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War photographer uses Summicron 35 on her Sony


Al Brown

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In the new movie "Civil war", Kirsten Dunst uses a manual focus 35mm Summicron on her Sony a7RV as her normal (non-tele) lens for documenting events of a fictional US civil war in the near future. Sony's logo is taped over (maybe she feared somebody would steal it), but Leica's script on the Summicron front is left for the viewer to adore.
(Photo courtesy of A24 Press Kit).

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4 hours ago, andybarton said:

You’d have to look very hard AND know what you’re looking at. 
 

Not like an Aston or Omega in Bond. 

Well there is one close-up filling almost the entire movie screen where you can very clearly read every detail on the front face of the 35mm Summicron.

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5 hours ago, Keith (M) said:

Product placement?

I doubt Sony would like to have a M lens mounted on its body as product placement, nor Leica having a Sony body behind its Summicron. There is the other photographer in the movie and she is using the Nikon FE2 with the standard lens. It is my guess not even Nikon would want THAT particular body as product placement...

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3 hours ago, Al Brown said:

I doubt Sony would like to have a M lens mounted on its body as product placement, nor Leica having a Sony body behind its Summicron. There is the other photographer in the movie and she is using the Nikon FE2 with the standard lens. It is my guess not even Nikon would want THAT particular body as product placement...

Why so sniffy, it’s a fine camera, far more reliable than a Leica M7 if auto exposure is a factor and far, far cheaper to buy?
 

But I guess given the film is some sort of prediction of the next American civil war it may be that journalists in the near future have to use whatever they can get hold of to record the atrocities. Matthew Brady had very few digital cameras available to record the last one and he didn’t do a bad job, so who’s to say in the next one with the destruction of the internet it wouldn’t lead to the rise of analogue photography again?
 

But perhaps the film makers use of a Sony body is even more simple that a conspiracy theory, it looks a bit like a Leica in terms of film making, and is a whole lot cheaper if they need a few backup cameras for filming in different locations?

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Posted (edited)

my guess is that they used a camera belonging to a crew member as a prop, and it happened to be a Sony with a SUMMICRON. 

I also guess that they taped the Sony not because they feared it would be stolen in the fiction of the film, but because they feared they would need to pay royalties to Sony in the real world. 

Edited by Giacomo Busoni
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1 hour ago, Giacomo Busoni said:

they taped the Sony not because they feared it would be stolen in the fiction of the film

My comment was a nod to the utterly pointless practice of taping the Leica red dot due to fears of attracting thieves.

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The only problem is that she hasn't taped over the white model number. The Alpha 7 lettering is mildly distracting.

I assume that the scene that explains her camera choice didn't make it past the first draft. Maybe the kit zoom broke and she replaced it with something more sturdy.

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20 hours ago, Al Brown said:

My comment was a nod to the utterly pointless practice of taping the Leica red dot due to fears of attracting thieves.

I've done it to discourage unwanted attention from camera bores!

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12 minutes ago, BernardC said:

Maybe the kit zoom broke and she replaced it with something more sturdy.

The 70-200 G lens is very prominent in other scenes. That one is used for checking on snipers and other stuff.

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These films cost tens of millions of dollars to make. They thought this one out. I wouldn't be surprised if they rented/borrowed a whole bunch of gear and ran screen tests first to see how it would look in regards to HER face on camera, and her face only. Maybe taping over the Sony Alpha 7 made it look too blank, or they liked the look of the font, the full circle of white lettering on the Leica lens. Believe me, whatever they did here was deliberate. 

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