How will you use a 300mm prime?

there's nothing in the RED reservations forms for camera/lens that state one must know how ( or do you know what this is) to use it !!! you buy a Arri for 200K plus and the sale doesn't depend on if you know how to use it or what it's use is ... bottom line is you got the $$$$$ you can buy it ...over the years i have found that most that know nothing about the film equipment/business and BUY the equipment - they do learn it ...
you buy a 300mm lens -you'll use it for something ... my old 400mm is a pretty good door stop ...
 
Great post, Mike.

Yeah, I am indeed crazy! I get the basic idea about a telephoto lens, and I jumped at the opportunity to get a high quality one for a great price. But judging from the number of views per length of time this thread has lived, I'd say there's a host of people who did the exact same thing!!

I assume that is pretty much what has happened:

1. Red started producing something--we have come to trust and respect Jim, and have a reasonable expectation that team Red will deliver an exceptional product at a very friendly price [yes, I know there is no product yet--thus, "trust" and "reasonable expectation" above].

2. There are no real options for this length lens out there.

3. This will be the only 35mm cinema lens that is available for Red (at delivery) that is not (a) super expensive, or, (b) used, or (c) super expensive and used. [For the lens newby, one is hesitant to purchase workarounds, since we have no first hand idea what the real tradeoffs are with respect to image limitations. Great lens threads notwithstanding.]

4. Reservation deadline cometh.


So, here we are, looking around for other primes that we can afford, and wondering whether we can afford to keep the 300 in our kits. I for one, am with Emanuel--It should be a great luxury that is not often available that will really add that occasional, but value-added shot to our productions that give them an edge.

I like your idea, Mike, of the equivalent of a 1200mm lens! That's the sort of idea I was looking for in starting this thread. [Imagine the whitehead of a pimple in focus, while the skin is soft! EDIT: well, I guess 50% of that gain--windowed 2k--will not involve a change in DOF.]

donatello said:
my old 400mm is a pretty good door stop ...
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Ouch, though
 
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there's nothing in the RED reservations forms for camera/lens that state one must know how ( or do you know what this is) to use it !!! you buy a Arri for 200K plus and the sale doesn't depend on if you know how to use it or what it's use is ... bottom line is you got the $$$$$ you can buy it ...over the years i have found that most that know nothing about the film equipment/business and BUY the equipment - they do learn it ...
you buy a 300mm lens -you'll use it for something ... my old 400mm is a pretty good door stop ...
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Might i perchance take your 400 lens and i will buy you a new doorstop:)

Michael
 
excellent point Micheal about the 600mm in 2k windowed mode.

Tripod or shoulder mount is a must of course.. as each movement on a lens that long is going to need to be smoothed.

canon 300 or 600mm are a staple in sports shooting.. so you may just see a whole line up of Red lenses on the sidelines mixing with the white in a year or two.
 

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i'll be using it for alot of things.. i can't beleive how you guys still don't know what to use it for =S

the uses:

1. i'm on a helicopter.. what the heck do you expect me to use?
i. i'll use it mainly for buildings.. to take shots of the streets.. the night life.. the day life of any city from above. that is like super "beep"-ing ESSENTIAL.
ii. wild life guys.. wild "beep"-ing life man. i mean imagine a gazelle grabbing some grass and chewing it.. its ears would flip.. it'd bring it's head up and look around.. to hear a jeep roaring far away.
iii. all the lovely scenery shots from above.. shooting something from a mountain.
iv. this one is my favourite.. i have one or two of these shots all the time.. im on a helicopter.. you hear a guy talking on the phone.. and shooting a car as it slaloms around some mountains' highway.. i just "beep"-ing love this shot..

there are so many ways you could use it. for stunts..stuff blowing up... you need the sharpness.. it makes the effect more grande. etc.

i might be shooting a sports movie too.. so i'll be needing one of them tele lenses.

which is why.. again.. i might be getting me an angie. 25-250. goto cinematography.com and u'll know why i'd choose it over cookes.. and the other famous brand lenses.
 
canon 300 or 600mm are a staple in sports shooting.. so you may just see a whole line up of Red lenses on the sidelines mixing with the white in a year or two.Attached Thumbnails
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Ha brilliant stuff. The red camera and 300mm lens will easily stand out, the red is the one that all the rest wonder "what the hell is that"

Nice point Akuba about the need for sharpness. The still photographers have recognised that and the red 300mm should fit the bill nicely. Me's ordering mine tomorrow:) .

