Leaderboard

Recently came into possession of this nice and functional 35mm 2C-BV ARRIFLEX. Before I eventually sell it I'm considering shooting a 200' roll to notch that experience; just to say "I done done that" 2 whole minutes of footage! What the hell. Ain't cheap, kind of financially stupid to do this sort of undertaking, but maybe ultimately worth the effort, I think? Anyone out there willing and able to offer advice regarding the lens situation with these old things?

Not even in 4K! It's like they've never watched a single YT tutorial on how to make their footage cinematic.

Even more amazing they were low budget B-movies with shoot schedules under five weeks !

Part of the reason they could make these film was the introduction of Kodak Eastmann Super XX film after WW2.It was rated at around 160-200 ASA which was over 2 stops faster than film of the 1930s.It also was known for its ability to be pushed (underexposing and overdeveloping)It was regularly pushed one stop to 320AS and sometimes two stops to 640ASA like on Citizen Kane.

Do I need to use a VPN and a private tab to Google ‘Hardcore Henry’?

As this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and you'll likely be overwhelmed with the logistics of using a camera you've never used before + a format you've never used before + a cost per second you've never experienced, my suggestion is to keep it simple and keep it meaningful. My suggestion for lenses.... Go to a rental house and tell them what you're doing and get their recommendations. I'd suggest lenses that are neutral in look, easy to use, reliable, and probably not too heavy / expensive. Perhaps something classic like a set of Zeiss Super Speeds (which were popular for a reason!) etc. My suggestion for shooting..... As this is a never to be repeated thing, I'd suggest shooting people and places and subjects you love. Not only will this be a lower-stress approach, but you'll end up with lots of images that will be relevant for the rest of your life, and perhaps longer for friends and family. Completely secondarily to this, shooting a range of different things will be fun, and it will also be great if you want to nerd out and pixel pee etc, as you'll have a range of different subjects and scenes.

Sometimes it feels as if Resolve is a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and as for Adobe... less said the better 🙂 What is missing, I feel, is a quick turnaround NLE for the Mac. My plan is to make a couple of apps: - A Quick NLE, no fuss, no magnetic timeline BS, just works - 8K,4K, ProRes, HEVC support, GPU accelerated, LUT support and a nice built in colour grading tool - A LUT Creator, import a RAW DNG Photo or V-LOG Video, and use colour grading tools to get the perfect look, export this as a Realtime LUT for your Lumix S9 or S1R II, and export as a plain old .cube LUT What features do you think are needed most? Bear in mind we're not throwing the kitchen sink in there like Resolve. My priorities so far are...Apple style UI, quick to use, GPU accelerated, no stuttering, a much more lightweight app than Resolve, Premiere or FCPX which does one thing really well and that's edit really well and without a lot of clutter. Suggestions welcome.

This has been widely discussed before. It's not clear why the h.265 results are so different. Perhaps Nikon has some difficulty keeping the temperature down during long recordings with higher-quality noise-reduction algorithms in the thin body of the ZR? The large screen could also produce more heat. It's obviously something they need to address. Nikon's blotchy high ISO NR algorithms have been a problem since around the D5 generation (in stills) where it is clear that in-camera high ISO NR needs to be turned off (if shooting JPG, and if you use Nikon raw converter, also in that software) to avoid this blotchiness. The files themselves (without high ISO NR) look much better. To my eye the kind of noise reduction the ZR shows in N-Log h.265 look a bit similar to that Nikon used for very high ISO NR in stills. N-Log just brings it out likely mainly due to the user giving less exposure to those videos by following the nominal ISO (800 base ISO in N-Log), so the shadow NR becomes more apparent. Anyway, it's a bit strange Nikon has been silent about this so far.

