Broken Rod
a gary san angel film
Location: American River – Sacramento, CA
Fly Fisherman: Royd Hatta
Music
Frederic Chopin – Nocturne No.2 in Eb Opus 9, No.2
Record Label: Daniel Ho Creations
Release Date: October 2006
Since I finally put together a short demo on how to cut the legs off the Contax G 28mm lens I thought I’d show some sample footage as well from a filmmaker stand point. There are many examples of beautiful still photographs using Contax G glass at The GetDPI Photography Forum. I’ve always learned a great deal from these fine photographers and incorporate their techniques and knowledge for my filmmaking needs.The thread called “Fun with Contax G lenses on m4/3″ has some pretty stunning examples of why these Contax G lenses are making a big comeback.
A few weeks ago I had to fly out to work in Sacramento, CA for a week. Being a native Californian I wanted to check out the beautiful surroundings and rivers that make Sacramento unique. I called up my good friend Royd Hatta who is an artist and fly fisherman and we headed for the American River. Since this was a working trip for my 9 to 5 job I was not thinking and did not take my Variable ND filters or matte box along so much of what I shot using the Contax G 28mm lens was between f/5.6 to f/16 so there is not really any shallow depth of field shots. But you can still get a sense of the Contax G 28mm lens contrast and sharpness. Now mind you, for this segment you’ll not see that truly because I had the Raynox wide angle adapter on the lens. I did this for a few reasons, the first being that I only had my indiRAILSpro MP and no follow focus so I needed to counter the camera shake. Having the Raynox .66x wide angle adapter essentially made the 28mm lens an 18.5mm lens and you could get wonderful wide shots and not have to worry too much about having a super steady hand. The other reason of course is that the Raynox HD-6600PRO is a very good wide angle lens and does not have as much image distortion and obvious corner blurring that often is the case when using other wide angle adapters. I wanted to test and pair up the Contax G 28mm lens with the Raynox HD-6600PRO to see how well they work together.
This little film is a result of that test. One of the things you’ll notice is lots and lots of lens flares some of which is kinda cool but there were times I wish it wasn’t there. Much of the flaring came from the Raynox lens and when I took off the lens there was less flaring with the Contax G 28mm lens. Oh, well. Next time I’ll make sure to take a good matte box and ND filter. For a sort of run and gun type situation I was really happy with some of the sharp results. Just see for yourself.
Music was scored by one of my ukulele hero’s Gordon Mark with his version of Frederic Chopin’s piece Nocturne No.2 in Eb Opus 9, No.2 from his album Personal Notes produced by Grammy Award Winner Daniel Ho.