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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 :)

NAB 2012 optics post op...

Evin Grant

Evin Grant

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OK, my wife is driving back so I can get this all to you hot off the floor...

In alphabetical order...

Angenieux:
The real news here is the 28-340mm T3.2 Optimo, basically the 12:1 optimo with a magnification increase ofi 1.16x. The new formula is appereantly even sharper than the original. The good news is that this version is only a few grand more than the original 24-290. Of course you already know the original sells for $72K so there's the bad news.

The new ENG motors for the short zooms look great and exactly what you would expect form them. (Video to come)

NABOptimos.jpg


Canon:
I got to play a little bit with the 30-300 and I have to say the wight and breathing seemed very nice. A bit hard to tell sharpness and other metrics on the show floor but I'm encouraged. Focus ring did seem a bit stiff though that may be just because it's fresh out the box.

I got to plsy with the 30-105 hands on, it seemed nice, good breathing control a bit of distortion but overall pretty good.
The 15,5-47 was in a case. I'll be curious to see where these actually end up price wise.

NABCanon.jpg


Fujinon:
The new 19-90 Cabrio is impressive, again it's hard to see metrics but at least they had one on an Epic so I zoomed into 1:1 and it seemed to Perform well, at least in the center. This is no scientific test but it bodes well. Breathing was also better controlled than I had expected. Maybe not quite as well as the Optimos but pretty darn good. I was able to see a little bit of barrel distortion at the wide end and pincushion at the tele, but again probably only slightly more than the short Optimos.

In addition to the 19-90 Fujinon also showed a cased prototype of an 85-300mm T2.9 which was only slightly longer and heavier.
They should have completed prototypes at the end of the year

NABFuji.jpg


Schneider:
They showed there new T2-2.2 primes, hard to say much, they looked good, slightly larger than Ultras.
Can't wait to give them a spin.

NABzenars.jpg


Zeiss:
Zeiss showed the new CP 70-200mm T2.8, built very nicely like the other CPs, didn't really have a way to do an eval but it looked very Zeis like for color. Breathong seemed well cntrolled at the tele, adequate a the wide.

NABZeiss.jpg
 
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So what's the future of the red primes? The web store shows less than 20 lenses in inventory. Is this the end? I'm really surprised nothing's been teased.
 
Thanks Evin, did you see anything in the RPP category? I recently moved to RPP, but now I'm not sure what to do because RED has gone silent on their lenses. I'm looking for something like a real cinema lens (i.e. better then the cp2) but at the current RPP cost/quality point (which are a way less then panchro). I'm starting to worry that I should have gone with panchro rather then RPP, if RPP is a dead end (which btw ... doesn't make business sense to me).
 
The Schneiders caught my eye too: basically they seem to have fixed the ergonomic issues with the original Cine Xenars. Switched focus & iris rings around, and changed to internal focus so no more barreling forward. They listened.

The bad news, they took the chance to jack the price up to ~$48k for a set of six; now well out of RPP territory.

RED folks I spoke to were saying -nothing- about lenses, and saying it loud and clear...

Mike
 
Evin,
I agree with most of what you are saying. I was surprised at the breathing on the zeiss 70-200, it's slight but not what I would expect from a long zoom. The canon zooms also surprised me but in a good way. Very impressed with the 30-300. The cabrio, great concept,pretty good Lens for the applications that it is designed for. Angenieux, well , they're angenieux. Simply wonderful but I can't afford them. I'll check out the schneiders tomorrow.
 
Disappointed that we still don't have any new news about the RPAs.

I guess the fact that the new 6K Dragon sensor is Super35 instead of 3:2 FF35 means they'll be on the side burner for quite a while longer.
 
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The Re 18-85 is a great lens but heavy compared to the cabrio. The Aluras are good too but again in a different weight catagory.
The ideal system for fast moving narrative TV and indie features is a combo of a 10:1 or 12:1 zoom and 2-3 lightweight handheld/steadicam zooms. All around the T3 range.
 
I was really liking the Fujinon 19-90 Cabrio. When you hook up a Preston FIZ 3 to it the motors for focus, iris and zoom are built into the cabrio handle. Pretty slick. Also the zoom control for on the shoulder doc style work is very smooth and easy to achieve great zooms slow or fast. The Cabrio handle comes of with 4 bolts if you want to run it that way and loose another pound off the lens. Had a quick look at some of the Canon PL Primes. They looked pretty good too and full frame coverage.
 
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One note on "look" I was definately able to discern a specific look to each of these brands, if you're a Canon L fan then the Canon Cine zooms will appeal to you, I like the Optimo look A LOT and of course that is very consistent across the range. The Zeiss zoom had that slightly cool, crisp Zeiss look and the Fujinon, well it's definately a Japanese look, very crisp but smooth, very similar to the look of thier ENG lenses (not a bad thing) It's hard to say exactly, since they haven't made cine lense of very long. Now if I could just convince Nikon to jump in :P
 
PatrickFaith said:
Thanks Evin, did you see anything in the RPP category? I recently moved to RPP, but now I'm not sure what to do because RED has gone silent on their lenses. I'm looking for something like a real cinema lens (i.e. better then the cp2) but at the current RPP cost/quality point (which are a way less then panchro). I'm starting to worry that I should have gone with panchro rather then RPP, if RPP is a dead end (which btw ... doesn't make business sense to me).
Click to expand...

Jarred talks about the RRP's in his Questions thread:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?77310-Questions&p=989169&viewfull=1#post989169
 
Did anyone see the Zeiss Anamorphics that were announced in the fall?
 
Brian Broz said:
Did anyone see the Zeiss Anamorphics that were announced in the fall?
Click to expand...

i think there was only a prototype 50 1.5 on an Alexa 4:3 in the Arri booth. full set and details to come at IBC later in the year. appears these lenses are a co-development between Arri and Zeiss like for instance Master Primes rather than a standalone effort from Zeiss like Cp.2's and the new 70-200
 
Any more details(pics) on the new Schneider Cine Xenars? I heard they listened to the professional community and have changed to internal focusing so no more barreling forward when focusing and the iris gear is now closer to rear of the lens instead of the other way around. A video from NAB would be good since not even Schneider's website has been updated to reflect these changes. I also heard they've added a couple focal lengths BUT have jacked their prices way up for a six-lense set. Need a video or info from the show floor to confirm all this...
 
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