A poor man's Lens - worth it?

[Dan Hudgins]

f/0.95 lenses for Scarlet?

f/0.95 lenses for Scarlet?

I was looking for the Angenieux f.095, but the price for the one I found was like $1300.00!
Razz

I was poking around and found this link for some Goyo Optical f/0.95 lenses that might work on the C mount Scarlet, there are 17mm, two 25mm, and 50mm in f/0.95.

http://www.goyooptical.com/products/industrial/other.html#f095

They also show some 5 Megapixel and other Megapixel lenses, which might be better than some older C mount movie camera lenses for use on a sensor camera. The 1" lenses should cover, and some of the 2/3" might cover?

 

[combatentropy]

some of the 2/3" might cover?

All 2/3" lenses should cover.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

2/3" lenses for Scarlet

2/3" lenses for Scarlet

All 2/3" lenses should cover.

From what was said above the max diagonal for Scalet's 3K sensor comes out (based on the sensor dimensions on RED.com, maybe they should add the active area diagonals to their docs to clear up the coverage for all sensors and lens sizes):

11.429mm

The diagonal for 4:3 2/3" based on 8.8mmx6.6mm is,

11.000mm

So maybe someone from RED can say what % of the 3K sensor will be in active use?

Anyway, it would be cool if the 17mm f/0.95 lenses will cover, which they should since wide open lenses cover a little more area anyway, that would give a semi wide fast lens, and if you put a good 0.5x wide angle adapter on it you could get maybe 9mm or 8.5mm at f/0.95 for dark interiors...

 

[chuck colburn]

I believe lenses cover more when shut down.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Stopped down vs. wide open

Stopped down vs. wide open

I believe lenses cover more when shut down.

Two things happen when you stop down the lens from full open,

1) The area the image circle covers past the design image circle gets smaller, this depends on the vignetting, in fast lenses vignetting can be 50% at the edge of the field. The area past the design image circle will be soft focus, but when stopped down will go dark showing cut off corners in the sensor frame is past the design image circle, so wide open you get light in the corners its just soft, stopped down you get sharper near the edge design image circle and darker outside that area. The corners go dark more in wide angle lenses, than in tele lenses, when the edge of the image circle used is bigger than the design image circle size.

2) The area at the inside edge of the design image circle gets sharper and more evenly illuminated, that is within the design image circle the ratio of the vignetting gets less when you stop down. But outside the design image circle some lenses may be vignetting more or go totally dark when stopped down.

Because the sort of opposite happens inside the design image circle and outside the design image circle you want the design image circle larger than the active sensor area.

In a view camera lens there is less vignetting so stopping down makes the edges sharper, but in a fast 2/3" lens there may be quite a bit of vignetting used, even so the fuzzy part of the image circle outside the design image circle should be larger when the lens is wide open than when stopped down at least for wide angle retrofocus lenses since the edge of the front element acts as a second stop for the vignetting.

In view camera lenses the aberrations are reduced at the edges of the lens field when you stop down but those are not retrofocus type lenses, as most quality C mount and PL mount wide angle movie and video lenses are. With fast lenses when open the image circle limited by the filter threads of the lens is larger wide open, but softer in focus at the edges, since the filter threads and any sunshade built in can act as a second stop defining the coverage. When you stop down the stop of the edge of the front opening of the lens, filter threads or edge of front element, gets sharper and so the light outside that circle goes dark in the image, or you see an out of focus image of the front edge of the lens at the edge of the image. When open light comes in from a greater angle so some image slips past the edge of the front of the lens that acts as a second stop.

The main question is can you purchase any 2/3" lens and know that it will cover the sensor without dark corners when stopped down, and will the corners be sharp enough when wide open, or will they let you return it for a refund if it does not look good at 3K?

