Sean Cunningham

Look around where you live and work each day.  Are your walls white?  There's a fair chance you're being irradiated by the titanium in the pigment in the paint, depending on the source.  And anything else painted white or with white pigment.
 
Back in the '80s and '90s my dad worked as a chemist.  One of his last jobs was as a pigment specialist for this company that, among other things, made an alternative to the titanium-based white pigments used in everything from paint to plastics to food.  He came home rattled one night because while the company tried to sell customers their product they still did a lot of color matching formulation for all kinds of products and still did a fair amount of work with titanium and they got a particularly "hot" batch from China that somehow made it through Customs and was sitting on a barge.  Nobody knew what to do with it that wasn't going to amount to an international incident.  
 
He knew that much of the time the metal had trace amounts of radioactivity but it was within EPA standards.  This was apparently closer to nuclear fallout level stuff that only got found out because someone got curious.  Who knows how much had already come in like that or would come in like that in the future.  I was told not to talk about it with any of my friends at school and we never really talked about it again.  I still don't know what happened to the barge full of the stuff but I think about that night every time I stare at a white wall or something made of white plastic.
 
I'm not worried about these lenses. 

Look around where you live and work each day.  Are your walls white?  There's a fair chance you're being irradiated by the titanium in the pigment in the paint, depending on the source.  And anything else painted white or with white pigment.
 
Back in the '80s and '90s my dad worked as a chemist.  One of his last jobs was as a pigment specialist for this company that, among other things, made an alternative to the titanium-based white pigments used in everything from paint to plastics to food.  He came home rattled one night because while the company tried to sell customers their product they still did a lot of color matching formulation for all kinds of products and still did a fair amount of work with titanium and they got a particularly "hot" batch from China that somehow made it through Customs and was sitting on a barge.  Nobody knew what to do with it that wasn't going to amount to an international incident.  
 
He knew that much of the time the metal had trace amounts of radioactivity but it was within EPA standards.  This was apparently closer to nuclear fallout level stuff that only got found out because someone got curious.  Who knows how much had already come in like that or would come in like that in the future.  I was told not to talk about it with any of my friends at school and we never really talked about it again.  I still don't know what happened to the barge full of the stuff but I think about that night every time I stare at a white wall or something made of white plastic.
 
I'm not worried about these lenses. 

Honoring My Father is the story behind Keith Kadoyama attending the Lantern Floating Ceremony every year. The Lantern Floating Ceremony honors our loved ones who have passed away. Keith honors his father Mitsuo Kadoyama, and he tells his story. Thanks to my good friend Keith for doing this.  I conceived of the idea when I saw the announcement just 2 days before, and I'm glad he was up for the challenge.  I shot all of this myself, so it was a lot of hard work!
 

 
Shot on a Panasonic GH4, 4K with Panasonic LUMIX 12-35mm X lens and SLR Magic Anamorphot and Tiffen Vari-ND Filter
GH4 shot with CinelikeD Contrast -2, Sharpness -5, Noise Reduction -5, Saturation 0, Hue 0
Master Pedestal +15, Highlight -4, Shadow +3, 0-255
F2.8, 1/50 sec, ISO 200 w Vari-ND, ISO 800 without
Interview Audio: Rode NTG-2 shotgun mic with Rode Blimp on a Tascam DR-60D
Music by Escape Club - "I'll Be There"
 

nice choice of squeeze ratio IMO.  If anything i think anamorphics should have lots of breathing. - something i wish the 'Rama had!  

Honestly I think none of the recent 4k cameras can hold a candle to the image of the BMPCC and the BMCC.  

Excellent article.
 
I occupied myself intensively with the correlations of resolution, image size, perceived sharpness and - to introduce the Holy-Grail-term that combines all those parameters - glory, both professionally and personally virtually all my life.
 
There was an ancient german textbook on cinematography, considered The Bible at german filmschools, but I always found it to be unbearably dogmatic (it recommended, for instance, never to use sDoF and always to use 3-point-lighting). But it had a good, an indeed very good chapter on framing, on composing an image, using the french term cadrage.
 
Good framing, according to the book, always results in an image that has great *pithiness*. This was illustrated by putting grids over great, well-known paintings, thereby retracing the way the artists guided the viewer's attention from there to there, creating either harmony or dynamic (or, for that matter, a tension between harmony and disharmony). Furthermore, there was a debate on how detail contributed to pithiness - or on the contrary, confused it. And there was a crucial distinction between texture detail and motif detail.
 
Texture detail will always need sufficient resolution (relative to the image's size) to depict the pattern (grass, skin, fabrics), but it has no postive effect on pithiness (but may interfere with it). Motif detail is not so much about resolution, it is, interestingly, about *time*. 
 
Because to take in important motif detail within a film frame, you need time.
 
