Tag Archives: lenses

Sirui Night Walker APS-C/Super35 mm t1.2 Lens review.

Shortly before my annual trip to film the Theatre and Circus fields of the Glastonbury festival I was offered the use of a set of pre-production Sirui  Night Walker lenses. Currently one of my favourite cameras to shoot with is my FX30, so the opportunity to use a set of fast, mini prime lenses, purpose made for APS-C/Super 35 was an offer to good to refuse.

IMG_0481-Large Sirui Night Walker APS-C/Super35 mm t1.2 Lens review.
Sirui Night Walker 55mm t1.2 lens on my FX30

 

The Night Walkers are small lenses, only 84mm long. But the have a very nice weight and feel to them. They are constructed out of aluminium and feel solid and robust. They have good quality gear rings for a remote follow focus and a pretty decent 270 degree focus throw (although the scale does get a little cramped from 9m to infinity). The drag of the focus ring and iris rings gives a nice feel and for me seems just right. Holding them in your hand they certainly feel like a quality lens. They all have the same front diameter and all take a 67mm filter. 

Currently there are 3 focal lengths, a 24mm, 35mm and a 55mm. It would be nice to have a wider lens in the set at some point but this is a pretty good place to start. 

IMG_0485-Large Sirui Night Walker APS-C/Super35 mm t1.2 Lens review.

I didn’t do any scientific testing, instead I just dived straight in to the shoot. I started by shooting some of the preparations that go on inside the circus big top. We were supplying footage for the BBC to use in a special feature about the circus at Glastonbury and they were very keen to get some behind the scenes footage. During the build it is often very dark inside the big top tent as there is very little external light. So, having very fast lenses was a big help.

I have to admit that I have been shooting a lot with autofocus recently and it took me a little while to get back into the swing of shooting gun with a manual lens. But it really was worth the extra effort and there is something nice about  that very positive connection you get between yourself and the camera when a good quality manual focus cine lens that you just don’t get with most lenses designed primarily for autofocus.

These really are mini cine lenses, designed for video, designed for manual focus.

So, the BIG question – how do they look?

Well, the images they produce looks really nice. At t1.2 they are a touch soft, but not in a nasty way, I think this slight softness actually helps to take the edge off the extreme sharpness of a 4K camera like the FX30. As you stop them down a bit they do get sharper and from around t3.5 they are very sharp. But overall on my FX30 I liked they way they looked wide open. It’s very cliché but I guess I would describe it as a vintage look. I did a lot of pull focusses with them and the breathing is extremely well controlled and barely noticeable across all 3 lenses in the set. 

Flare is also well controlled, although if you really push them shooting directly into the sun or another extremely bright light shadows may become very slightly elevated, but certainly not anything to worry about. Chromatic aberrations are also well minimised. As you would expect there is a bit more when wide open, but stop down a bit and there is barely any CA. 

The bokeh from these lenses is very pleasing. I didn’t notice anything nasty or unpleasant in the out of focus areas, something that often spoils many other budget lenses. The bokeh is smooth and uniform.

Take a look at this video shot entirely with the Night Walkers to get an idea of how they look.

I have to say that shooting with these lenses was a delight. A few years ago I shot in the big top with a Venice and Cooke Anamorphics. Since then I have wanted to get a similar look but without the bulk (or cost). The Night Walkers went a long way towards getting that look.

The best bit about these lenses however is the price.  At the moment  Sirui are offering a very special price of only $309.00 per lens via their Indigogo campaign. After that they will be $349.00. Even at that higher price these lenses are an absolute bargain if you have a camera with an APS-C sensor camera such as the FX30 or a camera with a super 35mm scan mode.

A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses

I was recently given the opportunity shoot some test footage with a Sony Venice II.  A camera like Venice needs good glass, so I put out some feelers to see what lenses I could get for the shoot. I was offered the use of a set of the Tokina Vista primes, lenses I have been wanting to try for some time, so this was the perfect opportunity to try these interesting lenses on Sony’s newest cinema camera.

DSC_0298-600x450 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
Shooting at Tower Bridge London with the Tokina Vista 135mm and Venice 2



Lets cut straight to the point: I love these lenses and I loved using them with the Venice 2.

I guess I had some concerns at first over choosing the Tokina Vista’s. Lets face it, Tokina are not the first brand that springs into most peoples minds when you are thinking about high quality PL cinema lenses. But I had been hearing nothing other than good things about them and when I had played with them at a couple of different trade shows, they did always look nice.

There are currently 8 lenses in the Vista range starting at the very wide 18mm and going up to 135mm. All are t1.5, are beautifully constructed with all metal bodies. The focus and aperture rings (with approx 300 degrees of travel) are in the same position on every lens in the set, so lens swaps are easy. The 9 bladed iris works well to give pleasing smooth bokeh.

DSC_0299-600x450 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
The Tokina Vista 135mm t1.5 on a Venice 2

 

Many manufacturers claim that their lenses have minimal breathing and this is definitely true of the Tokina Vista. Focussing from near to far resulted in only a very small change of the image size on all the lenses I tried. The breathing is truly minimal.

As I was shooting using the Venice 2’s 8.2K 17:9 mode this was a good test of the lenses resolution and sharpness. In the video at the bottom of the page you will see a couple of shots where I added a slow post production zoom in to the image, reaching 2x magnification. If you watch the video in 4K you won’t see any appreciable drop in image quality during the zoom in where I am in effect expanding the original 8.2K pixel image by 200%. This to me is a clear indication that these lenses are plenty good enough for 8K capture.

wide-shot-2_1.2.4 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
Wide shot, taken at 8.2K with the 18mm Tokina Vista.
mid-shot-2a_1.2.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
A crop from the frame above. Even in 4K this image looks great.

 

But, at the same time I also felt that the lenses were not excessively sharp. There is a “roundness” to the images from these lenses that I really like. The Vista’s are also very slightly warm looking and this combined with the roundness of the image and very slight propensity to flare a little gives them a very appealing look. I guess I could describe it as a vintage look, but that might make them sound old fashioned. These are not old fashioned lenses, these are clearly modern, high performance lenses. But the images they deliver has a beautiful, almost old school look that I found to be very appealing.

wide-shot-1_1.6.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
The Tokina Vistas and Venice 2 deliver great colours and skin tones.
Mid-shot1_1.6.3 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
This is a crop from the above image. When you have 8.2K of pixels and a high resolution lens its very easy to reframe in post production, even when delivering in 4K.



