• James Westbrook

    Director of Photography

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    +44 (0)7821 158166

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    Brookside Farm, Hermongers Ln, Rudgwick, W. Sussex, RH12 3AH
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Forget the Scarlet and the C300

check out these alternative weird ass HD cameras!

First a little moan..

I’m not a big fan of the C300 for the following reasons

It’s over priced
Over crank is only 720p
That view finder thing at the back looks awkward
It does look a little too plastic
Not sure I like the image…

and the Scarlet..

Only at 4k are you using the full field of your lenses. The higher the frame rate, the higher the crop in on the sensor. So
you cant do any wide angle slo-mo, FAIL!

I also hate the fact I’m forced to buy everything RED just to make the thing work
I’m not a fan of the RED RAW work flow

Still nothing compares to the simplicity and film like images of the Alexa :)

However… what other weird and wonderful options are out there…?

First up is the Yolk y2. Not sure if it’s even in production. Looks like a futuristic Aaton to me :)

(more…)

 

Sunday, November 6th, 2011   Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Category: Kit & reviews   No Comments comments

Sony NEX-FS100E : A review

A company I work quite a bit for wanted to test out the new (ish) Sony FS100 for a recent green screen shoot at
Spectrecom studios. The camera itself isn’t great. Ergonomically it’s a disaster, it all feels very awkward and rushed in
it’s design. It doesn’t have any built in ND’s, no SDI out and is a good £1500 more expensive than the superior
Panasonic AF101.

However, the worst complaint has to be the stock lens it ships with. This thing is without doubt the worst lens I have
ever used! At it’s widest focal length, it’s a pretty slow f3.5. Zoomed in, it drops to f.6.3 which is a complete joke.
Even with plenty of light, I was having to introduce some gain… FAIL.

 

Saturday, July 23rd, 2011   Tags: , ,
Category: Kit & reviews   1 Comment comments

Puerto Banus Promo Shoot

Just come back from Marbella where we shot 2 music videos in 3 days for ‘Kay Zed’ Teaming up once again with
Fouad and Jak from Frsh Productions!

Here’s some screen grabs from the shoot.

We chose to shoot much of the shoot on long lenses for max depth of field. 135mm tended to be first choice for much
of the shoot.

Essential items in my kit bag were my ND 0.9 – it was crazy bright out there, and my Linear polorizer. Perfect for
increased saturation, reducing glare and useful for cutting through reflective surfaces.

(more…)

 

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011   Tags: , , , , ,
Category: On location   3 Comments comments

Green grading

I really must get to the bottom of why I struggle not to grade everything green! As nice as green is, there’s a whole spectrum out there.

 

Saturday, June 11th, 2011   Tags: ,
Category: Uncategorized   No Comments comments

Custom lens gears

lens gear

These are my very own custom lens gears. So much better than the crappy ‘one size fits all’ gears that most DSLR shooters tend to buy.

Due to only ordering 6, the price came to about £50 per lens which included vat and delivery!

These guys were by far the best on the internet… check them out http://www.davall.co.uk/

lens gear

 

Thursday, May 5th, 2011   Tags: , , , ,
Category: Kit & reviews   2 Comments comments

Hermitage

This last month it feels like I have taken on some hermit characteristics, largely because of the unusual amount of grading/editing I have found myself doing. Sitting in a darkened room is not good for the soul, and so with that in mind, I’m looking forward to shooting two music videos in Spain in a couple of weeks time. The sunshine beckons!

 

Thursday, May 5th, 2011   Tags: , , ,
Category: Random   1 Comment comments

He’s called Otter!

You might be wondering who the pretty girl is in the picture? The real question you should be asking is who’s holding the clapper!

Some say he spends most of his time figuring out how to reinvent himself as the next Ricky Martin, and the only way to make him happy is to switch off every light apart from a backlight! All I know is, he’s called Otter! I would link you to his website, but he doesn’t have one!

 

Thursday, March 10th, 2011   Tags: , ,
Category: Random   No Comments comments