mercer

I don’t know, I’d still suggest the Cine version in EF if he wants a declicked aperture. I’ve had a couple of the M4/3 Cine lenses in the past and didn’t mind the geared focus ring when focusing by hand. The other option would be the Fotodiox Viselex adapter that has a built in variable ND filter... I assume Auto SS would work the same??? That’s a nifty little set up... I used to use focus levers when I was a responsible tripod user and I can see how those reverse gears would be useful.

I didn’t realize you shot auto, I just assumed you shot manual. I think Nikon G adapters have an “aperture ring” and will make all Nikon lenses have a smooth aperture... but I’m not a hundred percent sure on that.

Questions for your follow up question... why do you need a declicked aperture? Do you use a variable ND filter? Also, which mount are you thinking of getting?

I assumed as much and I feel the same way about my 5D3 and ML Raw. It gives me everything I need in a traditional, filmic, organic image except some modern conveniences like IBIS and that crisp modern “Netflix” image which I have grown very fond of lately. What’s the trick for exposing vLog? Is middle grey at a drastically different spot on the curve than other Log formats? Are you using the official Varicam LUTS from Panasonic, or someone else’s? I shoot manual as well, but I’ve found, with past Panasonic cameras, that face tracking worked good enough that you could usually get a clean cut as long as you shot enough coverage. Is it the same? I shoot run and gun guerrilla style so this is what I look for in every camera purchase but it’s been difficult to find something that has great IQ, DR and IBIS... with the ability to shoot raw in a future update... that’s just icing on the cake. Thanks for the thorough reply and please share some footage when you get the chance.

Do you prefer it over the Micro?

Not bad for a FF f/4 kit zoom. I’m looking forward to some more of the small Sigma lenses like the 45mm 2.8. Interesting camera. When the footage looks good... it looks exceptionally good. If it’s less than $3000 this time next year, I may just bite.

That looks pretty good. I wonder what lens they used.

Same. This is one of the few reasons I decided on a single prime or a zoom for any given film. You can’t really second guess yourself if you don’t have the options, it becomes about composition, lens placement, or thinking about the shot from an entirely different way than how I envisioned it when I wrote it.

Do you have to realign your follow focus when you swap lenses?

Yes, please let me know when you get a chance. I ended up buying a Micro a couple months ago but haven’t done much with it. I have a couple c-mounts (Cine-Nikkor 10mm & Zeiss Tevidon 10mm) so I’m going to test them out first, once I get the rig situated and an IR Cut Filter. If I don’t like the c-mounts, I may get a speedbooster for my Rollei Zeiss 25mm. Which brand of speedbooster do you use? And how do you like it? I decided to take a minimalist approach to filmmaking going forward, but the Micro’s crop factor makes it difficult to get anything wide with what I currently own.

That’s a cool strategy for the BMPCC. Did you buy a Schneider 16mm for it, or are you just following the same focal length strategy? If you did get the Schneider, how do you like it? Some of those old lenses look so great on the Pocket/Micro. This BMMCC short was shot on a S16 Zeiss Superspeed... Yeah, I agree with this. I think the audience may not realize what’s off, but some will feel that something is different, so unless the story, or intent of the shot, can utilize the jarring effect, it is a problem, in my opinion. With that said, this is one of the reasons, other than being lazy, that I moved to shooting with single prime lenses. I think it was Polanski that believes you shouldn’t change your focal length during a scene because the change in angle affects perspective, which could take the audience out of the dramatic effect of the scene. This is definitely an option, the 28mm f/2 isn’t too expensive if you can find a good copy. I haven’t priced the 100mm but I assume it’s a bit more. And with that said, there’s a good likelihood that most people won’t even notice or care, so it really depends on how much it bothers you. On a different note, that FD 50mm is probably the best bargain vintage lens out there. I found a copy that was converted to the Nikon F mount, so I can adapt it to EF on my 5D3. If I was a smarter person, I could probably sell every lens I own and just use that lens. As you know, that’s how good it is.

It really does have a special look to it and for what I paid for mine, it would have been stupid not to buy it. However, due to other projects and needs, I haven’t really had the chance to rig it up perfectly yet. My goal is to have a one or two lens solution consisting of either c-mount lenses or native lenses. I want to keep it as simple and compact as possible.

But if you were planning on shooting with the Olympus 12-100mm anyway, then what’s the difference? You were happy to have a 1.89x crop. With the P6K, you can still shoot 4K, you have more native lens options, with no adapters, and a smaller crop. Just an alternate point of view.