Faces and skin tones looked really nice, of course this is a combination of both a great camera and great lenses, but the colour reproduction from the combination of Venice 2 and the Tokina Vistas was very pleasing.

night-singer_1.30.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
At t1.5 the Tokina Vista’s are great for low light and Venice at 3200 ISO looks great.


I did have a play with most of the lenses in the set and they all appeared to perform similarly. But for the video shoot in London I focussed on the 18mm, 40mm and 135mm lenses. 

The 18mm is very wide. It is not truly rectilinear, there is some barrel distortion, but nothing too severe. You do have to remember that this is a t1.5 lens and it’s not easy to produce very fast, very wide lenses for full frame. The 46.7mm image circle of all the Vista lenses means that they comfortably cover the full frame Venice sensor and even at 18mm there is barely any light fall off or vignetting at the edges of the frame.

One of the other things that really impressed me with all the Vista’s was the lack of chromatic aberration. Even when shooting very high contrast, backlit edges or specular reflections it was hard to spot any chromatic aberration. There is not a single shot amongst all of the material that I shot where I noticed anything nasty.

Trafalgar-day_1.27.1 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
Trafalgar Square, shot with the 18mm Vista. You can see that there is some barrel distortion, but it’s pretty good for an 18mm t1.5 lens.

 

The only negative I can really find about the 18mm is the size and bulk. This is a big and heavy lens. All the Vista have the same external diameter of 114mm. The 18mm is no different in that regard. But the 18mm is one of the longest lenses in the set, it’s 180mm from front to back. And it weighs almost 2.7Kg. A big part of the weight probably comes from the bulbous front element of the lens – which you will be glad to know does not protrude beyond the end of the lens housing, giving it some protection from accidental damage.

When you have an 8K camera, wide angle lenses can be used to capture a very wide frame that can then be cropped into to re-frame in post, so having that maximum t1.5 aperture which helps maintain a shallow DoF is important. 

lanterns1_1.8.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
London’s China Town, shot with the 40mm Tokina Vista



The 40mm lens is also really nice. 40mm is an interesting focal length, a shade longer than 35mm and wider than 50mm. I found it to be a very nice focal length for a lot of different types of shots with the Venice Full Frame sensor.  At 2.24kg it is a much lighter lens than the 18mm and a fair bit shorter at 160mm. Once again extremely small amount of breathing and near total lack of chromatic aberrations makes this a lovely lens to shoot with. When shooting high contrast point light sources such as street lights at night there is a bit of circular flare around the light source, but I find this to be quite pleasing. Strong light sources just out of frame can lead to some minor veiling flare on all the lenses in the set, but this is no worse than seen with most other similar quality lenses and the lens coatings give the flare a slight warmth that again, I find very appealing.

tower-bridge_1.3.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses

The 135mm lens doesn’t disappoint either, shooting at 135mm and t1.5 delivers a very narrow depth of field.  As expected this is one of the larger lenses in the set. It’s 187mm long so a bit shorter than the 18mm but it is heavier with the PL mount version coming in very close to 3kg. There isn’t much more I can say about this lens that I haven’t covered with the other lenses, extremely minimal breathing, near zero chromatic aberration etc all make for a great image. The consistent look across all the lenses means this too shares that well rounded not too clinical and very slight warmth that makes these all of these lenses very appealing.

night-busses_1.31.1 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
Tokina Vista 40mm on Venice 2 at 3200 ISO. I really like the way the Vistas flare.



The Tokina Vista’s are not re-housed photo lenses, they were designed specifically for digital cinematography. They are available in a range of mounts including PL, Canon EF, MFT, LPL and Sony E. I had heard good things about them from other users before I tried them and now I have had a chance to shoot with them I have to say that they are lenses that I will want to use again. Perhaps in particular when the project would benefit from a slight vintage or romantic look without being soft and without giving up any resolution. For the money they are great looking lenses and would recommend anyone that hasn’t tried them to give them a go.

Guess The Lens! A little bit of fun and an interesting test.

Last week I was at O-Video in Bucharest preparing for a workshop the following day. They are a full service dealer. We had an FX9 for the workshop and they had some very nice lenses. So with their help I decided to do a very quick comparison of the lenses we had. I was actually very surprised by the results. At the end of the day I definitely had a favourite lens. But I’m not going to tell you which one yet.

The 5 lenses we tested were: Rokinon Xeen, Cooke Panchro 50mm, Leitz (lecia) Thalia, Zeiss Supreme Radiance and the Sony 28-135mm zoom that can be purchased as part of a kit with the FX9.

I included a strong backlight in the shot to see how the different lenses dealt with flare from off-axis lights. 2 of the lenses produced very pronounced flare, so for those lenses you will see two frame grabs. One with the flare and one with the back light flagged off.

I used S-Cinetone on the FX9 and set the aperture to f2.8 for all of the lenses except the Sony 28-135mm. For that lens I added 6dB of gain to normalise the exposure, you should be able to figure out which of the examples is the Sony zoom.

One of the lenses was an odd focal length compared to all the others. Some of you might be able to work out which one that is, but again I’m not going to tell you just yet.

Anyway, enjoy playing guess the lens. This isn’t intended to be an in depth test. But it’s interesting to compare lenses when you have access to them.  I’ll reveal which lens is which in a couple of weeks in the comments. You can click on each image to enlarge it.

Big thanks to everyone at O-Video Bucharest for making this happen.

Lens1-flare Guess The Lens! A little bit of fun and an interesting test.
Lens 1 with flare from backlight.
lens1-no-flare Guess The Lens! A little bit of fun and an interesting test.
Lens 1 with backlight flagged to reduce the flare.
lens2 Guess The Lens! A little bit of fun and an interesting test.
Lens 2
lens-3 Guess The Lens! A little bit of fun and an interesting test.
Lens 3
lens-4-no-flare Guess The Lens! A little bit of fun and an interesting test.
Lens 4
lens-5-flare Guess The Lens! A little bit of fun and an interesting test.
Lens 5 with flare from backlight
lens-5-No-flare Guess The Lens! A little bit of fun and an interesting test.
Lens 5 with backlight masked to kill the flare.

Thinking about new lenses for the FX9?

DSC_0421-2-1024x576 Thinking about new lenses for the FX9?
Sony 28-135mm f4 zoom on the PXW-FX9

If you are starting to think about lenses to take advantage of the FX9’s amazing autofocus capabilities then you should know that I have tested quite a few different lenses on the FX9 now. I have yet to find a Sony lens where the AF hasn’t worked really well. Even the low cost Sony 50mm f1.8 and 28mm f2 lenses worked very well. Infact I actually quite like both of these lenses and they represent great value for the money.

