Larry Barton, President of Cinematography Electronics, was on the other end of a Zoom chat in high resolution, with dramatic lighting and Full Frame shallow depth of field. Although the discussion was supposed to be about the Cinematography Electronics /i Lens Display, I grilled Larry mercilessly on how he achieved images that could contend for a best cinematography award.
His secret was a Sony RX1R II Full Frame camera with a fixed ZEISS Sonnar 35 mm f/2 lens feeding HDMI to a USB converter and then to his computer. (Sony just released the latest version of Imaging Edge Webcam software, so now Larry can connect directly from camera to Mac or Windows computer.)
It was now time to learn about the Cinematography Electronics /i Lens Display. Larry said:
“What we’ve done with our /i Lens Display was to take the iris, focus, focal length and other metadata from the lens—combined with information from the CINETAPE 2—and make the information more user-friendly for focus pullers and lens technicians at rental houses. We also have two bar graphs that are easy to read and understand. They display the CineTape distance and the depth of field.
“Other information, such as Hyperfocal Distance, Field of View, Zoom, Entrance Pupil, and CineTape distance is selectable on a configurable top multifunction display window.
“The result is a quick and simple system that nicely demonstrates the many benefits, both on set and in post, that /i Technology can add to production.
“I think that the /i Lens Display will be especially helpful for lens technicians at rental companies and also for ACs doing their checkouts. It’s a great tool to confirm that the /i metadata information matches the engraved scales on the lens.”
The /i Lens Display is available from Cinematography Electronics and Cooke Optics for a list price of $7,000.
cinematographyelectronics.com cookeoptics.com
(This is a “reprint” from November 2020 FDTimes issue 105.)
