Are Two Lenses Better Than One? (Blackmagic & Zeiss Otus 28/55mm f1.4)

0:00 - Intro
0:40 - Wide (Zeiss Otus 28mm)
3:04 - Compressed (Zeiss Otus 55mm)
5:35 - A Recipe for Disaster
8:15 - Choice
10:51 - Credits and Technical info

Dear Ghosts,

Thank you all for waiting, this video took longer than expected because of the script but I have learned a lot with each improvement. What a big file, over 110GB! Experimented a bit for this video. The focus for the video aside from two lenses was to film at f2 an-f4, which is my preferred aperture for Zeiss lenses. Really enjoying some of the images I got from the Zeiss Otus 55mm. The main downside of brining two lenses wasn’t the weight and pain of swapping. It was actually my different NDs, so for some clips you may notice some color shifting when switching back and forth. This will be solved in the future… Also the Blackmagic looks fantastic for certain scenes and less so for others. Not a fan of how it renders hair and skin especially for closeups, I much prefer the texture on the Sigma FP. But there are some situations where the Blackmagic looks better. When you have good lighting or bright sun I think the Blackmagic shines, particularly indoors when you have window lighting. That’s also why I graded this project brighter and more standardly, though I usually prefer a dimmer grade. I lost my mind, forgot about banding and got too cocky for the lowlight in the last section though. I’ve always felt in these dark scenes that the Blackmagic starts to really feel like Arri. The gyro stabilization is also very good, something about the shape of the pocket body makes it so I don’t even need stabilization, its shape makes it less prone to micro jitters. Colorgrading is also very pleasant on the Blackmagic. I was able to utilize my CleverLUTs and I like how it turned out with the exception of some nighttime scenes where I really screwed up WB. I set WB for the sky, but I should have done it for the skin. The LUTs have been updated on the store as well, I used Sunset quite a lot for this video, it’s now my most used look.

The music is also available on Patreon, I think I did a pretty okay job for this one. I initially wrote all 4 pieces as part of a whole theme, but they ended up diverging a bit. Still a ways to improve for more continuity between tracks. I’ve also made the video louder than previous videos. To be honest I think -14LUF standard is kind of too loud, if you have feedback for me that would be helpful in deciding. My voice might sound a bit monotone for this one because it was so long and I recorded it a few times. I can understand why people might not find the current style of voiceover appealing so maybe I’ll spice up the delivery in the future. Sound is just very difficult especially because I don’t have sound treatment and my environment is sonically unfriendly. There’s constant construction, thin walls, children and public singing that make recording a nightmare. But we persist! Hope you enjoyed this video, Tianjin was very fun, but a lot of places don’t allow filming, which is a shame. I will be diverging a bit with various shorter content in the future because I think each video taking a month to make is too long. As usual, let me know your thoughts in the comments while I'll keep jotting down in the video descriptions. I always recommend people to write out their thought process. Record, cast ideas away and move on.

Spend wisely.

Love,
CleverG

Website: https://cleverghost.net/
Patreon:   / cleverghost  
Instagram -   / markoyanli  
Chili -   / cleverghostchili  
Business inquiries - [email protected]
Discord community -   / discord  

Gear:
All opinions expressed here are my own. I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you should you decide to purchase something through these links, which greatly assists me in creating more quality content.

Main cam: https://amzn.to/45CEgPH
B roll cam: https://amzn.to/3w4Ia7X
Photo camera: https://amzn.to/46E362T
Main lens: Zeiss Otus 28mm f1.4 EF
Closeup lens: Zeiss Otus 55mm f1.4 EF
Most recommended lens: https://amzn.to/44rn4gV
Ultrawide lens: https://amzn.to/3PoI3L0
Favorite Fuji lens: https://amzn.to/3S5my48
Monitor: https://amzn.to/4cCtQmv
Battery: https://amzn.to/3MkKz3e
Drone: https://amzn.to/46Ij3oC
CFexpress B Card: https://amzn.to/3tJDKly
Samsung T7: https://amzn.to/3rZKFGT
EF - L adapter: https://amzn.to/409Wuqk
EF - X speedbooster: https://amzn.to/3Q8gOUL