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  • 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 :)

Vantage One T1 Spherical Primes

What is a set of those going for? Can't wait to see them in action.
 
Yes it does not say anything about image circle, But as these guys are not stupid I guess they cover even vista. Love to see the red marked one flared, any test images on the web?
 
Choices are good. But this isn't an advancement--you're being fed the meat that every other lens maker deemed rotten.

Cooke, Zeiss, Angeneiux, all the major players could have made lenses that opened up that wide. In fact if you look into an S4 the iris literally stops at T2--it won't open further. This is because the lens falls apart in a terrible way.

The "donut" bokeh mentioned in the article is a result of severe spherical aberration--your out of focus highlights will look more like doodled circles than the watercolors you're hoping for:

dofpro_sa_chess.jpg


If you like the doodle effect, awesome. Personally I think it distracts from the in focus area, here the chessboard, normally a human face. The photo above is only meant to illustrate spherical aberration only, not the 7 other problems you'll have at 1.0--incredible edge softness, dark corners, brutal softness all around, astigmatism, coma, crazy color shift, etc.

These lenses are a product. They want them to sell. To get us to write and jive over them, they made what other manufacturers couldn't bring themselves to: an aperture that will deliver with it all sorts of problems. I think that's ballsy, and the look could be awesome, but the "whole new world" they are describing is what Cooke, Zeiss, Angenieux deemend unfit to produce.

"Vantage 1," the 96-point "T1" on the lens barrel... this is all Marketing. It's important that we see it that way, and reserve judgement until images come out. I for one can't wait to test them.
 
Ryan De Franco said:
Choices are good. But this isn't an advancement--you're being fed the meat that every other lens maker deemed rotten.

Cooke, Zeiss, Angeneiux, all the major players could have made lenses that opened up that wide. In fact if you look into an S4 the iris literally stops at T2--it won't open further. This is because the lens falls apart in a terrible way.

The "donut" bokeh mentioned in the article is a result of severe spherical aberration--your out of focus highlights will look more like doodled circles than the watercolors you're hoping for:

dofpro_sa_chess.jpg


If you like the doodle effect, awesome. Personally I think it distracts from the in focus area, here the chessboard, normally a human face. The photo above is only meant to illustrate spherical aberration only, not the 7 other problems you'll have at 1.0--incredible edge softness, dark corners, brutal softness all around, astigmatism, coma, crazy color shift, etc.

These lenses are a product. They want them to sell. To get us to write and jive over them, they made what other manufacturers couldn't bring themselves to: an aperture that will deliver with it all sorts of problems. I think that's ballsy, and the look could be awesome, but the "whole new world" they are describing is what Cooke, Zeiss, Angenieux deemend unfit to produce.

"Vantage 1," the 96-point "T1" on the lens barrel... this is all Marketing. It's important that we see it that way, and reserve judgement until images come out. I for one can't wait to test them.
Click to expand...

Great post.

I am very excited to see these lenses and agree on many of those points. I love the name, and Hawk has never made a bad (or inexpensive) set of lenses.

This lens set appears to be a purposefully niche lens set that gives a very distinct and side-effect riddled image. A great thing if you want that super shallow and quasi-bizarre aesthetic... much like those purposefully damaged lenses Deakens used on Assassination, or other vintage lenses that are kept or altered for a crazy look. A recent example would be how elements were purposefully misaligned for some interesting bokeh effects in the new movie "Killing Them Softly" which I read about in last months AC issue.

Point is, I don't think this is a T/1 lens that is supposed to a competitor for the quality you get with Summilux-C's, 5/i's or MP's at T/1.4. It seems like they are almost supposed to be funky wide open and that is the effect they are selling. Not a clean fast lens... just a fast lens. I expect big rental houses to have a set here and there just as they have other niche lens sets for specific aesthetics.

My prediction is these lenses will give a great feel and unique look that won't be appropriate for most films but excellent for the few that require it. I guess we'll see.

I actually have a lens that does the donut thing. It's a 16/S16mm? 18-90 T/2 Zeiss zoom. It's funky, I give it that.
 
