Karl Walter Lindenlaub: Deeeep DoF

From American Cinematographer, This Old House by David E. Williams (August 1999)

The filmmakers did draw inspiration from another ghostly classic of the same era: The Innocents (1961), which was shot by Freddie Francis, BSC.

"It was beautifully photographed in black-and-white anamorphic, and has amazing depth of field. They lit everything very hard, shooting at T11, so they didn’t often have to use diopters. We couldn’t do that today, because of the way we use soft light. I later spoke to Freddie Francis’s operator on that film, Ronnie Taylor [BSC], who was our B-camera operator when we shot our exteriors in England. He explained how Freddie had used graduated filters on both sides of the frame to keep the walls dark, and how the actors even wore sunglasses between takes"

- Karl Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK

Jim Frazier: Frazier Lens Origin

From American Cinematographer, Seeing is Believing by Christopher Probst (February 1999)

"When I started shooting wildlife documentaries for the BBC," relates Frazier, "I didn't realize that I had immersed myself in a field that was so difficult. Not only was macro and micro photography a difficult area of cinematography, but my subjects were often completely unpredictable, which made it difficult to even keep them in focus! The photographic techniques used on those films often required a lot of special optical equipment, so I spent a lot of time devising equipment and unique apparatus...

...I have found myself lying on the ground for most of my career. I was always looking for unusual angles. But in filming those low angles, I wanted to move the camera away from my subjects. I wasn't content to look down at their world; I really wanted to see that world from their point of view. Toward that end, my first foray into optics literally involved gluing a mirror onto the end of a stick that was taped to a lens. Of course, the problem with that technique was that the insect would then go one way, and I'd pan the other!

To me, optics were absolutely essential to get me where I wanted to go. I literally pulled hundreds of lenses to pieces to get the elements out, and began playing with different combinations. My initial system of lens design consisted of a board with some modeling clay on it that I would stick the various lenses in while looking through with a viewfinder. I spent many months and countless thousands of hours knee-deep in optics.

By trial and error, I eventually came upon the system of optics that ultimately produced the Frazier lens. I'll never forget it the moment I came upon that [optical configuration]. I was doing what I normally did — swapping optics around — and then I suddenly saw what I was looking for. That was it! I literally did somersaults and had to look again. At that point, I knew that I was close to what I had envisioned."

- Jim Frazier, ACS

Jim Frazier: Frazier Lens Advantages & Build

From American Cinematographer, Seeing is Believing by Christopher Probst (February 1999)

"This device does have a very large depth of field, but it is not infinite. The depth that is created does not break the laws of physics; it occurs because of the design of the optical relay system that is used. If you were to take a 10mm fixed-focal-length lens and put it on a camera, you'd get a certain field of view and depth of field at, say a T8 aperture. If you were to put the equivalent lens on the Frazier — which in this case would be the 14mm, which delivers about a 9.9mm field of view — you would actually have a similar depth of field. Now you may say, 'Wait a minute! If that's so, why do people talk so much about the depth of field with this lens? Why wouldn't they just rent a 10mm instead?' The reason is that with a 10mm lens, the diameter of the front element is about six inches. If you were to take a bumblebee and put it on that lens's front glass, it would only fill about five percent of your frame. Because of the Frazier system's optical configuration, when you put the bumblebee on the front of the 14mm taking lens — which is about an inch and a half in diameter — the bee will fill about half of your frame. Yes, you'd have a large depth of field, but more importantly, you're able to get objects really close to the front of the taking lens to get into macro magnifications. So in a practical sense, the Frazier system's depth of field is more available and useful.

Another problem with other lenses has to do with the entrance pupil of the lens. With a lens that has a six-inch diameter, the entrance pupil is actually some distance inside the lens. So as you bring your face in close to the lens, your nose will start to bulge and your ears do something weird with perspective distortion. With a smaller-diameter lens, the entrance pupil is still inside the lens, but at a much smaller distance [from the front]. If you look at the mathematics, it turns out that you could then bring someone's face all the way up to the lens and not see any perspective distortion. This relationship has a lot to do with how the taking lenses, the field lenses and the system have been optimized, which in this case is in the area between six inches and three feet. When you can't see the perspective, you can't tell the size of an object or the distance it's at, so a sort of optical illusion is created."

-Iain Neil (Then Panavision Executive VP of R&D/Optics)

"With the Frazier lens, macro work has never been easier. A cinematographer now has an unparalleled freedom of movement in the macro range. In fact, unlike conventional macro lenses, there is no pull-focus necessary. The camera can simply float in and out on the subjects without any loss of focus and without any distortion or curvature of field — even when the subject is almost touching the lens. This is particularly invaluable for scale model and tabletop work, where both depth and distortion are major issues. I knew from my commercial work that when you put a product close to the lens, you don't want to see this great curved field. I love playing with perspectives [and the perception of perspectives,] so I concentrated on building these units without any distortion. In my earlier prototype units, the illusion — which I knew was there — was ruined because of distortion. In commercials, clients usually don't like to see their products distorted. If the product has straight lines in it, they want to see it [photographed] with straight lines."

