Giant director's lens?

Its a directors viewfinder, theres a few differnt types.

There are some that are very small (like a small film canister thing from a stills camera) that you pull in and out to get different focal distances.

The one speilberg has is a propper one, its got a lens mount on it (probably a Panavision one) and you use the camera lens on the front of it. its not dissimilar to a 35mm adapter, it has a ground glass projection screen and a flip prism so the director can see the image as it will be, through the lens.

Atleast I think this is what hes got, correct me if im wrong.

I was always abit nervous about giving the director a proper prime lens worth 25,000 pounds, directors are often abit runny-jumpy, dont want to damage anything...
 
hoarp001 said:
Its a directors viewfinder, theres a few differnt types.

There are some that are very small (like a small film canister thing from a stills camera) that you pull in and out to get different focal distances.

The one speilberg has is a propper one, its got a lens mount on it (probably a Panavision one) and you use the camera lens on the front of it. its not dissimilar to a 35mm adapter, it has a ground glass projection screen and a flip prism so the director can see the image as it will be, through the lens.

Atleast I think this is what hes got, correct me if im wrong.

I was always abit nervous about giving the director a proper prime lens worth 25,000 pounds, directors are often abit runny-jumpy, dont want to damage anything...
Click to expand...


I would surely be the same way.
 
Hoarp001 got it. It's a viewfinder that actually allows the very lens that's going onto the camera to be viewed through. That way, everyone sees everything (vignetting, depth of field, etc.) before deciding on the lens.
 
Thanks for the explanation. One other, slightly more tricky question, is that on the 'Titanic' BTS videos, Cameron has one of the director's viewfinders with a lens on it, but he also has an external, handheld LCD plugged into it to watch the shot without looking through an eyepiece.

Closest I've found is this...
http://media.panavision.com/ReferenceLibrary/pdfs/accessories/pvau_finder.pdf

but that only shows up on the Panavision Australian website and I haven't found any equivalent to it from another company.

Anyone know of another director's viewfinder that has an LCD screen on it, or at least a connection for one?
 
Gohanto said:
Thanks for the explanation. One other, slightly more tricky question, is that on the 'Titanic' BTS videos, Cameron has one of the director's viewfinders with a lens on it, but he also has an external, handheld LCD plugged into it to watch the shot without looking through an eyepiece.

Closest I've found is this...
http://media.panavision.com/ReferenceLibrary/pdfs/accessories/pvau_finder.pdf

but that only shows up on the Panavision Australian website and I haven't found any equivalent to it from another company.

Anyone know of another director's viewfinder that has an LCD screen on it, or at least a connection for one?
Click to expand...

There are many Directors viewfinders available in the states, which have a video tap. The one you see from Australia is a bit more rare because it has a recording deck built right into it! Most just do not have video tap, some have video tap which you can take to a screen or deck, the rarest are the ones with built in dv tape decks for recording.
 
I've always wanted one of these. Does anybody have any experience with them? What should you buy, and where. And how much should you spend?
 
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