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Schneider Xenar III vs Cooke MiniS4 Shootout

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Martin Whittier

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This past Saturday I met up with fellow filmmaker and Cooke miniS4 owner Tom Fanelle to compare his glass with my newly acquired Schneider Xenar IIIs. Unless I've somehow missed it, I have never seen these two sets directly compared in the same test event. The closest I've ever come is a shootout between the Xenar IIs and miniS4 but you never know what could have changed with coatings and optics. And since these two sets are within only a few thousand dollars of each other this is the most desirable test from my stand point as a recent buyer. This is all to say that we ran a series of real world comparisons in stressful lighting conditions. We looked at breathing, distortion, flaring, color rendition on skin tones, and chromatic aberration for the most part. CA was a big concern of mine because in the older version 2 shootout the Xenars didn't fair as well and I wanted to see if this was still true.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to everyones comments and opinions on this test.

See test results here: http://blog.brumarfilms.com
 
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My full write up on this test is now on my blog. http://blog.brumarfilms.comhttp://blog.brumarfilms.com R3Ds and JPEGs are available to download there. I look forward to the continued conversation.

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UPDATE: Video is being cut right now and all the still grabs are prepped, we will be wrapping up the edit and copy for the blog tonight and tomorrow. Should have something real soon. I'm very excited to share this with everyone.
 
Brandon, at 1080p they are very difficult to tell apart. At 4K is where you start to see subtle differences. I have lots of crop-ins and side by sides to illustrate different characteristics
 
Martin Whittier said:
Brandon, at 1080p they are very difficult to tell apart. At 4K is where you start to see subtle differences. I have lots of crop-ins and side by sides to illustrate different characteristics
Click to expand...

Martin, thank you so much for taking the time to do this and being generous enough to share your findings with us.

SO APPRECIATED!!!
 
Tommaso, those pics were just to give you guys something quick while I waited for my new Redstation mini to arrive. To answer your question it was a 1080p capture via sdi into my Decklink...actual test images will be from R3D compressed to JPEG at level 10 and R3Ds will also be available for download.
 
video posted, blog is next.
 
Fun stuff.

If possible I'll chime in with a few neat things as I purchased the Cine-Xenar IIIs last year and shoot a lot with them.

The 50, 75, and 95mm Cine-Xenars are pure telecentric designs which is why they literally don't breathe, which is a bit rarer among all cinema glass at these lengths and longer. Interesting enough, if you look really closely, the out of focus image separates in a somewhat sudo-anamorphic-ish way on these lenses.

The 18mm Cine-Xenar was actually designed by separate optical engineer than the rest of the set. There's something rather special about that lens to me. Both the Cooke Mini S4 and Cine-Xenar III 18mm primes are nice and flat overall, suitable for use on humans :)

Schneider has released and shown the 14mm Cine-Xenar and there is a 135mm on the horizon if all goes well. The 135mm should also be telecentric. There was once talks of a 180mm, but if that happens at all it's a ways away. That would be a killer 9 lens set if they do it. Especially if the close focus is good on a 180mm design.

The Cookes are rad too, personally I went with the set that was a smidge faster and to me produces one of the prettiest out of focus images out there. The Schneider Cine-Xenar IIIs feature an 18 bladed iris and the Cooke Mini S4/i Primes feature an 8 bladed iris with some fun character.

Close focus was another thing I liked about the Cine-Xenar IIIs. As mentioned in the review they are also all the same physical size. Nice and quick to use when shooting. Also the Cine-Xenar IIIs are threaded 100mm so you can actually get screw ins on there.

I'm sure Martin's set is the same, but color and tonal accuracy are a huge thing for me. The SCXIIIs are dead on matched:
phfx_SchneiderCineXenar_ColorTonalConsistency.jpg


Didn't see the 35mm tested here, but it's also wonderful. I find myself most often shooting the 18, 35, and 75mm. Though I shot a commercial last year and ran the 25mm/50mm combo for a bit of it with all the closeups on the 50mm. Just did some macro work on the 95mm last week too. There's a well known photographer out here who uses the 95mm as a still portrait lens.

Hard to beat both of these sets when it comes to price versus performance ratio. The Cookes have that Cooke Look for sure and they look nice and contrasty on the projector. The Schneiders feel more Leica-esque in their draw with more of a focus on cinematic appeal. What I do like is that the Schneider CXIIIs look unique and distinct overall compared to other primes. Both of these sets have a nice and clear separation from the Canon CN-E and Zeiss CP.2 Primes both in performance and mechanical design. Also the Cookes and Schneiders in terms of a matched set to me feel better when shot and cut back to back.

Another interesting thing. The Schneider Cine-Xenar IIIs are actually made by Isco, which Schneider is on top of now. Oddly over my 15 year long journey in optics I've landed on Isco several times. The Schneider Xenon FF-Primes are actually the first cinema lenses to come out of the Schneider Kreuznach factory. The FF-Primes focused hard on putting quality construction into an affordable lens to demonstrate exactly what Schneider could do in the mechanical design at this price point. If you've used these, you know what I mean.
 
Phil, thanks for your input all of those reasons you listed off are the same reasons I chose the Schneiders. The Cookes are great lenses but that 1 stop makes all the difference especially for rentals. There were a dozen other tests I would have done with the two sets but I only had about 2 hours with the Cookes before they had to go back for a prep day in Philly. The 32mm Cooke wasn't present the day of the test because it was being used as part of prep for a Steadicam setup, but we tried to hit the rest of the lenses in the set. Later today I'll have the R3D stills and full write up complete.
 
Hey, thanks for posting. Such an obvious comparison due to similarity in price.

As a Minis4 owner myself, I've got to say, there's not much not to like about the Xenar's. They look great! (I think the cooke's do too!). I think for us, it was a question of ROI. If I was an owner/operator I'd probably go with the Xenars. But as a rental house, the name-recognition of Cooke makes the difference.
 
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