How many cameras are usually used? And what lenses?

S

Stab

Well-known member
Im wondering about how many cameras are usually used in Hollywood or other professional narrative productions... I know a lot of angles have to be covered to make the cuts fluently but do they usually use 1, 2 or more cameras at the same time? Or just 1 and record many takes?

Also, not really related, but what focal lengths are used often in films? And does 35mm film has a crop factor like the 7D (and such) has?
 
On a film? Usually 1 with many takes at different angles. On a television show? Historically 3, but that's changed a lot recently.
 
35mm film does not have a crop factor mainly because it is the standard we use for the 'crop' factor being rated toward.

How many cameras on a set highly changes. Big films can be running three units at once with multiple cameras per unit. They also have specialty units and back-up units. Meaning 'A' Unit can have four cameras, two running, one back-up body, and perhaps a specialty camera like an eye-mo or 235 for handheld/crashcam/specialty etc. Then again, some big features that don't require as many cameras can have just one unit with one camera. Most big features have two units and many cameras despite how many are being used at one given time.
 
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Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
35mm film does not have a crop factor mainly because it is the standard we use for the 'crop' factor being rated toward.

How many cameras on a set highly changes. Big films can be running three units at once with multiple cameras per unit. They also have specialty units and back-up units. Meaning 'A' Unit can have four cameras, two running, one back-up body, and perhaps a specialty camera like an eye-mo or 235 for handheld/crashcam/specialty etc. Then again, some big features that don't require as many cameras can have just one unit with one camera. Most big features have two units and many cameras despite how many are being used at one given time.
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Yeah, but it's going to depend a lot on how complicated the blocking/staging is and whether there's a second unit. On an indie level, and especially DSLR level, you'll be using a single cam. Much easier to light for. You may in the future want a 2nd cam for master shots so you don't wear your talent out on a transitional. Or just cut off the filming of the master shot when you know you'll want to cut out of it on the edit.
 
He asked about Hollywood or big professional narrative productions. DSLR's are not spoken there. I don't care if anyone can list three exceptions (Last episode of House MD, etc). I used to work shipping/receiving at Panavision. I remember huge camera packages you wouldn't believe. Transformers 2 comes to mind...

I can only imagine what 3D films are doing. I've yet to work on a big 3D production (reds, alexa's, or F35's, etc.)

The hobbit alone has reserved the first 30 Epics. That's probably three units, several camera systems per unit, two cameras per system. Then you've got spare bodies in case some break, or go down.

I've noticed more Indie-films are going multiple camera for speed. It costs more, (double the camera staff and rentals) but you can get a mother-daughter Wide-Medium, or Medium-CU at one time. Plus you can cut between them effortlessly, and still be basically lighting for one shot versus two for cross-coverage. It saves some time.


As far as 'what lenses'... These are the ones you'll find on big sets most often.
1) Panavision Primos
2) Zeiss Master Primes / Ultra Primes
3)Cooke S4/i's
4) Angenieux Optimo Zooms.

Used less often, but around.
5) Arri Variable Primes
6) Fujinon Zooms
7) Hawk Anamorphics (C & V series)
8) Panavision G, E, or C series Anamorphics
9) Todd AO Anamorphics

New guys which I think will be seen more often and at greater numbers:
1) Cooke 5/i's
2) New Fujinon/Arri Alura Zooms
3) Lieca Summilux-C's
4) Hawk 1.33x Anamorphics (not terribly new, perhaps. :P )

Older guys that really big films use for certain 'character' when the look calls for it:
1) SuperSpeeds, Standard Speeds.
2) Cooke Speed Panchro (old ones)
3) Cooke Zooms (CXX not included)
^all good lenses, but on big feature budgets, they are usually used for their special inherent characteristics as they are no longer top game.
 
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Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
He asked about Hollywood or big professional narrative productions. DSLR's are not spoken there. I don't care if anyone can list three exceptions (Last episode of House MD, etc).
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That's cool. I thought it relevant to offer the DSLR perspective for contrast since he mentioned a 7D. But no, I'm not listing exceptions such as House here. :)
 
Thanks guys!

I thought 35mm PHOTO film was the standard for measuring crop factor actually. I am indeed linking all of this information to myself with my 60D and see how close I can come to 'professional' looking films in the future.
The 60D's (or 7D's / t2i) sensor is almost the same size as super 35mm film. Doenst that mean that a 50mm lens on a 60D has the same 'view' as a 50mm lens on a Super 35mm camera?

And for lenses I was actually more interested in the focal lenghts (and apertures) than the brands :)
How far will I come with my range of 17-50mm which gives me the view of a 28-80mm with the 1.6 crop factor?

28mm for the wides / master, 35mm for mediums, 50mm for medium-closes and 80mm for over the shoulders for example... Will that cover most of the most used ranges? Or do I simply need something longer also?
 
Stab said:
Thanks guys!

