M Joel W

Rule has a 416 kit I think but it's not cheap. Du-All probably has some cameras for rental in NYC.

Some local film schools might have Aaton or SR2s. I have an Aaton outside Boston but it lacks a video tap and needs a CLA.

I've always taken S16 focal lengths to be 1/2 their S35 equivalent, even while realizing this is imprecise. On the other hand, I feel like 16mm film has significantly less resolution than 35mm film (or digital) so there's a tendency to go for a slightly tighter focal length.

I think the Scoopic has a 12.5mm-75mm "normal" zoom and the K3 a 17-69mm zoom. Whereas to me 20-60mm is more "normal" on S35, implying 10-30mm should be on S16. (And hey, there's my dream lens, the 10-30mm t1.5 Cooke I can't afford!)

I find digital scans much sharper than analogue prints, so to me that mitigates the softness a bit and reaffirms my 10-30mm love.

Unpopular opinion probably, but at your budget level I'd buy something like this:

https://www.adorama.com/kfc06315.html?gclid=CjwKCAjw9-KTBhBcEiwAr19ig3NQNFTFMcgjGAQRpcTsTYv5dnCZa8wY_czkDFjnKjWE6siFFSB0FhoCIPUQAvD_BwE&gclid=CjwKCAjw9-KTBhBcEiwAr19ig3NQNFTFMcgjGAQRpcTsTYv5dnCZa8wY_czkDFjnKjWE6siFFSB0FhoCIPUQAvD_BwE&utm_source=adl-gbase-p

And a 16mm f2.0 and 10mm f2.8 Nikkor mount Rokinon or something. The 14-20mm Tokina l think looks ideal but it's gelded. If you can get your hands on a cheap 11-16mm PL Tokina, that seems okay, too. 

It's interesting (to me, maybe no one else) but on digital I think I'd love the look of super speeds. Whereas on film, U16s.

On either, 10-30mm t1.5 Cooke. If I can't afford it and I still love it, I'm pretty sure that means it's not bias but unrequited love. ?

I'd take Dom's advice over mine here fwiw. 

A few signature primes seems like a good choice just expensive. 

My background is in vfx but more toward the DIY side than higher end material.

I believe the Signature Primes don't breathe much – if I had the budget I think that's what I would gravitate toward.

The Ultra Primes I think would be a great choices if you weren't shooting FF. I imagine the distortion, vignetting, etc. toward the edges past the intended coverage area would be difficult to replicate in comp and you'd effectively be limited to S35 or 3.2k. For matchmoving and planar tracking, etc. You might end up with some frustrations. I was just working on a Sony Venice job shot with Master Primes in FF and it was useful because we were cropping for delivery but the corners looked weird and I didn't do any matchmoving but imagine it might be an issue there; it was at times for tracking and compositing too but also helpful for tracking in some cases since it was effectively look around room. It looked fine once we cropped but took a little getting used to working that way.

I'll just say it was sort of non-standard.

And I wouldn't be inclined to work with MPs or UPs except in 3.2k or 2.8k ARRIRAW.

But if you're just shooting S35 or 3.2k then I guess there's nothing wrong with UPs. 

Imo the CP3s are not bad. They're optically ahead imo of popular "vintage" options out there, and they also flare less, which might be why they're less popular in some circles than their Contax forebears to have a more "organic" feel. They're also more consistent lens-to-lens. However I believe they breathe pretty heavily. 

I wouldn't look toward FD Ls or Leica R for vfx tests (but that's just me) – I believe they breathe a lot too and the whole point of them is the "organic" look to the footage. I will say that given a set of K35s or a more modern lens with diffusion, I would much rather composite in footage shot with the vintage lens; diffusion makes keying and rotoscoping annoying.

The Ultra Primes do breathe quite a bit and have some distortion, though. I remember the 40mm in particular breathing heavily, having to track scale during a rack focus, and having a bit of barrel distortion too.

The Signature Primes might be a LOT cleaner. Those are.... outside what I get to play with.

I'd talk with your vfx sup more about this. I do remember the UPs breathing more than expected.

The Otus range might have potential. No idea how much they breathe. But 28, 55, 85 is a nice kit (on FF) imo.

I see a lot of people on other forums putting together FD L sets and Leica R sets and such. 

As a result, they're overpriced now of course. But the 24mm FD L, 35mm Minolta, 50/55mm FD L, 85mm FD L is a popular set. I put a set of these together myself but can't afford to have them rehoused now. Apparently a lot of people have the opposite problem. ?

