2 x NEW HDV cameras from Sony with interchangeable lenses

	Re: 2 x NEW HDV cameras from Sony with interchangeable lenses by Todd at Fantastic Plastic on Sep 9, 2007 at 3:53:26 pm [drazen] "What does this really mean? Remove the stock lense, use the sony special adaptor and attach nikon lenses?" Basically, yes... that simply means that you are not stuck with the stock video zoom lens that comes on the camera... that you can remove it and use the lens of your choice (providing Sony makes adapters with the appropriate mounts). You could also take off the lens and use a lens converter (a DoF converter) so that you could use real cine PL mount prime lenses to restore true 35mm shallow depth of field. T2 __________________________________ Todd Terry Creative Director Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc. fantasticplastic.com Respond to this post     Return to posts index

	Re: 2 x NEW HDV cameras from Sony with interchangeable lenses by Todd at Fantastic Plastic on Sep 9, 2007 at 7:51:02 pm [drazen] "Would that also include a dof converter such as sgpro, letus or brevis....stucking onto the camera them when removing the stock lense provided..." Yes, you can use lens converters on cameras that do not have removable lenses, including the various converters you mentioned. In my experience (and we shoot almost every day with DoF converters) I just prefer using a camera with a removable lens and a converter that can be directly attached. For example, I use the Canon XLH1 and the P+S Mini35. That way you are not shooting through the camcorder's native lens (a lens which, although might be fairly good, is not going to be nearly the quality of a real cine lens that you might stick in front of it). Plus with those converters that attach to the front of the stock lens you can wind up with a combersome rig literally three feet long. If you attach an SLR lens directly to a camcorder (not using a lens converter, other than mount), you can get the benefit of using much better glass than may be on the stock native lens (it wont change depth of field control). But remember because of the small sensor size v. a 35mm frame that the effective focal length of two times or more (I forget what the exact math is) for any given lens. Also, still camera primes are notoriously difficult for pulling accurate focuses on moving subjects, because the focus ring only turns a short distance to go through the entire range of the lens... unlike a cine lens which requires almost a full barrel turn. Also, many still camera lenses breath pretty badly... not a problem for stills but can be annoying in moving video. We tried Nikkor still lenses and the looked very good, but were hard to use, so we switched to PL mount cine primes. T2 __________________________________ Todd Terry Creative Director Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc. fantasticplastic.com Respond to this post     Return to posts index

	Re: 2 x NEW HDV cameras from Sony with interchangeable lenses by Todd at Fantastic Plastic on Sep 10, 2007 at 1:41:18 am Hey drazen... Yeah, our rig is a little big gangly, but not too Frankensteinish... It looks like this: Even though we have a sweet superspeeds primes set I didn't intend to buy them at first. We tried to use Nikkors too, as we already had a nice collection of still camera lenses and a Nikon mount for the lens converter, but I almost tore my hair out they were so difficult to use. So we started renting lenses. The problem is, I live in a city with virtually no film production, so the nearest rental house is 100 miles away. It became such a pain to try to organize shoots, make sure the lenses were reserved, make sure insurance was in order, and schlep down to the Greyhound station to pick up the lenses, that we finally bit the bullet and bought our own. What I was suprized at was that the market for lenses (esp PL mount cine lenses) was really really tight... it took me forever to find the exact set I wanted, and ended up paying more for them than I had planned... prices really seemed to have jumped up over the last year, especially for superspeeds. The sad part is, the lenses cost a great great deal more than the lens converter, and the converter cost a fair bit more than the camera... so it was a project that got expenentially more expensive. But it has worked like a charm, paid for itself very quickly, and I have no regrets at all about going this route. It has worked so well that we have only shot 35mm film maybe once since we started using this system. If you want to look at one of the more budget-priced converters, I've seen great images out of the little Brevis35 (some of the other converters I can't say such good things about). T2 __________________________________ Todd Terry Creative Director Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc. fantasticplastic.com Respond to this post     Return to posts index

	Re: 2 x NEW HDV cameras from Sony with interchangeable lenses by Todd at Fantastic Plastic on Sep 11, 2007 at 4:37:19 am Hi Bruce... Yes, for work on stage we capture directly into the NLEs via HD-SDI. Fortunately (though luck, not through good planning), one of our suites is just separated from the soundstange by just a single wall... and another suite upstairs is a fairly straight shot up and over by 10 feet or so... so those suites are cabled directly to the camera. On location... we typically just record to HDV tape. I know HDV has its detractors, but so far I think it looks fantastic. Soon we hope to be recording via HD-SDI in the field... Convergent-Design is releasing a flash recorder soon (well actually, they have already released it, but their highest data rate one is not available yet). I also have a techie bud who plans to develop a portable RAID that in theory will easily record uncompressed HD, so hopefully we will be going to one of those systems before too long. T2 __________________________________ Todd Terry Creative Director Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc. fantasticplastic.com Respond to this post     Return to posts index