Lenses

[kye]

Real world use of the strange wide-angle probe lens....

 

[EphraimP]

I have a 25mm version of the Meike for X-mount that I use on my X-T3. Personally, I like the damping on the focus ring, but I do use a Tilta Nano Nucleus to focus it. The all metal body is nice and overall the lens seems well built. It's a little tank and pleasure to use. It helps me understand why you'd want to use a cinema lens instead of a photo lens. 

I've shot some tests with a Datacolor SpyderChecker card with the Meike and my 18-55 Fuji kit lens to compare color and sharpness, but haven't gotten around to analyzing them in depth because I've become really busy with video work. I'll get around to it at some point. Maybe. 

Like billdoubleu said, the lens is plenty sharp. It definitely has chromatic aberration in the form of purple fringing. It's not horrible, but it is there. At under $400, it seems like a pretty good deal. The reviews I've seen indicate that it's actually a better lens than the SLR Magic Microprimes and other mini-cine lenses under $1,000.

If it wasn't for the Veydra controversy, I'd definitely be interested in checking a few more focal lengths out if they got around to putting them out in X-mount. If they are truly Veydra ripoffs, I suppose it's possible someone could make lens mount swap kits like Duclos did for Veydra. The screw pattern on the back of my 25mm looks different from that of a Duclos X-mount, so I'm assuming that they changed that up a little. 

I didn't know they were a complete rip off when I bought mine. It's a tough position to be in when you're trying to put a high quality kit together on a budget. It sucks to help people profit off of taking someone else's intellectual property and hard work. I've got the cine lens bug hard now.

 

[leslie]

55 minutes ago, kye said:

Real world use of the strange wide-angle probe lens....

 

that was really interesting, surprised me how dark the set looked but sure turned out ok   however i now want pizza for dinner.

[kye]

4 minutes ago, leslie said:

that was really interesting, surprised me how dark the set looked but sure turned out ok   however i now want pizza for dinner.

Remember that you were seeing the set through a camera.  I'd imagine the set was lit normally and the set lighting was just way brighter.  He was doing things in (what looked like) 120p, so at base ISO you'd need a bit of light for that.

[kye]

Spoiler, he chose the 16-35 f2.8 and the 100mm f2.8 macro.

TLDR:

• He shoots music videos
• He knows his own style and what he wants to get
• Having more lenses creates anxiety in choosing lenses, is heavy and a PITA in general

It's funny because I think I actually have less lenses than him, as I tend to travel with 3 primes, whereas he's kind of got 4 lenses (16, 24, 35, 100).

I understand that with narrative or when you're shooting for someone else you need more flexibility to suit someone else's vision, but I do think that there's an optimum number of lenses / focal lengths.

[Cinegain]

Dunno... like a watch collection or any collection for that matter... it can get outta hands. But you just want to be covered for any type of occassion to be able to match the mood. Of course it depends if making the right call comes naturally to you. Indecisiveness can cause anxiety and unproductiveness, sure. If you're a handyman with a toolbox full of tools and you need to put a nail in the wall, you don't have to really contemplate what tool to use for the task at hand. However. If the toolbox is only equiped with a screwdriver and no hammer... it can be the case that you just made your job a little harder to pull off. I'm not saying you should always have all your options to your disposal at any given time. But you can be selective with what you bring along based on what you're expected you'll need on site, which you can get quite clear about beforehand. Or if you want another analogy (yeah, that's kinda my thing)... imagine karaoke night... but instead of having a folder with lists and lists of songs to choose from... there's only two songs.

[xzobinx]

11 hours ago, Cinegain said:

Dunno... like a watch collection or any collection for that matter... it can get outta hands. But you just want to be covered for any type of occassion to be able to match the mood. Of course it depends if making the right call comes naturally to you. Indecisiveness can cause anxiety and unproductiveness, sure. If you're a handyman with a toolbox full of tools and you need to put a nail in the wall, you don't have to really contemplate what tool to use for the task at hand. However. If the toolbox is only equiped with a screwdriver and no hammer... it can be the case that you just made your job a little harder to pull off. I'm not saying you should always have all your options to your disposal at any given time. But you can be selective with what you bring along based on what you're expected you'll need on site, which you can get quite clear about beforehand. Or if you want another analogy (yeah, that's kinda my thing)... imagine karaoke night... but instead of having a folder with lists and lists of songs to choose from... there's only two songs.

