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Lens/Camera Information
Lens series: Cooke SP3
Focus lengths: 25mm, 32mm, 50mm, 75mm
Camera: DJI Ronin 4D
Format: Digital
Production information
Director of Photography: Sam Wootton
DOP Instagram: @samwootton
Director: Ryan Struck
Director website: ryanstruck.com
DOP website: samwootton.com
Producer: Kris Rey-Talley
Colourist: Jeff Altman
Editor: Antonio Santos
Production company: Take Care
Our shoot spanned several days in many locations, and we knew it required nimble, quick-paced documentary coverage. If we couldn’t spend a lot of time crafting the lighting, or have the control to re-dress a set for the perfect angle, how could we capture shots that still had cinematic integrity?
We believed our best option was to pair Cooke SP3’s with a system like DJI’s Ronin 4D. This combination gave us both technical shortcuts and creative advantages in our shots for a few reasons.
The Ronin 4D can be operated like a steadicam, a dolly, or a handheld camera, all by one operator. We could design coverage inspired by cinematic camera movement with a lot less film set machinery. Cooke designed SP3’s small enough, light enough, and with full frame coverage, making them perfectly compatible with the Ronin 4D and the constraints of lightweight gimbals and small camera setups.
Most importantly, the quality of the image rendered via the SP3s had the filmic quality we wanted for the footage. I find Cooke lenses render 3 dimensional space very uniquely: wider focal lengths like 25mm and 32mm have a depth to the image that creates a feeling of presence that drops the viewer into the scene. There is nothing “clinical” about the SP3’s, where many other digital lenses are quite flat and bland. The SP3’s have organic highlights around bright sources, and flares are not distracting but very analog — there’s a controlled veiling quality that can remind me of film gate flare. The lenses have smooth bokeh with a subtle roundness, and a touch of cosmetic softness around the edges.
All of those qualities created an intentionally cinematic image (even when we were finding our shots on the fly) and really elevated the work.
