Garry Torrance

There's another thread in the DSLR forum titled 'crop factor with cine lenses', which has a spot-on comment by David Mullen about why it's awkward to think about crop factors in the way you describe. Putting a fisheye adapter on a telephoto zoom won't give you good results: as well as the loss of image quality, you lose the depth-of-field too. Depth-of-field is directly affected by focal length regardless of whether you got to that focal length using a wacky combination of lenses and adapters or just using one lens. Any type of lens set to 28mm/f3.5 on a Micro 43 sensor will give you the same depth-of-field, so you'd be better off just using a wide zoom with a large aperture. If you put a wide-angle adapter on a telephoto zoom, you'll notice the image starts to go soft and foggy as you approach the telephoto end of the lens.

You may or may not notice any loss of quality when you use a wide angle adapter on Leica lenses on highly compressed HD, it depends on the quality of the adapter, but I think that's kind of missing the point: attaching a wide-angle adapter defeats the purpose of using the nice Leica lens in the first place. If you're moving to Micro 43 format, and you're used to full-frame stills format, then your 19mm lens will appear to have a narrower field-of-view but it is still a 19mm lens, it is still wide-angle: you just get used to the different format. I'm used to lens focal lengths using Red One cameras, Letus adapters, 7Ds, etc, all of which have a similar sensor-size to 3-perf 35mm. This means that the full-frame format of a 5D looks weird and alien to me. Is it a problem? No, I just use each lens differently to compensate for the difference in format. So if you decide your 19mm isn't wide enough on a smaller sensor, then you use a wider lens.. If you were to go down the Micro 43 route, you have access to a huge range of lenses in addition to the ones designed for Micro 43, the absence of a mirror and the short flange distance means almost all 35mm lenses can be attached with the right adapter. I hear what you're saying about concentrating on the performance, but seriously dude, there's no excuse for using auto-exposure on a drama.. Even if you have no budget I'm sure you could find some collaborators to help you put a crew together?

You can get very shallow depth-of-field with APS-C and Micro 43 formats, you just need to open up another stop or two. Micro 43 is only a x1.2 crop from Super 35mm, APS-C is effectively crop-free. I don't think it's useful to quote crop factors in relation to full-frame stills format: we're generally talking about using these cameras for making films in 16:9 so surely we should be making the comparison to 3-perf 35mm, not 8-perf stills? For me the shallow dof on a 5D is a bit extreme for many purposes, particularly hand-held drama. I would just go for a GH2 or a 7D and use the money you save to get some newer lenses with wider apertures, that way you have the dof and more light sensitivity. Don't use auto-focus or auto-aperture, or auto-anything for that matter. The point of focus and exposure is a creative decision that you can control yourself as you film, would you really leave those decisions to a little microprocessor?

For the money you'd spend on either of the Canon L-series lenses, you could buy the 17-55mm IS (after selling the Tamron) AND the Sigma 30mm 1.4, that way you'll have a nice fast-ish zoom for run'n'gun filming and a fast prime for when you're struggling for light or want shallow dof for interviews. Since the 7D heavily compresses its HD video, the subtleties of the improved sharpness in L-series lenses are lost. I don't think you'd notice any difference in sharpness by comparing Canon L-series primes vs Sigma EX DC primes (when shooting HD: 18-megapixel stills are another matter).

Hey Phil, I noticed you want to be no higher than ISO400 on a Canon 5D for this: are you aware that Canon 5D/7D/1D native ISO speeds are 160, 320, 640, 1250 and 1600? This means that shooting at ISO400 may actually be more noisy than shooting at ISO640. You probably know this but I thought I should point it out: another two-thirds of a stop might be handy for your night exterior. _________________________________________ Garry Torrance DP • Lighting Cameraman +44 (0) 7900 953590 www.garrytorrance.co.uk

