Crews.TV Stills - Now available uncompressed

Right. If you're on a paid professional gig with a crew getting paid by the hour, you'd better have proper cine lenses available to not waste time adjusting the mattebox for every lens, or having to do another take because the focus wheel on your SLR lens is finicky. Usability in those scenarios is much more important than saving money on lens costs, because ultimately the cheaper lens will cost you more money on crew overtime payments.

If you're shooting your indie film at home, with a crew of 4 and nobody is getting paid except with pizza and beer, then save the dough and go with SLR lenses. Do however many takes you need to get the focus right, and enjoy the fact that you shot the movie on less than $500 worth of glass. :)
Preach it, brother! This is exactly correct. Time is money. Some people have money (a budget, etc) and therefore no time -- your crew, your actors, your locations, everything costs money, and the clock is ticking, and the time you spend screwing around with SLR lenses is time that your whole crew is sitting around waiting. Other people have no money, so they have to compensate by spending more time. There's no free lunch, you're gonna pay one way or the other. For some productions, you cannot afford to use SLR glass. For other productions, you simply cannot afford to use cine glass.

But that doesn't mean SLR glass is as good as cine glass for the purpose of making moving images. Nothing, really, could be further from the truth. Cine glass exists for many reasons. Just because you can get great results, does not mean that it's as good. Here, let me give you an example. Do you know what the imaging difference is, in the final end-projected theatrical image, between THIS camera:
eyemo.gif


and THIS camera?
aaton_penelope_20081001_4436.jpg


NOTHING! The end result produced by both of those cameras is absolutely identical. Put the same lens on the front, and the same film stock in, and you'll get the identical end result.* But the Eyemo costs $300 on ebay, and the Penelope costs $120,000. So who in their right mind would spend 400x as much on the Aaton? Anybody and everybody who possibly could. There's much, much more to making images, than just the final result.

Of course, to people who simply cannot afford the better gear, they can soldier on and struggle through with the lesser stuff. In fact, the Emmy I won, was for a spot shot on an Eyemo. I'm not knocking the Eyemo, but ... seriously, nobody who ever had a choice would use an Eyemo instead of, well, even a BL1. (unless you need it as a crash camera or you need a tiny camera).

In fact, this reasoning is exactly the same as the DSLR vs. the AF100. There are many reasons why the AF100 is vastly superior, and better images is only one of them, and even if the image was exactly the same (with all the same issues), there are still many of us who would consider all the other advantages of the AF100 important enough to make the cost well worth it.

*for the pedantic, yes we all know that there might be minor differences due to shutter angle or slight registration issues, but ... come on, you get the point. :thumbsup:
 
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that's true I always wondered about that. an arri 535 or any top cinema 35mm camera wouldn't it technically produce the identical image as crappy home made 35mm camera since in film cinema the "sensor" is the actual film negative and as long as the cameras aer both using the same film negative and the same thing to filter the image through TO that negative (i.e. the same lenses) then the image should be identical, as the "body" of the camera makes no difference. this is same concept as if you took the Red One brain/sensor and put it inside of a GH1 body well technically it should produce the same exact image as the body makes no difference it's all in the sensor/brain
 
That's pretty much correct. As long as the film is held steadily in place with the same registration, and the shutter sweeps across the film similarly... I mean, there's not a whole lot to the imaging chain of a movie camera. The results could/should be identical, when using identical glass. It's everything OTHER than the end results, that make the Penelope worth 400x more. Same with cinema glass. And it would be the same with the AF100, if it wasn't for the fact that the imaging is also substantially improved over the DSLR due to the elimination and reduction of the imaging problems the SLRs encounter, such as jello, moire, aliasing, and soft/muddy res.
 
i found my knob impresses them more. the knob on the followfocus that is

Ah, do you polish it to a nice sheen or leave it natural? I know everyone around here enjoys a good tip, but if you want to keep it a secret man, I totally understand. It's really all about balancing usability and flashiness. In any case, its important to make sure assistants can get on their mark.
 
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