Panasonic LA7200 Anamorphic test

[James_Mills]

(watch on vimeo's page to see in HD, makes a significant difference with this particular video for some reason: https://vimeo.com/62218014 )Just for fun, we wanted to test the sharpness of the Panasonic LA7200 on a Scarlet for daytime exteriors. I never post my stuff on here but figured I'd share this with y'all to hear your opinions on the look and whether or not I should use it more. To be honest, the results far exceeded my expectations, as while there's lots of CA (there usually seems to be with anamorphic, but moreso here I think), I like the look of it and it's surprisingly sharp. The real test comes soon with nighttime exteriors and open apertures. Shot on the RED Scarlet with a 24-70 Canon 2.8 and a Panasonic LA7200 Anamorphic Adapter (and ND8 filter, aperture was usually around 10). Very little color correction done.

 

[Brant Hadfield]

I think it looks fantastic. So does your LUT. Are you getting those colors in camera? Is the adapter doing any of that? What sort of Look are you using?

 

[Mike P.]

Does the LA7200 reduce light at all (e.g. f2.8 is now f4)? Also, did it work with the entire range (24 up to 70) or did it really suck at particular focal lengths (e.g. the wide end)?

How did you use ND? How did a mattebox fit? Also how are you attaching the 7200 to your 24-70? (edit: maybe show a pic of the rig? what about posting a couple .r3d stills... ...screw it, I'm pming you.)

 

[Andy White]

There's a 'floppy' mattebox built for the LA7200 - http://www.cinetactics.com/-strse-6/Matteblox-Anamorphic/Detail.bok

I don't know if James used it. I bought one a while ago to experiment with my Lomos.

 

[James_Mills]

I think it looks fantastic. So does your LUT. Are you getting those colors in camera? Is the adapter doing any of that? What sort of Look are you using?

My in camera settings were just my "Quick Correct" preset I have set for the camera start up: redgamma3 / redcolor3, saturation 1.2, FLUT -.300, and Contrast .1. I then just tweaked the lumas in Avid Symphony a little, didn't mess with the color though.

This sounds crazy, but my friends and I were marveling with the way the adapter seemed to both add a little latitude while simultaneously giving it a more saturated look... the two would appear to be mutually exclusive obviously, but that's the effect it looked like on camera. It's the same effect we noticed when I shot some shorts with the adapter on a 5d a while back.

 

[ericyoung]

Looks very nice - I have an LA7200 sitting on my shelf which would be good to find a use for :smile:

What adapter are you using James?

 

[James_Mills]

Does the LA7200 reduce light at all (e.g. f2.8 is now f4)? Also, did it work with the entire range (24 up to 70) or did it really suck at particular focal lengths (e.g. the wide end)?

How did you use ND? How did a mattebox fit? Also how are you attaching the 7200 to your 24-70? (edit: maybe show a pic of the rig? what about posting a couple .r3d stills... ...screw it, I'm pming you.)

Not sure if it reduces light very much, but if it does, I didn't notice much when shooting shorts with it on the 5D a while ago. I did notice with that camera how much softer it gets at apertures below 4 on its own, so that's why I used the cokin p +1 diopter to get it sharper at lower f stops. This also applies to the focal length, as when at 70mm it's harder to get focus on anything within 6 feet of you at open apertures without the diopter. With the diopter it was fine on the 5D, interested to test on the Scarlet. I'm going to San Diego on Monday for a few days and am thinking of busting out a few fast lenses and trying it out with them.

On the Scarlet it works great with the entire 24-70 range, whereas it would vignette at 26 and below on the 5D. And it doesn't suck at any focal length I've tried out so far, it just makes it so you can't focus close at higher focal lengths when more open than f4 (but the diopter fixes this). When I do my next test I'll take some photos of how I have this setup with the diopter velcro'd to the adapter. Also, I used the ND filter right on the lens itself and then screwed the adapter right onto it. It's actually insanely convenient like this because I can just zoom to any length I want and I don't have to do a double focus (the adapter doesn't need separate focusing like a lot of other ones, my sankor16c for instance).

If you guys could help explain to me how to pull and post the .r3d files, I'd be glad to share them with you... excuse my ignorance, I've never done that before (eek)

 

[Paramon Ivanovich]

The real test comes soon with nighttime exteriors and open apertures.

you'll be surprised
i mean it's better than Ok for what you pay for it, in my case i have it since my PD150 ))
shot this test yesterday, Tokina @16mm f2.8

 

[ericyoung]

you'll be surprised
i mean it's better than Ok for what you pay for it, in my case i have it since my PD150 ))
shot this test yesterday, Tokina @16mm f2.8

Really nice spooky feel to that footage :smile:

 

[James_Mills]

you'll be surprised
i mean it's better than Ok for what you pay for it, in my case i have it since my PD150 ))
shot this test yesterday, Tokina @16mm f2.8

Beautiful, thanks so much for sharing. However I know the la7200 on a wide lens is great at all apertures, it's the 50mm + at 4 or below that's in question... we should both do some tests and compare, this is fun.

Looks very nice - I have an LA7200 sitting on my shelf which would be good to find a use for :smile:

What adapter are you using James?

