Other: ZEISS LWZ.3 21-100mm/T.2.9-3.9 T Announced

morgan_moore said:
The thing in is in much film making you want to..

Show where we are.. establish the locaiton
Show the subjects relationship to that location
Show what the subject is doing

Irrelevant of format of imager you want to tell the story. (unless of course you dont!)

Read. (S35)
Whole Kitchen with chef 16mm
Chef at cutting table, 28mm
OTS of chef looking from him to chopping board 28mm
CU of chef face 85 or 100
CU of chef hands chopping 85 or 100

These shots are known to cut.

So the ideal is a 16-100 but you take what you can afford/carry
Click to expand...

Or shoot it all on a 32mm and move forwards or backwards.

I've shot chefs. And in fact shot chefs for a drama, and never needed a 16mm. Or a 100mm. Some people like to use all the focal lengths. Some people prefer to maintain a field of view and get in there.

EDIT: I see this has all been covered.
 
morgan_moore said:
Doug

A lot of us shoot for directors who will be saying..
'show me the room'
'bash in on his hands'
'bash in on the couple on the other side of the road'

It doesnt matter if we like these shots, we are just doing our job in providing them to the director.

S
Click to expand...

To be honest unless it is something really kack like an event thing I'm doing, I won't shoot something I don't like, but then I usually know in advance what people are going to want and so I plan around it. If someone wants an awful shot I'm happy to show why it is awful and how we can achieve the same thing in a non-awful way. It's not my job to be a button monkey. It's my job to make the visuals work as best they can. And the art of diplomacy in handling those situations without ruffling feathers is a delicate one.
 
JackCarter said:
Stanley Kubrick would shot many shots on an 18mm lens. I believe with Eyes Wide Shut Stanley never used a focal length below 18mm.
Click to expand...


Conversely for A Very Long Engagement and Amelie Bruno Delbonnel didn't go any focal length longer than a 27mm and used 21mm, 25mm and 27mm almost exclusively on them. (Amelie also used a 14 & 18 for super distorted faces in CU)

Delbonnel explains that each face is rendered differently by a given lens, and before shooting Amélie, the filmmakers sought the ideal lens for the actress. “We did tests to find out the focal lengths and the camera height that suited her best. Jean-Pierre doesn’t like to have a camera at eye height, so there’s always a slight tilt up or down. With a short focal length, a tilted camera quickly becomes significant in terms of perspective. We found the slight tilt angle, usually a tilt up, which was the limit that Audrey’s face can take. We saw that her face worked well with the 25mm and 27 mm. The 21mm still works for her, but you have to be careful; the 18mm doesn’t work, nor does the 35mm.”
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Ben Scott said:
It's not my job to be a button monkey. It's my job to make the visuals work as best they can. And the art of diplomacy in handling those situations without ruffling feathers is a delicate one.
Click to expand...

Exactly. That is what it is all about. And if a client can't appreciate that approach, I get a new client.
 
icarusfilm said:
That would make Roger Deakins who shoots all of his films almost exclusively on a 32mm Masterprime the king of mediocre videography.
Click to expand...
No. It's not just about focal length. You can shoot wides with a 32mm, you can shoot close. I'm not arguing about focal length, just that wides are cinematic and mid-shots are what you mainly see on the news...
 
I love me a good wide, followed by an ECU. Proper Leone stuff.

Hard to do in someone's council flat the production team got to borrow for the shoot :(
 
I used to be that guy the tried to please and give the director whatever he wanted. In recent years I've become "difficult to work with" and lost a bunch of these clients the ones that stayed were interesting enough the better ones with the higher budgets that have recommended me to their peers. I don't miss the once I lost.
I think it's a lesson to be learned you don't need to please everybody and it's ok to let go of someone who is holding you back.
 
I'm never difficult. Just umm.. persuasive.

Always happy to let someone else think it was their idea if it means I get to do the shot I want.
 
One of the things I find annoying about these 'almost ran' lenses - and why their makers dont understand the market - is that they are IMO all about jobs that involve button pushing for a director - the sort of jobs that often dont have the budget to justify them yet they are not even going to please that director!

When Im self directing Im generally using primes or my 50-300 which can really fill a frame from a bit back.

Yep im interested in £2k for the sony one to please the button pushers - I think the IS will be handy. But multiple KG and $$ of liability doesnt really appeal - because the clients that like a bit of bohek and allow my to stand where I want will be happy with my $80 50 1.8

S
 
I'm sorry but I refuse to consider this an 'almost' lens in any way.

This lens will be a megastar. The Angies too.

Suggesting Zeiss don't understand the market is kinda crazy too.

