Roadmaps for Meike S35 and FF cine lenses

[photographer-at-large]

https://meikeglobal.com/collections/meike-cine-lens

[thebrothersthre3]

Probably won’t have EF versions 😢

[Andrew Reid]

How is EF the future? Give me mirrorless lenses all day long

It's not like people are short for good EF lenses

[JordanWright]

They'll be EF & PL

$539.99!!! Not bad for PL Lenses

 

[KnightsFan]

2 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

How is EF the future? Give me mirrorless lenses all day long

It's not like people are short for good EF lenses

My EF and F lenses follow me from camera to camera, so it will be a long time before I buy anything other than EF. I'd love to see Rokinon get some competition for affordable EF cine style lenses. It's great that they also have mirrorless mounts as well.

Gotta love the #vlogger on Meike's tweet about manual focus cinema lenses though.

[tweak]

5 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

My EF and F lenses follow me from camera to camera, so it will be a long time before I buy anything other than EF. I'd love to see Rokinon get some competition for affordable EF cine style lenses. It's great that they also have mirrorless mounts as well.

Same here. Would be cool if they offer nice PL to EF adapters to go with them, super versatile then.

[kye]

6 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

Gotta love the #vlogger on Meike's tweet about manual focus cinema lenses though.

I still see focus issues regularly on youtube channels that feature vlogging type content.  Sure, we have DPAF and PDAF, but if the camera decides to do a beautifully-smooth speed-controlled phase-detect focus-pull to the wrong f*cking thing, then it's still a wasted shot.  Watch some of the reviews of the new Sony vlogging camera to see people talking about how it has a new focus mode that is far better for things like product shots, and remember that when someone says that a new product is better then it means that the old one had issues that they wanted to be fixed.

Luckily, if you're holding the camera while filming yourself, manual focus combined with an aperture setting that isn't too ridiculous can fix those focus issues!

Besides, at this point if you're a vlogger who only cares about content and want the filming process to essentially leave you alone, then there are many smaller sensor cameras to just crank out content.  The vloggers that want to have larger sensors and larger apertures are also somewhat likely to be interested in the MF aesthetic.

[IronFilm]

9 hours ago, JordanWright said:

They'll be EF & PL

$539.99!!! Not bad for PL Lenses

Wow! That's a game changer for ultra low priced PL lenses, and about time. 

Now it might finally make sense to buy one of those crazy cheaply priced URSA Mini PL bodies, or a C500/C300 PL mount body. 

[Andrew Reid]

Put one on an Alexa?

[Video Hummus]

10 hours ago, kye said:

I still see focus issues regularly on youtube channels that feature vlogging type content.  Sure, we have DPAF and PDAF, but if the camera decides to do a beautifully-smooth speed-controlled phase-detect focus-pull to the wrong f*cking thing, then it's still a wasted shot.

Or the very common, EOS R and 15-35 RF combination. That lens has very noticeable and distracting focus breathing that causes a pulsing effect. But no one complains about that....

[Video Hummus]

Oops, wrong thread.

[Super8]

2 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

Or the very common, EOS R and 15-35 RF combination. That lens has very noticeable and distracting focus breathing that causes a pulsing effect. But no one complains about that....

You mean that Tony the mop video?

[KnightsFan]

13 hours ago, kye said:

I still see focus issues regularly on youtube channels that feature vlogging type content.  Sure, we have DPAF and PDAF, but if the camera decides to do a beautifully-smooth speed-controlled phase-detect focus-pull to the wrong f*cking thing, then it's still a wasted shot.  Watch some of the reviews of the new Sony vlogging camera to see people talking about how it has a new focus mode that is far better for things like product shots, and remember that when someone says that a new product is better then it means that the old one had issues that they wanted to be fixed.

Luckily, if you're holding the camera while filming yourself, manual focus combined with an aperture setting that isn't too ridiculous can fix those focus issues!

Besides, at this point if you're a vlogger who only cares about content and want the filming process to essentially leave you alone, then there are many smaller sensor cameras to just crank out content.  The vloggers that want to have larger sensors and larger apertures are also somewhat likely to be interested in the MF aesthetic.

Locking your focus while vlogging can be useful, but I have yet to see anyone vlog with a follow focus.

[thebrothersthre3]

Yes EF!!! I’d prefer EF usually or something like it as it can be speedboosted or used with EF only cameras. 

[HockeyFan12]

+1 for EF and PL.  Swappable mounts would have been nice, though.

Aren't the Meike M43 lenses based on Veydras? Which are optically superb? If these are even close to as good, they seem disruptive. Nice selection of focal lengths, too. 

[kye]

3 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

Locking your focus while vlogging can be useful, but I have yet to see anyone vlog with a follow focus.

Hahaha, yes, that's true lol.

2 minutes ago, HockeyFan12 said:

+1 for EF and PL.  

