Dom Jaeger

IR and Far-Red filtration is something of a vexed issue at present, with each new digital camera that comes out having a different level of in-built filtration. I understand Tiffen and Schneider are both struggling to meet the new demand for IR and IRND filters, and to provide variations on where in the spectrum they cut in. It doesn't help that while the cameras are getting more sensitive, everyone seems to want to shoot wide open to get a shallow DOF, so they stack NDs. Colour shifts, IR and Far-Red pollution, synthetic materials registering as different colours, and each camera reacting differently - it's a minefield! By my limited understanding, the Tiffen T1 is a Far-Red filter (680 - 720nm). It was not designed for the RED MX, but for cameras with narrower spectrum internal filters that allow through a certain range of Far-Red, such as Alexa and the various Sonys. I'm not at all familiar with REDs, but from what I've read I believe the Hot Mirror is a more appropriate IR filter: www.thelondonfiltercompany.com/filters/pdf/HD_Camera_Filter_Chart.pdf

That's what I like about you Richard, you're a true rebel. You probably shot it on some weird medium like film too. ;)

The focal length is irrelevant, the speed of a lens is determined by how much light is transmitted through it. The T-stop is a measure of how much light gets transmitted through a lens. So the smaller the T stop, the faster the lens. Cinematography 101. If you're asking how well a particular lens handles at its widest aperture, that's a different question.

Our electronics tech has designed and made his own motion control rig, with a little help from my machine shop. It's a 2 metre slider with a 2 axis head. Works brilliantly for lighter weight cameras. It's on his website at synccine.com. But basically, if you're not an electronics wiz, with good computing skills and an understanding of fine mechanics, who also happens to have access to a machine shop and a machinist, forget about it.

Here in Oz we went metric decades ago but for some reason the film industry still likes their lenses marked in feet. A respectful nod to our British colonial roots perhaps, more likely we want to pretend we're in Hollywood.. B) I actually prefer imperial markings - I seem to be able to visualise 8 feet more easily than 2.4 metres. It does create some mixed-up language though: "400 feet of 35mm", "set the 50mm to 6 feet" etc

Sorry Jason, just reread your question and realise it's an "either" not an "and/or" situation.. :rolleyes: Seems like it depends on what the script calls for.. in terms of resolution, a good set of Lomos will be pretty similar to a good Cooke 20-100. You'd need to shoot tests to properly compare them. They're old lenses, enormous variation is possible. But do you want the widescreen framing and 'epic' feel of anamorphics or the flexibility of more than 3 focal lengths?

We often rent out a set of Lomos with a Cooke 20-100 fitted with a Technovision anamorphic rear adapter, making it effectively a 40-200. They seem to intercut well enough (although rear adapters don't give the same anamorphic attributes - horizontal flares and oval bokeh etc). I really wouldn't recommend mixing anamorphic lenses with a cropped spherical zoom. It shouldn't be hard to find or rent an anamorphic adapter for the zoom. It's worth testing them yourself, but the round front Lomos are newer and I find generally better than the square fronts - less breathing and distortion, better mechanically, easier to pull focus. I wasn't aware of a 25mm round front - 35mm is the widest I've come across. We have a square front 30mm and 22mm for very wide angle.

Is it happening on both Alexas, with all batteries? I doubt a fresh battery would drop below 12V due to the extra load of a few accessories. Aside from a possibly faulty battery, there could be a firmware upgrade problem. We've had issues when the upgrade is not fully ingested, so the camera is running on a combination of old and new firmware. The low battery warning program was part of the last upgrade, so it could be affected by an incomplete transfer. It might be worth redoing the firmware upgrade, and seeing if the problem goes away. Remember to go through the menu and do a factory reset before hand.

It's possible that some stray light within the mirror cavity is reflecting off a shiny surface back onto the film. If it came from the side you would see a shadow line along the edge of the frame - the shadow from the edge wall of the gate aperture. If you look through the lens port with the mirror out of the way, check there are no shiny metal surfaces visible around the gate, particularly on the right side. If there are, you can easily touch them up with some very matte black paint.

