Lenses

[kye]

On 7/15/2022 at 12:15 PM, webrunner5 said:

I did a little research and as far as I can tell the Olympus 12-100mm will Not play nice with the Dual OIS on the GH5. So, I would think that lens is out. I was also considering it to be honest. Not anymore, I think.

Thanks - I wasn't sure and hadn't gotten around to googling anything yet.

[hyalinejim]

I'm a sucker for cheap wide angle and have found a nice contender for APSC and speedboosted M43.

The Tokina 12-24 f4 is a well regarded wide angle lens for APSC Nikon and Canon DSLRs, but you can totally get away with using it on larger formats to a certain extent. It has good build quality, very little vignetting, is fairly sharp out to the edges and has very little distortion in the middle of the range. They go for very little now and I picked up a copy for €150 including postage on eBay.

Here it is on a GH6 with 0.64x Speedbooster wide open at f2.5

12mm (15mm full frame equivalent, 7.5mm M43 equivalent). Vignetting is evident. This is a lens for APSC formats, after all.
 

15mm (19mm FF / 9.5mm M43 equivalent). Vignetting is mostly gone. Could maybe go a little wider stopped down a bit.

 

18mm (23mm FF /11.5mm M43 equivalent). This is the minimum you can use it on full frame, where corners are quite soft at 18mm but speedboosted on M43 the corners look decent. Any distortion levels out around here and is quite good as we zoom in further.

20 (25.5mm FF /13mm M43 equivalent)

 

24 (31mm FF /15mm M43 equivalent). Purple/green fringing is quite bad at 24mm, probably the biggest problem with the lens. It cleared up for me using Digital Film Tools Chromatic Aberration effect.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with it and would definitely recommend it as a cheap wide angle option for Speedboosted M43. On full frame it suffers a lot with corner softness, but is still good for square format photos if Insta is your thing!

[webrunner5]

Thanks for the test Mike I will have to look into one.

 

 

[hyalinejim]

10 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

I will have to look into one.

 

Did you get a speedbooster for your GH5? Without one there isn't much point as the Leica 12-60 will do the job much better.

[webrunner5]

Yeah I have a Viltrox II EF/M4/3.

 

[tupp]

2 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

I'm a sucker for cheap wide angle and have found a nice contender for APSC and speedboosted M43

It looks good!  Thanks for the test!

I bought the Canon 10mm-18mm EF-S lens on the strength of this video by @ZEEK:

 

 

@ZEEK says that the lens works on full frame down to about 14mm, but he mainly uses it with a speedbooster on the EOSM.

[webrunner5]

I had that lens and did the hack myself. Yeah 13 to 14mm is about right on FF. Cheap thrills, the adapter is around $32.00 I think.

[hyalinejim]

9 hours ago, tupp said:

the Canon 10mm-18mm EF-S

Yes, I had been looking at that first and was about to get one but then I stumbled on a mention of the Tokina and it seemed to me after a bit of research that it holds sharpness a bit better towards the corners and also there is very little vignetting other than the limits of the image circle.

[BTM_Pix]

Some frames from the Panasonic 12-32mm F3.5-5.6 on the OG BMPCC.

This lens is a good size appropriate option for the OG BMPCC as a general all rounder and has the additional benefit of IS.

It is pretty slow though but this has the advantage of you not really needing ND when you are in what passes for broad daylight in Copenhagen.

The big downside is that there is no manual focus so you have to rely on the one shot AF on the camera to pre-focus. 

Again, though, the small aperture is an advantage here as you generally have enough DOF to get away with the AF getting you in the ballpark.

[BTM_Pix]

Another potential contender for all round compact lens for the OG Pocket is this Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6.

It has two levers (one for zoom and one for focus) but in terms of smoothness I think the focus works better than the zoom but its still easy to overshoot. Like a manual version of DFD really.

The OIS is reasonable and is obviously a big advantage with the OG Pocket.

I only got this lens under sufferance to check remote zoom functionality for my controllers as it is a powered zoom and thankfully I got it really cheap because after using it in semi-anger for the first time a few days ago I am not particularly fond of it at all.

In use, I found it tricky to get focus with but the combination of it having lowish contrast so not firing the less than ideal focus peaking of the OG Pocket and monitoring on the the less than ideal OG Pocket screen and the failing eyesight of the less than ideal OG Me might well explain that so I'll have to give it another go under different circumstances.

Anyway, here are some rough, soft, low res grabs from the ProRes 422 video file and I suppose I could maybe recommend this combo if you are after less a Super 16 and more a Super 8 feel 🙂

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

On 11/30/2022 at 11:48 AM, BTM_Pix said:

Some frames from the Panasonic 12-32mm F3.5-5.6 on the OG BMPCC.

This lens is a good size appropriate option for the OG BMPCC as a general all rounder and has the additional benefit of IS.

It is pretty slow though but this has the advantage of you not really needing ND when you are in what passes for broad daylight in Copenhagen.

The big downside is that there is no manual focus so you have to rely on the one shot AF on the camera to pre-focus. 

Again, though, the small aperture is an advantage here as you generally have enough DOF to get away with the AF getting you in the ballpark.