I never cared that much for the Zeiss Compact Primes because the wides are so slow but on FF I think they are another story.

I feel like Ultra Primes are at the level where any sharper and they're a bit too sharp for the the 2.8K Alexa already? I could see those being a nice choice on the 4K S35 Alexa but not taking off in popularity like the Cookes and K35s have recently. That is a good enough price I might go for it if you had a Mini; but for a Mini LF it seems questionable. Even when they cover, corners might be off.

I always wondered why the CN-E series didn't command more respect. The Sumires look too heavy-handed in their "glow" effect but I like how Canon lenses look and the CN-E series looks like a nice stopgap between K35s and something sharper. I guess you'd need to install an EF mount then, of course. The 24mm through 85mm super speeds seems like a nice set up on full frame imo.

What "look" do you like? Who are your clients? Are you renting out the lenses or is it a full service thing?

I've talked with people who are more into music video narrative and fashion maybe going K35 (or FD for me as I can't afford K35) and for something more corporate going a little more modern. I can't afford to get near Signature Primes but I love the look. 

The Tokinas look great except they're huge and have a clean look that isn't for me. The Sigma Art lenses also fall under "a little boring" for me but I would take those over UPs just for the coverage. But I'd get old Nikkors over either – I just shoot as a hobby now and I like a REALLY vintage look.

The new t2.4 Canon zooms look cool depending on how they render. There's a lot of budget options out there from Chinese manufacturers that might be fine, too. I guess I just wouldn't go with S35 glass on a full frame camera you spent that much on.

Wait did they really use a Helios 44-2 on The Batman?

Thanks, Michael. No worries. I think the window for editing a post is short, but that all makes sense. 

It's interesting to me that I prefer the green/magenta axial CA I associate with K35s to the blue/yellow axial CA I associate with Super Baltars. I love the texture of Cookes and Kinoptik and Schneider lenses too, which seem to have more "nisen bokeh" but a lot less axial CA. Even Zeiss standard speeds have less CA from what I have seen, if perhaps more than Cooke (with the Super Speeds there seems to be even more).

I've read that Nikon's ED glass reduces axial CA so maybe that is the "expensive glass" they are referring to. 

I like what I have seen from the Signature primes a lot. The Otus line looks amazing with clean color but the bokeh a bit less "smooth?" Oddly, my lens preferences vary between digital capture and film.

19 minutes ago, Stephen Sanchez said:

With a tiny crew, I would avoid small fixtures and use white and black surfaces. The larger the frame, the further away it can be. Also, frames can combine for a larger surface. I'll sometimes run 4x4 ultraflops and white cards to surround the subject to create a 8x8 or 4x12 or whatever. It's faster, but not as tall as a 12x. I've done two 8x8 ultras (8x16ft) for fill as well. Either way, you'll know what amount of gear your crew can support. These are my solutions.

Another benefit to lots of white. If you're in a forest, then I'd always suggest white surfaces to replace the green and brown that would otherwise hit the face. The return may be negligible to the meter, but the face will appear "more pleasing." It'll also create a huge but dim reflection on the eye. And black the fill side to whatever flavor the project wants.

This will create a natural look, great for drama or branded commercials with 50IRE skin. But if you're doing a high-key commercial where skin has to be at 70IRE, this is not the solution. You'll need power.

And I'd avoid CRLS to the face. It's a really efficient series of frosted mirrors.

What about shiny bead board if you're looking to get closer to 70IRE?

7 hours ago, Michael Lindsay said:

I thought the Primo's had the odd aspheric element.. but I def could be wrong as I have never even shot with them. Maybe not having them is why they where so big?

The Cooke S8 are also an Ian Neil design but from my understanding a very different design brief.  For example even performance of axis was def not in design brief.. 

Nisen bokeh..? do you mean the bokah that has a hard bright edge to the outside of a defocused point source? If yes I think this is from the over correction of spherical aberration and def not intrinsic to aspherical elements... 

The onion bokah is of course from ground aspherical elements but nowadays there are other ways to make aspheric elements (Signature primes for example) which don't have this artefact.. 

I really am not a fan of the onion bokah but I also accept normally people (the people that mater) never really notice it.. ? Also a never ever mentioned fact is the grinding of the aspherical elements (like Anamorphic cylinders) is the cause of the rainbow flares I do happen to like... so hey there is no perfect lens.. 