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Lower cost 2/3" f/0.95 lenses

Lower cost 2/3" f/0.95 lenses

I was looking for the Angenieux f.095, but the price for the one I found was like $1300.00!
Razz

I got the price info for the Goyo Optical lenses, they all cover 2/3" sensors apparently,

17mm f/0.95 GMY31795MCN = $322.00

25mm f/0.95 GMY2595MCN = $377.00

25mm f/0.95 GMV42595MC = $221.00

50mm f/0.95 GMY45095MCN = $485.00,

I also noticed that Navitar makes a 17mm f/0.95,

http://ccddirect.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=17411&cat=263&page=2

Any of these or the higher priced Schneider 17mm should work on Scarlet or Acam dII with the C mount. How much fuzz the OLPF will add since they are fast lenses would require some testing though, but since Scarlet is 3K it should require a lighter OLPF than the Acam dII so it might have an edge with regard to the OLPF and high speed lens issues(?).

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

You would get better images with modern still camera lenses.

Yes but then others would complain that you are not using "cine glass", and you would be excluded from the solar system.
Anyway, zooms are always interesting objects and surely sometimes they can save your ass. But if it's from the '60s, mmm, I don't know, it might look beautiful as much as very bad for today's standards. By the way, do you like todays standards? I don't.

 

[Raul Gonzo]

Tests

Tests

I finally got my $400 Lenmar in and was able to do a few quick tests.
Everything is completely untouched...

162mm f16

162mm f8

 

[Raul Gonzo]

162mm f4.7

40mm f16

40mm f8

 

[Raul Gonzo]

4K crops

162mm f4.7

162mm f8

162mm f16

 

[Raul Gonzo]

40mm f8

40mm f16

 

[Raul Gonzo]

I still am going to do some more test once the weather clears up.
This lens is a little tricky to focus- it of course doesn't hold focus so that 1:1 function came in real handy (as always).
It will need an adapter if I was going to use a FF, but I doubt it work smoothly enough for that.

but,
overall-
definitely worth spending $400.

This is just a temporary solution as I wait for IMS or the Scarlet/Epic Interchangeable mounts. I want to use a variety of lenses without having to halt a production.
Sticking with PL is expensive.

Looking forward to the modular lens solutions...

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

If they had been using super-multi-coated lenses the images would have been too hard and they would have had to cut back on the development and increase the exposure a stop or two which would have increased their electric bill 200% to 400% something the producers could not have tolerated.

I imagine a Hollywood producer's finances seriously consumed by the bill of a single bulb lamb at the lab, being on twice the time.
In every movie, light is everything.
I wonder what the average light bill is in normal family houses with average income in that all important part of California, how they can tolerate it, survive it.

Could they use uncoated lenses for other reasons, like aesthethics, for being cheaper to buy and rent, more convenient in the best combination of a choosen film and lenses? Perhaps it was a cheaper film requiring those lenses. I thought that when they appeared, a set of multi-coated cine lens (let's say the equivalent of 100000 dollars of today?) would cost Hollywood more money per year than one small light, even if constantly on. Otherwise, how much was it?

One exposure per frame should be enough or about, while a movie should earn more than what is needed to pay the bill. Poor producers...
If they could not afford electricity in the golden years, how can they now afford to have render farms working night and day? The govern must help those new poor.
I want to be wrong and I certainly am. Please mass-correct me.

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

I don't know about you guys, but I see a lot in this.

4K crops

Unless for rentals, there is a lot of freedom, and afterall one shoots with what he has, or change if he wants and can. Some may be spitting on old lenses for sport or interest (but not usually in one' own works, a case where the author is more tolerant about tools... everyone suddenly only accept highest standards if someone else is going to pay) or because they just don't like them. Others use it happily.

The word professional doesn't mean much to me, but it's true meaning is simply the basic one given by the thinner pocket dictionary: a professional is some one who makes a given work as a job. This doesn't make a taxi need to be a rolls royce. But cinema has to be all stars, because it is associated with the superb icons and ideologies it produces, so at high level - in theory - there is no place for less then highest standards. (it must be up to some of it's biological entities to flip this image, although decadence could be an element of those ideologies. I'm convinced that most of internal and export products are not the same, though.)
Anyway, tools are part of the system. It was once the film divide. It may be cine glass divide now for a while. It could be huge lights divide from 2010. Then the divide coul be set by cranes.. then camera car time.. then the studio, then the umbelievable post production tools of the future, then supercomputers and realtime everything... then there is costume department and it's inventions, managing models, there will probably always be a divide because this system is about divide and cinema&tv are used, basicly, as their strongest and omnipresent advertising vehicle.
No surprise cheaper tools are discarded and discouraged. It's because they are actually useful and reachable by outsiders.
That said, I'm sure many of those in Hollywood, Bollywood... have collections of old and exotics tools of any kind, and used them for their loved, best, personal shoots rather than rent new equipment. What people must/want be given is a thing, what those who can decide use or would use for themselves may be different.