Ryan,

I wonder if CP.2 Superspeeds suffer from this same problem? I remember comparing the regular CP.2's to the Superspeeds, and it looked like they had the exact same elelments. The only difference I could detect was that the regular CP.2s' irises didn't open up all the way (the edges never fully retracted) while the CP.2 Superspeeds' irises opened entirely to match the diameter of their front elements.
 
I enjoy the vicious combination of a lens advertised to have close focus abilities and a T/1 maximum aperture. How useful is super close focus when wide open? Useful when closed down, yes, but kicking a dead horse when wide open, if you ask me. As a friend pointed out to me earlier today, at a certain distance, T1 really has 'nothing in focus'. The sliver is so narrow, that even having the subject in focus, the subject is generally three dimensional enough that it just looks all out of focus. When you get to fractions of an inch, things get hairy real quick.

For example: The CF of the 50mm lens is 1'2"! It's a humorous notion that anyone using the CF abilities of the lens would also be using the aperture abilities of the lens or vice-versa. In fact the Panavision DoF calculator won't even calculate the CF of these lenses! The closest near focus distance it will calculate for the 50mm is 1.8'. At s35mm 16:9 extraction, the TOTAL DoF at 1.8' is .22" of an inch (less than 1/4th of an inch.) The same with the 120mm (CF 2.5'.) Using the same criteria, the DoF for this lens at 4' feet (1.5' feet further than the CF) has a total DoF of .18" of an inch, less than 1/5th of an inch... I don't even want to know what it is at 2.5'. In fact, you don't even get an inch of depth of field until you are 9' distance. Under 9', the focus is in fractions of an inch.

Please do not interpret this as being critical of the lenses. I'm very excited to see what they have in store. I'm just laughing at the attraction of a T/1 lens AND using CF abilities. Both are great lens attributes, but seldom useful together.

Know what I mean? I have a feeling, if you rent these lenses, you did it for the aesthetic look the fast aperture gives you. So it is wonderful they can close focus so well, but unless using them closed down, your DoF gets unusably narrow. So I guess when you rent these lenses you better do so for the CF abilities or the maximum aperture abilities, because I see very little use for ever using both at the same time! I can't imagine more than one specialty shot... ever, where having DoF under 1/5th of an inch was desired.

Just some thoughts on the subject. Seems these lenses have some very unique qualities which makes them kind of a Catch 22 when using them.


I think focus on my Cooke Mini-S4's is hairy at CF and T/2.8... unless it's a locked off still life, just an actor breathing will go in and out of focus that narrow! :)
 
Ryan De Franco said:
Choices are good. But this isn't an advancement--you're being fed the meat that every other lens maker deemed rotten.

Cooke, Zeiss, Angeneiux, all the major players could have made lenses that opened up that wide. In fact if you look into an S4 the iris literally stops at T2--it won't open further. This is because the lens falls apart in a terrible way.

The "donut" bokeh mentioned in the article is a result of severe spherical aberration--your out of focus highlights will look more like doodled circles than the watercolors you're hoping for:

dofpro_sa_chess.jpg


If you like the doodle effect, awesome. Personally I think it distracts from the in focus area, here the chessboard, normally a human face. The photo above is only meant to illustrate spherical aberration only, not the 7 other problems you'll have at 1.0--incredible edge softness, dark corners, brutal softness all around, astigmatism, coma, crazy color shift, etc.

These lenses are a product. They want them to sell. To get us to write and jive over them, they made what other manufacturers couldn't bring themselves to: an aperture that will deliver with it all sorts of problems. I think that's ballsy, and the look could be awesome, but the "whole new world" they are describing is what Cooke, Zeiss, Angenieux deemend unfit to produce.

"Vantage 1," the 96-point "T1" on the lens barrel... this is all Marketing. It's important that we see it that way, and reserve judgement until images come out. I for one can't wait to test them.
Click to expand...

I'm genuinely curious:

Why is it, then, that modern aspherical lenses are generally sharper but have worse bokeh than older spherical ones? Compare the 24-70mm L to the 24-70mm L II. The 50mm f1.2 Canon L has nervous bokeh, but the spherical 50mm f1 Leica has great bokeh. From what, I'd infer that aspherical elements mess up bokeh but improve performance. But then the master primes look amazing and are aspherical. Would an aspherical lens that corrects for spherical aberration have the good bokeh above or some weird Frankenstein look?

