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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 :)

DZOFILM Vespid Retro Prime Lens Set Launched

Introducing DZOFILM Vespid Retro Primes with Golden Coating丨Vintage Image 丨Teaser

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DZOFILM


 
to me this looks like someone had put on 81EF filter over existing Vespid. also its hard to dissect the look and tell what is grading and what is the natural characteristic of the lenses. we need real tests. hopefully this lens set is gimmick then this video shows it to be
 
Luka Sanader said:
to me this looks like someone had put on 81EF filter over existing Vespid. also its hard to dissect the look and tell what is grading and what is the natural characteristic of the lenses. we need real tests. hopefully this lens set is gimmick then this video shows it to be
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Their web link above tries to explain the look and the how they achieved that look. My own personal preference is to have the sharpest most neutral image lens from which to start from and I can degrade or soften that image with an enumerable list of Filter lenses and third-party software plugins. These specialty lenses IMHO limit you. Their look may be en vogue now, but what about next year and the year or years after that. Then you'll have a lens that you paid a lot of money for that you don't use nor want to use anymore.
 
rand thompson said:
Their web link above tries to explain the look and the how they achieved that look. My own personal preference is to have the sharpest most neutral image lens from which to start from and I can degrade or soften that image with an enumerable list of Filter lenses and third-party software plugins. These specialty lenses IMHO limit you. Their look may be en vogue now, but what about next year and the year or years after that. Then you'll have a lens that you paid a lot of money for that you don't use nor want to use anymore.
Click to expand...

Cook S2, K35, Super Baltars, B-Speeds, Supper Speeds, Lomo Speeds ... all of them have there designative looks and yet they are still used on modern digital cameras and contemporary productions 40, 50 or 50 yers later after they were made. I dont think that Sigma Classics or Tokina Vista One will be even considered in couple years form now. the reason is that all this stuff looks gimmicky. there are micro lens companies like Dulense that made new take on old optical formulas and that works. Same as Neo Super Baltars that are basically remakes of originals. But slapping a golden coating on modern lens and calling it Retro is like buying a antique Roman artifact in a Cezar gift shop in Las Vegas casino. New lenses with single coating arent Vintage lenses they are just bad modern lenses. just my 2c
 
Luka Sanader said:
Cook S2, K35, Super Baltars, B-Speeds, Supper Speeds, Lomo Speeds ... all of them have there designative looks and yet they are still used on modern digital cameras and contemporary productions 40, 50 or 50 yers later after they were made. I dont think that Sigma Classics or Tokina Vista One will be even considered in couple years form now. the reason is that all this stuff looks gimmicky. there are micro lens companies like Dulense that made new take on old optical formulas and that works. Same as Neo Super Baltars that are basically remakes of originals. But slapping a golden coating on modern lens and calling it Retro is like buying a antique Roman artifact in a Cezar gift shop in Las Vegas casino. New lenses with single coating arent Vintage lenses they are just bad modern lenses. just my 2c
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Luka,

I think the lenses you mentioned above were designed to give the best performance they could based on the lens technology of those times. But I think many people don't really consider that the look those lenses created were part of a process that included these lenses, the film stock that was used, the lighting fixtures that were used and how the lens coatings on the lenses reacted to that lighting and how the Film was processed in the labs...etc. Everyone tries to boil the look down to the less common denominator which they believe was the Lenses only. When you try to capture a similar look that was achieved decades ago with antiquated tools and technical processes with just the lenses that are being used you can end up with a product that neither captured the true essence of the original look nor a product that will age well over time.

I think it's time to establish new looks with 4k, 6k and 8K+ image sensored camera and with Modern Lenses. I mean the future should be what new is coming not rehashing the Past. I think there's a term or concept for being afraid of the future so we take comfort in the past.
 
