film lens for xl1s
 

I have a budget of about $1600 and I am trying to buy an adapter and a film lens for the xl1s. can anyone recommend the right adapter and film lens. I want to use this to do documentary's, films and music videos.

Terrance:

Can you describe what exactly you are looking for? Or perhaps more specifically, what is it that you are trying to achieve? If it is a shallow depth of field look, you'll have to build your own as the commercially available version is $10K new, and lenses are additional.

Terrance,

Film lenses generally run anywhere over $15,000 per lense. Each of these lenses are fixed at one focal length and as such are called "Primes". You will then in turn need various focal lengths for different needs, shot-to-shot. This means around 3, 4, or 5 times that $15,000 price.

The adapter you're speaking of which creates a shallow depth of field with the use of film lenses, as opposed to an adapter that simply converts lense mounts (PL to XL for example - which has no purpose other than to use more expensive glass.. it does NOT create the "35mm film like" DOF).. will generally cost a little under $10,000 new.

To purchase a system like this you're looking at a close to $100,000 budget required.

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Your best bet would be to find a local rental house that carries the Mini-35 adapter, and rent-as-needed. This will only run you around $1,000 per day (Completely generalizing) and you will need adiquate production insurance to cover the rented equipment as well. (In most cases)

That being the top end, such as the Cooke S4's...you can buy or rent Zeiss speeds for almost half that (i.e. $500 a day can get you into a Mini35 and a set of speeds with a bit of negotiation).

nikon still lenses work great...
those old vivitar series 1 manual lenses are pretty nice and even cheaper than the nikkors...
and they work on my D1!

There are benefits to using Film or Still lenses on the XL series with just a mechical adapter like those available from zgc.com. The greatest being that they simply tend to be better glass then the provided video lens and provide sharper, clearer images. A set of used still lenses and a mechanical adapter can easily be put together for $1,600.

This solution will not, as mentioned above, provide any of the characteristics you would otherwise find in 35mm motion or still film shooting other then better glass.

There are downsides, the greatest here is that you cannot get as wide a shot with any available still or motion lenses then you can with the XL lens and you do lose any automatic control over the lens.

mizell