Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Best cinematic lenses for Scarlet X

P

Pascal Payant

Well-known member
Joined
May 29, 2011
Messages
219
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Montreal,Canada
What is the best cinematic lenses for the Scarlet X around the 2k mark per lenses?

Canon L series?
Zeiss ZE?

more options?

give me your thoughts. thanks
 
Pascal Payant said:
What is the best cinematic lenses for the Scarlet X around the 2k mark per lenses?

Canon L series?
Zeiss ZE?

more options?

give me your thoughts. thanks
Click to expand...

Canon L and Zeiss ZE are not cinematic lenses, they're still lenses. But for the sub $2k price thats the best you're going to get. They are awesome lenses but of course you are going to get a better image out of true cinema glass like RED Pro, Zeiss Master Primes, Ultra Primes, or Super Speeds. But for true Cinematic lenses the cheapest are going to be old lenses on eBay or RED Pro, but you're still looking at at least $3K-$4K+. and remember the compact primes are great but they are just rehoused ZEs.
 
Look in the lens forum for a complete understanding of this
 
Neither of those are "cinema" lenses. Those are still photography lenses that people are using on motion cameras. True cinema lenses around the 2K mark would be older Lomos, Super Baltars, Cooke Pancros (older version, Schneider Xenons, Arri standard speeds, etc.
 
Capturing cinematic images has more to do with the people involved in the production rather than a particular lens.
 
Also note that there is a crop factor when using still glass on the EPIC/Scarlet sensor. A 50mm Canon EF will behave like a 64mm "cinema" lens on the EPIC
 
David W. Jones said:
Capturing cinematic images has more to do with the people involved in the production rather than a particular lens.
Click to expand...

That is the right answer.

As to the lenses, check them out yourself and don't forget to look for breathing (slight zooming and/or shifting of the image when focusing) and of course look for the best focus feel (mechanics) and focus throw (how much the focus ring rotates from closest focus to infinity). You could go into a large pro store with your camera and try them on if you are in LA, NYC, and other large markets. Consider the ability to focus wirelessly, which is a huge deal. Canons, Nikons and other AF lenses will let you do that very well in the future using a Redmote Pro. Read about the Birger mount on Red One's to learn more about wirelessly focusing still lenses.
 
Bob Gundu said:
A 50 is a 50 is a 50 :)
Click to expand...

While a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens, when you use a 50mm lens on a small sensor size than the lens was designed for, then the field of view that the sensor captures is a smaller portion of the image projected by the lens. Hence, a 50mm 35mmFF lens, when used on a Scarlet with its smaller sensor, will capture the same framing as a 64mm lens designed for the Scarlet's 15 x 30mm sensor. So its not just the focal length of the lens, but the combination of lens + sensor size.

David W. Jones said:
Crop factors have nothing to do with the lens. It has to do with the sensor size.
Click to expand...

Exactly my point. If you multiply the crop factor times the focal length, you arrive at the focal length framing equivalent for a lens designed for that smaller sensor.
 
This is a really subjective topic. I think your best bet is to simply try out some different used lenses. Go to a camera store, brick and mortor, and see if they will let you try out some lenses in the store, or buy them with a return possibility. So many people have gone with automatic "modern" glass, that some of the best Nikon glass made showed up in my local camera store at very low prices. I did some research and found many people believe the older, metal body Nikon glass to have a similar character to Cooke lenses. Sharp, but with smooth character and not overly harsh, as I find some modern glass to look, particularly on digital video cameras. I think the lens coatings are very critical to the "look". I have 25mm f.95 Voigtlander micro 4/3 lens I use on my AF100, and it's not the "sharpest" lens I own, but certainly by far the most cinematic looking in the bokeh, and handling of color and highlight. If you want it to look like film, brutally sharp images are not what you want, in my opinion.
 
Brant Hadfield said:
I think the lens coatings are very critical to the "look".
Click to expand...

Brant is correct, coatings do play a part. In addition, older lenses use minerals and chemicals that are now banned in manufacturing. For example lead-based glass is a no no. Thorium is a radioactive isotope that Canon and others used in the 70's era: now banned. The look also has to do with the dispersing agents and the magical brew of chemicals added to glass - an industrial secret recipe that makes Canon glass different from Nikon glasss, different from Fuji glass. Even the basalm used to glue elements together and the paint used on the inside of the barrel affect the image. The bokeh is largely affected by the shape and number of the iris blades. Lens design also plays a big part of the resulting image.
 
David W. Jones said:
Well my opinion differs. You can always make a shot look softer...

And what does film look like?
Seinfeld?
The Brady Bunch?
Law and Order?
Click to expand...

I think it may come down to what film DOES NOT look like. And that would be the short film shot on Scarlet hand-held in Germany. It looks great on a typical laptop LCD or computer monitor. But, I downloaded the file and played back to my 50" Panny studio monitor (no sharpening in monitor) and it was hyper, brutally sharp. Video dead-giveaway. The person who posted it did reveal he'd ADDED sharpening in the down convert, so this further aggravated whatever inherent "video" characteristics may be in the image. It also suffered from pretty pronounced moire in the monitor. I took the file into Avid, and also AE, and experimented with various types and degrees of blur and defocus, and grain, and ended up with a much smoother cinematic looking image. I used a 35mm film and Alexa frame grab as reference too. I agree that you cannot bring back a soft image if captured too soft. But, there's no replacing the nuance of what certain lenses do to an image, or in some cases, the way some lenses hurt the image. There's just far more to aesthetic than detail and K's.
 
You seem to be confusing Field of view with focal length.

A 50mm EF lens on an EPIC would have the same field of view as a 50mm cinema lens on an Epic.

The only time crop factors come into play is comparing the FOV of different sized sensors.

What you saying is that a 50mm EF lens on an Epic has the same FOV as a 65mm lens when you compare it to the FOV of a 50mm EF lens on a camera with a larger sensor (i.e. Canon 5d)



Michael Panfeld said:
While a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens, when you use a 50mm lens on a small sensor size than the lens was designed for, then the field of view that the sensor captures is a smaller portion of the image projected by the lens. Hence, a 50mm 35mmFF lens, when used on a Scarlet with its smaller sensor, will capture the same framing as a 64mm lens designed for the Scarlet's 15 x 30mm sensor. So its not just the focal length of the lens, but the combination of lens + sensor size.



Exactly my point. If you multiply the crop factor times the focal length, you arrive at the focal length framing equivalent for a lens designed for that smaller sensor.
Click to expand...
 
16-35mm

16-35mm

Hi, I'm planning to shoot both on 4k and 2k and I just bought the 16-35mm F2.8 L Lense. It gives you the 50mm Focal Length for both 2k and 4k. Hope that helps!
 
Michael Panfeld said:
While a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens, when you use a 50mm lens on a small sensor size than the lens was designed for, then the field of view that the sensor captures is a smaller portion of the image projected by the lens. Hence, a 50mm 35mmFF lens, when used on a Scarlet with its smaller sensor, will capture the same framing as a 64mm lens designed for the Scarlet's 15 x 30mm sensor. So its not just the focal length of the lens, but the combination of lens + sensor size.
Click to expand...

No. You are wrong and this mis-information needs to stop. A lens doesn't know what camera it is mounted on. A lens manufacturer may list the 35mm equivalent of its focal length for a given sensor size smaller than FF35, but that lens is still whatever focal length it actually is. The only thing that changes when putting a 50mm lens on a crop sensor is that the FOV is narrower than if it were mounted on a larger sensor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top