Things to Learn from Cinematography

I used to watch American Football, and a popular shot is to zoom in on the football just prior to the snap (the kickoff, essentially) so that the laces fill the entire TV screen. Then they zoom out and zoom out and zoom out until you can see the whole field! The angle seems to suggest the camera is right at the top of the stands. What sort of lens do they use for that?

Quite possibly something like a Canon J22 zoom lens with built in doubler F1.8 7.8 - 328mm

I think that works out like a 700mm f2.8 or thereabouts on a Pentax DSLR.

Canon also make for TV a 5200mm f14 reflex lens an 800 f3.8 and 2000 f11!

It always amazes me how the guys covering golf matches can see the golf ball in the viewfinder, let alone keep it in frame and in focus as it flies through the air.

Worth pointing out, too, that in film cameras you view at the shooting aperture. On a movie like "Lawrence of Arabia" the viewfinders were really awful, like looking down the wrong end of a telescope at f16.

A director I know once shot a film with the DoP who shot Lawrence, he produced a photograph of a bunch of Land Rovers and a film crew standing in the desert eating bacon rolls and drinking tea, chatting amongst themselves. The picture was taken actually during the filming of one of the most iconic shots in the history of cinema.

The one where Omar Sharif appears on his camel in the shimmering heat haze! Freddie Young turned around from his movie camera to take the snap.

Don't forget Ken Hannam's 'Sunday too far away'

My god is that 7.8mm to 328mm all at f1.8?

I once read a comment (on this forum, possibly) that film camera lens technology was decades ahead of still photography camera lens technology, and never understood the meaning. I take it this is an example of that?!

I'll dig out some links to some specifics, but there are a few down the years, though to be fair you tend not to notice them until you've been told!

A number of them are shooting crew members, edges of scenery, etc. Whether you apportion this blame to the guy shooting is another matter...

Or, on a lighter note entirely, 'The Castle'!

These are TV lenses which until HD really didn't need to be particularly high resolution. The standard TV lenses tend to be Fujinon or Canon 12:1 zooms with built in TCs, CA, barrel and pincusion distortion. Carl Zeiss optics for film are whole different thing.

Fair enough but you have to be careful! let me give you an example, early James Bond films were shot on standard 35mm Academy format and masked to give them a wide screen appearance. On TV I have seen Thunderball shown unmasked so mics and other stuff in shot all the time!

Fair play, those times are easily forgivable. I can imagine the cameramen sitting at home watching it and cursing the TV for showing it in that format!

One example I remember is in the all-time classic, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (..ask no questions I'll tell you no lies).

The camera panned down the "street" that they were in, clearly revealing the unpainted tops of the scenery flats used to construct the set.

I think that's why it didn't win the Oscar...

Another thing I learned from cinematography was the power of seeing something familiar in an unfamiliar context.

The scenes of a deserted London in daylight near the beginning of 28 Days Later are amongst my favourite moments in cinema history.