Aren't the Meike M43 lenses based on Veydras? Which are optically superb? If these are even close to as good, they seem pretty disruptive. Nice selection of focal lengths, too. 

When I was looking at them some time ago the theory was that they were the same designs, but I couldn't find any real comparisons where someone had both of them and shot the same scene or compared them directly.

Maybe there has been some new stuff since though?

[HockeyFan12]

3 minutes ago, kye said:

Hahaha, yes, that's true lol.

When I was looking at them some time ago the theory was that they were the same designs, but I couldn't find any real comparisons where someone had both of them and shot the same scene or compared them directly.

Maybe there has been some new stuff since though?

I read some stuff on RedUser that I should know better than to blindly trust, but the impression I got there was they were probably the same, but possibly manufactured by a different OEM? I'm not sure. 

[IronFilm]

16 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Put one on an Alexa?

At least you can swap their mounts out for something else than a PL Mount, unlike the older C300 / C500 / URSA Mini etc which are all permanently stuck with the PL version they are made with.

 

1 hour ago, HockeyFan12 said:

+1 for EF and PL.  Swappable mounts would have been nice, though.

100x this!

And I believe that for lower priced cinema lenses it is more important that they have this feature of swappable mounts than on high end PL lenses. 

Someone who buys a set of Cooke S4 lenses won't be bothered if they can't be used on a DSLR, as they'll largely be exclusive using those Cooke lenses on the likes of ARRI/RED/CineAlta cameras.

While someone who buys a "cheap" set of PL Lenses from Rokinon / SLR Magic / Meike / Venus Optics / IRIX / Sigma / Tokina is a different sort of buyer, and thus these are exactly the kind of lenses which need swappable mounts, Because their buyer is the kind of person who'd be using them on their daily driver which is a camera such as say a Canon C200 with an EF Mount, but once or twice a month rents in a higher end camera for a production, which would be nice to be able to use their existing cinema lenses on if only they had a PL Mount. 

Unfortunately Zeiss CP.3 / CP.2 and Schneider Xenons were until recently the cheapest sets of lenses which allow you to swap between EF or PL Mount. (although, recently you can with Tokina & Rokinon as well, which is a good change to see as originally the lenses they put out couldn't be swappable mounts)

 

1 hour ago, HockeyFan12 said:

Aren't the Meike M43 lenses based on Veydras? Which are optically superb? If these are even close to as good, they seem disruptive. Nice selection of focal lengths, too. 

Those lenses were however MFT Mount, thus no chance these new PL/EF mount lenses will be the same optical design. 

[kye]

3 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

I read some stuff on RedUser that I should know better than to blindly trust, but the impression I got there was they were probably the same, but possibly manufactured by a different OEM? I'm not sure. 

I suspect they're the same too, but my point was that I couldn't find any evidence either way.  It does make sense though, considering the various commercial aspects and the timeline.

2 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Those lenses were however MFT Mount, thus no chance these new PL/EF mount lenses will be the same optical design. 

Ah, good point.

They were for MFT mount, but that doesn't mean the optical design isn't compatible with a larger flange distance or with larger sensors.  Other brands like Rokinon make the same lenses in MFT and DSLR mounts, essentially just adding a spacer the same way a dumb adapter is just a spacer.

This is the 85mm Veydra:

The coloured parts are the MFT sensor and the grey is the extra size of a S35 sensor, so that optical design appears to cover S35 relatively well.  The other focal lengths aren't as high performance but they seem to cover it.

This is a comparison between a Zeiss and the Veydra:

Note that the Zeiss is graphed over a FF sensor (the X axis goes to 20) whereas the Veyrda is only S35 (X axis goes to 14).  However, of note is that the Zeiss has degrading performance out to 10 (MFT sensor size) but then stays a lot more constant out to FF, and is of sufficient performance that these are actually used on FF sensors by real cinematographers.  Extrapolating this principle, the Veydra may or may not have performance beyond the S35 sensor, so it may cover FF?

The other Veydra focal lengths have significantly worse performance at the edges of the S35 sensor, so aren't as likely to cover FF, or at least with any quality:

Regardless, the S35 Meiki lenses may have the same optical formulas, although the FF ones probably don't.

[IronFilm]

8 hours ago, kye said:

They were for MFT mount, but that doesn't mean the optical design isn't compatible with a larger flange distance or with larger sensors.  Other brands like Rokinon make the same lenses in MFT and DSLR mounts, essentially just adding a spacer the same way a dumb adapter is just a spacer.

Rokinon/Samyang lenses are designed first for the EF/F mount, so thus the E / MFT / etc mounts are basically just like an EF/F Mount lens with a permanently attached adapter! 

While the Veydra lenses were designed from the ground up specifically for MFT Mount cameras. So you won't be able to go backwards from these designs to a EF / PL Mount next.