Michael
 
Akube said:
i might be getting me an angie. 25-250. goto cinematography.com and u'll know why i'd choose it over cookes.. and the other famous brand lenses.
Click to expand...

Akube I followed you till that point... Thats the first time i have heard anyone choose a angie over a cooke :) ... Aside from the new Optimos, Angies in my opinion are (without being to blunt)..total pieces of ****.

:)
 
Jarred Land said:
Akube I followed you till that point... Thats the first time i have heard anyone choose a angie over a cooke :) ... Aside from the new Optimos, Angies in my opinion are (without being to blunt)..total pieces of ****.

:)
Click to expand...
none taken..

that coming outta you.. scared the **** out of me.. im reserving me a red zoom now..

but could you please elaborate more on that.. cuz whenever i surfed.. i always heard good stuff about it.. most of the sets ive been at.. have angie zooms on every rig.. both syrianna and the kingdom. a couple of ads too.. but there are two versions.. the HR and the HP. ive seen em both used.. but i never really got to see the picture.. now you got me worried. do you have any experience with em? or what have you heard? i heard they breathe a lot and need alotta light but thats all i heard. i always had my doubts.. some are sold for 950 bucks.. please tell me more.
 
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Jarred Land said:
Akube I followed you till that point... Thats the first time i have heard anyone choose a angie over a cooke :) ... Aside from the new Optimos, Angies in my opinion are (without being to blunt)..total pieces of ****.

:)
Click to expand...


What happened to poo poo? I like poo poo.
 
Akube said:
i'll be using it for alot of things.. i can't beleive how you guys still don't know what to use it for =S

the uses:

1. i'm on a helicopter.. what the heck do you expect me to use?
i. i'll use it mainly for buildings.. to take shots of the streets.. the night life.. the day life of any city from above. that is like super "beep"-ing ESSENTIAL.
ii. wild life guys.. wild "beep"-ing life man. i mean imagine a gazelle grabbing some grass and chewing it.. its ears would flip.. it'd bring it's head up and look around.. to hear a jeep roaring far away.
iii. all the lovely scenery shots from above.. shooting something from a mountain.
iv. this one is my favourite.. i have one or two of these shots all the time.. im on a helicopter.. you hear a guy talking on the phone.. and shooting a car as it slaloms around some mountains' highway.. i just "beep"-ing love this shot..

there are so many ways you could use it. for stunts..stuff blowing up... you need the sharpness.. it makes the effect more grande. etc.

i might be shooting a sports movie too.. so i'll be needing one of them tele lenses.

which is why.. again.. i might be getting me an angie. 25-250. goto cinematography.com and u'll know why i'd choose it over cookes.. and the other famous brand lenses.
Click to expand...

There is no way you want to use a prime 300mm on a helicopter, for reasons of stability (you need a stabilizing system to make something out of that) You rather take a zoom like a 25-250 or a 50-300 (I have a PL converted Canon FD 50-300/4.5 which is a great option for RED shooters and cost me $2500 converted)

For wildlife 300mm is pretty short, unless you use the windowed mode. Most wildlife filmmakers I know and shooting it myself sometimes use 500 or 600mm , sometimes even with a doubler.

Mick van Rossum NSC
RED #451
Zoom #?
 
Akube said:
none taken..

that coming outta you.. scared the **** out of me.. im reserving me a red zoom now..

but could you please elaborate more on that.. cuz whenever i surfed.. i always heard good stuff about it.. most of the sets ive been at.. have angie zooms on every rig.. both syrianna and the kingdom. a couple of ads too.. but there are two versions.. the HR and the HP. ive seen em both used.. but i never really got to see the picture.. now you got me worried. do you have any experience with em? or what have you heard? i heard they breathe a lot and need alotta light but thats all i heard. i always had my doubts.. some are sold for 950 bucks.. please tell me more.
Click to expand...

Except for the optimos, which are among the best zoom lenses ever made the 25-250 HR is not bad at all, the HP is 3.7 and the old 3.9 is much older and not very good (hence their price second hand).

Mick van Rossum NSC
Red #451
Red Zoom #?
And lots of other stuff like Arri 2c, Aaton A-minima, Zeiss 16-135/2.1, Canon Zooms, Anamorphics, Hi speed cameras , Bolexes and more junk.
 
ha ha Red is a little too hard core for the poo poo sensor :)

I agree with aaton... the new optimos are good glass and they dont breath like businessmen in brothels anymore. Just be aware of any older angie on the used market.
 