I thought 35mm PHOTO film was the standard for measuring crop factor actually. I am indeed linking all of this information to myself with my 60D and see how close I can come to 'professional' looking films in the future.
The 60D's (or 7D's / t2i) sensor is almost the same size as super 35mm film. Doenst that mean that a 50mm lens on a 60D has the same 'view' as a 50mm lens on a Super 35mm camera?

And for lenses I was actually more interested in the focal lenghts (and apertures) than the brands :)
How far will I come with my range of 17-50mm which gives me the view of a 28-80mm with the 1.6 crop factor?

28mm for the wides / master, 35mm for mediums, 50mm for medium-closes and 80mm for over the shoulders for example... Will that cover most of the most used ranges? Or do I simply need something longer also?
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Crop factor is really a term given to one variable when compared to another. In photography, people do use 35mm photography as their point of reference in which to base the crop's 'factor' to. If you were discussing cinematography and mentioned crop factor, I'd assume you were talking about video sensor sizes, thus assume 35mm motion picture film, probably super 35mm more specifically. If we were talking about the 5DmII while discussing other cameras to match it and I mention a crop factor, I'll most likely be using the 5DmII as the reference point. Crop factor just describes the difference between two mediums. Which mediums being referred to should be either specified or be easily identified from the context of the conversation. In this case, it's probably S35mm motion picture film, or regular 35mm motion picture film (they aren't terribly far off from each other). Most likely if not otherwise specified, cinematography will be S35mm (vertical w/o sndtrck) and photography will be 35mm photography (horizontal).

On Super 35mm Motion picture film (or sensor size equiv) a standard set of professional lenses which typically cover the desired range of the DP would be from 18mm -100mm. That is the basic range. However films can go outside these boundaries for very powerful visual effects. I know lots of 'Fear and Loathing' used a 10mm Zeiss Standard Speed, while many films find above 100mm is appropriate for some shots, such as the 'Panavised' 800mm with doubler (1600mm) Canon lens used on some shots in Transformers II. But for the most part, say a comedy, typical drama, etc.... the range is 18-100. You'll find it's usually a six lens set at 18,25,35,50,85,100 or 18,25,32,50,75,100.
Now there are also two lenses within that range which aren't necessarily standard in most lens sets but I consider two very important and often used lengths, that is the 40mm and 65mm. The 40mm is just a great naturally pleasing perspective, while the 65mm is a beautiful portrait lens if you don't want to go as high as a 75 or 85.

It's up to you what lens to use for what kind of shot. You can get a wide angle close up and a wide shot with a telephoto. It's all up to you! :) I know Janusz Kaminski has said the 27mm is his favorite lens (back during his Amistad days, btw).... Micheal Ballhaus, ASC, BVK discussing one of his films once said "Doing a close-up with an 18mm lens was something new for me, but it worked and was more dynamic. I liked that, but it was an adjustment I had to make. That type of style wouldn't be correct for every movie, but it was in this case because it feels different. In a close-up with an 18mm lens, even if the actor moves just a few inches, the effect is very different than if you're using a 50mm lens. There is a magnification to the change."

Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC (one of my favs (Go watch cinematography in 'Little Princess' and 'Meet Joe Black', amaziiiing)) had the following to say about his lens selection on Sleepy Hollow:"We didn't use a lot of lenses to shoot the movie. The 40mm was our long lens; sometimes, when we just couldn't get the shots that we wanted with the 40mm, we used the 50mm, and once or twice the 75mm. In general, though, the 40mm was our longest lens and the 21mm was our widest. The 27mm was our normal lens, and we also used the 35mm. In my opinion, when you start combining a lot of lenses, the look becomes a bit too rococo or baroque-- there are too many different variations, and you lose something intangible. We wanted to keep the look of the film consistent. I definitely like using wider lenses, because they immediately put the actors in a context. I don't like looking at anamorphic movies where they shoot the actors with a 180mm lens and the backgrounds go soft-- you don't know where you are. I like to show the characters in their environments; I think that enhances the story."

While discussing Lubezki's dislike for using too many lens variations within a scene/film, the following legendary cinematographer takes it one step further, to the extreme. One of the best cinematographers of all time, Robert Surtees, on one of the best shot films of 1971, The Last Picture Show, shot the entire film on one lens; "The entire picture was photographed with one lens, a 28mm. We used it for every shot, although it did cause something of a sound problem with camera noise when we would move in for the close-ups. Bogdanovich wouldn't even allow a zoom lens on the set."

So there you go. You ask a question and I talk for 10 min just to tell you there's no answer. :)
 
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Thanks for your replies and time Ryan!

So there is virtually no crop factor, when I compare my 60D to s35 film right? That means 50mm on the 60D is (almost) the same as 50mm on a s35mm camera?

Then I probably need to buy a longer lens before I start to shoot a narrative with the 60D :)
 
Stab said:
Thanks for your replies and time Ryan!

So there is virtually no crop factor, when I compare my 60D to s35 film right? That means 50mm on the 60D is (almost) the same as 50mm on a s35mm camera?

