Frame & Reference Podcast - Lens Month: Tokina Cinema Senior Vice President Ryan Avery

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

Its week three of lens month and this today we have a fantastic conversation with Tokina Cinemas SVP Ryan Avery. Ryan has had an illustrious career in the industry including founding Veydra and co-founding LensFinder.com. In this conversation, Kenny and Ryan dive deep into the technical aspects of the lens industry as well as the art of cinematography. Enjoy the episode! Check out Tokina's website and follow them on instagram at @tokinacinemausa Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for more!

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today, for episode three of Lens Month, here on the show, we've got Ryan Avery, the senior executive vice president of Tokina Cinema. He was the CEO of Vedra, the Micro Four Thirds Lens Company. He co-founded LensFinder.com. He works in the industrial space. The man's got a CV that just blows tons of people out of water. This conversation kind of is a discussion around the sort of marriage between the more technical aspects of the lens industry

and the art of synonymous. cinematography and how lenses kind of get in there. So this one is very much more technical. It's a little bit more industry focused, not so much art focus, but it's fascinating, fascinating stuff. And there's also little stories in there and tip it's behind the scenes information that I think you'll find very interesting.

You know, at one point he says that an artist shouldn't really care about the technology and artists should just focus on creating the art. And I've later in life kind of come around to that idea, but I still, in my youthful exuberance, still find the technology side, the technical aspects of whatever I'm doing, quite fascinating. So, love to this conversation. And as I mentioned, at the end of this, well, no, actually, I cut that part out. Jay Holden is next week. So look forward to that.

but for now I'll just let my conversation with me and Ryan converse for itself that is a terrible segue anyway

here it is well to start I kind of wanted to talk to you about that because I was your website just goes straight to your LinkedIn so I was looking at you've you've had a

you're a young man you've had quite a career so far yeah yeah it's been i'm internally grateful for the amount of success i have and i'm uh everyday kind of worried that someone's going to come around the corner and say hey wait a minute you don't belong here get back to whatever it is sure so uh it's yeah it's great did you did you start in um cinematography or some form or like how did you how did you happen into this stuff because you started at uh well you didn't start but uh right at the at the kind of bottom of the old list you've got film tools which uh pro video oh yeah that part of yeah that was a temporary thing i was hired as a consultant

and uh it was a good short lived experience uh but uh is i started working in camera stores in 1996 and um i worked for ritz camera for a number of years in the mall developing one hour film and selling cameras and i've been obsessed with uh photography since i was 11 so it's uh it's been a lifelong passion. And, you know, I worked in camera stores until 2006 and then, or 2006 or seven, I think it was six. And then I went to work for Schneider Optics, which is where I spent a good portion of my career, but I've now spent more time in my career working with Kenko Tokina than I did with them. So about six or seven years at Schneider, which was an awesome experience. And then I did a bunch of different things, started a company. There's a whole list.

I mean, it's a funny thing. It's like I could jump into any of that. What, what, what, were you doing at Schneider? I was a regional sales manager managing their camera stores, sales with independent sales reps. And I ended up getting into product development. So I primarily covered at the time, Schneider was selling a lot of their B plus W round screw in filters for photography. So I helped manage that business in the West Coast. And then I got. more naturally into motion picture and television stuff. I'd never spent really very much time at all in, you know, quote-unquote, Hollywood or cinematography of much any kind. I sold DV cameras when I work in camera stores, but Schneider Optics was really my, you know, baptism by fire. And I was very, very fortunate to have some really nice people at Panavision and Claremont Camera and some of these other rental companies that kind of took me aside. And they said, all right, you know, I'm going to teach you what I know about the business, which was really awesome. So they were my customers, but also really good, turned

out to be really good friends and taught me a lot. And Schneider was awesome because I got to spend my entire time hanging out in rental companies, talking to DPs, learning everything I could about the business, learned a long time ago to say hi to the person sweeping the floor all the way up because, you know, know what you're going to learn. And at Schneider got involved in design specification for cinema filters. I helped with the design specification for the Hollywood Black Magic filter as well as the name. Yeah. And gosh, I can't even remember the bunch of different filters. Pretty much anything that came out up to the Schneider True Streaks was something that I was involved in either tangentially or directly. We won a Oscar, a technical Oscar for the

platinum IR&Ds. I had a front row seat to the platinum IR&D development. The whole IR&D development, I was in that story from day one. And then I got into lenses. We did the Schneider Sinai Zinar 3s or the entire Sinai Zinar line, which in my opinion are probably the most underappreciated lenses. You know, it was kind of unfortunate the way that whole thing happened. But anyone who has those or seen those, they're really incredible for Super 35. And then the first project that I was majorly involved in lens development was the xenon full frame prime

from Schneider and at the time that finally shipped I went to film tools for a short bit and then I started the Vedra Lens company which is a whole other story and then simultaneous to Vader starting I was working

with format high tech which was purchased by Kenko Tokina and we started working on the Vista Prime project which has been hugely successful really some of the best work team I've ever worked on and we continue to kill it with all kinds of awesome products and so it's a lot but that's that it's fantastic I mean that's the the wealth of knowledge you must have acquired over that length of time I mean for you must be invaluable but for everyone else must be a little not intimidating but certainly inspiring yeah like I said I mean

