A few weeks ago, my buddy Travis and I got together and watched Sony Pictures’ VENOM. The movie was an overall “meh”, but there was a scene that stuck in my head, even after 2+ hours of missed opportunities.
Did you catch that?
Let’s grab a still from the trailer:
Do you see that bokeh (glowing lights) in the back? They’re square! SO COOL!!!
Using an anamorphic lens (paired with some cinematic filters) and I’m guessing that’s how they achieved this shot.
But how can I, a dude armed with only a Sony A7RII get similar results?
Let’s get crafty!
First, I stopped off at Cliff’s Varietals in the Castro and picked up a thin black sheet of velvety-soft foam. After measuring the circumference of my 85mm. 1.4 Sony GM lens, I cut out the shape that would cover my lens.
I then cut out a square (more like a rectangle) from the center of my circular shape and mounted it to the lens using acid-free mounting tape.
Now let’s step outside and test this monstrosity out!
That came out pretty awesome, now let’s go find someone to be our model and who better than The Colonel himself!
Some final notes: I think a 50mm f/1.4 might actually be a better lens choice for close-up portraits (if you’re shooting in low light like I was). The amount of falloff made a lot of the shots challenging and I lost a lot of detail in the subject when not shooting on a bright street.
Also, I mounted the filter over the lens hood which turned out to be a bust because I ended up needed to manually focus the lens due to the inability to fully utilize the camera’s normally amazing auto-focus because of how I was obstructing a majority of the glass.
More experiments to be posted!