Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1953)

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155 |fr* '■ t»" " rii i) i i« H 11 fl 1! II 1 1 II II II II II i ! II -. . •• ■ ■ irl! II II I ... ;: ii i FIG. 1: Marked sense of space, side to side and front to back, is effect of wide angle. FIG. 2: The normal lens begins to compress perspective in line with what the eye sees. FIG. 3: The 3x telephoto pulls background in and trims scene coverage at all edges. NEW RULES FOR YOUR LENSES A reader prescribes novel but effective uses for wide angle, normal and telephoto objectives JACK PULLIAM, ACL TAKE a good look at the three photographs which accompany this article. That's right! Now take another look. For they are pretty good examples of the work the lenses available for 8 and 16mm. cameras can do for us. Now, if we may examine these lenses one by one, let's try and find out what optical operations they are best suited for. Let's start with the wide angle lens. Until recently, there hasn't been a really good wide angle lens available for the amateur. For before the last war, many of the so-called wide angle lenses tended to create certain unpleasant effects. For example, they rarely gave a flat focal plane on the film; and they had the unhappy habit of creating an iris effect when stopped down to the usual //8. Within the past two years, however, a number of manufacturers have brought out the so-called "retrofocus" wide angle lens. This is nothing more than the old effect most of us have seen when we looked through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars or opera glasses. The name retrofocus itself tells the story: "retro" means "reversed." Happily, this type of lens has solved the two objections mentioned above. The retrofocus lens can be made rectilinear and color corrected to give a circle of confusion of 1/2000 of an inch at full frame and without vignetting when stopped down. This type of wide angle lens is available in the proper focal lengths for both 8mm. and 16mm. cameras. Now that we have the lens, what can we do with it? Take another look at the first picture. "It's distorted!" you say. And you are absolutely right; it is distorted." But the distortion is intentional ! The extreme wide angle lens (this photo represents the 6.5mm. lens) creates an increased perspective. It is analogous to the perspective used by an architect when he wishes to persuade the client that his new building would be only slightly smaller than, say, the Pentagon — even though his lot measured only 100 by 150 feet. The extreme wide angle gives the illusion of space, lots of space. You can get a Grand Canyon out of your local drainage ditch (if you get down low enough). The 6.5mm. lens for the 8mm. camera and the 15mm. lens for the 16mm. camera are musts for the movie maker who wants to shoot model sets and have them look real. "But I don't want to shoot a Grand Canyon or make pictures of model sets," you say. Yes, but you do want to have your establishing long shot give the illusion that your living room or back yard is as large as the average, even though you live in a two-room flat. And you need not be limited to using the wide angle in small spaces. I have used one for a long shot of a construction scene that was three quarters of a mile long and half a mile wide, and still had it look better than the same shot with a normal lens. So let's set down Basic Rule Number One: Use a wide angle lens for your establishing shots. Okay . . . We have established our scene and we now want to move in for more detail. So what lens do we use? Well, you know what the normal lens does, because you have been using one ever since you bought your camera. So let's just lay down Basic Rule Number Two: Use the normal lens for all medium shots and for general purpose group shots of more than one person. What's left now? The telephoto lens? Okay, let's go back and take another look at the illustrations with this article. Take a good look at the telephoto shot. It was made to simulate the effect of a 1% inch lens on the 8mm. camera or the 3 inch lens on the 16mm. — in other words, 3x magnification. Compare it with the wide angle shot. Notice that the telephoto also distorts perspective, in that it compresses space. The distance between the girl and the building is actually the same in all three shots. But it doesn't look the same, does it? And you might notice that the girl is the same height in all three photos. "So what?" you ask. Well, you commented on the distortion in the wide angle shot; but if you look at the telephoto shot you will see that it too is distorted, but in a different way. The vertical lines aren't distorted, and you will actually see people's faces in better perspective (as they look to you) when your closeups are made with the telephoto lens. Have you ever had your portrait taken in a studio? Ever notice that the camera is usually about ten to twelve feet away from you? That isn't so much because of the larger size film as it is because [Continued on page 163] IN