New mini primes or Canon L series lenses?

[Pascal Payant]

With the new scarlet coming up. what would be the best quality lenses? I already own a couple of L series of Canon. would it be wise to sell them to buy mini primes of RED or to keep them. my goal is feature film.

thanks

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Well, it's somewhat of an apple and oranges comparison. If you stick with Canon glass, they are designed to cover 35mm sensors and have appropriate focal lengths to match. So, even the widest Canon (or Canon mount) lenses are only going to take you as wide as 11mm, in some cases to 8mm or shorter/ wider, but with a lot of distortion. The wider focal lengths are not going to be as sharp when designed to cover the larger sensor.

The Scarlet-Cinema (as we currently know it) has a 2/3" sensor, which is only 37% as large as the 5K MX sensor. You need much shorter focal lengths to achieve the same relative framing and you also need generally sharper lenses due to the more densely packed photosites and higher resolution in terms of lp/mm. Mini primes are all rectilinear, even at their 6mm widest. They are much smaller and are designed for coverage of the smaller 2/3" sensor.

If you're more comfortable thinking in terms of crop factors, the Scarlet 2/3" sensor is a 3.5X crop from FF35 format or a 2.7X crop from EPIC-5K or a 2.4X crop from S35 / APS-C.

So, if you shoot something on S35 with a 25mm lens with a desired subject distance of 20ft, you would need roughly a 10mm lens to achieve the same subject distance and field of view on a 2/3" Scarlet. If you also want to replicate the shallower DOF of the 25mm focal length, you would need to open up the aperture on the 10mm lens about 2.5 stops to approximate the same perceived shallowness.

The look of the 2/3" Scarlet should be very comparable to 16mm film and HD formats in terms of the angle of view and depth of field, at least in most situations. Which is fine, a great many award-winning films have been shot on such formats. I think many people will find the Scarlet cameras to fit their needs. Some people will prefer the larger format of the RED ONE, EPIC or upcoming EPIC-S (which was formerly known as the Scarlet-S35).

 

[Pascal Payant]

interesting.

but quality wise are they both the same. canon will be sharper and cleaner than the red? the same? red is better? quality wise i mean

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

35mm glass might be bad because the glass clarity is designed to a larger sensor, on a 2/3" you'll need glass with good lp/mm.

If you don't have any glass and want to invest in a 2/3" Scarlet for yourself (for a more cine-style usage) go with Mini-primes.

If you want glass for several uses and even low level rental, go with Canons and add a Mini-prime to cover the necessity for wide angle.

Pascal, we can't know if they are the same, from the few stills released shot with the Mini-primes (and even the 8x fixed lens) optical quality is amazing, as with anything RED, great quality for a moderate price.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

but quality wise are they both the same. canon will be sharper and cleaner than the red? the same? red is better? quality wise i mean

Since both the camera and mini primes are not available, we can't really compare. I'm going to say that given the quality of the RED Pro Primes, we can expect the RED Mini Primes to be exceptional as well. Given that they are designed specifically for the smaller format with appropriate coverage and range of focal lengths, they should be an optically excellent choice. I look forward to trying them out for myself.

 

[Patrick Meehan]

I'd go with the fact that dedicated Red mini primes will be optically stunning. Mostly for the part of glass being optimised for the sensor that is to be selected for the Scarlet.

I know that I will keep my L glass and 5D MKII since this is a staple piece of kit and needs good glass of its own. will i sell my canon kit later? quite possibly but you won't loose anything from holding onto L glass. My only suggestion is to remember that Canon glass is great but more so the use of canon glass differs to the use of 'cine" glass. Eg. Cine Barrel markings on cine lenses with equal distance markings vs magnetic barrel with window markings not equally spaced. etc These play a big part of the use as well as optimised optics.

In short, I'm keeping my Canon kit for now and if the Scarlet covers my photographic needs fully then I'll sell my Canon gear. If not then I'll keep both. The thought of selling and having more dedicated Red mini primes is tempting though!

 

[Graeme Hay]

Personally the fixed sound like the best deal for me (I have reasons) however I would likely go for red primes over canon glass (I own none right now) rather than spend $2000 over and above the glass for an extra mount (no if you could pick your mount... Totally different story)

That said I have Nikon glass so pricing is a big part if I'm only looking at getting two or three primes ( thus the whole interchange would likely be the better deal for me)