Screw buying new cameras, after salivating over cine lens tests I'm spending real money on lenses

[MurtlandPhoto]

35 minutes ago, heart0less said:

But, in the end, Sigma 18-35 is one single lens, which can stay on your camera all day. It's also much more easier to get one in a great condition and is significantly cheaper than a set of Leicas.

I keep coming back to this myself. The 18-35mm with a ProMist has nearly as much mojo as a vintage 18mm, 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm set at a far smaller cost. 

[HockeyFan12]

1 hour ago, heart0less said:

 

Once more it's quite evident that the beloved classics and cine lenses have some slight green tint to them.
Do you remember Potato Jet's video? Same story.

It almost look like Leicas have some Pro-Mist built in, too.
They resolve much detail, but in a subtle way..

But, in the end, Sigma 18-35 is one single lens, which can stay on your camera all day. It's also much more easier to get one in a great condition and is significantly cheaper than a set of Leicas.

 

You have to post that just as I decided not to get a Leica R 35mm f2, don't you lol. That looks so good.

This is why test charts are not a good metric of performance imo. I suspect the Leica is worse on a chart but the look of it overall imo is significantly better. And I really really like the Sigma 18-35mm as modern lenses go. It's a personal favorite. But the Leica is juts spot on. Looks good without any overt "vintage" feel, which I tend to chase excessively. 

I'm sending in an old 28mm f2 Contax Zeiss to get serviced and the technician tells me that even an apparently spotless lens will slowly develop invisible oil deposits as the helical grease ages over the course of a few decades. I wonder if part of the lower contrast "vintage" look is just oil deposited on the glass. Not always desirable when you're shooting film, but when you're shooting digitally it could take the edge off?

 

What do you all make of this? 

[mercer]

3 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

You have to post that just as I decided not to get a Leica R 35mm f2, don't you lol. That looks so good.

This is why test charts are not a good metric of performance imo. I suspect the Leica is worse on a chart but the look of it overall imo is significantly better. And I really really like the Sigma 18-35mm as modern lenses go. It's a personal favorite. But the Leica is juts spot on. Looks good without any overt "vintage" feel, which I tend to chase excessively. 

I'm sending in an old 28mm f2 Contax Zeiss to get serviced and the technician tells me that even an apparently spotless lens will slowly develop invisible oil deposits as the helical grease ages over the course of a few decades. I wonder if part of the lower contrast "vintage" look is just oil deposited on the glass. Not always desirable when you're shooting film, but when you're shooting digitally it could take the edge off?

 

What do you all make of this? 

Interesting theory about the helicoid oil.

As far as the comparison video... I preferred the Cooke for obvious reasons... color and field curvature that borders distortion on the Lomo. However, I do like how the frame comes alive on the tilt... but that was evident with both lenses.

[kye]

4 hours ago, heart0less said:

Once more it's quite evident that the beloved classics and cine lenses have some slight green tint to them.
Do you remember Potato Jet's video? Same story.

It almost look like Leicas have some Pro-Mist built in, too.
They resolve much detail, but in a subtle way..

But, in the end, Sigma 18-35 is one single lens, which can stay on your camera all day. It's also much more easier to get one in a great condition and is significantly cheaper than a set of Leicas.

The Sigma is a glorious lens, that's for sure.

They also come in Cine packaging:

and come in EF, PL, and others.. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1391229-REG/sigma_wfq968_18_35mm_t2_50_100mm.html

So, the photographer versions really are a great deal when you take this package into conversion.

4 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

You have to post that just as I decided not to get a Leica R 35mm f2, don't you lol. That looks so good.

This is why test charts are not a good metric of performance imo. I suspect the Leica is worse on a chart but the look of it overall imo is significantly better. And I really really like the Sigma 18-35mm as modern lenses go. It's a personal favorite. But the Leica is juts spot on. Looks good without any overt "vintage" feel, which I tend to chase excessively. 

I'm sending in an old 28mm f2 Contax Zeiss to get serviced and the technician tells me that even an apparently spotless lens will slowly develop invisible oil deposits as the helical grease ages over the course of a few decades. I wonder if part of the lower contrast "vintage" look is just oil deposited on the glass. Not always desirable when you're shooting film, but when you're shooting digitally it could take the edge off?

What do you all make of this? 