I'm just super lucky. I'm just, you know, somebody who has a lot of interest in what I do. And I'm lucky to work with colleagues, both competitors and customers and friends and everything in between that share a similar passion. So it's really, really fortunate. I'm very, very fortunate. Yeah. When you're designing them or when you're working on the teams of that design, I'm like at Schneider or even with Vager or whatever, what are you attempting to, accomplish and I don't mean that in like a it almost sounded pejorative but like what's the goal because I because I guess I don't understand I don't know personally how to evaluate how to make a lens if that makes any sense I don't

even know how to formulate this question I hope you came out I give what you saying I mean first and foremost lenses are completely nebulous and totally up to the person what they like I mean it's it's there's some really awful terms being passed around that are way overused, you know, as far as like, you know, one of my favorite pet peeves is, is, you know, paint brushes for your, for your camera. It's true, but I feel like it's overused. And that's no comment on the people that use it, but I just feel like it's kind of, you know, but it is true. So I would say the thing, it's like making any product. I mean, because ultimately I'm a business person and I'm coming from a business standpoint. It happens to be

something I love. So I'm very fortunate in that regard. But I'm dealing with what's going to, you know, I work for for for profit companies. So it's what is going to sell. And therefore, it's like when they make a car, it's kind of the same thing. It's like focus groups more or less. I don't run focus groups because the industry is relatively small. So I'm able to talk to people. I spend pretty much most of my days talking to DPs, you know, it's just a mess of Facebook inbox and, you know, I troll forums and every other thing I can. I actually don't comment that much, but I'm in pretty much anything. You shouldn't. I have a few times and almost 100% of the time I've regretted it. So, because it's the internet. So, but I would say what it is,

is it's just listening to what people want. And people continually tell me with products that I offer or things, projects that I've worked on, they always tell me, this is awesome, how did you get this right? How did your team get this right? Because it's not about me, it's about the team, but it's like, how did we get this right? It's really easy when you listen to what people want. And so from that perspective, it's very simple. On a technical level, it comes down to there's a certain amount of art and science going on. It, what looks really awesome in lens design software like ZMAX and even projecting a lens or practical samples is not necessarily what people want.

I think a good evidence of that is the, you know, say this, I've been, I know so many people, the Red Pro Primes that Red made originally, it weren't made by Red, but the team that worked on that, they did a beautiful job. They made almost a perfect cinema lens. Absolutely nobody wanted it. So, you know, it's, it's, that's a perfect case in point or like the, uh, the airy master animorphics. Those things are a work of art, but they're not that popular, uh, possibly because of the price, but even on a rental and maybe that's changed, but nobody wants a super clean

animorphic, you know, uh, right now. I think they will in the future, which is another subject, but, um, so it's just listening to what they want. And then as far as the actual process of it, you have to evaluate the characteristics of an image, which are for diffusion filters. And the reason I mentioned that is to talk broadly in terms of image modification. You have, and this is also overused, but you have flare or halation, you have contrast, and you have resolution. And those things are things that a diffusion filter does. And with optics, you add, with lenses, you just add a bit of depth to that, really. You add some characteristics of distortion, fall off from the background to the foreground,

which is primarily controlled by microcontrast, and design of the optics, spacing of the elements, that sort of thing. But really, it's just listening to what people want and then saying, what can we do that's a little bit different. So you look at what other people have because making a, you know, hey, me too, I've got another lens also product, really doesn't do a service to anybody. and so you just have to figure out what you're trying to accomplish and what people are trying to account what cinematographers are looking for and kind of following that you know where those curves meet as much as possible so it's it's a balancing act and of course no matter what whatever you make there's always at least a couple thousand people that are like hey if you were only blue and had a handle on the left I would have bought it and you're like okay well you know you can't make everybody happy and some of my most recent projects have done their best attempt, we've done our best attempt to make everybody happy and we've been relatively successful with it. So it's a honing of the craft. Sure. Yeah.

I mean, so I'm glad you kind of brought that up right at the head because I feel like early on, you know, especially with film and stuff, the limiting factor seemed to be the lens as a certain, you know, really wasn't the camera because it was a box. But so, you know, is it cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, and then when digital sensors came out and got really good, now we're looking for like dirtier, dirty or dirty or, you know, people are taking, for instance, a real popular one in the kind of like, what I would call, like, the workhorse family of cinematographers was like that 18 to 35 Sigma, slap a Hollywood black magic on it, for instance, or more popularly a pro mist, to like dirty it up, to make it

look, and this is a pet peeve of mine. cinematic you know what is what the fuck is cinematic you know it's blurry what it's not a term that exists but it does exist yeah it's getting so um where where has the trend in from your perspective where has the trend what is the timeline for that trend changing and where do you see it going because you were saying that you think people are going to be going more going back to the unless i'm putting words in mouth going back to that higher resolution less um aberration sort of lens yeah well yeah i mean gosh there's a lot to talk about there but i would say or like where's that meeting of like hDR the short answer is hdr uh hdr the last thing in

the world you want on htr is a reduction in contrast um so sure i'm not going to say the last thing but it plays, and there are people that would disagree, and I've had some relatively heated debates with, you know, everyone from ASC members to, you know, beginners about this. And, you know, HDR is going to, in my not so humble opinion, is going to absolutely wreck the value of vintage lenses. And I find people that disagree with me are generally people who spend $100,000 on a set of K-35s. So, you know, that's to say it's not relevant.

But really, actually, that's really a oversimplification of it. What you're going to see is you're going to see a continued bifurcation of the market where you're going to see lots of different people shooting lots of different lenses, as we already have. But with HCR coming around, that's a certain segment of the market is going to split off that direction. And sorry, I keep using the term market, but I'm a business guy. No, no, no, no. It's, this is all totally relevant.

