Epic Meets Leica

[spaulgal]

Yeah I use Novoflex adaptors now to mount to Canon cameras. But I was wondering if there is another preferred method for Epic, A-mount for example.
If its all the same I'll stick to the Canon mount.

 

[Kian Marandi]

I am not a lens connoisseur either, or a DP, but the easy one would be CA, lack thereof. Most lenses shooting at T3 would have been plagued with CA on all the abrupt dark-to-bright edges, so pretty much the entire face of the mountain with dark trees and bight snow would have needed some post clean-up.

...

0.0002

Thanks for that Roberto! Now I know a bit more...

 

[Tom Lowe]

Ah, isn't this lovely... I'm going through my footage right now and just realized that this person (in the photo above) was standing in most of my best takes from the Mt Whitney sunrise the other day. From where I was operating, on the left-hand side of the camera, I could not see this person, as she was hidden behind that rock!... ha.

Luckily, she stepped out of frame several times during the best light.

 

[Jonathan Stevenson]

Ah, isn't this lovely... I'm going through my footage right now and just realized that this person (in the photo above) was standing in most of my best takes from the Mt Whitney sunrise the other day. From where I was operating, on the left-hand side of the camera, I could not see this person!... ha.

Luckily, she stepped out of frame several times during the best light.

Rotobrush? haha

 

[Tom Lowe]

I have plenty of takes without her in the frame. I just thought it was funny.

 

[Michael Schrengohst]

Those damn people!!!

 

[Tom Lowe]

There were literally about 35 people at the arch that morning! Ridiculous! Luckily, we were the first ones there, so I was able to set up my slider and Epic and stake out the best vantage point.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

There were literally about 35 people at the arch that morning! Ridiculous! Luckily, we were the first ones there, so I was able to set up my slider and Epic and stake out the best vantage point.

You should come to Tasmania, Tom

I can feel for you. Have you managed to get ANY wide angle landscape shots without human made structures, cars, airplanes or people in the shot over night time? I find it difficult even in Australia...On coutless of occassions I need to go frame by frame and remove them.

 

[Daniel Reichenbach]

Okay, here's the first framegrab from the Leica 75mm Summilux-C on the Epic. Shot at T3, 5K full sensor, 5:1 compression this morning near Mt. Whtiney.

Larger image link: http://img856.imageshack.us/i/leicaepicmoon5k2560.jpg/

These lenses are absolutely insane. The sweet spot is from T2 - T5.6, but they are scary sharp wide open.

I want to say a huge thank you to Jeff Cree and Randy Wedick at BandPro. It was great hanging out with them!

Edit: Here is a 5K tiff: http://timescapes.org/LeicaEpicMoon5K.tif

This picture is very soft, I would say: out of focus (5k TIF). Did you missed the sweet spot, Tom? If this is the quality out of a LEICA lenses, I'm absolutely happy with my REDs ;-)

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Nice shots Tom, good to see you have fun with the Leica's however the fact of the 75mm my most used Focal, is a bit of a concern, and for this I absolutely love the Master Primes.

But we'll give serious consideration to the Leica's...

 

[JD Holloway]

must buy lottery ticket...

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Remember that this is a JPG. And I am pretty sure Tom likes to leave samples un-sharpened so we can judge for ourselves, same goes for RED, nice and smooth un-sharpened images that allow you to bring where you want them to be. We all love that. But don't forget to make sure to apply a gentle dose of sharpening before making up your mind entirely. These types of images leap forward with a touch of sharpening. I added 65 points (out of 500) of unsharpening at one pixel wide in PS (I took the liberty here --it is a JPG). Also, I may be wrong about this, but being that this had to be at infinity (shot at T3) with the tree-covered mountain WAY closer than the bare mountain in the back, and a touch closer than the moon... wouldn't there be a very slight touch of a softer focus on in the foreground? I know infinity means all objects after a certain distance are in focus, but "in focus" is a subjective term after all, which really means "acceptably in focus". I'd like to know more about this.

All that aside... I was wondering, why would Leica let the 75mm be noticeably softer than the rest? I think it might be plenty sharp for me, especially for what I would use it for, mostly close ups. But why not sharper? There should be no compromise on a no-compromise set. And those times when 75mm is the right choice will present themselves; Tom's shot used as a POV for example. I am not saying lens design is easy, but if they can do all that other magic stuffs, then I could only assume they can pull that off as well. Is it that they expected the lens to be used for CUs and thought, hey, people will like their CUs like this anyway? 'Cause that makes no sense, and I wouldn't think Leica would accept it that way... And finally, could this be a coating? Chances are they applied all the coating magic they had already, so it would most likely be an optical design change that would be needed, right? And one more thought... are these FINAL final? Did Otto Nemenz get any of their sets yet (which we all guess are the first production sets)?