I think it’s important to first note that I’m a narrative hobbyist with a long term goal of producing a few short films and a feature film as time and money permits. I’m more interested in composition than resolution, but consider myself a writer/director more than a cinematographer. With that being said, I love lenses and through the years I have tested nearly every major brand of vintage lenses on most modern mounts. When I finally settled on a camera, I learned that going native, whenever possible, was the best option, and most of the time, a zoom lens allowed me the freedom to concentrate on the creative. But there aren’t many zoom lenses that offered the MUST HAVES for handheld, guerrilla shooting my style and circumstance requires... • size and weight • good image stabilization • fast aperture It was easy to get one or two of the three, but that elusive third usually ended up being the dealbreaker. And when you added the cost of a good zoom lens, it was difficult to compromise on even one of those. So, I moved onto the single prime concept of shooting, which I really enjoy from a creative stance. I’m pretty steady handheld, up to about 35mm, which happens to be the sweet spot for my point of view. And if I use native Canon glass with IS, I usually don’t need any secondary support other than a neck strap. But even the single, prime concept doesn’t feel perfect for my circumstances so I’ll most likely end up compromising my MUST HAVES and replace a few of my prime lenses with a slow zoom and end up with a couple fast modern primes, a couple fast vintage primes and a zoom. As I get older, I realize this never ending pursuit for the best lens or best camera or highest resolution is the antithesis of creativity and stagnates the art and craft of filmmaking.

Yeah, this looks good. His Vimeo page says it’s the 12mm Summilux. I assume most 12mm lenses with IBIS would be pretty rock steady, though. His video with the 42.5mm looks great as well! I am half tempted to pick up a GH5 or GH5s in a few months.

True but that article was suggesting more than just the overall quality of an iPhone’s image, it was about the freedom of the production as a whole when making a film with little resources but still want a higher production value. Sure there are other cameras that offer similar freedoms, I utilize it with my 5D3, but a phone is completely different and apparently the video capabilities on the new iPhone is a major step forward. Idk, I’ve never really wanted to shoot anything on a phone but I am in the market for a new one, so maybe I’ll give it a go. Really? What does the 2nd AC pull... Jokes aside, I assume the 2nd AC traditionally loaded the film but what do they do now? Offload drives?

Production designers on a no budget/micro budget film? I think that article was meant for someone else. This isn’t directed entirely at your statement but I am surprised how the Hollywood establishment has usurped the digital revolution. For the first time since the beginning of Hollywood filmmaking and union crews, any person could truly go out and make a film with the bare minimum. Companies like Zoom and Rode created sound solutions to give a filmmaker proper sound on a shoestring budget. Chinese companies made LED lighting affordable. There are even apps that will tell you where the sun is at any location in the world but instead of going out and making a movie with what they have cheaply available to them, they were told they needed a boom operator, an art director and a 2nd ac to pull focus. Now I’m not saying that people shouldn’t strive for the best work they can do, I just find it amazing that there hasn’t been an influx of great indie films shot with next to nothing. Instead, I am finding an influx of bad films shot by people trying to make a movie like Hollywood would make one. I can only imagine what Kubrick or Truffaut could have made if they had access to these tools. Hell, could you imagine if Hitchcock had a drone for North by Northwest?

@Cinegain you make some valid points, but with all due respect, it seems like you’re still dictating what is, or isn’t, acceptable in an open lens thread. Don’t get me wrong, I’m interested in almost anything lens related. For instance, Kye’s video link is sending me down a spiral of Canon FD lenses. Speaking of FD lenses, Zach’s contributions with his Canon FD 35-105mm f/3.5 lens, on a t2i, is actually very interesting since we already know that FD lenses don’t easily adapt to EF, so he must have had the mount modified. Your normal lens search would yield little results if searching for images or reviews of that lens on an older model Canon camera. And as a former t2i owner, I can easily ascertain how that lens would translate to other cameras. With my lens tests, I purposefully use the same actor, in similar locations so I can weed out which lenses I want to keep or sell. I post a couple images from those tests hoping to get some insight from other members or perhaps supply some info to other people that may be wondering how that lens renders with ML Raw. I’m sorry if it isn’t your cup of tea, but it doesn’t mean it’s invaluable to someone else. Hell, without samples, I think a lot of us might not know about the Nikon Bourne Identity lens and how it looked on a G7 or how the Tokina Angenieux Zoom renders on the P4K. But again, I look forward to your posts regarding topics you find interesting, even if I don’t find them as telling or useful to my work. But I agree with the sentiment of your comment. It’s given me some food for thought on other ways to tackle my personal lens tests and if I do share any of them, I will try to include a little more pertinent information in future posts.