Yeah, I would say industry. But yeah, a certain level of the industries, we're going to continue to see just like you see such a broad diversification of content, which has also been awesome and very supportive of new technologies, particularly lenses. We've seen an absolute explosion in the size of the business, mostly because people are,

more and more people are creating content, and because nobody wants to watch still photos anymore. Everybody wants a video. Uh, so, um, so yeah, so that you're, you're going to see that, but I think high contrast lenses are becoming to become, or quote unquote clean lenses are going to become much more popular than they are now. Um, there's a lot of caveats to that, but that, that would be the, the reason that I say that. Um, as far as vintage lenses go, there's always going to be a place for that. Um, but right now, like you said, the general look is the cinematic look is, is to, um, go go dive into this you know gritty low con you know log is a lot kind of world where you know uh we all want to sound like purists and you know whatever but that but you know and get get um i don't know but anyway the point being like it just that's it's going to continue

to split and it's going to support a wider range of of lenses but i do feel like pretty strongly that the value, at least on the high end of these, of these, you know, $100,000 sets of K-35 is going to plummet pretty heavy. But there's also, you've got, you've got more people, too, right? You've got, you got so many people and there's only so much of this canon. I cannot believe the prices that FD Glass sells for it. It's insane. It's insane. Ridiculous. But you know what? It's probably not going to go down that much because, in that case, because there are so few of those lens is around particularly good copies of them so you know whatever i don't know again i'm wrong the car path here but the point no no this is all on the path i said i told you this this these

conversations are very much wherever we want to take them um you know it's all part of the art uh but i i always wondered like obviously the fds for anyone listening who has no idea i can't imagine you would but uh or i can't imagine that you wouldn't but the fds are optically nearly the same to the K-35s, which everyone seems to like in her vintage lenses. I'm wondering if that explosion, like, these days you can't discount the power of video-centric YouTube. You know, that the 18 to 35 plus Black Pro-Mist seems to be YouTuber-centric. The, you know, who's that guy?

Media Division puts out very interesting. involved very well-produced videos where he's like, look, you can have K-35 for FD is like, if we looked at eBay, was that the spike, you know? So I'm wondering, but also are those people ever going to work in HDR? I'm fascinated by you saying that HDR is going to kill, not kill, but HDR is going to, no one's going to want that because that makes total sense. I would not have thought about that. You know, you got to understand though, like my point of reference, I mean, I talked

to everybody I can, but my point of references is almost certainly towards, you know, the really high-end rental feature film when I talk about that because I sit on technology committees at the ASC and things. And so, you know, they spend all the old guys there, spend a lot of time talking about this stuff. And so that's more the driver of that comment. I feel like in the short term, in the long term, I feel like, yeah, HDR could become more interesting i feel like for more accessible to everybody as the display technology catches up i mean you got to realize you know red had a 4k camera in 2006 and uh here we are most people i know just barely own a 4k tv like you know so are you going to have a 2000 knit display in your home you know

the general user is going to have to have a reason or be forced into it by the price economics of televisions and set and also on mobile because everybody's consuming things on mobile now more probably than on a large screen so that point well i will say and this is completely anecdotal and the sample size was like 300 but i asked twitter and then i had a few friends of mine who have nothing to do with the film world you know comedians and sports writers and stuff retweet the poll out and it was i think it was over like 75% of people said they watch movies. I didn't say anything else, but movies on televisions. And tablets and laptops was two,

and then phones was pretty low. But I will say that, you know, if it's a laptop, which I think a lot of people, you know, it's like 20%, that's only 17 inches. And then there's, like you were saying, televisions are probably more, 4K displays are probably more in the computer realm. And that maybe is 23, 24, 27 inches. So I don't know if you'd agree with me, but the necessity for a 4K capture, put huge air quotes in this because there's different reasons for that, obviously,

but isn't as great on such a small display. Yeah, but there's also, you know, the old pan and scan, you know, capture as much as you can and crop it and image stable as it. Or even just the downsizing, sharpens it up real nicely. There's tons of reasons. I love shooting in 4K now.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're officially, I mean, we're officially in the territory that doesn't really necessarily cover what I do. But I will say, you know, so I could probably, you know, say a whole lot of things that'll get me in trouble there or just, you know, not really my area of expertise. But I do spend a lot of time looking at it and talking about it. So, and that plays into lenses, you know, so you're correct.

I mean, it's with lenses to bring it back around. it's really about, you know, these lower resolution lenses doesn't really matter because people aren't consuming the content on a 60-foot screen, and even if they are, it's okay to a certain level. The biggest misconception with lenses is resolution. A lot of people don't realize that in film cameras, the resolution came from the film. It didn't come from the lens. and we measure the lens to a certain extent. We measure the resolution of a lens in line pairs per millimeter. So when you project a lens in a lens projector, which some people have never seen,

but you know, you shine a light through it on a target onto a white wall, you have little hash marks and the difference between black and white, the modulation transfer function, can you see black and white or do those lines go gray? How many of those line pairs can you see and it's marked on there? Modern cinema lenses are in the 80, 240 line pairs per millimeter range at the center, and really good ones will hold a lot of that resolution all the way out to the intended format size. And so Haseblood lenses, that's a bad example because it's a large format, but Hossa blad lenses or, you know, airy standard, you know, standard speeds or super speeds,

