Robert Edge

Is anyone able to comment from experience on the optical quality and construction of these lenses in comparison to Zeiss 16mm Super Speeds and/or current Zeiss and Cooke 35mm lenses? Thanks.

I'm in the planning stages of a project that would involve travelling by camel, and camping out, in a desert in the Middle East for several days. We are talking about doing this sometime between October and March, not in the soaring summer heat. What high temperature will Kodak Vision 2 stock tolerate and for how long? Is it a problem if there is a fairly large swing between the daytime and nightime temperature and, if so, how big a swing causes a problem. Does anyone know if there is a way to keep stock cool for a few days that does not involve carting around a generator and refrigerator? On this question, I will of course explore wilderness camping products, but if someone has a ready answer, great. Thanks.

Brian, Dedolights require a power supply to operate. This means that the resale value of the heads and the transformers should be the same as a percentage of their purchase price. If there are a bunch of people building DIY power supplies for these lights, it is news to me, and if someone offered me a Dedo head with a DIY power supply, I'd sure want to know, for certain, that the power supply was ok. The advantage of the 24 volt supply that serves 3 lights is that it can be used in different countries that use different voltages. This is a big issue if you intend to travel internationally with your lights. The disadvantages, in comparison with the individual power supplies, is that it is heavy (not real heavy, but relatively so), you have to wire all three lights to one box and one outlet, and its dimmer capability is in steps rather than continuous. Stephen got a really good deal, but short of that, you may conclude that you are better off with individual supplies. Pricing may have changed, but when I bought my lights, three individual supplies didn't cost all that much more than the three light box, and I decided, after looking at both options, that the former made more sense in my circumstances. One consideration was that I was told, by a rep at a New York outfit that rents lighting gear, that in New York these lights are invariably used with individual supplies. This is strictly anecdotal, but it suggested to me that the resale value of Dedolights with individual supplies might be higher than the resale value of lights sold with a three light box. Ironically, it appears that I may indeed want to use these lights in Europe. This means that my options are to use them at 100w from a 12v battery, buy a three light box, rent a box or individual power supplies in Europe or use step-up transformers. Question for Stephen or others who are using this company's lights: If I recall correctly, the current Dedo catalogue includes a softbox system. Has anyone tried it?

I can't even conceive of this :) I do tight close-ups with a 4x5 camera using lenses of 150mm and above. That is a walk in the park compared to what you are describing. I once watched a friend do an extreme close-up of a flower outdoors with a 35mm SLR mounted on a light field tripod with a 50mm lens. He got his shot, but only after a lot of frustration. He now owns a 200mm macro lens. Managing a camera and tripod with a 10mm lens while trying to focus on a three-dimensional object at a magnification of something like 1/4x, let alone 1:1, is beyond my comprehension. At the very least, I assume that you'd want to be using a really solid and really precise tripod and head. Makes one wonder what focal lengths and other gear cinematographers of tiny animals like insects use, or for that matter what Stephen uses when he's photographing things like watch faces.

Thanks to both of you for your responses.

The reference to total extension in the formula is to the tube or tubes. Assume that you are using a 50mm lens. Adding 25mm of extension will give you 1/2, adding 50mm will give you 1:1. This is the same as saying, if one is using a bellows camera, that you need 100mm of bellows for 1:1. The formula and its application and practical consequences are discussed in some detail in John Shaw's book at p. 120. Regarding my comment about the relationship between focal length and working distance, I should have added that focal length will also affect angle of view. There are many discussions about bellows compensation at www.largeformatphotography.info and in the large format and nature sections of www.photo.net. Some people like a very precise approach, others are more rough and ready. I'm in the latter camp, and for large format work I tend to use the method espoused by John Cook at http://www.largeformatphotography.info/bellows-factor.html. It works just fine. The same web page discusses several other methods for determining compensation. This stuff about bellows compensation is irrelevant if you are using certain 35mm SLR cameras with through the lens metering.

The formula for magnification is Magnification = Total Extension divided by Focal Length. The focal length determines the distance between the lens and the subject, aka working distance. This can be important if you are using artificial lighting or are photographing subjects that are sensitive to distance, such as insects. You will need to increase your exposure to take into account the greater distance that the light travels due to the extension. If you think in terms of a large format camera with a bellows, an extension tube is just a bellows of fixed length. Consequently, a good book on large format photography, such as Leslie Strobell's standard text, will discuss this in detail. There is also a good discussion, specific to extension tubes, in John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide.

