M Joel W

I think it's fine (I think on Invictus there were issues with IR and I have had them with Velvia 100 I think) but following this thread as I recently sold my Tiffen ND filters in favor of a set of 8 Tokina IRNDs that I plan to use with digital and film and curious about this myself as I never A/B'd them.

You could be right. Check the names of the taking lenses, I suspect it's OKC1-75-1 and OKC1-50-1 which, again, I think are f2. And, looking online, variously marked between t2.1 and t2.3. But not sure.

I think the taking lenses have the name of the lens written on them. Google that and look for the t-stop of those lenses. I think it's around t2.2 or t2.3. I think these lenses are f2.0 and t2.5 is the t stop of the entire assembly not the f stop. I'd overexpose 1/3 stop relative to the marking to be safe. Just a guess btw. I actually own a similar kit and like 4-5 50mm and 75mm Lomos and when I get a chance I can check.

Is it a net behind the lens or something? I don't see this in the footage I'm working with now, but there are only smaller areas in it that are blown out in this footage. But some windows and point sources do blow out here and there.

I don't see it in the footage I'm working with now. 3.2k Alexa. But it's all pretty high key lighting without too many light sources in frame so I only found one or two clips with much clipping. But I don't see this happening there even around blown out lights. But the areas that are blown out are smaller so I can't tell.

Curious what you find. I was tempted to look through my library of Alexa footage but realized how infrequently it blows out! What do you think of 2.8k ArriRAW vs 3.2k ProRes btw? My work is ProRes 3.2k but I couldn't afford an Amira so I bought a 4:3 Plus and Gemini recorder instead. But I like 2k ProRes enough I think for me. ?

Thanks. I had an old Vinten I sold for next to nothing and regret selling, it was good. This is the type of thing I plan to shoot with like a crew of three so really anything would be good enough but I think I'll just rent a Sachtler Ace for a few days or the other option is a Benro S8, which is probably what I'll go with. For what I'm working on, that is good enough.

As cheap as possible, a few hundred dollars. I don't mind renting or buying used if there's nothing decent and affordable. It doesn't have to be great but I am a bit spoiled now so I'd probably rather rent something good than own something bad. Edit: I'm not that spoiled, though. Decent is fine.

I'm getting back into shooting smaller projects with my Panasonic S1. I'd like a tripod with a fluid head that's inexpensive and small and balances with a 3lb camera. Any recommendations? I know this site isn't tailored toward consumer equipment, but I figure people here have high standards. Which unfortunately after operating an O'Connor head even once so do I. ? But it just has to be decent. Cheap and compact would be nice. I will also use this with a friend’s C100 and plan to travel with it between coasts. Or I could just rent but recommendations there would be nice, too. Manfrotto? Sachtler Ace?

So cool! I think I ended up owning most of the owner's old stuff. Birns and Sawyer tripod from way back when, a few 2m cameras, and a bunch of lomo lenses. Is it safe to store everything in normal conditions? The cameras etc. are just out in the open, the lenses are in a humidity controlled cabinet.

What do you think of old Nikkors?

There's an interview on YouTube where a lens rental shop owner praises K35s for a number of reasons, but he also praises b speeds, which are like 1/10th the price. He does mention that something about newer lenses renders poorly or harshly on digital cameras, hence the sudden spike in popularity with S2/S3s and K35s. They probably are overpriced relatively to standard speeds and b speeds, for instance, but I guess if you're renting that's less of an issue.

I'm also guessing it's mostly a matter of older coatings. I think with older lenses you can get away with lighting a bit more carelessly or using less fill. On the other hand, if you over-light, they don't look so good imo.

This might be me overthinking things (as usual). But I think, even if you’re grading film, Resolve doesn’t obey the same rules as film and you can end up introducing colors that wouldn’t be there naturally, over-saturated highlights in particular. For instance by shifting lift to blue and gain to orange, the highlights might get too warm in an artificial “digital” way. So even if Arri is clamping down on over-saturated highlights with the Alexa (not that they always are, the brightest areas can clip a little weird imo) Resolve isn’t. So I try to apply lum vs sat last. Anyway that’s my thinking.

Thanks, I didn’t key it. It’s just a lum vs sat curve roughly like the image attached. That’s from Lumetri but Resolve has the same curve.

I agree once the highlights are clipped there's not much you can do to recover them but if the saturation isn't clipping I think a Lum vs saturation adjustment can approve their appearance and make them feel less "digital." I'm not a colorist and the difference is subtle but this is what I had in mind re: desaturating highlights.

I don't think it does either but my only experience with reversal is with Velvia 50 and 100. Saturation roll off is harder to adjust (imo at least) once the color channels clip but even in the example here I think you could address the issue in post pretty well.