It might be a small factor, but I doubt that it's the main cause.  There are enough people doing deep servicing and even re-housing lenses, and they are stripping lenses apart and individually cleaning every element and every component, and if that made lenses look more modern then it would be something that was spoken about on the various forum etc.  Can you imagine the outrage if someone spent several years making a vintage set of lenses from the first batch, only to have them cleaned and lose the character that motivated them in the first place?  It would be palpable!  There would be dozens of threads in all caps as the person turns themselves inside out  

My take is that if you're looking at the Sigma v Leica video and thinking there isn't much difference then just get the Sigma, a Tiffen Black Pro Mist at a small strength, strap it to your camera and turn the internet off and just go shoot  

[mirekti]

4 hours ago, MurtlandPhoto said:

I keep coming back to this myself. The 18-35mm with a ProMist has nearly as much mojo as a vintage 18mm, 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm set at a far smaller cost. 

ProMist is great, but I really hate the back reflections it causes. 

[kye]

3 hours ago, mirekti said:

ProMist is great, but I really hate the back reflections it causes. 

I wonder if this would be mitigated by some sort of nano-coatings on the rear side of the filter?

Is anyone familiar with other types of filters other than Black Pro Mist?  For example I've heard about White Pro Mist, but of course there are many others.  They might have less back reflections too...

If we could find a filter that turns modern glass into vintage then that would be spectacular for a lot of people I think.

[IronFilm]

10 hours ago, MurtlandPhoto said:

I keep coming back to this myself. The 18-35mm with a ProMist has nearly as much mojo as a vintage 18mm, 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm set at a far smaller cost. 

Especially as a vintage 18mm which is fast, is really expensive to buy and tough to find. 

[heart0less]

2 hours ago, kye said:

Is anyone familiar with other types of filters other than Black Pro Mist?  For example I've heard about White Pro Mist, but of course there are many others.  They might have less back reflections too...

If we could find a filter that turns modern glass into vintage then that would be spectacular for a lot of people I think.

Well, there is no shortage of them, that I can tell.

There is Tiffen Black Diffusion/FX and Schneider Radiant Frost, which (according to David Mullen) soften the image with minimal halation added.

Quote

A Schneider HD Classic Soft also softens with just a bit of a blurry glow to bright areas (the halation is less of a misty glow but is more due to that bright area being blurred and overlaid back on the sharp image). Most of the other diffusions have a more pronounced halation, and in fact, many are compound filters with an element to create a misty glow (such as the 1/8 Black Frost that is part of the Schneider Hollywood Black Magics, or the GlimmerGlass that is part of the Tiffen Black Satins.)

 

Quote

 

Digital Diffusion/FX is just the Black Diffusion/FX with the black dots removed (because on 2/3” HD camcorders, the dot pattern was coming into focus). They were there to restore some contrast but that can be done in the LUT or color-correction so if the specks in the bokeh bother you, then use Digital Diffusion/FX.

 

Classic Soft doesn’t have any mist particles, there is just some halation due to the dimples in the glass creating an out of focus shape of the bright area, so it is a blurry glow (almost like a double image) rather than a hazy glow. HD Classic Softs use smaller dimples so the blurring of bright areas is less obvious, again it was created originally for 2/3” HD camcorders because their greater depth of field was making the dimple pattern too obvious with regular Classic Softs.

 

 

Not to mention a whole lot of Satins (Black Satin!), etc.

Some good read here: https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/4071/its-time-sharpen-your-diffusion

 

And last, but not least, a handy diagram from Tiffen:

 

Someone already named it "Triangle of CONFUSION" and I think this term is extremely on point.

( :

[anonim]

Since I had and thoroughly used whole sets of Leica R and Zeiss Contax lenses, maybe it's not too unworthy to mention that there are also pretty big differences between lenses in either of lines. Precisely, above quoted Leica R 35mm f2 is indeed, without doubt by far the best lens between R's (even not just at pixel peeping level), following, I'd say not so close with 60mm f2.8 and 90mm f2 - but such combination of sharpness and mellowness at the same time is unique even for R's. (Even every last revisions of famous 50mm's need higher aperture  to avoid noticeably even center softness on modern sensors.) So, comparing best of the best of whole line, with edge focal distance of an zoom, actually is compliment for Sigma 18-35.

Interestingly, from my experience, if I have to choose similar unique character for one single Contax lens, I'd choose Distagon 35mm f2.8, even rather than Hollywood 28mm. (Also Contax 35-70 is surprisingly great, but for me not as much as its cpair Leica 35-70... Also very 'cinematic' SOOC result with modern cameras could be achieved with pretty underdog cheap, but mechanically brilliant R 28-70.) R's also have lesser focus breathing than Contax's.

Another similar remark  is that R line is mechanically on level upper to Contax line, and age deterioration with proper care even with intensive usage is remarkable close to zero, which couldn't be said in term of 1:1 for Contax's (although they are at the same high league in comparison with often confection-type of modern lenses).

