Photographing B-Roll Footage

Ben Canales and the Uncage the Soul video production team show what’s behind the scenes with the Tamron SP 60mm F/2.0 Macro lens.

Article by Jenn Gidman

Images by Ben Canales

Ben and his colleagues use the Tamron SP 60mm F/2.0 Macro lens for their "B-roll" videos (the establishing pictures of the scenery, the landscape, and the setting) and pull the stills from these clips. "We use the stills to show the behind-the-scenes imagery and for social media postings," he says. "I always have the 60mm in my bag in case something comes up where the lighting is ideal. That lens does an awesome job. We're able to isolate our subjects and get a nice, crisp shot, while the background has that beautiful, bokehed-out blur so the viewer isn't distracted by other elements."

The 60mm performs best in the lowest-light situations that Ben and his team encounter while out in the field. "When shooting wide open at 2.0, that lens does a spectacular job for detail photos and videos," he says. "This is especially the case when we're using it during the golden hour (around sunrise and sunset) or in shadows or other dim light. It works really well in those scenarios to capture beautiful portraits of faces or close-up shots of landscape features, like a flower bloom under tree cover."

What Ben and his team especially appreciate about the 60mm lens is the natural vignette that enhances their imagery. "We get a soft shadow on the edge of the image that draws the viewer into the center of the shot and to our subject," he says. "This is especially true for our portrait and interview moments, where the viewer is really drawn to the subject's eyes or mouth or whatever it is we're trying to focus on. Before we started using the 60mm, we were adding this vignetting effect ourselves in post, so to have it now coming straight out of the camera is really cool."

Using the 60mm Macro lens for personal interviews and headshots allows Ben to capture not only the physical details of his subjects, but also their personalities. "I put the camera on continuous shutter when I'm shooting these type of shots," he says. "I handhold or put the camera on a tripod but make sure it's movable. Then I start a conversation and tell some jokes. When it looks like they're starting to open up and relax, I just hold down the shutter button and start firing away. I'll then either slowly lean toward them or have them lean toward me - I know that somewhere in those 30 shots will be a crisp one of their features with that depth-of-field I'm looking for."

Landscape photos also benefit from the 60mm treatment in Ben's images. "We were working on the Washington coast, following a trail that started on the beach and went up the rocks into the headlands," he explains. "It was sunset, and the fog had just settled in. There was this amazing, even glow that just gave an ethereal feel to the place. This type of lighting is where the 60mm excels: It shows all the detail of the scene and lends ambiance through its vignetting."

Ben and the Uncage the Soul production team recently used the 60mm lens to provide a compelling narrative of local resident Frank Moore. "We shot a video job for a TV station here in Oregon about Frank, a 90-year-old World War II veteran who's in the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame," says Ben. "We wanted to show his personality and his life on the river fly-fishing, which he enjoys doing now that he's retired."

Ben and the crew shadowed Frank on the slippery riverbanks, using the 60mm to show the master fisherman in action, grab close-up portraits, and even highlight some of his gear. "He's an amazing person who inspires everyone around him," Ben says. "We want to turn this series into something more: We're trying to find sponsors for a short film of him returning to France so he can fly-fish in some of the rivers he spotted during the war. Even then, with a gun and a sergeant on his back, he was picking out the fly-fishing spots!"

For more information on Ben Canales, go to www.UncagetheSoul.com.

Ben Canales

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