Interest in a multi-hour tutorial on lenses and lens adapters?

David Jimerson

David Jimerson

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Staff member
Call this a little bit of market research. :)

I wanted to gauge a level of interest in a full-blown, multi-DVD (though it probably will never actually be ON DVD) instructional on lenses and lens adapters in the same vein as Lighting for Film and Television. What lenses are, what they do for you, when to use particular lenses, why to use them.

It would run several hours and involve actual, scripted short films specifically to demonstrate lenses, with DP and director BTS and commentary, as well as the typical type of instruction (with cinematic, parody sketches and top-notch info) that's part of our DVD series.

Given its scope and quality, it'll probably end up priced in the same range as the Lighting DVD, more or less depending on final content.

It makes sense to do it if there's enough interest in it, so I wanted to get a feel for it.

Note: part of production, if it goes forward, will probably be funded by a Kickstarter or IndieGoGo campaign, the contributions to which will count toward purchase price -- so if you contribute, you'll get a copy.

Any thoughts?
 
David Jimerson said:
Call this a little bit of market research. :)

I wanted to gauge a level of interest in a full-blown, multi-DVD (though it probably will never actually be ON DVD) instructional on lenses and lens adapters in the same vein as Lighting for Film and Television. What lenses are, what they do for you, when to use particular lenses, why to use them.

It would run several hours and involve actual, scripted short films specifically to demonstrate lenses, with DP and director BTS and commentary, as well as the typical type of instruction (with cinematic, parody sketches and top-notch info) that's part of our DVD series.

Given its scope and quality, it'll probably end up priced in the same range as the Lighting DVD, more or less depending on final content.

It makes sense to do it if there's enough interest in it, so I wanted to get a feel for it.

Note: part of production, if it goes forward, will probably be funded by a Kickstarter or IndieGoGo campaign, the contributions to which will count toward purchase price -- so if you contribute, you'll get a copy.

Any thoughts?
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Surely to also include cinema lenses, yes? Sounds like a good way to get money to do a pretty great lens test with some conventional and unconventional lenses. :) Shoot it in LA and I can make all of your wildest lens dreams come true.
 
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I'd be interested. I'm not a pro in that department, especially when using it on Canon DSLR with crop factor. But I'd like to learn more about it for sure.
 
David Jimerson said:
Oh, we always try to dispel myths . . .
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I must admit that I did wait until the November discount for getting both the Lighting and Sound DVD's... but I'd buy such a DVD just to have as a reference, as is the case with most of my book/dvd purchases.

The Wife likes to give seminars and be in front of people... I keep up with the 'manuals' to make sure what she's talking about makes some 'technical' sense...

I don't expect that division of labor to change any time soon...
 
drapeama said:
In what Crop Factor is a myth!?
I mean, using a 50mm lens on a Canon DSLR means that it has the FOV of a 80mm lens (1.6x crop factor).


I second that!
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A 1.6x crop factor of what??? ... A 35mm still? A 3 chip 1/4 inch sensor video camera??? Standard 35mm movie frame? IMAX frame?

I think a discussion of 'for a given sensor size, or negative size, what is the expected angle of view, and by extension, height and width of the 'frame' at a given camera+lense to subject distance...' is worthy.

If of course all else fails... throw up your hands and say... 'yeah its 1.6x a still 35mm negative FOV... a format that some set of people have never shot on these days'...
 
Well I've finally got my head around most of the nuances of lenses, lens mounts, flange distance, crop-factors etc. but god knows it's taken me a good couple of years of slowly piecing everything together - a concise video/tutorial that explained everything would have had a lot of appeal for me back then.

So I think it's worthwhile doing.
 
drapeama said:
1.6x Crop Factor of an APS-C sensor, which is smaller than a FullFrame sensor, which is equivalent to a 35mm sensor.

Thanks Jim.
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Just stating '35mm full frame' is 'still camera centric'. The 'crop factor going from an APS-C to a 35mm Movie Film frame(*) is not '1.6'. It only makes sense if one is coming from a Still Photo background, and used 35mm 'full frame' negative film, unless one was lucky enough to have a 35mm digital camera that had the same (approx) size sensor as a Full Frame Still 35mm still.

APS-C is more on the order of standard 'movie film' frame sizes than the still 35mm, which has an aspect ratio of 1.5, rather than depending on additional 'cropping', 1.85, for traditional movie film, 2.40 (few digits of 1/100ths not withstanding), or the ever popular HD ratio of 1.72.

In fact, I think the 'full frame' of 35mm movie film is 1.33, and either the film is cropped to the aspect ratio desired with a gate mask, or with different sprocketing, to lessen 'wasted' space, if shooting at a different aspect ratio than 1.33.

The crop factor is sort of a crutch... it sort of like, when in a 'foreign' country, one refers all prices to 'dollars', then back again... rather than just calculating in the 'local currency'. Rather than thinking... if 7 euros gets you breakfast, then 20 will probably be the required amount for dinner. (and of course depending on choice of eateries...), some people go.... find an exchange... stare at the board... oh... uh... 7 euros is 1.36(today...) dollars for 1 euro... oh...then uh... where's my calculator... wait a minute... is it divide dollars in to euros... or multiply euros by dollars... 7 euro x 1.36 = (damn where is my calculator...) 9.52... damn that guy just ran off with my iPhone while I had it out calculating this stupid conversion... uh oh there's someone passing by... excuse me sir where is the police? I mean... ou est la police... what where am I... uh wo sind die Polizei...
 
Aargh... I wish this was out a few years ago, would have spared me a lot of trial and error. But I did finally figure out most of it. Therefore I would be interested, but only if it went into some depth, instead of being the same old same old repetition of obvious beginner stuff, cause most of us have that down anyway - so give us more of the expert stuff. One thing would definitely push me to buy this in an instant would be if you guys covered filters - because most of what I know about filters is from my own (limited) experience and a ton of reading people like Hurlbut... but given that you could easily spend a few hours on filters alone, I wonder just how deep this whole thing is going to be. Bottom line - if advanced enough, I'm interested.
 
Like the others, it will be designed to be accessible to beginners, to get them off the ground, helpful for intermediates to really understand the things they've already been doing but might not know why, and a handy reference for pros. The short films will showcase the lessons put into real-world narrative shooting scenarios.
 
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