I didn't use an adapter as the la7200 is an adapter itself. i just used a step down ring to get from 77mm (the 24-70) to 72, and then broke the glass out of a cheap uv filter to mount to the LA7200 so that it attaches to the lens better.

 

[Paramon Ivanovich]

it's the 50mm + at 4 or below that's in question...

very true, but to my eye even 35mm @ wider than f5.6 aperture has heavy ca and really bad corners,
but i still like this piece

 

[Christopher Mills]

Question.. about round diopter

Question.. about round diopter

would it work to use a round threaded diopter between the taking lens and the Panasonic 7200? I mean, would that get close focus closer?

 

[James_Mills]

would it work to use a round threaded diopter between the taking lens and the Panasonic 7200? I mean, would that get close focus closer?

I haven't seen that done, but it makes sense. As of right now, the little cokin filter holder with the cokin diopter makeshift rig I set up does the job really well.

 

[Christopher Barry]

Chris, here is an example of a diopter/close up filter between the taking lens and the LA7200. This fliter is probably limited to a particular lens with matching filter size, if you can find one...

 

[James_Mills]

As requested, here are some r3d's at 24, 50, and 70mm (two of each; the 70s are the surfer ones and the over the shoulder one with the shore in the background)

Hopefully these worked...

EDIT: it won't let me attach them to the post, it reads "Invalid File". Any suggestions?

 

[Zack Birlew]

I have a Panasonic anamorphic adapter as well and I've talked about it at length on the boards before. You don't lose any light with the adapter but as has been noted on this thread, you really need to stop things down a bit to compensate for the loss of sharpness. I've tested it on just my SLR lenses and it works best with lenses that have 62mm filter threads or less. Things are different from Full Frame and S35. For instance, the Tokina 11-16 can be a soft cornered 16mm anamorphic on a S35 camera but it's unusable with the adapter on a Full Frame camera (despite the lens working on its own at 16mm without the adapter). I've wanted to try the Nikon 20mm 2.8 as it has 62mm threads but I haven't had the money or time to get one and test. The widest on Full Frame that I've tried is 28mm using a small cheap 52mm threaded Tokina 28mm 2.8 and it rocks! That brings up another point, the adapter works best on prime lenses. I've had it working pretty nicely on a 52mm threaded Soligor 35-70 3.5 Macro at all lengths but when put on a 67mm threaded Tokina 28-105 2.8 and even my 72mm threaded Canon 28-135 3.5 kit lens things fall apart on the long end and become nearly impossible to focus with, not to mention there are vignetting issues up to about 35-50 range on both lenses. However, using a Soligor 135mm 2.8 prime lens it's just fine. Rotating lenses are the enemy as well, my Tokina 80-200 2.8 works just fine from 85mm onward but is unreasonable to use as I'd have to recenter the adapter constantly with each adjustment in focal length. With 4K resolution the adapter's flaws in overall sharpness are slightly lessened but otherwise it does what it's supposed to do and that's why I can't believe nobody hasn't made another anamorphic adapter like it since.

 

[James_Mills]

So I went out earlier this week and shot a good deal of low light ext stuff with the LA7200 on a canon 50 1.4 and a rokinon 85 1.4. Only now after returning have I had time to play with the footage.

Even with the diopter, at short range distances the LA7200 is basically unusable at anything under 2.8, and for longer focusing it's absolutely unusable below 2.8. It's all just too soft, although I will admit that at 50mm I could occasionally get a really nice, pretty crisp image at 1.4 (not so much with the 85). I think if you're going to use the adapter at low light, try not to ever go below 2.8 and err on the side of using a wider lens in general (as you can see from the video posted earlier by Paramon, the wide angle stuff is pretty buttery even at 2.8).

In good news though, I was VERY impressed with the Scarlet's handling of low light situations... and when I did some tests without the LA7200 and just the taking lenses, at 1.4 the stuff looked exposed great and was VERY sharp still. In RedCine i bumped it to 1600 and, even without any post denoising, I was extremely happy with the look. Little to no noise at 1600 in my blacks at 4k resolution... now if only that was the same for my slowmo stuff... I see ridiculous noise at 2k sensor when shooting slowmo, same for 3k usually.

Also a weird thing happened to me when doing this test: randomly my monitor would not show me the differences in ISOs. It was so weird, I would have to restart the camera and then it would eventually stop showing me the differences again, it would just lock to one level. Granted I could fix it in post, but should I be worried about this?

 

[James_Mills]

Chris, here is an example of a diopter/close up filter between the taking lens and the LA7200. This fliter is probably limited to a particular lens with matching filter size, if you can find one...

For the life of me I STILL cannot tell the difference in those comparisons he does with and without the diopter...

 

[Stuart Hooper]

I've used the LA7200 extensively with the GH2 and 3 and I find it to be vastly underrated on the internet. Good to see it working with 4K, though in general I think smaller sensors and smaller lenses (such as Panasonic glass) seem to give it the best performance.

 

[Paramon Ivanovich]

in general I think smaller sensors and smaller lenses (such as Panasonic glass) seem to give it the best performance.

because it was designed for 1/3" sensor