Black Light
Shooting black-light Beauty at 16oz Studios. Only the Red Epic Dragon with its Skin Tone OLPF could hold this degree of colour fidelity at the dark end of the spectrum!
Read MoreShooting black-light Beauty at 16oz Studios. Only the Red Epic Dragon with its Skin Tone OLPF could hold this degree of colour fidelity at the dark end of the spectrum!
Read MoreShooting at Sea in Cape Town, one of the most breathtaking coastlines in the world. No two days look the same as this watery landscape responds rapidly to tides, light and wind. If you can overcome the violent pitching that working at sea requires, the mirrored surface offers its own drama, texture and beauty.
Read MoreI am left slightly speechless after three weeks of filming in the Arctic. Travelling on an Ice-breaker through the sea-ice revealed some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. Throughout our journey around Svalbard there was perpetual daylight... the hard, low sun never setting.
Read MoreGreat to see this film is about to air! It details the true story of errant trader Justin Paperny and his journey from stockbroker to prisoner.
Read MoreShooting a beauty promo on Arri/Zeiss Masterprimes. Undoubtedly my favourite of the fast primes out there. Their performance at T1.3 (where we shot everything) is famously undiminished.
Read MoreShooting motion in the Brazilian Amazon is always challenging, but the photographic rewards are high. We were there at the end of the rainy season and, true to form, it poured down regularly.
Read MoreSoaking up the vibrant street art of San Francisco and London.
Read MoreSimultaneously prepping 'Studio' and 'Verite' Epic Dragon camera packages for a shoot. The mechanics of the camera system determine so much of the language that they will be used for...
Read MoreNo filming in the United States is complete without soaking up its intoxicating landscape of roads and cars.
Read MoreThis extraordinary lens is completely rectilinear even at 9.5mm, no distortion, no breathing and sharp as a tack. As none of the usual wide-angle visual cues are present in its 'look' the visual effect is startling.
Read MoreJust completed what has been an extraordinary month of filming. A month of exacting, balanced, and largely symmetrical composition and camera movement. Photographic symmetry has long been used by film makers to denote order, to foreground systems or patterns, to highlight cinematic artifice, or to underline the geometry of context.
Read MoreAlthough there is far more to a lens than shooting resolution charts, these tests are helpful for looking at certain performance characteristics. I charts below are from four spherical 50mm lenses, shot first clean and then with lens flare. The flare was provided by a fairly aggressive Dedo spot-light hitting the lens from the left of the chart.
Read MoreA weeks shooting across LA and Seattle with two different sets of Zeiss Super Speed Mk2s. It is interesting how these lenses, now 30 years old, still attract so much attention. A set now costs more than it did back in the 80s, when production ceased. The two sets I used both seemed to cover 5k on an MXEpic... With some slight vignette ( or maybe 'port holing'?) on the 18mm.
Read MoreDeveloped initially for the Bourne and Bond films, this TLS (True Lens Services) rehousing of a stand-out Nikon zoom is mechanically superb. The focus throw is smooth and steady and the build quality feels like something Cooke might have offered.
Read MoreMy first test of the Ronin and I am impressed!
With the addition of an Easyrig I was up and running in SmoothTrack mode in minutes, delivering a fairly intricate unrehearsed follow shot on a 16mm lens (this at 6KHD, so fairly wide).
Read MoreA year in the making, taking me from -50 to +50 and back again.
Read MoreShooting with a Phantom 4K camera at Sunbeam studios. 925 fps at 4096 x 2304. The resolution aside, its the 'look' and latitude of the new sensor that is so striking. We were shooting at 800 ISO and the picture looked very clean, with a shadow detail and a highlight roll-off unlike earlier Phantom incarnations.
Read MoreLooking at prime lens flare signatures for an upcoming spherical shoot. I tested the Zeiss/Arri Ultraprimes, The Luma Tech Illuminas and a set of cinevised Nikkor AIS lenses. I shot wide open against black to show the flare characteristic at its most extreme. All shots are with a Red Epic MX sensor at 4KHD (so S35 sensor scale)
Read MorePunishing heat in North Luangwa, Zambia. We measured 58 degrees C in the sun, but as this would be a world record I suspect we were wrong. Very, very hot. The landscape was scorched, the Mwaleshi river evaporating more each day and all electronic gear was left struggling at these temperatures.
Read MoreShooting in Canada on the Great Lakes. For glass I utilised 3 new PL zooms for the first time. The Fuji Cabrio 19-90mm T2.9, the Fuji Cabrio 85-300mm T2.9 and the Canon 15.5-47mm T2.8. Whilst providing an interesting focal range the 85-300 proved quite difficult to focus, its accelerated throw more reminiscent of a stills lens than a cinema lens.
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