It makes sense for the ENG-style zooms to have I.S., the most obvious use I see for it would be for hand-held field/documentary work. I hear what you're saying about it being largely redundant for film lenses. Now that 35mm-format stills lenses are used for indie production more than ever, I think I.S. may become more popular: it would be useful when you want to shoot hand-held whilst avoiding the dreaded 'shaky-cam' (and for whatever reason you need to avoid steadicam). It would also be handy when using smaller lightweight dolly systems where a longer focal length might pick up some vibrations. ______________________________________________________________________ Garry Torrance DP • Lighting Cameraman +44 (0) 7900953590 www.garrytorrance.co.uk

I was, until recently, under the impression that the IS/OS motor in some modern stills lenses was only useful for taking telephoto stills at longer shutter speeds (this is what it was designed for, after all) but I've since realised that it does actually work as an image stabiliser for shooting motion pictures/video (the only problem I know of being the noise of the motor). Which raises my question: do motion picture lenses exist that use this technology? Also, does anyone know of any well-known films/scenes where lens optical stabilisation has been used? ______________________________________________________________________ Garry Torrance DP • Lighting Cameraman +44 (0) 7900953590 www.garrytorrance.co.uk

I said I would update this thread with any further info I got from Birger Engineering reagrding their adapter: I've been assured that it will work with both EF-mount and EF-S mount lenses made by Canon, Zeiss, Sigma and Tokina (I didn't ask about any others). They couldn't say for certain that AF functions will work 100% efficiently with motors in lenses made by Sigma or other manufacturers other than Canon (not that many of us will want auto-focus anyway: surely iris control is the main thing), but they will fit on the mount and allow iris-control from the camera. ______________________________________________________________________ Garry Torrance DP • Lighting Cameraman +44 (0) 7900953590 www.garrytorrance.co.uk

I see your point about the f-stop, personally (and when time allows) I like to decide what f-stop I want for the d.o.f. I want, then set the ISO/lights/ND as required to get the right exposure. I was tempted to type in all the swearwords I know into this post just to see how they will be 'edited', but I guess I'd better keep it professional :D

Probably no-one in their right mind is considering buying this particular adapter, especially after the above comments (I'm certainly not), but out of interest here is the response from that email anyway: "There would be many problems with the aperture behind the front lens, one in particular is the focal plane: by shifting the access area, you will move the f stop because you are moving the amount of light coming into the lens , if your not worried about F stop as the aperture seems manual, how is the aperture controlled in the EF lens? .. remember its the camera that selects your aperture in an EOS camera, not the lens. I can also suspect lots of ghosting, and reflection bounce: these apertures in EF cameras are all at different measurements within the lens. Not every aperture is in the same place, its not just some guy throwing in an aperture and saying 'right that's it', there is a whole length of mathematical calculations to measure where these apertures are placed in a lens: a 24mm will be at an entirely different focal plane aperture fixing than say a 100mm, and that's just the focal fixing if you look at a zoom lens say 18-55mm F/2.8 the aperture at 18mm when you zoom out to 55mm will close slightly because f2.8 at 18mm is not the same pitch at 55mm this is all mathematical calculations [...] I would also advise to look at the English in this products description, if it were a fully justifiable product they would have spent a few quid on Technical Authorship" Those comments were from Eddie Houston (aka The Lens Doctor), here is a write-up about him and his services, also quite interesting (not least his rock'n'roll background): http://www.dslrnewsshooter.com/2010/12/27/the-lens-doctor-de-clicking-in-the-uk/ Lastly, I wrote a four-letter word beginning with 's' in my previous post and it somehow magically changed to 'poop' when it appeared in the thread: what's that all about? Does this forum have language clean-up software? I don't use words like 'poop', in Scotland we (notoriously) prefer real profanity :lol: _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Garry Torrance DP • Lighting Cameraman +44 (0) 7900953590 www.garrytorrance.co.uk

And another one: the aperture ring goes from 1 to 6, so in order to know what exactly you're working with you'd have to measure the size of the aperture at each setting then calculate focal length/aperture diameter for each lens at each setting to work out the actual f-stop.. I guess this adapter is most likely a piece of poop.. but interesting nonetheless..