Hi Ed, in their current state the Ultrascope set we have aren't as sharp as properly calibrated Lomos. I think they need some tweaking to get the anamorphic elements exactly aligned, but I've never had the time to do it. Currently they're fine stopped down about 3 stops. But from projecting them they look like with a bit of work they would come up as well if not better than Lomos. They seem to have better contrast wide open, and no edge drop off. They are a bit smaller and lighter than Lomos, and about as fast (f2 on the 40 and 50mm, f2.8 on the 85, f4 on the 135). Because they are square front (front focusing anamorphic) they get the mumps, like square front Lomos (ie the squeeze factor alters slightly depending on the focus distance). That also means they would get strong anamorphic flaring. I'm actually quite curious as to how good they could be. They have the Zeiss build quality, which is superior to Lomo of course.

Zeiss made Standard mount anamorphics for the Arri 2C back in the 50s under the name Ultrascope. We have a set at the rental house I work for - they're quite nice really. Sadly they never get used. I believe both Joe Dunton Cameras and Technovision made anamorphics utilising Cookes, some of which might be in Std mount. The Dunton ones were called Crystal Express.

Keep the EL! As beautiful as the Arri S cameras are, they are not good candidates for conversion, if you try you will have all sorts of problems. The EL can be converted to Super16, or Ultra if you must. With the Arri the image quality will be dependent on the lenses available, namely Standard mounts - most of which by now won't be in great shape and the really good ones, like Cooke Kinetals, are hard to come by. And they generally won't cover a wider frame. If you get a later model Arri SB with a Bayonet mount your lens options open up somewhat, but with adapters the Bolex EL can take PL mount primes, as well as the excellent C-mount Kern Switars (which will be handy for the wide end, as they were designed for the Bolex prism). Despite not being pin registered, a well serviced Bolex can be very steady. Both cameras are MOS so if you're serious about 16mm filmmaking you should probably consider selling the Arri S and investing in a synch-sound camera instead. Arri SR2s are going pretty cheap these days. My 2 cents, to be taken with a grain of salt and a shot of tequila. B)

Never got my hands on one, but I have a manual here somewhere. Temporarily misplaced it. From memory they were polarised, used 2 Kern Yvar lenses, with a projector attachment and a parallax adjusting mechanism. It was recommended to use a special high luminance screen for projection, which Bolex also sold. I don't think it took off, so not many were made. Consequently rather rare.

Hi Paul, it certainly would be very interesting to see a high quality scan of double 8 footage. As Brian pointed out, 16mm film won't work in a d8 camera, but unslit d8 will run through a 16mm camera or projector. The projected 16mm image will show 4 x 8mm frames, with the 2 on the right upside down and running in reverse. So I would imagine it's possible to scan d8 as 16mm, with each 4k scan capturing 4 frames. If you can digitally split that in half, presumably you can split it into quarters? The only issue I can think of is if the camera alignment of claw pulldown to gate aperture is off, and the exposed 8mm frame is not centred between perfs. Then when viewed as a 16mm image the 2 left 8mm frames will be higher or lower than the 2 right frames, and possibly exceed the scanned area. But that can be adjusted fairly simply in most d8 cameras.

Yes you're correct, if the ground glass frame marking is not offset it will be for S35. I'm not sure you'll even find a N35 ground glass with spherical 2.35:1 markings. The options are generally a scope g.g. in N35 using anamorphic lenses or a S35 g.g. with 2.35 markings for spherical lenses. Cropping a N35 frame to 2.35 will cost you more than half of your neg. Renting a set of Lomo anamorphics shouldn't break the bank. Otherwise, how important is a widescreen aspect ratio to the story? If you don't even have a budget for lenses, it seems a little silly to pay for 35mm quality and then throw half of it away.

I just serviced a set of Canon K35s (hadn't encountered them before) and I must say I was incredibly impressed. Very nice glass, at least as sharp and almost as fast as Zeiss Super Speeds but I found on projection they held up better wide open. The 14mm seems to be a rehoused stills lens, but the rest are all designed as cine lenses as far as I can tell. Very good build quality, lovely iris. They're BNCR mount, as most of them seem to be from the little research I've done, which explains why they tend to be used primarily by animation and effects outfits these days - one of the few places you still find a working Mitchell. I imagine part of the reason the set I worked on is in such good condition is because it rarely leaves the confines of a studio. I was curious if anyone knew some features that have used these lenses, or a little more about their history?

