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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 :)

Anamorphic Lens Tests - Kowa, Arri Master Anamorphic & Lomo

The Kowas breathe like crazy! Still, at T4 you're not quite at an optimal aperture setting. Lomos perform best at a 4/5.6 split and I've heard this said of the last generation of anamorphics in general (T4 is pretty close though). The Arris are tragically overproduced and have no feel. They're great lenses, but look too much like spherical lenses to me. In this case, rent spherical, save money and crop... The RF Lomos don't breathe as much, but y'all are right, the 35mm has a tremendous amount of barrel.

The 75mm needs collimation big time. The slanted verticals are a result of the anamorphic element out of alignment; there's a collar with a set screw to adjust this. Not sure about the Kowas, but I'd imagine they have similar adjusts.

The Cooke 40mm is nice, but I'd like more data on aperture setting and ISO for each shot... the shot on the bridge (~0:33) you can see in the left of the frame what looks to be loss of performance over the focus curve. It's really hard to say because they keep their subjects in the center. There are a couple of dark outlines of shoulders that look sharp. Also, I wonder if they did any cropping/processing of the image in post to hide those kinds of things? I see that they say there is no post color correction...
 
The Cooke footage was quickly shot the day before NAB started. They are priced way cheaper than the Arri's too. The anamorphic lens is actually at the rear of the lens but they still managed to get nice flaring.
 
Brandon Esten said:
They're great lenses, but look too much like spherical lenses to me. In this case, rent spherical, save money and crop...
Click to expand...

I strongly disagree. ;-)

It seems most people only care about flares and character when it comes to anamorphic lenses.
When to me, the most valuable aspect is the horizontal field of view gain.

It's this unique field of view that makes anamorphic so special.

So the fact that they look like spherical lenses while providing a 2x times squeeze is actually amazing.

Now granted being a 2x squeeze you will need a 4/3 sensor to benefit most from them.
 
Interesting test, i wouldn't mind seeing other sets put to test like technovisions, todd ao or cinevision, as they are just as expressive as the kowa yet better mechanically and longer rotation for focus.
 
Karim_Nassar said:
I strongly disagree. ;-)
Click to expand...

No problem Karim, that's what the internet is all about :0)

I keep watching that clip over and over to try and see your side (there's another clip of the 50mm in action in Paris for a short about two ladies out on the town) and I personally can't get behind the look as far as "anamorphic" is concerned. Indeed, we have seen just about every paradigm rewritten in the last decade, many to the good, some to the detriment; here we have an example of that shift happening again. Not saying it's a bad thing, please. Indeed, the Arris deliver a beautiful image and I don't argue that the control of angle of view during focus is absolutely radical (whereas the Kowas look like they're zooming while pulling focus). What I am interested in discussing is where the resolving power of these arri anamorphics really warrants the money to use them over renting ultra-primes for less money or something similar and cropping. The only 4:3 sensor I know of is the Alexa which only shoots 2K right? So... if you have some kind of crop factor built into your chip, shoot spherical if you don't like the classic anamorphic look. You're going to get the resolution you need from the lens, and if you crop and blow up (having shot at 5K) you will still be OK on the big screen... Maybe someone else has numbers they can crunch and add to the discussion?
 
Just to add to the mix - another lens test - one that has the rare 22mm Lomo ana and also compares (spherical) Superspeeds.

 
Hey Andy, thanks for sharing this! Very informative. Yeah, that round front anamorphic 35mm actually has more barrel distortion than the 30mm! The 30 breathes like the Kowas though... One interesting thing here is a demonstration of how you need to shoot (approximately) half the focal length in a spherical lens fo the same AoV of an anamorphic lens when you crop to 2.40 (in other words, the vertical AoV is the constant between the two). Their 75mm lens, having proper collimation, presents a much better image. Jeez, that 22 is WIDE. Distortion is somewhere between the 30 and 35 interestingly enough. Those Soviets sure had some cojones eh?
 
Brandon Esten said:
Hey Andy, thanks for sharing this! Very informative. Yeah, that round front anamorphic 35mm actually has more barrel distortion than the 30mm! The 30 breathes like the Kowas though... One interesting thing here is a demonstration of how you need to shoot (approximately) half the focal length in a spherical lens fo the same AoV of an anamorphic lens when you crop to 2.40 (in other words, the vertical AoV is the constant between the two). Their 75mm lens, having proper collimation, presents a much better image. Jeez, that 22 is WIDE. Distortion is somewhere between the 30 and 35 interestingly enough. Those Soviets sure had some cojones eh?
Click to expand...

It's not my test - but added here as I thought it helpful for others to see :)

On the 22mm - well, it's 14mm on it's horizontal, so it's a wide fella!

I'd really like to see some tests like these with the Hawk Vintage 74's... as I'm intrigued to see how they perform against other lenses.
 
I kind of wanted to see the square fronts in comparison as well. I don't think the breathing on the square fronts is any worse than the round fronts. I much prefer the flares on the SF to the RF. I Think the square fronts get a bad wrap from there being so many of them out in the wild unserviced. I was fortunate enough to get an actual brand new 35mm SF from the 80's in it's factory box with the factory data sheet. It's an excellent lens. I personally like the more classic 70's and 80's looking anamorphics to the newer modern ones. If I was shooting film it would be a different story, but I think a major appeal when shooting digital is the softer look with more optical artifacts a little lower contrast, and just the feel you get. It's instant cinematic without any post work.

