The anatomy of a picture.
The camera, dissected.
Pebbles from the notebook
The four simulators opened most often.
Experiment № 1 · Lenses
Anamorphic squeeze
Oval bokeh, streak flares and wide frames at 1.33×, 1.5× and 2×.
Experiment № 18 · Exposure and light
Exposure triangle
Aperture, shutter speed and ISO, with a live exposure meter.
Experiment № 30 · Motion
Shutter angle
How 45°, 180° and 360° shutters shape motion blur and stutter.
Experiment № 40 · Look and finish
Film look
Grain, halation, gate weave, flicker, dust and more.
Lenses
How glass bends, blurs and squeezes the picture.
Experiment № 1
Anamorphic squeeze
Oval bokeh, streak flares and wide frames at 1.33×, 1.5× and 2×.
Experiment № 2
Squeeze, sensor and final frame
Every sensor from Super 16 to 65 mm against 1.25× to 2× anamorphic: the ratio you record, the ratio you deliver and what gets cropped.
Experiment № 3
Spherical and anamorphic light paths
The same lens from above and from the side, at 1.33×, 1.5×, 1.8× and 2×.
Experiment № 4
Tilt-shift
Tilt the plane of focus, shift the frame and rotate the lens.
Experiment № 5
Focal length and perspective
Why long lenses seem to compress space, with a dolly zoom.
Experiment № 6
Bokeh shapes
Round, bladed, cat’s-eye, swirly and custom out-of-focus highlights.
Experiment № 7
Diffusion filters
Black mist, fog, glimmer, stockings and star filters.
Experiment № 8
Lens distortion
Barrel, pincushion and moustache distortion, and correcting it.
Experiment № 9
Vintage glass
Chromatic aberration, soft corners and swirl from older lens designs.
Experiment № 10
Flare and coatings
Ghosts and veiling glare with uncoated to modern nano-coated glass.
Experiment № 11
Chromatic aberration
Lateral fringing at the edges, longitudinal fringing either side of focus.
Experiment № 12
Diffraction and the sharpest stop
Why f/22 is softer than f/8, and where every lens peaks.
Experiment № 13
Corner performance and field curvature
Why the edges smear wide open, and which part stopping down fixes.
Experiment № 14
Depth of field
What is sharp either side of focus, and why distance matters more than focal length.
Experiment № 15
Close focus and macro
Magnification, working distance, and the depth of field falling to nothing.
Experiment № 16
The focus pull
Marks, depth of field and how much room a stop buys you.
Experiment № 17
Image circle and sensor coverage
Nine sensors from Super 16 to ALEXA 65 against the image circles of lens series, to see which lens covers which sensor and by how much.
Exposure and light
How much light reaches the sensor, and what colour it is.
Experiment № 18
Exposure triangle
Aperture, shutter speed and ISO, with a live exposure meter.
Experiment № 19
Dynamic range
How much contrast phones, cameras and film can hold, and where they clip.
Experiment № 20
White balance
The colour of the light against the camera’s kelvin setting.
Experiment № 21
Portrait lighting
Key, fill and back lights in 3D: Rembrandt, butterfly, split and more.
Experiment № 22
Lighting a two shot
One key against two faces, and the ratio between them.
Experiment № 23
Lighting over the shoulder
The near shoulder as foreground, and the key angle that clears it.
Experiment № 24
The window as a key
Distance, size, bounce and negative fill against one free source.
Experiment № 25
Lighting a night exterior
Cold edge, warm practical and just enough ambient to see by.
Experiment № 26
Lighting a car at night
Dashboard, passing streetlights and the unit nobody is meant to notice.
Experiment № 27
ND filters and IR
Stops of ND, colour casts and infrared pollution from cheap filters.
Experiment № 28
Mixed colour temperature
Window daylight against tungsten lamps, gels and white balance.
Experiment № 29
Exposure tools
False colour, zebras, focus peaking, waveform and histogram.
Motion
What happens when things move between, and during, frames.
Experiment № 30
Shutter angle
How 45°, 180° and 360° shutters shape motion blur and stutter.
Experiment № 31
Frame rate and slow motion
Recording and playback rates, natural slow motion and stutter.
Experiment № 32
Rolling shutter
Skew and jello from a pan, vibration, hand shake and running.
Experiment № 33
Wagon-wheel effect
Why spokes freeze or run backwards: temporal aliasing at every frame rate.
Experiment № 34
Pan speed and judder
How fast a pan can go before hard edges strobe, lens by lens.
Experiment № 35
Pulldown and cadence
3:2 pulldown, the PAL speedup and dropped frames, and the judder each leaves.
Experiment № 36
Retiming in post
Frame sampling, frame blending and optical flow, and where each one breaks.
Experiment № 37
Speed ramps in camera
Changing frame rate mid-shot, and the light it costs you.
Experiment № 38
Stabilisation
IBIS, gimbals and post stabilisation against shaky hands.
Experiment № 39
Flicker and banding
LED walls, cheap lights and mains frequency against shutter and frame rate.
Look and finish
Texture, colour and shape added in camera or in post.
Experiment № 40
Film look
Grain, halation, gate weave, flicker, dust and more.
Experiment № 41
Colour grading
Lift, gamma and gain wheels with live scopes and looks.
Experiment № 42
Day for night
Turning a noon exterior into a convincing night, decision by decision.
Experiment № 43
Monitor and viewing environment
Display gamma and room light against the grade you actually made.
Experiment № 44
Aspect ratios and framing
From 9:16 to 2.76, with thirds, golden ratio and safe areas.
Experiment № 45
Noise reduction
Spatial and temporal noise reduction, waxy skin and ghost trails.
Calculators and reference
Sensor sizes, data rates, colour spaces and real cinema cameras compared.
Experiment № 46
Sensor sizes
Super 16 to 65 mm nested to scale, film gauges from Standard 8 to IMAX alongside, and a depth-of-field equivalence calculator.
Experiment № 47
Data rate and storage
Codec, resolution and frame rate against cards, terabytes and offload hours.
Experiment № 48
Colour spaces and log
Rec.709, P3, Rec.2020 and camera gamuts to scale, camera log curves, and raw formats for video and stills.
Experiment № 49
Dynamic range by camera
Sensor size and shape, stops above and below middle gray at ISO 800, 1600 and 3200, and rolling-shutter readout for 23 cameras.
The street of makers
Camera by camera: the part of the sensor each recording mode reads, its top frame rate and its readout.