DEC 10 LENS SHOOTOUT

[Martin Stevens]

Great work Ryan.

The videos seem to be in 720p.

???

 

[Antoine Fabi]

I was SO close. My guesses were off by one. I mixed up the Red Prop Primes and the Uniq Optics.

You have good eyes Man!

Good to know ...when i ask for your opinion

They're all good but the Leicas sure have something special

Will watch it again this afternoon

Antoine

 

[Charlie Hohenshilt]

Ryan,

I may have missed a comment about this earlier in the thread, but did you adjust intensity of the light that put the slash on the newspaper in station 1 when your stop was wide open? It appears that the newspaper is very over exposed when wide open compared to 5.6 on at least some of the lenses.

If a comment has already been made just say so.

Thanks

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?67463-DEC-10-LENS-SHOOTOUT&p=897720&viewfull=1#post897720

All right. 100% on station one


Station three, however, ouch. I got very owned. 2/7!!! Was very difficult for me to really see differences between lenses and contrast, etc. I only got the Cookes and Illuminas right... and since I own a Cooke set, it was easy to spot those (then again Cookes are always easy to spot because they have a different and unique look and aperture). As for the only other I got right, I simply assumed the worst looking set was illuminas... which they were... again. :/


Can't wait to get the R3D's!

 

[Christopher Barrett]

Aww... my babies did good. I'm so proud! Now back to scouring the earth for Leica R's. Heh heh.

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

Thx a lot Ryan and all fellow testers....!!!!!! This will determine which one's I'll get. Like the RPP's and Panchro's very much, Zeiss does seem good as well.. Disapointed with the Illumina's at wide open; but will check again.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

A BIG thanks to Ryan for working so hard and long on all of this, without him this test simply wouldn't have been!

 

[Shawn Nelson]

and thanks to Tim for creating and hosting such an informative and kick ass event, and to everyone who came and brought stuff, quite a fun day. Now I'm looking forward to seeing how my blind notes lined up to the revealed lenses!

 

[Zeb B]

Would have loved to see Canon L glass included especially given Jim's recent comments about their significant quality shortcomings. Comparing super cars against each other will result in an outcome of "drive what makes you feels good - they're all fine machines". Having the Canon's there for baseline would have been valuable to me since I have not seen any RED based test results that takes the 24, 35, 50 or 85mm L Primes against the comparable 8lb / $10K PL's.

I can't figure out how it is the the wee S35 chip in a RED cannot produce good results in a lens designed for a FF35 chip. The S35 uses only the sweet spot in the L glass - what's the issue? My 5D/1D have no problem with producing a 48" fine art gallery quality print out of an L lens - why can't a cropped sensor movie camera produce good 1080 results from the same lens?

Again, would love to see a test like this where the rich guy lenses have to compete with the working man L lenses that me, and the oncoming Scarlet Nation, will be using. Are the Canon lenses on RED really that awful or is it just PL elitist snobbery?

 

[Timur Civan]

LOVE this test....

RPO, Mr Barrett. Our babies did do good. They may be a bit slow, but they are gorgeous.

Would have loved to see Canon L glass included especially given Jim's recent comments about their significant quality shortcomings. Comparing super cars against each other will result in an outcome of "drive what makes you feels good - they're all fine machines". Having the Canon's there for baseline would have been valuable to me since I have not seen any RED based test results that takes the 24, 35, 50 or 85mm L Primes against the comparable 8lb / $10K PL's.

I can't figure out how it is the the wee S35 chip in a RED cannot produce good results in a lens designed for a FF35 chip. The S35 uses only the sweet spot in the L glass - what's the issue? My 5D/1D have no problem with producing a 48" fine art gallery quality print out of an L lens - why can't a cropped sensor movie camera produce good 1080 results from the same lens?

Again, would love to see a test like this where the rich guy lenses have to compete with the working man L lenses that me, and the oncoming Scarlet Nation, will be using. Are the Canon lenses on RED really that awful or is it just PL elitist snobbery?

Denser resolution in a 5k S35 chip. A FF 5DmkII producing 5k is using more of the res the lens has to offer. Hence why the 12.8MP 5DmkI still looks so damn good when blown up.

The "PL snobbery" lenses perform better because they are designed to be used on s35. Take a PL lens, and put it on a 7D and take a still photo and watch the Glory that comes out. The lens is designed for that frame size. Same goers for nikon DX lenses that are designed for 1.6 "Crop" still cameras. They will take glorious pictures on a S35 chip/film plane.

