Looks very nice. I look forward to seeing your test shots. Heck the setup alone looks so "cool" it makes us all want to go buy it ;)

Hey guys! I am reporting back with a couple of shots from the first 3 days of filming. This is straight out the camera, no processing(bars, color correction, etc.) More to come!

http://www.yvyears.com/crap/shot1.jpg
http://www.yvyears.com/crap/shot2.jpg

Dave, #1 looks very nice IMHO. What were your lens, settings, etc. for that shot?

Thanks! It was the first thing I had ever shot with the system. Off the top of my head, I think that shot was with a 50mm Nikon MF @ f/1.4

Lens Choices
 

I just shot a short film using a set of high speed Zeiss PLs. The pictures are absolutely stunning. Will post links soon.
By the way, we used the Canon XL1S + Mini35 combo.

Here is a new shot from the film. I did a little bit of post processing as well with MB.

http://www.yvyears.com/crap/shot3.jpg

If I remember correctly, this was done on my 35mm Nikon MF @ f/2

Thoughts on buys a zoom lens
 

I have seen cooke cinema zoom lenses for sale on ebay. Currently a 2.8 T3 is available. Would this lens be too slow for the Mini 35? I really love shallow DOF, however I would like to get a zoom lens. Also I need to use my follow focus. Any comments would be appreciated.

Dan, not sure about your description of that lens...is it a T3 or a T2.8?? what focal lengths are incorporated in that lens?

Assuming it's a T2.8, you are losing about 2 stops of "goodness" over fast prime lenses, which will give you that oft-desired shallow focus look. A 2.8 is plenty fast enough for focal lengths over 75mm, where a T1.4 would be really hard to keep a moving subject in focus, but the wider end might not have the impact you want at that stop. Also, depending on which vintage Mini35 you are using as well as which camera, 2.8 is starting to get into the hairy range where the grain of the groundglass might become visible.

Unfortunately, there's no free ride with this setup. Zooms are always slower than primes, but are obviously quicker to work with. There is a certain elegance to working with fixed focal length lenses however.

I am using the 400 series Mini 35 with the DVX100A camera here is the lens I am talking about.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3830336077&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT