Digiprimes for HPX500

[Icarus2005]

anyone know of a good deal on renting a set of digiprimes for the HPX500 fora whole month?

I'm shooting a low budget feature with it?

[cocoa_magazin]

A low budget film with DigiPrime? You meen Zeiss??? One of them
of it costs 20,000 $ to buy one. so must rent at least 200 $ to cost per day!
why the standard optics is not enough to you

Michael from Germany.

[Icarus2005]

I like the shallow depth of field. I've used digiprimes on the varicam before and loved them.

The lenses the HPX500 bring are crap and in my opinion worthless for cinematic work. Yes I'm getting a lens with my package only because I do a good bit of interview and red carpet type work, which is fine those lenses.

[smelni]

digiprimes do not have greater or less DOF then other lenses - the type of lens doesnt factor into that.

[hunter richards]

"digiprimes do not have greater or less DOF then other lenses - the type of lens doesnt factor into that."

You are correct!

But....

I think he is talking about the look of "shallow depth of field".
Digiprimes have a very Close focus and a huge open iris, You could fake the "shallow DOF" look easily. They also don't breath when pulling focus. In most cases, if you used them correctly, I bet most people would think you shot 35mm/ or with an adapter.

You can rent them for about $100-300/day.

[joe 1008]

Primes are faster, there are digiprimes with T1,6 while a zoom has about T1,9. T stops have the same influence on DOF as the focal length. So you don´t "fake" the look of DOF you REALLY create shallow DOF with the lens wide open.

Said this I would like to know how much the difference looks like. I never worked with digiprimes but I would like to know which one I have to rent to get the most similar look like a 85mm focal length portrait shot with a 35mm prime.

[smelni]

f stop is what matter for DOF - t stop is for light transmission (exposure)

2/3 inch equivalent of 85mm is about 35mm or so.

[joe 1008]

As I understood it a cine lens is alway marked with t stops but you generally use them the same way like f stops by controlling the aperture of the lens, just that the light loss of the lens is factored in. (That means that a prime at let´s say t 2 lets through the same amount of light as a zoom at t2 - both lenses set at the same f stop probably let through different amounts of light. That should be especially important for somebody who works with film stock - a background I don´t have)

But generally primes have a bigger aperture than zoom lenses, so the DOF you can achiev with them should be more shallow.

Now my question was rather subjective, of course ther is always a mathematical equivalent for DOF and focal length between 2/3" and 35mm lenses, but I was asking rather for the LOOK.

DOF with any 2/3" lens under normal circunstances is alwas broader than the DOF of a 35mm lens. But one - at least for me - important narrative element is a portrait shot with a fairly blurred background. But If I choose for that purpose a focal length that is too long, I flatten the perspective of the image and therefore lose an other element that creates DEPTH: perspective.

So I would like to know which 2/3" prime ist the best compromise between shallow DOF and a not too much flattened perspective. So I can go and rent it for a day if I have to.

[danparsons]

Getting back to the original question...

...Does anyone know of a good source for renting digiprimes in the LA area.

Thanks!

[Spartacus]

Getting back to the original question...

...Does anyone know of a good source for renting digiprimes in the LA area.

Thanks!

What about Abelcine?

(and just to continue the treadjack: don´t the lenses designed for the HPX have some build in cromatic aberation correction? Or does the HPX have setups for the CA produced by this cheaper HD lenses?
And why do you want to shoot wide open? for locked down static shots this is managable, but for moving shots with focus pulls this becomes a PITA...
But maybe DigiPrimes give a nicer bokeh...?
How does the resolution of the DigiPrimes hold up, when you kind of "zoom in" because of the 2/3" chips...?)

[Barry_Green]

The lenses don't have any built-in chromatic aberration correction; in fact it's kind of the opposite -- expensive lenses have built-in chromatic aberration in the form of optically correcting aberrations through extensive and precise application of lens coatings, which drives up the price enormously.

Cheap lenses don't have those coatings, so they have a lot more visible aberrations.

What the HPX500 lenses do is inform the camera about the aberration properties of the lens, and the HPX500 (and HPX3000) can electronically compensate for the aberrations.

It's a distinction that sort of sounds like the same thing as what you said, but it's important to note that there is a distinction, because if you put those lenses on a different body you'd see all sorts of aberrations that you'd never see on an HPX500 or HPX3000 body. The compensation happens in the camera body, not in the lens. But the lens is enabled to inform the camera body about its aberration parameters, enabling the body to do the work.

In short, CAC (Chromatic Aberration Compensation) is a very cool new lens development (and it won't be restricted to Panasonic; the lens manufacturers are making it available to all camera makers). But you have to understand where the compensation comes from in order to make sure you get the full benefit of the technology.

[Spartacus]

Thanks for clearing this up!
So if I took some high end HD lens and put it on the HPX, there won´t be CA since the lens is better coated?
Hm, comparison shots would be nice here to see if the HPX really benefits from a higher end HD / Cine lens or if the CAC does a good enough job on eliminating the shortcommings of the cheaper HD lenses...

[Barry_Green]

Thanks for clearing this up!
So if I took some high end HD lens and put it on the HPX, there won´t be CA since the lens is better coated?
Depending on how good the lens performs, yes that's what you'd expect.


Hm, comparison shots would be nice here to see if the HPX really benefits from a higher end HD / Cine lens or if the CAC does a good enough job on eliminating the shortcommings of the cheaper HD lenses...
I put up an article about CAC showing the same lens with/without CAC enabled, so you can see that it really does clean up the edges. Haven't had a chance to try a top-end lens vs. the cheaper CAC glass yet.

[Spartacus]

Going to look up that article, thanks!

[joe 1008]

And why do you want to shoot wide open? for locked down static shots this is managable, but for moving shots with focus pulls this becomes a PITA...
But maybe DigiPrimes give a nicer bokeh...?

Exactly for those locked down static portrait shots with shallow DOF. To get close to that good old 35mm cinematographic look. There's nothing that gives more intensity to a dialogue or an interview IMO.

[davhud]

Something thats often missed in discussing the look of primes vs zoom is the number of elements in the lens. Fewer elements means fewer air to glass surfaces which all things being equal means a crisper picture. I know some still photogs who won't use uv filters because of this issue.
I've never tried it but I wonder how Leica 35 lenses would work on these cameras. They had a 800mm Telyt lens that had only 2 elements. Of course it cost about 35,000 dollars. They also had a lens called the Noctilux which opened up to F1.0 wasn't cheap either.

You could also just back the camera up and shoot telephoto which gives you much less dof!

[mik303]

I've rented a set of 5 Zeiss Digiprimes & a Zoom Lens for a feature film that was shot on an F900. $3200 per week from Panavision for lenses only. May 2006.

Someone mentioned earlier in this post, that you can buy the lenses for $20,000 each. Where did you find Zeiss Digiprimes for sale? I can't find any place to buy them online.