First Look - Schneider Xenon FF-Prime Lenses

[Ketch Rossi]

Sounds good Ketch!

I love how much Nan adores that 85 2.8. He's always rehousing it (as opposed to the 1.4, which he does rehouse, but seems to advertise less). I can see why, I have two copies of the 2.8 myself (an AE that flares, and an MM that doesn't). But still - his passion for the 2.8 is something I kind of love. He clearly loves that lens.

He he, I can see that it does, and I also can understand why, it is nice and small compact and a simple beauty, hard to let go of really, but don't want to have a myriad of lenses any more, just one full set and that is it, that is why I am finishing clearing house, and selling also this 85mm, the last of Nan's lenses...

Soon... I hope it will happen the same thing to the Schneider's, because that would mean that at last we got the Leica C. Primes... From which I hope I'llnever look back, and aside getting few very Zooms, I
ll be set... But for a while longer, the Schneider Xenon will serve very well...

 

[Nick Morrison]

He he, I can see that it does, and I also can understand why, it is nice and small compact and a simple beauty, hard to let go of really, but don't want to have a myriad of lenses any more, just one full set and that is it, that is why I am finishing clearing house, and selling also this 85mm, the last of Nan's lenses...

Soon... I hope it will happen the same thing to the Schneider's, because that would mean that at last we got the Leica C. Primes... From which I hope I'llnever look back, and aside getting few very Zooms, I
ll be set... But for a while longer, the Schneider Xenon will serve very well...

I mean Leica C's are hard to beat. Their ratio of size/quality/look looks second to none. Isn't Fincher using them on his Dragon feature? Only "weakness" in their diamond armor is they don't cover Dragon on the wide end, but hey...besides full frame glass...what does?!

 

[Ketch Rossi]

I mean Leica C's are hard to beat. Their ratio of size/quality/look looks second to none. Isn't Fincher using them on his Dragon feature? Only "weakness" in their diamond armor is they don't cover Dragon on the wide end, but hey...besides full frame glass...what does?!

Yes, indeed Nick.

The Summilux C. Primes do have different vignetting on the wide end per focal on Dragon, very gentle and soft on the corners but there nonetheless, and btw, it is not a problem when posted to wide screen outputs, but fortunately the Summicron C. Primes don't vignette at all, yet we'll lose few stops, and some really Deeper DOF not having that amazing T1.4 aperture.

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

I mean Leica C's are hard to beat. Their ratio of size/quality/look looks second to none. Isn't Fincher using them on his Dragon feature? Only "weakness" in their diamond armor is they don't cover Dragon on the wide end, but hey...besides full frame glass...what does?!

It would be nice if Red actually conformed to standards of the industry like the aspect ratio, formats. It would make it a lot easier on them to fit the camera system into the existing infrastructure of accessories like lenses, displays, matte boxes, filters, etc. Coming out with random aspect ratios and formats is why a lot of established DPs don't want to risk vignetting, framing and other fundamental issues on set.
OK-rant over

 

[Nick Morrison]

Yes, indeed Nick.

The Summilux C. Primes do have different vignetting on the wide end per focal on Dragon, very gentle and soft on the corners but there nonetheless, and btw, it is not a problem when posted to wide screen outputs, but fortunately the Summicron C. Primes don't vignette at all, yet we'll lose few stops, and some really Deeper DOF not having that amazing T1.4 aperture.

Yeah, if I remember Phil's write up on them, for all practical purposes...the Leica Summilux's indeed appear well suited to Dragon.

Here's his note on them:

In one way or another they are usable wide open until about T4 on Dragon at 6K and 6K WS. However, the initial graphics involve "clean coverage". This is why Jim is right and the numbers are right. It is a very noticeable vignette roll off however. T1.4-T2.8 and up until T4 you may find success and lovely images.

Considering it's common for narrative to shoot btw T1.4 to T4, looks promising!!

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Yeah, if I remember Phil's write up on them, for all practical purposes...the Leica Summilux's indeed appear very usable on Dragon.

Definitely usable, unless you want to get a super wide FF 6K shot, but fact is that even if it vignettes on 6K FF once posted and finished to a 4k out, the vignetting will be gone.

Fact is I love them so much!!

Even so I give hard time to our Movi crew as they were not so easy to balance with the Epic +Side Handle...