Zyce super speeds. I'm not certain the resolution number on the Zs super speeds I haven't looked at in a while, but pretty much all those older lenses are like in the 40 to 50 line pairs range, which is ridiculous. Can you consider that the line pairs per millimeter required for a complete resolution capture on a like a six micron size sensor is over 100 line pairs? And so you're really scrubbing off a lot of resolution sure i mean is that really relevant i don't know uh but you know my theory my theory has always been not that like people want a um blurrier for lack of a better term image or anything but i've always i've kind of settled on the idea for now that um the further away you get from reality the more willing people are uh the more willing people are to give themselves to

story. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, the, then you get too far and then it's a cartoon and then people are just kind of not engaging, but like having a lower resolution or stylized lighting or whatever it may be, special colors, um, I think is vital to getting people invested in the story. If it was super clinical and super, um, you know, it turns into a documentary. Kind of. These days, they're super gorgeous documentaries shot by amazing deep. Unbelievable, unbelievable. Yeah, I talk to some of the, I know some of the people that have shot like the planetar stuff,

you know, it's unbelievable. I cannot believe what these guys shoot. It's absolutely insane. But yeah, I think I agree with that because even in the documentary stuff, you know, we're pumping the colors. We're doing things to make it look bigger than reality. So that's a good point. But ultimately, everybody needs something different to a certain level.

And so to go to your comment about the Sigma 18 to 35, people go on the beginner side of the market or people that do, you know, passion short films and things that wouldn't consider themselves working cinematographers or working up to it. They're going to go with what the budget allows and what they know. And so that's why that 18 to 35 is so popular is it's kind of like, what do you shoot? Oh, I shoot the 18 to 35.

And the next guy is like, and then they see some footage like, that's great. And so it kind of works like that with lenses. and that's why you see, not to keep picking on the K-35s, but that's why it's kind of a word of mouth. And also on the higher end, you know, mid-grade commercials, you know, $100,000 commercials, a lot of these DPs are almost afraid to do something that doesn't, you know, they need a slam dunk.

And so they're going to go with what they know, you know, what they've shot before or what they saw. And that's not just to make any comment on the creativeness of the DP, but there is a limiting factor there with production of, this has got to look good and it's got to, you know, they got to get the job right first time. So there's a lot of that going on. So, and, you know, with the Vader lens company that I started, we did that. There were the world's first mirrorless lenses for micro four-thirds specifically.

And we benefited from a intensely loyal following of people that bought our Kickstarter and continued. And it snowballed to an incredible level of people that were kind of like the 18 to 35 where everybody's. like oh yeah you know you can't go wrong and so there's a lot of that going on so you were talking earlier about how there are people like oh it we have one too we have a lens too and it does seem like that it seems like there's tons of lenses out there and it's hard to evaluate what's i guess real is is the wrong term but how much of these are like copies that you know of of just other lenses and where are they getting the optical designs and like how are people making it so cheap like you know you guys with vajra made are experts in your field at the time

and now obviously um but today it just it feels like every other day there's a new lens coming out what do you can you speak to the market as in that sort of realm yeah there's a there's a very common misconception that there are teams of people analyzing zeis lenses and trying to make something similar. It's just not the way it works. A lot of the stuff you're seeing is photography lenses that are being repurposed into cinema. The first best examples of that were like the Zyce CP2s and the other lenses that have been rehoused. And that's why Vedra was special because we actually did ground up design. And that's been the theme with pretty much everything I've done since them because I know it works. And in some cases, you do have ground up designs that are happening.

Some of these companies have been in the optics business for a long time. A lot of it is manufactured by a different company, and a lot of the companies you see are marketing companies. So, you know, they're just really good at telling a story. So, but no, there's not a lot of copies going on. The reason that there's not a lot of difference in the images is because a lot of it is higher contrast stuff that was made for still photography. And so you're just putting it in a new housing, slapping it on a,

slapping gear on it and calling it a cinema lens. You know, so that's not to knock those lenses. It's just that's why they look kind of like what they do. You know, on the highest level that's been done fairly successfully is the Sigma, their 1.5 primes. You know, those are their Sigma art lenses rehoused. You know, it's a beautiful rehoused job, but ultimately their photography lenses have been rehoused. So they have a certain level of contrast that maybe some people want, but it's not.

as much of a natural fall off. It's just a different look. And no matter what, how you market that, ultimately, that's what that is. And like, again, it's not bad. It's just, it's a different look. But example, what we did with the Tokina Vista Primes is we went for a complete roundup design that is truly unique and completely different and way better quality than anything we've ever done. So, you know, and that's not to plug Tokina or make a direct comparison because those are completely different lenses. Most people don't realize that. They look and go, oh, it's a 50T1.5. That's a 50T1.5. You know, same same, not at all. But point, I don't know what I was saying there. But the point is, like, that's what you see in the market is these are actually, for the most part, photography, lenses have been rehoused and or they're companies that have never marketed in the cinema space.

