Yeah, the breathing is an old topic. I plan on dealing with breathing by not overdoing *the* rack focus shot. If you have moving shots, the breathing isn't very noticeable. And last night I was watching Bruce Almighty with Jim Carrey, and rack focuses were breathing there as well. ;) Last note - Look at the 105mm - the breathing is very minimal per square inch/foot of distance focused. Me done. :)

Walk in the Woods was shot with 50mm, 35mm, and 28mm lenses.

quick question:
what exactly is a rack focus setup? and what is the "breathing"?

sorry about the offtopic

Steev,
I'm just curious as to what adapter you are using with you lenses. Footage looks pretty good. Thanks.

Rack focus is the simply the technique of focusing one distance (subject) and "racking" the focus to another distance (different subject). Breathing is when you focus and see the field of view change in size, from smaller to larger or larger to smaller. Still camera lenses aren't designed to reduce breathing because they were meant to be used the way we're using them. Cinema lenses on the other hand, apparently have less breathing, although I've seen plenty of breathing on major motion pictures.

I'm using the MPIC from Dan Diaconu.

Non Breathing Lenses
 

Ben, which lenses have little or no breathing ? I use original Canon FD lenses and they seem quite OK.

Cine lenses.

SLR lenses with little breathing
 

OK, Michael. Thanks. Cine lenses ARRI, COOKE have no breathing, because they are specifically designed to compensate for that. However, they are not particularly cheap. (And what about cheap Russian 35mm prime lenses for Konvas cameras in term of breathing ?).
But some SLR lenses are (I heard) notoriously worse than other. I would appreciate if anyone could share his/her experience on the breathing issues. Strong breathing may ruin otherwise well executed rack focus.

thanks a lot, steev!
i didn't know this was called breathing, but i have noticed it before

Cine lenses do have breathing, unless the big guys in Hollywood don't use cine lenses--it's noticable on a lot of films. But I would be interested in knowing what types/kinds/makes/models of 35mm SLRs breathe less than others.

If it bothers you a lot, then just scale the clip in post to compensate. I've made it part of my routine just like flipping the image after capturing or reducing grain, etc. Maybe it's just another thing we, as adapter users, must compensate for.

Ben,
I never thought the big guys were the Hollywood guys. They are just the rich guys.

on a sidenote, has anyone here used a fisheye yet?[/QUOTE]

I haven't used a fisheye but something which goes reasonably close, a Nikon 12mm - 24mm zoom for digital cameras. You have to be really really precise in setting up the backfocus and centres as the sharpness goes off really cruel if you dont. If you are offcentre, there is a stretchy distortion to one side. If it is crooked then you will only be able to focus sharp in only part of the frame.

You get some cool accentuated pacing effects if you travel the cam forwards or backward with the thing on or if somebody walks by really close.

The are no shortcuts. No hoseclips or pieces of rubber pipe here. The centre axes have to be exact, the mounting of the lens dead centre and the backfocus exact. With these things right, the lnes will resolve equally as well as the Nikon 50mm f1.8, the Sigma for Nikon 28mm f1.8 ad the Nikon 85mm f1.8.

You won't get the lens for monkey money and it whilst it was sold to me as an f1.4, I think the salesman misread the detail as did I. I think it is f4.

In bad light I expect it will fall off on the corners but none of this shows on a well lit test pattern. It works on the PD150 and HDRFX1 on 18mm high frames on a groundglass.

I can't vouch for the 16:9 image from the lens as I still get a bit of fall-off down the left side due to the small prism I am using.

Detail is NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 12-24MM 1:4 G ED. On the other side it has DX SWM ED IF Aspherical small "o" with a stroke through it 77.

The aperture lever in back of the lens has to be secured open with a little home-made clip as it is normally closed.

wide zoom apsherical with adapter
 

anyone using an aspherical lens with an adapter?
a letus?
18-80mm?

Sure! Lots of the aforementioned lenses in this thread have aspheric elements. For example, the Canon 55mm F1.2 and the Sigma 28-105mm f2.8-4.

sorry, bill, don't know much about lenses.
Are pretty much all wide lenses aspheric?