Old and New

My New Year's resolution is to spend less time running to keep up with technology and finding more time to creatively explore the technologies to which I already have access.  Speaking of old technology, I finally got to operate a carbon arc lamp recently (thank you, Corwin Nunes at Mole Richardson).  The light that they generate is incredible.  It wraps around faces beautifully and creates incredible eye highlights, little teeny diamonds.   No creepy HMI spectral discontinuities, just pure lighting goodness.  Sigh. 

I also got to go to screen dailies for a project that I worked on that was shot in 35mm on the new Fuji Vivid Eterna 500.  It is a quite nice stock. It's color reproduction struck me as a little more subdued than with the Vision 3, with very subtle flesh tone gradations, especially to black.  Word that I heard is that Fuji is committed to film (it is a very small part of their overall business) for the long-term.  It's nice to remind yourself of the subtle joys of "analog" now and then.

Next week I will be color grading my first 5D Mark II project (the same camera that took this still).  I'm very curious as to how well it will hold up.