Optimo Style 25-250 or Alura 45-250

[Ashish Mittal]

Hi All,

We're a small rental house and we're looking at buying a zoom lens to use with Red Dragons/Epics and Ultra Prime lenses. However, within our constrained budget we are looking at purchasing either an Optimo Style 25-250 T3.5 or Alura 45-250 T2.6

The only downside I feel to the Optimo is that its a T3.5, otherwise I feel this may be the right choice of lens to buy. Please share your thoughts, so it may help us decide.

Best,

Ashish Mittal
Skywork Studios
3ality TS5 - 3D Rig, Red Dragon/Epic,
Matched Pair of Arri Ultra Primes,

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

I think the Alura only covers 4k.

The Style would be my vote. I miss the old HRs

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I have a Fujinon Cabrio 19-90, which covers 6K (just). It's a great lens for a DRAGON, if it's not outside of your budget. The 19mm is wide enough to be wide, and the 90, cropped to 4K, is a pretty decent 135.

I might be willing to sell my Cabrio to upgrade to a Fujinon Premier 18-85, so PM me if interested.

 

[Erich Roland]

the Canon 30-300 should also be considered.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

If the numbers work for your situation, I second Erich's tout of the Canon 30-300. Performance wise it's a beast with excellent MTF and chroma index. You will want to check coverage at the wide end with Dragon, as I saw some vignetting even on MX at 5K FF.

Cheers - #19

 

[Ajay Kumar]

Ashish even i am in same confused state you are, I even payed advance for Optimo Style 25-250mm thinking it's Optimo but withdrawn the order as it's T 3.5.
Let's see it's performance once released in this fall.

 

[Ashish Mittal]

Thanks for your thoughts guys, actually the problem in India is that DP's are only comfortable using either the Alura or Optimo lenses. They refuse to shoot with any other brand here, so unfortunately, we'll have to decide between these two lenses, even though i've heard that the Canon lens is amazing for the price point.

 

[Ignacio Aguilar]

For a rental house, I'd buy the new Optimo 25-250mm. You'll probably will amortize the lens in less time. The Angenieux has a broader range, it's newer and if you own Red cameras with their bigger than Super 35 sensors, it's coverage will be better as well. Plus clients will be more confortable matching it with both Cooke and Zeiss lenses, being the Alura an Arri product (joint venture with Fujinon, but since they also do lenses with Zeiss as well, some people always associate them). The Angenieux is a bit slower than the Alura, but lately, I've seen many people asking for the old HR (also T/3.5) instead of the Optimo 24-290mm (T/2.8) for similar applications just because it's smaller in size and weights less, without concerns about it being less appropiate for low-light conditions. The new 25-250mm will do that as well, but probably with an improved performance (I've only seen a demo unit here in Spain).