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LOOK OF LENSES FEATURE
Cinematographer Cathal Watters, ISC, considers lenses in a way that epitomises current thinking. Veteran of the beautifully- photographed Peaky Blinders and recently engaged on feature film duties in both the US and his native Ireland, Watters could call upon practically any tool available to the modern cinematographer. An owner of Zeiss’s popular Super Speed lenses, Watters’ experience also includes the Angenieux Optimo 24-290mm zoom, ARRI’s Alura zooms, Ultra Primes, anamorphics – in short, a shopping list of the best lenses in the world. But for the feature Papi Chulo , shot in Los Angeles in 2017, Watters chose a very different path. “I knew all the modern anamorphics, so I got this three-lens set of LOMO anamorphics. One of them was in [terrible condition]. I couldn’t pull focus on the 35mm – you could set focus but you couldn’t pull it. But it was beautiful. I’d ping light into it, and the characteristics were just beautiful, they were softer than the modern anamorphics.” A few weeks later, on another collaboration with Peaky Blinders director David Caffrey, Watters found himself considering the same option again for, “a murder mystery over six half-hours. We’re going to shoot it on Super Speeds, but I suggested I get the LOMOs I had in LA... I’m going to shoot the cop world on anamorphic and the other world on Super Speeds.” These are not lenses for every job. “I tested the two sets – all of them are different. Even with the 35mm, one was massive, one was small. I’m contemplating getting an Alura – it’s really nice glass.” Bill Bennett, ASC, is a veteran of commercials for a long list of major automotive manufacturers, and echoes Watters’ comments. Having recently photographed footage for ARRI’s launch of the Alexa LF
RIGHT AND BELOW Bill Bennett works with an ARRI Signature prime on Joy Ride . Pic credit Ken Dooley.
VistaVision camera came out. A friend, Phil Holland, had one of those cameras and he had a lot of Super 35 glass that he wanted to use. It didn’t take that long to come up with the concept – it’s exactly the same as the concept of the tele extender. The part that took time was refining the design to balance performance and versatility. It’s very easy to make an extender, it’s difficult to make an expander that maximises the image quality.” The application, though, was relatively prosaic compared to Watters and Bennett’s desire for old- world charm. “The Fujinon Premiere zooms were the poster child for our expanders,” Duclos says, “since they start at T2.” The loss of brightness caused by spreading the same image out over a larger imaging sensor is equivalent to the loss of nearly a stop of light, so users need to start with a reasonably fast lens to begin with. For people who want to start out with a lens that can already fill a full-frame sensor, Duclos is quick to mention a comparatively recent release. “The Sigma primes are extremely popular,” he says. “I think the price to performance ratio is nearly unbeatable. They’re the closest anyone’s come to a modern set of Master Primes. They’re compact, lightweight, fast, the image quality is excellent. I don’t think anyone has come even close.” From this we can see that the market for cinema-style lenses, which has been surprisingly buoyant for decades given a very narrow audience, shows no signs of slowing. At the same time, the move toward very large sensors in high-end cameras can mean that a favourite lens set is no longer an option...
camera, Bennett was among the first to use the new Signature Primes created to serve that camera and its full-frame imaging sensor. “ARRI made the decision to move away from ultra-sharp, ultra-contrasty lenses towards lenses that were specially designed to be a little bit smoother in contrast. The Ultra Primes and Master Primes were designed in the film era, when film was the organic, smoothing part of the imaging chain. “These digital sensors have the potential to be much sharper. Combine them with ultra-sharp, ultra-contrasty lenses like Master Primes and some cinematographers feel it’s starting to look too sharp, too clinical, too contrasty. There’s no secret that a lot of cinematographers have taken to using older, classic lenses made 60 years ago. Super Baltars, Speed Panchros, that sort of stuff, to compensate for the super electronic digital look.” All of this has been going on since the dawn of digital cinematography, though the new popularity of full-frame sensors, has meant that these widely-held feelings about excessive sharpness have met the need for more coverage head-on. Bigger chips are the first thing mentioned by lens expert Matthew Duclos, of the eponymous Los Angeles optical workshop. In his world the emergence of full-frame has created a demand for ways to use existing lenses on larger-format cameras, regardless of their ability to provide a vintage look. “At the moment, one of the biggest trends is larger format lenses,” Duclos confirms. “We first had the [expander] concept maybe three years ago when the RED 8K
SOME FEEL IT’S STARTING TO LOOK TOO SHARP, TOO CLINICAL, TOO CONTRASTY
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JUNE 2018 DEFINITION
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