Digital BW, The Print

I have worked in feature, industrial, and a lot of TV (TV is a horse of another colour), and in my experience and others I have worked with, it is rare to find a zoom on ther front of a film camera. I don't doubt that some people do, but an important point to make, and you do touch on it, is the cost. It is extrememly rare for a good DP to take an off the shelf optic without putting it through a bunch of tests, and if necessary have it modified. While there are adapters to mount Nikon or Canon to the front end of an Arri or Aaton, by the time they get on to the front of the camera, they are NOT the same as what you buy from "acme photo and stuff inc"

The "fanatical about shading the light" . . . it is a tragedy that most still guys just don't understand the issue . . . they are in all honesty, bozos for not trying to fix a problem that costs so little to take care of . . . and makes such a huge difference in final image quality.

My original reason for bringing up what film people do was simply to show how "problems" should be approached. I have never met a film person who didn't understand it, I have frequently met (and read here and elsewhere) still guys who just don't have a clue.

all the best
Paul Aparycki
  From: bruce greene 
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 9:07 PM
  Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Digest Number 2616


  Paul,

  A little OT...Just for the curious.

  I work on feature films. From my experience, we use zooms more often 
  than primes. We just don't often zoom during the shot and we are 
  fanatical about shading the lens from stray light.

  Some of the newest cinema zooms are quite good, easily equal to the 
  older (10 year old) zeiss primes. The newest primes are incredibly high 
  contrast and sharp. Many cinematographers place diffusion filters in 
  front of the lens to cut down on the harshness of the lens.

  These cinema zooms do cost upwards of $50,000 though and some weigh 
  20lbs or so. Not used for handheld of course:)

  I have shot a lot of stuff with lightweight zooms converted from pro 
  still camera lenses(17-35 and 27-60something). Bet you couldn't tell, 
  even though in a lens test they don't look so good. I wouldn't use them 
  on a still camera unless I had to.

  -back to our regularly scheduled program

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