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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 :)

Optar Illumina Super-16 Lenses

Why not put them up for auction on eBay? I'd be interested in bidding...
 
PM'ed you a couple of days ago; no reply?
 
But bumped 2 days ago...

OH.

Bumped one year ago, commented on a year later to the day!

Doh.

Just shoot me; no point in trying to wake me up!

Mike
 
For what it is worth, I took a S16 set and SI2K into a local caryard to try the lenses in the realworld where there was lots of contrast, hot spots and hostile bright overcast to provoke any vices. Forgive the camerman for he knows not what he does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-e_3BSg4uM

( Test of Illumina lenses on SI2K with ND9 and IR filters to enable lens iris setting of T4, closer to lens sweet zone of T2 - T2.8. Focus by camera sharpness numbers, not by eyematch. trusting the camera if you have time does make a difference. )
 
Nice footage, there isn't a lot out there that I've seen---thanks for posting! I'm interested in this set of lenses for some personal projects where I want an older/organic film look on a budget. I've seen a recent set go on eBay for under $4000 and think between $4k and $5k is the most I would be willing to spend. I've read some mixed reviews but most of all think the life span of s16 glass is only probably ~5 years away (for commercial/broadcast work that is). NAB was all about 4k and with the F5 on the horizon it looks like folks are falling in line with RED standards.
 
Curt Schulz said:
Nice footage, there isn't a lot out there that I've seen---thanks for posting! I'm interested in this set of lenses for some personal projects where I want an older/organic film look on a budget. I've seen a recent set go on eBay for under $4000 and think between $4k and $5k is the most I would be willing to spend. I've read some mixed reviews but most of all think the life span of s16 glass is only probably ~5 years away (for commercial/broadcast work that is). NAB was all about 4k and with the F5 on the horizon it looks like folks are falling in line with RED standards.
Click to expand...

Tell that to all the people who are about to buy the new S16 Pocket Camera from Blackmagic.
 
I think that those folks want it for indie films and personal projects and web (same reason I want it). I think 5 years down the road not many folks will be wanting or buying pricey s16 glass. Do you think commercial and broadcast will want projects acquired at 1080p 5 years from now? Perhaps.
 
The $4,000 set listed by the vendor in Belarus, I was going to bid on but I left it a bit late. I got a 35mm Super16mm Elite from the same vendor. It was the very last lens on the test clip.

I am hanging onto my SI2K camera for mainly personal projects. Had the Scarlet come along before I bought into it, I would probably have gone with the Scarlet but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

As for Super16mm sized sensors and the new crop of cameras. There's a quite few fullbody SI2Ks around that will soldier on and quite a few Mini kits tethered to custom recorders or laptops. The investment into and the depreciation are a disincentive to quitting them when they are still a good workhorse. Except for weight, they are more user-friendly, firmware and OS are well matured and stable. The kits are already built up in many instances, needing no added brackets and stuff.

It is going to be interesting to see where Kinefinity goes from here-on in.
 
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I wouldn't dismiss Super 16 in five years. I wouldn't dismiss 4k either - but there's no requirement that a 4k sensor be S35, and I suspect that there very well may be S16 4k sensors down the road.

The Pocket Cam is far from perfect, but does seem well suited to some crash cam and tight quarters shooting that even the Epic is too big or expensive for. Also, bokeh is great, but in some situations the deeper depth of field of S16 is a benefit.

Furthermore, historically RED has offered higher frame rates in windowed modes. The RED One MX allows high frame shooting at 2k S16 - and if you use S35 lenses it's hard to get a good wide. Even as sensors improve and we get 8k S35 imagers, we may still be offered windowed 4k S16 crops for high frame rate shooting.

I actually think S16 glass may be more viable in 5 years - the Black magic Pocket cam is dirt cheap, and I suspect every film school kid will buy one because it's in the sweet spot of affordability and utility. The low cost and reasonable codec also means larger productions will buy stacks of them just like they buy Go Pros. They're so cheap their disposable.