Brian, When I am using a large format 4x5 still camera, I use B&W Polaroid film to test composition, lighting and depth of field, and secondarily to confirm general exposure. I use B&W rather than colour because, in my experience, it does a better job, partly because it is less temperature sensitive. It is also less expensive. It is important to explain the function of the polaroids. I use them for close shots when composition and apparent depth of field are really important. This works because I can place the sheet of Polaroid film in exactly the same place that a sheet of regular film will be when the final shot is taken. Typically, when I am doing this, I will spend an hour to three hours setting up the shot, I will take several polaroids and tinker after each one, and then I will shoot the final shot with film, bracketing aperture or exposure or both. The final shot, which can involve shooting anywhere from three to ten sheets of film, takes only a minute or two. I have not used Polaroids for motion picture film and I doubt that I will. Their usefulness for large format photographers largely arises from the ability to place Polaroid sheets in the same plane as the film for the final shot. That can't be done with a motion picture camera. For moving pictures, it seems to me that a digital camera, tied to a laptop if possible, is more useful, especially if one is using it in conjunction with a programme like Kodak Look Manager. A caveat... You said that you wanted responses from experts. I don't claim to be that. I'm just a guy who has gone through a lot of Polaroids. Cheers

John, If you are comfortable using a manual still camera and a light meter, you have nothing to worry about. If you aren't, filming in super 16 is going to be a very expensive way to learn some hard lessons, and trying to fix exposure errors later may or may not work, will cost you money and won't help your development as a photographer. If you aren't comfortable with using a manual still camera, the way to avoid a screw-up, as you put it, is to get comfortable, before you go and spend a whole lot of money using film that runs at 24 frames a second instead of 1 frame a minute :) When you get to the point of shooting motion picture film, one thing that might help is using a digital still camera, especially the histogram, to test exposure. If you are going to shoot in a controlled and repeatable environment, Tim's advice is good, although it involves the expenditure of time and money. If you are not shooting in a repeatable environment, and are unsure about exposure, you can bracket your exposures, but again this costs time and cash. From my point of view, the basic idea is that you are supposed to be in charge, not fate, and that shooting super 16 is likely to be an expensive and painful lesson if the exercise is a crap shoot.

I'd appreciate observations on choosing a frame rate when the end product is both NTSC and PAL video. Thanks.

Dominic Case says in his book that it is not uncommon to film at 30fps when the end product is NTSC video. Given that this burns 25 per cent more film stock, how common is it, and what are the advantages? Thanks.

Stephen, Yes, I'm familiar with the UK's rather idiosyncratic real estate system :) This should go smoothly, but gremlins are no doubt lurking somewhere...

I think that the best book on cinematography is Nestor Almendros's A Man with a Camera, especially if you read it in conjunction with watching his films. If you want proof that truly talented people can make great films with very little money, you need only watch Pauline at the Beach and then read Almendros's chapter on how it was made. His book is out of print, but often available through one of the internet second-hand sources (eg. www.abebooks.com or www.powells.com). Steven Ascher's The Filmmaker's Handbook is comprehensive, clearly written and a bargain at US$20. Ross Lowell's book is excellent. If you can't get it from Amazon, which I gather is out of stock, you can get it directly from Lowell Lighting or from www.bhphotovideo.com. I also really like Max Keller's Light Fantastic: The Art and Design of Stage Lighting. Dominic Case's Film Technomogy in Post Production contains a wealth of information and is reasonably priced. The ASC Handbook contains a lot of useful tables and some good articles. I think that it is indispensable, but it is expensive. If your budget is tight, have a look at a copy in a library first. If you haven't seen the ASC's magazine, American Cinematographer, have a look at a copy. I subscribe, but with reservations. There's a lot of fluff, they have a talent for publishing lengthy articles on bad movies and everything is written to a formula in which the director praises the cinematographer and the cinematographer praises everybody he has ever met. At first this is funny, but after a few issues it starts to grow tiresome. Then there's the material that is just plain weird/embarrassing, such as the President's Message in the current January issue. The IFP's Filmmaker is a little better written, and less parochial, but it only comes out quarterly and is not quite as technically oriented. Hope this helps.

Definitely. My partner and I have spent time in Cowes about every 18 months for the last ten years. Every time I get on the Red Jet, it's like a weight off my shoulderss. The first time, we had a boat that we were sailing around the Channel in December, which has a lot to do with why we declined this year to participate in the annual Boxing Day race :) We finally made a decision to buy a place while in a pub in Ventnor on Boxing Day, the motto of which is "Well-behaved dogs and muddy boots welcome". This probably sounds ordinary to you, but in North America the sentiment is radical. Besides, the winter light on the Island is truly amaazing. If the deal goes through, all you DFLs (aka Down From Londoners) will have to come by for a house-warming party. PS: As you may know, Southbank did a programme last week on Little Britain. I saw the Southbank production, but I haven't seen Lucas/Williams on their own. Curious to know what you and other Brits who participate in the site think of it. PPS: My apologies to Tim for the fact that his thread is going all over the map, largely my fault.

