) Gorgeous flare I think. You had a similar beauty on the end of your industrial estate I think I recall. Are you using a flare guard btw? If no, how are you finding the sensor flare?
Thanks for another cracking update Phil.
I know you own 40+ lenses, can I ask which still lenses (if there were some in particular) that you were finding the most CA with?
Is that shot first shot from inside the cave looking out HDRx?
Love that shot of the singer! And being on hand to capture that UFO in the last shot was just awesome
It's been good and Skully hasn't had a "headache" yet!
A little quicky update. It's been a slow shooting week for Skully, but a really busy week for me. Just finished up two gigs and next week I'm training up an HDR Operator and setting up their HDRI rig. Mostly this week was catching up on some work on a feature I'm shooting in April. I really, really, can't wait to get some of the gear for that project. I'll be meeting with some people next month discussing the logistics of 4k for theatrical distribution. We will be shooting and going through post at 4k. Once we get "closer to the fire" I'll be sharing and blogging a great deal about the process. We have two hard months of pre-production still to go. While I've shot material for other large budget theatrically released motion pictures, this will be my first real Director of Photography gig on a full length feature. I've shot three full length projects before this, but nothing on this scale/scope. Can't wait.
I'll have time for just a few gigs before April. One of which is "B" cam on a music video. A fun event in February and couple other small gigs in March. I'll try to land one or two commercials in the next 70 days if possible. I'm also hoping to shoot and produce 1 to 3 little short projects in that time. Trying to get one of those out of the way next week. Lot's to do!
Testing out 600mm-1200mm
Anywho, the only real testing I did this week was tossing up my Century Precision Optics 600mm f/4.5 lens and seeing how the Scarlet worked out with that combo. This is a motion picture lens from the early 1980s and not many of them were made. It was originally designed for military and motion picture use. I found one for a steal several years ago and needed that 600mm length for a timelapse on a project shot from a rooftop overlooking flights coming in from LAX. It mostly sits around doing nothing, but it gets me to 600mm and 1200mm if I need it. I have something that will call for 600mm next week and currently my Sigma 300mm f/2.8 doesn't work on the Scarlet X (I would have likely used that and a doubler for this shoot if it did). I still might go 200mm with a 2X Teleconverter if the shot doesn't require the extreme length. Depends on the length of road.
The lens is a monster and not easy to use, but once center balanced it's not so bad even on a crappy tripod/head combo like this:
This was at 600mm f/10-ish. The lens can shoot from f/4.5-f/45.
And for kicks I had to see how it would perform at 1200mm at f/16.
You lose a bit of image quality and optical flaws start becoming very visible, but if you need 1200mm for some strange reason it's there.
The one thing I've noticed over time shooting with this lens at 1200mm is that the effects of heat and atmosphere are extremely visible pretty much at all times. Even at 600mm it's pretty apparent. To get the sharpest images at these lengths you want to shoot in colder environments or times of day if possible. Anything past 30 feet certainly starts to see some wild effects.
Have a good weekend. I should have more interesting things to look at other then birds and oranges in a week or so.
