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Because I keep trying to sell him mine.

What makes you think he hasn't already got one? ....or more? 😂😂😂

After a long year, I've spent the first couple weeks of 2021 reevaluating my gear and what I really need for 2021. In the process, I decided to revisit some of the inexpensive lenses in my collection. I have some plans going forward which involves a slate of micro short films. I'd like the productions to be as bare bones as possible using humble equipment. Luckily, I was able to get out and shoot some test shots for an upcoming thriller/mystery short entitled "Under the Boardwalk" I brought the Takumar 50mm 1.4 and an old Nikkor 50mm 1.4. Here are the results of my test... Takumar 50mm 1.4 Nikkor 50mm 1.4 It's been a lot of fun testing out some old lenses and I must say I love the old Nikkor more than some lenses I paid 10 times more for. Are there any old, cheap lenses that you guys love more than the generic modern lenses a lot of people use?

I have a 1DC and an R5. To my eyes the R5 is the image that is closest to 1DC of all the Canon cameras I have used (that would include the C100 II, C200, C300 I and II, XC10, 1DX II, 5D II-III-IV and the R). In “EOS Original” it is very, very close, although I think reds are handled slightly differently. I have an irrational reverence for my 1DC even though its a 2012 camera. It was the camera I compared all others against. So when I say the R5 is the closest I mean that as high praise. And frankly the R5’s 8k RAW and 4K is superior to the 1DC. I am not super technical on the color front but to me there was a clear shift in Canon colors somewhere around 2013-2015 (ie 5D III, C100 Mark II and 1DC are prior to this shift and 5D IV, C200, 1DX Mark II and R are after this shift and they feel different). The neutral/ eos original matrix didn’t seem to completely even out those differences either to my eyes in the later cameras. For some reason the R5 feels more like a reversion to the older color but in slightly more mature form (and 10 bit definitely helps). I know some people propose the C70 as the 1DC successor and that may true from a C-line hybrid form factor perspective, but the colors and image seem very different .

I love Tokina lenses. I have the 24-40mm 2.8 that I've always loved. I should bring that out the next time. I could really use a long zoom. @BTM_Pix has recommended the Nikon Series E 75-150mm that's intriguing.

This site has not been updated for years but it is still useful regards Nikon lenses. http://www.naturfotograf.com/lens_surv.html

Oh well, I often forget what lenses I've got squirrelled away so I struggle to remember the full extent of other fetishist's collections 😉

Yeah, they did a 200mm f4. They also did a 180mm f2.8 if you want to trade reach (and price) for speed.

I paid $40 for the Nikkor-SC 50mm 1.4 and it's proving to be one of the best lens purchases I've made. @kye is correct, I also have the 105mm 2.5 from the same vintage. I haven't used it yet, though. I already owned the 28mm f/2 when I picked up the 50 and at the time I was more worried about some other lens set. I think my priorities have been backwards for a while now. I'm thinking about filling in the blanks with the 35mm f/2, 85mm 1.8, and one of their wider angles. As of now, I have less than $300 invested into the 3 lenses so I'll be on the lookout for some of the other non-ai lenses. Did they make a 200mm non-ai?

I love the old MF Tokina 60-120 2.8 I got last year for cheap on Ebay. The only thing about is the minimum focus distance but that is solved with a helicoid adapter. It looks and feels as if it was a day old (probably been sitting in its case for the last thirty years or so). Zoom function (push pull) is a little stiff to get moving but easy after that though since i pretty much use it at 120 nothing really. I just need portrait victims to use it still as it is a bit slow for me to use and peoples attention span has greatly reduced over the years. A lovely young model has just moved here so maybe i will see if I can hire her to use all my portrait type lenses in one sitting but this would be the first I use maybe.

EUR 211 is a good price despite some fungus it won't affect the IQ. It's a sharp lens, not so wide but so sharp. If you were looking for the Iscomorphot 8/1.5x as well, this one is a lot sharper but without builtin single focus. It won't give any flares natively but a UV filter should help you add some flares. Happy shooting!

