This isn’t a great story. It is a useful one.

What follows isn’t a love letter to kit or a poetic meditation on cinema cameras. It’s a technical puzzle, the sort that eats half a day, your patience and a chunk of faith in AI and online documentation. I’m writing this so if you ever find yourself in the same situation, you don’t have to go through the same thing.

I mean, seriously—how did we get here? A grown man, writing about titanium rods. I once knew a producer who drilled holes in his toothbrush to shave grams while trekking the Himalayas. That’s the altitude of crazy we’re dealing with. Look up “first world problems” and my face is probably staring back at you.

In our busy work lives, it’s rare and quite special to have time to creatively hang out with like-minded folk, in the right space with the right tools. Not to chase anything in particular, but simply to play.

That was the spirit behind our recent lens and camera test at North Light Film Studios, tucked inside the beautifully atmospheric Brookes Mill in Armitage Bridge, Huddersfield.

For years I’ve carried around a photo of the old American Cinematographer Manual foot-candle table on my phone — the one that lists how many foot-candles you need for a given ISO/ASA/EI at a given f-stop.

Last weekend I had the privilege of joining a workshop run by the Association of Camera Operators (ACO) at Sunbelt Rentals here in Manchester. The focus was the geared head - that mythical set of wheels you’ve probably seen behind the scenes on classic films.

I’m pretty sure we’ve all seen it — either in a Curry’s store in the mid 00s or in our parents’ front room: Dad stood in front of a brand-new TV, remote in hand, turning the sharpness all the way up because “you can see more detail,” then cranking the saturation until everyone on screen looks like they’ve just come back from a fortnight in Marbella.