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Since I did not get my Andy Lesniak (aka. Wicked Circuits) dumb Canon mount to work properly (see previous lens mount test), and Birger Engineering is offering their Canon mount in a dumb version, I have now ordered one of those. Shipped today, and should be with me next week. Am very much looking forward to testing out thier mount. Watch this space for more info.
With the convergence of stills- and videocameras comes the convergence of the job of photographer and cameraman. And both will start exploring the “other” medium in new, creative ways. For example making movie posters, that suddenly come to life.
Professional stills photographer Alexx Henry has put together a nice clip showing how this is done, also thanks to RED.
(via)
Changing from DV to Red RAW has many advantages. One of them is that of a vastly improved possiblity to change things in post production. White balance is not baked in, and certain changes to exposure can be done without much penalty.
And thus an idea for a movie poster was born…
Interesting short interview with director/DP Steven Sonderberg on his approach to lighting on his newest film, Girlfriend Experience. He added light on only 2 shots, the rest is done with available/natural light. Shot on RED one.
So RED just had their first public showing of their REDRay magic box. Some compression wizzardry made it possible to compress 4k video by the factor of 750 – resulting in 4k footage at a datarate that is half of standard definition miniDV. Basically you get a picture way, way, way better than HD at a fraction of BluRay’s data rate. This might just turn the whole delivery upside down, as it will enable distribution of high quality films via standard broadband. Also, digital cinema will not need proprietary distribution technology, because a feature film will fit on a standard DVD-R.
At the REDuser party in Las Vegas RED showed both uncompressed footage side-to-side with the same footage compressed with their technology. Uncompressed size was roughly 320GBs, while the REDRay version shrank down to 450MBs. Many reported as to not being able to tell the difference.
Some video footage from the REDuser party has been put online by Justin.tv.
I hope that it will only be a matter of time before 4k projectors come at an affordable price. Community cinemas could spring to life again, and small filmmakers could organize regionally to open up their own cinemas. Distribution of independent film will no longer be limited by cost.
What an exciting times we live in, my friends.
I finally got around testing the various adapters I bought to adapt my Carl Zeiss Contax Yashica primes to our RED. The RED has the Wicked Circuit dumb mount. All adapters work fine up to about 20 meters, but after that there is a definite difference.
All tests were done on the Zeiss 50/1.4 lens, with the aperture set to 4 and 16. No filters were used, instead faster shutter speeds were employed.
Here is the frame I took in 4k, scaled down to 25% (Click on picture for full size), further down the test you will see 100% cropped images of just the chimney (compressed to jpg in Photoshop with high quality setting) .
First in line is the £5 adapter off eBay from seller big_is. Very quick and efficient delivery from Hong Kong. Fits nicely. Fairly soft on infinity.
Holds fairly well at f16.
Bad at 4.
Conclusion: if you are on a budget, and either only shoot closer subjects or have plenty of light, this is an acceptable adapter.
Next in line is the adapter from DVD Technik in the Ukraine at about $35. Has a very nice quality feel to it, and sist very tight on the lens. Best to be fitted once onto the lens, and left in place. Also quite tight once connected to the camera; downside is that it takes a bit longer to change lenses, but they do sit more tightly.
Disappointing at f16.
Appaling at f4.
Conclusion: Not really an option.
Fianally the most expensive option at $85 from Happypage in Hongkong, an adapter with built-in autofocus confirm chip. Happypage offers the option of getting that chip programmed to your specific lens, which is a nice option when you want to use your lenses on a Canon EOS stills camera. Since the RED is thankfully a fully manual camera, I could not test this extra functionality.
At first the adapter would not fit. After an e-mail to happypage they immedeatly sent off a second adapter without any cost to me. The adapter arrived, but would not fit either. This suggests that the Wicked Circuit adapter might be slightly off, since happypage has only happy curstomers. Anyway, using my Dremel drill, I managed to get the adapter to fit into the RED – again, very tight, but not as tight as the DVD Technik one, and run the tests.
Happypage advertizes the fact that their adapters are a fraction of a millimitre thinner than their competitors, and claims that this helps with the focus on infinity. Let’s see how this holds up to reality.
Me likes at f16.
A Bit disappointing at f4.
Conclusion: Clearly the winner.
As so often, if you want quality, you have to pay for it. Interesting though that the by far cheapest option was not the by far worst one.
Also it seems that I still have problems with the back-focus on the Wicked Circuit adapter. My guess is that if that should ever get sorted out (or I might – gasp – order again a Birger Canon mount) the results will improve.
I’ll be gone for 10 days, filming onboard the Hurtigrute. In the meantime you might enjoy this Onion podcast:
Solargraph by Pekka Salminen
I’ve done some pinhole camera experiments in my younger days, but Justin Quinell is our age’s master in this technique. Have a look at his collection of multiple-month exposures, which he calls Solargraphs.
He also built a miniature camera, letting you expose from within the mouth. And he even sells those little cameras for next-to-nothing.
And do visit Junstins homepage, where you’ll find lots of other goodies, including instructions on how to build a 720-degree camera out of toilet rolls.
Yesterday the Andy Lesniak Canon mount for our RED One camera arrived. After struggling a bit with the back-focus adjustment, the mount is now installed, and I ran a quick lens breathing test. These were not lit or framed at all, just a speedy test on how the lenses perform under focussing. No follow focus yet either, thus not the cleanest pulls ever. No CC either.
All tests were done with the lenses set at their widest, also to test the focus at infinity.
Carl Zeiss Distagon 25mm/2.8 (Click to see the test at 1024×512)
Focus at infinity is not quite there. This might be because of the Contax/Canon adapter used. A new one is on order. If the lens is stepped down to 5.6, infinity is fine. Stepping down on the 25/2.8
Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm/2.8 (Click to see the test at 1024×512)
Carl Zeiss Tessar 45mm/2.8 (Click to see the test at 1024×512) This lens is small, not thicker than a thumb.
Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm/1.4 (Click to see the test at 1024×512) The flickering comes from the office fixtures.
Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm/1.4 (Click to see the test at 1024×512) This is one beauty of a lens.
Carl Zeiss Sonnar 135mm/2.8 (Click to see the test at 1024×512)
Carl Zeiss Tele-Tessar 200mm/3.5 (Click to see the test at 1024×512)
Tamron 500mm/8 (Click to see the test at 1024×512) This is just a lens I happend to have, and it was fun trying it as well. It has a fixed aperture of 8, and includes a macro function. Mirror lens, meaning it is relatively compact.
Generally I am happy with the performance of these lenses, their breathing is acceptable to me. The built quality of the Zeiss lenses is phenomenal, they have a very long focus throw.
I recently bought some 190Ah batteries from Globalmediapro for our RED One and was quite disappointed to see that the camera would not boot up with them, while older, weaker batteries both from Globalmediapro and other manufacturers worked flawlessly. After Globalmediapro did not reply to my e-mail, I set upon finding out what was wrong. more…
