Timothy David Orme

A still photo of this technique might look okay, if done properly, but in general I think it looks as fake as it is. I have a friend who does this all the time: masks out the subject, then creates a blurred layer beneath it. Generally it looks really bizarre once it's set in motion (and yes, he does move the mask with the subject), almost dreamlike. It's a good technique for what it is, but it doesn't look like 'natural' depth of field to me.

So I understand everything but this taking lens bit. I'm not sure what's the 'front' of the adapter. Is the taking lens the 35mm lens, or the lens on the Canon digital camera?

Are you saying the Letus can shoot a max 5.6 on the 35mm lens? Why would that be?

Sure, but don't most people try to light for a particular iris setting for the entire movie? And isn't there a certain range where the focus is best?

Here's what we have at this point: 28mm 2.8 50mm 1.8 35-105mm 3.5 and a 135mm 3.5. I think we have a good enough selection of lenses. (We were thinking about getting the 85mm 1.8, but I think we've decided we can do without.) Our main concern now is determining what aperture to shoot at or how we might determine what that is.

Hello all, We've been doing some tests with the Letus and it's all starting to come together nicely. Is there a certain aperture people tend to use/like to stay around when working with these 35mm adapters, or is it just about getting enough light for most people? Tim.

Also, he's found a 85mm 1.8 for like $170, so I might get that for us too, especially for interiors.

Thanks for your help. He tried that last night and got the 28mm to work just fine. So, it looks like we'll have 1 28mm 2.8, a 50mm 1.8, and a 35-105mm 3.5. It's not the ideal setup, but I think it'll do. Now we're just going to have to run some more tests to learn the limitations of using an awkward unit like that with a glidecam, dolly, jib, etc. Should be a good shoot.

I'm actually not sure if it's the extreme or not. And he does have a 28mm 2.8 that we were planning on using, but when we tested it yesterday we noticed it was vignetting way too much. Maybe there's a way we can fix that. So, I don't know a lot about 35mm focal lengths and lenses because I've never shot 35mm. But from what I understand, 85mm is the 'standard' closeup, portrait style shot. Does that apply to film or is it different?

The other lenses are 3.5. It just seems like we'd need to do a lot of lighting inside, based off the test we ran tonight. Maybe I'm wrong?

So, I'm getting ready to shoot a short film this summer, and a friend of mine offered to let me shoot on his Canon with his Letus 35mm adapter. The only problem is, the only lens he has that's fast enough to really shoot interiors (without a million lights) is a 50mm. I'm wondering how amateur it'd look and how much it'd really be worth shooting something with a 35mm adapter if I can only use a 50mm lens?

Right, but once the footage is captured onto a hard drive, is what I'm meaning.

I'm looking at shooting a short film on a Varicam this summer, and I wanted to see how big of an external hard drive I'm going to get. How big of a file does the Varicam create? Thanks, Tim.

That's good to know. As I said, the festivals I've been to only project miniDV, which looks almost blurry on the big screen. Thanks for your help. Tim.

Sure, I understand that. What I'm more curious about, though, is how it might look at a festival, and if those dollars will necessarily translate into a better picture.