Anamorphic lenses for available light

[Jarin Blaschke]

I know that the "35mm Only" forum sometimes reads like the "Anamorphic Only" forum, but here goes:

 

A short I will be shooting involves a lot of night exteriors/interiors with a good deal of uncontrolled 'atmospheric' location light playing in the scene - namely in and around truck stops and casinos. I'm shooting '18 at my preferred rating of 320, but from cursory scouts with a meter, I've found that I will still have to use an aperture of about a T2 to *maybe* an occasional 2.8. The director wants 2.35 and I'd love for it to be an anamorphic shoot if possible (for a number of reasons).

 

The questions:

 

In people's experience, which series of anamorphic lenses performs best wide open?

Any notes on the Panavision superspeeds (T1.4)?

Do the Primos tend to crush the dark areas - spaces miles away in the background that I can't light?

 

I realize that spherical lenses (super35) are much sharper at the open end than anamorphics, but I'm going for eliptical lights in the background and a shallow-focus look, even in the wide shots. We'd also like to simplify the option of making a print someday, however unlikely.

 

Thanks folks.

-Jarin

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't think any of the lenses will "crush" the shadow detail.

 

You just have to decide how much you can live with the distortions of wide-open scope lenses -- it's something of a matter of taste. I've shot the Primo anamorphics at T/2.0 for one scene in "Northfork" (an underground tunnel under a dam lit only with light bulbs) and it looked fine. Steven Poster told me that he shot some of "Donnie Darko" at T/2.0 on the Primos as well without problems.

 

Your focus-puller is going to hate you of course as soon as you punch in on a tight close-up. You might try a trick that Dante Spinotti did on "Heat" and light so that you can quickly increase the level for the close-ups -- he used MaxiBrutes with fewer bulbs on for the wide shots and then turned on more globes for tight shots, upping the level so he could stop down the lens (this is assuming you are shooting against a near background like a wall, not something where you can see the exposure change.)

 

"Escape from New York" used the old high-speed lenses. You get this really shallow-focus look with a lot of lens flares and distortions but it may be cool.

 

You can also consider pushing the stock for the night stuff.

[Mitch Gross]

Can't recall what he used, but Robert Richardson did some great low light anamorphic work in "Bringing Out the Dead," for Martin Scorsese. I'm sure David knows the details. :D

[Christian Appelt]

Use a higher speed film. watching films in a theatre, I dislike anamorphic footage shot at wider than 2.8 - it makes me feel like taking off my glasses (L-2.5/R-3.0)

A 500 or 800 ASA film seems like a better solution to me, and shooting at night you will have large dark areas anyway, so don't worry about the grain too much. Besides it's better to have a well exposed neg (of higher speed) than gambling with a 320 stock which may get you into borderline exposure situations.

 

Just my $0.02...

[David Mullen ASC]

The November 1999 issue of American Cinematographer say that "Bringing Out The Dead" was shot at T/2.0 to T/2.8 on the C and E Series Panavision anamorphic lenses, although the 35mm T/1.4 High-Speed anamorphic was used for some of the ambulence driving shots, as well as small amounts of the new (then) Vision 800T. Otherwise the movie was shot on 5279 and a little 5274.

 

He mentions using the 1/8 and 1/2 Black Pro-Mist but he clearly used nets too a lot of times.

[Fredrik Backar FSF]

Used Hawk anamorphics on a film. Did a scene at 2.8 50mm on the 5218 and saw nothing abberative in the lens performance.

[Jarin Blaschke]

Thanks, everyone. Do the superspeeds veil much - flares I can go with, but a wash over the image would be decidedly bad. How about the other lenses in this regard? Is this even an issue with night stuff?

 

Also - how's the minimum focus on the Hawks?

 

I think I might go rent "Escape From New York" now.

 

-Jarin

[Jarin Blaschke]

I had another thought - I prefer a good healthy negative so naturally I thought to shoot 5218 at ei320, but instead, perhaps I could rate 5229 at ei 500 or 640 and push a stop to compensate for the flatter stock and enjoy the speed increase, still with a hearty negative. Any thoughts on grain issues/ loss of shadow detail? Highlights should still hold, right?

[Max Jacoby]

I remember that in the American Cinematographer article on 'Heat' Dante Spinotti said that they never used the 50mm T1.1 wide open, because the lens wasn't sharp enough at that stop.

 

Depends, the close-focus for the V-Series is 2 feet (50mm, 75mm), while for Hawks C-Series (which aren't as good optically), it is 3'3". All the info you need is on www.vantagefilm.com.

 

I think if you are shooting anamorphic, rating the 5218 at 400 asa is plenty. You certainly won't have any grain issues.

 

From my experience you can push the 5218 easily one stop without getting noticeable grain. I remember in 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' Eduardo Serra pushed the 18 for a few night scenes and they held up very well during the rushes. And that film was shot in Super35, so in anamorphic it will even be less of a problem.