Jump to content

35mm still 210mm zoom equivilant to 16mm zoom lens


Eugene Sung

Recommended Posts

Hello,

 

I have 2 questions

 

I've adapted a 35mm Canon FD still zoom lens (75mm to 210mm), to an Eclair ACL Regular 16. It looks great so far, but I haven't got the film test back yet.

 

Question 1)

What is the equivilant zoom length in 16mm of the Canon FD 210mm zoom?

 

Someone told me that a 35mm still lens adapted to a 16mm Motion picture camera is 3 to 1, so I'm getting a 630mm zoom (210mm x 3) on my ACL.

 

Is this the correct math?

 

Question 2)

a 630mm zoom on a 16mm camera, is the equal to what zoom length on a 35mm camera?? Would that be around 1300mm since 35mm is more than 2x as big as 16mm???

 

Thanks for any help

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Ian Marks

Well, you can't make an exact comparison because 35mm stills have one aspect ratio (2:3) and standard 16mm another (3:4). In other words, the 35mm still format is wider.

 

Anyway, 210mm on 16mm is going to look something like a 500mm lens on a 35mm still camera. That's a rough guestimate, but the important thing is that it's l-o-n-g.... too long for practical use, suitable only for the occasional wildlife shot. Even then, it's a questionable choice if it has a maximum aperture of f4 or slower, or if it's a "trombone" style zoom. Still, there's nothing stopping you from using your zoom on your ACL if it works for you.

 

As for 35mm cine, remember that the still 35mm format (24mm x 36mm) was devised by using the space occupied by 2 movie frames. Thus, the 35mm cine frame is about half the size of the still frame. Movie film goes past the gate vertically, still film goes horizontally. You can put your zoom on your Canon still camera, look through the finder, and mentally subtract the left or right half of the image to get a good idea of what your lens would produce if mounted on a 35mm movie camera. Unfortunately, using an unmodified FD lens on a 35mm movie camera is a problem from a flange to focal depth perspective (so far as I can tell), although a number of Arris, Eyemos, and CM3's have been modified for use with Nikon still lenses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Ian Marks

Actually, now that I think about it, typical modern movies shot on 35mm actually use somewhat less than half the image area of a 35mm still frame, because of the way the movie frame is offset to leave room for the sound track, and because of the 1:1.85 crop.

Edited by Ian Marks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, now that I think about it, typical modern movies shot on 35mm actually use somewhat less than half the image area of a 35mm still frame, because of the way the movie frame is offset to leave room for the sound track, and because of the 1:1.85 crop.

 

Thanks for the reply Ian. I'm actually using it for Surfing shots so I needed something with a lot of zoom. The problem is, is that it still seems not quite long enough as the the surfers are wayyyy out there, and that's why I was wondering what the zoom is compared to 35mm because surf photographers recommend a 600mm zoom on a 35mm still camera

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...