Aapo Lettinen

Hi you all :) I have an old Konvas rheostat motor from 60's, I was wondering how the polarity goes in the power connector. one male and one female connector there, which one is + and - ?

If the budget is tight you could consider buing the PL converted Lomos, they can be bought at about the same prices than the new Samyangs. just make sure you'll have the OCT-19 versions of the lenses adapted to the PL, some ebay sellers have also oct-18 versions available with simple add-on adapters but they don't have proper focusing (zooms are an exception, they are very usable with simple adapters) If you'd like to take the Lomo route I'd recommend contacting Raf or Olex about the set, they can arrange you proper conversions and ensure that the mechanics are OK

Yes, most of the still lenses need modifications at least to the iris mechanics (for example, old Nikkor lenses would need a complete removal of the iris ring and also some modifications to the barrel. you would need to fit that silver-colored part near the focus scale INSIDE the PL mount which is not possible without re-engineering and machining about half of the lens :angry: ) If you are using digital camera, you could probably get an EF mount to it which enables mounting about half of the existing still photography lenses with simple adapters

you can use T-mount lenses with an PL adapter without any modifications. but all the available T-mount lenses are usually the really old and crappy low-end still lenses from 50's or 60's. some tele lenses may be usable, though. I believe you could find PL-converted spherical Lomos in London, they are usually very affordable to rent and optically are quite comparable to Zeiss standard speeds though warmer in look

I'd suggest that you shoot some landscape and other suitable nature footage by yourself and get the slow motion animal shots from a stock footage bank, for example Shutterstock or istockphoto. there may also be some free stock footage available on other sites. If the purchased footage is not so many shots it will not cost huge amount of money. And making a video containing exclusively stock footage is usually against the licensing of the stock footage retailers so you'll need to add some of your own material anyways

01 and 07! also F64D in some cases

The Foton zooms are either T4.3 or T4.4 depending on the version (different coatings??) The Fotons are not really usable wide open, I'd say stopped down T5.6 2/3 or more they are usable although the ca may be an issue and the long end at 130 - 140mm is useless due to mushy image and huge amount of ca

it's years since I have used that combination, but if I remember correctly it can't hold the weight on it's own without support, at least when moving the camera around… maybe you could use a monitor arm or similar to support it from the camera's top handle if it's not possible to use the leveling rod?

you could also try Moviecam, not much more expensive than the 4k bmc :lol: http://www.visualproducts.com/store03.asp?ID=14&Cat=2

lighting with two smaller lights is possible but that means that the beams have to be totally separated from each other, otherwise you'll get double shadows which looks horrible. that also means you need to have quite punchy lights because they have to be placed quite far from the windows to ensure separation in the interior. placing and moving and adjusting those two lights is more time consuming than using one big light (the two lights have to be parallel all the time and carefully flagged and are more likely to be seen in the reflections etc.) so it's more practical and less limiting to use one bigger light as John and Guy suggested

I think the main reason is to be able to fix more problems in post and therefore use less time on set fixing these things ("window gels?? just use hdrx" , "bad skin tones? just use secondary correction and some vfx", "camera shake? just stabilize in post", "bad framing or unable to decide which framing is best for the story? just shoot a little wider and zoom + reframe in post" :ph34r: ) I think that's the whole philosophy behind Red cameras and some other raw shooting cameras: use 20% less time on set and 10x more time on edit :lol:

if shooting at night and the camera is sensitive enough you could manage with two carefully placed 4K:s or 6K:s (one per door, backed off and on spot mode) , although the water reflects the lights so some angles/camera heights are unusable. if daylight scene then I'm afraid the 12/18:s are the only option

I took some samples of the material I have shot with the Foton zooms and GH3, you can clearly see the bokeh from these: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cfcj2y4e0fct824/Lomo_foton_samples_forest_finland_by_aapo_lettinen_2014.zip

I personally like older Lomo lenses, although CA may be an issue with some of them. usually these are sharp lenses with quite warm look and creamy bokeh. older ones can also be low contrast (I have two Foton zooms which are quite low contrast with creamy bokeh even stopped down (these are not usable wide open due to mushy image and huge amount of CA, but stopped down to T8 or 11 are usable although the ca may still be an issue in some scenes and the wide end is not that good at the edges. the overall sharpness is usually very good with them) ) If using still lenses, you can try Super Takumars or Russian still lenses. Uncoated modern primes may also be an option if you want high-end mechanics and uniform lens sizes

In Finland gas is usually either 95 or 98 octane and usually a bit of ethanol added (5 or 10% depending on the gas type) Some cars don't even work well with the 95 oct and need to be run with the 98... I believe this has something to do with the EU regulations. I don't remember seeing any gas in Finland under 95 octane in like 15 or 20 years or so.