So, I wouldn't write off S16 glass.
 
Never really thought of s16 4k sensor. Doesn't seem viable but what do I know. Would be interesting that's for sure. Is anyone producing new super 16 glass? In five years (at the rate things are moving) most (not all) film school kids will want to work with s35 sensors with s35 glass since still glass is so abundant and affordable. But there will always be a place for super 16 glass with some people---I'm not writing it off, I just think that if you are going to spend over $5k on glass make sure you can get a good turn on your investment in the next five years as (IMHO) it won't retain it's value like old school 35m glass:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Balta...294?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item417266fcf6
 
Some of the "apparent" inferior results from sensor cropping 4K+ cameras to 2K ( super16mm ) may well be attributable to using 35mm lenses. The sharpness numbers on the Si2K are well down with 35mm lenses in the ballpark of 65 - 72, where the S16 lenses are reported as up to twice that. The S16 lenses are also sharper where you may need them in a lower budget situation, lower light where they are generally sweetest in the zone T2 - T4. The CP Ultra Ts and the Illuminas favoured between T2 and T2.8 for best sharpness.

For your interest I shot some outdoors tests for the other SI2K owner today with CP Ultra T lenses. The Belarus vendor "rafcamera" has two in Aaton mount and there are others on eBay in CP-Mount and Arri Standard Mount. The CP Ultras were originally engineered by Kowa for standard 16mm. The 9mm needs a mod to be good for Super16mm and it is a bit softer in the corners but the sharpest of the lot in the centre. Ken Hale at Whitehouse AV may have some in stock again. He remounts and collimates them into PL-Mounts.

Here's the clip. Please forgive the levels and grading off the RAW. I am a bit colour-blind.

https://vimeo.com/64388455


As for old 35mm glass, with all the new 35mm lenses coming through, the value of the older 35mm cine lenses may fall away but I agree, they may not be as orphaned as S16 lenses may become. There and again, who knows what may become trendy in the future as paperthin DOF becomes passe.
 
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"There and again, who knows what may become trendy in the future as paperthin DOF becomes passe."

So true!
 
I wasn't aware of the CP Ultra T lenses... How do they compare with the Optars? (The footage looks good!) They seem very inexpensive and might be a good alternative. This is turning into a good thread (especially with Roberts great video samples) on super 16 glass so I will add this: http://www.cinematechnic.com/resources/optics_for_super-16.html. I find it a good reference for production years of certain lenses, orig price. You can get some of the s16 zooms on ebay for cheap (some that were new in 2002). Alas, I want primes...
 
Curt - I'm looking at it as a supply and demand issue. Before the video DSLR craze you had to make a serious cash investment to shoot S35. The RED One was part of that revolution - but wasn't something everyone could afford. It was a rental society. Now, with camera bodies being so cheap, we live in a camera ownership society.

Price drives sales. Before the Blackmagic Pocket Cam I couldn't tell you a cheap digital way to shoot S16. With the camera bodies now being so cheap, so portable, people won't want to bother renting the camera. They'll own it. And the Pocket Cam won't be an A cam for many - but it may be a speciality cam.

Places something like the Pocket Cam will excel:
*Aerial drones - super lightweight and small
*Car mounting - small suction cups, no large hostess tray required
*Smooth tracking for productions that can't afford Steadicam
*Airplane mounting
*remote industrial mounting (I love to put cameras on large machinery and assembly lines)
*nature photography (has an Lanc port for remote triggering)
*Interview B Camera
*Lightweight jib work for productions with limited budgets

In all of these applications, shallow depth of field is more of a liability than a benefit, so the deeper depth of field of S16 is not a problem.

If lots of these cameras sell, expect the glass to sell too. Once people are reinvested in the glass, then manufacturers will continue to sell cameras that match the owned glass - as buyers won't want to reinvest.
 
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