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Would have loved to see Canon L glass included especially given Jim's recent comments about their significant quality shortcomings. Comparing super cars against each other will result in an outcome of "drive what makes you feels good - they're all fine machines". Having the Canon's there for baseline would have been valuable to me since I have not seen any RED based test results that takes the 24, 35, 50 or 85mm L Primes against the comparable 8lb / $10K PL's.

I can't figure out how it is the the wee S35 chip in a RED cannot produce good results in a lens designed for a FF35 chip. The S35 uses only the sweet spot in the L glass - what's the issue? My 5D/1D have no problem with producing a 48" fine art gallery quality print out of an L lens - why can't a cropped sensor movie camera produce good 1080 results from the same lens?

Again, would love to see a test like this where the rich guy lenses have to compete with the working man L lenses that me, and the oncoming Scarlet Nation, will be using. Are the Canon lenses on RED really that awful or is it just PL elitist snobbery?

This was a cine-lens test... hence there not being photography lenses.

In regards to this test, I had no involvement, but I would offer that if there was to be a baseline, as you suggest, I'd like to see a high-quality baseline. This would be comparing all lenses to an ideal set such as MP's, UP's or S4's. I don't want to have a baseline (to which all is compared) with DSLR lenses. That would be counter-productive, in my opinion. The standard to which we compare these lenses should be a higher set of lenses, not a lower.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Guys thanks for such a great lens test!

Maybe Cooke Panchro set could look most attractive from the bunch from AC point or from a sort of picky cinematographer view

but a clear winner are Leicas or Leica R Cine-Mod set converted by Duclos.

Why?

I don't need to add anything more than our fellow Red User A. Clint Litton wrote recently at the another tread.

Just finished shooting a feature on Epic using Leica R via A-Mount.

Two months of shooting and very few complaints for use in a narrative environment. Some lenses have slight breathing, but I rarely found it distracting enough to matter. Focus smoothness can vary a little, some lenses are less buttery than others, so if you're coming from the world of S4's and ultras, you m
ay not be as impressed. But when I look at how small these lenses are, how inexpensive they are relative to any major players in the PL world, I have to say I'm very happy with my decision to build this set. It was a tiny film, all on the go, all handheld...can't imagine doing it with larger camera setups.

My set:

19mm version II (f/2.8)
24mm (f/2.8)
28mm (f/2.8) - not Super Angulon
35mm Summicron (f/2)
50mm Summilux II (f/1.4)
100mm Apo Macro (f/2.8)
180mm (f2.8)

As for mods, I went with Duclos and am very pleased with their work and service. 80mm fronts with 77mm thread meant I could use screw in filters (which I normally would not care to do, but again, being essentially a one man band and trying to keep the camera as small and discete as possible made this an aspect worth mentioning (it also doesn't hurt if you already own a bunch of filters for L glass that's 77mm)...

I'll try to put up some stills when I get a free moment. In the meantime, maybe we can start some kind of support group for this rare but infections "red dot disease."

Cheers,
Clint

Source>>>

 

[Shawn Nelson]

Very interesting results. I appreciate Ryan's writeup but my eyes see differently. When I look at my notes of watching the blind test, I scored the Panchros consistently down in preference, I don't think they have a preferred look. They flare badly and I dont like the light source bokeh. I also don't like the bloom they give even on in focus lights, if I want bloom I'll add a filter. Outside they feel identical to others, I actually guessed they were the Uniqs.

As for the comments that the Uniqs, Zeiss, Schneider and Red have a "sterile" look I couldn't disagree more. Yes, they are more accurate, but I surely wouldn't call it sterile, I'd call it pure and pristine. Also the "lacking in character" bit is accurate but in a good way. I prefer no character to bad character.

At 18-25-35 the RPPs are indeed the heaviest of all the sets, but at 50-85-100 they fit right in with many of the other sets.

The Zeiss CPs indeed have tons of witness marks, but the focus pull sucks, way too short. You can see this in Setup #1, the focus pulls don't look as good.

The Leica Rs are indeed beautiful and were excellently modded by Duclos, but they are obviously still lenses, the rack focuses on Setup #1 do not look good.

The Schneider Xenar IIs have a good look to them, but they travel so far you can walk them off your follow focus (granted, you'd have to go from close to infinity, but still...) I dont think ANY cine lens should travel at all, it screws with your MB. Also the Illuminas travel.

I have to say I just flat out don't like the look of the Illuminas.

The Uniqs look just like the RPPs except have a delrin ring which Fs up the focus pull. Not sure why they thought to do that.