This has always confused me. Maybe I'm conflating two separate issues. Arri (and now most other video camera manufacturers it seems) rolls off saturation in the highlights and midtowns (starting around 30 IRE or so I think) so the shadows are more saturated than the highlights are. This is not the case with traditional video cameras. The best comparison I have of this is an A7S clipping a red light source in frame as pure red (or yellow in this case?) before white and an Alexa clipping the same source as a very pale shade of pink before white. Apparently this is kind of highlight rolloff is modeled off of color negative film. But Alexa doesn't look like color negative. Arri's old discontinued film emulation mode was closer and the other is the difference between those shades of red is video (including Alexa) will give you that red color in the link whereas film won't, it will give you a darker color. More saturated areas appear darker in film. And I don't know if this has to do with video vs film or Arri modeling their color more off an additive model rather than a subtractive model, in which case Alexa is closer to reversal film? But doesn't saturation in reversal film behave more like the A7S does? There's a description here about additive vs subtractive but it's a sales page so hard to know: https://www.thebrim.pictures/sucomo.html It doesn't add up. Velvia (which is an additive model, being slide film) is far more saturated than Portra or even Ektar IMO: https://photojottings.com/color-negative-vs-slide-film/ https://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2013/02/25/color-film-choices-for-landscapes Sort of regretting selling my 6X12 back and view camera. ?

I've noticed this, too. My friends over 30 are likely to be film nuts but below that age less so? I think it has to do with when film was transitioned out at schools and with the initial digital to film transition. That was around 2006-2008 as I mentioned and anyone who was shooting before then I think is likely to be more nostalgic than those who've never shot film. I want to romanticize it and say YouTube creators at least focus on content rather than fetishizing "vintage" aesthetics, but have not really found this to be the case except in rare circumstances, and in those circumstances it's primarily about providing a platform for a personality.

And it shoots ProRes! Post loves it, too.

I agree it's a matter of taste. The clipping motorcycle headlights could be mitigated in post with a Lum vs sat adjustment. It was likely a choice to leave it as-is or simply not a priority to correct it. I remember in 2006 I had a dvx100a and was looking for the "film look." But around then Miami Vice, Speed Racer, Tim and Eric, Inland Empire, etc. were embracing a "digital" look. And there was some wild digital color grading then, too. So it's a little disappointing to me that my favored digital cinema camera is the Alexa because I think the look is closer to a film emulation than it is to "digital as digital." The LF in particular is a bit cleaner and the image has more of the characteristic of reversal film or video than color negative, but overall I would argue Arri's success comes from taking a fairly conservative approach, bucking the trend those first few "digital as digital" shows took in favor of something more familiar. I guess what I'm getting at is: I like the Alexa best as a digital camera, because it looks the least like a "digital camera." So maybe I don't like how digital looks. Or maybe if I wanted a "digital look" I'd pick up a PD150 or HVX200 and shoot in 60p. But of course that assumes you want to "see" the medium rather than see a purely transparent version of what's in front of the camera. I'm fond of grainier film stocks, older lenses (Cooke S2/S3, Baltars, etc.), diffusion filters (Classic Soft in particular), etc. but not taking it too far or it gets too fuzzy. And there are aberrations (chromatic aberration) I can do without and I like their absence in S2/S3s and Signature Primes alike. Barrel distortion doesn't bother me, and I think Shane Hurlbut even favors it a bit because it pulls the center of the frame forward and emphasizes it. This sort of puts my tastes at odds with Deakins' tastes and maybe closer to Kaminski's or some of the younger generation shooting S16. But I have more respect for Deakins' work in a lot of ways and am consistently impressed by it. I liked those weird early digital shows so my preferences tend more toward "interesting" than "perfect" but Deakins is as close to perfect as it gets imo and very consistently, too. I think Karim's tastes are probably similar to Deakins' and maybe even further in that direction toward transparency and technical perfection, but it is (imo) ultimately still a matter of preference. It's probably just a matter of tone but questioning the post team's competency and intent in not correcting barrel distortion (which, fwiw, Fincher adds in post, so it's obviously to someone's taste) reads differently from saying you don't like it. Also there is a physical limitation in CCDs and CMOS sensors alike that at 18% gray (or 18% linear saturation) there are 2.5 stops of dynamic range above that. This is why digital cameras are 800 ISO or whatnot; most of them are pushing the curve digitally or combining signals from different ISO as with the Alexa. With film, you can add finer grain as with Vision 3 (which not everyone prefers to Vision 2) but with digital as resolution increases full well capacity decreases. There have been a number of attempts made at alternate sensor designs or readout, from the F35 to Fuji's Super CCD to the Black Magic 12k or Red's HDRX, but it seems like highlight detail just isn't a priority for most shooters. So it's not that people aren't trying, it's just not the top priority right now. Although with HDR screens becoming more popular (I was lucky enough to see a 10K nit demo and it's stunning) and resolution maxing out, this might change and a tendency toward neutral cinematography might win out. Hopefully the younger generation embracing film and vintage lenses and the even-younger generation pursuing neutrality and resolution will both have voices in the future. There are a few other good "film emulations" out there, but of course the issue persists that you need to light like you're shooting film. With a t2i or dvx100 I had to light more like I was shooting film than I would with an Alexa! Also, I'm foremost a hobbyist and not a pro shooter so my strong opinions are just opinions, too.

I have an S16 converted K3 but it's kind of rough. Image in the viewfinder appears out of focus when zoomed out, though I am told it's sharp when shooting film, something is off. Some fungus in the lens. I am going to try it out first I think to see if it works, but if it does I would sell for under $150.

Alan Gordon has one at a fair price: https://www.alangordon.com/sales/used/lenses/super-16mm/primes/12mm-zeiss

Curious if it's possible to load a 100 foot daylight spool in an Aaton LTR-X magazine. I have read mixed things.

It is possible to convert these lenses to Aaton mount.