Take this painting from Pieter Brueghel the Elder (The Procession to Calvary, 1564):

(EDIT: Resolution is about size. You can't recognize all the interlocking scenes, because the resolution is 800px)
 
Polish filmmaker Lech Majewski made a feature-lengh film of all the little actions put into this painting (which clearly is meant to be watched for quite a while), The Mill & The Cross:

 
Every single of the awesome GH4 demos we saw so far either have no pithiness of the image (users are tempted to 'show off' meaningless High-Res and shoot the naked chaos) or they are resolution-independant. One could as well say, higher resolutions don't add any information to the image, they just allow to blow it up more. But then again, as the article says, we saw the latest blockbusters, including Godzilla, in meagre 2k (856 x 2046 pixels), and nobody complained.

Especially since he doesn't light, generally speaking.  Being able to see where he can use available light to artistic effect is some kung fu he's really strong in.

There's always the risk of feeling buyer's remorse with technology but, realistically, your film won't be any better or worse off no matter the decision you make.  4K isn't something most folks should be concerned about.  It's no guarantee of a better looking film if it was projected in a theater and if it's not being projected in a theater it's pretty much a waste of money and resources and effort that could be used elsewhere.  
 
Most theatrical films are still finished 2K (regardless of origination) unless a director has the juice to force production to pony up for a 4K finish.  You would think that for $100+ million dollar blockbusters this would just be a given, since they're already spending a mint but that isn't the case.  It's still quite rare.  Not as rare as even a year ago but it's not standard practice to finish 4K.
 
Making your own feature, either putting up your own money or getting some from investors, you should save yourself the headache.  Spend the money that might be needed for extra storage or an upgrade to your editorial on something like catering, being able to bump your key talent's per diem a bit or the wrap party (or wrap gifts...I didn't understand the importance of these my first indie).
 
And make sure you even really need to upgrade your camera, considering it's an asset you already own.  $1500 goes a long way on an independent feature.  I admit I never thought much about the T2i but that was before seeing Kendy's stuff...
 

 

 
 
...I'm a GH2 guy and know it's technically a better camera but operator talent (along with the quality of the content) can render technical jibber jabber and megabits rather meaningless.

I've been giving this some thought myself and here's what I've come up with.  It's largely about focusing the viewer's attention.  Lets use the film Alien as an example.  Alien was shot anamorphically as was Blade Runner as Ridley Scott used to shoot his films in this format.   Anamorphic lenses give shallower depth of field for a comparable field of view in spherical thus allowing you to ( or forcing you to) separate the subject matter from the background more effectively.  In still photography terms refer to old hollywood portraits by the likes of George Hurrell who are in my opinion unmatched in elegance by any form of celebrity portraiture since.  He was shooting with an 8x10 camera with hot lights and usually had razor thin depth of field.  This made for intensely beautiful images when used properly.  I feel the same is true of anamorphic in Alien, Blade Runner, etc.  In alien the shallow focus really helps to create mood and probably made the sets look even better by blurring them out more.  On the director's commentary track Mr. Scott even notes the difficulty of the shallow depth of field and points out a shot in which the focus was lost for a moment.  I used to instinctively assume that it was better to have all the characters in frame in focus but have since learned that that's not necessary and can often clutter up the shot.  I'm constantly surprised now as I watch favorite films shot anamorphically at characters that are out of focus that I never noticed the first few viewings.
 
The smeary effect in the out of focus areas when using anamorphic is also a strong part of the look that I feel most movie lovers probably unconsciously associate with CINEMA.  I certainly do...although it's more of a conscious association now.  The flares can also be a nice touch but I feel they are best suited to science fiction.  Shooting with anamorphic lenses slows you down but the results can be worth it...if you have the time and budget.  I also think that the added difficulty of shooting anamorphically forces the D.P. to work in a way that insures better results.  It's easier to cut corners with spherical.  Ridley Scott shoots spherical now and I personally don't appreciate the look of his films as much as I used to.  He can still make an incredibly effective film like American Gangster with spherical but it didn't have quite the magical visual element(s) that anamorphic adds.    Anamorphic isn't necessary for me to enjoy a film but I do appreciate when a production uses it.  This is of course just my opinion and I'd love to hear what others here think.  I'm guessing most of you on this forum will agree but perhaps you have a different take on it.

Softness, chromatic and edge softness are the traits associated with most classic anamorphic lens families.  Read almost any interview with an A-List DP working in the medium and they're often making their selection based on these "artifacts" as a conscious decision, counting them as a positive.  All of the things enthusiasts and amateurs and bench engineers routinely poo-poo in "affordable" adapters, ironically.
 
The term "sharp" is also a more or less relative term when you're talking anamorphic.  Look at the chart tests found elsewhere here on the Iscorama 54.  Compared to the shittiest spherical kit lens that I've ever seen it's soft as hell, but as one of a few coveted Iscoramas it's considered nearly a "gold standard".

Finally saw this at the cinema last night, did anyone else notice how soft (and soft edges) and at times almost out of focus the anamorphic sections of the film were? 
 
It looked excellent, it was just interesting to see these traits are not specific to the enthusiast/pro-sumer end of the anamorphic spectrum.
 
Some of the 4:3 stuff looked almost like video at times. Very strange, but totally worked.

Yeah, it looks to be a dynamite little camera and it or the MFT BMCC are my first choice for upgrades for my GH2, even before Metabones introduced the BMD specific SpeedBooster models.  
 
