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Good vintage lenses for bmpcc?


Daniel Acuña
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What do you recommend? It would be great to have fast lenses, I don't know yet if I am going to buy a speedbooster because they are quite expensive. 

 

For the budget, the less the better.

Please also consider that I live in France and buying vintages lenses is not as easy as in the United Sates.

 

Thanks

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If you're talking about full frame vintage lenses there aren't too many cheap options below 24mm, which is 70mm on the BMPCC!

 

So for vintage that basically leaves C-mount, which unless you go with CCTV stuff don't really work out that cheap in general. 

 

I really like what I've seen of the Kiev 16u set (12mm, 20mm & 50mm, all f2.0) which can be found for about $250. They are sharp but have a LOT of 'character', so not much good for critical work.

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Keep in mind that you will need the Metabones Pocket Speed Booster to use SLR lenses for normal focal lengths. An 28mm lens becomes a normal lens with the Pocket Speed Booster; the Nikon Ai-s 28mm/2.8 or the Sigma 30mm/1.4 are fantastic choices for this purpose.

If you want a real vintage cinema lens, I highly recommend the Cooke Kinetal 17.5mm/1.8 along with an Arri-S to MFT adapter. This will cost you ca. $500-600.

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The Meteor 5-1 is v.nice, but it'll vignette until 25mm on the BMPCC.

 

If budget minded, get an RJ focal reducer for the meantime - it'll get you to a M4/3-ish crop factor.

If not decide whether to get the Nikon (or another Mount) or EF Speedbooster - the Nikon/Other mount versions are cheaper, but the EF will allow you to use more lenses.

 

Nikon, Canon FD & Yashica - all can be had quite cheap & are excellent (I prefer the Nikon ai-s lenses out of this bunch).

The Russain lenses (normally M42) are lovely, but not always fast.

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The Kinetals are the most affordable "Cooke look" option. From 12.5mm onwards, they cover Super 16/1" (the 12.5mm however will slightly vignette when stopped down). They are my favorite lenses on the BM Pocket concerning the beauty of images, but I also find that the Sigma 18-35mm Zoom gives a very similar 'pleasant' look. Combined with the Pocket Speed Booster, it will yield more wide angle, better low light capabilities and better foreground/background separation at fully open aperture.

 

The two videos were graded using Tom Majerski's VisionT LUT.

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All above lenses would be tele lenses on the BMPCC - people seem to keep forgetting that it's a 1"/Super 16 camera. You need 14-17mm for a normal focal length, 8-12mm for wideangle, 24-35mm for standard tele, and everything from 50 will be super tele.

Did not think of that would the case be same with black magic cinema camera 4k

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When I've got more time (and actually get on with it) I'll start playing with my impulse buy, a 2/58mm Helios.

(A Russian Biotar copy)

The obvious downside being the fact that it'll be a 174mm (~162mm) equivalent telephoto lens as is, and either a 85mm (w/ Speed booster for BMPCC) or a 116mm (regular mFT booster) equivalent tele with a focal reducing adapter.

Unless a telephoto lens is just what you need, out in the wild, for example.

 

But on the plus side, it's a fully manual m42 lens with no mechanical coupling to the camera body to move the aperture blades. Which means that apart from the regular aperture ring it has a separate aperture control dial that was used to stop down the lens quickly before taking the shot, and that dial has no clicks.

In short, it's a poor man's cine lens.

It may have a slight colour cast, but I'll see if that's more annoying than just "character." Stills shot with it don't look too bad.

 

Another plus is the low price. Anything from about $35 to $95. If you're interested in getting one, make sure you'll get the right type, the one with the separate aperture control dial, and not the one with an aperture control pin on the screw mount end of the lens. There are both types in circulation, although they're optically identical. 

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The Helios 58mm is a wonderful lens that can often be found on fleamarkets for less than $20. But on the BMPCC, it will be either a long tele lens when mechanically adapter or a portrait tele lens with a focal reducer. In the latter case, it would require the Canon EF Pocket Speed Booster in combination with a M42-to-EF lens mount adapter (since M42 lenses cannot be adapted to the Nikon mount Pocket Speed Booster). Its focal length would then still be 33mm, twice as much as a normal lens for the BMPCC. Even with the a Century 0.7x adapter on top of this lens combination, it would  remain at a portrait focal length of 24mm.

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