This 2025 ad campaign was another awesome chance to work with director Josh Baker, and my favorite collaboration to date. Working with a great pair of brands like Rheem Ruud was also an exciting opportunity to push the work with a range of bold looks.

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There were some last minute changes that compressed our schedule, and made the shot list a bit more challenging, which raised the question of whether we should swap our primes for a zoom in order to move faster. I hadn't worked with zooms much before that, and I was worried about the slower T-stop, but I'd also just finished a string of projects using wide open super-speed primes and I didn't like the ultra-shallow depth of field as much anymore.

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Since filming almost everything in full frame lately, I've realized that the T2.9 maximum aputure on most cine zooms isn't a limitation. Better to stop down to a T4 or more anyways, since that still delivers shallow DOF but with a more classically cinematic amount of bokeh.

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Still, the convenience of a zoom shouldn't be ignored either. We had multiple concepts and half-a-dozen or more alts in a single day on this project, including a 4-hander table scene with two different versions both requiring full coverage.

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Fortunately, we were able to get a 30-95mm Cooke Varotal/i FF zoom from the rental house. That lens carried us through beautifully and even elevated our images while doing so, which simply wouldn't have been possible trying to shoot with primes.