Not at all. I agree with you. The better the lens, the better the image. And no $6,000 video camera is going come with a $10,000 lens. And no $6,000 video camera will touch the quality of an $80,000 film camera.

As you also pointed out there is a lot more to a good image than the equipment. It can take years of experience to learn all the aspects of making a movie - to get exactly what's in your head onto the screen. And technical limitations are only one part of it. My point was that even with some technical limitations of cheaper equipment, someone with experience can make a pretty good looking movie.

I know that some people who are new to moviemaking get frustrated when what they envision in their head doesn't happen right out of the box. We all get better as we gain experience.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

The Instigator's last point on here cannot be overstated, and there's no way to learn it but the hard way.

You will have an image in your head of what you want your final product to look like, and you will assemble your equipment together to try and create it, and you will run smack into a million different problems. You look through the lens and it doesn't look right, so you change lenses. You start moving the actors. You move the background elements. You raise the camera. You lower the camera. You put the chairs on half-apple boxes. You ask one actor to "hunch down a little." You put a pillow under the seat of another actor. You move the picture on the wall.

There is only one solution to all of this: experience. It comes in one of two ways. You hire a crew that has the experience to handle all of these issues for you, or you get out there and do it yourself and learn what it takes.

That's why for your early outings you gotta stick to the basics: story and acting. Keep the other onscreen elements simple. Learn what it takes and build from there.

On a whole a DV camera will greatly affect the depth of field. There aer tricks however that you can do to increase the depth of field and give your image a better look than normal.

The wider the lens setting on your zoom lens will put just about everything, except objects that are exteremly close to the lens, in focus. The longer the lens setting on your zoom reduces your focal length and threfore will give only a smaller position that items are in focus. Using this option on your DV camera and moving the camera further back is one of the tricks that will give you that sense of depth of field you get with the 35mm prime lenses but it won't be the same. Using the longer lens setting also gives you a another added problem, distance. The longer the lens the further back you have to be to keep the similar framing. If you don't have the room to put your camera 20m away from the subject work on a way to do it.

With the above effect you can now also use another, but this works more when you have 100% control of the lighting. You can fake the depth by lighting things in the foreground more than in the background, the less light will make it harder to see any detail and can make it look more out of focus.

You can also get wide angle and zoom lens adapters that can help in giving you a smaller focal point as well. Try different ones of these, they can give you some interesting effects too.

Using the two will give you a great look even for a DV camera. I have used this with my VX2000 and using a longer lenses and it does create these effects, not don't event think you will create the look of a film camera using prime or fixed focal lenses it just won't happen.

using a PS 35mm Prime adapter to your DV camera is the best way of getting that lok. But you will need more light since there is more glass for the light to travel through and they aren't exactly the cheapest things to buy (well the adapter is the lenses aren't) or even hire.

My suggestion is to play with the camer you have. Place objects in the extreme forground or in the distance and play with the lens lengths and simulate the lighting using lamps or work lights. Write down what works best and you will get to learn the limitations of the lens and at which point are you asking too much of it.

I hope this helps some.

Michael Rogers
McRogson