Breathing Lenses

[bay6]

I'm about to buy a HPX500 with the Fujinon lense and I keep hearing that this and the Canon Lense breathes. What exactly are the lenses doing and what does it look like in the monitor?

Thanks, just trying to get an education.

[J.R. Hudson]

My understanding of breathing is that the focal length tends to shift while adjusting focus (sometimes worse or less while Pulling or Pushing)

I have an old telephoto lens that does this (meant for my Bolex H16)

[Matty_g]

definitely check out the lens before you make your decision. I played around with a few of them at cinegear and the lenses breathed wayyyyyy more than any of my still lenses.

[bay6]

So is it just a function while focusing or while shooting also? I hope its just focusing.

[HorseFilms]

It's just while you're focusing, but remember that it'll come into play if you have to adjust focus during a shot.

[smelni]

its a phonomemon that you can control once you understand how to get similar image sizes with different focal lengths because lenses breath less at longer lenses. I have the fuji which breathes like crazy - but you never see it in what i shoot because i make decisions based on the fact that i know when it will happen

[Barry_Green]

"Breathing" means that when you turn the focus ring, the "apparent" focal length changes too. So while focusing, it can look like you're zooming in or zooming out.

Breathing is far more noticeable on the wide-angle end of the lens, not nearly as noticeable on the telephoto. It can range from mildly annoying to downright unusable depending on the shot and what you're trying to do.

Now, usually on wide angle you're not going to be trying to execute some sort of rack focus, so it may not be such a big deal. But better lenses don't breathe as much as cheap lenses do, and cinema-style lenses are usually optimized to eliminate breathing as much as possible.

[SPZ]

Barry, you've written so many great articles on this site... Why not one on breathing?

You could use an HPX 500 with a FUjinon to explain the phenomenon, workarounds, etc. At the same time, you could explain the CAC function in more detail...

You could add a "Using still lenses on the hvx" (with a 35mm adapter) article, too. ;)

You must have a lot to do, but this would be a very helpfull and interesting read... (maybe then compile everything in a book?)

[ifownlee41nite@mac.com]

Would love to hear sound brands and models of these higher end lenses that breath less. Very interested.