"How Another Man REALLY Shaped Wong Kar-Wai's Aesthetic // Christopher Doyle" is a far better title... ; ) (>_<) WTF Lies?? Well, I (try to) follow the point but perhaps when the verb is irregular instead? : X oh gosh Wong Kar-Wai’s directing is just something from another world (FULL stop!) ...for those who truly understand its meaning. Cinematography is part of the filmmaking process, no doubt about that, but I tend to see the other, more distorted side of the debate: those who overlook who truly shapes the work, when the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. - EAG :- )

Love your posts as contribution here BTW ; ) keep going :- )

Christopher Doyle what a legend and his movie making skills were virtually self learned/experience.He is able to film with fluid and movement with such heavy lumps of cameras ,goodness knows what this one weighs on his shoulders ! Our modern camera rigs are a dream -I try and keep mine under 2 kgs total.

I watched a great video talking about Christopher Doyles contributions in working with Wong Kar-Wai (I'll post below) and there's a great line in there where Doyle basically says (when comparing his films to Hollywood blockbusters) "I think we have absolutely opposite attitudes to what's film-making. We make the film we can, they buy the film they think they want" (around 5:00 mark) When talking about small budgets and tight timeframes these films are often a lot more like my own travel videos than a Hollywood blockbuster. In my videos I shoot on-location with available lighting and no control over the scene whatsoever. In some ways I am capturing something that is more authentic, because I'm not constructing sets or rigging lighting that might deviate from the actual location, but this also means I have less flexibility to work around the camera etc (where sometimes cheating things makes them look more normal rather than less), and it requires me to capture things in a way that more authentically depicts the location rather than including/excluding things in a way that's not balanced or authentic. Obviously these lower budget films are still working with lighting, (probably) closed sets and production design, but they're not constructing everything from scratch on a soundstage in a warehouse in Burbank. In the video he talks about how because they filmed in real locations the actors were responding to their surroundings in an authentic way, rather than having to pretend they're somewhere that they're actually not: "The environments that the two worked in dictated the movement, emotion, rhythm, and transformation of those locations into an active force within each film. The physical surroundings were always used to shape psychological states. Hong Kong becomes the central site of this transformation." This idea of filming on location and letting the day-to-day (and perhaps moment-to-moment) shooting experience influence the acting and filming reminds me of what Noam Kroll preaches, which (to me) is really the fundamental advantage of the low-budget film. Wong Kar-Wai sometimes wrote the next days scripts the night before, which means they could adapt to how shooting was going and the weather etc. With the technological advances (film getting faster and not needing lighting / 16mm cameras that were light enough to use without a tripod / on-location sound then sync sound / digital) that enabled Italian Neorealism / French New Wave / British New Wave / Dogme 95 it's all about it getting smaller/lighter/cheaper, so taking these advantages and then still doing a full pre-production cycle then rigidly shooting to that in prod is really just throwing away much of the new potential that technological advancement has delivered.

There it is. Great point. One of the best features of modern NLE's

Based on the collaboration between director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton, here are the films they worked on together: T-Men (1947) Raw Deal (1948) He Walked by Night (1948) - Mann directed most of the film but was uncredited Reign of Terror (also known as The Black Book) (1949) Border Incident (1949) Devil's Doorway (1950) The full movie of "He Walked by Night" is on youtube

Well that was awesome.

If so, I'd strongly consider the 50/1.2L or the Sigma 50/1.4 Art. The Sigmas are, generally speaking, too clinical for me, but lots of people like them - it really depends on how clean you wanna go. The 50/1.2L has been around for a long time now. I got mine pretty close to when they released it - it might be old enough to vote, at this point. That's to say that it's been out long enough that you could probably find a copy with clean glass and some external dings for not too much money. Bokeh is completely a matter of taste thing, but I hated the bokeh on the EF 50/1.4. I remember it was ugly/busy enough that even non-photographers noticed it on some photos. Maybe I just had a bad copy? I liked the EF 50/1.8 more, even. There's also Otus, of course, but used prices on them have stayed surprisingly high. I think there was also a Zeiss ZE 50/1.4 which is probably more affordable. I never tried it. It's probably very good. If considering the Sigma f/1.8 zooms, you might want to double-check how the coverage is with the 0.64x SB. I remember the 18-35 had a pretty small image circle - the 50-100 is probably a bit better, being more telephoto.

