Here are some quick pics I took around my apartment. All 1/50, ISO800, f1.4 except larger bike pic at f2.8. No flash. The bokeh is like butter! I'll have a more detailed review after using the lens on a shoot next week.

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So I always like to research lens reviews before making a purchase but then I realized I should know a little bit more about how the lenses I already own compare to each other - so I made this simple video.

Lenses:
tokina 11-16m f2.8
tokina 16-50m f2.8
voigtlander 25m f0.95
samyang/rokinon 35m 1.4
nikon ais 50m f1.2
nikon ais 85m f1.4
nikon ais 135m f2.8
nikon ais 200m f4

Now, I could have used a skater dolly type system but those run on the floor or are better for a table top. So after some research I came across the Indie Dolly System's dolly and curved track. Better yet, I rented it from Lenrentals.

The curved track was perfect for wrapping around the car's corners. Here's the system being tested out in my kitchen:

I have a 1 meter Igus rail slider and the Glidecam Hybrid cage which I love. But, I do not know of a curved slider.

Setting up the Indie Dolly was very intuitive and the shots came out great. The wheels are softer than most skateboarding wheels which helped make the shots nice and smooth. However, I'm using a Sachtler head and legs and the legs aren't exactly compatible with the base of the Indie Dolly. It still worked but you just have to be mindful when operating the whole thing.

Pretty sweet ride! A 2010 BMW M3 with custom exhaust.

And dealing with Lensrentals was pretty painless. They deliver straight to your door. The hardest part was returning the packages to a FedEx drop off because living in Manhattan, I don't own a car. But my longboard by Bustin Boards did the job! Only a 2 block trip for me.

And here's one video from a series showing the final result:

www.lensrentals.com
www.indiedolly.com
www.bustinboards.com

Gear used:
Panasonic AF100.
Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 with Kipon Aperture Adapter.
Voigtländer 25mm f0.95 & Nikon AI 200mm f4.
LED Lighting from Cool Lights (3x LED-600)

Pat was great to work with as always because he knew exactly what he wanted. I bet he had every frame memorized from the Blade sequence by the time we began filming. My favorite part about some of the shots we got was in the strong backlighting. Some of the images are strong silhouettes.

Frame from the actual movie:

Frame from Deathface music video:

Director - Patrick Rood. Talent - Reed Maidhoff & Melissa Anne.

I was excited to use the Voigtlander 25mm f0.95 lens and the trusty Tokina 11-16mm with a Kipon built-in aperture control adapter (EOS to m4/3). I also used a 1/4 Black Pro mist throughout. I loved the Voigtlander but learned to use it wide open only if necessary - it's a sharper lens around f1.4 and pulling focus while operating handheld was not the easiest.

Day 1 we shot all the warehouse and exterior night shots. Day 2 was a full day at the club. For all exterior shots we relied on street lights for "natural" lighting and in retrospect I wish I had used some movie lights to add some depth and more shape to the subjects. You'll notice 2 timelapses in the music video. 1 of a gargoyle that was shot "day for night" with a 200mm nikon manual lens. Another of a Manhattan intersection at night from my roof.

All interior shots were lit with LED lights from Cool Lights. I used 3 of their LED-600 models. You'll also notice a few dolly/slider shots throughout. I used Magic Bullet for coloring the footage to match the tone of the actual movie.
Frame from the movie Blade:

Frame from Deathface video BEFORE my color correction:

AFTER my color correction:

And the payoff of course was the digital blood from the sprinkler. A sprinkler i shot in my building's hallway and then used emitters in Apple's Motion application. That 3 second shot took over 3 hours to create but was probably the way to go; I cant see myself mopping up gallons of fake blood!

Shot from my building's hallway:

After digital blood and coloring:

Blood sprinkler from the movie Blade:

For a behind the scenes video from HiFi Cartel: http://vimeo.com/20757996
Thanks to HiFi Cartel, Trouble & Bass, Deathface, Mishka, all talent, crew, extras, & the Cove in Brooklyn.
More BTS pics from HiFI Cartel:

Please leave questions & comments below, thanks!

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So when the producer told me he wanted to film at sunset on a rooftop in Brooklyn I thought "great! - deep orange and red sky with the Manhattan skyline in the foreground". Well, it rained. Off and on. And, instead of deep coloured clouds they were grey. Hmmm, "great!" What to do?

Well, first I made sure to protect the highlights in the sky by using a Formatt graduated ND 4x4 filter. I was filming on an EX1/Letus/Nikon glass rig. I knew that if I had all of the information there properly exposed I could create the sunset effect in Magic Bullet Looks. I don't promote myself as a colourist but lately I've been honing the skill and getting professional results.

Here's what the straight footy from the EX1 looked like:

Pretty grey and gloomy but I also shot it flat to have more leverage in post. Well, I wanted to warm it up and plus I love diffusion - sometimes I go a little too heavy with diffusion and need to be mindful of it. Here is the image with a warm filter and diffusion:

Next I used an orange-y graduated filter but the orange wasn't enough to make it look like a real sunset:

The next step is the trick here - to use multiple graduated filters of different colours and different amounts. So, here is the image with a magenta filter added to the orange:

Nice! Starting to look like a sunset! Next I added some vignetting and adjusted the contrast. I like to adjust the contrast in post rather than bake it into the image in-camera.

Almost there! So for the finishing touches I wanted the overall tone have that sunset feel so I added magenta to the shadows using a 3-way colour corrector:

So that's how I created a sunset and the look for this shot. Also, if you watch the music video you'll notice the clouds are moving by quickly. That's because I created a mask, duplicated the clip on another track, and sped up just the selected sky of the shot 500%. Ha, it's like the clouds are shown as a timelapse but the rest of the image is played back naturally. Here's a shot from FCP to show what I mean:

And finally here are some BTS shots of the shoot:

Thanks for reading and please leave questions and comments. - Matthew Canada.

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