Single Focus Solutions Shootout

[Tito Ferradans]

It took me only forever to find the time, place and people to shoot this. It's the second part to the Single Focus Shootout I posted back in December. It's a lengthy post, but I could really use your feedback!

The goal was to compare the performance of the three most popular single focus solutions with similar setups. For that I used the same taking lenses and identical Kowa B&H's paired with the Rangefinder, Rectilux 3FF-W and FM Lens. I planned a similar number of shots using each of those combinations through a variety of wide, medium, close ups and extreme closeup shots. In the end, the question is: do the single focus solutions stand in the way of story, and if so, which ones bother you, and which don't?

In this other video I went a little more in detail about what I wanted to achieve, the shooting process, the crew, score and lenses, just to give it some context and.

Finally, I made a blog post with a cheat sheet for all the shots and tech specs.

All of this went up online yesterday and I've noticed the strangest behavior. First of all, the view count was incredibly low when compared to regular reviews. Then, the number of dislikes is high, the number of likes is low in raw numbers, and the ratio between them is about 25% dislikes. I usually get between 0 and 2 dislikes for a review (even a rushed one). Comments are also all over the place, both on Youtube and the facebook groups I posted it on. The combination of all these factors got me thinking and that's what I wanted to discuss.

1 - Everyone is ALWAYS asking for narrative pieces, and actual work using anamorphic adapters. It's common knowledge that cat videos and girlfriends aren't enough to judge a lens' performance, since you won't relate to the material, you can nitpick about vignetting, softness, CA and so forth. When you have a story on the screen, it instantly overrides nitpicking, and people will only notice flaws if they're really glaring (like the on-and-off vignetting in the first video). Anyway, I thought the thirst for narrative work using these adapters would be a boost for views, it's a 3-min story vs a 7-min review. So why aren't people interested? Or they just don't care about other people's work?

2 - Regarding the dislikes and feedback: I can't quite figure out if they dislike THE STORY, or THE TEST. I think it's a bit insane that I went way out of my way to shoot something more interesting and the audience completely ignores the original goal (TEST!), judging the piece for STORY and using elements for the TEST as reasons they didn't enjoy the video. Confusing? Here's an example:

I wanted to compare how the FM, Rectilux and Rangefinder perform when paired with a 50mm lens, heavily stopped down. I could shoot a chart (boring), but I shot a story instead. It turns out the FM vignettes like crazy and the Rangefinder barely shows any dark edges. Instead of noticing this objective piece of information ("wow, the FM can't handle wides as well as the Rangefinder!"), I got comments like "you should've noticed the vignetting on set and addressed it". I'm not blind, I knew it would vignette. I shot in a way to SHOW IT! hahahaha

My overall feeling of the piece is that it's making me look bad as if I didn't notice all the issues and solved them. Any advice or comments about that? Did you guys get my original goal was to highlight such issues?

Thank you!

[Liszon]

I think you should have labelled up each shot saying what lens was used etc so people get a constant reminder that they are actually watching a test. Text on the black letterbox so it still doesn't ruin the pictures?

Also (and now this is absolutely subjective and probably easy to suggest and harder to do..) I would have written a few events into the narrative to show the same scene/shot more than once but with different lenses. Like a character has a dejavu moment so he gets to see the same thing twice? Looks around then jumps back, rubs his eyes and sees it for the third time. This way you can make a comparision including all the lenses from the exact same POV and still have a narrative structure.

Or you got 3 guys at a poker game trying to recall the same story but they remember it differently so they keep interrupting each other with corrections. Each of them is basically a lens showing the same scene but as they keep going on and on about what happened we get to see the the act in a few alternative variations.

Rectilux as the handsome hunk, FM lens as the fat bastard and the Rangefinder as a hopeless barfly? Haha..

[Timotheus]

Tito, first of all massive kudos for going to such lengths to produce a 'real' short for testing these lenses. I think you and your crew did a great job, certainly considering the few hours you had. Regarding your questions, a few observations:

• What people say or think they want ("narrative lens tests FTW!"), is often a different thing from what they actually prove to be wanting (see also: relationships, gear, presidents and so on).
• Still, intent and purpose of the short might be somewhat too unclear for some viewers. On youtube the short is presented on it's (narrative) own without a disclaimer, intro or clearly stated goals within the video. It seems you can never be explicit enough. Perhaps you should put your explanation video at the end of the short for more clarity on it's purpose?
• What might be confusing for viewers is why you would still use those obviously compromised shots? In reality, you would never use shots that show as much vignetting as some in the test (...right?).
• So help us viewers put the technical details in context. The narrative speaks for itself, but the technical aspects are less self-evident, even with the cheat-sheet. Tell us what you learnt from each setup, what you were trying to test and what you're opinion on the lenses is. How would you incorporate what you learned from this test into 'real shooting'? Just talk over the short film, enlightening us with your newly acquired wisdom about those lenses! There, an idea for a new video for free! ;-)

As always, keep it up man, look forward to each and every video of yours.

 

3 hours ago, Liszon said:

Rectilux as the handsome hunk, FM lens as the fat bastard and the Rangefinder as a hopeless barfly? Haha

LOL, nice one mate

[Tito Ferradans]

Thanks guys!

Yeah, I'm coming to the conclusion that labeling would've fixed the majority of the issues. Something I learned for next time. :P

3 hours ago, Timotheus said:

What people say or think they want ("narrative lens tests FTW!"), is often a different thing from what they actually prove to be wanting (see also: relationships, gear, presidents and so on).

I laughed hard at this. Wise words.

[Bioskop.Inc]

Really good test, I got it - so thanks for doing this, it was helpful for us normal people.

As for the negative/stupid comments - people on the internet are dicks most of the time, but we all know this.

Give them their F**KING CATS the next time!

[Potato42]

Tito,

Great job on your shoot. I think the other guys have already given you fantastic feedback about what may have gone wrong with the presentation. I also found myself frustrated in trying to get the most out of it, being that much of the information is separate. I believe what is important for any project is to stay focused on what the goals are, in this case a comparison of 3 different anamorphic adapters. I think leaving the adapter information on screen throughout would have been better, and a separate link for the narrative video on it's own.

 

I feel like I got a lot out of the video, mostly the idea that I don't really like any of the adapters! I felt the rectilux bothered me most, with it's very blurry/smeary edges and even the top and bottom of frame was affected. For me it was most evident during the shots of the female character crouched and digging through pockets toward the end. I naturally was looking for her face, but it was so horribly blurry!

 

Have you tested the rapido single focus solution? That's the one that has my attention now.

[tweak]

Bring back the cats!!!!!