Zak Forsman

This is one of two Kowa Bell & Howell Anamorphic Lenses I own. Had bought this for a two-camera shoot and now, I don't need both. This particular lens was sourced from the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. They etched their name into the base as you can see in the photo. Despite the cosmetic defects to the body, this lens renders beautiful images. The glass is 100% clean and free from chips, scratches or fungus. No stiffness in the focus ring. I have the original bag (that they also stamped their name on) but no caps. Asking for $700 shipped to anywhere in the USA. PayPal payment preferred.

SLR Magic let me buy their new 50mm T/.95 hyperprime cine lens early, before its official release. So yesterday, I invited my friend over and we shot some clips of her. I'm really digging how sharp it is at a T/2.0. Has great, smooth character and is really well matched to the rest of their cine lenses too.

wanted to clarify since i cant edit my post. meant to say I've done enough with the 10 bit to have seen many places where it would have not held up, if it had been 8 bit.

yeah, I was never happy with skintones in any of the profiles other than natural and portrait. and trying to shoot flat always made noise worse. and using any noise reduction in-camera wreaks havoc with the noise, making it mushy. I prefer the noise to at least be sharp and detailed so it more closely resembles film grain.

​This is ungraded, straight from camera. But I've done enough with the 10 bit to have seen many places where it would have not held up. That being said, my 10 bit monitor and the 12 bit DCPs I make for theatrical screenings are the only places I've been able to view it properly. I have all of SLR Magic's cine lenses and count the 10mm, 25mm and 50mm as my must-haves. if for some reason I started selling them off, these three would be the last to go.

Wanted to test the new SLR Magic 50mm Hyperprime Cine Lens alongside their 25mm, and last night provided a unique opportunity to get some great clips. Panasonic GH4 (Natural Profile, ISO 800) SLR Magic 50mm T/.95 & 25mm T/.95 Recorded in 4k on an Odyssey 7Q+

My GH4 profile is... Natural, 0 contrast, -2 saturation, -5 sharpness, -5 NR. Recorded in 4K to an Odyssey 7Q+ in ProRes HQ. Weight of the Rectilux with a Kowa Bell & Howell inside it is about the same as my Sigma 18-35mm. Roughly.

i did the same a couple years ago. was good for me. even made a feature film in that time. see you in six months!

i can't discuss this here. it's our policy to respect people's privacy by not airing any dirty laundry publicly when a decision like this is made.

​I've tried it at T/.95 and didn't see any additional blooming or purple fringing that the taking lens didn't already have on its own. I'm using the Rectilux with my GH4, and I think T/2, T/2.8 and T/4 will be my target range.

it's £695. money well spent in my opinion. finally getting a chance to dial it all in. will be shooting another feature with it this summer. as the sun was setting yesterday, i quickly set it up with the three taking lenses I'll be pairing it with on my GH4. These are the cine lenses from SLR Magic: 25mm, 35mm, and their new 50mm. These were all at a T/2.8, ISO 200, Hoya ProND 4, Hoya UV & IR Cut. More substantial tests to come. I've ordered additional Rectigrips for each taking lens to make swapping them out nearly as fast as a single lens setup. this way the only difference is adjusting the vertical alignment because each lens will already be outfitted with the necessary step up ring and a Rectigrip of its own.

yes, when people are banned from a forum, they leave. that is the point.

​definitely agree, but I also think artists need to be selective about where that critical feedback comes from. the real value in that kind of feedback comes from the sort of person who will say, "I think you have a problem here, let's sit down and see if we can figure it out." any idiot can point at problems (i'm living proof of that! ). valuable feedback comes from people who are equipped to offer potential solutions with it.

There is a third option. You do the work, you put it out there, and you don't read the reviews (good or bad). The only feedback that means anything to me comes from people who are in the same creative arena I am. We have the same bumps and bruises. We share in the struggle to close that gap between the vision we see in our heads and the ability to execute that in the real world. But the sideline naysayers that offer nothing but a drive-by snipe can go fuck themselves as far as I'm concerned. They risk nothing and contribute even less.