I wholeheartedly agree with your view. I shoot wedding mostly and my main focal is 50 and 100 but I will always have another tele in my kits no matter what. You never know when you have a photographer with 35mm during ceremony or bunch of guest with iphones.

My idea of minimalism is the least amount of gear to get the job done, not trying to make it work with whatever because I'm too lazy to bring another 1kg. 

[kye]

8 hours ago, xzobinx said:

I wholeheartedly agree with your view. I shoot wedding mostly and my main focal is 50 and 100 but I will always have another tele in my kits no matter what. You never know when you have a photographer with 35mm during ceremony or bunch of guest with iphones.

My idea of minimalism is the least amount of gear to get the job done, not trying to make it work with whatever because I'm too lazy to bring another 1kg. 

My view of minimalism is that you don’t have things you don’t need, but that you still do have the things that you do need.

I think this is a misconception that people have about the whole movement - that you’re meant to be happy with what someone else thinks is the right amount of stuff, or that somehow less is better.  No minimalist would ever find themselves in the desert saying that not having water was the best idea, or being outside their apartment and not having their keys is a good idea!

[Matt Kieley]

So a couple years ago I posted a couple of videos I shot with the Canon TV-16 25mm 1.4 c-mount lens and the BMPCC. I loved the lens, but had to sell it (and some other gear) for financial reasons. I didn't want to sell it, but since I had a full set of Fujinon-TV lenses and only one Canon, and there seemed to be few Canon TV-16 lenses on ebay, I ended up selling it. I'm working full time again and more financially stable so I decided to try and track down the Canon TV-16 lenses. I set up an alert with eBay, not expecting anything, but just hoping. As luck would have it, some lenses popped up. The 25mm 1.4, like the one I had before. I looked at the listing and thought "wait a minute, this one has a follow focus gear attached to it like what I had done to mine. Wait, the seller's username is familiar. Holy shit, this IS my old lens." So I made an offer and won He was also selling the 13mm 1.5 for a fair price. And there were a couple 50mm 1.8 lenses available from other sellers. So, I not only put together a set very quickly, I got my old lens back. I shot some BTS (with the BMMCC) for a friend's short film recently, using the lenses. The first two shots are the 50mm, last two are 25mm, everything in between is the 13mm. Mostly shot at f/2.8-4. The 13mm and 50mm flare like crazy, but I like it. These definitely have a ton of character and are probably my favorite vintage c-mount primes now.

[mercer]

@Matt Kieley cool video and lens. I tried picking up a few of those lenses in the past but I could never find any at a condition or price I felt comfortable with.

I'd love to see a color edit of that video if you get a chance. 

Or some frame grabs. 

[Cinegain]

After the HELIOS 44-2, now as well the MIR-1B 37mm f/2.8 & JUPITER-9 85mm f/2 as VLFV (Vintage Lenses for Video/Alan Besedin) are available to pre-order at IronGlassAdapters.

Individual or as complete set: https://ironglassadapters.com/cine-edition-lens-set/

They've also made some adjustments to the 58mm setting back the timeline slightly: 'improvements to the original design, including an upgrade of the front ring O.D. to 95mm for easier clip-on matte box compatibility. We’ve also improved the lens markings and added a “glow in the dark” paint. Finding & shipping the best quality paint and making new parts to for the updated design delayed the production by 3-4 weeks'.

[kye]

@Matt Kieley nice images and cool story.. Glad it turned out well and you have a cool set of lenses.

I still have a 13mm D-mount lens that is waiting to get Frankensteined onto an action camera.. I'm really looking forward to seeing the results.

@Cinegain cool stuff. VLFV is a cool acronym, I like it.

I've just taken delivery of a 1000W halogen light so am almost setup to do some lens tests with the various Russian lenses I have.  I think people will be surprised at how well they perform, assuming they're not already familiar with them.

[Gregormannschaft]

On 11/12/2019 at 10:16 AM, kye said:

@Matt Kieley nice images and cool story.. Glad it turned out well and you have a cool set of lenses.

I still have a 13mm D-mount lens that is waiting to get Frankensteined onto an action camera.. I'm really looking forward to seeing the results.

