PANAVISION’s Special Equipment

PANAVISION is always interested in supplying custom engineered camera systems and accessories to suit the special needs of their customers. Over the years PANAVISION has designed and supplied many unique cameras, accessories and lenses from the special mirage effect lens that was used to shoot the desert mirage sequence in Lawrence of Arabia to various 35mm and 65mm 3D lenses and camera systems.

In keeping with this tradition of supplying innovative lenses in recent times PANAVISION have developed a Slant Lens, which enables the point of focus to be varied across the width of the frame, a Perspective Lens, which can return buildings to an upright position and the PANAVISION/FRAZIER lens which has almost infinite depth of focus, low angle capability and can be panned and rotated about the optical axis independently of the camera, while keeping the image upright.

Cost Saving Equipment

It has always been a part of PANAVISION’s philosophy to reduce costs and this has very often been achieved through innovation without sacrificing quality, usability or reliability.

Not least of the accessories which are available with all PANAVISION cameras are those which directly reduce production costs.

For productions where negative filmstock and processing costs are a significant part of the budget PANAVISION can supply cameras fitted with their 3-PERF camera movement, saving 25% on these costs and reducing short-end wastage and camera reloading time. The 3-PERF system, together with time code (see pages 216 - 227), is particularly suitable for film productions where the original negative is transferred directly to tape for post–production purposes.

Another cost saving/time saving item is the 2000ft magazine: 22 minutes of film at normal frame rates, nearly 30 with 3–PERF.

The PANAVID range of video–assist systems are well known and a great cost saver. PANAVISION engineers have developed an entirely new concept of color flicker–free/freeze frame video assist systems which use CCD image sensors of immense sensitivity and which scan in synchronization with the film, giving new possibilities for SFX shooting. The image quality of the CCD PANAVID is so high that it can be used for off–line video editing which can later be conformed by the use of PANAVISION’s AATONCODE time code system.

Laboratory Equipment

Although relatively unknown to cinematographers, PANAVISION also supplies many leading film processing laboratories and special effects companies with a wide variety of optical printer lenses.

1. The special shimmer effect lens made by PANAVISION for the mirage sequence in Lawrence of Arabia, 2. The PANAVISION/FRAZIER lens system, 3. 3–PERF film, 4. PANAVISION PANAVID video viewfinder systems, 5. PANALUX night sight camera viewfinder system.