I have a love/hate relationship with most matte boxes. I love them when I need them. I hate them when they get in the way. How many of you have found this happen to you too? What happens? Sometimes it comes down to weight, or size, or whatever thing blocking you from picking up the Matte Box for a shoot. Now, I’m talking about small crews and single shooters here. When the Bright Tangerine arrived with the AJA Cion review camera I was immediately impressed with its feather-light weight and expandable design.
Bright Tangerine
Super Light-Weight
Yet, holding this matte box one has to wonder. Can a light-weight piece of production gear be strong? It appears so. The Bright Tangerine Misfit felt durable in hand, and survived at least two falls when shooting. Usually, cameras used for reviews can take a beating and the AJA Cion kit was no exception. The lens, camera, and accessories looked as if they have traveled the world, especially the pelican cases. While the Bright Tangerine Misfit may have become a little worn it worked as if it had shown up mostly new looking.
Expandable
What I really like in the Misfit is the ability to shrink or expand the matte box. In order to expand the Misfit all you need to do is undo the thumb screws, slide open the back, and you gain a third filter stage. It takes but a moment and you can expand it while the matte box is still attached to a lens. The change takes seconds and can possibly save you time and money. With the Misfit you don’t necessarily need to buy extra stages because, at least for me, three stages is more than enough.
The only feature missing in the Bright Tangerine Misfit Atom: the ability to spin a 4 x 5 filter tray. Not to be a stickler, but I use ND Grads, and Color Grad filters pretty often and it’s nice to adjust these to match your scene. This is a minor thing and the easy of use, and weight, easily make up for no filter tray spin.
Anamorphics & Viv Matte Box
This is where I’ll let Nathan take the rest of the article over, “The front element of the 35mm is massive, at 143mm, so we needed a serious matte box solution to fit the lens properly. The 150mm opening of the VIV allowed for plenty of space and the Black Hole Donut successfully stretched to fit around the massive wide-angle anamorphic front element. That was truly impressive!”
138mm Filter Ring
“Anamorphics are known for having less than ideal close focus. Close focus on these Hawk’s are around 3 1/2 feet–which is better than some lenses–but diopters are still necessary for closeups. That’s another area where this matte box shines. Bright Tangerine’s Black Hole Donut and 143mm Rubber Donut have a built-in 138mm filter retaining ring that fits our set of Schneider diopters at +1/2, +1, +2, and +3 strengths. This keeps all filter and diopter solutions together, which simplifies setups overall. Vintage anamorphic lenses present a lot of unique challenges when it comes to camera build-outs, and I was incredibly impressed with how many of the quirks Bright Tangerine’s VIV matte box directly addressed. In the future, I will most certainly be adding the Viv to my permanent kit for these Hawk C-Series beauties.”