» Posts Tagged ‘lenses’
Did you know you can change the shape of your bokeh by cutting out paper shapes and placing them over your lens? Maybe you did. I didn’t, though, and found out about this simple trick from DANIELS (the guys who brought us this music video), in their mini-video for “Who Do You Love” by Sue Scrofa. Hearts, shapes, letters, entire words: you can make your background highlights appear in the shape of anything you can cut out with scissors. More »
In a surprise move, Canon has announced two new zoom lenses with the cinema-standard PL mount (note the green rings!). The lenses are 14.5-60mm T2.6 and 30-300mm T2.9-3.7, rated up to 4K resolution, and cover a 27.5mm image circle (plenty large for Super35-sized sensors, but not large enough for, say the RED EPIC’s 33mm sensor). Considering Canon does not make a camera that natively accepts PL lenses, it would certainly make sense that their video division would also debut a large-sensor PL-mount camcorder to go along with these new lenses. Right? More »
Lensbabies are wonderful specialty lenses that create selective defocus effects on DSLRs (or SLRs, for that matter). But as soon as I pull the trigger and buy a Lensbaby Composer — which I love — Lensbaby comes out with the new Lensbaby Composer Pro. What does the new Pro offer over my oh-so amateur model? Mainly, it’s much better for video, because the mechanics are much smoother. Now I feel like one of the people in that Best Buy commercial. Here’s a look at the new Composer Pro in action: More »
The DSLR Cinematography Guide has several pages addressing lens use and choice. But the new cameras hitting the market — some with relatively new sensor sizes, like the Micro 4/3 Panasonic GH2 and AF100 — bring with them a new set of considerations. On their respective sites, Philip Bloom and Matthew Duclos have addressed the lens options for these cameras. First, here’s Duclos on the high-end F3: More »
I’m assuming for this post that you’ve read the bonus chapter on basic cinematography concepts that’s included in the free expanded DSLR Cinematography Guide. Anamorphic lenses are used for CinemaScope productions, wherein an oval lens stretches the image vertically compresses the image horizontally in order to fully utilize the imaging sensor. To achieve a 2.35:1 aspect ratio during projection, a corresponding anamorphic lens must be used on the projector. This is all well and good, but is it possible to use an anamorophic lens on a DSLR, instead of just cropping the image in post? More »
A couple of weeks ago, DP Timur Civan posted some stills on Cinema5D taken with an ancient 1908 Wollensak 35mm F5.0 Cine-Velostigmat hand cranked cinema camera lens. This diminutive lens produced some wonderfully atmospheric images (sans color correction, even). As someone who shot The West Side through the oldest Nikon lenses I could find, in order to give it the appearance of another time and another place (and by “oldest” I mean “cheapest”), I really appreciated these images. Now Timur has shot a video using the antique lens on his 5D Mark II, and it’s one of the most analog-looking videos I’ve ever seen from a DSLR: More »
Caleb Pike of DSLR Video Shooter has posted a nice tutorial for turning any old lens into a Macro lens. This process consists of attaching a diopter to the front of your lens, which allows you to focus on objects much closer to the camera than before. Note that these diopters — which come in different strengths — can be “stacked” to allow for maximum effect. Caleb explains the process and then shares some example shots: More »
Via Philip Bloom comes the handy tip to send in Nikon ZF lenses to Duclos Lenses and have them “cinemodded.” What is the cinemod process? From the guide: Duclos de-clicks your iris ring (giving you stopless control over exposure), adds a physical gear for follow focus use, and adds a common-size front ring (for example, if you have a 77mm Fader ND, you can have all of your lenses fit with 77mm front threads). Note that the problem with sending in Zeiss ZF lenses is that Nikon lenses pull focus in the opposite direction of all other brands, so for that reason alone I have a distaste for them (pulling focus on Nikon lenses and then switching to any other brand is a pain in the ass in terms of muscle memory). So while Bloom may recommend sending in ZF lenses — which is a great option (and I should note that some follow focuses (focusi?) allow you to reverse their gearing to correct this problem) — Duclos can cinemod many different still lenses. I sent them an email about converting different brands and got a prompt response, which can you find on the DSLR Guide’s Lenses: Converting, Renting page.
I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to create an “updates” page for the monster article that is the DSLR Guide, so what I’m going to start doing is including updates here with the tag “dslrupdate” — then anyone can check this archive page for a list of notable updates (the most recent updates will be on top). I won’t be posting every minor change but anytime I add something new or change a piece of advice significantly, I’ll post an update here on the homepage. Short of doing a bunch of PHP coding (which I don’t do), this seems like the best solution.
The first update (to be tagged this way) has to do with renting instead of buying lenses: if you don’t have the budget to spend $1,500 a pop for ultrafast glass like the Canon 50mm f1.2 lens, you can always fill your kit with cheaper glass and rent top-quality lenses for important shoots: More »
Robin Schmidt: Crowdfunding is not investing. Plain and simple. That's a very important d… Three Steps For 21st-Century Independent Filmmaking Success
jerome: It's weird, i remember staying up late one night because I was frustrated … Stop Staring at the Blank Page: How Creativity Works in Our Minds
MadMonkFish: Well - the K-35's will be the new Lomo's for a while... as with Eoshd's ex… New Camera, Old Canon K35 Lenses: Some Thoughts on Buying Old Optics (Inst…
john jeffreys: i like your dining table koo New Camera, Old Canon K35 Lenses: Some Thoughts on Buying Old Optics (Inst…
Abersouth: Wow. Meant Raising Arizona. Not sure how I let Fargo slip into that. 'Incident on Marmont Ave,' One of the First Canon 5D Mark III Shorts