- Jim Frazier, ACS

"One significant aspect of the Frazier lens which may not be obvious is that the taking lenses — which also house some field lenses — are designed as sealed units. With the Frazier taking lenses, you're actually getting a taking lens plus part of what really goes in the tube of the main system. In other systems, if you stop down to a T8 or T11, or all the way down to T32, you can have a major problem with dust. If there's one little particle near an intermediate image, you could end up seeing that speck on the film. But with a sealed taking unit, you can pretty much avoid dust. Of course, you still have to keep the optical instrument clean, but at least we have avoided the most likely cause of dust showing up on the final image...

...The longer focal lengths illustrate why increased depth of field, in itself, is not the only selling point of the Frazier lens system — it's a combination of features. For situations where you may not want the object right up to the lens, but you still want the flexibility of the swivel tip, the image rotator and the larger depth of field, we've added the 85mm, a 105mm and a 135mm, which respectively deliver 60mm, 75mm and 95mm cine fields of view. These longer lenses still offer a large depth of field, but it will start at perhaps 2 to 4 feet and then go to infinity."

-Iain Neil (Then Panavision Executive VP of R&D/Optics)

Antonio Calvache: Swing-Tilt Lenses

From American Cinematographer, Industry Town Embraces the Indies by Holly Willis (July 1998)

"To be more straightforward in the sense of not feeling that the camera suddenly becomes dizzy and high with the characters. We wanted to show the characters from a realistic point of view, but at the same time communicate some of what they were going through. I used Otto Nemenz's Swing-and-Tilt lenses, some dutch angles and time-lapse photography, being careful not to let the overall approach become excessive. The lens is mounted on bellows, so it's like a large-format view camera used in still photography in which you can control the depth of field by tilting and/or swinging the lens. I used it inside the ambulance when I wanted to isolate one character from his environment. The challenge in working with such narrow depth of field is doubled when using Swing-and-Tilt lenses, since the focus is not only affected by the distance from the subject to the camera, but also by its position in the frame. Even if the subject doesn't move, you have to pull focus as you pan or tilt the camera. You can imagine how helpless the first A.C. feels. When shooting for the large screen, it's also scary to have the whole image out of focus except for one piece of a face an eye or a mouth so I tried to be extremely careful. As it turned out, I was very happy with the results."

- Antonio Calvache

Freddie Francis: False Highlights

From American Cinematographer, Cinematic Glory by David E. Williams (March 1998)

"CinemaScope lenses also couldn't focus very close, but Jack wanted the camera to be in tight with the actors. We had to use a lot of light to build up the stop and increase depth of field. We had a huge garden set built on the stage at Shepperton Studios, and we couldn't get nearly enough light on it for the stops we wanted, so I had the art department paint one side of the foliage silver and white to create a false highlight. That way, our fill could be what our key would have been. We had to do all kinds of tricks like that."

- Freddi Francis, BSC

Edward Lachman: Found Light

From American Cinematographer, Mad-Dog Englishman by David E. Williams (November 1999)

"In that scene, there's this particular two-shot in which you can see the entire downtown city scape of Los Angeles lit up in the background. When you work off of whatever light exists-- and we were shooting wide open at T1.4-- you can get an interesting sense of depth, because sources far in the distance aren't being overpowered. If you start shooting at T2.8 or a 4, you lose those backgrounds, so I always tried to light off of what I found on the location, so our perceived set would be much greater than what I could actually light. I know that cameramen like John Seale [ASC, ACS] and Chris Menges [BSC] sometimes do that as well. You can get a very different look when you light that way, and it's not just in terms of depth of field. You pick up ambient light, color temperatures and subtleties in the shadows that you wouldn't get if you tried to light the entire scene yourself."

- Edward Lachman, ASC

Jeff Cronenweth: Guiding the Eye w/ Shallow Focus

From American Cinematographer, Anarchy in the U.S.A. by Christopher Probst (November 1999)

"T2.3 was pretty much the stop for the entire movie. Whether we were inside or outside, we always wanted to keep a shallow depth of field to keep the audience focused on what we wanted them to see. I'm very confident about shooting with the Primo lenses wide open, but exposure-wise, shooting at a T2.3 was very comfortable, and I liked what it did to the practicals."

- Jeff Cronenweth, ASC