 

[Ketch Rossi]

And here is a quick iPhone shot I just took of the Schneider Xenon 75mm been set up on the Movi by Fabius, so to bring this thread back on topic...

 

[Nick Morrison]

And here is a quick iPhone shot I just took of the Schneider Xenon 75mm been set up on the Movi by Fabius, so to bring this thread back on topic...

Ketch did you find the Xenons easier to balance than the Leica's?

 

[Nathaniel Opgenorth]

Even if glass doesn't cover 6K FF allot of the vignetting is at the very tip of the corners in 1.89:1 from what I've seen, I have a .r3d sample from a wide angle lens on Epic MX where their is vignetting, it was 1.89:1 5K and I cropped it down to 2.40:1 and the vignetting disappeared, If I'm not mistaken this was mentioned somewhere here on REDUser, a bit upsetting that allot of Super35 glass won't cover Dragon 6K but then I guess lens makers just need to keep up What really bothers me is for example Canon's newest cinema glass only covers 24.9mm~ across or something like that (not sure of the complete image circle but it won't cover nearly as much as others and only goes up to APS-H), it just doesn't make sense to me especially since they make the same glass in EF mount and they have full frame DSLR's that they say can take the glass! (and don't K35's cover 36x24?!) Besides I'm sure sensors will be getting bigger and bigger and while I can't speculate on whether 36x24mm sensors will be the norm some day for cinema cameras, having glass that covers 36x24 is a nice "better safe than sorry" approach. I don't see RED's aspect ratios as random with the exception of 2:1 which isn't that random (Univisium man!).

Well, I don't see it that way...

So, either my Retina screen is playing tricks or it surely looks to me that the Xenon are actually the sharpest wide open, when compared to all others...

Man those pictures are making my mouth water! The text on the glass and that blue ring are like homemade icing on a cake

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

Even if glass doesn't cover 6K FF allot of the vignetting is at the very tip of the corners in 1.89:1 from what I've seen, I have a .r3d sample from a wide angle lens on Epic MX where their is vignetting, it was 1.89:1 5K and I cropped it down to 2.40:1 and the vignetting disappeared, If I'm not mistaken this was mentioned somewhere here on REDUser, a bit upsetting that allot of Super35 glass won't cover Dragon 6K but then I guess lens makers just need to keep up What really bothers me is for example Canon's newest cinema glass only covers 24.9mm~ across or something like that (not sure of the complete image circle but it won't cover nearly as much as others and only goes up to APS-H), it just doesn't make sense to me especially since they make the same glass in EF mount and they have full frame DSLR's that they say can take the glass! Besides I'm sure sensors will be getting bigger and bigger and while I can't speculate on whether 36x24mm sensors will be the norm some day for cinema cameras, having glass that covers 36x24 is a nice "better safe than sorry" approach. I don't see RED's aspect ratios as random with the exception of 2:1 which isn't that random (Univisium man!).


Man those pictures are making my mouth water! The text on the glass and that blue ring are like homemade icing on a cake

I don't know where you get the numbers from but they make no sense.
24.9mm will barely cover 4/3"
Aps needs at least 29mm and super35 31mm.. Dragon needs 34-36mm which is close to APS-H (34mm)or maybe a bit more. There is no dedicated aps-h glass-photogs use FF glass for APS-H cameras.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

It would be nice if Red actually conformed to standards of the industry like the aspect ratio, formats. It would make it a lot easier on them to fit the camera system into the existing infrastructure of accessories like lenses, displays, matte boxes, filters, etc. Coming out with random aspect ratios and formats is why a lot of established DPs don't want to risk vignetting, framing and other fundamental issues on set.
OK-rant over

I have no issues with the larger sensor widths. And while I appreciate 1.89:1 or 2:1 as appealing formats, I wish the RED camera sensors had taller, more square sensors. This would better facilitate the use of anamorphics and on the EPIC-MX and Dragon we would be able to shoot full aperture Super35 and still have look-around area, or at least be able to use more of the lens' image circle real estate. When considering 6K full area on Dragon, we're about 20% wider than Super35 full aperture, but almost 14% shorter vertically. There is a diagonal of 34.64mm to cover fully… About 3.5mm larger diameter needed to cover full 6K on Dragon than to cover Full Aperture S35. Makes it tricky at times. Hard to explain to many shooters that they may have to choose between actually shooting 6K and being able to shoot with the wider focal lengths of their preferred lenses.

