Category: Snaps

Snaps

Leica Summicron-C Wallpaper – 4K! Compliments of Duclos Lenses

by Matthew Duclos2 Comments on Leica Summicron-C Wallpaper – 4K! Compliments of Duclos Lenses
Leica Summicron-C Wallpaper – 4K! Compliments of Duclos Lenses

I know… There’s been a few wallpaper posts lately. It’s because we’re gearing up for NAB which is right around the corner. If you’re not familiar with NAB – you should be. It’s an annual convention that takes place in Las Vegas where manufacturers and vendors come together from all over the world. There’s tons of antenna companies and manufacturers who make blink light panels that I have no idea how to use but have to walk by to get the the lenses…

All you really need to know is that NAB is basically Christmas morning for lens geeks like us. Stay tuned for some very exciting lens news straight from the show floor and giveaways from Duclos Lenses. In the meantime, enjoy this 4K photo of a Leica Summicron-C 25mm – she’s a beaut.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Snaps

Fujinon 14-35mm Cabrio Wallpaper – Compliments of Duclos Lenses

by Matthew DuclosLeave a Comment on Fujinon 14-35mm Cabrio Wallpaper – Compliments of Duclos Lenses
Fujinon 14-35mm Cabrio Wallpaper – Compliments of Duclos Lenses

Compliments of Duclos Lenses – Enjoy this high-res desktop wallpaper of Fujinon’s newest addition, the Cabrio 14-35mm T2.9. Happy New Year from the folks at The Circle of Confusion and Duclos Lenses. Check out the other Fujinon cinema zooms from Duclos Lenses here.

Duclos Lenses - Fujinon Cabrio 14-35mm T2.9 Fuji
Duclos Lenses – Fujinon Cabrio 14-35mm T2.9 Fuji

 

News, Snaps

NAB 2013 Rolling Update

by Matthew Duclos5 Comments on NAB 2013 Rolling Update

DSCF7048NAB 2013 is officially underway. Aubrey and I have begun scouring the show floor for interesting new bits of information pertaining to cinematography and more specifically, lenses. I’ll be dividing this post by manufacturer and will continue to update throughout the show. If you have any tips, please feel free to email them to me and I’ll go check out the details and see if I can get specific details from manufacturer reps. Enjoy! Continue reading “NAB 2013 Rolling Update” →

Review, Snaps

Does a Lens Really Provide a Look?

by Matthew Duclos2 Comments on Does a Lens Really Provide a Look?

Yes! I have some material in the pipe on just this subject but I wanted to give a quick example. While taking some beauty shots of recent Cine-Mod performed to a Samyang 24mm f/1.4, I was pleased by the results of my initial photos. A bit of info: I had been using my camera for some casual street photography with a very nice, recently overhauled Angenieux 3 inch, f/2.5 lens attached to my Olympus OM-D. The lens remained on my camera over the weekend. When it came time to take some product photos back at the Lens Lab, I grabbed my camera with the Angenieux still attached and I figured I would just leave it there to see how it fared for product photos. The results were interesting to say the least. Not exactly product photo worthy so I decided to swap back to my go-to product photo lens which is currently an Olympus 45mm f/1.8. Continue reading “Does a Lens Really Provide a Look?” →

Snaps

Leica 100mm APO-Macro

by Matthew Duclos1 Comment on Leica 100mm APO-Macro

Leica makes some great lenses. They always have. Even their defunct Leica R series lenses are still working hard all around the world. It would almost seem that Leica is incapable of making low quality products. I just finished our Cine-Mod on a Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-R 1:2.8/100, or as I like to call it, a Leica 100mm Macro. This lens performs like a dream for motion picture applications. It’s close focus is 2.5′ from the film plane which puts objects about 1.8′ from the front of the lens. Keep in mind, this is 100mm. It’s not THAT close considering the Zeiss ZF.2 100mm f/2.0 cranks all the way down to 18″ from the film plane which is about 8″ in front of the lens. The only draw back, which both the Leica and the Zeiss exhibit, is the massive amount of telescoping from infinity to close focus. Both lenses go from a modest 5″ length to a maximum of about 7″ at close focus. Still, Leica made some amazing glass that still does it’s job quite well.

Review, Snaps

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Quick Take

by Matthew Duclos2 Comments on Olympus OM-D E-M5 Quick Take
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Quick Take

As any of you who follow me on twitter know, I’m a total Olympus fan boy. I have everything from an original OM to an E-620, an E-PL1 and an E-P3. How could I possibly resist the newest addition to the Olympus line-up, the OM-D E-M5. Sure then name sucks and can easily be confused with a fax machine model number… But lets just call it the OM-D for now since there isn’t another OM-D model to confuse it with. There are a lot of haters out there that say this isn’t a real OM since it isn’t even a range finder. It’s basically a re-bodied E-P3 with a few new tricks. Continue reading “Olympus OM-D E-M5 Quick Take” →

News, Snaps

Zeiss Goes Anamorphic (UPDATED)

by Matthew Duclos14 Comments on Zeiss Goes Anamorphic (UPDATED)
Zeiss Goes Anamorphic (UPDATED)

Most modern cinema goers would associate anamorphic lenses with Panavision and their quintessential blue flares seen in many feature films. These beautiful flaring characteristics are a result of the optical design of an anamorphic lens. These flares are what I would consider a flaw. A beautiful flaw… In fact there are a slew of filters that can be applied in post to attempt to replicate such artistic flares. Some of these “third party flares” work pretty well, but it’s the rest of the anamorphic effects that cannot be replicated easily by a computer. The primary function of anamorphic lenses is to achieve a wider aspect ration on a similar sized medium than with traditional spherical lenses. Continue reading “Zeiss Goes Anamorphic (UPDATED)” →