Jarred Land said:
Akube I followed you till that point... Thats the first time i have heard anyone choose a angie over a cooke :) ... Aside from the new Optimos, Angies in my opinion are (without being to blunt)..total pieces of ****.

:)
Click to expand...
oh, certainly - thats probably why stanley kubrick used them over and over. not the optimos, the "pieces of s**t". mainly the 25-250 35mm btw. Have a look at "barry lyndon", there you can see them at work in their full beauty.

These ""total pieces of ****" have rental prices ~250-300 euro daily here, today, including ours.

btw: angenieux 35mm/optimo is sold out at the moment, to much demand on the market for them.

i asked for a price at IBC, and they told me that it would take minimum ~10 month till delivery, as all lines of production are completly sold out - it seems, that there are many people willing to spend 40.000-60.000K$ on such bad lenses...

we have the zeiss HS t1.2 prime set for rental, however, the
angenieux 5.3-53mm (2/3, constant f2 from 5.3-48mm, extender, AIF, digital control)
angenieux 7.8-203 (2/3, f2.2 from 7.8-160mm, extender, AIF, digital control)
angenieux 25-250 (35mm f3.2, guaranteed nothing digital :)

are the main workhorses here. they are in production - i would estimate - for ~250-300 days/yearly since years. Angenieux Service is smooth and professional, the chrosziel/arri supportsystems (remote/fluid iris/zoom/focus) are great, and -most important- we get the stunning images we love from them.

we even think of upgrading some older angeieux lenses for red - especially the 16mm ones, but we are not certain as of yet, if they will cover the 2/3 or s16 area. the 9.5-58 f1.6 16mm lens would be a perfect candidate for red run and gun. light, compact, fast, great image - even if this special lens ramps quite a bit i would convert it in a second to PL if they will cover the windowed sensor of red.
 
laguun.. i dont mean to offend you.. the old angies alot of people love. Its purely subjective. I have a 25-250mm HR sitting beside me right now and i never take it out of the box... but the other guy I shoot with here loves it and uses it all the time.
 
Have a look at "barry lyndon", there you can see them at work in their full beauty.
Click to expand...

Hey guys, Kubrick's passion for constantly digging for info led him to very, very fast Zeiss ( f/0.7) lenses used by the US space program. Here is a link to a great article
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm

Here is a quote from the article: "As a technician and not a creative artist, I asked Kubrick the obvious question: Why were we going to all this trouble when the scene could be easily photographed with the high-quality super-speed lenses available today (such as those manufactured by Canon and Zeiss) with the addition of some fill light. He replied that he was not doing this just as a gimmick, but because he wanted to preserve the natural patina and feeling of these old castles at night as they actually were. The addition of any fill light would have added an artificiality to the scene that he did not want. To achieve the amount of light he actually needed in the candlelight scenes, and in order to make the whole movie balance out properly, Kubrick went ahead and push-developed the entire film one stop - outdoor and indoor scenes alike. I am sure that everyone who has seen the results on the screen must agree that Kubrick has succeeded in achieving some of the most unique and beautiful imagery in the cinematic art."

When it comes to the Angenieux here is a little snippet:
"Kubrick insisted that I build him a 20-to-1 zoom lens for "BARRY LYNDON". What followed was a series of phone calls, telexes, and letters between Kubrick and myself and between me and the Angenieux Corporation, who were, in fact, the suppliers of the basic zoom components for all of these 20-to-1 zoom lenses. Through it all, Kubrick displayed the kind of technical knowledge and skill, rare in modern filmmakers, that enabled him to define the problem precisely and specify what had to be done to achieve the lens he wanted."

"We went ahead with his program and were just able to put together a working prototype, still not properly finished or calibrated, so, that Kubrick would have it in time for the filming. Again he was delighted with the results, as seen in a number of exterior sequences in the film. We subsequently completed the design of this lens - the Cine-Pro T9 24-480mm zoom lens - and have built and sold several of these lenses. (And now that Kubrick has finished shooting the picture, we have finally completed the construction of his prototype lens.)"

Even small differences of opinion lead to digging up great info on the net.:beer:

Cheers
 
Very interesting! I'd love that f0.7 lens--is there any actual glass on it? I wouldn't want the red glow from the Mysterium sensor spilling out. Hey, maybe that's why Red needs a 2.8 or slower lens?
 
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