The Prime of E:60

TRAILER: E:60 Bhopal India from evolve. J EDWARDS on Vimeo.

E:60 shooters Joel Edwards and Bill Roach went to Italy in August – for a story on model/skydiver Roberta Mancino – and India in September – for a story about children who play cricket on the toxic fields of Bhopal.

         Before they left they acquired new equipment that – they hope  - will deliver those stories with greater impact.

         The just-out Zeiss CP.2 prime lens, Edwards said, “offer serious upgrades to image quality, aperture control and dynamic range.”

         Filmmakers long have used older versions of prime lens. Now, television is using prime lens as it gravitates towards digital cinema.

         In Italy the new lens were used for some specialty and scenic shots.  In India they were used, when possible, on the A and B cameras, for interviews, scenes, and scenic b-roll.

         Prime lens creates a “huge” depth of field, which leaves some of the image out of focus, and draws the viewer’s attention to what is in focus.

         For a shooter, the prime lens poses a challenge.

         “The big difference is that it slows everything down – it makes you think out your shots,” Roach said.  “You can’t zoom – you have to walk closer or change lens.  It’s a very methodical way of shooting.”

         Said Edwards: “It's all about mood setting and image control when choosing a lens - so depending on the creative content of the scene - we'd use the best matching equipment setup accordingly.”

         Shooter lexicon is rich with arcana such as iris ring, flare suppression, aperture, and t-stop.  My personal favorite is “bokeh” – the out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a lens.  But viewers need not know any of that to appreciate the next flight of E:60 stories, which starts October 5.   You can just watch.

         Posted by Steve Marantz, Sept. 23, 2010

          Here’s the link to Zeiss:

http://www.zeiss.com/compactprime