Canon CN-E Primes on Helium

[Sage Humphries]

Does anybody out there have any experience with the Canon CN-E Primes and the Helium sensor? I am looking to move to Helium and want to get some REDUSER thoughts before pulling the trigger. I am hoping they can tie me over for a little until I can upgrade to some Ultra Primes.

As an aside, I have been reading these forums for a long time and am finally ready to make the move to RED. Thanks in advance.

 

[Carlos Quintero]

I have a full set of CN-E Primes and both compact zooms and they work great.

 

[Dan Kanes]

Great lenses -widely underrated generally.

the only thing I don't like is the amount of CA on the 14mm for instance.

 

[Tom Greenberg]

I believe that Domenic Barbero (a longtime REDUser) has a set of CN-E's he is selling.

 

[Sage Humphries]

Thanks for the feedback. My good friend, who has used the Helium feels as though is not worthwhile to go Helium without ultra/master primes, Summilux, Cooke, etc. I have little doubt that they would be better, but I gotta start somewhere.

 

[Carlos Quintero]

Thanks for the feedback. My good friend, who has used the Helium feels as though is not worthwhile to go Helium without ultra/master primes, Summilux, Cooke, etc. I have little doubt that they would be better, but I gotta start somewhere.

The EPIC-W is my first RED camera. I can very clearly see a huge difference between my Canon C300 Mark II 4K and EPIC-W 8K on both my editing 32inch 4K display and my client reference 60inch 4K HDR display both using the canon CN-E primes. I'm also not shooting features and the 4K deliverable content is generally for web distribution. So take what I'm saying with those limitations in mind.

 

[Sage Humphries]

Great to hear. I am making the same jump --> From C300 Mk II to EPIC-W. I really appreciate the feedback.

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

I just shot a week-long job on the CNE's at the request of the production company. I really appreciated how fast the lenses were -- they allowed me to stop down to a T2 and remain sharp with an ultra shallow look (shooting 8K on the helium). I was given the option of CP2 vs CNE and my experience with the CNEs was that they were warmer and had a more pleasing highlight rolloff.

I haven't gotten to review the footage since shooting but I was very pleased with what I was seeing on camera. I personally shoot with Kippertie Carbon2 and the combo between Helium + Carbon 2 + CNE was really great for when you can't get a more expensive set of primes (I personally trend toward the Ultra Primes almost always, occasionally swinging over to Cookes -- and Optimo's for zooms).

Definitely try and get a rental on your next gig and give them a go.