FWIW though, I've had little trouble with modern glass in the little bit I've shot Dragon. The Optimo 16-42 vignettes a bit at 16mm. The 15-40 is more apparent with its vignette, but I would say it still covers from 16mm onward. Any primes I've used that are actually supposed to cover Super35 with a 31mm+ image circle have not been a problem except a few here and there at focal lengths shorter than 20mm. RED's own 18mm RPP doesn't cover and the 25mm shows some vignette. The Ultra Primes seem to handle Dragon beautifully, as do the Summilux-C's and Cooke S5's...

Older lenses designed for Academy 35 and other formats that are a bit smaller than S35 tend to have a few issues. At least with Dragon we can specify that we want the recordable sensor width to be S35 sized or 4980px wide. Or record the whole thing and crop in post. There's plenty of creative freedom. …I'd still like 18.5mm, or better yet 20mm, sensor height to go along with that width though.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Ketch did you find the Xenons easier to balance than the Leica's?

Haven't done it yet, this is Fabius's (my Spanish Producer) Movi, and He can't finish as one piece gone missing, so He ordered the piece and we'll wait...

However, I believe that it should be on problem to balance the Movi with either lens, but I absolutely strongly advice any Movi user, and or any Gimbal user for that matter to NOT have to power off the camera's side handle, or for the other matter neither thru a V-Lock or AB mount battery on it's side, but instead find the other solution to mounted on the actual handle's bar atop the Movi, so to have some weight room to better and faster balance the camera set up.

...

Man those pictures are making my mouth water! The text on the glass and that blue ring are like homemade icing on a cake

Ha ha, they do look rater nice...

 

[Phil Holland]

It would be nice if Red actually conformed to standards of the industry like the aspect ratio, formats. It would make it a lot easier on them to fit the camera system into the existing infrastructure of accessories like lenses, displays, matte boxes, filters, etc. Coming out with random aspect ratios and formats is why a lot of established DPs don't want to risk vignetting, framing and other fundamental issues on set.
OK-rant over

Which is why Dragon's 5K has been designed to fit nearly exactly in Super 35mm 3-perf frame. Which DP's here in LA certainly desired. It's a multi-format system in reality which does conform to standard aspect ratios.

In these days of UHD where every display coming is either 16x9/1.78:1 or the few 1.9:1 (both of which are UHD standards set by the ITU) and the standard cinema delivery aspect ratios of 1.85:1 and 2.40:1 Red has designed the sensor to produce various formats that can be used later. Any S35 spherical job I have been on a good deal of negative was wasted on 4-perf, and we did use it for creative framing control. The only thing Red really pushed is the 2:1 aspect ratio, again something that has a bit of history and can be used to derive several deliverable aspect ratios out of.

The other thing Red has pushed is larger sensors, which clearly the market desires. Yes, it's not FF35 (yet). However, based on the lens coverage tests Dragon's 6K FF was designed to work with the vast majority of S35 designed primes and all FF35 lenses cover within their "sweet spot". So that's more or less a wash.

Shooting with 4x5.65" filters is the best overall solution for Dragon, unless you're on big glass then you need to go up a level in size anyways.


One thing I personally would like though is the ability to dial in my own custom resolutions and define them as a format in camera. For instance 6K 1.85:1 could potentially be 5846x3160 so you could directly towards that ratio in camera without a post crop involved. But maybe that's overkill. Cinema delivery aspect ratios tend to have people wanting more real estate to crop into. Maybe 16x9 is the most useful straight to screen resolution anyways.

 

[Louis Maddalena]

However, I believe that it should be on problem to balance the Movi with either lens, but I absolutely strongly advice any Movi user, and or any Gimbal user for that matter to NOT have to power off the camera's side handle, or for the other matter neither thru a V-Lock or AB mount battery on it's side, but instead find the other solution to mounted on the actual handle's bar atop the Movi, so to have some weight room to better and faster balance the camera set up.

These lenses do balance on the Movi although they are a little bit front heavy in comparison to lenses we used in the past. Although they are really light, they are actually longer so the weight is a little bit further up. I also agree with Ketch, I find the best thing to do with the Movi is either have the battery attached to the handle / top bar, or we've even experimented with battery belts to help relieve some weight from the users arms.