Michael 

Oh, interesting. This is way over my head. What I meant is this kind of look from an image Dom posted, from the Cooke S2s:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IqwJOAAj7J8/UmDizrc4LXI/AAAAAAAAAn4/3AHWpx9-nYo/s1600/Pan+D+LO.jpg

Where the color of the bokeh is really clean, but the outlines are overcorrected for spherical aberration.

Compared with the K35s, which do have onion bokeh but also have a "smoother" bokeh but with magenta/green fringing?

What is that called? Is it axial or lateral CA? Anyway I notice the K35s I think have green/magenta fringing whereas Super Baltars I think are more blue/yellow? At the very least I was comparing an old 35mm f1.4 Minolta design with the 35mm f1.4 Nikkor AIS and the Minolta had green/purple color fringing and the Nikon was blue/yellow. I assume an Otus or something would be clean.

What lenses has Ian Neil designed? A bit embarrassed this is the first I've heard of him. 

Do the Primos have no aspherical elements? The Cooke S8s might be the closest match.

The S4 split green/magenta CA doesn't bother me that much (it seems to be a big issue with K35s too) but the S8s seem like the first lenses since the Primos that have the apochromatic color of say Cooke S2s or whatnot but without the nisen bokeh harshness or onion bokeh of aspherical designs.

The Cooke 20-60mm zoom is also quite beautiful.

https://filmmakermagazine.com/97621-the-witch-dp-jarin-blaschkes-lens-tests-with-stills/#.YkH5gi-B2Zw

Kudos to whomever mentioned Slocombe, I love his work on Indiana Jones.

Depth of field can be a shortcut toward drawing attention to a specific part of the frame: in a movie like Social Network condensing a 162-page script into 120 minutes you need all the help you can get and I've read Fincher's talkier dramas are often shot at t1.3. 

But there's something to the opposite approach, too.

How good are cinema scanners compared with, on one hand a drum scanner, on the other an Epson flatbed, or the middle ground, a Noritsu (which I figure is pretty similar to multi-pass Nikon 9000 or a bit worse)? 

Going back to the discussion of 85 filters elsewhere, Portra/Kodak Gold etc. is daylight balanced but still photo labs will compensate when they develop? I'm assuming that's at the printing stage/scan stage – is the process with printing lights and scanning to compensate for white balance similar with 135 C41 film vs ECN2? When still labs scan negatives do they apply color correction per-shot to compensate for white balance discrepancies or is there some sort of printing light equivalent/analogue compensation?

Makes me sad I never got to develop anything in my bathtub. ?

Sky Captain and the World of tomorrow? 

I spent some time thinking about this a year or two ago. I was inspired by Citizen Kane and Speed Racer and Werewolf: the Devil's Hound primarily is why I mention those examples. I think Speed Racer might be the Wachowskis' second best film to the Matrix. Not sure if that's a compliment for Speed Racer or a slight at the rest of their filmography, though, but I loved that movie and the story, style, and everything about it are a stark contrast (pun intended) to contemporary Marvel. It's weird and imperfect but I love it.

I bought a 17-50mm f2.8 Tamron EF mount lens because it can stop down to f32, then I bought a doubler so I could stop it down to f64 at 34-100mm. The idea was to shoot the wides at hyperfocal distance then green screen the close ups in order to stack focus, focused once on the background and once on the subject. Then shooting any other foreground elements similarly so we could stack focus in post. If we had more budget motion control would be another option.

It never happened – it felt too experimental and time-consuming given the material, but there's probably potential for a cool look here and maybe something to revisit as styles get more progressive in the future.

Speed Racer (parts of it), Werewolf: the Devil's Hound

(Realizing why they both reminded me of Citizen Kane – style and the subversive anti-corporate messages.)

13 minutes ago, David Mullen ASC said:

You have to watch out for ghost reflections, it can help to tape the two filters flat to each other and use a tiltable mattebox filter tray. You just have to be vigilant. It's not a big problem other than I don't like to use more than two filters and if I ever want to use diffusion, that only leaves one more filter... so if an 85ND combo filter can replace using an 85 and an ND together, then I always opt for that.

Thanks again. That makes a lot of sense. 

9 minutes ago, David Mullen ASC said:

80A is blue, you don't need that one. The 85B is just a little warmer than the 85, it's within an easy color-correction adjustment so it's not an important decision. Technically the 85B corrects 5600K to 3200K (for what was called "Type B" film for shooting under tungsten movie lamps) and the 85 (aka 85A) corrects 5600K to 3400K for Type A film balanced for shooting under 3400K tungsten photoflood bulbs.