And they're seeing such a huge reduction in the number of people that are buying $9,000 still cameras to put, you know, $2,000 still lenses on. It's just not happening anymore on the level. The still photography business has been shrinking year over year hundreds of percent. So all these companies got to do something and they see everybody shooting videos. They're like, hey, I've got a cinema lens. And there's already been some casualties and things that have completely dropped off because they just weren't ready for prime time, but for various reasons. Because there's a lot that goes into supporting a cinema lens from a business perspective and a manufacturer's perspective. Sure. And well, and there's another thing that I don't want to say annoys me, but it does

seem like on the lower end, as we were talking about, just throwing the word cinema lens around is putting any glass in a geared housing with a clickless aperture, a cinema lens? I mean, you could argue it is what makes a cinema lens. I guess you could say it's a cinema lens. Is it a good cinema lens? Probably not. Right. Good cinema lenses have characteristics that you don't see in photography lenses, which is

image breathing, the change in image sizes, your rack focus. And that has to do with how it's designed and also the length of the focus throw. The longer the focus throw, generally the better it is. some manufacturers somewhere along the line were told that 300 degrees focus throw is where it's at for cinema, which actually is probably a bit too much for the most cases. So, you know, the length of the focus throw, because photography lenses are designed for like 15 degrees of focus throw. It wants to get where it needs to be super quick.

It's not interested in what happens to the image in between those points of focus. So that is primarily the thing that makes the cinema lens, a cinema lens, I would say, the most significant driving factor if you're talking about a true semblance because you look at ingenue zooms you look at um you know zyce master prime super speed all these well super speeds at lesser extent but they don't breathe that much and that's really what you're looking for which is the optic is designed for motion and with the zooms is it par focal when you zoom in and zoom out does the focus hold uh with anamorphic lenses does it mump so as you focus does the shape of the of shapes change those are things that make a lens more cinematic but

to say something isn't a cinema lens because you slap the gear on it it's not necessarily true i guess because it is being used to shoot cinema but in the same regard is a Toyota yaris the same as a Lamborghini no so but they're both cars they both have steering wheels come on i have that's exactly it so they have a performance car so just the same if you put a cinema lens on a a $99 Olympus pancake lens you put a gear on a $99 Olympus pancake lens

or you buy a signatory signature prime for $40,000 for one focal length you know it's differences when you're designing a lens from the ground up like that are you

I ask all the cinematographers that come on this show what were your inspirations does that come into play with a lens do the like optical group or is there like a way to, is there an analogy there? Yeah, I mean, it's the design, the ultimate number of elements and groups and number

of Aspheres and things is driven by the specification. For example, with the Vista Primes, we were very specifically looking for a certain number of features, which is a really nice flare, a really nice contrast fall off between the depth to the image. And also, image circle is a really big thing that a lot of people don't consider. Just because a lens throws light out to the edge of a larger format does not mean that it's designed for that format. And so you look at a lot of lenses that are even marketed as VistaVision lenses, which for better or for worse is a bit of a misnomer because VistaVision is a format. It's not a, it's not, yeah, it's not what people say it is. But for better,

better or worse like with the Vista Primes, we just kind of adopted it and ran with it. So the Vista Primes are designed. If you look at them on a projector, they actually kind of go in and out of resolution and focus depending on where they are in the frame. So at Super 35, we made it nice and crispy in the corners, but it has a little bit of fall off in between.

And if you look at it again, it's kind of like this mustache of distortion and then you get out to full frame and it actually comes back in as sharp in the corners, but there's still fall off. So that's an example of something that's designed for different formats. So I would say it really comes down to inspiration and from other lenses. You find out what people like about certain lenses.

And that's really the thing that works is just find out what people like and then figure out what the goal is. The goal with Vista Primes was to make a large format lens that is, again, to use a ridiculously overused term, future proof solution that is going to last a long time and provide. beauty to the user at different format sizes and fall off and, you know, the list is long. Sure. Are you doing, are you, are these lenses kind of designed in like CAD basically? Like are you able to do sort of a simulation of a lens before actually pumping out the optics and testing it? Or is it kind of like the engineers do some math and then you put it on the projector and you're like, yep, that's what we wanted. Well, that's what happens with a industrial lens.

I am involved in industrial optics for driverless cars and, you know, all kinds of stuff like that. That's cool. And so for that solution, yeah, it's just has cheeseburger. Does it work, you know? And so, but yeah, for Simmelins is different. So the software that's primarily used is called ZMAX. I do not do that. I am not an optical engineer.

A lot of people think I am. I'm not. I just know I... You got optical in your job title. Come on, man. I talk to engineers and I talk to customers and I translate customer speak and the engineer speak and that's what I do. But it's, yeah, it's designed in a software to a certain...

There are certain things you can model and simulate, but ultimately the designer has... has to know what they're doing. And there's a lot of repurposing of optics going on. Like, for example, the Xenon full frame primes at Schneider that I worked with that team on developing, the Xenar optical formulas from the 1950s. I mean, they just took that optical formula and extrapolated it for full frame and it was already full frame.

And then they just made it work for cinema where it had less breathing and other things like that. So, you know, there's that. And then, but stuff that's ground up, I cannot be understated enough. The optical designer that does it is an artist, and they know exactly the right combination of A-sphere, elements that are not totally curved, that have a flat edge to them, spacing of elements. That's a thing that just kind of happens in this beautiful mine scenario with a chalkboard

and a bunch of strings and things connected that we could never possibly understand. And I can honestly say the optical design team at Kenko Tokina has at least one person that is an absolute legend and does things that are absolutely unbelievable. So I'm very fortunate to be able to provide and feed that system and get things. So, you know, yeah, it's art as much as science. That's so cool. When you're talking about listening to people, like you mentioned earlier, you're part of the ASC, my tech. Is it like my tech lens council? Because I know there's like a couple.