The difference is not huge. When wide open on very fast lenses, you're more likely to see some speed booster artifacts with the 0.64x. Whether those artifacts are acceptable is personal taste. If the prices weren't similar, I'd just take the cheaper one. I was also surprised to find that the 0.64x covers the slightly small S35 sensor in my Z Cam E2-S6G. Anyway, as far as other brands, I think that Kipon's focal reducers are well-regarded. Otherwise, most of the third-party ones are skippable/don't seem to be too good. FWIW, you can also have your cake and eat it with a focal reducer, if you want. Pentax K, Nikon F, Leica R, Olympus OM, and M42 lenses (including your Takumar) can all be adapted to EF mount. I've also thought about building a recessed M39 adapter since it would be theoretically possible on any camera without a mirror assembly (M39 is 28.8mm and EF is 44mm, but I have several M39 lenses with controls near the front and that are skinny enough that they could just sit further back in the EF mount). Anyway, for EF lenses otherwise, do you know which you're considering?

I've used Metabones Ultra 0.64x speed booster with my Blackmagic Pocket 4K. Compared to 0.71x is moves your crop factor a tad closer to FF 0.64x -> 1.28x vs 0.71 -> 1.42x and gives you a little bit more light (1/3 stops) and a little bit more DOF. You can use it not only with Canon EF but all lenses which have flange distance > than Canon EF. Like Contax Yashica, Nikon, m42, Pentax. Biggest issues for me is the weird crop factor. x2x0.64 = x1.28. Now I want an angle of view equivalent to 35mm in FF. Which lens should I use ? 28mm as 28x1.28=35.84 And so on. That's why I moved to FF. 35mm is 35mm no matter if lens is vintage or modern, plus I can use Minolta MD, and a bunch or other brands and bayonets. No need for speed boosters. Lens is used exactly as it was intended by the manufacturer. Sensor if big and has no problem with low light. For vintage lenses and in general for lenses alone FF is the way to go for me. I was tiered to calculate crop factors and deal with speed boosters.

Like almost everything of value! Seriously though, one of the best reality checks you can do is to find the all-time best examples of whatever you're doing and study them. When I did this it basically took almost every one of my previous references and relegated them to below 5/10, and made the 'most recent' on YT and streaming platforms look like toddlers playing with crayons.

100% - I'd assume that this was the best image that an expert with all the other associated equipment was able to get with a decent travel budget and after a decent period of having it. I've always maintained that there are three useful references for a piece of equipment: The best images that anyone is able to create This shows the upper limit of its potential The images that competent reviewers get This shows the type of images that people of moderate skill are able to get in non-ideal conditions The worst images You never get to see these until you get one yourself, but in theory this would show how fragile/flexible the camera is (for example you can expose an Alexa pretty horribly wrong and still get a half-decent image from it, but try that with a camcorder and it's a complete disaster) The promo is only the first category, and the fact there are only a few shots in there is a statement in itself. I think the 15mm is a lot better than people make out, but of course most discourse online is from people who think that a Zeiss Otus is the ideal lens and that Michael Bay doesn't use large enough apertures. To be honest, when reading / listening to most opinions now I am just hearing that the person hasn't been to the cinema for years, hasn't watched any/much classic cinema, and isn't even familiar with the saying "F8 and be there" let alone thinks that it is the cornerstone of almost all the important photography in the history of the field. I was always interested in the 9mm but as I bought the SLR Magic 8mm F4 as one of the first lenses I bought, then upgraded to the Laowa 7.5mm F2 lens later on, the selection of slow wider pancake lenses was never really justified for me. Right, I guess that makes the moon shot even easier then. If you have enough light then almost any camera will look pretty good. Looking at the mount again, there doesn't appear to be any visible mechanism to attach the lens.. I'm wondering if this might be a magnetic mount of some kind, like MagSafe perhaps. If that's true then it might just be a matter of pulling the lens off and snapping another one on. That would certainly fit with the GoPro ethos of it being a fast no-nonsense experience.

