Trying out the new Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K

I’ve been a huge fan of Blackmagic Design cameras since I purchased the original Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera over a decade ago. They’re a company that knows how to make an incredibly powerful and versatile cinema camera at an affordable price for an indie filmmaker like myself, and using their cameras to make my short films look more filmic by adapting vintage lenses to them and using all sorts of color grading methods has been a real pleasure. Recently I was able to demo Blackmagic’s first full frame camera for Fotodiox, showing off some of Fotodiox’s L-mount adapters in the process. Here’s my full demo video:

I was really impressed by the quality of the BMCC6K’s image, and I loved the full frame open gate look. It felt a bit like shooting in IMAX. Like all cinema cameras, there are some limitations. It’s not the easiest camera to hand hold without a stabilized lens, and it works much better on a tripod, but I’ve been meaning to shoot in a more locked down style anyway :)

Here’s a demo video I shot with the Cinema 6K and a 14mm Rokinon lens.

As much as I love this camera, I’m still pretty happy with my Pocket 4k and Sony A7S II, although I may consider using one in the future. It was a great experience shooting with it for a week!

Shooting 110 Film with a Binoculars Camera

I’ve been a big fan of shooting small gauge film for years. I love the extra grain you get with a smaller negative, and shooting 110 film is a great way to emulate the 16mm motion picture film look for stills. I’ve shot with cheap 110 cameras and high-end 110 cameras, but this binocular camera was something new for me: a 110 camera with a long lens specifically for capturing nature and sports photos.

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Shooting Video with a 90’s Black and White Toy Video Camera

A couple years ago I bought a Tyco VideoCam on ebay, a black and white toy video camera made for kids in the 90’s to shoot videos in their living rooms with. At long last I have it up and running and have been shooting some shorts with it. It helps me create maybe the strangest lo-fi look I’ve come across, a weird mixture of bad VHS tape and black and white super 8 film. I hope to use it on some more ambitious projects soon, but in the mean time, here’s a video I made for Fotodiox about how I shoot with it.

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Ultra-Wide Point & Shoot Cult Camera – The Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim and Its Clones

In college I became obsessed with film photography, and one of the first film cameras I started shooting with was a Superheadz Black Slim Devil, which was a clone of the cult Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim, a cheap plastic point and shoot camera with a fantastic 22mm wide angle lens.

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