We Need Perfect Lenses After All April 2nd 2020 - 01:00 PM

Veteran cinematographers and DOPs have long understood that lenses have a personality with a specific look and feel. In the same way that an actor imparts his or her interpretation on a film’s story, the DOP selects a lens that best supports the program’s emotional stakes. The ideal cam

Presented In Cinemascope March 31st 2020 - 01:00 PM

Electronic camera manufacturers have spent – by some measures – something like the last twenty years trying to make digital cameras that shoot pictures that look like real movies. Now, they’re making cameras with larger and larger sensors, the better to simulate the sort of cameras that shot some of the great

Moving Cameras March 11th 2020 - 09:00 AM

The world’s oldest surviving motion picture, often called Roundhay Garden Scene, does not include any camera movement. It’d be tricky to imagine anything approaching a move, since the scene, which was shot in 1888 by Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince on a camera of his own invention, is just a h

Sensors and Lenses - Part 3 February 10th 2020 - 09:00 AM

There’s a terrible tendency in cinematography to concentrate too much on the technology, overlooking creative skills that often make a huge contribution. In the last two pieces of this series we’ve gone into some detail on the historical background to current camera technology. In this last piece on the

Why On-Camera Filters Still Matter January 16th 2020 - 09:00 AM

We live an era of immensely powerful post-production tools with advanced color-correction and software plug-ins to serve every conceivable function. We can routinely remove guy wires from scenes, change day to night, and add just the right amount of coral or other color to fit any desired mood or impulse.

Sensors and Lenses - Part 2 January 13th 2020 - 09:00 AM

Last time, we talked about the history that created modern digital cinema technology, and particularly the factors which lead to the modern push for ever larger sensors. It’s been going on in some form for twenty years, to the point that we’re now asking for bigger imagers than cin

Future Production January 10th 2020 - 09:00 AM

It’s not controversial to say that film production in London has been booming for a few years, and there’s no real secret as to why: in 2006, Gordon Brown’s government introduced tax incentives that have played at least a part in provoking a doubling of production spend since 2009, and t