70% of Bourne ultimatum was shot using "mod-ed" Nikon zoom lenses

LuckyStudio 13

LuckyStudio 13

The Tapeless One
Just finished reading the latest American Cinematographer. They used the modified f2.8 Nikon 28-70mm and 80-200mm zoom lenses. They seemed to be very impress with the nikon glass.
 
Ive been reading on zooms as of late, and I read these zooms have a short throw focus. My new experience with primes shows me these are quick on focus, so how much quicker can these zooms be? Any quicker and I dont think I could handle it, or is it time for me to buy an FF?
Phew...this can can expensive
 
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When they said faster they meant how much you could open the lens up.


My best guess to what you are saying is :
I think the trend you have noticed is directly related to short lenses (wide) having larger depth of field vs long lenses (telephoto) having more shallow depth of field. Therefore zooms would most likely have a longer throw and focusing would be seem more 'sensitive' because telephoto lenses have more shallow dof and have to cover a long range of focusing.

Just my guess.
 
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sorry bad choice of words... exchange "fast" for quick focus ring. How quickly do these zooms focus compared to primes, and is this workable?
oops Prodigy, I see your answer
 
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The 80-200 has about a 1/2 turn of the focus ring to go through the whole range.
Haven't seen the other but that's pretty consistent of the newer AF zooms.
 
The new AF lenses do have a RIDICULOUS short turn of the ring. I only use manual primes and zooms when I shoot. I am not sure what kind of 80-200 zoom they used on the film, but if it was a new AF lens, I feel really bad for the focus puller, (although he was allowed to lose focus on shots and select focus)

To continue my point earlier:
Even with a short turn, longer lenses with more shallow depth of field will be more sensitive on the focus ring.
For instance my 24mm (f/2.8) nikon prime lens can focus from 11" - 15'.
So no matter how much the lens ring physically turns, it only has to travel to 15' before quickly soaring into infinity focus. Meanwhile, my telephoto nikon 105mm prime lens (f/2.8) can focus from 3'2"- 60'. So no matter how long the lens physically turns, it has to travel to 60' before going into infinity.

Remember, a 105mm lens will clearly have more shallow dof when set wide open then the 24mm set wide open. This also makes the focusing ring 'seem' more sensitive.

My point being unless the lens manufacturer makes the focus ring physically turn MUCH more degrees of rotation, longer zoom lenses will 'appear' to have more sensitive and fast focus rings.

In reality all lenses have to focus precisely, they all focus with precision. In my opinion it's the depth of field that really makes the optical illusion that one lens is more sensitive on the focus ring then another. But then again, some lenses are optically built with a large degree of rotation or low degree of rotation on the focus ring.

Please correct me if I am wrong, I'm just talking from lots of personal experience with my nikons, I'm not a technical optics guy or anything.
 
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I worked on a movie shot in OKC this spring and we used an HVX + M2 with Nikon lenses, including the 80-200 2.8.

We were shooting cowboy through MCU from across a courtyard. The shots looked great too.
 
=Prodigy= said:
I am not sure what kind of 80-200 zoom they used on the film, but if it was a new AF lens, I feel really bad for the focus puller
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure the lenses were re barreled by arri. I'd hope that the short focus throw was one of the first things to fix.
 
The re-barreling doesnt change the optics does it. I was figuring the changes were made for the mount-to-cam.
Any experience with the Zeiss by anyone in regards to the focus pull/focus throw?
I hear they are less sensitive and allowing more rotation.
And can FF's be adjusted so one can really crawl through the focus range, that sounds like the better solution to me?
 
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bwest said:
The re-barreling doesnt change the optics does it. I was figuring the changes were made for the mount-to-cam.
Any experience with the Zeiss by anyone in regards to the focus pull/focus throw?
I hear they are less sensitive and allowing more rotation.
And can FF's be adjusted so one can really crawl through the focus range, that sounds like the better solution to me?
Click to expand...

When I read the article I only thought the changes were made for remounting to arri camera's. I did not assume they messed with the optics. If they had messed with the optics, there would be no reason to choose that particular lens to begin with.... right? The article stated that they chose the Nikon zoom lenses for the "documentary" feel. I would assume the open zoom aperture and ease of overshooting focus would have the documentary feel and be easily attained had they kept the very tight Nikon 80-200 AF focus ring.

To answer your last question, I would imagine that the follow focus ring on the camera could be made for a more precise "slower crawl" through the focus range. It would be a matter of installing a larger diameter follow focus gear ring. This would mean you would have to turn the follow focus more to pass through all the added gear length on the circumference of the ring.

Below is a horrible photoshop job to illustrate my point. Enjoy
1190083657.jpg
 
My guess is PL mounts instead of Nikon F mounts, clean up the glass, and put follow focus gears on them.

My giess is also that Arri probably charged $5000 per lens to do this. THese are probably $750 dollar lenses to start out with.


Prodigy - those lenses would have never had gears on them to begin with - they are SLR (still) lenses not cine lenses.
 
You'd never want push pull on a cam with a matte box. The front of the lens would hit the matte box.

You want a handle or ring zoom.
 
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