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

[kye]

6 hours ago, Jonathan422 said:

What is halation?

It's when the bright parts of the image create a kind of localised haze over the image.  

The Black Pro Mist filters are a form of halation:

You can simulate it (sort of) in post by taking the image, blurring it, then putting it over the top of the image at a very low opacity.

[IronFilm]

On 11/28/2019 at 1:17 PM, kye said:

The Black Pro Mist filters are a form of halation:

Those are definitely too strong it feels to me!

That is why I prefer a 1/2 Black Pro Mist

[kye]

3 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Those are definitely too strong it feels to me!

That is why I prefer a 1/2 Black Pro Mist

Yeah, I posted the full strength ones as the poster wasn't sure what halation was, so going with a subtle example might not have been as useful.  I tend to apply such things in post, but even so, you have to be careful otherwise it starts to get into the "is this a dream sequence? or an 80's video clip?" territory  

[heart0less]

 

[kye]

15 hours ago, heart0less said:

 

Yep, Xeen doesn't look too bad there!

At 1:30 he claims that the larger front element on the Cooke means that the lens "looks around" the model and "It's going to take the background and push it way back and it's going to bring her forward".  This is something I've never heard before, does anyone know what he's talking about here?

[heart0less]

First time I've ever heard about it.

This is quite an interesting concept.

[mercer]

I think he's using layman terms to describe field curvature and 3D Pop.

[heart0less]

He may be, but it's the first time someone tries to implore that larger front element (with no change in focal length, aperture, etc.) equals more separation.

[mercer]

That's true, it is an odd way of explaining it but Cooke's are odd lenses... they're defects add to their beauty. I know @HockeyFan12 knows a lot about Cooke lenses, maybe he can shed some light on this?

[HockeyFan12]

I don’t know that much about the Cookes but have worked with them a bit, primarily in post. In my experience the S4is are an ideal combination of modern performance with nice rendering while the S2/S3s are pretty wild with a lot of strange aberrations but they look great.

I’m not entirely sure what he means in that video, but I think it’s a preference for slight barrel distortion. He’s expressed preferences for Cooke lenses over Leica lenses in the past because the Cookes have more distortion. That could be what’s going on here, too.

At 3:43 on the square grid you can see that the barrel distortion from the Cooke does in fact “bring the center of the image forward."

How does that have to do with a larger front element? I don't know.

[kye]

If small amounts of barrel distortion are associated with better 3D, does anyone add this in post?

In a literal sense, if the wider front element was able to "look around" an object then the edges of what it sees would be further behind an object.  I'm pretty sure that's what having a larger aperture is, and why wider apertures have larger bokeh.

Ah!  These lenses are specified in T-stops and not F-stops, so maybe the Cooke at T2 actually has a larger aperture than the Xeen at F1.9?  T-stop is related to exposure value and also takes into account the light losses in the optical path, so maybe the glass has less transmission but the aperture is wider?  It's kind of hard to tell from the video as they have different minimum focus distances and slightly different focal lengths, so a direct comparison of the size of the bokeh balls doesn't seem to be available.

I've noticed in my lens comparisons that when comparing lenses of similar but not identical focal length (eg, 55 vs 58mm) that the same F-stop consistently gives more 3D pop on the longer lens, because the background is slightly more out of focus.

[HockeyFan12]

I think it's all subjective. Fincher adds barrel distortion to get the anamorphic look in Mindhunter. Otherwise I've never heard of it, but it's not a crazy idea.

I wouldn't worry about it, though, these are relatively small differences. Adding it in post might mess with the texture of the image or soften it a bit too much, there's a reason Mindhunter is shot on 6k or 8k Red or whatever.

But it's an interesting idea. Overall I think the Xeen holds up really well in that comparison even as-is, but there's no reason not to try it if it looks good to you.

I do think lenses have different amounts of distortion at different focus distances but don't know enough about this to know if it would make a difference.

[kye]

5 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

I think it's all subjective. Fincher adds barrel distortion to get the anamorphic look in Mindhunter. Otherwise I've never heard of it, but it's not a crazy idea.

I wouldn't worry about it, though, these are relatively small differences. Adding it in post might mess with the texture of the image or soften it a bit too much, there's a reason Mindhunter is shot on 6k or 8k Red or whatever.

But it's an interesting idea. Overall I think the Xeen holds up really well in that comparison even as-is, but there's no reason not to try it if it looks good to you.

I do think lenses have different amounts of distortion at different focus distances but don't know enough about this to know if it would make a difference.

Yeah, there's something to be said for ignoring these relatively small differences...  as in, a side-by-side difference that is obvious might not be obvious if in two separate shots with a shot of b-roll between them, and probably isn't noticeable when used in different productions.  Certainly, if one is ten times the price of the other then you have to question the value you're getting from something, although the rental cost wouldn't be a 10X factor once you take into account the insurance overheads etc.

You can absolutely make incremental improvements to get from where you are to nirvana, but the cost involved is pretty darn high!  The Dog Schidt lens in the main lens test in my OP is a modified version of the Helios 58/2 which can be had for $100 or less on ebay.  It's not as good as the $10,000+ lenses in the test, but it's not 100 times worse either.

The laws of diminishing returns really kick in once you have a camera with interchangeable lenses and you get a few relatively fast primes in your kit.

