36 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE CANON
ALTERED IMAGES No one had really considered using Canon EOS Cine Prime lenses for the biggest sensored movie camera in the world until Netflix’s Altered Carbon series found a match made in heaven
WE ENDED UP WITH TWO SETS OF THE LENSES FROM THE CN-E14MM T3 TO THE CN- E85MM T1.3
camera but this time he wanted to use the Canon Cine zooms with it. More modification yielded the same result and again the Canon lenses became the number one shooting lens for the popular episodic series. “We ended up using lenses like the CN-E30-300mm T2.95-3.7 for the show,” he explains. “It’s a lovely lens and gives us the extra length that the zooms we usually use would not.” But Neville didn’t leave it there as he needed a camera to shoot the car scenes – and there were a lot of them in the series. Remembering his time with the EOS C300, he brought in the new EOS C300 MkII model. This was so he could use his Canon Cine Primes as originally designed with EF mounts and he could shoot 4K. “We tested a few of what you could call movie cameras before we decided on the EOS C300 MkII; it creates a beautiful image and beat some of the major cameras that are designed for episodic work. It was so good that matching with the main camera was easy – much easier than the other cameras we tested.” Neville has even found a place for the Canon EOS 5D MkII in this new series. “One of the characters has a kind of heightened alert status which we used the Canon EOS 5D MkII for. It’s a very stylised look, shooting very close focus in a rapid stills mode for this desired effect.”
“We ended up with two sets of the lenses from the CN-E14mm T3 to the CN-E85mm T1.3,” says Neville. “These are great fast lenses, which is what you need in these types of episodics. We thought about using vintage glass but they are just not fast enough. Now we use the primes for most of the shooting; we do use other character glass but the Canon lenses match up beautifully in the grade and we got nice flares. We were really happy with the performance; now they are our go-to lenses. “We tested so many lenses for AC and because we weren’t going down the 6.5K route we looked at vintage primes, the old VistaVision lenses which are fantastic but a bit slow. A lot of those are like T4, working on a TV schedule in episodic mode, you kind of need faster lenses. You can’t have lenses that jump around too much. The main priority was the coverage of the sensor, but we were really happy with the performance. We had decided to get the minimum focus that the directors are used to and the Canon Primes gave us that. Also with the benefit of the faster lenses we didn’t need so many lights.” TRAVELERS Neville had learned the trick of modifying Canon lenses when he shot the Netflix series Travelers . Again he was using a large-sensor
OP Neville Kidd had used a combination of Canon lenses and Canon’s EOS C300 MkII camera on his first Netflix
sci-fi show, Travelers . He had trusted them so much that when his latest and much bigger Netflix sci-fi show, Altered Carbon , started shooting he came back to Canon glass. “We used one of the largest sensored digital cinematography cameras and before we started shooting we went into a long period of testing which lenses would suit,” he says. “The camera can shoot 6.5K images which results in a lot of data to deal with; we decided to bring that down to 5K so it would be cheaper to post-produce. We then had a problem with close focus using some lenses, but we looked at the Canon Cinema lenses and realised that they would cover the sensor perfectly and give us the range that we really needed.” FAST LOVE “The only problem was we needed XPL lens mounts and the Cine Primes up to now have only been available in Canon EF mount,” Neville continues. But luckily, and because of their popularity, the excellent 35mm full- frame Canon CN-E Primes will work on just about any PL mount camera with a simple modification that can be returned to factory spec with the OEM Canon EF mount if needed.
IMAGES On-set with DOP Neville Kidd, with the ARRI ALEXA 65 and Canon EOS 24mm Cine Prime lens. Above, the 24mm Prime.
DEFINITION MARCH 2018
DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
Powered by FlippingBook