I think that storyboarding is not always necessary for all images (for example, if you have a MCU of the talent, everybody on the set understands already from the description what kind of shot you are after, no need to draw a full sheet of stick figures to explain that :) ). If you want to show the rest of the crew how you are planning to cut the images together to tell the story, then it is necessary to storyboard the whole scene. Also for VFX work it is always necessary to storyboard if the shots need multiple separate elements: cgi elements, bg plates, multiple live-action elements combined together, etc. For simple wire removal etc. simple work it may not be necessary. I think it is, though, absolutely necessary to do set drawings with camera positions for all the scenes. Otherwise it is impossible to explain to the rest of the crew how the camera and actors are situated in the space and where the lights/props/set elements/safe are. Lighting designing, for example, is quite impossible to do using only storyboards without having the set drawings available to see where the actor and camera are actually situated IN THE SPACE when, for example, the MCU is shot...

would it be possible to do an adjustable slant rod adapter using a cheese plate and couple of 19mm bolt-on rod clamps? Then you could mount the rods to the same angle than the lens is, at least if the slant is only horizontal. maybe something rosette mounted could work for the vertical slant

taping a mini glowstick near the marking disc can be usable in some cases and does not need any power source. same for the actors if the door / ground is not visible. you can get these sticks even in different colors (check out any party store). I usually mark the camera cases and sometimes tripod legs with them when shooting in the dark, makes the gear a bit easier to find and reduces the chance of damages :lol:

I made something similar in a student shoot I was gaffering last weekend: two 2k fresnels shined through a 12' x 12' 2/3 diffusion cloth. Very beautiful top light, but quite slow to rig and requires high ceiling…. something similar to this but skirted could do the trick if you have time for it and suitable ceiling for rigging https://www.dropbox.com/s/e59x8ol04jtyxfa/top_light2.jpg (all the fixtures, etc. are double safety wired and absolutely safe, they just look shitty because I had to hang them a little lower than the ceiling is :lol: )

Never used Gorilla, but someone claimed it be better than MM : http://www.junglesoftware.com/products/gorilla_home.php

you can also use standard thread filters with the step-ups if the mb is not necessary for your shooting. if you match the thread sizes with step-ups, you can manage with one set of filters

because you already have the lenses, the easies way could be to buy various step-up rings for them to fit them all to the same front size, and then use matte box with rail support (15mm LW or 12mm non-standard) . These lenses can't hold any kind of mb by themselves, so the support is really necessary. with step-up rings you can also get more room between camera and mb for focusing more easily

Here in Finland, if everyone gets paid, the budgets for a fiction are usually something between 4000 and 10 000 € per running minute. For example, the budget for about 15 min short could be something between 50 000 and 140 000 €. Really depends on what kind of production, crew, locations, actors, equipment, how much funding is available, etc. ( For a reference, The Finnish Film Foundation has budget information of some of these films, unfortunately running times are not listed in most cases but they are usually in 10 - 20min range, sometimes closer to 30 : " http://ses.fi/en/films/categories/muut-naytelmaelokuvat/ " ) I don't know about US prices, could be very different...

If one wants hard PL mount and good focusing, then the OCT19 mount primes are much much better option despite their mounts need to be changed to custom PL mounts, simple adaptors are not possible for this mount (otherwise than if your camera mount is Canon EF or other shorter ffd mount)

I actually meant primes… the zooms can also be useful, but at least the Foton zoom makes too much CA for S16 and also too soft (my opinions) Even the Lenkinap (before Lomo) primes from the 50's can make reasonable image for smaller formats also, old zooms can be much more painful. The primes have, in the other hand, this focusing issue which I meant when advising not to use them when focus pulls are needed. OCT18 can be very simply adapted, a simple adapter on the original mount will usually do the trick :) Like you mentioned, also I have understood that at least some versions of the 10-100 Lomo zoom in Kinor16 bayonet can be adapted to PL via simple adapter, others need slight modification. This would indeed be better option if the image circle is big enough and the camera has room in the mount for the big rear part of the lens