Then I probably need to buy a longer lens before I start to shoot a narrative with the 60D :)
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The APS-C sensor size is the closest sensor size to that of motion picture S35mm I know of. So yes, it would serve as a very close preview of what you'd get with S35mm film or S35mm digital cinema cameras.

But it's not exact:
Super 35mm (full aperture) for S35mm 1.85 extract I believe is 24 x 12.97mm. The 60D photography camera is 22.3 x 14.9mm. However that is the photo-sensor. I assume the video you record or preview would be 16:9 HD... which if we keep the horizontal resolution in tact would give the vertical a proportion of about 22.3 x 12.6mm. However, again, S35mm is not 16:9 (1.77:1). It's actually 1.85:1. So unless the 60D does a different process besides cropping some excess vertical resolution to get 16:9 aspect, the FoV you will be seeing will almost be exactly that of S35mm film, except there will always be a tiny difference from film being slightly bigger in horizontal FoV, and having a slightly more narrow FoV (1.85) than the 60D (1.77).

So APS-C is just a little bit smaller and has a different aspect ratio, but is darn near close.
 
Stab said:
Thanks for your replies and time Ryan!

So there is virtually no crop factor, when I compare my 60D to s35 film right? That means 50mm on the 60D is (almost) the same as 50mm on a s35mm camera?

Then I probably need to buy a longer lens before I start to shoot a narrative with the 60D :)
Click to expand...


For 'still' cameras the 'crop factor' is relative to the standard 35mm 'still' format which is 24mm x 36mm and the longest dimension is in the direction of the film transport. So, such 'crop factors' as 2x, for something like the GH-1, say, are relative to the still film spec.

For more 'movie camera' comparisons of 'crop factor', here's an example set from Abel Cine Tech (I wasn't able to find this on their site 'easily'... so posting from someone's blog...)

35mm-digital-sensors-chart_final_1200.jpg
 
One thing I'm curious about - distortion. Now, it seems that all lenses below 50mm have some sort of fish-eye distortion, even a 35mm has a bit. It's usually said that a 85mm is the portrait-esque lens because of how it compresses the face, but is that in terms of crop sensors or full frame? As the 50mm gets near 85mm in terms of FOV with the crop sensor, so does the fact that you have to back up a bit to get a true 50mm look also compress the face just as well? It just seems as though 50mmis the most popular focal length, so I'm just wondering if it makes things look as good as say a 85mm or 135mm.
 
not all lenses below 50mm have fish-eye/barrel distortion. They are more prone to such things but special glass shapes(aspherical) can be used to lessen that.

Wider lenses will make your background look farther away and tele lenses will make it look closer to the subject.

wider lenses will accentuate features, in a small amount, of anything towards the center of the frame in relation to the edges. this is especially true of fish-eyes which do it to a much greater amount. This will make faces look strange, noses will be wider and eyes that look farther apart than they really are.

People tend to use the middle range of focal lengths because of the balance of focal depth and minimal distortion. That's what makes the 40-100 range the most useful for portrait style framing.

All of this is in terms of full frame as the original use of all of this was for portraits.

However, as Ryan touched on, everything is relative. It's going to depend on what your lens was designed for, what it's used on and what negative/sensor size you intend to shoot.
 
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Ok so now I understand :P

I will never talk about crop factor again when talking about my 60D sensor and lenses, as it is almost the same as movie camera sensors used in Hollywood anyway :P

So I have a Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 zoom and a 50mm 1.8 prime. The Tamron scores excellent on sharpness tests, even on the wide end so it can be used as a 20mm and 35mm prime I guess and the Canon 50mm speaks for itself.

Is it 'vital' to buy me another lens? Like a 80mm or 120mm prime or something with that zoom range?
Or is 50mm sufficient for over the shoulder shots of conversations, with a nice blurry background?
Or do you need to shoot from further away with a longer lens?
 
Stab said:
Is it 'vital' to buy me another lens? Like a 80mm or 120mm prime or something with that zoom range?
Or is 50mm sufficient for over the shoulder shots of conversations, with a nice blurry background?
Or do you need to shoot from further away with a longer lens?
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I'd say it depends on the context of the shot. A telephoto can constrict space between the two subjects and lend a feeling of intimacy. Also, for an internal reverse it's better to go slightly more telephoto IMO so it doesn't look like you're shooting up the subject's nose and you give the talent more room in which to work.
 
re: Telephoto and apparent 'distance' compression... "lend a feeling of intimacy."

'iintimacy'... such as a car bearing down on a guy running down the street... in reality, due to the 'compression' effect, the car is way further back than it appears...
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
re: Telephoto and apparent 'distance' compression... "lend a feeling of intimacy."

'iintimacy'... such as a car bearing down on a guy running down the street... in reality, due to the 'compression' effect, the car is way further back than it appears...
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He asked about "over the shoulder shots of conversations, with a nice blurry background". I'd prefer to use an 85mm on a near to full frame sensor for reverses. But, again, it depends on the context and the overall visual strategy.
 
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