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Hawk 1.3x V-lites in LA?


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Hey guys!

 

I hope you are all doing well.

 

I have a short film coming up soon that will be on the C300 mk1 (due to my film school's availability) and I am looking for some advice on using them with the Hawk 1.3x V-lites. It seems that it should work in theory but have not seen any examples of people doing this in the past. Since the C300 mk1 does not have a desqueeze, I already anticipate having to get a third party monitor (SmallHD?) to desqueeze.

 

Also they seem to be quite a hard lens to track down even here in Los Angeles. Does anyone have any recommendations on where to find this lens for rent?

 

All the best,

 

Matthew

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Hey Matthew,

 

The 1.3x V-lites are for super 16mm sized imagers. I'm pretty sure they won't cover the imager of the Canon C300 MKI.

 

Most people use 2x anamorphic glass with S35mm imagers, that's the right way to go and the most common.

 

The 1.3x lenses are available at Keslow in LA and Vantage in NYC.

 

The 2x lenses are available from many more vendors. A google search will provide you with a long list.

 

One other unfortunate side effect of the Hawk lenses is the price. I was quoted $4500/week for a set of 1.3x anamorphic primes. Yes, forty five hundred dollars for 7 days! The 2x primes aren't much less, around $3200/week. Those new Hawks are very expensive to purchase and aren't as rented, so the rental houses are charging an arm, leg and first born for them!

 

You can get other/older anamorphic glass for S35mm coverage, just gotta call around and see what's available for those shoot dates. Since you live in Los Angeles, may I suggest contacting Panavision directly? They have a whole room full of Alexa's and gobs of anamorphic lenses. They also love helping students with their projects. I bet their pricing with camera is less then just the rental fee! EEK!

 

Hope that helps!

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I don't think 2X anamorphics will work on a C series as I don't think it has a 4x3 mode, though i could be wrong on that. Also isn't it EF mount? As such there aren't any anamorphics for cine work i'm aware of. You may find a 1.5X Iscoragama (spelling?) but i've no experience with it.

 

Another option if you're just looking for flares, would be a blue streak filter, or some fishing line in front of the lens combined with a 2.35:1 crop.

If you're looking for ovular bokeh, you wanna look into a bokeh fx kit, which often will have an oval in it and you can throw in front of your glass-- though again haven't done this myself.

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The 1.3x V-lites are for super 16mm sized imagers. I'm pretty sure they won't cover the imager of the Canon C300 MKI.

 

Most people use 2x anamorphic glass with S35mm imagers, that's the right way to go and the most common.

 

You can get other/older anamorphic glass for S35mm coverage, just gotta call around and see what's available for those shoot dates. Since you live in Los Angeles, may I suggest contacting Panavision directly? They have a whole room full of Alexa's and gobs of anamorphic lenses. They also love helping students with their projects. I bet their pricing with camera is less then just the rental fee! EEK!

 

 

 

Hey Tyler. As David said, I do believe the Hawk makes 1.3x for the S35 sensor. Since the C300 is 1920x1080 I would really not to prefer to extract a 2.35 out of the 2x as we would be losing significant resolution. I am already planning on trying to work with Panavision in the future. For this project though we don't have to pay for the C300 and of course the budget is quite tight.

 

 

I don't think 2X anamorphics will work on a C series as I don't think it has a 4x3 mode, though i could be wrong on that. Also isn't it EF mount? As such there aren't any anamorphics for cine work i'm aware of. You may find a 1.5X Iscoragama (spelling?) but i've no experience with it.

 

Another option if you're just looking for flares, would be a blue streak filter, or some fishing line in front of the lens combined with a 2.35:1 crop.

If you're looking for ovular bokeh, you wanna look into a bokeh fx kit, which often will have an oval in it and you can throw in front of your glass-- though again haven't done this myself.

 

Hey Adrian,

 

I think it would but it would just be too wide and then you would have to pillar box the image as I stated above. The C300 comes in both PL and EF and I will be using the PL mount.

 

I would really prefer to use anamorphic glass instead of converters or filters.

 

 

The Hawk 1.3X V-Lites cover both 35mm and Super-16:

http://www.vantagefilm.com/file/edee/downloads/news/equipment-38.pdf

 

David do you know where I can rent a set of the 35mm 1.3xs here in Los Angeles? Thanks for your input.