Our last feature was very low budget and I just remember every dollar counting.  Small luxuries made a major impact and if I'd spent the money in the beginning to get me a new camera it would have been felt elsewhere.  We would have been without something, I don't know what, but it wouldn't have just been absorbed.   A few months out before the actual budget was put together that would have been different, and then the new camera would have been included in the list of "existing assets".

There's always the risk of feeling buyer's remorse with technology but, realistically, your film won't be any better or worse off no matter the decision you make.  4K isn't something most folks should be concerned about.  It's no guarantee of a better looking film if it was projected in a theater and if it's not being projected in a theater it's pretty much a waste of money and resources and effort that could be used elsewhere.  
 
Most theatrical films are still finished 2K (regardless of origination) unless a director has the juice to force production to pony up for a 4K finish.  You would think that for $100+ million dollar blockbusters this would just be a given, since they're already spending a mint but that isn't the case.  It's still quite rare.  Not as rare as even a year ago but it's not standard practice to finish 4K.
 
Making your own feature, either putting up your own money or getting some from investors, you should save yourself the headache.  Spend the money that might be needed for extra storage or an upgrade to your editorial on something like catering, being able to bump your key talent's per diem a bit or the wrap party (or wrap gifts...I didn't understand the importance of these my first indie).
 
And make sure you even really need to upgrade your camera, considering it's an asset you already own.  $1500 goes a long way on an independent feature.  I admit I never thought much about the T2i but that was before seeing Kendy's stuff...
 

 

 
 
...I'm a GH2 guy and know it's technically a better camera but operator talent (along with the quality of the content) can render technical jibber jabber and megabits rather meaningless.

If the viewfinder isn't made of thorium glass, which it won't be, everything bolded is not correct about what you actually are getting.  Why?  Because alpha particles aren't penetrating the lens barrel to radiate you through the side of the lens and they aren't penetrating through the camera and coming out the back or through the camera and through the eyepiece optics.  It's not happening.  
 
If alpha particles can't penetrate a piece of paper they aren't passing through multiple layers of metal, plastic and glass.

Now, if only we can get a fear-monger campaign going that convinces people the Iscoramas are radioactive...

If the viewfinder isn't made of thorium glass, which it won't be, everything bolded is not correct about what you actually are getting.  Why?  Because alpha particles aren't penetrating the lens barrel to radiate you through the side of the lens and they aren't penetrating through the camera and coming out the back or through the camera and through the eyepiece optics.  It's not happening.  
 
If alpha particles can't penetrate a piece of paper they aren't passing through multiple layers of metal, plastic and glass.

Now, if only we can get a fear-monger campaign going that convinces people the Iscoramas are radioactive...

Well there is no need for that because the variable diopters in some Iscoramas are radioactive. Isco Göttingen has a tradition of using contaminated glass, or even glass with thorium for their cinema projection lenses. The pre 36 iscoramas and the cinegon versions are affected, I definitly wouldn't want to use one.
 
Anyway, developing chemicals are dangerous too and nobody cares.

On a serious note.  Iscorama's, iscorama 36, 43's centavisions and 54's made between 1960-1989 are rated at the highest radioactivity of all lenses ever produced.  Dangerous levels thought to lead to impotence in men.  According to a bloke at my local fire station he is recommending owners send all iscorama lenses manufactured between these dates to the Dog Schidt Optiks radioactivity decommissioning outpost where they will be carefully disposed of.

Now, if only we can get a fear-monger campaign going that convinces people the Iscoramas are radioactive...

In certain areas in Finland you receive around 25-30 microsieverts a day from natural background radiation. People live there, 24/7 all year round.
 
Touch a lens that gives 5-10 microsieverts an hour now and then... It's a piss in the sea.

I can see Junior's case for dangerous ingestion of thorium coating if the lens is smashed and dust ingested somehow, but in the case of just using or living around the lens your skin acts as a shield... the radiation doesn't go past it and the doses aren't enough to cause skin cancer so I honestly don't think there's much to worry about. Obviously the manufacturers (Canon, and plenty of other biggies) would have done a full recall in subsequent years if evidence came up that the lenses were dangerous. They have been around for 30-40 years and there's never been anything proved!
 
I'll remain open minded and see where the argument goes. I did once sell my radioactive FD 35mm F2.0 with concave front element and got the non-radioactive version. Might be a good subject for the A7 book to add in the specs an annual dosage ;)

Rubbish thread.  When my house is burning down I'll call for a fireman.  I won't call upon one to carry out careful experimentation relating to things beyond their capabilities.  
 
I seriously doubt some bloke covered in soot, wearing a firemans hat and rubber boots with a radioshack geiger counter, chatting to you during a fire station open day can prove everyone else wrong.

what about the glow in the dark dials on my wrist watch ...shall I stop wearing that now?
I'm going to build a Fariday Cage in my house to shield me from all the Wifi signals in my road .......COS THAT IS CONSTANT 24/7
unlike the old lenses that are all locked away in my lead lined cabinet.
I've stopped using a cell phone too , oh and my tablet ...

Im selling all my lenses and switching to plastic Holga lens from now on...........