[Wronzoff]

21 hours ago, MurtlandPhoto said:

I keep coming back to this myself. The 18-35mm with a ProMist has nearly as much mojo as a vintage 18mm, 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm set at a far smaller cost. 

 

 

10 hours ago, heart0less said:

Well, there is no shortage of them, that I can tell.

There is Tiffen Black Diffusion/FX and Schneider Radiant Frost, which (according to David Mullen) soften the image with minimal halation added.

 

 

Not to mention a whole lot of Satins (Black Satin!), etc.

Some good read here: https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/4071/its-time-sharpen-your-diffusion

 

And last, but not least, a handy diagram from Tiffen:

 

Someone already named it "Triangle of CONFUSION" and I think this term is extremely on point.

( :

Then what the recommendation for the Sigma 18-35mm - Promist or Black satin ? and what flavor  1 -  2 -  3  - 1/8  - 1/4 ?

 

[Geoff CB]

16 minutes ago, Wronzoff said:

 

 

Then what the recommendation for the Sigma 18-35mm - Promist or Black satin ? and what flavor  1 -  2 -  3  - 1/8  - 1/4 ?

 

It's completely to taste, you can go subtle or you can go extreme, completely depends on the look your going for. 

My personal favorite is a supermist black 1/8, subtle adjustment.

[thebrothersthre3]

1 hour ago, Geoff CB said:

It's completely to taste, you can go subtle or you can go extreme, completely depends on the look your going for. 

My personal favorite is a supermist black 1/8, subtle adjustment.

I just got the 1/8 pro mist. Its a lot less subtle than I thought it would be. 

[Wronzoff]

Still confuse of the difference between Pro mist or Black satin ? They sound really similar ?

[Geoff CB]

1 hour ago, Wronzoff said:

Still confuse of the difference between Pro mist or Black satin ? They sound really similar ?

Different brands, all have different effects 

[kye]

On 2/29/2020 at 3:50 PM, heart0less said:

 

Very interesting.

I wish there was some kind of standard for testing these things, so that it would be obvious what characteristics various lenses have and what filters might be similar.  They'd be easy enough to design tests for, just the effort of doing so and then spending the money to build the database.

[EthanAlexander]

All I know is that after the Black Pro Mist had been hyped to the point of legendary (in my head, at least) I bought one and found the results quite unpleasing. I'd rather have a nice neutral, high resolution starting point (using a log curve and recording to a robust codec) and then add the character in post. I can't believe I'm saying that. Maybe with less strength it would have its use but it was only a 1/4.

[heart0less]

49 minutes ago, EthanAlexander said:

All I know is that after the Black Pro Mist had been hyped to the point of legendary (in my head, at least) I bought one and found the results quite unpleasing. I'd rather have a nice neutral, high resolution starting point (using a log curve and recording to a robust codec) and then add the character in post. I can't believe I'm saying that. Maybe with less strength it would have its use but it was only a 1/4.

I guess there are many variables affecting this, be it focal length (longer focal lengths tend to be affected more), primary characteristics of the lens (is it soft / milky to begin with) and personal preference.

 

You said that 1/4 was too strong for you whereas @thebrothersthre3 mentioned that:

On 2/29/2020 at 9:30 PM, thebrothersthre3 said:

I just got the 1/8 pro mist. Its a lot less subtle than I thought it would be. 

 

That's why I'm not so keen on getting it - I'm a bit afraid I wouldn't like the results so much.
I'll stick with emulating this in post.

[thebrothersthre3]

1 minute ago, heart0less said:

I guess there are many variables affecting this, be it focal length (longer focal lengths tend to be affected more), primary characteristics of the lens (is it soft / milky to begin with) and personal preference.

 

You said that 1/4 was too strong for you whereas @thebrothersthre3 mentioned that:

 

That's why I'm not so keen on getting it - I'm a bit afraid I wouldn't like the results so much.
I'll stick with emulating this in post.

Yeah I'd not use 1/4 unless you want something really stylized. The 1/8th is nice, its just definitely noticeable. It mainly shows up if you have blown highlights, if your highlights are under controls its very subtle. I am going to use it with my modern lenses, as I don't like doing much in post at least for fast turn around stuff. 

[heart0less]

Sorry, couldn't help myself and had to share it.

source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/fiin0h/lot_of_projects_got_cancelled_due_tot_covid19/

[Cinegain]

Damn. I know they say 'if you have it, flaunt it'. But do they really got to flex on us like that. Geez.

I would love to own a set like that someday. I know it's a lot of money, they're really sought-after, but you know they say it's a solid investment... can't see that going down the drain anytime soon... or wait...