Shut-In: A Short Test

After half a year of putting off construction, a day of waiting on maintenance to expertly assemble the materials, and an afternoon of upgrading the wheels and installing bearings, the DIY Indy Mogul Tracked Dolly was completed and ready for action.  Fortunately, I had a scheduled shoot the same night in which I could utilize both the dolly and Letus35 Extreme 35mm Adapter.  Now for the purposes of what I was doing, focus and proper alignment with the adapter took a back seat, I simply wanted to get tracking and see how the whole apparatus preformed.  I quickly discovered that the tripod needs to have a stronger centre of gravity to prevent any noticeable wobble.  At any rate, it preformed the way I wanted it to.  With a little more practice it should add a lot of dynamic to the videos I’m about to do.  Now I just need to use it sparingly to keep my style a little more free from constraint.  I colour corrected using Vegas Pro 8.0.  As this is a test, I felt I accomplished a dirty film (probably more of a 16mm) look.  The HV30 is terrible for a low light despite the power of the Zeiss lens (which made it more tolerable.  Some days it would be better to have Panasonic HMC 40 or 150, or even an HVX.  But I love what I got and the challenge of working low grade going up.

The 35mm Experience!

One of the joys of working for Marketing is parcels!  After a great lunch I made my way back to the office where I found Will hunched over a rather gargantuan box caked in shipping tape.  There could only be one object inside, the Letus Extreme 35mm Adapter complete with a Carl Zeiss f/1.4 Lens!  Needless to say, Christmas was abounding in our hearts as we lusted after its opening like a dog eying stake on his owner’s plate.  With every incision into the box, the ecstasy began to mount and thoughts bound so tightly in my brain were overspilling into my soul: was this really happening?  Was I dreaming?  Thank the good LORD no.  He has been so gracious to us, and this has been such a creative boon on behalf of our institution to which I am very thankful.

What is this new device you might ask?  Simply put, it mimics (though I use that term lightly) the look and feel of an authentic 35mm motion picture camera by allowing a shallow depth of field not granted to consumer camcorders.  Depth of field is simply the length of a particular focus – in lay man’s terms, its the blurriness (boku) you perceive around the object in focus.  It draws the eye into the image while building a solid state of surrealism.

The above video was simply but together as a test when the adapter first came in, I have yet to fully work it to full capacity.  The trick is in the grounding glass and learning how to control to separate shutters.  It can get crazy intense.  The stuff above is a little shaky and possibly a little grainy, HV30s are great little camcorders but bite the dust in low lighting, I keep forgetting that I just need to rely on the aprature of the lens.