In my continued efforts of testing my new camera and lenses, I filmed the crop sprinkler out the back of my house. I used both the 24mm and 50mm Canon FD primes. (They appear to be a longer focal length as the camera I use has a micro four-thirds sensor and the lenses specified have an FD mount; as I loved the vintage lenses’ low contrast and softer look I used a lens adapter, inducing a cropped frame, roughly doubling the focal length). This, however, does not bother me.
I filmed into the sun in some shots, as I was curious to see how they would flare and how overpowering to the image it would be for more stable shots. I was very pleased with the consequential amount. They flare enough to be stylistically pleasing, but not overpowering enough to obscure the frame completely when the sun is not included in the frame itself.
I wanted to evoke the feeling of warmth and stillness achieved in Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 film Call Me By Your Name. The recent ability to be able to record RAW footage allows for more flexibility when colour grading; so when grading the image, I pushed the warmth of the blues, mostly in the sky, more towards teal. This helped the ‘summer’ aesthetic I was trying to produce. I wanted to be able to feel the temperature of the location through the frame, colour grading with such flexibility was inordinately helpful for this.
This camera also gives me the ability to overlay custom aspect ratios, which I was very pleased by, allowing me to clearly compose the architecture of the frame in any desired aspect ratio.
I learnt more about the camera and the lenses during this test, I think I successfully captured the stillness and warmth of summer; I am pleased with the outcome.