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Huh, well that's interesting! Everyone markets them as s16 glass.

 

http://www.keslowcamera.com/catalog/lenses/anamorphic-prime-lenses/hawk-v-lite16-anamorphic-16mm-lenses-1-3x-squeeze/

 

Ohh, they make 2 versions! One for S35 imagers and one for S16 imagers.

 

I've never seen the S35mm imager version in LA, only the S16 version.

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Linus Sandgren used them to get 1.85 on 4-perf 35mm Full Aperture on "Promised Land":

http://www.davidheuring.com/2012/05/14/van-sant-film-uses-unique-4-perf1-3-squeeze-format/

 

Stuart Dryburgh has used them on the Alexa ("Blackhat") and on 3-perf 35mm ("Emperor") and mixed 2X and 1.3X on "Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

 

I don't know if any rental houses carry them here. Probably a sub-rental from Vantage but you could call Keslow, Clairmont, Camera House, etc. to find out.

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Linus Sandgren used them to get 1.85 on 4-perf 35mm Full Aperture on "Promised Land":

http://www.davidheuring.com/2012/05/14/van-sant-film-uses-unique-4-perf1-3-squeeze-format/

 

Stuart Dryburgh has used them on the Alexa ("Blackhat") and on 3-perf 35mm ("Emperor") and mixed 2X and 1.3X on "Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

 

I don't know if any rental houses carry them here. Probably a sub-rental from Vantage but you could call Keslow, Clairmont, Camera House, etc. to find out.

Great, thanks so much for the info David.

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I looked into renting the 1.33x V-Lite Hawks for a 3-perf S35 production I shot last November so I could get 2.40 without having to do an extraction, but still save on stock. I found it to be not worth the hassle or expense. With the ubiquity of similarly sized digital sensors and the popularity of anamorphic these days, you'd think they'd be readily available in LA, but that's not the case. So I contacted Vantage in Weiden, and they were willing to rent them to me, but they would've had to be shipped from Germany, with a customs broker at LAX, all totaling over $2000 just for shipping, not including rental cost.

 

Locally, I was only able to locate the S16 lenses. As far as I know, the image circle on that set will not cover a S35 sensor or gate. It's two different sets of lenses. If you look at Keslow's catalog, they only carry the focal range from 14mm to 35mm, which makes sense for S16 but not for S35. From what I read in F&D Times, the V-Lite spherical components, and therefore focal lengths, are the same across the S35s but the two different anamorphots are changeable, or something along those lines.

 

It's a bummer, because I think these lenses are extraordinarily useful and they'd be flying off rental shelves if they were more available. I was again hoping to use them on an Alexa Open Gate to get a perfect 2.0:1, providing they covered the sensor.

 

So many possibilities, and a really unique look.

Edited by Christopher Purdy
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I looked into renting the 1.33x V-Lite Hawks for a 3-perf S35 production I shot last November so I could get 2.40 without having to do an extraction, but still save on stock. I found it to be not worth the hassle or expense. With the ubiquity of similarly sized digital sensors and the popularity of anamorphic these days, you'd think they'd be readily available in LA, but that's not the case. So I contacted Vantage in Weiden, and they were willing to rent them to me, but they would've had to be shipped from Germany, with a customs broker at LAX, all totaling over $2000 just for shipping, not including rental cost.

 

Locally, I was only able to locate the S16 lenses. As far as I know, the image circle on that set will not cover a S35 sensor or gate. It's two different sets of lenses. If you look at Keslow's catalog, they only carry the focal range from 14mm to 35mm, which makes sense for S16 but not for S35. From what I read in F&D Times, the V-Lite spherical components, and therefore focal lengths, are the same across the S35s but the two different anamorphots are changeable, or something along those lines.

 

It's a bummer, because I think these lenses are extraordinarily useful and they'd be flying off rental shelves if they were more available. I was again hoping to use them on an Alexa Open Gate to get a perfect 2.0:1, providing they covered the sensor.

 

So many possibilities, and a really unique look.

It's a shame really... It's odd that they are literally no where in Los Angeles. Good to find that some other people shared the same struggle, hah. Thanks for the input Christopher.

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Yep and the S16 version exists, but are prohibitively expensive. I did the math, it would cost LESS to shoot 2 perf 35mm on a 3 week shoot with a camera deal through panavision, then it would to shoot S16 and V-lite anamorphic's.

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