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rand thompson said:
Luka,

I think the lenses you mentioned above were designed to give the best performance they could based on the lens technology of those times. But I think many people don't really consider that the look those lenses created were part of a process that included these lenses, the film stock that was used, the lighting fixtures that were used and how the lens coatings on the lenses reacted to that lighting and how the Film was processed in the labs...etc. Everyone tries to boil the look down to the less common denominator which they believe was the Lenses only. When you try to capture a similar look that was achieved decades ago with antiquated tools and technical processes with just the lenses that are being used you can end up with a product that neither captured the true essence of the original look nor a product that will age well over time.

I think it's time to establish new looks with 4k, 6k and 8K+ image sensored camera and with Modern Lenses. I mean the future should be what new is coming not rehashing the Past. I think there's a term or concept for being afraid of the future so we take comfort in the past.
Click to expand...

What do you think of high frame rate? In theory if we're going after the most fidelity, don't we also want the most resolution in motion?

Or cinematographers in the 70s or 90s who relied heavily on diffusion as part of their style (Wexler I believe, Richardson and Kaminski for sure)? Surely they weren't chasing technical perfection.

What do you think of the Suspiria remake and the Lighthouse (or Jarin Blaschke's work in general), which take a more "authentic" approach to vintage cinematography, being shot on film whenever the budget allows?

Or Fincher's work in Mindhunter or Zodiac or Mank in which he emulates a vintage look almost completely in post?

What do you think of cinematographers like Bradford Young who take a "vintage" lens and pair it with a more "modern" approach to lighting and camera? (Digital camera, LEDs, underexposure, natural light, but vintage or faux-vintage lenses.) In that case you're sort of complementing a modern lighting and camera (clean sensors underexposed) with a "soft" look from vintage lenses? Flares, etc. can sort of imply contrast or fill in high contrast where a perfect camera would capture infinite detail in a very flat way – so it's almost a way of compressing a high dynamic range scene into a low dynamic range image subjectively without adding a lot more light. (Whereas a really well-lit scene would just look washed out, soft, etc. shot with wide open vintage lenses.)

Or Yedlin's film emulation process in Nuke?

Or of 2 perf's newfound popularity that was enabled by digital making it a viable format after optical printing/contact printing for Technovision (I forget the exact details) was no longer easily available?

I don't disagree with you. I think Deakins agrees with you and if I had the money to try out an Alexa35 and Signature Primes I wouldn't say no. It's worth noting that Arri succeeded in part because of their conservative approach to digital (imo) but they've also gradually become more progressive, abandoning the film emulation look they started with early in the Alexa's history and now moving into 4K and the Alexa35 rolls off saturation vs luminosity differently, closer to Red and favoring HDR viewing over traditional viewing or how color negative film rolls off saturation.

I have a different perspective on this because I work in post. And for CGI, for instance, imo the advances in resolution are totally outweighed by the extra rendering horsepower needed for 4K+ that could be better spent on other things imo (improving the art itself). And I find that even in digital IMAX (true IMAX is another story, and computer/tv screens are another story too) projected content in 2K doesn't look that much different from 4K. People make fun of Deakins' quote that 2K is enough for IMAX (and he's shooting 4K now anyway, or 3.4K raw) but in my experience for Digital IMAX it is. I mean, up until this year Marvel movies (including digital) were mastered at 2K. It's complicated because I think Rise of Skywalker, for instance, hit a great balance (story aside) of vintage cinematography and technical excellence (C Series, film, a mix of practical and digital effects, 4K finish). But I'm making home movies and working on indie projects. Imo 4K scans or ArriRAW or whatever is both objectively and subjectively better than lower resolutions. But it's the icing on the cake that makes something like Rise of Skywalker look 2% better than if they finished in 2K. Whereas for any production with a smaller budget than around 200 million that's not specifically designed for resolution the trade-off is almost never worth it (see: the worse-looking CGI in streaming series than theatrical 2K productions had a decade ago). Indie projects are a bit different because they lack heavy vfx, of course for VR or cityscapes or whatever resolution matters too. I feel like I have a bit of an inferiority complex because the jobs that I work on almost never shoot and finish in 4K. And a sort of guilt complex because I conflate Luddism with far-right ideologies (long story). But, on balance, I might be better off just shooting 2K ProRes, scanning in 2K, rendering in 2K, etc. for my own projects.

