At the end of the last year I decided it was time to invest in a set of lenses. While I love Cooke S4s and Ultra primes, they are a bit out of my budget for an everyday set of lenses. After a ton of research, I pulled the trigger on a set of Schneider Xenon Primes. The Xenons have some great features, such as very little breathing, switchable from PL to EF, uniformed size and they also cover full frame sensors. But the thing I really love about the Xenons is how well the lenses are color matched and also how the lenses render skin tones. The bokeh is also wonderful. The Xenons have a more natural look then Canon, but not as contrasty as the CP2s. So far I have mounted the Xenons on the Amira, Red Epic, FS7 and Canon c300, samples of a few combos below.
VASQUE
Over the summer I headed out to Seattle to direct a mini doc for the hiking boot company Vasque. The short film profiles David Page, a legendary outdoor footwear cobbler. We spent a day in Dave Page's shop and then a day on the trail with some of his loyal customers. Nothing beats getting to hike on a shoot!
RED WING HERITAGE | ITALY
The very first shoot I got to use my new Xenons on was a profile of Yoji Tokuyoshi for Red Wing Heritage. We shot the project in January of 2015. You can see I hadn't picked up a 114 to 100 step down rig and was instead using a foam donuts, which worked just as well.
COKE ZERO | BILLBOARD
Another cool project I shot with the Xenons this past year was a doc style spot for Coke Zero & Ogilvy. I don't have any BTS photos from this project, but here is one of the many edits that came out of the project.
THE NEW YORKER | THE MOST RECOGNIZABLE VOICE
And I almost forgot this New Yorker Piece, shot with a combo of the FS7 (for the interviews) and Canon c300 for the b-roll. (except Macro shots, which was with a Canon 100mm macro)