Minor Project - Practical Lens Test

Today as promised, I tested the selection of lenses we currently had for the Black Magic cinema camera. This was to be the camera I would be shooting the practical side of my project on, so testing the compatible lenses to get an idea of what lens lengths I would be using was crucial. The current amount of lenses is up in the air however, as we have just been told the Uni has ordered in more Black Magic cameras with more lenses. Because of this, I will be conducting an additional test on the new lenses when they arrive, on top of this test of the 5 lenses we currently have. I will be doing this because I hope to get as much out of the lenses we own as I possibly can, in the sense that many of them provide me with different effects and perspectives that I wish to fully explore. 

To utilise the lenses we had as much as I could today, before I go out into the elements with them, I decided it would be best if I took a subject and a backdrop and kept them in the same place with each lens. I took the subject of Andrew, a fellow student, and placed him approximately one metre from an image of his choice (a cars style animated Tokyo skyline) to get a sense of the compression create by each lens. Below is an image to demonstrate the set-up we created. 

Below I have compiled a series of images of the Black Magic cinema with variating lenses attached. I have also listed the technical aspects of the corresponding lenses. 

Samyang f/1.5 35mm

Canon f/2.8 24-70mm

Samyang f/3.1 14mm  

Samyang f/1.5 85mm 

Samyang f/3.8 8mm

This image demonstrates the distance we had between the 24-70mm and the 85mm lenses and the subject in the frame. In the contrast to the imagery captured from the lens we can see the compression that has been created. 

This image below is also demonstrating the distance between the subject and the 8mm lens, which is an extremely wide angled lens, which I discuss in greater detail in the video. We can see how far the subject is from the lens in the first image, and the effect this created on the camera viewfinder on the second. 

Below is a video in which I state display my findings in moving image form. This video depicts the effect each lens has. I will be using this to move forward into further practical and theoretical research.