Lens Whacking in Whitby

I was up in the north-east of England recently, primarily to shoot some coastal landscapes, but while I was there I took the opportunity to try out some lens whacking video experimentation on my Olympus EM-1 II. The cinema 4K video on this camera is stunning, it is just a shame that some of the video features are so limited (frame rate choice, lack of log profile etc.)

Lens whacking is something I first learned about from a gentleman by the name of James Miller. He has become rather famous in video circles as being a bit of a genius as far as this technique goes. In the right hands, you can create wonderful, surreal and dreamy looking video footage that can really emulate the kind of look of old home movies shot in the fifties on a super-8 film camera.

The short focal flange distance of the Olympus EM-1 should in theory make it easy to find lenses to use for lens whacking (the lens is not mounted to the camera but hand-held just in front). But the reality is that I am finding it hard to find lens mount combinations that work well. The small sensor size is also limiting the focal length of lenses that I can comfortably use without inducing a lot of shake. Although the camera has amazing stabilisation built in, a lot of that stabilisation is ineffective when the lens is not connected to the camera but instead being held in your hands.

This video is an attempt at lens whacking using a Nikon 20mm f/3.5 AI lens. The results are just about ok but I need to improve my technique and find a better way to reduce and control the overall flare from bright sunny skies. A lot of the footage I shot turned out to be too washed out to be usable, getting the right combination of light through the lens versus around the back of it seems to be very critical.