But what I have found is that non Sony lenses have not worked well. I have been testing a range of lenses on various pre-production cameras. Maybe this situation will improve through firmware updates, I would hope so, but I honestly don’t know. The E-mount Sigma 18-35 and 20mm art lenses I tried were not at all satisfactory. The AF worked, but in what appears to be a contrast only mode. The autofocus was much slower and hunted compared to the fast, hunt free AF with the Sony lenses. You would not want to use this which is a great shame as these lenses are optically very nice.

It’s the same story when using Canon EF lenses via both Metabones and Viltrox adapters (I have not tested the Sigma MC11). Phase AF does not appear to work, only contrast and it’s slow.

So if you are thinking about buying lenses for the FX9 the only lenses I can recommend right now are Sony lenses. Don’t (at this stage at least) buy other brand E-mount lenses or expect lenses to be used via adapters unless you can find a way to test them on an FX9 first.

Sigma FF High Speed Primes.

The main lenses I used for my recent Sony Venice shoot in Arizona were the  Sigma Full Frame High Speed primes in PL mount.

These are really really nice lenses!

20180418_110628-1024x576 Sigma FF High Speed Primes.
Sigma Full Frame fast prime lens set.

As they cover a full frame sensor such as the one in Sony’s Venice high end digital cinematography camera these are pretty future proof lenses. They are all fast lenses with most of them opening up to T1.5. At T1.5 you have a 20, 24, 35, 50 and 85mm lenses and at T2.0 you can go as wide as 14mm and as long as 135mm.

They are of all metal construction, the build quality is absolutely first class. As soon as you pick one up it just exudes quality. They are not light weight lenses, coming in at between 1kg and 1.3kg in PL mount form, but that weight gives you the confidence that these are lenses that will last. Lenses that will stand up to daily professional use on a film or documentary shoot.  They are dust and moisture sealed, which is probably just as well as on this shoot there was a lot of blowing sand and dust. Our on set photographer was having problems with sand and grit in his lenses by the end of the shoot, but the Sigmas just shrugged it off.

The focus and aperture markings are very clear and easy to read they even glow in the dark! The focus ring rotates through a full 180 degrees and both the focus and aperture rings have standard 0.8 pitch teeth for follow focus controls etc. The gear rings are all the same distance from the mount so there is no need to move the follow focus when changing lenses.

20180418_110645-1024x576 Sigma FF High Speed Primes.
Sigma 85mm Full Frame High Speed prime.

The lenses are available with PL, E mount or EF mounts. The set I had were fitted with PL. The mounts are not user interchangeable, but you can have the mount swapped by Sigma if you do find that you need to change it for some reason.

I shot several scenes with the 20mm lens using the Venice’s full frame 6K x 4K mode. Examining these images in post production reveals that the 20mm is really sharp right out into the corners. I also shot with the lenses wide open in some pretty dark places and even wide open they stay tack sharp. Take a look at the image below, it’s really sharp. If you click on the image you can enlarge it to view it at close to the original 6K resolution.

Horseshoe-bend_1.1.6-1024x576 Sigma FF High Speed Primes.
Frame grab from Venice. Horseshoe bend, Page Arizona. Sigma 20mm FF prime. Click on the image to enlarge.

Shooting night scenes with the 135mm wide open also gave beautiful results. When shooting with a shallow DoF all the lenses have a very pleasing bokeh. This is perhaps in part thanks to the use in all of the lenses of a 9 blade, rounded diaphragm aperture system.

When changing focus mid shot breathing is minimal and the focus ring is silky smooth. A really nice touch is the use of a damper at the focus stops so there is no noise if you hit the end stops.

Vegas-night2_1.1.2-1024x576 Sigma FF High Speed Primes.
Frame Grab from Venice, 2500 ISO, Sigma 24mm. Click on the image to expand.

During the shoot I used the 20,24,35,50,85 and 135mm lenses and they all performed really well. Looking at the footage in the grading suite it looks sharp and there are no nasty distortions. I did notice a touch of barrel distortion with the 24mm but this is to be expected with a wide lens on a full frame sensor. All the lenses matched really well, the colour remaining constant throughout the whole range. The look from the lenses was very neutral. Lens flare was extremely well controlled and I didn’t notice my blacks becoming washed out in high contrast situations. When shooting into the sun or at a direct light source any flare that I did see was normally quite pleasing.

The shot below was obtained shooting towards the sun when it was very low in the sky, yet the lens behaved flawlessly retaining deep blacks and a very high contrast image.

horse-riding_1.1.14-1024x576 Sigma FF High Speed Primes.
Frame grab from Venice with Sigma 135mm FF lens shooting into the sun in a very high contrast scenario. Click on the image to enlarge.

These lenses helped me capture some truly beautiful images with the Venice camera. I’ve long been a fan of Sigmas more recent lens designs. I have several of the Sigma Art Lenses and these have always performed exceptionally well. These prime lenses take things one step further putting world class optics into housings designed for manual control and the rigours of professional film and video productions. They are very competitively priced, especially when you consider that these are full frame lenses. I really hope to be able to use them again on future shoots. They really are top notch lenses and the images I captured with them look gorgeous.

 

Low Light Performance – It’s all about the lens!

This post follows on from my previous post about sensors and was inspired by one of the questions asked following that post.

While sensor size does have some effect on low light performance, the biggest single factor is really the lens. It isn’t really bigger sensor that has revolutionised low light performance. It’s actually the lenses that we can use that has chnge our ability to shoot in low light. When we used to use 1/2″ or 2/3″ 3 chip cameras for most high end video production the most common lenses were the wide range zoom lenses. These were typically f1.8 lenses, reasonably fast lenses.

But the sensors were really small, so the pixels on those sensors were also relatively small, so having a fast lens was important.

Now we have larger sensors, super 35mm sensors are now common place. These larger sensors often have larger pixels than the old 1/2″ or 2/3″ sensors, even though we are now cramming more pixels onto the sensors. Bigger pixels do help increase sensitivity, but really the biggest change has been the types of lenses we use.

Let me explain:

The laws of physics play a large part in all of this.
We start off with the light in our scene which passes through a lens.

If we take a zoom lens of a certain physical size, with a fixed size front element and as a result fixed light gathering ability, for example a typical 2/3″ ENG zoom. You have a certain amount of light coming in to the lens.
When the size of the image projected by the rear of the lens is small it will be relatively bright and as a result you get an effective large aperture.

Increase the size of the sensor and you have to increase the size of the projected image. So if we were to modify the rear elements of this same lens to create a larger projected image (increase the image circle) so that it covers a super 35mm sensor what light we have. is spread out “thinner” and as a result the projected image is dimmer. So the effective aperture of the same lens becomes smaller and because the image is larger the focus more critical and as a result the DoF narrower.

