essential on Steadicam, unmanned cranes like Jimmy Jibs, and other situations which would either be completely messed up by the touch of the focus puller, or where the camera is remote.

 

Phil