[IronFilm]

6 hours ago, kye said:

Ah!  These lenses are specified in T-stops and not F-stops, so maybe the Cooke at T2 actually has a larger aperture than the Xeen at F1.9?  T-stop is related to exposure value and also takes into account the light losses in the optical path, so maybe the glass has less transmission but the aperture is wider?  It's kind of hard to tell from the video as they have different minimum focus distances and slightly different focal lengths, so a direct comparison of the size of the bokeh balls doesn't seem to be available.

a) the Xeen 20mm is T1.9, not F1.9
b) I think at a few points he is just spewing a bunch of B.S. to make himself sound fancy with lots of words 

 

[leslie]

3 hours ago, IronFilm said:

a) the Xeen 20mm is T1.9, not F1.9
b) I think at a few points he is just spewing a bunch of B.S. to make himself sound fancy with lots of words 

 

 I do believe there was something subtle going on with the  cooke,  how to define it, is beyond me. If he can afford cookes or even rent them and make em work, good for him. I reckon i learned there is something interesting with the cookes or that particular lens. I'm not sure its $20000 worth of interesting however and i didn't like the stop sign bokeh. I guess i'll have to stumble forward with the old m42 ?

[kye]

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

a) the Xeen 20mm is T1.9, not F1.9
b) I think at a few points he is just spewing a bunch of B.S. to make himself sound fancy with lots of words 

Ah crap.  Of all the times to make a typo!

Yes, I meant that maybe the Cooke had a lower F-number despite it's T-number being higher than the Xeen.

1 hour ago, leslie said:

 I do believe there was something subtle going on with the  cooke,  how to define it, is beyond me. If he can afford cookes or even rent them and make em work, good for him. I reckon i learned there is something interesting with the cookes or that particular lens. I'm not sure its $20000 worth of interesting however and i didn't like the stop sign bokeh. I guess i'll have to stumble forward with the old m42 ?

I think that we have a major problem in society because people are discouraged from saying they don't know things.  What this means is that they make observations about the world that are useful, but instead of just saying "I see this, but I don't know what causes it" and letting other people take that as interesting information, they say "I see this, and it's because XYZ" which then makes people who know that XYZ isn't how things actually work throw out the observations along with the faulty explanation (and in today's society there's also a growing trend of completely disqualifying anything that a person has ever said just because they got one statement wrong, ever, which is really sad because everyone is wrong about things on a fairly regular basis).

From that perspective, I take it that cinematographers who get paid to do high-end work might know a thing or two about the various aesthetic properties of lenses and images in general, and I think there is lots we can learn from them in this regard.  However, I'm not going to take everything that any cinematographer says as true without any analysis, or any critical thinking, as that doesn't get us very far except "buy this product because I bought it", which doesn't make us better film-makers even if we could afford the stuff they're talking about.

And if you think trying to convey aesthetic impressions of things in words is difficult (which it is) then try getting into high-end hi-fi.  The number of times that I've been describing something I'm hearing and someone else on the internet tells me that I'm not hearing it, or that it's not possible, or whatever, is ridiculous, and if I had a dollar every time then I could afford to buy them a system good enough to prove them wrong  

[leslie]

must of been reminiscing today . You did say 80's movie clip earlier?

which also made me wonder, hows your new 1k light going ?

 

[noone]

On 12/12/2019 at 12:25 AM, mercer said:

I think he's using layman terms to describe field curvature and 3D Pop.

Field curvature can make a big difference I think and some subjects it would be a pain with and others maybe just what you want.       There was an article i saw recently (might have been Lens Rentals?) where I saw it mentioned some lenses transition from out of to in focus very sharply (which would more likely be better more expensive lenses) and that might account more for "3D pop" so a lens that does that AND has field curvature flattering to a subject might be gold (and cost its weight in it).

Still trying to find more mentions and uses for the Minolta 24mm VFC lens that actually varies its field curvature....they go for ridiculous amounts on Enay.

[noone]

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2019/11/practical-use-of-field-curvature-graphs-the-50mm-primes/

From that article..

"Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 Distagon T*

So why would anyone pay that much money for a lens, you might ask? Let’s see if the field curvature offers a bit of explanation. Wide-open you probably noticed the field is really flat; totally flat in the sagittal, a very gentle “W” curve in the tangential. One other thing I might mention: notice how sharply the field falls off; it goes from yellow to purple in a narrower range than the other lenses. So we have a very flat field, excellent sharpness even wide open, and a lens that goes from ‘in focus’ to ‘way out of focus’ in a short distance. Some people will pay a lot of money for that."

Combine that fast transition from in to out of focus with flattering field curvature in a lens IE for particular subjects??

 

 

 

 

[leslie]

6 hours ago, noone said:

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2019/11/practical-use-of-field-curvature-graphs-the-50mm-primes/

From that article..

"Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 Distagon T*

So why would anyone pay that much money for a lens, you might ask? Let’s see if the field curvature offers a bit of explanation. Wide-open you probably noticed the field is really flat; totally flat in the sagittal, a very gentle “W” curve in the tangential. One other thing I might mention: notice how sharply the field falls off; it goes from yellow to purple in a narrower range than the other lenses. So we have a very flat field, excellent sharpness even wide open, and a lens that goes from ‘in focus’ to ‘way out of focus’ in a short distance. Some people will pay a lot of money for that."

Combine that fast transition from in to out of focus with flattering field curvature in a lens IE for particular subjects??

its way cheaper than a cooke