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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 :)

LENS TEST: Zeiss Super Speed (MK3) VS Zeiss ZF SLR's (Shot on RED)

joelnet said:
I'm also a bit skeptical about the benefit of color matched lenses given the amount of grading in any RED shot.
Click to expand...

I'm not! color correcting two shots that don't have the same white balance is a nightmare that is easily avoided with matching lenses. The alternative is to use the camera to auto white balance (forgive me ignorance here, but I don't even know if Red camera provides this function - I never thought to look) on a card, but not having matching white balanced shots - dang, that is on of my pet peeves for how you can waste hours in post when you could fix it with a few seconds in production


Brian
 
Yes, and it is not just white balance. It is contrast and color fidelity. Some cheaper, older lenses or lenses with poor optical coatings for whatever reason mayskew the color reproduction of the lenses. You may not be able to match the two lenses in post. It smacks of the old adage, "We'll fix it in Post." Well, sometimes you can't. And even if you can, as Brian says, it can be a small nightmare of wasted time trying to match out your color correction just to take care of mismatched lenses, then having to perform the actual artistic color correction of getting the image you want.

I see this as yet again an example of trying to fix poor mechanicals with expensive and/or time-consuming electronics. Much better to get it right the first time.
 
Mitch - couldn't have said it better. We agree on something! :)
 
Whole lotta love, baby!
 
If I recall correctly, even white balancing to a card on set that often can really throw things off and it's not exactly something you want to ever do while you're shooting until you've moved to an entirely different room/lighting setup.

Am I wrong? Of course that's even more the reason to grab a set that's better matched out of the gate.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Yes, and it is not just white balance. It is contrast and color fidelity. Some cheaper, older lenses or lenses with poor optical coatings for whatever reason mayskew the color reproduction of the lenses. You may not be able to match the two lenses in post. It smacks of the old adage, "We'll fix it in Post." Well, sometimes you can't. And even if you can, as Brian says, it can be a small nightmare of wasted time trying to match out your color correction just to take care of mismatched lenses, then having to perform the actual artistic color correction of getting the image you want.

I see this as yet again an example of trying to fix poor mechanicals with expensive and/or time-consuming electronics. Much better to get it right the first time.
Click to expand...

Well said. Thanks. :)
 
P+S Technik does not actually rehouse the lenses, but instead wraps them with bigger housings with gearing and more detailed markings. The mechanics remain the same.
 
I'm trying to find P+S Technick price list on their site for Zeiss Nikon mount cine lenses...

Do you have any idea ?
thanks
 
I did a quick test to check to see how my lenses were matching. A couple of disclaimers, as this was a very quick, very unscientific test. In fact, call it worse case scenario.

1. There was some actual daylight sneaking in from a window which means light may shift.

2. I lit this with Home Depot flourescent light which is supposed to be 5000K and CRI of 92. This is no Kino, I can assure you of that.

3. I kept the camera pretty much in the same place, rather than moving it to re-frame. There were logistical reasons for this.

So, not sure how much this helps anyone due to the crude nature of it, but if anyone is interested I can post the TIFFs. These are all snapshots from the R3Ds, no processing whatsoever. They were resized in Graphic Converter and saved as JPEGs for viewing here.

Nikkor 24mm @ F2.8
161_1211660502.jpg


Nikkor 35mm @ F2.8
161_1211660549.jpg


Nikkor 50mm @ F2.8
161_1211660596.jpg


Nikkor 85mm @ F2.8
161_1211660628.jpg
 
I think Steve's shots put the color matching in some real world perspective. Yes, there are some variations there but we're not talking about anything that's even close to a problem matching very quickly. Heck, you could cut a real scene between any of those right now with no corrections and it would still work. Nobody would be "out of the movie".

It would be fun to see a similar test with the Zeiss. It's fun to talk about this stuff but these real world tests are what's more interesting to me. Ultimately we all have a different level of comfort and assign different levels of value to different things.
 
stevesherrick said:
I did a quick test to check to see how my lenses were matching. A couple of disclaimers, as this was a very quick, very unscientific test. In fact, call it worse case scenario. ... So, not sure how much this helps anyone due to the crude nature of it, but if anyone is interested I can post the TIFFs. These are all snapshots from the R3Ds, no processing whatsoever. They were resized in Graphic Converter and saved as JPEGs for viewing here.
Click to expand...

I think having Molder hold up the chart invalidates the test. ;)

Thanks for posting and sharing, it is interesting to see the differences between the lenses even in this worst case scenario.
 
joelnet said:
It would be fun to see a similar test with the Zeiss. It's fun to talk about this stuff but these real world tests are what's more interesting to me. Ultimately we all have a different level of comfort and assign different levels of value to different things.
Click to expand...

I've got the stills available form the Zeiss for download on this first post if you want them. However, the stills are not "the worst case scenario", but they are real world.
 
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