Hard mattes on mattebox?

[Shawn Nelson]

(sigh) I hate asking questions that make me sound like I just crawled out from under a rock...

But coming from a non-film background I run into accessories I've never used so...

Why do I need hard-mattes for my matte box? I'm an engineer, i've taken advanced physics, so I can imagine I'm just further controlling the amount of incident light and possibly sharpening the image and colors?

And it looks cool and is another reason for more $$ to Arri...
(but for me it'd be the time to cut out black poster board to gaff tape to my Redrock micro...)

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Hard mattes in front of the mattebox just reduce the chances of lens flare from off-camera lights. You just want to be conservative and not put the tighter ones on (I never use a hard matte tighter than for a 50mm even on long-lensed shots) because they can start to cut down on the exposure, plus they will create a squared-off bokeh around out of focus points of light.

 

[Philipp Friesenbichler]

If you are using hard mattes a good rule of thumb is to not use a hard matte with a smaller opening than the front diameter of the lens you are using - to avoid the chance of under exposure David mentioned.
But definitely a useful tool to have in the kit.

Philipp Friesenbichler
Director of Photography
Los Angeles,CA & Austria

www.pf-dop.com

 

[Cail Young]

They're less obtrusive than flags, and the 18mm hard matte for a 6x6 mattebox is always good for a laugh (it has about a 1/4" of matte from the edge of the shade).