I like to think of participating in forums like this as being a guest in someone else's house. And I try to behave the same way i would if we were all hanging out in their living room. That way, if I choose to cross the line with insults, politics, general troublemaking, et cetera, I shouldn't be surprised if I'm shown the door. It's their place after all.

no, it's by SmallRig. I've had it for a couple years. fits perfect. I cut a piece of gaff tape and stuck it to the inside of the support curve to prevent any metal on metal scratching.

i have one and love it. I don't see a loss in sharpness and have shot with a 25mm SLR Magic taking lens wide open at T/.95. that creates razor-thin DOF, and have found that aiming for a T/2.8 to T/5.6 will be my goal. the optics are fantastic, it's super easy to assemble or swap out to a different scope. the ring that locks onto the taking lens is nice and snug. you'd have to try very, very hard to twist it out of alignment. in fact, while that has happened to me in the past with other setups, it has yet to happen with the Rectilux. And I'll be surprised if it will. Build quality is off the charts. And I just had a custom-made gear delivered from Helicopter Sean at followfocusgears.com. My production company just wrapped a movie, so this week i plan to finally go out and shoot more substantial camera tests. And if all goes well, i'll be using the Rectilux/Kowa B&H to shoot my third feature in August.

i appreciate the sentiment, but where are these stats coming from? I just compared eoshd.com and dvxuser.com on alexa.com and the traffic rankings put them basically neck and neck, with a slight edge to dvxuser.com. It's easy to dismiss the impact a site like dvxuser had in its heyday. If you weren't there to experience it first-hand, how could you know what you missed out on? Starting back in 2004/2005, it's where I first met other aspiring filmmakers who have become friends and collaborators to this day. I participated in the DVXFests which boasted up to 50+ entries every four months, and got invaluable feedback on my work. No other site (including the current state of dvx) has matched the community support and engagement put toward the participant's dreams and education for filmmaking. Over the past decade, i've seen the membership's focus on the making of short narrative films and docs transition almost exclusively to clip montages that test resolution, color, lenses, etc. If it's any indication, it's worth noting that today DVXFest participation has fallen so low that it was put on hiatus. I'm speaking in broad terms of course. There are definitely new artists doing exciting work. I just don't see a close-knit online community as a strong component of that anymore, and I miss it. Not saying things are bad. But they were better. I don't think a different user interface will change that.

I don't know about that. My experience is limited to the GH4, but I can see a huge improvement in detail and noise by shooting 4K scaled to 1080p in post, rather than shooting 1080p in-camera. And in my 8bit vs 10bit comparison tests, it's nearly impossible to tell one from the other on a 10bit monitor until you start to aggressively grade it.

​to put it in camera terms, bit rate is like dynamic range and sample rate (kHz) is like frame rate. 24bit has a range of 144db while 16bit has a range of 96db. the latter is more limiting in terms of how from you can swing between your lowest lows and highest highs. But just like how cameras also have a "useable" dynamic range, the noise floor in an audio recording device is also a limiting factor. either way, 24bit gives you more room to work with. a sample rate of 48khz is adequate for dialogue, but if you were to be recording sound effects that you might want to slow down in post and manipulate to create new sounds, you'd want to record them at a higher sample rate (higher resolution) to capture more detail in the audio. in camera terms, it's like if you wanted a slow motion shot. if you shot at 24fps and slowed it down to half speed in post, you'd be doubling frames. but if you captured it at 48fps and slowed it by half, it would still be smooth in a 24fps sequence.

in my experience, crowdfunding campaigns at this level have much more to do with backing the person behind it, and less to do with the content of the project. aaron demonstrated an eagerness to continue his growth as an artist and that's exciting to me. his pitch video was polished enough that I know this will be executed well, whatever it turns out to be. so it's my pleasure to throw him a couple bucks if it will help give him an opportunity to learn from the kind of experience that only comes from doing it.

donated! good luck!

​The multi-coatings changed significantly at a certain point. I'm looking for one under 0150000.

I crowdfunded a feature on Kickstarter a couple years ago. You'd be surprised what happens when your project gains traction. I'd say i personally knew about half our backers before the campaign started, and had met in person even fewer. We even had two backers that gave $5000 each. One was a complete stranger to me that was browsing Kickstarter looking for movies that offered executive producer credits. The other was a screenwriting student of a friend of a friend. Our goal was $30,000 and we hit that a week before the deadline. The campaign ended at about $38,000, plus I had raised another $10,000 from people who didn't feel comfortable using Kickstarter and preferred to cut a check. I wrote this article for Filmmaker Magazine detailing everything I learned about the process. Hopefully it's useful to you. http://filmmakermagazine.com/32284-the-microbudget-conversation-down-and-dangerous/

what is the serial number?