News, Snaps

Portland Lens Test 2011 BTS

by Matthew Duclos6 Comments on Portland Lens Test 2011 BTS
Portland Lens Test 2011 BTS

Tim Whitcomb of Indent Studios hosted a myriad of B-List lenses for testing on an army of RED Epic cameras. I say B-List, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t bad lenses. I simply mean that they are less known than lenses like the Angenieux Optimo series or the Zeiss Master Primes or even the Cooke S4 or 5i series. It was perhaps a collection of the rest of the lenses that shooters are curious about but may not want to invest $20k-$50k just to try out some exotic glass. The test included lenses from manufacturers such as Zeiss, Illumina, Cooke, Leica, RED, and Uniq Optics. The testing included three different stations, each with it’s own purpose. The lenses all rotated from station to station in a sort of ballet. I have to say, everyone that participated in this test was extremely professional and made everything look so easy. I certainly couldn’t have pulled something like this off. I’m not going to go over test results as I haven’t even seen most of them myself. Tim will be releasing the results, probably through REDUser in the near future which I will link to when it’s available. Regardless of the results, participating in the test was great fun. I was able to meet a lot of great people and finally put some faces to the names REDUser, Twitter, and email have provided over the past few years. I’ll put up a list of full credits once I have all the details. But for now, enjoy a few BTS photos. Continue reading “Portland Lens Test 2011 BTS” →

News, Review, Snaps

Olympus M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 Review

by Matthew Duclos1 Comment on Olympus M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 Review
Olympus M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 Review

I recently put up a post reviewing my new Olympus E-P3 and briefly discussed some of the lenses I use regularly including the Olympus M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8. I wanted to go a bit more in depth regarding this particular lens now that I’ve had a chance to really try it out and about. I had holiday plans to go visit my fiancé’s family in Oklahoma for thanksgiving this year and thought that would be a perfect opportunity to do some photography around town and capture some of the mid-west charm. I haven’t done a post quite like this before so feel free to comment and let me know what you think, how I can improve such posts. Also, if you have any requests, I’ll be updating this post with more photos throughout the week, so feel free to request specific tests. Onto the good stuff.

20111124-094935.jpg Continue reading “Olympus M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 Review” →

Random, Snaps

Thanks, Bokeh Babes!

by Matthew Duclos2 Comments on Thanks, Bokeh Babes!
Thanks, Bokeh Babes!

In an effort to harvest attention to the T-shirts that support this blog, I decided to outfit some attractive women in sample shirts. There are small thumbnails with links to purchase the T-shirts scattered around this site, but I thought I would give a special thanks to each of them here. They were great sports, allowing me to objectify them for a moment to share with the rest of you. Thanks again ladies.

A bit more on the shirts… They are printed and shipped from CafePress straight to your door. The quality of the shirts is as good as T-shirt quality gets. I’ve had mine for several months and washed a dozen times and the print is still good. Each t-shirt sale proceeds go to keeping this site running. Feel free to spread links to this page all over the interwebs and encourage friends to support the site with a T-shirt as well. Enjoy!

Purchase t-shirts here: http://www.cafepress.com/duclosswag

20111124-102152.jpg Continue reading “Thanks, Bokeh Babes!” →

News, Snaps

PEN EP3 FTW LOL

by Matthew Duclos9 Comments on PEN EP3 FTW LOL
PEN EP3 FTW LOL

Olympus has suffered a lot of bad press recently with the outbreak of bad corporate decisions and “fee payment” coverups. I’m not one to speculate about international corporate scandal, for several reasons; I don’t have all the facts, and I don’t care. As long as Olympus continues to crank out quality products, I’ll continue to buy them. I’ve owned several Olympus cameras several of which were the PEN line of cameras. I fell in love with the Micro Four-Thirds (M4/3) system, shared by Olympus and Panasonic, right around the time the Panasonic AF-100 became popular with its’ modest sensor and versatile lens mount options. The M4/3 system is extremely flexible in that adapters can be used for just about any lens mount. From Leica R to Arri PL mount, almost any lens can be mounted to a M4/3 camera with little to no hassle. Other than the vast array of lens options I really appreciate the inherent compactness of almost all of the M4/3 cameras. Wether it’s the relatively miniature Panasonic AF-100, or a pocketable PEN camera, I can’t get enough of the M4/3 system. My introduction to the PEN line was rather careless. I never thought I would adopt such a fledgling standard and grow to prefer it over other systems that have been around for decades. A little background on my E-PL1: It was purchased as a test mule for lens evaluation when it first came out. I knew that I could mount all of the cinema glass I was servicing and testing to it and thought it would be useful for real world image testing. The small sensor wasn’t a big deal since  I was only looking for basic center image test results. The camera did indeed provide vital test results but eventually we moved onto larger sensor cameras for test mules in order to evaluate frame coverage and edge illumination falloff more often. The E-PL1 was retired to my bench where I occasionally snapped photos of interesting subjects for use on my twitter or blog. At this time, I regularly used, and still do, a Nikon D700 with an arsenal of lenses for my hobbyist shooting around town and on vacation. Continue reading “PEN EP3 FTW LOL” →