Yeah, there's a lens committee, which is primarily manufacturers and lens experts that get together and argue about things that nobody will ever see. But, yeah, it is good. It serves a definite purpose. It feeds standardization of information and ultimately has some output in form of user manuals or things like that or at least better understanding. It's actually really good for all the lens manufacturers get together. It's a lot more collaborative business than you would realize. we don't hate each other like it's you know notwithstanding certain personalities but in general we don't hate each other and we all get along and talk about our projects not not directly

before things come out but we all talk to each other and a good example of that is the slash eye technology uh sure link communication data that is something that cook very wisely put out and said look everybody should use this and uh it's an example of market-wide adaptation that is a true cooperation between lens manufacturers so yeah i actually completely tangentially was wondering about that like how are these is they have to license it or is it but it's you're saying it's like seatbelts and volo they were just like yeah it's a dollar you pay them a dollar you can join as long no shit yeah it's not it's not something that is expensive and i think airy does the same thing with lDS i'm pretty sure i could be wrong about that but

by definitely the slash i is the universal you ask gary it's not the universal standard LDS is the only thing that exists but slash I is is more universal I'd say sure um so what are the what are those con as much as you can divulge what are those conversations like uh amongst the higher end cinematographers like what are they looking for in lenses what are what are their chief sort of concerns and wants and that kind of thing boy that's a mystery uh yeah you know I I I talk to a lot of DPs at different levels. A lot of it, I think very wisely, the D.P. Does not necessarily want to hear at all from the manufacturer, despite what the manufacturers

put on. It's more like, hey, I use this or they like it. I think a true artist doesn't care that much. It's just kind of like what works. I mean, there's different levels. You've got guys that care a lot about the technical part of it and do a good job because of that to a certain extent and then you've got guys that are like the fashion like austin powers in you know the movie where he's shooting and then he just throws the camera over his shoulder like

i've seen that and you know i witnessed the guy take a master prime and run his keys over the front of the front element like it happens like it's you know sounds crazy it happens i saw it happen in person and the person shot a film with it uh so you know there are different levels of of that um so yeah But I would say generally they're looking for something that meets the format and they're much more trusting as they should be of the rental companies. I think the rental companies that provide these higher end solutions are at a significant value. And people don't seem to understand that on the surface that like or even understand that at all know about that because that's why Panavision, Keslo camera, you know, Claremont camera before they merged or were sold off to Keslo, Camtec. I mean, these guys are, and of course, they're going to be angry. I even mentioned that because I'm leaving out somebody,

but there's a lot of really good rental companies that have experts that really collaborate with them and help them choose something. And a lot of that has to do with what format are they shooting in more recent times and other things. So they really talk to the doctor and say, hey, what do you got? And then they figure out which prescription they like. Yeah, because I think that that makes total sense because, you know, like we always say, it's everything's project dependent, right?

So, I think it's, I think it is a, that is an interesting point that for people who don't tend to rent have to choose one, let's say one thing. Yeah. And those, and that's tough. And so I guess in that case, your prescription. Because like I was looking, you know, looking at Eric Measureshmet's work, obviously just won the Oscar for Mank. And the Fincher team seems to have just shot LICA for the. past few projects and the reason seems to be they're neutral as hell and they do all the extra sort of art designing the frame in post which is something we were in film school we were

told you were never supposed to do you always get it in camera and it seems that david's like no i don't want anything left to chance let's uh do anything anything artistic goes in the back end we're just collecting data here um yeah i don't i don't i don't I don't know that that's necessarily true, actually, but on the surface, I think, I think it's a bit reductive, not to disagree with you, but I think it's a bit reductive to the artist. Correct me, please. I don't know what I'm talking about. You know, not that what you said is particularly offensive. I just think that it's a good simplification of it and it's a correct assumption, I think. But first of all, I think the reality is most people don't understand that very few productions are shot on one particular brand of lenses. It's, You know, they'll be like, oh, like recently, what was it, Sigma was talking about, rightfully so about the lenses being used on Top Gun and everyone thinks that the whole film was shot on Top Gun. It wasn't. So, or, you know, but then you have some shows that actually were like Queen's Gambit with Zeiss with the Supreme Prime's beautiful film. And those lenses

definitely added to the look of that. And then you've got like, Tokine has been used on a whole laundry list of stuff that we don't even publish yet but um the one that's out is the wilds on amazon shot on completely as far as i'm where on vista primes and the dp has mentioned that so there are productions that shoot it completely but i would say actually more nine times out of 10 if manufacturer even talks about it it's probably there's probably a mix going on there that nobody's talking about so uh good example of that the tv show house years ago you know most people even know about that show but oh god it was like the biggest show on television for like eight years canon said like hey they shot this thing on the 5d back when the 5d was there i happen to be on set the day that that

happened visiting for a completely unrelated reason and i watched uh the camera person throw the 5d against the wall in frustration and they shot the rest of it on something else but canon was correct that some of it was shot on the 5d so the manufacturers are not always straight up honest about that nor should they be i think i think it's just hey look our stuff was used this way. And I think the onus is on the manufacturer to show what their lenses do and let that decision be made. And so you don't see enough proper lens tests. And when I say proper, I mean not shooting charts. So, you know, you don't see enough of that going around. And that's why anything that I published these days, like we just today released the first footage from

the Tokina 25 to 75. And that lens test does not have a single chart in it. It does not show everything, but it's an avant-garde piece of fashion that shows what the lens can do. And I think that's more important. And manufacturers really need to do a lot more of that. And I don't think they understand that. They'll talk about films that used it and they'll look, hey, this and that and the prestige. And look at this guy uses our stuff. And I just think that's kind of not totally accurate. And it needs to be more, let's produce a lot of content and show it. And that is something that I think Airy does really, really well. If you look at the stuff they've produced for their signature primes. It's fantastic.

