Optics: Lowlight and Compression with the 110mm f/2

One of my favourite lenses is the 110mm f/2, which I use for my favourite type of shots: portraits.

At a 110mm focal length, there are no visible distortions, giving natural and pleasant proportions. This is especially relevant when shooting interviews, since the human eye is good at picking up irregularities in faces.

Face is proportional, hands are appropriate size. A wide angle lens would make the hands look bigger because they are close to the edge of the frame and close to the camera.

The high focal length also contributes to the separation of foreground and background through blurring. This is further helped by the wide Maximum aperture of f/2, which renders smooth and soothing Bokeh (blurry background).

The amount of blur in the background helps the viewer focus on the relevant part. (And it also looks pretty)

Finally this is the lens for low-light situations. The large lens opening lets in a lot of light. In this example I was shooting footage of a protest in the night. I saw a brighter image through the camera viewfinder then through my naked eyes. It’s like using night vision googles without the green tint.

Having enough light coming in through the lens also allowed me the luxury to double the shooting framerate (from 25fps to 50fps). This halves the light each image receives, but the smooth look of slowed down footage is well worth it.

50% Slow-Motion makes the flag waving in the background look nice and helps focus on the action and the feeling of the moment.

Looking around on youtube for references, I did notice that most filmmakers won’t use Slow-Motion in low light scenes; likely to capture more light per image and improve the image quality. Night-Time Slow-Motion is therefore still a somewhat unique look.