Nick, We're just coming from different perspectives on this. Two days ago, I made an offer of £250,000 on a house on the Isle of Wight. It was considerably easier to make this offer than it was to rent a lens worth about £1600 or, for that matter, to buy an Aaton product worth about £570, both of which turned out to be transactions that were more trouble than they were worth. It's unfortunate, because the Aaton rep at ICE who briefed me on the product did a good job. The sale didn't take place for the sole reason that ICE simply won't take a credit card, and for reasons that I have a little trouble understanding, Aaton thinks that its clients are supposed to put up with this. I gather that you come at the issues of ownership/rental and insurance as a guy who is in the film business as a business. I respect that, but the premise doesn't apply to me. From my perspective, what's becoming clear is that dealing with rental companies is a nuisance, to be avoided if one can afford it. At some point in the next 12 months I think that I'll be shooting some footage in the Middle East in a country that is unstable. I don't even want to be bothered trying to get a rental company and insurance company onside with this. It's frankly just easier to buy what I need and be done with it. All of that said, if I were running a production company, and made my living producing commercial films, I would wholeheartedly agree with much of what you and Mitch Gross have written. Have a happy 2006.

Nick, Please do me a favour and not misrepresent what I am saying. I am not talking about a production that requires third party liability insurance or that needs worker's compensation coverage because there are employees on a set. I am speaking as an owner of a super 16 camera that weighs 5 pounds that is used by a crew of 2, most recently on a location on an island in the English Channel where there wasn't a person, apart from the subject, in sight. The fact of the matter is that I can go to Fotocare in New York, which is as good an outfit as one is going to find, and rent a very expensive lens or other gear against a credit card. There isn't a word about rental insurance. However, if I want to rent a Zeiss high speed MK II lens, which goes for about $75 a day in New York, I am told that I need to spend $1500 on rental insurance. This is daft. To understand just how daft, it is possible to buy one of these lenses, in very good shape, for under $3000. Let me take this one step further. You go to the UK and get told by a rental company, after you persist, that they will take a deposit on the rental of a MKII 25mm lens, but a certified cheque in US funds isn't good enough. It has to be a cheque drawn on a British bank in Sterling. Why can't it be done by credit card? Because they don't accept credit cards. How big a cheque do they want? Try £5500, or about US$10,000. What do they want, as advertised on their website, for a used MKII 25mm lens? They want £1600. Then you tell these people that you want to buy an Aaton time code generator. After all, they are the only company that you can buy this product from in the whole of the UK. Guess what. Because they don't take credit cards, you have to either write a cheque on a UK bank, North American banks not being good enough, or you pay in cash, in which case you get to pay a bunch of VAT in cash as well and figure out how you are going to recover it, as you are entitled to do, when you leave the country a week later. Alternatively, you can just own your own gear and not deal with all this nonsense. As an added bonus, you get to spend your time on your project, at your own pace, instead of spending the better part of a day travelling to and from London, where you don't even want to be, in an effort to give money to a company that does business as if we are living in the 19th century. As it happens, I had access to another lens, not what I planned to use, but sometimes necessity is as good a way as any to establish how a subject is shot. What I find amazing is that a lot of people seem to think that the way these companies do business is acceptable. Indeed, about a week ago there was a thread in which a student making a short film was educated about how this works as if getting getting buried in paper and complications, while making a simple student film, is a badge of honour. Well, I'll tell you what I think. If I have the cash to self-insure the renting of a lens, and can give the rental company full security via credit card or certified cheque or whatever, it is my decision whether to self-insure or buy insurance, not theirs, and if cinema rental companies, unlike still camera rental companies, can't get their head around this, there is something the matter with the industry culture. Also, as an owner of an Aaton camera, I think that it is outrageous that Aaton lets its dealers refuse to accept credit cards. Unfortunately, that just seems to be symptomatic of how the business works, as is the fact that nobody complains.

asparaco wrote in part: "To find out, in September I placed a bogus ad..." Then, if I understand it, you played omnipotent observer while 140 people, including "charmingly naïve" Phillipinos and two ASC members, were stupid enough to spend their time writing honest answers to your fraudulent question.

