pulp_writer

In that case, another headline might have been more appropriate?

I thought this would be an article on the 4K capabilities of the Leica S.....

Very impressive! Panasonic does it again. I love the way they don't hold back with their technology and put the things they've developed for their flagship models into the cheaper cameras as well. Did you shoot part of the above video with one of the c-mount lenses you bought for the BM Pocket Camera? I thought the vignetting was actually quite a nice touch.

Hi everybody,   finally got some time to test a few other lenses:   1. Angenieux 12-120mm F2.2 I know a lot of you have been wondering about this one, and it seems to work:   [sharedmedia=gallery:images:622]   This is with the aperture at 2.8   [sharedmedia=gallery:images:623]   In this one, the aperture is closed to F22. It's a close shave, but there is no vignetting (I don't know why it's slightly off center)   2. Som Berthiot Pan Cinor 17-85mm F2 This is another popular lens, it's the one with the viewfinder on the side.    [sharedmedia=gallery:images:625]   This is the image at 17mm, the wide end, F2. As you can see, the edges are blurred, so can get away with slightly dark corners. However, when you close the iris:   [sharedmedia=gallery:images:626]   You get sharp black edges, not very pretty. So I zoomed in a little, to about 20mm.   [sharedmedia=gallery:images:627]   This is the image at about 20mm, F2. No problem here, as the edges are blurred, and stopped down:   [sharedmedia=gallery:images:628]   So you can't use the wide end. It's an interesting lens, nevertheless.   3. Avenir 6.5mm 1.8 This is a very wide, fixed focus TV lens, possibly for surveillance cameras, and it works:   [sharedmedia=gallery:images:624]   Just as the Angenieux 10mm, it has to be slightly unscrewed to deliver a sharp image. It has some distortion (as can be seen in the balcony rail in front) but the center seems to be relatively unaffected. Might be good for steadicam work.

Very interesting. I tried it with my Angenieux, and it works. However, I have to adjust the unscrewing according to the distance from the object. The closer the object is, the further I have to unscrew the lens. Did you make the same observation?

Looking forward to your video. I must admit that my Angenieux 10mm is not in perfect shape. I used it on two different c-mount adapters (Metabones and Hassendo), both times with the same results, though they work very well with my other c lenses. I would be great if this lens was usable, as it really a convenient one to have, and quite a number are for sale at reasonable prices.

Angenieux 10mm f/1.8 Retrofocus Julian already classified this as a Yes (with dark corners) and has a link to my image of it at f/1.8, but I would like to add a few words. You can find a lot of these lenses on eBay these days, starting around $200. Is it worth consideration at all? This is, as you know, a fixed focus lens which was a very popular lens for handheld camerawork on 8 and 16mm. You just set the aperture and ran with it. The downside: it only works when you have enough light. Although this is a very fast lens with f/1.8, wide open practically EVERYTHING is out of focus, infinity starts getting sharp around f/4, and the foreground around f/8. So here are some images at different apertures, just so that you get an idea what this lens is like: (There will be slight dark corners up to f/4, but as you probably won’t be using it until f/8, you shouldn’t have any problems.) f/1.8: Everything is out of focus. The plant in the front is about 1m (3 feet) from the camera. f/2.8 is pretty much the same. f/4: The background is reasonably sharp, but the foreground is still soft. f/8: Now, this starts to look usable! The foreground is reasonably sharp now. f/11: Not bad at all, please look at the full size image to form your own opinion. f/16 is pretty much the same as this. Is it sharp enough for you?

Hello Julian, great idea, very informative! For all those who would like to try some old lenses on the BMPCC, here are my lenses between 10 and 16 mm. None of these is younger than 30 years, most are cine-lenses taken from 8mm or 16mm cameras. Some can still be found cheap on eBay, others have multiplied in price since I bought them. All show vignetting with the MFT sensor, so I had virtually given up on them (except in crop mode). This first batch of images is with the apertures open. I will upload some shots from outdoors with apertures stopped down later. Leitz Macro Cinegon 10mm f/1.8 This is actually not a C but an M-mount lens, made for Leica’s flagship super 8 camera, the Leicina Special in the 1970s. Very attractive because it has a macro mode. It shows very slight vignetting, but may be usable still. Schneider-Kreuznach Cinegon 11.5mm f/1.9 A very popular lens for 8 and 16mm (1960s~). Also shows vignetting, but doesn't look too bad. Wollensak Cine Raptar 12.5mm f/1.5 A very old lens from an ancient 16mm Bell & Howell Filmo 70 DA, manufactured in the1930s. This is a f/1.5 lens but is a little soft wide open, so I stopped it down to f/2.7. Shows no vignetting. Cine-Nikkor 13mm f/1.8 This one comes from a very rare Japan Victor Corporation 16mm camera made in 1957. Nikon used to make very good cine lenses. This one is wide open now, but gets sharper when stopped down. (It looks like a wider lens here compared to the others, but that's only because I had to move back a little with my tripod to get it to focus.) No vignetting. Schneider-Kreuznach Cine-Xenon 16mm f/2 From a Beaulieu RC16, 1960s. Unfortunately, there's something wrong with the aperture ring of this one: it won't move. But still, a very fine lens without vignetting. (Well, looking at the thumbnail, you can see that the lower left corner is considerably darker. But in the full picture, it is not that apparent) I have two more lenses in this category, one is a Canon TV Zoom 11-110mm, which I didn't put on because it only focuses to 1.2m, and the other is an Angenieux 10mm Retrofocus lens, which is totally out of focus when wide open. I have also found an Avenir CCTV lens 6.5mm, very wide, which looks promising, but it is a fixed focus lens too. I will put them on along with the others when I shoot outside.

I think the 4K will sell very well, as the original BMCC did, but the Pocket will sell LIKE CRAZY! EVERY DP, even those who never shoot video, will buy one just for fun to take on location scouts or private trips, EVERYONE who used to shoot on 16mm film will buy one, so that she/he can use her/his c-mount glass, EVERYONE who has a GH1 or 2 and has been thinking of upgrading to the GH3 will buy the Pocket instead, because he can use all his glass. I belong to the last two categories, and I already pre-ordered mine. It's like putting candy in front of a kid!

It's quite ironic to see that here we have the five best cameras for video in 2012, and four of them are actually for stills.