Cooke Mini S4/i + Black Satin

[Stefano Stroppa]

Hi all,
I’ll have time to test all the following, but I thought it’d not hurt asking here out of curiosity your inputs and suggestions ahead of all the testing:

So I’m prepping a film, because of the story the look I want to go for is some soft and gentle looking image, natural colors, nothing too saturated and ‘harsh’. I thought of using a combination of lenses with some Black Satin diffusion filters which I have (most likely 1/8 but will test this) 

What I’m asking myself now is: would the combination of Cooke Mini S4/i and the filter possible give me too soft an image to a certain extent (and in that case going for some very sharp Zeiss lenses + filter would be a better option)? I want an image that looks sharp, but sharpness should be gentle and not too digital, on the other hand I don’t want the image to turn out to be too soft, almost feeling “out of focus”.

As I said, I’ll be testing a few combinations of lenses + filters, but I’m curious on what you would suggest.
It’s always interesting to hear from others, and it can also turn out to be a nice learning process as well.

Thank you!
Stefano

[David Mullen ASC]

The Cooke S4 isn’t too soft unfiltered so you can adjust the softening by the degree of filtering. Using a sharper lens with heavier diffusion is just a different look, more for when you want the artifacts of diffusion like halation but want to keep more sharpness.

Black Satins combine degrees of Digital Diffusion F/X with some base level of Black GlimmerGlass. So it’s two filters in one — meaning you can also use them separately like just use the Black GlimmerGlass if you want more halation but less softening or just the Digital Diffusion F/X (or try Black Diffusion F/X) when you want softening but no halation.

”The Crown” on Netflix used Cooke S4 lenses with GlimmerGlass.

Here is a macro photo I took of the filter. The “C” shaped pattern is the Digital Diffusion F/X filter. The specks are from the Black GlimmerGlass.

[Stefano Stroppa]

Thank you @David Mullen ASC 
That Black Satin macro photo is very interesting, I did not know about it.

It's been ages since last time I shot with something like the Zeiss CP.3 (but definitely a cheap rental option around here, so it's worth considering it), I keep hearing people saying they are cold and dull, that’s the reason why I was considering going for something warmer and somehow softer. I want to keep it sharp, yet I definitely want to have the typical halation around highlights given by the filter, would fit very well with the story, with all the practicals, the interior and ext. shots, so maybe such Zeiss paired with an heavier density of the filter could work well.

I definitely need to test. 
Appreciate the reply! 

[Giray Izcan]

Stefano,

Cp3s are fine. In my opinion,  people put too much emphasis on lenses - I am not suggesting they are not important of course, but not to the degree people scrutinize them. If anything, if you are going to own these lenses especially, I think it will be much better to have a neutral and a sharp lens rather than a lens with  "character," so it's more versatile and you're not so married to one type of look only.