But if we keep the sensor resolution the same, a bigger sensor will have bigger pixels that can capture more light and this makes up for dimmer image coming from the lens.

So where a small sensor camera (1/2″, 2/3″) will typically have a f1.8 zoom lens when you scale up to a s35mm sensor by altering the projected image from the lens, the same lens becomes the equivalent of around f5.6. But because for like for like resolution the pixels size is much bigger, the large sensor will be 2 to 3 stops more sensitive, so the low light performance is almost exactly the same, the DoF remains the same and the field of view remains the same (the sensor is larger, so DoF decreases, but the aperture becomes smaller so DoF increases again back to where we started). Basically it’s all governed by how much light the lens can capture and pass through to the sensor.

It’s actually the use of prime lenses that are much more efficient at capturing light has revolutionised low light shooting as the simplicity of a prime compared to a zoom makes fast lenses for large sensors affordable. When we moved to sensors that are much closer to the size of sensors used on stills cameras the range and choice of affordable lenses we could use increased dramatically. We were no longer restricted to expensive zooms designed specifically for video cameras.

Going the other way. If you were to take one of todays fast primes like a common and normally quite affordable 50mm f1.4 and build an optical adapter of the “speedbooster” type so you could use it on a 2/3″ sensor you would end up with a lens the equivalent of a f0.5 10mm lens that would turn that 2/3″ camera into a great low light system with performance similar to that of a s35mm camera with a 50mm f1.4.

The making of “Fire and Iron”.

I’ve been shooting with the Fujinon MK18-55mm lens on my PXW-FS7 and PXW-FS5 since the lens was launched. I absolutely love this lens, but one thing has frustrated me: I really wanted to be able to use it on my PMW-F5 to take advantage of the 16 bit raw. Finally my dreams have come true as both Duclos and MTF have started making alternate rear mounts for both the MK18-55mm and the MK50-135mm.

FRY0684-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
Fujinon MK18-55mm on my PMW-F5 using Duclos FZ mount adapter.

So, when Fujinon contacted me and asked if I would be interested in shooting a short film with these lenses on my F5 I jumped at the chance. The only catch was that this was just over a week ago and the video was wanted for IBC which means it needed to be ready yesterday. And of course it goes without saying that it has to look good – no pressure then!

First challenge – come up with something to shoot. Something that would show off the key features of these beautiful lenses – image quality, weight, macro etc. I toyed with hiring a model and travelling to the Irish or Welsh coast and filming along the cliffs and mountains. But it’s the summer holidays so there was a risk of not being able to get an isolated location all to ourselves, plus you never know what the weather is going to do. In addition there was no story, no beginning, middle or end and I really wanted to tell some kind of story rather than just a montage of pretty pictures.

So my next thought was to shoot an artist creating something. I spent a weekend googling various types of artistry until I settled on a blacksmith. The video was going to be shown in both SDR and HDR and fire always looks good in HDR. So after dozens of emails and telephone calls I found an amazing looking metalwork gallery and blacksmith that was willing for a reasonable fee to have me and another cameraman take over their workshop for a day (BIG thank you to Adam and Lucy at Fire and Iron check out their amazing works of art).

FRY0619-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
A blacksmiths forge and art gallery were chosen for the shoot.

Normally I’d carry out a recce of a location before a shoot to take photos and figure out what kind of lights I would need as well as any other specialist or unusual equipment. But this time there simply wasn’t time. We would be shooting the same week and it was already a very busy week for me.

The next step before any shoot for me is some degree of planning. I like to have a concept for the video, at the very least some outline of the shots I need to tell the story, perhaps not a full storyboard, but at least some kind of structure. Once you have figured out the shots that you want to get you can then start to think about what kind of equipment you need to get those shots. In this case, as we would be shooting static works of art I felt that having ways to move the camera would really enhance the video. I have a small Jib as well as some track and a basic dolly that is substantial enough to take the weight of a fully configured PMW-F5 so these would be used for the shoot (I’m also now looking for a slider suitable for the F5/F55 that won’t break the bank, so let me know if you have any recommendations).

PMW-F5-on-jib-with-Fujinon-MK18-55mm-duclos-mount The making of "Fire and Iron".
My PMW-F5 with Fujinon MK18-55mm zoom fitted with Duclos FZ mount.

So the first items on my kit list after the camera and lenses (the lenses were fitted with Duclos FZ rear mounts) was the jib and dolly. To achieve a nice shallow depth of field I planned to shoot as close to the lenses largest aperture of T2.9 as possible. This presents 2 challenges. The F5’s internal ND filters go in 3 stop steps – that’s a big step and I don’t want to end up at T5.6 when really I want T2.9, so 1 stop and 2 stop ND filters and my gucchi wood finished Vocas matte box would be needed (the wood look does nothing to help the image quality, but it looks cool). Oh for the FS7 II’s variable ND filter in my F5!

The second problem of shooting everything at T2.9 with a super 35mm sensor is that focus would be critical and I was planning on swinging the camera on a jib. So I splashed out on a new remote follow focus from PDMovie as they are currently on offer in the UK. This is something I’ve been meaning to get for a while. As well as the remote follow focus I added my Alphatron ProPull follow focus to the kit list. The Fujinon MK lenses have integrated 0.8 pitch gears so using a follow focus is easy. I now wish that I had actually purchased the more expensive PDMovie follow focus kit that has 2 motors as this would allow me to electronically zoom the lens as well as focus it. Oh well, another thing to add to my wish list for the future.

One other nice feature of the Fujinon MK’s is that because they are parfocal you can zoom in to focus and then zoom out for the wider shot and be 100% sure that there is no focus shift and that the image will be tack sharp. Something you can’t do with DSLR lenses.

FRY0650-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
The PDMovie follow focus motor engages perfectly with the pitch gears on the Fujinon MK series lenses.

Lighting: This was a daylight shoot. Now I have to say that I am still a big fan of old school tungsten lighting. You don’t get any odd color casts, it gives great skin tones, it’s cheap and the variety and types of lamp available is vast. But as we all know it needs a lot of power and gets hot. Plus if you want to mix tungsten with daylight you have to use correction gels which makes the lights even less efficient. So for this shoot I packed my Light and Motion Stella lamps.

FRY0724-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
Light and Motion Stella lamp fitted with 25 degree fresnel lens.

