GH13 Advice on a shot...

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padraig conaty

Member
Hey guys.
We shot a little feature at the end of last year on a couple of hacked Gh1's, very happy with how the camera performed. The thing is i have a few little scenes left to shoot, i was thinking of shooting with a mates Gh2, with the hack, and working away. But i have one particular shot in mind, that i want to use for an opening credit sequence. it is a very slow zoom out from a close up of the protagonist to reveal himself in his work place, which is in the ring in a cattle mart. see the video below for a crude example of the set up. you see the guy in the green in the ring. What im looking for a is a shot that starts as tight as i can get on him, tracking around as he does his job, then to do a creep zoom out to slowly reveal teh crowd around him. this will be accompanied by the sound of the mart around him and the a theme song, of the counrty and western variety. so what im looking for is a bit of a 70's vibe for the opening.


THe thing is i dont have any lenses or know any lenses that would suit getting the that scope of a zoom for the GH1/2. i have a guy offering me a large p2 camera, not sure what it is, but i know id be in safe hands with the length of the zoom and no rolling shutter. the only things is im afraid it will look a wee bit too video-y/amateurish.

does anyone have any advice on possible routed i could take?

i know a rental place that has a 12 - 120 zeiss distagon s16 zoom, though i would have to get hold of a pl adapter. would that zoom length get me the coverage i would need on a gh2 with ETC on?

are there any other camera/lens combos that might get me close to that lovely vintage look i have with the Gh1 on the fd's??

Cheers.
 
padraig - you could try to find a Sigma 50-500mm in Four Thirds mount (discontinued, but sometimes available on eBay). Of course, you would need a 4/3 to m4/3 adapter, but you would have autofocus and autoaperture.

If you don't need autofocus or autoiris, you can rent or buy it in Nikon mount. I use this adapter for my Nikon lenses.

Or, if maximum focal length is more important than zoom range, you could try the Sigma ("Bigma") 300-800mm for 4/3!

Depending on your setup, you might also need a lens support for these huge lenses.

Good luck with getting the shot - and with your feature!

Where and when can we see it?

Cheers,

Bill
 
Hey, thanks Bill for your detailed advice.
Im gunna have a trailer out in the next month. We are aiming to have our cast and crew premiere in August. Im looking forward to being part of the Gh feature gang actually.

Man that Sigma is a beast. The problem is that when we are fully zoomed out i want to get as much of the area in, to get an amphitheater sort of look.
i was looking at some of those Canon TV lenses on a B4 mount. not sure how they fair out on quality, but they dont look too bad. Trying to get my head around the crop factor. With a 50mm lens with ETC mode on a Gh2, is that 200mm? So a
[FONT=arial, sans-serif]9-143mm would be 36 - 572mm? Not much different to your sigma lens above.
What is the 35mm equivilant of a 12-120mm s16mm zoom lens on a Gh2 with ETC mode on?

here is an example of one of those lenses. at 2.44 to 3.05 i can see the range i would be looking for.
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Heres how Id approach it - camera on dollied crane - dolly back and raise crane for reveal. Rarely seen a zoom shot that Ive liked outside of TV b roll.
 
Noel Evans said:
Heres how Id approach it - camera on dollied crane - dolly back and raise crane for reveal. Rarely seen a zoom shot that Ive liked outside of TV b roll.
Click to expand...

That was going to be my response. But that is a relatively expensive proposition. But yes, zoom will look cheap.
 
Noel Evans said:
Heres how Id approach it - camera on dollied crane - dolly back and raise crane for reveal. Rarely seen a zoom shot that Ive liked outside of TV b roll.
Click to expand...

Cheers, yea that would be an ideal approach alright, though i never set out to use cranes or dollies on this film.
I know exactly what you mean about the zoom coming off cheap, but ive got an exact feel for how this should play out, so im willing to take a risk with it.
As i said its for the titles, so I want it to be the slowest move we can achieve, Tarkovsky slow!

Heres an example of something similar, from the opening of The Conversation, its just the other way around.
Id imagine thats a hefty piece of kit they used for this shot.
 
padraig conaty said:
...
Trying to get my head around the crop factor. With a 50mm lens with ETC mode on a Gh2, is that 200mm? So a 9-143mm would be 36-572mm? Not much different to your sigma lens above. What is the 35mm equivilant of a 12-120mm s 16mm zoom lens on a GH2 with ETC mode on?​
Click to expand...

​
Good explanation of GH2 ETC mode crop factor here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/panasonic_gh2_11_mode_revealed.shtml

So, briefly, using the methodology outlined by Luminous Landscape, the answers to your questions are:

a) the 35mm equivalent for a 50mm lens in ETC mode is 50 x 2 x 2.6 = 260mm
b) the 35mm equivalent for a 9-143 B4 lens in ETC mode is about 47-744mm
c) the 35mm equivalent for a 12-120 S16 lens in ETC mode is about 62-624mm

As you may already know, you can mount and externally power many B4 zoom lenses externally with a B4 to m4/3 mount, a 12V power supply and a 12V barrel connector to 12 pin cable.

41oBux13edL.jpg

Mounting a Super 16 lens is a lot easier, since those are manual zoom lenses. All you're likely to need is a simple (and relatively inexpensive) Arri B to m4/3 or Arri Standard to m4/3 adapter, depending on how the lens is mounted.

Good luck with your decision!

Bill
Hybrid Camera Revolution
Seeking the still/video singularity
 
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I'm curious what you'll land on, Padraig. Cool sounding shot. I've been looking into the S16 route myself. There's a couple older Angeniux's you can find on Ebay and the like from time to time, how those match up with still camera primes and what-not, I'm not sure. The problem with a lot of still camera designed zooms, of course, is they're typically not parfocal, not constant aperture, etc. Also, I hope you're not dissuaded by this zooms look cheap malarkey. Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" looks cheap? Pretty much every Altman movie, including some of the most beautiful pictures of all time such as "McCabe & Mrs Miller"? De Palma? David Gordon Green more recently? As ever it's all about execution. Your shot does not sound like "lazy" zooming. Lazy anything is bad. But I love zooms.
 
JeffHarriger said:
The problem with a lot of still camera designed zooms, of course, is they're typically not parfocal, not constant aperture, etc.
Click to expand...

You hit the nail on the head here. The movies you mentioned were filmed using cine zooms, a very expensive line of optics.

Two very different tools and looks.
 
In the case of still lenses, very different, but I'm still curious about the S16s with the ETC mode. In the relative terms we're talkin here, it's not a very different look, the issue is getting the range right with the crop factor and all the stuff discussed above by the folks who know more about than I do. Since Padraig mentioned being "Tarkovsky slow" (!), I'm confident that even if he went with the P2 camera he could pull it off without going all Duplass brothers on us, and if not achieving the holy grail look of a Coppola, could get close to, say, Rossellini's beautiful TV films he shot on 16, like "Louis XIV" etc, and that ain't bad (to me, maybe not the vibe he's shooting for). Zooms forever! (I think I'm coming off as more of a fan of em than I am)
 
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