And in general, I prefer the look of S35 and S16 film to any digital camera, because it has a "softer" look aesthetically.

And I also think vintage lenses took off due to their ability to "take the edge off of" 4K video – and my favorite cinematographers growing up (Richardson and Kaminski) went for a "soft" look to start with, often combining S35 with diffusion filters. Even with music, I admire producers like Steve Albini and even the Music Tapes for going all-analogue even as my favorite musical acts today embrace a digital production process completely.

I guess I'm in the wrong forum if I'm not a 4K fanatic, but I think it's a complicated discussion both aesthetically and logistically which resolution/format is best.

That said, I don't care for these "faux" vintage lenses – or even Fincher's approach on Mank, fascinating as it might be, personally. (I did like Zodiac.) And I think Kaminski's work suffers greatly when he shoots digitally. I did like Yarin's work in the Lighthouse, however, and think digital salvaged and revitalized 2 perf and S16 as formats. I LOVE the look of 2 perf. I like the idea of complementing digital sensors with softer vintage lenses and shooting in natural light, but think Snyder's approach and the approach in Men (sharp sensors with wide open vintage lenses), for instance, hit this sort of ugly mix of high frequency detail and washed out softness elsewhere whereas the style of cinematography someone like Young uses or has promoted looks great but there's a tendency to occasionally under-light faces compared with a more Classical approach.
 
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Matt W. said:
What do you think of high frame rate? In theory if we're going after the most fidelity, don't we also want the most resolution in motion?

Or cinematographers in the 70s or 90s who relied heavily on diffusion as part of their style (Wexler I believe, Richardson and Kaminski for sure)? Surely they weren't chasing technical perfection.

What do you think of the Suspiria remake and the Lighthouse (or Jarin Blaschke's work in general), which take a more "authentic" approach to vintage cinematography, being shot on film whenever the budget allows?

Or Fincher's work in Mindhunter or Zodiac or Mank in which he emulates a vintage look almost completely in post?

What do you think of cinematographers like Bradford Young who take a "vintage" lens and pair it with a more "modern" approach to lighting and camera? (Digital camera, LEDs, underexposure, natural light, but vintage or faux-vintage lenses.) In that case you're sort of complementing a modern lighting and camera (clean sensors underexposed) with a "soft" look from vintage lenses? Flares, etc. can sort of imply contrast or fill in high contrast where a perfect camera would capture infinite detail in a very flat way – so it's almost a way of compressing a high dynamic range scene into a low dynamic range image subjectively without adding a lot more light. (Whereas a really well-lit scene would just look washed out, soft, etc. shot with wide open vintage lenses.)

Or Yedlin's film emulation process in Nuke?

Or of 2 perf's newfound popularity that was enabled by digital making it a viable format after optical printing/contact printing for Technovision (I forget the exact details) was no longer easily available?

I don't disagree with you. I think Deakins agrees with you and if I had the money to try out an Alexa35 and Signature Primes I wouldn't say no. It's worth noting that Arri succeeded in part because of their conservative approach to digital (imo) but they've also gradually become more progressive, abandoning the film emulation look they started with early in the Alexa's history and now moving into 4K and the Alexa35 rolls off saturation vs luminosity differently, closer to Red and favoring HDR viewing over traditional viewing or how color negative film rolls off saturation.

