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In the Pink How CVP helped David Spearing capture a star on tour
while in such a tiny housing. I bought them and was using them for two or three months straight on tour with Pink.” Spearing likes to use the Sony FX6 on these jobs because of its portability. Touring with any musicians entails long periods of waiting around without much happening. And when something does happen, it’s fast, so a heavy unit is not ideal for capturing the moment. His commitment to what is effectively a run-and-gun approach meant that he couldn’t take all his vintage lenses out with him. “I took the 25mm, 32mm and the 50mm. I then had to decide between the 75mm and 100mm, settling with the 100mm in the end because there’s various shots of Pink when she’s down the runway – for that environment, they look amazing.” He did have some initial concerns that the T2.4 lenses might prove to make some backstage footage slightly too dark, but reckons they managed to hold up extremely well. “Even when I pushed the ISO or exposure, they didn’t break up at all, which is the difference between using these compared to vintage lenses, where you can see it fall apart a little bit. But when I was shooting with the audience, for instance, and the light hits them, it looks beautiful. I have never seen the FX6 look this good.” Spearing worked extensively in the music industry, both in this style of
“You feel as if you are not just another customer; you are somebody they value” “Philip Jimenez at CVP said they had a couple of sets so I pulled the trigger; I didn’t even test them as I would usually do. They were small and I could tell they were going to be perfect – and they have been. The lenses have that vintage look, but they’re also sharper and cleaner with a range of vintage glass. “I had several vintage lenses to use because I like working with vintage glass,” he says. “So I had a bunch of Olympus Zuikos and Canon FDs which looked great, but they’re a bit more fiddly to use on tour because of just how small and fragile they are.” A summer break in the schedule gave him the opportunity to look at other options. As well as leaning towards vintage looks, Spearing likes to keep his kit compact, shooting only with a small backpack containing his equipment to maximise his ability to respond to what’s around him. That means big lenses are out of the picture. Luckily, it was around that same time that Cooke released its SP3 primes.
D avid Spearing is an filming music videos for famous artists, from McFly to Mike Oldfield. Recently, following shooting for the dynamic documentary Pink: All I Know So Far , directed by Michael Gracey, he was asked to shadow Pink on 30 dates of her European and North America tour last year to capture shots for her own personal archive and social media feeds. “She likes to document and archive things, so I was following her around and filming everything,” he introduces. “That included her and her kids, when they’re backstage getting ready for the show, during the show and on days off with the band where the crew and I would film award-winning director, editor and DOP who has become well-known for his work documenting tours and elements there as well. If there were some social media videos to make, I would also cut some shots together too.” For the initial batch of dates in the UK and Europe, he decided to use a Sony FX6 which he had bought from CVP for a McFly tour in Brazil a few years previously ( Pink: All I Know So Far had been shot on Blackmagic). This is something he paired
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