Since I am as guilty as Zach (more so even) I'd like to make a formal apology to your fingers to be forced to work a little harder, or maybe your eyes to witness my putrid images. The rationale for posting frame grabs, or stills, is to show how these lenses work in the real world and to show other readers how they look in combination with different cameras. As much as I enjoy reading about lenses, the courier font doesn't completely express the qualities of a lens in a visual medium. And as awesome as a link to every single new lens that gets released, from every single Chinese optics company is, I'd prefer to see how your images look with said lens and whatever camera you use... then I could truly get an idea about the quality of the lens for my possible use. I also think the lens section has been a little corner of this site where the technical merit of gear is put on the back burner for the optical and mechanical grace of manipulating light, so in that regard, I appreciate Geoff CB's and Noone's and Heartless's and BTM's and Kye's and Zach's, and etc... contributions as an artistic learning tool. But I learn more about a lens on Flickr than I do staring at a DXOmart chart... if you prefer charts and links, I again apologize. However, what I find odd about your comment is... if you would rather discuss lenses in a different manner, I don't think anybody is stopping you from starting a discussion that interests you more. In fact, the lens section is my favorite place in the forum, so I'd be happy if there were more discussions.

A recipe can be patented, but I used the analogy hyperbolically. It was an off the cuff analogy and never meant to truly draw a comparison. With that said, it seems a lot of people, commenting on this thread, either haven't read the patent, or believe that something as obvious as compressed raw video shouldn't be patentable. I don't know enough about patent law, especially regarding software and how it is integrated into hardware, to say one way or the other. But after looking over the patent, in question, it doesn't seem as simplistic as I originally assumed it was based on the comments. There are details and schematics as to how the processing would work in a video camera. In fact, a video camera seems to be an integral ingredient in the patent... as is the exposure timing involved to create a moving image with greater dynamic range. It's arguable that the patent is more about that than it is about compressed raw. It also seems that some folks are using Jannard's questionable ethics to question the ownership, or validity, of the patent? And I don't see how that is relevant at all? It's even assumed that Blackmagic developed B-raw because of this patent, which has never been confirmed either. For all we know, that issue could have been due to Adobe and the processing of cdng files in post. Some people assume that since Apple is suing Red, over the patents' validity, then it must be an invalid patent because why would they even bother. But it's possible Apple is using their significant resources to get a better licensing or settlement deal with Red. Sony even settled their patent dispute with Red and they clearly could have drowned Red with legal fees. So all I am saying is that I don't believe this issue is as cut and dry as... Jannard is a liar, or eventually somebody else would have implemented raw video using a similar method with existing, or soon to exist technologies. If the patent is deemed invalid, for whatever reasons, hopefully that will lead to greater competition and cheaper prices. If the patent is deemed valid, then it will continue to be intellectual property of Red. I really have nothing more to say about it.

Great job!!! Well written and really funny. The sex montage was hilarious. I love the look from the Micro. I’m glad I decided to hold on to mine for a little while longer.

But don’t you need all of those “ingredients” to encroach on Red’s patent? And are we sure this is the patent in question that Apple is fighting? It seems Blackmagic could have kept CDNG up to 5:1 compression or higher at less than 4000 pixels wide? They chose to create B-RAW. I wonder how that patent reads.

Actually, my analogy is not saying that at all because the definition of a recipe is... A set of instructions for preparing a PARTICULAR dish, including a list of the ingredients required. The patent doesn’t restrict companies from including raw video in their cameras... it doesn’t restrict companies from having compressed raw at less than 6:1... it doesn’t restrict companies from having 6:1 compressed raw at UHD, or 2K... it doesn’t restrict uncompressed raw at 4000 pixels wide or higher... it restricts an internal compression of 6:1 or higher based on 50% green pixels, 25% red pixels and 25% blue pixels, at 4000 wide or higher at 24fps or higher. I’m sorry but those are ingredients in a recipe much like a Big Mac’s special sauce is an ingredient in a recipe. Just because a lot of people don’t like that Red owns the patent, they still own the patent. Is the patent valid... I don’t know. I’m not a patent attorney. Right now, it is valid and it is intellectual property. Do I hope the patent becomes invalid... sure why not, I like competition. I think the real question is... if the patent becomes invalid... what company is going to release a camera, with those specs, at a reasonable price point?

Utility Patent: a patent that covers the creation of a new or improved—and useful—product, process, or machine. So under that definition, one could argue that they have the “process” patented. Maybe. But Red could have filed CIP applications that added more information to the original patent... possibly with Redcode. But again this is just conjecture based on my limited understanding of utility patents and zero information on Red’s IP. Either way, it will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

I also see your point, but isn’t the patent, in question, a utility patent? I don’t presume to much about patent law, but it seems their patent falls within the boundaries of a utility patent. Does Red also have a patent on Redcode specifically?