I have a different perspective on this because I work in post. And for CGI, for instance, imo the advances in resolution are totally outweighed by the extra rendering horsepower needed for 4K+ that could be better spent on other things imo (improving the art itself). And I find that even in digital IMAX (true IMAX is another story, and computer/tv screens are another story too) projected content in 2K doesn't look that much different from 4K. People make fun of Deakins' quote that 2K is enough for IMAX (and he's shooting 4K now anyway, or 3.4K raw) but in my experience for Digital IMAX it is. I mean, up until this year Marvel movies (including digital) were mastered at 2K. It's complicated because I think Rise of Skywalker, for instance, hit a great balance (story aside) of vintage cinematography and technical excellence (C Series, film, a mix of practical and digital effects, 4K finish). But I'm making home movies and working on indie projects. Imo 4K scans or ArriRAW or whatever is both objectively and subjectively better than lower resolutions. But it's the icing on the cake that makes something like Rise of Skywalker look 2% better than if they finished in 2K. Whereas for any production with a smaller budget than around 200 million that's not specifically designed for resolution the trade-off is almost never worth it (see: the worse-looking CGI in streaming series than theatrical 2K productions had a decade ago). Indie projects are a bit different because they lack heavy vfx, of course for VR or cityscapes or whatever resolution matters too. I feel like I have a bit of an inferiority complex because the jobs that I work on almost never shoot and finish in 4K. And a sort of guilt complex because I conflate Luddism with far-right ideologies (long story). But, on balance, I might be better off just shooting 2K ProRes, scanning in 2K, rendering in 2K, etc. for my own projects.

And in general, I prefer the look of S35 and S16 film to any digital camera, because it has a "softer" look aesthetically.

And I also think vintage lenses took off due to their ability to "take the edge off of" 4K video – and my favorite cinematographers growing up (Richardson and Kaminski) went for a "soft" look to start with, often combining S35 with diffusion filters. Even with music, I admire producers like Steve Albini and even the Music Tapes for going all-analogue even as my favorite musical acts today embrace a digital production process completely.

I guess I'm in the wrong forum if I'm not a 4K fanatic, but I think it's a complicated discussion both aesthetically and logistically which resolution/format is best.

That said, I don't care for these "faux" vintage lenses – or even Fincher's approach on Mank, fascinating as it might be, personally. (I did like Zodiac.) And I think Kaminski's work suffers greatly when he shoots digitally. I did like Yarin's work in the Lighthouse, however, and think digital salvaged and revitalized 2 perf and S16 as formats. I LOVE the look of 2 perf. I like the idea of complementing digital sensors with softer vintage lenses and shooting in natural light, but think Snyder's approach and the approach in Men (sharp sensors with wide open vintage lenses), for instance, hit this sort of ugly mix of high frequency detail and washed out softness elsewhere whereas the style of cinematography someone like Young uses or has promoted looks great but there's a tendency to occasionally under-light faces compared with a more Classical approach.
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Matt,

I make a point , even though I have posted them myself on this forum for others to watch, of not watching youtube videos describing this Director or that Director's Cinematography style. It seems everyone is trying to be the "NEXT" David Fincher or Roger Deakins or whomever has the most Youtube videos instead of being the first( insert name here).

It's videos Like "David Fincher, the man behind the Lens" or "David Fincher Demystified" or something like that, by the way I don't believe the Video titles I just mentioned actually exist but I could be wrong. I don't really watch films because some famous Director was directing it. I watch because I thought the story was interesting and if it was by some famous Director Well Ah Okay.

Revivals of any specific look, genre, aesthetics..etc in Film or in anything else is usually probably due to no one really having any new ideas of what's going to be next.. Maybe a Director or Cinematographer was great in their own right when the vintage lenses or the Modern Vintage look emulation of that lenses were some technical achievement or thought to be visually beautiful. But maybe now that modern lenses have taken the place of those lenses they knew well and loved, maybe those Directors feel as out of place as those vintage lenses so any attempt to bring the look and aesthetics of those lenses back will always be welcomed.

I think a lot of people like the idea of 6K, 8K+ resolution, but they really don't. If 8K is just for a 2 to 1 down-sampling to 4K or because you just didn't have the time or were too lazy to properly compose your shots to begin with so you need to crop the shit out of your Large 8K image to get it, then what was point. If only the fat guy living in his mom's basement drinking too many Slurpees whom put together his own computer can tell you the difference between PIXEL SIZE, PIXEL PITCH, PIXEL DENSITY, FRAME SIZE and FIELD OF VIEW , then who cares? The general public that will watch those films will neither care nor give a shit.