I haven't got this particular Samyang but it might be worth having a look at the Flickr pool for it to see if it takes your fancy. Samyang 16mm F2.0 ED AS UMC CS https://www.flickr.com/groups/2299572@N22/pool/ The comparison tests that I've put up on here have invariably included a Samyang variant and they always punch above their weight, particularly as a used purchase. As with most Samyang lenses, there is also the option of the cine version of it with geared focus and aperture. For an alternative, as you don't need FF, then, whilst not a prime, this Canon EF-S 10-18mm is very compact, light and is a flexible if slower option. They are also pretty cheap used and I got mine for about £130 if memory serves. https://www.flickr.com/groups/canonefs10-18mm/pool/ Gives you the option to go wider and the stabilisation comes in very handy with the P6K. As an aside, I've obviously been doing a lot of AF stuff with P6K of late with numerous different lenses and the 10-18mm is definitely one of the fastest responding and quiet of all of them.

D16 would do it! The GX85 is definitely a small package, but the D16 would fit in much more convincingly on the set of the original Star Trek, and I suggest that perhaps that's the more important criteria 🙂

There are definitely cheaper vintage lenses but the Nikkors do tend to hit that sweet spot of performance to price ratio as well if not better than anything else out there. The 105mm f2.5 is still changing hands at prices that make it one of the very best value propositions IMO. And you should buy one immediately 🙂

Standard mafer/cardellini clamps not doing it for you?

Yeah, unless you absolutely need one I don't understand using an external recorder. It just adds more bulk / effort.

Yeah, odd that it was 2019 TV shows vs 2020 movies - not a straight comparison and sample size isn't that large.

I’ve been working out my own methods on this stuff for quite some time now, and as someone who also shoots some actual film here and there, some of the extreme minutiae are maddening to mail down, and prompted me to move into Resolve’s Fusion tab for many operations. It has been like learning to ride a bike all over again, and I’m not there yet, but Fusion is absolutely powerful enough to get me where I want to go eventually. There is complex spatial and temporal interplay (especially with overscanned footage) that simply can’t be done easily with power grades and edit page compositing. I guess do 99% of people even notice? Probably not, but we do, right? Im interested to see how filmbox is implemented, as well as Tom Bolles power grade (which for that approach looks to provide a lot of nuanced manipulations resulting in the most convincing Color tab results I’ve seen so far). I will probably grab Cineprint 16 just to see if I can replicate the various nodes in Fusion alongside my own spatial machinations. Digging deep into this stuff at all kills render times like crazy, but that’s maybe half the fun, right? I still think halation could be brought 80-90% of the way there in the physical world with a bespoke filter from some expert like Tiffen or Schneider. Film has a set tonal dynamic range, which honestly a number of digital cameras get close enough to these days as to not make much difference, but spatially especially with regards to halation, the dynamic range in film’s reaction is much higher. Basically, something can be blown out, but two blown out sources of different luminance will still show a difference in the amount and reach of halation, and that reaction is still way outside the dynamic ability of digital capture... but a physical filter I believe could be constructed to react with that nuance and that could be subsequently baked into digital capture. Tiffen’s glimmerglass (of which there is a “bronze” variant already) looks to my eyes to be a prime candidate. If that could be tweaked to be red (or add red), it would to my eyes go a long way to achieving that nuance, and a bit of digital halation would be the added tweak to polish it off to taste. It’s super fun to build film effects, but at the end of the day, it’s also not all that difficult to just shoot film on certain projects, and in that case, the look is just... there. I’d encourage anyone who is spending significant time on emulation to also put some solid time into researching 16mm cameras, and doing a bit of hunting until you find a kit that fits your use-case. SR3s and Aatons are nice cameras for sure, but there are plenty of other very capable cameras out there, and you can still find good deals if you are patient.

There will be more waves available for order in February. Drop an email to admin (at) cdatek (dot) com to request being added to the mailing list to get notified when they are available.

5.1K Canon RAW Light would be welcome for the crop mode, especially in 50/60p.

Same as it ever was!

So happy I went with Sony a7S III

Sticking with the GH5, G85 and GX85 for at least another year, probably longer. After 2020 I'm just not in a position to "upgrade" without going into debt, and honestly there aren't any cameras out there that really excite me for my work. Sony did really well with the A7siii but I'd need to either buy 2 or 3 because Sony doesn't really have much in terms of a solid b-cam. Their APS-C cams just don't have good enough stabilization and the rolling shutter is really bad for sports. I do expect I'll be jumping back into the Mac world given the performance people are getting with the new ones. That'll probably be the only big thing I'm going to spend money on this year or next. Just gonna see what they have in store.

No longer than offloading it. You can basically use Slimraw as an offloading tool to copy and simultaneously compress your footage from the SD card to your computer's hard drive.