The real question is if you want full correction (85 or 85B) or halfway correction (81EF) or minimal correction (LLD).  The LLD is more for low-light conditions (dark interiors or twilight) where you can't afford the light loss. Outside in sunshine, the downsides of a second piece of glass probably don't justify the minor correction it provides. And using two filters can create problems if you aren't careful which is why typically you'd get a set of 85ND combo filters.

I think you should shoot a test and see if you are OK without using the 85 since you only own regular ND filters.

Thank you. Embarrassed to admit I meant something like 81EF or LLD when I wrote 80A. But the difference between 85 and 85B was my biggest source of confusion.

Why can using two filters create a problem? And thanks again – I should have looked some of this up but your patience and knowledge are invaluable.

2 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

You absolutely need a set of ND filters, especially with 500T film outside! The question is whether to get the 85ND combo filters if you are only using tungsten film outdoors.

Thanks, David. I have IRNDs already. 

I just meant between 80A, 85B, 85, etc. I don't really know the difference well enough to know what to pick if I could only choose one filter or which would be used in what circumstances. 

On 2/15/2022 at 5:05 PM, Sune Bang Ingemann said:

My friend color corrected a roll of 16mm tungsten stock  (500T i think) in post. You can see it here:  https://www.instagram.com/p/CBH_kDkhqO9/ 

Some DP's prefer not to use an 85 filter. Chivo as an example says that it "homogenizes the color" (Qoute from Tree of Life article in ASC magazine). The thing is that these DP's have world class post infrastructure with some of the best graders in the world, combined with extensive testing. I would guess you don't have the same luxury. If this is a low budget thing then i don't think you should worry about this, and just use an 85. There are bigger fish to fry ... 

That being said I would recommend using Resolve' printer light hot keys feature to color correct. I find it to be the most intuitive way to color correct 16 mm (Haven't done 35).

I'd also read this about Lubezki and have seen some scans before correction; I believe they were a few stops overexposed. I get the impression there's a lot of sense behind what he's doing but it's evolved over time with synergy between labs, colorists, etc.

Those stills look great btw.

3 minutes ago, David Mullen ASC said:

There is also the Tiffen LLD filter, which hardly loses any light but slightly reduces the excess blue while acting to cut UV -- it's sort of a super Skylight filter.

If I'm to buy one 4x4 filter for film should I go with 80A, 85B, 85?

Don't have much to add, but following out of curiosity. 

I've heard of bouncing lights into black wrap or shooting through black fabric before for similar scenarios. Seems like the opposite idea but maybe not?

3 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

Good greenscreen composites are about getting clean edges free of flaring or chromatic aberration around the foreground subject, so I wouldn't use old lenses -- or modern lenses if they have CA problems. Yes, shoot a reference frame with the old lens for matching purposes.

Thank you, David. I've also considered stopping down the vintage lens to t8 or t11 if I can get enough light on the stage so that the optical characteristics will be intact but the "softness" can be added in post. Then shooting a reference at t2.3, which is where I anticipate I'll shoot most of the show. The lenses have horrible curvature of field and a lot of flare but very little CA.

But the curvature of field is so intense on the 28mm cine-xenon it might be worth renting a Sigma Art. 

I recently worked on a show with some green screen second unit inserts that I noticed were shot on anamorphic lenses to match anamorphic plates and spherical lenses to match spherical plates. 

I guess the single coatings on the cine-xenons would be my concern, that there would be a green cast over the entire image. Of course, I could also just not over-expose the green screen.

What do you expose your green screen at? 18% gray through a spot meter? 

I'm planning to shoot something with very old lenses (1950s/1960s Schneider Cine-Xenons and Cinegon) and there is a lot of green screen work mixed in, too. Would it be smarter to rent Sigma Art lenses or Rokinon lenses or something for those days and then achieve a "vintage look" in post? Would it make sense to shoot briefly with both so I could re-recreate the look in comp? Thanks!

Hi, I'm looking for the Canon-brand Wide Angle Converter for the Scoopic M. Canon-branded only please.

Primary reason is to use it on the Scoopic M.

Secondary reason is I want to try putting it on a 24mm FD L and see if it turns into an 18mm t1.5 K35. ? 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nf2sm5pz4gjoz5r/IMG_1582 copy.jpg?dl=0

Recently serviced and not used since. Includes a few different plates. Really smooth tripod, but I need a larger one for my camera (Arri Alexa Plus and 300mm f2.0 Nikon). 

$700 plus shipping. Good deal I think.