Any PL mount lens will have its back focus set to 52.00 mm. The ffd (flange focal depth or distance) refers to the distance from lens mount to film plane on a camera. This is usually set fractionally under 52.00 mm on most film cameras that I'm familiar with, except high speed SRs, which have a different pressure plate, and are set at exactly 52.00 mm. PL mounted digital cameras like REDs or Alexa also have their sensors set at 52.00 mm behind the mount. So any PL mount lens designed for digital use should work fine on a PL mount film camera. The one thing to watch out for is how far the rear element protrudes. As far as I know, RED primes are OK (I haven't tested them), but Angenieux's digital Optimo zooms for example protrude far enough back to foul on the mirror/shutter of a film camera. Apart from the lack of wide angle options as Rob mentioned, the other issue with using 35mm lenses on 16mm cameras is the possibility of stray light from the oversized image circle bouncing around the mirror cavity and hitting the film. As far as image quality goes, I know a very successful wildlife documentary cinematographer who only ever rents the old 16mm Standard Speed Zeiss lenses for his work. According to him nothing beats them. Matter of taste, I guess. If your only criterion is perceived sharpness, more modern lenses will probably suit you better.

Also the Cinemagic Revolution and, best of the lot, the Optex Excellence.

A bit late to the party here, but I recently watched Lake Mungo, screened for the first time on Australian free-to-air TV, and wanted to congratulate John and all involved on a fantastic film. For my money it's one of the best 'documentary' style supernatural mysteries I've seen. Why dismal trash like Paranormal Activity can get so much publicity while gems like this are overlooked is an aspect of the industry that is as disheartening as it is predictable. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who likes their ghost stories plausible, atmospheric and chilly as opposed to gore-filled and effects heavy. As much a meditation on loss as it is a mystery, I also thought it made excellent use of just about every format imaginable to reconstruct the story. I particularly liked the occasional interludes of beautifully shot 35mm to punctuate a mood. There's a detailed description of the film and its making on John's blog where among other things he talks about some of the 40(!) different cameras he used: http://johnbrawley.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/lake-mungo-a-picture-never-lies/ Great stuff John!

Hi Karl, by DR8 do you mean double run 8? What's the camera? Do you not know the shutter speed?

In their day the Zeiss Super Speeds were top of the line and used on countless features, TVCs, docos etc, but lens design has come a long way in 30 years. The modern Zeiss cine lenses are cooler, sharper, less prone to flare, breath less and have higher contrast, especially at wider apertures. But that's a comparison with some of the best lenses currently on the planet.. As with anything to do with art, what's 'good' is often subjective. Some people prefer the look of older lenses to newer ones, sometimes it suits the mood required. Ultra Primes are actually slower, if speed is a requirement. As far as build quality goes, the newer lenses are probably more robust, and heavier (especially Master Primes) but just as accurate in their scaling. Given the age of Super Speeds though, there can be quite a difference lens to lens. Coating damage or element scratches, thread wear, shiny iris blades etc can impact on an individual lens's performance. Also certain lenses, such as the 12mm, were never that great to begin with. The T* marked lenses had what was then a newly developed technology: multi-coated elements that reduced flare and increased contrast, speed and colour fidelity. Much like the stars on detergent packets that say "new and improved". Not sure about the 26.. serial no lens. East German Zeiss lenses were always branded Zeiss Jena as far as I'm aware. It might be an old lens that was rehoused?

During the software upgrade I believe each mag needs to be fitted to the camera. It sounds like this mag may have been missed. The upgrade needs to be redone with that mag attached. Our LT and mags had already been upgraded when we received them, so I haven't done this personally. I'm just recalling what I read about the software upgrade procedure. Best to call Arri and be properly informed.

To completely isolate the zoom elements from the front and rear groups you would tape the zoom at the wide end and the focus at minimum. But the reverse is generally safe too (ie zoom at long end, focus at infinity), the benefit being the heavy focus group is fully engaged in the threads. I'd avoid shipping with the zoom at the wide end and focus at infinity, since the front element of the zoom group and rear element of the focus group are very close in that combination. Also avoid leaving either zoom or focus somewhere in the middle of their range, as a knock could cause a bump in the travel mechanisms.

Thanks for taking the time to find that out, Jean-Louis. Very interesting.

Hi Jean-Louis, I thought that might be the case, but then how do you know when the aperture limitation kicks in? Does the maximum aperture slowly move from f2 to f2.8 through the focal range, or does it only begin as you approach telephoto? I imagine it's a condition of the lens having a long (15 x) zoom range, so maybe only the very long end is affected?