The Stellas are daylight balanced LED lamps with nice wide 120 degree beams. You can then use various modifiers to change this. I find the 25 degree fresnel and the Stella 5000 a particularly useful combination. This is the equivalent to a 650W tungsten lamp but without the heat. The fresnel lens really helps when lighting via a diffuser or bounce as it controls the spill levels making it easier to control the overall contrast in the shot. The Stella lights have built in batteries or can be run from the mains. They are also waterproof, so even if it rained I would be able to have lights outside the workshop shining in through the windows if needed.

I always carry a number of pop-up diffusers and reflectors of various sizes along with stands and arms specifically designed to hold them. These are cheap but incredibly useful. I find I end up using at least one of these on almost every shoot that I do. As well as a couple of black flags I also carry black drapes to place on the floor or hang from stands to reduce reflections and in effect absorb unwanted light.

FRY0636-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
Atomos Shogun Flame being used to check exposure and focus.

To check my images on set I use an Atomos Shogun Flame. Rather than mounting it on the camera, for this shoot I decided to pack an extra heavy duty lighting stand to support the Shogun. This would allow my assistant to use the flame to check focus while I was swinging the jib. The HDR screen on the Shogun allows me to see a close approximation of how my footage will look after grading. It  also has peaking and a zoom function to help with focussing which was going to be essential when the camera was up high on the jib and being focussed remotely. I also included a TV-Logic LUM171G which is a 17″ grading quality monitor with 4K inputs. The larger screen is useful for focus and it’s colour accuracy helpful for checking exposure etc.

For audio I packed my trusty UWP-D wireless mic kit and a pair of headphones. I also had a shotgun mic and XLR cable to record some atmos.

As well as all the larger items of kit there’s also all the small bits and bobs that help a shoot go smoothly. A couple of rolls of gaffer tape, crocodile clips, sharpies, spare batteries, extension cables etc. One thing I’ve found very useful is an equipment cart. I have a modiffied rock-n-roller cart with carpet covered shelves. Not only does this help move all the kit around but it also acts as a desk on location. This is really handy when swapping lenses or prepping the camera. It can save quite a bit of time when you have a mobile work area and somewhere you can put lenses and other frequently used bits of kit.

The day before the shoot I set everything up and tested everything. I checked the backfocus adjustment of the lenses. Checked the camera was working as expected and that I had the LUT’s I wanted loaded into both the camera and the Gratical viewfinder. With the camera on the jib I made sure I had the right weights and that everything was smooth. I also checked that my light meter was still calibrated against the camera and that the lens apertures matched what I was expecting (which they did perfectly). Color temperature and colorimetry was checked on the TVLogic monitor.

It’s worth periodically checking these things as there would be nothing worse than rocking up for the shoot only to find the camera wasn’t performing as expected. If you rent a cinema camera package from a major rental house it would be normal to set the camera up on a test bench to check it over before taking it away. But it’s easy to get lazy if it’s your own kit and just assume it’s all OK. A full test like this before an important shoot is well worth doing and it gives you a chance to set everything up exactly as it will be on the shoot saving time and stress at the beginning of the shoot day.

On the morning of the shoot I loaded up the car. I drive a people carrier (minivan to my friends in the USA). Once you start including things like a jib, track and dolly, equipment cart, 6x tungsten lights, 4 x LED lights, plus camera, tripods (including a very heavy duty one for the jib) the car soon fills up. A conventional saloon would not be big enough! One word of caution. I was involved in a car crash many years ago when the car rolled over. I had camera kit in the back of the car and the heavy flight cases did a lot of damage crashing around inside the car. If you do carry heavy kit in the car make sure it’s loaded low down below the tops of the seats. You don’t want everything flying forwards and hitting you on the back of your head in a crash. Perhaps consider a robust steel grill to put between the cargo compartment and the passenger compartment.

On arrival at the location, while it’s very tempting to immediately start unloading and setting up, I like to take a bit of a break and have a tea or coffee first. I use this time to chat with the client or the rest of the crew to make sure everyone knows what’s planned for the day. Taking a few minutes to do this can save a lot of time later and it helps everyone to relax a little before what could be a busy and stressful day.

Now it’s time to unpack and setup. I find it’s better to unpack all the gear at this time rather than stopping and starting throughout the day to unpack new bits of kit. Going to the car, unlocking, unpacking, locking, back to the set etc wastes time. This is where the equipment cart can be a big help as you can load up the cart with all those bits and pieces you “might” need… and inevitably do need.

FRY0702-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
The blacksmiths workshop. A small dark space.

The blacksmiths workshop was a dark space about 6m x 5m with black walls, open on one side to the outside world.  Blacksmiths forges (so I learnt) are dark so that the blacksmith can see the glow of the metal as it heats up to gauge it’s temperature. On the one hand this was great – huge amounts of relatively soft light coming from one direction. On the other hand the dark side was very dark which would really push the camera and lenses due to the extreme contrast this would create.

fireandirongrab-1024x506 The making of "Fire and Iron".
The seven blacksmithing processes. Frame grab from the film.

We set the jib up inside the workshop to shoot the various processes used by a blacksmith when working with iron and steel. Apparently there are only 7 different processes and anything a blacksmith does will use just these 7 processes or variations of them.

FRY0624-e1504090756869-683x1024 The making of "Fire and Iron".
A small jib was used for much of the shoot.

Most of the shots done on the jib would be shot using the Fujinon MK18-55mm, so that’s the lens we started with. For protection from flying sparks a clear glass filter was fitted to the lens. While the finished film would be a 24p film, most of the filming was 4K DCI at 60fps recording to 16 bit raw. This would give me the option to slow down footage to 24p in post if I wanted a bit of slow motion.

When we did need to do a lens swap it was really easy. The Vocas matte box I have is a swing-away matte box. So by releasing a lever on the bottom of the matte box it swings out of the way of the lens without having to remove it from the rods. Then I can remove the lens and swap it to the other lens. The MK50-135mm is the same size as the MK18-55mm. The pitch gears are also in the same place. So swapping lenses is super fast as the follow focus or any focus motors don’t need to be re-positioned and the matte box just swings back to exactly the same position on the lens. It’s things like this that really separate pro cinema lenses from DSLR and photography lenses.

FRY0662-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
My wood effect Vocas swing away matte box.

For exposure I used the cameras built in LUT’s and the 709(800) LUT. I set the camera to 800EI. I used a grey card to establish a base exposure, exposing the grey card at 43% (measuring the 709 level). I used a Zacuto Gratical viewfinder which has a great built in waveform display, much better than the one in the camera. I also double checked my light levels with a light meter. I don’t feel that it’s essential to use a light meter but it’s a useful safety net. The light meter is also handy for measuring contrast ratios across faces etc but again if you have a decent waveform display you don’t have to have a light meter.