Of course the best new lenses are better, but if they are twice as good, they also are 100 times as expensive. The funny thing is that a new fantastic S16 zoom for shooting at 2K may well be 20 times more expensive than a 400 dollars old 35mm zoom for shooting at 4k. Now, should the tiny S16mm format at it's best, globally resolve as much details as your huge tank, yours is still a good business, at 400 dollars.

Hey, if these are real crops and not resized frames, they look good to me. There is a lot of chromatic aberration at f/4.7, but less then I thought. I thought it was unusable and awful, while you can make nice images, which is what a lens is made for. You don't use it for production control in a precision factory, and certainly not there at full aperture.
Resolution seems fine, if not very good. Are you sure you did not resize those pictures?? I don't know if it's the fog or the lens, but I the contrast seem quite low, which is often an advantage. You can push contrast in post if you want.
Occasionally, I could happily shoot at full aperture, with that lens.

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

I think very modern lenses are only bought to be rented.
Used or new, at their current prices, they only make sense if they let you earn back the money, and make more money. But you have to decide if you want to spend your time making images or renting-out equipment.

Very modern, expensive lenses are almost only bought to be rented to productions also because if you want to spend hundreds of dollars/day for a lens, you want a very good one!
One which gives best quality image, precision, ergonomy, easy to operate and no troubles to distract you and obstacle your will. You don't want an old Lenar. The Lenar, you buy it, it's cheaper, and you put it on Ebay when you don't want it anymore. Use Lenar for evrything but the most important works.
If you are asked and well payed to film something, you may choose to rent a super lens instead, and set your standard for the future. It depends on the payer, really. He might as well be happy with you using the Lenar.
Young directors who know well what they are doing, often do ask for alternative lenses.

 

[Mathias Erichsen]

Hey good people of Red!
I need some help deciding what lenses to use on the comming Red S35.

I already have a nice set of Canon FD´s 20, 24, 28, 35, 50 and 85mm from f:1.2 to f:2.8.
Today I´m offered to buy a set of Lomo´s in good conditon 18, 22, 28, 35, 50, 85 and 150mm from T2 to T3.1... ($ 1200!)
Do you guys think the Lomo´s are too dark? Are the Lomo´s better than the Canons? I see that the size of frame on Lomo lenses are 16 x 22mm... Is that sufficient?
What to do, what to do?

Mathias
www.resonablefilm.no

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Raul,

Images look actually quite interesting, soft, "bent", and ultimately very unique. There are lots of software packages out there trying to emulate looks like that nowadays, and many people use those presets to produce images that look exactly like what this lens is already capturing. I like it, and I would definitely use it for music videos and the like. A steal for 400 bucks.

Enjoy it and shoot it until it breaks apart,

 

[Rudi Herbert]

But cinema has to be all stars, because it is associated with the superb icons and ideologies it produces, so at high level - in theory - there is no place for less then highest standards.
Hey, if these are real crops and not resized frames, they look good to me. There is a lot of chromatic aberration at f/4.7, but less then I thought. I thought it was unusable and awful, while you can make nice images, which is what a lens is made for.
Occasionally, I could happily shoot at full aperture, with that lens.