 

[Jiri Vrozina]

OK.
So after 2 weeks of stills and talk lets see some real every day video shots or even better "shoot out" between affordable Cinema Glass and Photography Canon CN-e & Zeiss CP.2 primes.
I would really welcome it.
And to make it more interesting, bring along new Otus 55 and new Sigma 50 Art for fun of it
Who would like to take on this "Pepsi Challenge" ? Lets see, any takers? ;-)

 

[Nathaniel Opgenorth]

I don't know where you get the numbers from but they make no sense.
24.9mm will barely cover 4/3"
Aps needs at least 29mm and super35 31mm.. Dragon needs 34-36mm which is close to APS-H (34mm)or maybe a bit more. There is no dedicated aps-h glass-photogs use FF glass for APS-H cameras.

I was talking about the horizontal coverage since off the top of my head I didn't have image circle coverage ready. And of course there is no dedicated APS-H glass, its just that some APS-C/S35 glass covers slightly more. So running the numbers now 31.11 diagonal aka how much image circle it covers.

I have no issues with the larger sensor widths. And while I appreciate 1.89:1 or 2:1 as appealing formats, I wish the RED camera sensors had taller, more square sensors. This would better facilitate the use of anamorphics and on the EPIC-MX and Dragon we would be able to shoot full aperture Super35 and still have look-around area, or at least be able to use more of the lens' image circle real estate. When considering 6K full area on Dragon, we're about 20% wider than Super35 full aperture, but almost 14% shorter vertically. There is a diagonal of 34.64mm to cover fully… About 3.5mm larger diameter needed to cover full 6K on Dragon than to cover Full Aperture S35. Makes it tricky at times. Hard to explain to many shooters that they may have to choose between actually shooting 6K and being able to shoot with the wider focal lengths of their preferred lenses.

FWIW though, I've had little trouble with modern glass in the little bit I've shot Dragon. The Optimo 16-42 vignettes a bit at 16mm. The 15-40 is more apparent with its vignette, but I would say it still covers from 16mm onward. Any primes I've used that are actually supposed to cover Super35 with a 31mm+ image circle have not been a problem except a few here and there at focal lengths shorter than 20mm. RED's own 18mm RPP doesn't cover and the 25mm shows some vignette. The Ultra Primes seem to handle Dragon beautifully, as do the Summilux-C's and Cooke S5's...

Older lenses designed for Academy 35 and other formats that are a bit smaller than S35 tend to have a few issues. At least with Dragon we can specify that we want the recordable sensor width to be S35 sized or 4980px wide. Or record the whole thing and crop in post. There's plenty of creative freedom. …I'd still like 18.5mm, or better yet 20mm, sensor height to go along with that width though.

I'd be guessing but I'd say that with the tendency to shoot 2.39:1 via Super35 and 1.89:1 being the DCI standard RED went with a longer sensor to make shooting 2.39:1 flat more sensible which makes sense since no one shoots 4:3 for 4:3 anymore...that said I agree! The Alexa 4:3 sensor is great for anamorphic and in the future if possible I'd love to see a 36x27mm sensor in one camera for being able to shoot in a variety of creative modes without loosing too much DoF and sensor space. But yeah on the Dragon I say shoot full 6K even if you have slight vignetting and crop as needed as most people aren't even finishing in 5K let alone 6K....

 

[Nick Morrison]

These lenses do balance on the Movi although they are a little bit front heavy in comparison to lenses we used in the past. Although they are really light, they are actually longer so the weight is a little bit further up. I also agree with Ketch, I find the best thing to do with the Movi is either have the battery attached to the handle / top bar, or we've even experimented with battery belts to help relieve some weight from the users arms.

When you says these you men Xenons or Leica's? Just want to make sure! Thanks!

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

I was talking about the horizontal coverage since off the top of my head I didn't have image circle coverage ready. And of course there is no dedicated APS-H glass, its just that some APS-C/S35 glass covers slightly more. So running the numbers now 31.11 diagonal aka how much image circle it covers.

That's just bizarre: I've never heard of horizontal coverage- it makes no sense either. I guess there is first time for everything

 

[Ketch Rossi]

When you says these you men Xenons or Leica's? Just want to make sure! Thanks!

He is most likely referring to both lenses Nick, as they share the same design vs say an Ultra prime, which is more compact, shorter, and shorter bulkier lenses make an easier balancing do to their center of gravity then longer lenses, as the Summilux C. Primes and the Xenon.

 

[Fabius Rubio]

They are terrific! Ketch is right, we couldn't have done a better purchase, for the invested amount