I am truly amazed by the arri lenses though. I am not even sure how they managed to achieve that technologically.

Nick
 
No Hawks to compare with :(

Must say I'm a bit supriced that the germans over compensated the lens distortion on their lens. The staircase on edge of frame does kind of bend the wrong way around. To me lens distortion is not only a bad thing, having lenses that is perfectly rectlinear does not look nice when pan and tilt then a bit of lens distortion actually helps and, atleast for me make things look smother, but arri has their lens corrected into a "negative fishball" which is quite odd I think. I would expect them to make it perfectly straight maybe but not overdoing it like that.

Any how I bias but to me non of those has the same fall of as the hawks does. The hawk difference is just that they separate the dof in such nice way. I'm happy the arri's did not then I know my lenses will still be the once the rental people call for first :)

Does anyone know what focal lengths Arri managed to get out so far?
 
I'm really liking the new Arri's, all that lovely compression with none of the usual aberrations and artifacts. There are already quite a few options out there for rough and tumble, flare-heavy, 'characterful' anamorphics - the Arri's offer something different, and it's nice to have the option.
 
Aha. With a little bit of detective work, I know why this 35mm has so much distortion: it's the speed prime which they're listing as T1.4 (I thought it was 1.6). Not that it really matters, opened up past T4 the DoF won't cover the curved field of focus so it's pointless unless you cleverly frame things. Indeed the standard speed 35mm also displays a good deal of barrel distortion, but I don't remember it being as bad as this footage. Now we know some more details about it. Also, I think the 75mm is tremendously difficult for collimation.

http://www.radiantimages.com/lenses/35mm-pl-prime/anamorphic/223-lomo-ana
click the "packing list" tab

Ya know, speaking more about barrel distortion and problems with Vfx among other things, has anyone ever developed a plugin for their NLE that corrects this? I'm sure all you need is a shot of a calibrated grid and then realign things in the NLE and save the presets for each individual lens.

Here is the 50mm Arri prime in action; looks fantastic, but still not my cup of tea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtRh5hLXNBs
 
Karim_Nassar said:
Well I will go against the trend in here and say that the Arris are my favorites by far.
Flares can easily be added in post anyways.
Click to expand...

I'm with Karim on this test. The New Zeiss Master's are superb lenses. I can add flaws in post (exactly where you want it and to the degree desired) but its very tough to take some of this "character" away like the heavy breathing.
 
Yes, indeed - but it is not matter of flares or breathing only, I think - it is same like discussion in another subject about Letus anamorph - it is noy matter of format or flares - it is matter of complex anamorphic, organic look. It is quite easy to add more flares in many software-solution plugins - not need anamorphic lenses. But as you see in many videos around - it is quarter-solution, not even half...

Flares is only one of many reason - many decades not so popular reason - to use in motion picture. Discusion like this is "flattered" to one or two parameters. It is like discussion about master or ultra primes only in "field of sharpness" - short way to compare with cheap samyang etc...

Arri non-breathing new line of anamorph- great, truly. But LOMOs and KOWAs still have this "character" strongly visible and desirable (excluding of course breathing, not so perfect design etc - and quite unique look. hard to emulate - but still best alternative when Master Anamorphic out of range... from many reasons....

Conclusion? Arri is great, no doubt. But older "brothers in anamorph" still will be part of game in looking for unique, epic look - loosing in some areas, keeping field in another. personally - I am not surprised - old professional cinema optic could make unbeliveable pictures...

Thanks for Author for comparable materials - nice and useful for all of us.

Best New Year greetings for all members of this society.
 
Don't forget the market of the Arris, the are very clean optics, meaning they are usable for VFX work.
 
Tom C. Hall
 Don't forget the market of the Arris, the are very clean optics, meaning they are usable for VFX work.

Hello Tom.

Yes, of course - especially because it is usually my part of work. Clean, "clinical" optic always is benefit as a less problems material for CGI area, sometimes it is out of questions as primary.
But from my experience - in many productions everything could be fixed - except cinematic look - even good VFX looks "poor" with poor or common optics.
Arri master Anamorph - I do not discuss with superior quality - but from many reasons it will be level of top productions, out of smaller or independence market - as just too expensive. But I think with LOMOs or KOWAs still in range to small competition - easier to create less effects with better quality than use effects or dramatically too fast montage or different solution as "mask" for poor optic effect.

In one word - proffesional "old" cinema optics delivering something what Gollum could be called as a "juicy" :) - organic, cinematic look - hard to emulate.
 
I actually like the Masters; they have just enough 'anamorphicness' to satiate that look on modern sensors without sacrificing everything that makes digital cinema better than film. Plus they're T1.9, right? It's the best of the both worlds -- Ultra Prime speed, with some anamorphic spice.

That said, I'd still prefer owning, which is *not* feasible with any of these modern anamorphics.
 
Hello Mike

New Masters looks quite good, of course. T1.9 sounds good too, pretty fast. But as you wroted - usually this lenses could be only part of theoretical discussion not part of practice. Even if so - for thiny short time, not for joy, experience or smaller features.

From my practice - RF LOMOs give outstanding results - as complex movie (anamorphic) picture structure quite close to hi-budget "epic" productions. Especialy as a mariage with "razor" sensors - anybody with practice know problem with thiny border beetwen movie and video look... Without proper light, lenses, grading - even UltraPrimes could look like any other lenses...
 
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