For the next 3 hours we shot the various processes seen in the video. Trying to get a variety of different shot. But when each process is quite similar, usually involving the anvil and a large hammer it was difficult to come up with shots that looked different.

FRY0690-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
Getting ready for a close up on the Anvil.

In the afternoon we set up to shoot the interview sequence. The reason for doing this was to not only provide the narrative for the film but also to help show how the lenses reproduce skin tones. The Fujinon MK series lenses are what I would describe as “well rounded”.  That is, not too sharp but not soft either. They produce beautifully crisp pictures without the pictures looking artificially sharp and this really helps when shooting people and faces. They just look really nice.

FRY0728-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
Shooting the interview sequence.

For the interview shot I used one of the Stella 5000 lights with the 25 degree fresnel lens aimed through a 1m wide diffuser to add a little extra light to supplement the daylight. This allowed me to get some nice contrast across the blacksmiths face and nice “catch light” highlights in his eyes. In addition the little bit of extra light on his face meant that the back wall of the forge would appear just that bit darker due to the increased contrast between his face and the back wall. This is why we light…. not just to ensure enough light to shoot with, I had plenty of light, if I remember right I had a 1 stop ND in the matte box. But to create contrast, it’s the contrast that gives the image depth, it’s contrast that makes an image look interesting.

FRY0740-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
Last setup of the day shooting the metal artworks. Using a gold reflector and Stella 5000 lamp to add some punch and drama to the shots.

The final stage was to shoot the treasure chest and ornate jars that would show off the the lenses macro and close up performance. The treasure chest is a truly amazing thing. It weighs around 80kg. The locking mechanism is quite fascinating and I still struggle to believe that it was all hand made. The small metal jars are made out of folded and welded steel. It’s the folds in the metal that create the patterns that you see.

Once again we used the jib to add motion to the shots. I also used the macro function of both the MK18-55mm and MK50-135mm lenses. This function allows you to get within inches of the object that you are shooting. It’s a great feature to have and it really adds to the versatility of these lenses.

FRY0742-1024x683 The making of "Fire and Iron".
The Zacuto Gratical has a much better waveform display than the cameras own, so it’s a useful viewfinder to have.

We wrapped at 7pm. Time to pack away the kit. It’s really important not to rush at this stage. Like everyone else I want to get home as quick as I can. But it’s important to pack your kit carefully and properly. There is nothing more annoying than when you start prepping for the next shoot finding that something has been broken or is missing because you rushed to pack up at the end of the previous shoot. Once you have packed everything away don’t forget to do that last walk through all the locations you’ve shot in to make sure you haven’t forgotten something.

I shot a little over hour of material. As it was mostly 60p 4K raw that came to about 1.5TB This was backed up on site using a Nexto-DI NSB25 which is a stand alone device that makes 2 verified copies of everything on 2 different hard drives. The film was edited using Adobe Premiere CC which handles Sony’s raw very easily. Grading was completed using DaVinci Resolve. I spent 2 days editing and a day grading the first version of the film. Then I spent another day re-grading it for HDR and producing the different versions that would be needed. All in, including coming up with the concept, finding the location, prepping, shooting and post took it took about 7 to 8 full work days to put this simple 4 minute film together.

Here’s the behind the scenes video 

Fujinon MK18-55mm and MK50-135mm on my PMW F5 for first tests.

PMW-F5-on-jib-with-Fujinon-MK18-55mm-duclos-mount Fujinon MK18-55mm and MK50-135mm on my PMW F5 for first tests.
My PMW-F5 with Fujinon MK18-55mm zoom fitted with Duclos FZ mount.

Prepping my camera today for a shoot tomorrow. I’ll be shooting with the Fujinon MK18-55mm and MK50-135mm lenses fitted with Duclos FZ mount adapters. I’ve been using the MK18-55mm on my FS7 and FS5 for some time and I have to say I really love this lens. It produces beautiful images with silky smooth bokeh, it’s parfocal and it covers a very hand range of focal lengths. I’ve been wanting to use this lens on my F5 for some time and now at last I can. These lenses work great on the F5 and F55. They are very light compared to most PL lenses and this really helps with the cameras balance, especially if shooting handheld. They are also very cost effective.

PMW-F5-PMW-F55-with-Fujinon-MK18-55mm-duclos-mount Fujinon MK18-55mm and MK50-135mm on my PMW F5 for first tests.
Fujinon MK18-55mm with Duclos FZ adapter on PMW-F5.

The light lens weight means I need less weight on my jib than I would have with most similar PL zoom lenses. Also being nice and fast at T2.9 I know I can get great shallow DoF. Tomorrow I’m going to be shooting 2 amazing artists that create incredibly detailed things out of large lumps of iron and steel. I’ll be shooting examples of some of the finest works of metallic art along with all the key parts of the process of creating them. There will be beauty, iron, steel, heat, flames and sparks. I’ll try to post pictures from the shoot over the weekend and once the video is done it will be online for all to enjoy.

The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.

Having done a fair bit of shooting with the new and very nice Fujinon MK 18-55mm E-Mount lens I decided to take a much closer look at the Fujinon Cabrio XK6x20 20 to 120mm T3.5 lens with the servo hand grip.

AJC05580-1024x681 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
The Fujinon XK6X20 20 to 120mm lens on my PMW-F5. The lens was loaned to me by Fujinon at my request as I wanted to test it for myself.

The price of this lens is very competitive and it can now be found as low as £11K/$16K. Lets not try to pretend that good quality PL mount zooms are cheap, but this is a great price for what is very high quality glass. The 20 to 120mm zoom range is nice and of course it’s truly parfocal there is a back focus adjuster along with macro function.

AJC05581-1024x681 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
The XK6X20 viewed from the top.

Like the other similar ENG style PL zooms this lens is quite heavy. The front element of the lens is huge and I’m sure a lot of the weight comes from this big lump of glass. One of the nice things about this lenses baby brother the MK 18-55, is that the 18-55 is really very light, which is great on the smaller cameras like the FS5 or FS7.

AJC05591-1024x681 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
The XK6X20 and it huge front element on the left and the smaller and lighter MK18-55 on the right.

The 20-120mm Cabrio exudes quality. The build quality of the lens is wonderful, the witness marks are crisp and well engraved, the servo zoom is silky smooth. The large servo module acts as a handgrip just like traditional ENG lenses and it really comfortable to hold and use this way. But if you don’t need it it can be easily removed leaving the bare bones lens body and saving a little bit of weight. There are the usual 0.8 mod pitch gears on each of the focus zoom and iris rings. Focus ring travel is huge at about 200 degrees and due to the physical size of the lens this is as much as I’d ever want. Even towards infinity there is still a nice range of travel so focussing accurately on distant objects is easy.