Market leaders in top tier glass with Master Primes and new Master Anamorphics and prior to that Ultra Primes and even Digi Primes.
Market Leaders in entry level Cine lenses in the CP2 lenses that have been huge hits for years.
Market Leaders in top end stills glass for video with ZE/ZF and now Milvus and Otus
Full frame LWZ absolutely smashing it and finding favour with everyone that uses them.

They have native e mount full frame glass with clickless aperture.
They have full frame e mount glass with fast AF

And now a 21-100mm Zeiss zoom for £8,500 inc VAT? That's insane.

Don't bother trying to compare to a stills lens you may have with more range. They are nothing alike, and just because you can use your stills zoom or your $80 50mm prime, it doesn't reflect badly on the Zeiss. The Zeiss is competing upwards, not downwards.
 
Ben Scott said:
To be honest unless it is something really kick like an event thing I'm doing, I won't shoot something I don't like. It's not my job to be a button monkey.
Click to expand...


Gotta be honest, at 4AM after 13 straight hours of handheld on some trashy reality tv show, with no lunch break other than stuffing down part of a Subway tuna sandwich while swapping out batteries, I'm okay with being little more than a button monkey and I don't give much of a flip about the focal length used to document two drunk transvestites sitting on a couch smoking weed and arguing over which of them has more realistic looking tits.

Pondering what lens Kubrick or Zemeckis would have used for this scene isn't something I find myself doing. :tongue:
 
Ha! You picked a great example of where coverage is more important. Reportage/News and reality may all fall under that. At the same time they may all also fall under the 'does this really need to be on S35?' category too a lot of the time. Depends on the specifics dunnit. I don't do those crazy crazy hour jobs too much any more.

So who had the better ones?
 
Ben Scott said:
I'm sorry but I refuse to consider this an 'almost' lens in any way. .
Click to expand...

Well we disagree.

If Im shooting drama id often use a 14 or 18, Id also regularly be at 2.8 or 2 so it would be on and off all day

If I were doing a 70s cop show pastiche Id want a zoom lens that didnt ramp

If I were servicing a director Id want the range of a 2/3 camera with a 4.5

If I were stuck behind a barrier at an event Id often want a 150

This lens offers none of those things.

I just dont think there is a market who want zeiss look yet will compromise on Tstop and FOV.

The Stigmas look great as they genuinely appear to offer a choice against a bag of primes
The Sony looks great as it is an affordable button pusher solution (we hope!)

The Zeiss only seems any good in a Chopper.. as in the promo vid (!) For chopper jobs Id pick it - if the rest of the show was being done with matching glass.

I shot 10X60 with the 17-135 canon and still spent a wodge of time ramming a non par focal doubler behind it or dropping it on the pavement while swapping it out for a 100mm macro.. and that was the better specced lens

To be fair is some one gave one of the zeiss to me as a gift Id probably use it a lot!

S
 
Last edited:
Yep.. absolutely.. those cameras should be have been hired for the shows that I have shot.

I think the those shows speccing Fs7 was a production error.

Personally Im pretty happy with my FS7 my BMC micro.. and EX1 (!)

S
 
Oh yes they something really super special. Not a use in every case lens but they are going to make some beautiful pictures.
 
Last edited:
morgan_moore said:
Well we disagree.

If Im shooting drama id often use a 14 or 18, Id also regularly be at 2.8 or 2 so it would be on and off all day

If I were doing a 70s cop show pastiche Id want a zoom lens that didnt ramp

If I were servicing a director Id want the range of a 2/3 camera with a 4.5

If I were stuck behind a barrier at an event Id often want a 150

This lens offers none of those things.

I just dont think there is a market who want zeiss look yet will compromise on Tstop and FOV.

The Stigmas look great as they genuinely appear to offer a choice against a bag of primes
The Sony looks great as it is an affordable button pusher solution (we hope!)

The Zeiss only seems any good in a Chopper.. as in the promo vid (!) For chopper jobs Id pick it - if the rest of the show was being done with matching glass.

I shot 10X60 with the 17-135 canon and still spent a wodge of time ramming a non par focal doubler behind it or dropping it on the pavement while swapping it out for a 100mm macro.. and that was the better specced lens

To be fair is some one gave one of the zeiss to me as a gift Id probably use it a lot!

S
Click to expand...

Do you really pick glass based on whether it could handle doing a 70s cop show pastiche?

Are there even any 70s cop show pastiches in production?

Just because it isn't right for you it doesn't mean it isn't right for a ton of other people. Let's revisit this in a year's time and see how well that lens is doing. I imagine it is going to be the FS7 of cine lenses.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top