Hasselmax

Luka Sanader · September 4, 2009

We are in a pre production of an 3D Imax film and this strange rig is discovery of the month for us it looks strange but it really works good.

We “made” this little rig just for test and it instantly proved that is an alternative for timelaps and stop motion. Next step is to build fully adjustable telemetric mount for cameras (intraocular and convergence), make a housing and battery plant for long usage. Image quality of phaseone p25+ digital back is terrific and with this resolution we are almost in range; 5436 x 4080 pixels. Plan is to try new

PhaseOne P65+ backs and get best possible image in 8984 x 6732 pixels only problem is availability of the backs.

Lenses that we used this time Zeiss Distagon 40mm and Sonnar 180mm are up to the task and we didn’t have a big difference in the eyes.

Interesting trivia is that almost same rig (Hasselblad 500EL camera) was used by Apollo mission on Moon; no digital backs at that time!

Workflow is bit hard but that is life…

I will upload some samples soon

Thanks and I hope this will help someone in future.

Luka

K Borowski · September 4, 2009

With timelapse footage being so cheap, comparatively, to live action, what advantage does this rig have compared with just setting up a real stereo pair of IMAX cameras?

Or you could do it with some sort of still camera with a film back, right?

Problem I have is that Hasselblad is a square format. So a lot of that resolution is getting cropped.

My biggest gripe would be that, conservatively speaking, your resolution with a pair of P25+'s is 1/5 that of IMAX. At least with a P65+'s you'd be in the ballpark.

If you're shooting the rest of the movie on straight IMAX, won't the audience notice a jump to lower quality in the timelapses?

Edited September 4, 2009 by Karl Borowski

Luka Sanader · September 4, 2009

Main advantage is a size and ability to mount a camera. We mounted that rig on a car and had drive thru city shoot; also some extreme angles and so on…

P25+ back is borderline but even P40+ is more then enough for an 8k. With P65 we will be more then fine.

Hasselblad is square format but chip on P65+ is 53.9 x 40.4 mm ratio is 4:3.

The only problem is a max speed of 1fps not an image quality. This was by far best digital image result projected on big screen that I had and it would be fantastic if we could do more then 1fps… in a couple of years I hope!

Our film has a lot of animation and in any case we have to do a digital print. I don’t think it is going to jump, based on what I saw in tests but as soon as I see test print I would be able to report on this.

Thanks for your interest