Coments on mini35 and pro35 Demo DVD. Cinealta with pro35?

[Igor Trajkovski]

I received the 2 demo DVD's.

I liked the pro35.
Nicely done. Nice setup, nice shots.
Folders with on set stills, PDF file with all the
camera settings for the shot and test charts.

The mini35, a compilation of trailers, clips from
projects done with it. Not bad. I liked the pro better.

Now a question.

After seeing that the pro35 is used on Sony F900 i am
puzzled...
Lucas used it for Star Wars with Panavision lenses.
What about DOF? I found nowere that he used some
sort of an adapter? Was the F900 modified for the pana lenses?
Are those Pana lenses with equal 35mm film cam DOF?

All Best

[Dave Frank]

I don't think it was modified. Panavision actually designed a line of Primo Digital lenses specifically for Star Wars.

[Charles Papert]

Indeed they did, and the resulting DOF was no different than existing 2/3" broadcast lenses, which is to say that it was approximately twice that of the 35mm format. On episode III, Lucas used the newer Sony 950 HDCAM SR system, with Fujinon HD primes which again deliver a 2/3"-based DOF. Considering how much of these movies are green screen, I'm not even sure how big a deal this is anyway--you can easily defocus a digital background!

[Dave Frank]

It actually seems like a big deal, because you could easily tell the lenses had a much larger depth of field than the 35mm alternatives. It was a poor choice.

[Charles Papert]

Dave, certainly at the time of Ep.1 and 2 (and, I think, even by the begining of Ep. 3), there was no choice, because there were no workable alternatives. None of the current 35mm-sized image sensor HD cameras are yet fully-functioning production models, and the PRO 35 is still pretty recent; I haven't heard yet about 35mm blowups from projects that used the PRO 35 in terms of resolution and visual artifacts from the ground glass system to know if it is viable for high-end feature work at that level.

p.s. by "larger focal length" I think you meant "depth of field".

It's an interesting topic; how noticeable is depth of field in a given film? Do we tend to notice it more when it is deep or shallow? I would say shallow; I'm more aware during anamorphic films that the background is WAY out of focus than I am seeing something shot on 16mm, where it may only be lightly out of focus. Indeed, I did not realize that either "Leaving Los Vegas" or "The Station Agent" were shot on Super 16 when I saw them theatrically; the additionial depth didn't register to me.

I think that the difference in depth-of-field is more noticeable on digital because digital just has a harder time with wide shots; lots of small elements and details in the frame just don't tend to look as good on video, so if there is a way to blur them, the image just looks that much better.

It's a big reason of why I am such a fan of the Mini35; wide shots on DV can be really yucky for these reasons and it's delightful to be able to de-yuckify them with the shallow DOF.