New Documentary Starring Will Smith: Cinematographer McGinty Talks about the Angénieux Type EZ

Brendan McGinty is an award-winning British cinematographer. He opened up about his experience working with the Type EZ. “Welcome to Earth” is a brand-new documentary that stars Will Smith as he travels around the earth to explore its greatest treasures. 

“I have always used and loved Angenieux zooms. They are the only zooms I will reach for that retain the cinematic optical rendition that I am used to with Prime lenses.

I had used the S35 Optimo zooms on many of the more ‘documentary’ shoots that intersect the series (these narrative strands were acquired on S35 cameras), so the announcement of the EZ zooms was extremely fortunate for our production schedule.

We ran up to 5 sets of EZ zooms on our more intricate set-pieces. We used the zooms in their Full Frame mode, using the 22-60mm for our wider setups, Gimbals and Steadicam. But I particularly fell in love with the 45-135mm for people, faces and close up work. The close focus at 135mm is very impressive.

Unlike many of the zoom lenses I have tested, the Angenieux retain a lot of the visual qualities I associate with prime lenses… the flare quality, geometry, naturalistic contrast, the gentle defocus roll-off. We occasionally utilised more specialist optics, extreme telephotos, macros, probes and fast primes… but the overwhelming bulk of the principal photography was on the EZs. They were the real lens heroes of the series”.