lensbaby in motion?

[ccortez]

http://www.lensbabies.com

Can anybody tell me why one of these wouldn't work with a c-mount to nikon adapter on my beaulieu R16? I'm absolutely sure it would be very difficult to maintain anything like intentional focus with moving subjects and a moving camera, but the accidents might be unbelievable!

My friend has the Nikon version of this thing, I have the adapter to c-mount, and I'm tempted to try it. It may not cover the 16mm frame. If it works on 35mm film cameras, I'm certain it would cover 16mm. If it only works on DSLRs, it may not, as the CMOS frame size --> 35mm ratio is usually something like 1.5. Even still, it should at least come close to covering 16mm.

Anyway, I think I'm going to play with it and hopefully post something here once I get results back. The opportunity to control not only the depth of focus but also the direction of focus is irresistable!

I doubt anybody has done this before, but I haven't tried to verify that yet either. Does this look wildly interesting to anybody else?

[ccortez]

EDIT: It does claim to work with film SLRs, so I can't find any reason it wouldn't be just great on 16mm movie cameras. Might be a headache to watch, but it also might be a unique take on the horror/dream/drug sequence.

[MovieStuff]

Hah! Very cool. I wonder, though, if the smaller frame of super 8 or 16mm might make the "sweet spot" larger than normal. I mean, the whole reason these lenses work is because of the larger image area of a 35mm or digital camera. The "sweet spot" might end up being larger than the entire super 8 frame! What looks selective and cool in 35mm might just end up looking like a crappy lens in 8mm.

Roger

[ccortez]

I think it would in 8/S8, but I'm going to try it in 16mm. I did have the same concern for 16mm, though... could just look like the dead middle of a cheap lens. ;-)

EDIT: Note that it is meant for a digital SLR -- Our Rebel XTs have a multiplier of 1.6 to get to the equiv frame of 35mm film, which gets us to 21.875; only a little bigger than 16. Am I think about this correctly?

There's an adapter for something like .6, coming out to the equiv. of a 35mm lens; that should make the sweet spot smaller. Moreso, the macro adapter.

[lunni]

Haven't tried the lensbabies lens, but I have an equivalent DIY setup on my D70, using a medium format Biometar 80mm lens. What comes to image quality I bet my set up beat lensbabies... Anyhow, I've done some animation tests with this set up and planning to use it in my next short. So no experince with live shooting, but what I've learned from animation tests I'm tempted to try it with cine camera too.

[Evan Kubota]

It'll definitely cover the 16mm frame - even the smaller CCD DSLRs have a larger imaged area than 16mm. Of course, the 'sweet spot' might not even always be in the frame. I think it's better for a no-risk setup like a digital camera where you can just keep shooting, since the position settings aren't repeatable.

[Pelle.txt]

Hey,

I use a lensbaby with my Beaulieu 6008s and it works really well. I get sharp images. I used it with PlusX and E64.

I never use the apenture disks that came with the babylens. I use ND-filters to get right exposure. That works well. With the standard apenture of 2.0 you get the best most out of the lens. With a apenture of 4.0 for example the blur is a lot less or there is no blur at all.

Pelle

[Will2]

Unless you're projecting the film, it seems like you could achieve the same effects with After Effects and have much more control over it... and you could use your best lenses for a really sharp "sweet spot."

It would be fun to try, but they aren't free...

[Evan Kubota]

"Unless you're projecting the film, it seems like you could achieve the same effects with After Effects and have much more control over it..."

And you could select objects by their placement within the depth of field? That would be a hell of a version of AE and I'd love to get my hands on it ;)

Seriously, doing it that way negates the cool part of that device - the shallow DOF and constrained focus area.

[Justin Lovell]

also, when trying to imitate the focus using AE/ FX, gausian blurs will also soften the grain. Mattis pointed this out to me when talking about the use of soft focus filters instead of FX soft blurs.

This will be especially noticeable when using super 8/reg 8, as the grain characteristics is what really stands out about this format.