You know, they're really showing what this stuff does and they're not just saying this film used it. They're saying, hey, look at this. And that's what I think needs to be done so that people can make more informed decisions about the type of optics that they're looking for. Yeah, it's it's funny. I remember vividly the house episode, like all of us at the time I was in film school, I think. And I remember we were all like, dude, 5D shot the episode. There was a whole like article about it. It looks like we all have. to get the 5d because it's real you know what they did i mean they did use it but it was because it was because he was like buried under a building right like so they had to just get a small camera it wasn't

necessarily like and i do remember the opening shot was painfully 5d i i don't have direct knowledge of how much of that and it could very well be and that's not to take away from canon or what they oh sure sure just to say personal level i watched some frustration going on with that and i saw it at multiple levels, like my good friend, Ilya Friedman at Hot Rod cameras. He was modifying 5Ds for PL mounts. You know, he was a pioneer in that regard. And I remember seeing that stuff at Panavision, you know, running around in the prep text. And I remember also DPs cursing the godawful name of the 5D because Canon's out there saying, hey, this is like proper Hollywood. You're like, no, it's not. It's just being whacked together because, you know, it meets

someone asked for it. Well, and it meets and there's a lot of that too. Directors will be like, you know, I've run into that. Like, I've done double-blind tests with DPs and directors. I've been like, show 20 like, and they keep picking the vistas. And then the second they hear that it's a tokeena, they're like, nope, I got to shoot this on Zey's. Makes no sense, but that's a reality. And so a lot of that goes to brand and things like brand value would have received.

If anything, lenses should be the thing that you trust blindly, like trust a blind test on. And that's not everybody. That's not everybody. It's just to say, and that goes back to my comment, people go with what they know. they're going to yeah a director is not going to risk their life's work on something that they don't understand or trust you know so i'd say the majority of time people do pick the look they want but that does happen and it mostly happens from the production side you know uh to a lesser extent eps but primarily you know well line producers also pay a big sure and be like i don't know

no 500 dollars a day we're going for 100 dollars a day so yeah well i mean how many times have we've seen. What did you shoot that on? Ari Mani with Cook. Yeah. From outside, Ari. Good for you. Yeah. You had mentioned lens tests. How would you suggest people evaluate lenses when they're trying to find one to work with? Again, it's mostly look. I would say don't trust everything everybody tells you. Like, just because everybody uses the 18 to 35 signal does not mean that you should buy that lens and that lens with a promist, you know? Right, right.

Or maybe it does. I don't know. I would say take a careful look at the image breathing, the fall off with the contrast of the lens, what that's really going to mean for the type of work you're doing. If you focus on the three characteristics of the image with a few other things added in, like I said, what is the contrast? What is it really doing? Too many people make a big deal about chromatic aberration.

You know, some people obviously load it and some people don't care. I would say look at the lens, pay attention to the distortion, how much does it bend the lines, you know, by putting it a good thing is to put a couple straight objects at the edge of the frame and do those straight objects disappear, you know, like a doorpost or something, or do they stay, how much do they bend? Is that really going to matter for your project? You know, if you're looking at a set to buy, that's much more difficult because you have to pick something that's kind of all arounder that's going to work for most of the work that you do. But, i i would say pay attention to those technical issues and then don't pay attention to what other

people have done with it as much because it's not you're not that person and people ask me all the time what's the best what what should i what lens should i invest in to improve my art and i said go go take a lighting class take another lighting class it's light is way more important because all we're doing is by the definition of the term we're painting with light so it's uh you know it's uh i would say pay attention to those factors but ultimately don't pay attention so much to the marketing and pay attention more to what it's really going to mean and if at all possible rent it first get your hands on it and try it uh it seems even if you're buying a 500 lends it seems ridiculous to spend $50 a day to rent one but it really actually is worth it because at least you

know what you're getting um and can try it and in the short of that we can't rent it look at the footage and that's why I continually encourage all my colleagues other manufacturers to make real stuff that you actually produce or at least cut a reel with stuff that your that your owners have used and shot and make it work that way. So I mean, I certainly know that when I got to the point where I was actually getting some form of budget to shoot something. Yeah, rental once you once you're using someone else's money, rentals don't seem so scary. Yeah. I mean, it can if that's a that's a ridiculous state. but I mean like for a $50 a day lens and it's a one day shoot you know okay like I'll eat the

$50 cost I don't need to get my day rate all hack 50 bucks if I need to to test this out and make sure yeah you know if if it's appropriate if it's appropriate yeah what uh I know we're coming up on time here but I was wondering if uh what you're excited about um in the future of kind of lensing technology and what are some things you're excited to see left behind if any Oh, gosh. Well, I'm excited to hopefully see photography lenses whacked with gears on them to kind of be properly put in their place and properly identified. That's not, you know, again, it goes back to art. But things I'm excited most in the future is, again, the implementation of HDR and what that's really going to mean. And I guess that's more of a comment on advancement of the craft and the tools that we use. and i'm i'm excited yet probably scared to death of the concept and reality of plan optic photography where lightwave cameras will be capturing everything and the you can change the depth of field and the perspective of and every other thing you want happening i remember that that project

oh yeah it's coming a while it is coming hard most people don't realize it but it is coming for you sooner than you realize. Wow. So I would say that at the risk of sounding ridiculous, I actually think that what I do today will probably be a bit like selling buggy whips in the year 2000, like, you know, for horseless carriages. You know, it's like it's really, we're advancement of technology and artificial intelligence and everything is going at a breakneck speed and people don't realize that it's coming for you.