But you know what? They are all so close to each other that we're really discussing mostly minute differences. I strongly disagree that these are the 'Ford Escort' of lenses, and think we're more dealing with the Honda Accord of lenses, reliable and gets the job done well.

 

[Ryan E. Walters]

Great work Ryan.

The videos seem to be in 720p.

???

Nope, NOT 720p- 1080p. Try clicking the HD option. I uploaded and encoded at 1080p. So you should be able to view it at 1080p.

 

[Ryan E. Walters]

Ryan,

I may have missed a comment about this earlier in the thread, but did you adjust intensity of the light that put the slash on the newspaper in station 1 when your stop was wide open? It appears that the newspaper is very over exposed when wide open compared to 5.6 on at least some of the lenses.

If a comment has already been made just say so.

Thanks

Yep- discussed in the write up:
http://www.ryanewalters.com/Videos/Tests/tests.html

 

[Ryan E. Walters]

This was a cine-lens test... hence there not being photography lenses.

In regards to this test, I had no involvement, but I would offer that if there was to be a baseline, as you suggest, I'd like to see a high-quality baseline. This would be comparing all lenses to an ideal set such as MP's, UP's or S4's. I don't want to have a baseline (to which all is compared) with DSLR lenses. That would be counter-productive, in my opinion. The standard to which we compare these lenses should be a higher set of lenses, not a lower.

As stated in the write up UP's were going to be the standard, but last minute got pulled:
http://www.ryanewalters.com/Videos/Tests/tests.html

 

[Jeffrey T. Morgan]

Wow Wow Wow!

What a great test. based on my blind results, the winners are CLEAR!

Tied for first (and baffling my mind) are the UNIQUES and SCHNEIDERS! (i know, right!?)

RED PP are a VERY close second place. like 5% or less behind the others.





A big step down, but still good are the COOKES. They consistently earned "moderately glad to own". A rating I made up on the fly for something that was not wowing me, but was fine. The ZEISS cp2 also did about this good, also. Being pleasing in LOOK but less so in breathing and a little bit more contrasty than I like to see in camera.




LEICAs (converted still lenses, right?) did not mechanically or color-render-feel perform that well in the blind test. This will get me killed by Matt Duclos and Sanjin. So tell my kids I loved them… and to clean up their rooms.





Last place, to my incredible dismay, went to the ILLUMINAS. If someone had said 2 weeks ago "Here is $30k, buy a lens set right now" I would have bought these. I was excited about the limited examples from pre-production versions. I liked what they were saying about themselves… I loved the 1.3! They performed well in the outside model session. Which is the most real world test, but there were SO MANY issues I saw that were just weird or scary… Maybe the next version will be badass?

To be clear, I never planned to buy these blond. I would have done my own tests, but I am sure would never have been as thorough with as many sets as this test was. So a heart felt thanks!





Now I am going to read the write up and rewatch the results, and learn more about the Uniques and Schneiders! Crazy days…. and I really wish the RPPs were lighter… but maybe they aren't heavier than the other winners?

I look forward to reading everyone else's thoughts. This is all very subjective.


PS- i am really suprised I didnt like the Leica Still lenses or the Cookes. I am very let down by the Illuminas. Just restating

 

[Jeffrey T. Morgan]

As for the comments that the Uniqs, Zeiss, Schneider and Red have a "sterile" look I couldn't disagree more. Yes, they are more accurate, but I surely wouldn't call it sterile, I'd call it pure and pristine. Also the "lacking in character" bit is accurate but in a good way. I prefer no character to bad character.

+1 on this, Shawn, I totally agree that a very "true" look is better than a "style" that I have to fight in post. I don't want a set of lenses that mean everything I shoot favors one side or the other of the emotional universe.

 

[Antoine Fabi]

DThanks for all the work guys!

Do you think there would have been a great difference between say...CPs vs UPs ???

On a optical purity and sharpness POV ? ... Not sure...

UPs are constant f/stop all the set and breathe less, but apart from that, i'd be curious...

And if so...what would be that different ?

Antoine

 

[Martin Stevens]

Nope, NOT 720p- 1080p. Try clicking the HD option. I uploaded and encoded at 1080p. So you should be able to view it at 1080p.

Have you tried viewing it in 1080p yourself? I cannot get a 1080p download no matter what I try. And I know what to try.
If scaling is off and HD is on it is 720p. And the download files are 720 as well.

Sorry. ???

Do you have direct links to the 1080p material?