matt marek

well, if you've ever found yourself in a rush to 'roll camera', you'll understand what i mean when i mention camera start-up time. changing an sr3 mag takes seconds...not sure what is laughable about that. i can think of one time where film was scratched due to a mag and it was due to a bad camera prep. i've encountered loads of wasted time on set due to media management, cable issues, or HD display. encountered a 'dead pixel' on one feature. that was a nice costly post fix :) one film camera problem i recall was a BL4 blowing a fuse, which the AC had to go and replace...5 minutes.

...and in the same way film can be scratched, digital drives can crash and files can get corrupted. have you had practical on set experience with film? cumbersome? does not have to be. have you seen the 'NFL films' guys out there on the field with little aaton minimas and sr3's? i believe red has a long start up time between battery swaps? (correct me if wrong here) but wouldn't that be a killer in the doc field? in that sense, cumbersome could be defined in different ways. not sure what you are talking about cost either...if going out for a couple shots, you have a mag of film loaded and on the camera, and an extra mag in the bag. no computers needed to digitize, nothing.

i'm not sure of the market down in atlanta, but a lot of the shoots up here that i 'hear' of that are red, have rented a red package from a private owner or in some cases the dp that is on the shoot. i will gladly sub-rent the lenses through a rental house, but after they get their 30% cut, i'm down to below what i'd be pulling in from a discounted private rental. these rental houses seem to have no issue renting out items at discount and 'throwing things in' - i'd be surprised if they would take my 5 lenses as a 'threat' to their big business. i'm not going to be stealing their order for lord of the rings IV :) now if it was common place for freelance shooters to own lenses, and i was making a great price point to take away their rentals, that would be shifty. would never consider that. all great talk for now. still waiting on the financing. tough economic times now means the banks are having a hard time loaning anything.

alfeo, i'm not looking at a full set of lenses. big shoots will not be coming to me. i'm more in the 5 - 6 lens set that i'd rent out to commercials, or indie films. i hardly see my pidly set as COMPETITION for the big rental houses that have full sets of lenses.

in my mind it's about supply and demand. i look at it this way (and please continue to throw in thoughts) : 5 master primes are roughly $110 000 USD. 5 cookes are roughly $98 000 USD. up here in toronto a master prime lens goes for $245 usd, while a cooke goes for around $160 (per day). the purchase price difference is not so great, but the rental price is. i think there could be more demand if producers could have the lens at a better price. my idea is to come close to the cooke rental price...say $175/lens/day. there are enough dp's that love master primes, but rarely get them because there are only a few sets in town and because of the rental price. they shoot with cookes (happily) but i think if given the choice, maybe half of those happy cooke dp's would choose the masters... (still wish i purchased that set of super speeds 5 years ago for 25k :P

good points chris. thanks. funny how you can have this grand idea in your head with lots of positive feedback and 'go for it' advice from colleagues, and one negative comment from someone you don't even know throws you for a loop. :) i guess i was looking for someone to tell me it was a bad idea, so i could have an easy out...but that hastn't happened yet, so...i guess i must go through with this ;)

right now, i'm just planning to rent them out to local productions through dop and 1st ac friends of mine. i imagine they will end up on a lot of red cams...

i don't understand. you say you are going to shoot a 'high budget short film' and then go on to say that you don't have enough money to rent lenses... perhaps you can talk to the rental house and see about getting a deal on the lenses you KNOW you will need, and shoot on a weekend? the nikon lenses you own, are variable f-stop and are not good glass. if you must shoot with stills lenses, i'd go for some primes. forget the zooms. i'm sure you are aware of the problems you will face when shooting with still lenses over cine lenses?

i've been looking at financing some zeiss master primes. i was recently forwarded a letter from a company saying how they have experienced in the past, issues with the lenses going out of alignment simply from transportation in a foam case. this has me a 'little' worried that i may be getting in over my head with master primes and perhaps i should be looking at alternatives. can anyone give any personal experiences? thanks matt

i haven't read all the 'red' posts out there, so forgive me if i'm sounding repetitive. experienced 1st's that i've talked with, are of the opinion that 'we will not work with it' - not in a stand off-kind of tone, just one that it's not practical for a lot of the narrative/commercial/music video work out there. yes, for the guys shooting baraka II, and nat geo, sure there's a market, but there's always been that small niche market of guys that shoot imax or 65mm. larger sensor is like a larger neg size. nothing new here! will FF35 become the standard format, i wager no.

thanks for the replies guys. looks like mid 09 til delivery of a cooke set or i could go with ultra primes, save a bit and get them now. quite the conundrum. the local rental house cant keep the super speeds on the shelf, and next in line is the cookes. am wondering if i've got an uphill battle ahead of me to keep the ultras (if i choose to get them) rented out. any ultra prime owners out there care to give some testimonials? (positive or negative) thanks

thanks for the replies guys. side note...i've also been researching ultra primes and arri canada seems to be quite bad at email replies. any leads on where to purchase used if possible? thanks

have yet to hear back from the cooke dealer in NJ, and am just wondering what difference there is between the s4 and s4i other than the intelligence. am looking to purchase a set of primes and am wondering if it's worth the money for the s4i or if i should search for s4's...or maybe they're impossible to find?? thanks for any help guys matt