With or without 35mm adapter

[David Evans]

Hi,

This summer I'm starting production of my feature film and one of the questions I wanted to ask to this group was:

I have a lot of wide shots of the city, where the shalow dof is not very important. For these kind of shots, should I use my Canon XH A1 with the SGBlade or without it? I'm asking this because a lot of people state that the 35mm adapters are not just about shallow DOF, but also for the whole organic movie look. But I was thinking of shooting the wide city shots without the 35mm adapter as it makes everything easier. What do you guys think?


Thanks!

 

[Egg Born Son]

Either use the adapter for the entire movie or not at all. The adapter imparts a look that will be missing if you don't use it and the footage won't sit together nicely without post manipulation and maybe not even then. If you use the adapt choose a wide angle lens at infinity focus, stop down and you'll be fine. If you are doing night cityscapes then change the shutter to 1/24 if there is no major foreground movement (will blur slightly) if you need to get a bit more light hitting the sensor. Alternatively shoot the whole film without it, concentrate on the story instead of the technical aspects.

Either way, perhaps you should try doing a short film first to familiarise yourself with your gear. This is basic stuff, you should be comfortable with it before such a major undertaking. At the very least get out there and do some tests prior to the shoot. You don't want to be standing there scratching your head while the people helping you out wait for you to figure out your gear.

 

[David Evans]

Thanks for your reply. Actually I've made quite a few shorts with this rig. I've done shorts with the SgBlade and without it. The only thing I never did (thus my post), was to mix 35mm shots and plain XH A1 shots. I'll have to use the A1 stripped in certain shots, namely steadycam shots cause I only have the Steadicam Merlin wich won't accomodate cameras with 35mm adapters... But I love the image of the SgBlade when I'm doing portrait shots, so I was wondering if I could use the best of both worlds...

 

[Egg Born Son]

Well there's nothing stopping you. Take some test footage of the types of shots you want to mix, render and edit a minute or two and see how it turns out. You might find the difference doesn't bother you. If you are only using the blade for portrait shots the bokeh might disguise the grain a bit (but not in the faces). Maybe some noise minimisation will help?

The main issues will be in the grain (you might be able to replicate it in post by recording some footage with the adapter pointed into a light without a lens on and mix that with the other footage, sounds like hard work though), there will be some light loss through the adapter to consider for matching footage although it won't be an issue with all the shots. The other issue which may or may not be apparent to your eye is that the 35mm lenses will have a different character to the XH A1 lens. All of which may or may not be acceptable to you.

I use the redrock myself and find I don't like the look of mixed footage but different adapters have different character. Best way to find out for sure is to try it and see. Have fun playing. Even if it doesn't work for this project you might find something to use in another. Two different looks. Like you mentioned I have to forgoe stabilisers entirely with the adapter rig. Too unwieldy, not to mention too heavy.