I think that a young person starting out as a photographer making motion pictures should probably be thinking digital rather than film. That said, I am not a young photographer, and I don't make my primary living from photography, so I do what I want. This means that I own an SLR 35mm Nikon, an SLR digital Nikon, a 6x7 Mamiya rangefinder, a 4x5 Arca-Swiss and an Aaton super 16 A-Minima. There are two reasons why I own this stuff instead of rent it. The first is that I like to be able to use a camera, whether in my local area or when travelling, whenever I feel like it. The second, which is quite specific to the Aaton and other motion picture cameras, is that the rental houses work within a system that is archaic. I have rented specialized still cameras and lenses on occasion from a number of highly reputable still camera shops. They all want security for the rental before they get to know you, which is easy enough if you have a Visa Card, but not one of them has had the nerve to tell me that I have to maintain rental insurance, at the cost of about $1500 per year minimum, if I want to rent a lens for a couple of days. It is quite different if you want to rent a motion picture lens. The concept of self-insurance, such as replacement value against a credit card, is apparently beyond them. Let me give a specific example. There is a company in London called ICE Films. Last week, while I was in England, I learned that this company will not take credit cards, for anything, including purchase of film. One can buy from them only with a cheque drawn on a British bank or with cash in sterling. If you are from North America, this means that you can't rent a lens that costs $75 a day unless you spend $1500 on rental insurance, nor can you buy an Aaton time code device, for Which ICE is the sole Aaton agent in the UK, unless you have a UK bank account or are prepared to pay in cash. I ended up in a situation where I would love to have bought something from ICE, principally because a fellow named Andrew House did a great job of explaining the product, but didn't because buying from them was going to be a hassle. During the whole of my Christmas holidays in the UK, the only other places that I saw function like this were the local pubs where I was staying on the Isle of Wight. Yes, if you can afford it, there is a good reason to own your own gear, which is that you can do what you want when you want, and move your stuff to whatever country you want, without dealing with a bunch of bureaucrats in some rental company and getting bled by some insurance company.

A couple of suggestions about documentary films that you might want to look at and that were made with fairly inexpensive cameras: In This World (Michael Winterbottom, shot by Marcel Zyskind, a fiction film shot in documentary style with a good commentary on the DVD about how it was done) Mondovino (again with a very helpful DVD commentary track) Personally, if I had the chance to do a film in Bhutan, I would think very carefully about using super 16, although I realize that very few people making documentary films are using it.

You may find the following fora useful: www.doculink.org www.d-word.com Cheers

Please contact me by IM.

Mark II or III, PL Mount, in as new optical/mechanical/cosmetic condition. I'll require, and pay for, examination by a lens technician. I can be contacted by IM.

Conceptually, this puts the A-Minima in charge of time code. It works because the camera can be used to initialize the GMT-s, in ASCII code, with date/time of day. In turn, the GMT-s translates the ASCII code to SMPTE and initializes the sound recorder. There are a couple of things that I need to know about the Tascam that are not clear to me from the owner's manual on the Tascam website; in particular, whether the way that the Tascam records date, and its time code modes, are consistent with the way that Aaton Code works. There are also procedural questions. While the Tascam will apparently generate code after initialization without being tethered to the source, I also need to think about whether it is a good idea, despite that, to keep the GMT-s, at 1 ppm, connected to the recorder. How frequently should I re-initialize? Etc, etc. This stuff can tie up one's brain in knots, especially if, like me, one is fairly new to the issues. Note that I am talking about the A-Minima. It appears that an A-Minima/GMT-s mix would not work in the same way with other Aaton cameras. I gather that in shoots where there is a firm line between the camera dept and the sound dept, the former is in charge of camera time code and the latter is in charge of sound time code. Thankfully, I don't have to concern myself with this distinction, but I'd be interested in any comments on how this necessarily interdependent function gets separated in situations where the distinction is maintained.

I've had a very informative discussion about this with one of Aaton's distributors and I thought that I'd pass on what I've learned. The Aaton A-Minima can be used to set date/time of day on an Aaton GMT-S, which can then be used to generate time of day code on a sound recorder. The device supports 24, 25, 29.97 drop frame and 30 fps at 1 ppm. It is compact and light (150g/5oz). Leaving aside performance and looking at this strictly from a cost point of view, if used in conjunction with a sound recorder like the new Tascam HD-P2 this approach is competitive with purchasing a Fostex FR-2 with Fostex's time code option. Being an external device, unlike the Fostex card, it can also be used with other devices. I still have some questions about the Tascam, but if one is using an A-Minima camera, the GMT-S and a Tascam look like they might be a cost effective way to get reliable sync sound without the need to use a slate.

If I were going to Antarctica, I would re-read a book by Bruce Chatwin called In Patagonia. I can't explain this, given that it a book about the mainland, but I would consider it as important preparatory reading. The other thing that I'd do is find out why there are penguins in places like New Zealand as well as Antarctica and why the habitat and behaviour of the one's that I've spent hours waiting to see emerge from the forest in NZ are so different from that of the ones in Antarctica.