Love this lens. In fact, will be one of the few m43 lenses that I will not sell.

[FHDcrew]

Random lens question. I’m thinking of picking up a cheap old Tokina 12-24 F4, as it covers around 16-24mm without vignetting on full frame. Will be using on a Nikon Z6 with FTZ, but I won’t get AF support so will have to manual focus. If I’m zoomed out to around 16mm, is it possible to do tracking shots on a gimbal without having to worry too much about focus?  As in I can set it to infinity and it will be good?  I know it’s an F4 on FF, though my thought is it might be fine since it’s so wide so there will be little shallow DOF. 

[BTM_Pix]

7 hours ago, FHDcrew said:

Random lens question. I’m thinking of picking up a cheap old Tokina 12-24 F4, as it covers around 16-24mm without vignetting on full frame. Will be using on a Nikon Z6 with FTZ, but I won’t get AF support so will have to manual focus. If I’m zoomed out to around 16mm, is it possible to do tracking shots on a gimbal without having to worry too much about focus?  As in I can set it to infinity and it will be good?  I know it’s an F4 on FF, though my thought is it might be fine since it’s so wide so there will be little shallow DOF. 

You can get the precise hyperfocal distance and depth of field for any given camera/focal length/aperture and focus distance using a calculator such as this one.

https://www.photopills.com/calculators/dof
 

 

[Amazeballs]

Picked up a Youngnuo 16mm F1.8 emount lens for $288 and I really like it! Its light and compact (278gram) and gives me a bright wide aperture angle I wanted. Originally designed for APC-S but works surprisingly well on a FF for video. With active stab you need only to crop like 5-6% in post to get rid of the vignetting. AF works well, focus pulls are smooth and the minimum magnification is also nice and the focus breathing is excellent! I mean.. for 290 buck seems like a no brainer. 

[Amazeballs]

Checked the minimum focus distance - 8 cm. Nice. With all the cropping of 16% (active stab + post) you get a 18.5mm lens basicly. Also its weight is very nice for a gimbal.

[mercer]

On 12/16/2022 at 2:23 PM, BTM_Pix said:

Another potential contender for all round compact lens for the OG Pocket is this Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6.

It has two levers (one for zoom and one for focus) but in terms of smoothness I think the focus works better than the zoom but its still easy to overshoot. Like a manual version of DFD really.

The OIS is reasonable and is obviously a big advantage with the OG Pocket.

I only got this lens under sufferance to check remote zoom functionality for my controllers as it is a powered zoom and thankfully I got it really cheap because after using it in semi-anger for the first time a few days ago I am not particularly fond of it at all.

In use, I found it tricky to get focus with but the combination of it having lowish contrast so not firing the less than ideal focus peaking of the OG Pocket and monitoring on the the less than ideal OG Pocket screen and the failing eyesight of the less than ideal OG Me might well explain that so I'll have to give it another go under different circumstances.

Anyway, here are some rough, soft, low res grabs from the ProRes 422 video file and I suppose I could maybe recommend this combo if you are after less a Super 16 and more a Super 8 feel 🙂

I've been meaning to comment on this... I think these look great. I've always read that this sensor needs a ton of light, but I've always liked the look of slower native lenses on the OG cams.

As you may remember, this is a lens I've wanted for the BMMCC for awhile. Stick it to f/5.6 and it seems to be a nice little set up with OIS. Since this is a power zoom, does it work like a camcorder lens... can you zoom all the way in, grab your focus and then zoom out?

[mercer]

Since I'm here... I may as well post a couple shots from my newest copy of the Nikkor 35mm 1.4 lens on the FP. I've owned a few of these over the years and always make the mistake of selling it. With the uptick in prices, I thought it would be out of reach... well patience pays off and I was able to find one for a reasonable price.

[BTM_Pix]

On 12/29/2022 at 10:37 AM, mercer said:

Stick it to f/5.6 and it seems to be a nice little set up with OIS. Since this is a power zoom, does it work like a camcorder lens... can you zoom all the way in, grab your focus and then zoom out?

Yes, if you keep it at the constant f5.6 at both ends you can zoom in at the long end and it will be in focus at the short end.

Not sure if it is genuinely parfocal (though with native Lumix cameras it will likely be corrected to be so) but more an accidental by-product of the narrow aperture giving it enough depth of field to get away with it.

 

[mercer]

On 12/31/2022 at 10:44 AM, BTM_Pix said:

Yes, if you keep it at the constant f5.6 at both ends you can zoom in at the long end and it will be in focus at the short end.

Not sure if it is genuinely parfocal (though with native Lumix cameras it will likely be corrected to be so) but more an accidental by-product of the narrow aperture giving it enough depth of field to get away with it.

 

Whose to say, that technique always worked with cheap mini-dv camcorders too. They were marketed as having a parfocal lens... or it was just a side effect of the tiny sensor... either way, it was a cool feature to nail focus.

[canonlyme]

@mercer since I haven't seen you / been on here for a while: How is it going with your minolta lens journey? 🙂 I am contemplating buying a 100mm 2.5 minolta to complete my minolta set. If I remember correctly you and your friend on the harbour sold me on some of the minolta lenses couple years back.