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Leica Summilux-C Prime Set:

The most advanced Prime Lens EVER!
The first sets will be found ONLY at Otto Nemenz.
Each lens's focus rotation, marks, weight and size are virtually identical.
This makes lens changes and rembering the "feel" of the lens that much easier.
Add a Titanium lens mount with the built-in net holder and you a have a lens unlike any other in the world.


http://www.ottonemenz.com/

Also below are some of the shots with Leica lenses I took yesterday just walking and shooting video with one of the most advanced handheld cameras today...

Russian girl in Vienna.

South Korean Superstar girl in Vienna.

British girl in Vienna.

Three Italian girls in Vienna.

French girl in Vienna.

Have more girls from yesterday but that's enough for this time.

All the images were taken from the movie/video files.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

You are right SJ, it is a bit cheaper for me to call. I did:

No production sets delivered yet. Leica is still adding to the mountain of quality.

From what I was told it seems they are working closely with Leica, giving them feedback, sending lenses back, getting new samples... exactly what we want to hear. Some sets have already been sent out on actual jobs to get the sort of feedback you can only get that way, so on, so forth. It seems everyone involved is very much on the right track --unwilling to compromise.

So, I am hereby offering to take anyone's bet. I say the production 75mm will match in resolving power. PM me for details on how to fork over your money.

SJ, your paparazzo-style shots of random girls make me worry you will get slapped and drop your Leicas. Please be careful.

 

[Tom Lowe]

This picture is very soft, I would say: out of focus (5k TIF).

Are you looking at it 1:1 pixel? Remember, this is a Bayer-pattern camera. It's going to look "soft" to you, just like a Canon or Nikon RAW frame would at 1:1. You need to downsample a Bayer image by at least 25% before it's going to look sharp.

I don't have any more Epic framegrabs on my PC here right now (files are at LightIron), but here is an astro-timelapse framegrab from a PL-converted Canon 1D4 on the Leica 18mm:

This was shot at T3.2 in 70mph winds. :hand: What amazed me was the lack of distortion at the edges.

Here is a larger version of that wind turbine shot: http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/4417/leica1d418mm.jpg

BTW, I have been at LightIron for the past two days grading these Leica shots. Michael treated me like a king, and the colorist there, Ian, is awesome. Below are some iphone shots I took while we were grading. The final shots will be at the BandPro booth at NAB (possibly on a 4K monitor), and a few of them will be in the Red 4K reel, for closer inspection.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Are you looking at it 1:1 pixel? Remember, this is a Bayer-pattern camera. It's going to look "soft" to you, just like a Canon or Nikon RAW frame would at 1:1. You need to downsample a Bayer image by at least 25% before it's going to look sharp.

Am I missing something? Did you post a 5k TIFF somewhere?

Edit: Ohhh... I didn't see that you added it to that post. Thanks!

Edit: Here is a 5K tiff: http://timescapes.org/LeicaEpicMoon5K.tif

I'll have an other pixel-peeing go at it if you don't mind Tom. Thanks for providing such a beautiful shot to analyze. Very generous of you.

Here is an other off the 5k TIFF, downscaled by 50% to 2.5k and saved as a TIFF. I sharpened at two levels, at 5k then again at 2.5k, which I feel gives you a bit smoother results. But in the rush I did push it a bit much, so here it already begins to show the "evil" sharpening edge on the bright edge moon against the sky, though that is just about the easiest sort of thing where you'll notice sharpening edges.

How about a 5k TIFF of the 18mm and 21mm Tom? :greedy smile:

 

[Daniel Reichenbach]

Are you looking at it 1:1 pixel? Remember, this is a Bayer-pattern camera. It's going to look "soft" to you, just like a Canon or Nikon RAW frame would at 1:1.

Agree, this turbines are REALY in focus, amazing, great work Tom ;-)

 

[Tom Lowe]

With these kinds of resolutions (Epic + Leica) a 5-inch monitor is not enough to really nail focus, IMHO. Especially not for a noobie like me.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

With these kinds of resolutions (Epic + Leica) a 5-inch monitor is not enough to really nail focus, IMHO. Especially not for a noobie like me.

No worries Tom, you are not alone, focusing at 5K on a S35 Sensor 30x15, on a Master Prime at T*1.3 with girls moving all over is not easy either...

Love your work, keep them coming...

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Y

SJ, your paparazzo-style shots of random girls make me worry you will get slapped and drop your Leicas. Please be careful.

Roberto,

Last year early in winter I have been attacked by some of younger night clubbing funs stoned and drunken when then they also were damaged a bit the front ring of my Leica Summilux-R 50mm on 7D here in Vienna city center ...

Later then I was sold that lens...

Paparazzo-style shots it's not so easy to do and when you try to make it becomes almost a sort of hard struggle to get right shot...