Monthly Archives: April 2021
EL Zone by Ed Lachman ASC
Ed Lachman, ASC has come up with an incredibly intuitive, innovative and essential exposure tool. It’s called EL Zone, which stands for Exposure Log Zone — or Ed Lachman Zone.
Think of it as a spotmeter in your viewfinder or monitor. Toggle it on or off. Each stop of exposure is represented by a color. White shows areas of the scene that are over-exposed by 6 or more stops. 18% gray is normal-neutral. Black is under-exposed by 6 or more stops. read more…
Tags: EL Zone, EL Zone by Ed Lachman ASC
11 ZEISS Radiance Primes
And now there are 11. Initially, 7 ZEISS Supreme Prime Radiance (SPR) lenses were introduced in June 2019. Inevitably, cinematographers asked for more. Now, just short of 2 years later, ZEISS introduced 4 more Supreme Prime Radiance lenses. ZEISS Supreme Prime Radiance lenses artistically emphasize ghosting (flares). They are consistent across the entire set. They are based on Supreme Primes but have a warmer color tone. And no, they are not simply the same Supremes with coatings removed. There is no loss of light and no uncontrolled “white-out.” Instead, Radiance Primes have newly formulated T* Blue coatings. While there are 13 focal lengths in a set of Supremes, there are now 11 Radiance Primes, from 18 to 135 mm, all T1.5. read more…
Litepanels Gemini 1×1 Hard
Hard Soft. The new Litepanels Gemini Hard 1×1 is both hard and soft at the same time. This is not a paradox. It may remind you of a 5K Tungsten Fresnel, full spot through a 4×4 frame of 216 Diffusion. The light has intensity, punch, direction. And yet there is peripheral softness and fill. It is a very pleasing for portraits. Directional enough to punch through a studio fogger yet soft enough to avoid seraphic shafts. Bright and soft to light a studio sky of overhead rags. Perhaps in separate Space Light style: skirted, diffused or raw. The Gemini Hard 1×1 is bright. I measured 3660 lux / 340 footcandles at 10 feet and set to 5600K CCT. That’s T11/2 at 800 ISO, 24 fps. read more…
DJI FPV @ MIT
Jonathon Brearley, MIT Master of Architecture and colleagues fly the DJI FPV. ” The FPV system’s precise navigation makes it feel extremely easy to position the drone in the sky. With this drone, the intention is to use the superb first-person-view (FPV) goggles that provide the pilot with a high definition stream of the 150˚ FOV drone camera. The goggles are so immersive, if you’ve had dreams of being a bird, free to roam the skies, this might be the closest you’ll get with your feet planted safely on the ground. It’s slightly uncanny how natural the flight felt, especially the ability to assess depth and proximity of obstacles through the goggles, something I do not find easy to do while flying other phone-screen operated drones. read more…
DJI Air 2s
The new DJI Air 2s combines thrill of flying and amazing image capture. It is nimble, amazing in low light, and super steady—even as a tripod in the sky. You can film in 5.4K or take 20 Megapixel stills. The one-inch sensor has 2.4 micron photosites — significantly larger than the Mavic Air 2 camera’s 0.8 micron photosites. This contributes to gorgeous picture quality and great dynamic range. read more…
Tags: DJI Mavic Air 2s