The only way to sell 8K is to sell 8K with all that comes with that whether it be good or bad. Not just "HEY, shoot wide and crop it later" or just put a older lower resolving softer lens on it to take the edge off. If that's the case then didn't ARRI make the better decision to go with a lower 4K/4.6K sensored camera and focus on things like a greater dynamic range and other more important aspects of the image?
 
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I’m sort of in the opposite camp. I’ll watch too many “how to” videos.

Personally I don’t think newer always is better if what you’re after is an emotional response. The best guitars and violins are antiques, even if you record with the newest mics.

But I am still really excited to see Deakins get his hand on an Alexa35. And for Avatar 2. I guess another way I’m different is I still ascribe a bit too much to auteur theory, even with DPs. I’m more excited to see what Deakins does with that camera than with the camera itself. But obviously it's both.

Speaking of which, I remember Hoyte van Hoytema or someone used Master Primes with coatings stripped off – so I can’t be too critical of these lenses, even if they’re not for me.

I think there are people who tend to over-think it in every part of the industry; I saw Joseph Kahn quoted in a video where he analyzes JJ Abrams' blocking and coverage style, which is pretty clearly something Abrams lifted from analyzing too much Spielberg, and Joseph's style on music videos is heavily inspired by Fincher. I like their stuff, but their recent work isn't the most innovative. On the other hand, I think a lot of music producers are working more intuitively than I realized, but they're still influenced by the past in a more intuitive way. Or David Lynch's show the Return reminds me of a really original take on the past, which is exactly what you needed it to be. So you can't really avoid that influence or else what you make will be incoherent, but if you cling to it too tightly what you make will probably be derivative. Which isn't always bad if it's Star Wars. But I think there is a balance and everyone arrives there in a different way. But the past will always inform the present, even with lens designs or sensor designs. I tend to get way too over-technical and over-analytical though, I admit.

Anyway, will end my rant.
 
Matt W. said:
I’m sort of in the opposite camp. I’ll watch too many “how to” videos.

Personally I don’t think newer always is better if what you’re after is an emotional response. The best guitars and violins are antiques, even if you record with the newest mics.

But I am still really excited to see Deakins get his hand on an Alexa35. And for Avatar 2. I guess another way I’m different is I still ascribe a bit too much to auteur theory, even with DPs. I’m more excited to see what Deakins does with that camera than with the camera itself. But obviously it's both.

Speaking of which, I remember Hoyte van Hoytema or someone used Master Primes with coatings stripped off – so I can’t be too critical of these lenses, even if they’re not for me.

I think there are people who tend to over-think it in every part of the industry; I saw Joseph Kahn quoted in a video where he analyzes JJ Abrams' blocking and coverage style, which is pretty clearly something Abrams lifted from analyzing too much Spielberg, and Joseph's style on music videos is heavily inspired by Fincher. I like their stuff, but their recent work isn't the most innovative. On the other hand, I think a lot of music producers are working more intuitively than I realized, but they're still influenced by the past in a more intuitive way. Or David Lynch's show the Return reminds me of a really original take on the past, which is exactly what you needed it to be. So you can't really avoid that influence or else what you make will be incoherent, but if you cling to it too tightly what you make will probably be derivative. Which isn't always bad if it's Star Wars. But I think there is a balance and everyone arrives there in a different way. But the past will always inform the present, even with lens designs or sensor designs. I tend to get way too over-technical and over-analytical though, I admit.

Anyway, will end my rant.
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Matt,

Yeah, I'd be interested as well to see any Director of that caliber use the Alexa 35. I think some of all the vintage look craze may not necessarily be so much of a return to the past but maybe going back to before all of the B.S. I think when you watch too many Videos of any specific Director or Cinematographer, their style has a way of slipping into your subconscious and before long you are duplicating David Fincher's camera moves or some other director's composition and framing and yet another director's Lighting Ratios or Color Grading Palette. I realize that we can't escape some level of influence from outside Cinematography sources of how we do things, but just maybe not learn a specific Cinematographers style so well that it becomes second nature.
 
"The Stormriders" &“Kick Art”Shot on DZOFILM Vespid Retro Primes丨@stephanebarbato

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