Ultra wide lens used to shoot "Poor Things" 4mm , 8mm Nikkors & 10mm Arri/Zeiss

[Aussie Ash]

[Aussie Ash]

Poor Things Behind the Scenes 14 minutes -many spoilers

 

[MrSMW]

Enjoyed the movie and in this instance, the use of the extreme wide angle lenses, but generally dislike using wide myself and anything under around 30mm is pretty extreme for me.

Or maybe I should consider making a Poor Things style wedding video as a new trend to take over from the Wes Anderson one…

[Aussie Ash]

Very refreshing to see a movie made in a way that abandoned established norms.Having learnt the hard way how difficult it is to use a 19mm for landscape stills I couldn't help but notice "many of the ultra wide shots in poor things have no foreground compared to a still shot in landscape photography".

 The lens seems to be used to help create a surrealist world.

Yorgos film "The Favourite" is a damn good film as well.

[kye]

9 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Enjoyed the movie and in this instance, the use of the extreme wide angle lenses, but generally dislike using wide myself and anything under around 30mm is pretty extreme for me.

Or maybe I should consider making a Poor Things style wedding video as a new trend to take over from the Wes Anderson one…

Wides are a completely different thing depending on the circumstances.  If you're hand-holding and moving around for video it's a completely different beast than doing stills or doing video but on a tripod with very careful camera placement and subject movement etc.

I also think it's pretty difficult to make wide angle lenses look professional - that demo from ARRI showcasing their ultra-wide zoom had more "amateur with an action camera" vibes than a shallow-DOF 85mm portrait shot from the standard video mode on a 5DII.  

4 hours ago, Aussie Ash said:

 The lens seems to be used to help create a surrealist world.

This is the elephant in the room for amateurs - the pros choose equipment in support of the vision of the project whereas amateurs choose an aesthetic and then use it for completely inappropriate projects.

[MrSMW]

12 hours ago, kye said:

I also think it's pretty difficult to make wide angle lenses look professional

That’s a lot of the (my) reason for sure and because you need to often be right up in people’s grills, and then there is the distortion and massive hands…

18mm on full-frame is the widest I have and go for all of these reasons plus, I just don’t like the look. Never have.

But when used for ‘artistic purposes’, ie, ‘intent’ that is a whole other thing.