And this is like really almost destructive. It's not going to change what I do or what you do anytime soon, but it's coming sooner than people realize. And I've done, been fortunate to have involved in a lot of industrial applications that have used this technology. And I see it could be quite easily adapted to cinema and totally wreck what most people's concept of cinematography is. And, you know, what's the intersection of that with virtual reality and alternative reality?

and all that, okay, you know, like what you were saying about, can we make it real? I think we can. Is it going to take a while to get there? Absolutely. But to say that you shouldn't invest in a set of a camera or a set of lenses or lights or whatever, this is ridiculous. You should do it because it's a ways off. And even if it does happen, it's going to happen first at the really high end and then it will

trickle down. So we've got quite a wave. If it's coming from the industrial level, like that, those are the people who have the money to do something like that, you know. Yeah. But I would say I'm most excited for that, and I'm going to do my best effort. Hopefully I'll be retired by the time that it becomes like a real reality, but I think it's going to be sooner than that.

Reading about it on your tablet on the beach. Yeah, right. I'll just, yeah, okay, great. Yeah, so I would say that's probably the most exciting thing that I think nobody is really talking about that is actually coming. And I think a lot of people aren't talking about it because they have a stake in things staying the same. And like on a simpler term, like sensor level density, for example,

having a couple conversations with some good friends recently that the need for standard neutral density filters, and this is coming from somebody who sells and manufactures neutral density filters is probably going to go away to a certain level pretty soon. You know, on the high end, it's probably a lot sooner than people think where indie filters are just going to be like, what are you talking about? The sensor takes care of that. So, you know, that's built and Ds are just at the moment,

built in Ds and the camera are a requirement for me. Right, but they have, I'm not talking about built in Ds. I'm talking about the sensor, like the sensor does it. Built in Indies, in my opinion, are great, but they have some problems. Sure, sure.

Issues. Variable neutral density is a whole other issue. I mean, I could go on and on. That's a whole other filtering thing. So, yes, I'm excited for Planoptic, unlike I think a lot of people, there are certainly some visionaries that are interested in it, and I'm not saying I'm visionary. I'm just saying that I really see that coming. And I think I'm trying to figure out the implications of that for what I do. And not for what I do from a perspective as a for-profit businessman, but what I do as a supportive person to the industry

and providing solutions because right now, nobody cares about the application of that. People will. And what do we do to make things better? There are going to be needs in that field that are going to need to be met and there's still going to be need for design specification and things around that. So I'm excited for that. Totally. That's that's wild because I remember it was the lightro from forever ago and then it died out and I was like well, I guess that's the end of that. I had no idea that was still kicking. That's cool. Yeah. That's coming. Definitely have to have to have you back on to talk about that when that gets further along. When I have more to talk about Right now, right now there's not a lot to talk about.

It's just, I mean, there is things to talk about, but it's not, yeah, here's a little. Sure. And finally, for people who want to learn, I don't know if this is too wide open of a question, but for people who want to learn more about optics in the realm of cinematography, do you have any suggestions of maybe books or resources or anything that they could get into to get a better handle on that element of the craft? Yeah, so one of the ASC members, a friend of mind, Jay Holbin, is going to be publishing, and Christopher Proops, they're co-publishing a book that is about every single cinema lens pretty much ever made.

And it was this insanely massive undertaking. And while it's more of a, I think it's going to come out at the end of the year or something, while that's more of a technical resource, that's certainly going to probably be the Bible on lenses for a while. And then as far as other resources, I don't know to the level, but Larry's website, Shot Deck is great. I don't know that that references lenses, to a lesser extent, shot on what is good for reference of titles. But as far as learning things, probably honestly, a lot of the Facebook forums that are out there where lenses are discussed or resources. It's very diffused, let me say. And so cinematography mailing list, CML is great.

People don't know that one. You just got a lot of people providing excellent insight on there. And I have long tried to create a resource for everybody to find out a central focal point for lenses. And the fact is nobody cares about websites anymore for the most part. We learned that with Lens Finder. I did LensFinder and you know that was great but nobody people don't like sites anymore they want for some reason they just like it inside of Facebook or whatever so it's hard to inform forums don't really work like I started Lensobsession.com really hoping that people would jump into that

and just nobody wants to participate in forums anymore seems like so it's you know it's tough I'm definitely of the forum age of the internet and I do miss I do miss that like I guess community that those like sort of you know miniature communities because I'm I don't have a Facebook so I don't I'm not privy to those conversations but I for you luckily I didn't I don't need it you know I hear a lot of people saying like I need it and I'm like I don't although I'm sure I'm missing out on jobs or something or you know I don't think so

well I goodness I wish this is the same thing happened with Matthew where like I was, by the time I got to the end of the conversation, I had just figured out, like, a whole bunch more questions that I wanted to ask. But thanks so much for spending the hour with me, and I'll come up with a list, and hopefully we can have you back on. We can keep talking. Happy to come on any time. I'm glad you were able to have me to come over.

It's always great to have these conversations. Frame and reference is an Albot production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly and the F-At-R mapbox logo was designed by Nate Truax of Truax Branding Company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to provideocoolition.com or YouTube.com slash Alabot, respectable.

And as always, thanks for listening.