That late 80's film is set up at daylight in a brightly lit joint. So that cameras could actually record it. The other scene is in a dimly lit dining room with directly visible light sourcee (that don't saturate). You can bet that 80's film could not have captured this kind of low-light high-contrast scene.
A famous counterpoint to your statement that eighties film stocks would not be able to capture that kind of low-light high-contrast scene: Barry Lyndon (released in 1975).
However, it's pretty much guaranteed that both the old and new scenes mentioned in TFA have a _ton_ of extra lights and flags just out of camera. If anything, the article is pretty naive in assuming that they just walked up to some diner and started filming using available daylight.
Yeah, the difference is just that the first movie’s DP was aiming for a naturalistic shot, whereas the second DP wasn’t. Tons of 80s and 90s movies have heavily-stylised non-naturalistic lighting (e.g Tim Burton’s Batman)
Going further back in history there's also this thing called Film Noir that further disproves the argument that digital cameras (or, more narrowly, Netflix) is the origin of the high-contrast look.
I mean, even the most celebrated film of all time, Citizen Kane, is celebrated among other things for its stark contrast and that was shot in 1941 or thereabouts.
For Barry Lyndon, Kubrick had Zeiss build ridiculously fast f/0.7 lenses for him that was previously only used by NASA. That’s how he was able to capture these low-light high-contrast scenes that look so gorgeous.
You’re not wrong, but Kubrick famously used some of the fastest lenses available at the time to shoot the candlelight scenes. I believe the folklore is that he had to borrow them from NASA, so it’s probably a stretch to expect that kind of technical availability in general film productions from the period.
> Kubrick obsessively researched the problem. He eventually discovered that Nasa had commissioned Carl Zeiss to build ten Planar 50mm f/0.7 stills lenses in the sixties, which were used to take photos of the dark side of the moon.
> ...
> Anyway, Kubrick promptly bought three of the Zeiss Planars. He liked to own equipment himself, rather than hire it in, and to this end he had also purchased at least one Mitchell BNC camera. As befits Kubrick’s perfectionism, these were perhaps the world’s most precisely engineered cameras, previously used for special effects work.
The AI Noct Nikkor 58mm F1.2 is another neat lens. https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/0016/index.htm (make sure you look at the full size examples of the 58mm f/1.2 and the 50mm f/1.2 and look at the car lights in the corner of the frame).
A 50mm f/1.8 (or f/1.4 if you have a bit more money) is a beautiful lens to work with. On a full 35mm frame, it provides a normal field of view which approximately matches the field you see (kind of, we've got two eyes and so more of a panoramic view, but unless you're pulling out an xpan ( https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/xpan/ ) it isn't something that you can capture - still catches the part that you see looking forward).
And it doesn't have any weird perspective issues with flattening on long lenses or the exaggerated perspective of things closer.
It's just the right lens for so many situations. Light enough to handhold without any issue. Fast enough to get a nice shallow depth of field.
As an aside, if you are looking at primes, a 35mm f/2 is a good "I want something wider" and the 85mm f/1.8 is a very nice "I want something longer" while not being ungainly or slow.
For everyday use I have a 24-120, the first VR model, ultra sharp on a D700 so I got lucky even if the VR doesn't work anymore. Lately I found myself using a manual focus 300mm often... The 50mm was mostly used for low light, now I need to experiment with shallow focus depth a bit more. I'm missing something on the short end, either a 20mm prime or a 16-35 (or something similar). A 85 f1.8 sounds tempting so, as does a 80-300 f2.8, or a... A gear aqusition syndrom is bad desease...
For my Nikon 35mm cameras... I have a 16mm f/2.8 fisheye; 17-35mm f/2.8 zoom; 35mm f/2.0; 50mm f/1.4; 85mm f/1.8; 105mm f/2.8 micro; 135mm f/2 DC; 70-200 f/2.8; 80-400 f/4-5.6 VR; 200-500mm f/5.6
The 80-400 is very nice and I used it for a long time but when I got the 70-200 (I have, though it is in the car bag rather than hiking bag) the 80-400 just doesn't have as much of a place.
The 16mm I'm not even sure where it is now - it was too easy to make mistakes with it ( https://www.deviantart.com/shagie/art/Fisheye-Oops-2767240 ) - the 180° field of view means that straight down is straight down - lean out and do funky tripod setups to avoid having what is straight down show up in the frame.
And yea... Nikon... I've also got a Maymia 645e with 3 lenses, Hasselblad XPan with 2 lenses (I just couldn't justify the price tag on the 30mm f/5.6), and two Horseman 4x5 (one field, one rail) and I typically have the Nikkor 210mm f/5.6 on it though I've got a shorter lens too - just that one doesn't have the image circle allowing for useful movements... I think it's a Schneider 135mm f/5.6, but I'd have to check. The common design for a 135mm has a 200mm image circle while the Nikkor 210mm has a 295mm image circle - and that's a big difference.
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Another thing to do with the shallow depth of field is to get some extension tubes. I've seen photographers use the thinnest extension tube for some shots so that it reduces dof (it gets into macro equations), but not too much that they loose too much distance focus. And since there's no glass in there you're not degrading image quality with another refraction (compare teleconverters).
This is some nice equipment! I'm kind of envious, especially if you find time to shoot all of that somewhat regularly.
I was that close to pull the trigger on a great condition 80-200 f2.8 Af-D, but then I realized that the, again manual focus, 80-200 f4.5 just sits in a shelf... But heck, is that old thing sharp, I'd say on par with the 50mm.
Regarding teleconverters, the old 300mm works incredible with the equally old 2x TC, the 1.6 AF TC had worse image quality. And telling the camera that it is a 600mm f7.1 lense gets exposure just right, shooting handheld at ISO 200-400 for stills and 800 for birds and such gets quite some keepers. It does lack the flexibility of zoom, I love this 300 regardless. It is such a master piece of precision mechanics and optics, without any electronics, that I don't even miss AF. Well, most of the time that is...
I like the fish-eye shot with the shoes in it! Just thinking of that problem with a camera where the VF only shows 95% of the image...
Are those Kenko rings any good? I'm asking for a friend with occasional bouts of GAS...
It's been a while. My last dedicated time was 2017 (the eclipse). When I lived in California, I went to Lee Vining for two weeks in October every year.
Those shots are beautiful! I hope you find some time this year, it is difficult when you hold a day job, but someone has to pay for all the trips and such!
I'll look for some used, affordable Kenko rings then, the only G lens I have is the 24-120, all others are either AF of Ai-S ones.
probably nobody in a non-classified situation has built such a thing recently. But if you put enough engineering into it, you could exceed those parameters today. Glass/glass manufacture, lens shaping, etc all improved tremendously. It would be obscenely expensive; every lens would be completely custom, you'd probably burn through hundreds of blanks before you had something worth using, and there are other, easier ways to achieve low-light imaging anyway.
the fastest commercially available glass is 0.75-1.0. that means the 0.7 from the glass Kubrik used is still the fastest. i seriously doubt that even someone the likes of Kubrik would have the clout to approach the NRO and ask for whatever the best they have is to shoot a feature film. so your non-classified caveat is kind of pointless.
That late 80's film is set up at daylight in a brightly lit joint. So that cameras could actually record it. The other scene is in a dimly lit dining room with directly visible light sourcee (that don't saturate). You can bet that 80's film could not have captured this kind of low-light high-contrast scene.