But what about the image quality, how does the lens perform in real world situations?

To find out I used it for a shoot in Norway. The shoot was for TV manufacturer Philips. We wanted to obtain some high quality 4K HDR footage to show off the capabilities of a new 4K OLED Ambilight TV. Unfortunately the weather conditions on the shoot were pretty grim most of the time and this made it all the more challenging. But I’m pleased to say that both lenses performed very well despite snow, ice and cold.

AJC05587-1024x681 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
You can see the size difference here – XK6X20 on the left and MK18-55 on the right.

One of the great things about having both the high end Cabrio 20-120mm and the budget friendly 18-55mm for the shoot was that the overall look of the images from the FS5 and F5 was the same. Often mixing lenses from different manufacturers results in different looking images giving the colourist more work to do in post. Fujinon now have a range of lenses to suit most budgets from the high end Cabrio 19-90mm T2.9 down through the Cabrio 20-120 T3.5 to the MK 18-55 T2.9.

So what do the images from these lenses look like? I’m afraid I can’t show any of the footage from the Philips shoot yet, I should be able to show it later in the year. Below are a couple of frame grabs to give you an idea of the kind of images you can get. We didn’t shoot the same shots with the F5/XK6x20 and FS5/MK18-55 at the same time, I was the only cinematographer. So I don’t have a side by side comparison from the shoot, but the different scenes shot with each lens/camera combo match really well.

sami1-1024x540 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
Sami woman feeding reindeer shot with the XK6X20 in Norway. Click on the image for a hi res version.

sami2-1024x540 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
Wide of Sami woman feeding reindeer shot with the XK6X20 in Norway. Click on the image for a hi res version.

trmso1-1024x540 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
Annika Summerson filmed in Tromso with the Fujinon XK6X20.

Tromso2-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
Boats in the harbour on a cold but bright morning (the only one we had).

social-1024x540 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
Icicles on the window. Shot with the Fujinon XK6X20 with my PMW-F5.

TESTING BOTH LENSES:

In order to better directly compare the two lenses I shot some test shots. The XK6x20 on my F5 and the MK18-55 on my FS7. Both cameras were set to the same settings and hypergamma 3 with the cinema matrix used. The images you will see below have not been touched, this is how they looked straight from the camera. If you click on the picture you should get a link to the full frame 4K image, but do remember this are Jpegs.

AJC05593-1024x681 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
Testing the Fujinon MK18-55 and XK6X20 with my PMW-F5 and PXW-FS7.

I tried to get the same shots with both combinations but you will see some small variations. I apologise for that. To give as fair a comparison as possible I did most of the shots at 20mm and 55mm, but then in addition shot at 18mm on the MK18-55 and 120mm on the XK6X20 so you can see the additional range each lens offers.

First test was of a neighbours Cherry tree in blossom.

FS7-Blossom-55mm2-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
The FS7 with XF 18-55mm at 55mm. Click on the image for the full size 4K frame.

F5-20-120-55-blossom-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
PMW-F5 with XK20X6 at approx 55mm (sorry about the different framing). Click on the image for the size 4K full frame.

FS7-18-55-20mm-blossom2-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
The FS7 with XF 18-55mm at approx 20mm. Click on the image for the full size 4K frame.

F5-20-120-20-blossom-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
PMW-F5 with XK20X6 at 20mm. Click on the image for the size 4K full frame.

F5-20-120-120-blossom-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
PMW-F5 with the Cabrio XK6X20 at 120mm showing the extra reach of the 20-120mm zoom.

The next test was a simple setup shot of a couple of beer bottles on a table with strong sunlight from above and behind to create deep contrast. I wanted to see if either lens showed signs of loosing shadow detail due to the very large, very bright table top introducing flare into the shadows.

FS7-18-55-20-Beer-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
PXW-FS7 with XF18-55mm at approx 20mm, high contrast scene.

F5-20-120-20-beer-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
PMW-F5 with XK20X6 at 20mm. High Contrast scene. Click on the image for the size 4K full frame.

FS7-18-55-55-beer-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
PXW-FS7 with XF18-55mm at 55mm, high contrast scene.

F5-20-120-55-beer-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
PMW-F5 with XK20X6 at approx 55mm. High contrast scene. Click on the image for the size 4K full frame.

FS7-18-55-18-beer-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
The FS7 with the XF18-55 at 18mm showing the extra “width” that 18mm gives over 20mm.

My conclusion with the above shots is that there is remarkably little difference between these two lenses. Both perform extremely well. I think the XK6X20 might be marginally sharper at the wide end than the 18-55mm, either that or the slightly better viewfinder of the F5 is allowing me to focus more precisely. In addition I think the bokeh of the more expensive Cabrio is marginally smoother than the 18-55, but again it’s a tiny difference (not as big as the difference in white balance of the two cameras).

Finally a shot of my ugly mug just so you can take a look at some skin tones.

FS7-18-55-me-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
PXW-FS7 with Fujinon XF 18-55 at approx 30mm. Click on the image for full size 4K frame.

F5-20-120-me-1024x576 The Fujinon Cabrio XK6x120 alongside the MK 18-55.
PMW-F5 with Fujinon Cabrio XK6X20 at approx 30mm. Click on the image for the full size frame.

Again very little difference between these lenses which is a good thing. Both perform very well, both produce pleasing images. Sure the XK6X20 20-120mm is more than twice the price of the MK18-55 but then it does offer twice the zoom range and it’s very hard to make fast parfocal lenses with big zoom ranges for large sensors. There will be a companion MK50-135mm lens coming later in the year, so with both the MK lenses you will be able to get the full range of the XK6X20 and a bit more, provided you don’t mind swapping lenses. It’s a tough choice if you have an E-mount Sony camera, which to get? For E-Mount I think the pair of MK lenses will be the way to go. If you have a PL mount camera the XK6X20 has to be a very serious contender. It’s a great all-round cinema zoom lens and a realistic price. Whichever way you do go you won’t be disappointed, these are proper cinema lenses.

Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway – Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.

I have just return from one of the most challenging shoots I have been involved in. The shoot took place over 5 days in and around Tromso in Norway. The aim was to gather footage to show off the capabilities of a new type of 4K TV from Phillips.