I have one. i dont mind it for when i do road trips. The 15mm olympus lens i mean... Can use it like a lens cap, push the lever and away you go. Although i do worry that ultimately dust or dirt is going to find its way into the lens... takes up no room what so ever. You do get a slightly different look, its a simple lens, i guess you like it or you don't . If your camera has peaking that helps with depth of field i find. Would have liked the 9mm as well but that hasn't eventuated yet. Not so sure about the moon shot, the moon is pretty bright, if your using a tele lens of some kind you dont need to venture too far from a normal iso and shutter speed. I can string a lens combo together of about 950mm on a mft mount, and i can tell you that image of the moon thats been supplied is huge. Be interesting to see how they did it, my money's on this new gopro gaffer taped to a telescope of some kind at least. maybe 1200mm as my images of the moon aren't that big. I'm also willing to bet gopro gave their camera to someone who's heavily invested into astrophotography and got all the gear and said, here have a play with this. Its actually a very nice image of the moon all things considered. I am confident that optimum conditions and fair amount of skill were involved in that photo of the moon. Same with all the other images supplied they all look done under optimum "conditions" Gopro might sell a bunch of these, if all you have to do is gaffer tape it to the back of a telescope and can get similar results. There's plenty of enthusiasts out there who would buy one, however if you have the gear already, you probably have a decent camera already as well... I like the little go pros, i think their pretty cool considering what you can do with them. They are a great little action camera, maybe not a great cinema camera but that comes back to the owner and time and effort and money they want to put into it. My "gripe" with gopro is its all digital, digital stab, digital zoom. I dont like the fisheye too much, so i shoot linear , which is a digital zoom i believe. Now i'm not nocking the digital stab or the zoom per se but there's no optical with gopro if you want optical its up to you to supply your own diopters or other type of " kit ". I would be interested if gopro did do some kind of two lens system like a wide angle and a normal lens that you could twist on and off like the front element does, but i fear with the new gp3 there will be just more digital and an Ai moniker 😉.

Handy material here that has become buried in the archive

I'm not sure what "a modern approach" is, but iMovie and Luma Fusion are both pretty straightforward and unbloated from what I remember - and they both run on Mac. I'm not sure if either one has a lut editor, but 3d lut editor has been pretty good for a while now, hasn't it?

Shotcut (a free cross-platform NLE) might give some inspiration -- good clean UI which is intuitive to use if you just keep the dockable panels you really need: https://shotcut.org/

In the interview he says they are not shooting in 17K ( at 3.4 mins) its about the sensor size and focal length and resulting look.

That’s a lot of the (my) reason for sure and because you need to often be right up in people’s grills, and then there is the distortion and massive hands… 18mm on full-frame is the widest I have and go for all of these reasons plus, I just don’t like the look. Never have. But when used for ‘artistic purposes’, ie, ‘intent’ that is a whole other thing.

Sure, slow zone focusing lenses are definitely a possibility. I used that exact lens for part of my YouTube review of the Z Cam E2c if I remember right, pushing the compact-ness of the body/setup. It's a potato, but it's alright in the context of "it's a body cap you can use to make photos." You could also go the route of MS Optics-style designs. I have their 21/4.5 triplet and there are most definitely compromises to get it as small as it is, but it's also a really fun lens with better quality than the Olympus cap (and full frame-ish coverage). A design like that one or their 24/4, but stopped down to f/8 could be interesting. Indeed - and I don't think they've said that the images are SOOC. It's hard to know how much editing was done with the moon shot. It's also not out of the question that an auxiliary lens was used to make it more telephoto. This is the importance of waiting until devices are in the hand of real consumers before getting too hyped. There aren't many things that I'll preorder and the number gets smaller every year, getting replaced by the number of things that I'll wait are available used for at least a 20-30% discount. X-M5 for $900? Shrug. X-M5 for $824-874 on mpb? Get bent, mpb. X-M5 for $781 on adorama? Starting to move in the right direction... Yes. And the close-up stuff could, theoretically, be done with some of the nicer existing action cameras with a diopter.