The manufacturer does state (in poor english) that vignetting will occur if the aperture is brought down past a certain size. Another big concern that's sprung to mind: if the 'front' aperture defaults to and stays wide-open, does that mean the depth-of-field will always be at the shallowest, regardless of the size of the adapter's aperture? I've emailed a lens-repair guy I know (he used to be a lens engineer for Canon), I'll post any answers he may be able to provide. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Garry Torrance DP • Lighting Cameraman +44 (0) 7900953590 www.garrytorrance.co.uk

Some info for those who are not already in the know: There is a considerably cheaper (£90/$135) Canon EF to Micro 4/3 adapter available from China: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Canon-EOS-EF-Micro-4-3-Adapter-w-Build-Aperture-/350425329571?pt=UK_Photography_DigitalCamBatt_RL&hash=item5196fa2fa3#ht_3213wt_1058 It doesn't support electronic control from the AF100/101 but it does have a manual aperture ring on the adapter. However, it does not take EF-S lenses: this is a pain since EF-S lenses are optimised for APS-C (which is much closer to the size of the AF100/101 sensor). I've emailed Birger Engineering to ask if their adapter will support EF-S lenses (unlikely I guess) and also if it will support full electronic control of Zeiss ZE lenses. I'll post their reply. ______________________________________________________________________ Garry Torrance DP • Lighting Cameraman +44 (0) 7900953590 www.garrytorrance.co.uk

Ignore my last post: Birger's website quotes around $700 for the adapter. I'll be in touch in April B)

Thanks, that's great news: I understand that a price won't have been announced yet but do you have a rough idea of what I might expect to pay for one?

I'm considering buying an AF101 but my lenses are all Canon EF-mount (I have a 7D at the moment). I've heard that there is (or will be) an adapter that will allow the aperture of an EF-mount lens to be controlled via the iris wheel of the AF101, but I can't find an example of this adapter for sale anywhere. Does anyone own one of these or know where I can buy one? And for what kind of price? Thanks in advance, Garry

Sammy, your blimp sounds interesting, I was considering putting up a post to find out if anyone had built a blimp for a Konvas camera, I may give it a try. I'll also check out the price/availability of 400ft mags. Thanks, Garry

Chris, Most of the voice recordings are being taken from interviews that have already been filmed on video and will be presented as voice-overs with the 35mm footage, although there may be some sync-sound material: this will be filmed on S16mm on a sync-sound camera (Arri SR2). The project will be finishing on digital media, so I'm looking at mixing 35mm, S16mm and S8mm. I can't wait ;-) Garry

Thanks, I'll find out what the lab can offer. Best, Garry

Hi folks, I'm going to be shooting a low-budget, self-funded documentary project on a Konvas 35mm camera which only takes 200ft mags. I'll be doing the loading myself. For the film, I acquired a box of 35mm short-ends from a commercials company but most of them are longer than 200ft. Can anyone advise as to the most practical way to split, for example, a 300ft roll into two 150ft rolls, both onto cores ready for loading? And what are the potential downfalls (other than me ending up wrapped head-to-toe in masses of fogged film)? Thanks in advance, Garry

If I could count the amount of times someone has come up to me on the street when I'm in the middle of a shot and asked, "what are you doing?" or "what's this for?". Sometimes literally every few minutes in a busy place. Maybe that's what puts these guys off?

Maybe from now on all film-makers should keep knowledge of their film's capture-format top secret: this way our judgement of the cinematography might depend less on our preconceptions about the format and be based on our gut reaction to lighting, framing and story. We should choose our format according to what works for the script, not what we think will give us the most kudos. I recently did a short film set in the late 1970s, so decided to use Super-8 for a more 70s feel. If it was set in the mid-80s, I might have used VHS ;)