@Cinegain cool stuff. VLFV is a cool acronym, I like it.

I've just taken delivery of a 1000W halogen light so am almost setup to do some lens tests with the various Russian lenses I have.  I think people will be surprised at how well they perform, assuming they're not already familiar with them.

I was going to buy the Jupiter 9 a while back but decided against it. Now looking at getting a slightly cleaner set of lenses with a 35 1.4, 50 1.4 and 85 1.4 set of Contax Zeiss Planar. Anyone have any experience with these?

I used the 85 1.4 ZE lens (which is said to be the same lens as the Contax 85mm rehoused in a modern body) recently on a shoot and was surprised at how much purple fringing there was wide open. Other than that it was nice and clean and relatively contrasty. Not a lot of vintage character but a nice lens.

[JordanWright]

SLR Magic APO-MicroPrime EF Mount Cine Lenses

https://prophotoblog.ca/gear/lenses-for-video/slr-magic-apo-microprime-ef-mount-lenses/amp/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=79349290&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9xi4QUzPahbntILEtIJcc3WNCJXs-2yXcY2byW_TCFITgtIRZHJs7GsClH5HRobsiRS9fqLxDfHiO4G6QmJyk_XICD6w&_hsmi=79349290

[kye]

1 hour ago, Gregormannschaft said:

I was going to buy the Jupiter 9 a while back but decided against it. Now looking at getting a slightly cleaner set of lenses with a 35 1.4, 50 1.4 and 85 1.4 set of Contax Zeiss Planar. Anyone have any experience with these?

I used the 85 1.4 ZE lens (which is said to be the same lens as the Contax 85mm rehoused in a modern body) recently on a shoot and was surprised at how much purple fringing there was wide open. Other than that it was nice and clean and relatively contrasty. Not a lot of vintage character but a nice lens.

I can't speak to the CZ lenses, but the general principle is that a lens sharpens up when you stop down the first 2-3 stops, which is one of the reasons to get the fastest lenses you can.  Even the five-figure lenses in the cine lens thread still have minor CA and fringing when wide open..  

49 minutes ago, JordanWright said:

SLR Magic APO-MicroPrime EF Mount Cine Lenses

https://prophotoblog.ca/gear/lenses-for-video/slr-magic-apo-microprime-ef-mount-lenses/amp/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=79349290&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9xi4QUzPahbntILEtIJcc3WNCJXs-2yXcY2byW_TCFITgtIRZHJs7GsClH5HRobsiRS9fqLxDfHiO4G6QmJyk_XICD6w&_hsmi=79349290

Quote

The SLR Magic APO-MicroPrime CINE lenses take full advantage of modern high-resolution camera sensors up to 8K as well as support for a full frame image circle up to 46mm, resulting in impressive resolution in the images, even for the finest detail.

Interesting....  8K is pretty high resolution to claim.

[Gregormannschaft]

5 hours ago, kye said:

I can't speak to the CZ lenses, but the general principle is that a lens sharpens up when you stop down the first 2-3 stops, which is one of the reasons to get the fastest lenses you can.  Even the five-figure lenses in the cine lens thread still have minor CA and fringing when wide open..  

Interesting....  8K is pretty high resolution to claim.

You're certainly right, but the level of fringing is a bit mad. Still, some of the footage looks great, will just avoid shooting wide open in the future.

[heart0less]

 

[kye]

There's a huge resource that @Tito Ferradans has put together about faking the anamorphic look...

http://www.tferradans.com/blog/?page_id=15535

There's a quiz to test if you can tell the difference between fake and real anamorphic images.  I'm rubbish at it but could spot some of them but not others.

His guide is USD$30 but you can get a taste of it via this link: http://www.tferradans.com/anamorfake/TFerradans-AnamorfakeDemo.pdf

I don't lust after the anamorphic look so it's not that enticing to me, but for those interested going fake seems to offer a much simpler approach, so it's worth a look.

[leslie]

On 11/19/2019 at 1:33 PM, kye said:

T@Tito Ferradans

I don't lust after the anamorphic look so it's not that enticing to me, but for those interested going fake seems to offer a much simpler approach, so it's worth a look.

you don't ?   i always thought there was something wrong with with you? 

[Zach Goodwin2]

I haven't taken any new photos or videos yet.