We shot the Northern Lights, we shot dog sledding , snow mobiles, shots of the city and sailing on the fjords. Each part of the shoot had many challenges and a lot of the shoot took place at night and at night the crew slept in cabins, tents and on the yachts. Shooting from the ice and snow covered deck of a yacht in temperatures well below zero is not something I enjoyed. And to top it all off the weather was pretty grim fro most of the shoot. Heavy snow showers, freezing temperatures and towards the end strong winds.

Because image quality is paramount for this project I choses to use the best lenses I could, but at the same time space and time constraints dictated that zoom lenses would be desirable. We were shooting 16 bit raw as well as XAVC class 480 on my PMW-F5 and some pick-up shots in UHD XAVC-L on a PXW-FS5. For the PMW-F5 the primary lens was the Fujinon Cabrio XK6x20, 20-120mm PL zoom and to ensure we had similar looking images from the FS5 I used the new Fujinon XF 18-55mm. I have to say that I’m quite in love with both of these lenses.

fujinon-xk6x20-20-120mm-t3-5-pl-mount-lens-cc1-e1490981959479 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
Fujinon Cabrio XK6x20 PL mount cinema zoom. A beautiful lens!

The Cabrio 20-120 is a beautiful lens and it’s really nice to have a servo zoom that is truly parfocal. The 20-120 produces really nice images even in the most challenging of conditions and at T3.5 it’s reasonably fast throughout the entire zoom range. This was the lens that I used for the majority of the shoot, in particular for the many night scenes we shot. The E-Mount 18-55 on the FS5 produces images that matched really well with the bigger lens and camera. This is a combination I would love to use on more shoots where the budget will allow.

One particular scene that we had to shoot was particularly challenging. It was a set up shot of a night time arrival of a couple of snowmobiles at a Sami camp site. The Sami people are the indigenous people of Northern Norway and they have a particular style of tent know as a Laavu which is similar to a teepee or wigwam. The idea behind the shot was to have the snow scooters arriving with headlights blazing and for the drivers to then enter the tent lit only by the light of a campfire inside the tent. At the time of the shoot it was snowing heavily and was totally dark. Turn off the lights of the snowmobiles and you could not see a thing.

A007C001_170317I9snwscter-wide-1.-e1490980652498 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
Wide shot of the snowmobiles arriving at the camp in the dark.

While modern cameras like the F5 are very sensitive, the light of a campfire inside a tent will not adequately light a scene like this on it’s own. I didn’t want a totally dark background, so I decided that I would subtly light the trees of the forest that we were in to add some drama and give some depth to the background and a sense of being in a forest.

In-tent-wide-e1490980747645 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
A slightly closer shot of the tent with backlit trees behind it.

As we were travelling continuously on this shoot there was no space for a large or complex lighting kit and the remote location meant we needed battery powered lights. In addition I knew before we left that there was a chance of bad weather so I needed lights that would work whatever mother nature decided to throw at us.

snw-scter-start-e1490980892561 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
A snow scooter comes into the shot. You can see just how heavily it was snowing in this shot.

I decided to take a set of 3 Light & Motion Stella battery powered LED lights. It’s just as well I had the Stella lamps as on top of all the other difficulties of the shoot the weather decided it was not going to play ball. We had to shoot the scene (and much of the shoot) in the middle of a snow storm. Fortunately the Stella lights are completely waterproof, so I didn’t need to worry about rain or snow protection. Just set them up turn them on and use the built in dimmer to set the light output.

To light the scene I set up a Stella Pro 5000 in the woods behind the Sami tent, aimed through the trees and pointed directly towards the camera. I chose to backlight the trees to provide a sense of there being trees rather than lighting them. I felt this would look less lit than throwing a ton of light into the forest from the front and I’m pleased with the result.

20170317_201335-e1490980965481 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
A Light & Motion Stella Pro 5000 was used to back light the trees and tent. The heavy snow was no problem as the light is totally waterproof.

The Stella Pro 5000 is very bright for a compact battery operated light, it’s 5000 lumen 120 degree output that is pretty close to what you would get from a 200W HMI, it’s very bright. It has a very high CRI and gives out great quality daylight balanced light.  It was positioned so that the light itself was behind the tent on a small bank, about 20m back in the woods. You couldn’t see it in the shot, but the light coming through the trees created shafts of light in the snow and the trees appeared as silhouettes. It added depth and interest to what would have otherwise been a near totally black background.

20170317_203855-e1490981224538 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
Light & Motion Stella 2000 used to light the forground, again the lamp is waterproof so bad weather is no problem.

Then to provide a small amount of light so that we could see the riders of the snow scooters as they walked to the tent I used a Stella 2000. I didn’t really want the light from this lamp to be too obvious as this would really make the scene look “lit”. I didn’t need the full 2000 lumen output so I used the built in dimmer to reduce the output to around 70%.

The third light was a small Stella 1000 and this was placed inside the tent with a scrunched up orange gel. The Stella 1000 would typically be used as a camera top light, but it’s full dimmable and produces a very high light quality, making it suitable for many applications. The creases and folds in the orange gel helped break up the light a little creating a less lit look sympathetic to the fire inside the tent.

in-tent-mid-e1490981340247 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
A Stella 1000 with orange gel was used inside the tent to give the light from the fire a small boost.

It allowed me to increase the illumination in the tent, adding to the light from the fire without it being obvious that the tent interior was lit. For some of the shots I had an assistant sit in the tent, out of shot and slowly move the gel in front of the light to add a little movement to the light to mimic the firelight even better.

sihuette-e1490981444887 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
One particular shot on the storyboard was the silhouette of the drivers entering the tent. The Stella 1000 really helped punch trough the canvas sides of the tent.

At the moment I can’t show you the footage. That will have to wait until after the launch of the TV. But I’m really pleased with the way this scene came out. It’s challenging trying to shoot in the dark, in a blizzard, in temperatures well below freezing. Every aspect of getting this scene was hard. Opening a flight case to get out some kit meant getting snow on everything inside it. Just positioning the light up the woods was tough, the snow was up above my knees as I waded through it. Operating the camera is so much harder when it has a rain cover on it. The viewfinder was constantly misting up as snow fell on it non stop. Seeing the witness marks on the lens is difficult (although thankfully the marks on the Fujinon 20-120 are huge and easy to see).

20170317_205922-e1490981701785 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
The Fujinon Cabrio XK6X20 lens all iced up at the end of the day. After shooting out in sub zero temperatures don’t take the camera inside until you are sure you have wrapped for the day!

But sometimes it’s challenges like these that make the job interesting. I know I was cursing and swearing at times trying to make these shots work, but seeing the scene come to life in the grade is all the more rewarding.

I’ll be writing more about the Fujinon 20-120 very soon, so why not subscribe to my blog using the subscribe bottom on the left.