So right. You know, looking back at a LOT of those films that were not only important, watershed like moments in film history from an emotional impact on the audiences point of view but also from a technical perspective for the technically inclined, I wonder how many people ADORE films, not only for the actors and the story, but for their images, that were shot with lenses that would sell for nothing today. Film is film, and except for faster stocks and better working cameras, not much has changed for the past 80 years in that front, but what has changed substantially are the optics. You know, if I get the time, I will do some research on what glass was used to shoot classics known for their visual impact and see what they are worth, if available at all, nowadays. I know Kubrick shot things like Barry Lyndon and Clockwork Orange with weird, Frankenstein like aberrations that would elicit nothing more than a scoff from any self respecting modern DP, but I wanna look into things like Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Shivago, El Cid, etc, etc. I'm sure they would be a far cry from the Master Primes but nobody remembers those films for chromatic aberration, fringing, softness on the edges, etc, etc, but for how great they looked....

 

[Raul Gonzo]

Are you sure you did not resize those pictures?? I don't know if it's the fog or the lens, but I the contrast seem quite low, which is often an advantage.

Nope, the 4k crops are just that. Of course they were compressed into JPEGS from TIFFS. And it was cloudy and raining a little that day, but no fog.

Images look actually quite interesting, soft, "bent", and ultimately very unique...A steal for 400 bucks.
Enjoy it and shoot it until it breaks apart,

Rudi, most definitely. I think the picture is acceptable and workable for different things I may shoot. If I need a super clean shot, I can use my RED 18-50 or rent something. All this until the whole IMS thing gets fixed, then all us with tighter budgets can start really experimenting.

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

I wonder how many people ADORE films, not only for the actors and the story, but for their images, that were shot with lenses that would sell for nothing today.

Absolutely. And the (once, often) excellent music. Let's not forget the music. a film, you see it and you hear it, so, afterall, that 100% is made of 50% images - and this includes the actors and actresses visually doing their jobs - and 50% music, sound, voice...
And over specialization clears all this in a moment with no problem. Everone does what is payed for, and do not care about other departments. Exactly like supermarket employes. And if film cameras with 50 thousand dollars must be sold/bought/used, no problem at all. The problem is rather how will a whole crazy industry survive at it's ordinary daily rate, the rest of the world going to hell. Same problems as all the other big industries. How to spend 14 millions in some months for personal distractions, in the next century? what to invent to make ordinary people accept certain things? I bet this is the sort of problems some are (finally?) thinking about... not which lens to use. IT's still all a technicality, or call it magic, but the focus can't be on anything but this: how to make the umbelievable believed, to make the unimportant become of the greatest importance, how to make the stupid look clever, and the clever, stupid.
People may go on drinking the usual entertainment, but the adoring masses may be less and less adoring the more they see that it's only a huge supermarket job with - please let's be a bit honest and compare them to average human situation - totally unjustified stellar gains (again, just like supermarket gains at top level), since... quite a while.
Being a system, with the thightest possible connections, I would say that such has got to do with such.
I hear some fears for the cinema as an industry. So? Is cinema important? I mean this sort of cinema. Why should it be more wealthy than it is? It just must be more equally shared as an activity - I say "more" equally, not "equally", I don't want anybody to start to shiver in front of the word.

Did you hear about the big pornography vendors? The porn billionaires now dare to ask (social?) help from the state, in the form of billions of dollars - "the automobile industry got it, but we need it too", that's right, ultrarich asking help from the state for they "babies" the companies, when there is crise... wait a minute... no crise will ever make them change their lifestyle really.... what a painful show... claiming their business are going bad. Shit. Right now, as yesterday and tomorrow, some one elses are in the real shit. I don't give a damn if some superpayed might be forced to earn shorter mountains of gold. (expecting some insider calling me a communist... 2009 = '50, forever. But the '50 looked infinitely like more serious times).
Now the trendy answer is that it's for the families, not the rich on top. Oh no, not for the rich on top. Actually, they will give their wealth to the families, eh? absolutely not. The State, with its moral values, must help the poor.
It's easy to be communist with the others' money. Double surprise, it's not some riches saying it, actually it's some megariches doing it themselves, yes, I hear and see some megariches talk like communists, in order to always stay on top of the gold mountains. It's not funny.
Hey, the porn tycoon asking money from a government in order to go on making money is total insult to 3/4 of humanity suffering of the worst things, to say the least.
So, give ME money! Do you think I would waste more than them?
If America finances porn industries with workers taxes, I will try to get a green card soon. I should have a right to steal too.