September 9, 2017

Lenses for Movie Making

Posted by Rodger Marion under Film Tec | Tags: , , , , , |
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The most modern lenses are fully automatic. They focus and set the aperture all by themselves and they do it quickly and with pretty good accuracy. When making a movie, nothing is quick and there is time to carefully consider the lens choice, as well as, adjust the settings by hand. In the photo are five of the six lenses we have available.

Moving from left to right, the first lens is a Zeiss 28mm lens. It is sitting on an adapter that allows it to be attached to the E mount of the Sony camera. This lens is fully manual. Its lens design produces very sharp images, with a shallow depth of field and vivid colors. The gear ring is for the follow focus mechanism and this lens is best used on a tripod.

The next lens is a fully automatic Sony 35mm lens in the Sony camera’s native E mount. This lens also provides electronic image stabilization and is good for hand held and car mounted shots.

Lens three is a 19mm, fully automatic, E mount lens from Sigma. This is very wide angle and, even though not image stabilized, is good for fast moving, hand held shots.

Fourth is an very old 58mm Auto-Topcor lens from Topcon. It is sitting on an adapter and has a gear ring. It was one of the finest lenses available in the 1960’s. It produces lush images, has very shallow depth of field and is good for close-ups.

Lens five is another Auto-Topcor. This one is 25mm and it has a huge glass area that creates beautiful images. Both Auto-Topcors are fully manual lenses.

The sixth lens (not pictured) is the fully automatic, image stabilized, zoom lens that came with the Sony camera. It is best used for ENG shoots where convenience is paramount.

 

April 5, 2017

Logo – Draft Number One

Posted by Rodger Marion under In Development | Tags: , , , , |
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I’ve been wondering how to illustrate the title in a logo. The photo above, which is in-focus in the center and out-of-focus on front edge of the lens and the back of the camera, illustrates depth of field. Depth of focus applies to where the image is in focus, inside the camera, behind the lens. So, that illustration still eludes me. A final logo is still in the future.

The Bronica medium format camera will be used by Barbara in the film. In an early scene, Barbara and her sister, Maureen, talk about how the camera was converted from film to digital by replacing the film cartridge on the back with a big digital sensor. One concern of such a conversion is: Will the lens focus on the sensor? This is where depth of focus is important. Too geeky?

The film is about the ways in which people envision their lives through dreams and how those dreams often may not be in focus with reality. We explored that theme somewhat with the character of Rusty in Nudged. In the new film, every character will be examined both in their dreams and in what passes for reality.

The photograph was taken using the photo mode of my Sony digital cinema camera with a Zeiss Distagon ZF.2 28mm Lens (60th of a second, f2.0, and ISO 1000).