My Rokinon lenses have good bokeh in the background, even wide open (though very bad color fringing/LoCAs/color pollution), but the foreground bokeh is nervous and donut-like to a greater extent. How does this factor in? I know it's complicated, but I'm curious.

That said, the donut thing doesn't sound very appealing. The Hawks are pretty flawless, though, maybe too much so.
 
This should be fun, I'm all for options. I like it that they considered size of the lenses. Vantage makes nice gear.

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
 
They look more like Vintage, then Vantage to me... ;)

But build quality should be very good since they are made by the guys of the Beautiful Hawk Anamorphic, can't pronounce my self on anything regarding their image quality WO, but this far having tested every single lens in this planet, well, at list those I could get my hands in the civilized world... :)

The only glass that has the most perfect image WO, are the Master Primes which @ T1.3 are just super sharp, and with extremely well controlled artifacts across the board, and no breathing, the Leica Noctilux 50mm .95 T1 really, is a particular look, so will be interesting to see how this perform.
 
Bjorn,

How is the build quality of your set of Hawks? German engineering at it's finest?

Bjorn Benckert said:
Yes it does not say anything about image circle, But as these guys are not stupid I guess they cover even vista. Love to see the red marked one flared, any test images on the web?
Click to expand...
 
I love the name. "Nighthawks"
 
If you are shooting that wide open you are doing so deliberately embracing the compromises, and not with the aim of having a clean clinical image free from from all artefacts and compromises. You are embracing the softness and having very little in focus etc etc. The quality of the image is mostly about what is out of focus, not what is in. I would use for dreamy, almost "painted" shots utilising color, light and creative bokeh for effect. E.g. at the edge of a forest, as the sun was low in the sky and shining through the leaves out of focus in the back ground. As the talent moves slowly forwards they will only be very briefly in focus, but that does not matter because the aim is on the light, color, and shapes which are going on around them. I.e. I would not use it for a feature, or drive an AC crazy by shooting wide open for every set up. But I would use it for a music video, or selected shots in a commercial that could really benefit from that look.
 
Ryan De Franco said:
Choices are good. But this isn't an advancement--you're being fed the meat that every other lens maker deemed rotten.

Cooke, Zeiss, Angeneiux, all the major players could have made lenses that opened up that wide. In fact if you look into an S4 the iris literally stops at T2--it won't open further. This is because the lens falls apart in a terrible way.

The "donut" bokeh mentioned in the article is a result of severe spherical aberration--your out of focus highlights will look more like doodled circles than the watercolors you're hoping for:

dofpro_sa_chess.jpg


If you like the doodle effect, awesome. Personally I think it distracts from the in focus area, here the chessboard, normally a human face. The photo above is only meant to illustrate spherical aberration only, not the 7 other problems you'll have at 1.0--incredible edge softness, dark corners, brutal softness all around, astigmatism, coma, crazy color shift, etc.

These lenses are a product. They want them to sell. To get us to write and jive over them, they made what other manufacturers couldn't bring themselves to: an aperture that will deliver with it all sorts of problems. I think that's ballsy, and the look could be awesome, but the "whole new world" they are describing is what Cooke, Zeiss, Angenieux deemend unfit to produce.

"Vantage 1," the 96-point "T1" on the lens barrel... this is all Marketing. It's important that we see it that way, and reserve judgement until images come out. I for one can't wait to test them.
Click to expand...

I think it would be unlikely that the designers would let the spherical aberration be that bad, especially with their specific reference to the bokeh being similar to the original Noctilux F1. The effect to which the SA is noticeable (annoying) will of course be influenced by how close the subject is to the lens. I think that for many setups it will not be an issue. Here is a shot with an old E58 Noctilux:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17916504@N06/4120892185/

I think how it renders is beautiful. I am not going for sharpness of course, which is compromised so as to maxmise the other attributes of the lens!
 
An example showing that the subject can be sharply in focus at F1 even though it is not so easy to achieve. http://www.flickr.com/photos/17916504@N06/4120891063/in/photostream/

The image of course is just as much about what is out of focus, as it is about what is in focus. I think that careful, and selective shooting at T1 will give a lot of opportunities for the creative use of out of focus elements of the frame to help contribute to the emotions attributed to the subject in the frame which is in focus.
 
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