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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 :)

SLR Magic APO HyperPrime mini review

Ericsson San Pablo Chu said:
That's interesting to hear... I thought the primos were supposed to be very close in rendering to leica r glass (possibly rehoused, updated coatings?). I'd be interested to know how the primos compare with Leica R's, because in some ways I prefer how the Primos look in John's test/comparison.
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My take away from the Leicas is more about inconsistency, both in terms of a different rendering when wide open vs stopped down and also from lens to lens.

Each lens has it's own character which is wonderful for stills work, less so when you need different focal lengths. The 50 cron glows wide open, and doesn't look as good as the contax 1.4 stopped down. The E60 summilux seems to look really nice, very M like, but you're looking at £3k plus and if you're going to spend that much then get the mechanics to make the lens usable for cine use.

Some people love the 'look' of them, for me i just don't see that look in the Rs, but i do in the other Leica lenses. YMMV, very personal thing though.

cheers
Paul
 
Ericsson San Pablo Chu said:
Hi John, have you shot with Leica R lenses, as well as Primos? How do they compare with each other, and with the SLR magic lenses you've shot with in your opinion? Thank you
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Hi.

I have shot the R's a little mostly on the first BMCC the blackmagic cinema camera.

For me the R's are nice but they are "old", in not a good way. The focus action etc for starters, mechanically they're all over the place as a set too. And for the look, I think the APO's would sweep the floor. The CA is so much more controlled and yet they really are still very pretty to use.

So yeah, as a cinema lens they're better to use, and for look I much prefer them.

paulcurtis said:
I am a huge fan of M glass and the cine summicrons, but the R range personally didn't do anything for me. Now i didn't find the 19mm MkII or the APO versions of the 90 nor the very last 50 summilux, the secondhand prices for these were in cine territory, so seemed more sensible to go that route and that's when i found these APO lenses.
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Yes I love the leica's too. I have many M lenses and I also shoo the Leica S and have a few S lenses too (what the Thalia's are based on) and they're beautiful.

I love the summicron C's a lot. They are the kit I want to own.

Ericsson San Pablo Chu said:
That's interesting to hear... I thought the primos were supposed to be very close in rendering to leica r glass (possibly rehoused, updated coatings?). I'd be interested to know how the primos compare with Leica R's, because in some ways I prefer how the Primos look in John's test/comparison.
Click to expand...

I believe panavision designed the Primos, but then had Leica Elcan (Leitz Canada) make the glass to their specs.

So PV design with leica made glass.

In my view the Leica R's and Primos are very different in the way they draw.

JB
 
John Brawley said:
You're preaching to the choir.

But this is how they are unfortunately. We all know the very obvious issues that you've pointed out. Like other Chinese companies, they struggle to make in-roads in these markets (Kinefinity?)

They don't really have dealers. They don't really have a distribution system.

Obviously it's to their disadvantage, but this is a guy who started off selling novelty lenses through an ebay store 10 years ago. They only recently got certified as being officially part of the MFT consortium.

BH Photo sell their product in an unofficial ad hoc way in the US. Hordan, who are a UK distributor also sell their product and are responsible for the more informative website, in theory cover Europe.

But as I understand it they're not exactly official dealer relationships as I understand.

JB
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As a "local" I can tell you guys unfortunately many businesses don't "do" websites in Hong Kong.. or they do them very poorly. Comes down to the general culture and attitude of Hong Kongers, we also don't have the webshopper/consumer relationship like in North America or Europe... shouldn't be an excuse but that's most likely the reason.

The .com website is the official website, I'm pretty sure that the .info website is not handled by the SLR magic staff at all but rather Holdan.
 
Here's a little update Andrew from SLR Magic has allowed me to share. I want to share as much as I can remember from my phone call with Andrew so hopefully it's relevant to those of you who are interested in these lenses.

For anyone going to NAB, Andrew will have a booth and will be there. I invite anyone interested in these lenses to go see them. Andrew is a very knowledgeable and open guy and he really love to talk lenses. He cares about his products and making them the best they can be. They have some pretty cool announcements for NAB, whcih I won't share, but he's what I can...

Here's a picture of a pre-production 32mm lens.

www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/40047075535

I haven't shot with this copy yet, but this means SLR Magic are very close to going into production with this lens. After this they're working on the 18mm and the 135mm to fill out the set.

I also received an updated version of the 25mm to replace my copy. It developed an issue with the focus bumping sometimes at close focus and Andrew tells me he's totally updated the helicoil design and has already updated a few customers copies. Anyone who sees this issue should be able to arrange to have it fixed. I didn't want to let go of my 25mm as I was in the middle of a job so he's sent me a second one and I'm now sending mine back.

You can see this little bump in this video. The first lens, the "A" is the SLR Magic 25mm. https://vimeo.com/246930283

What's cool is that SLR Magic went and immediately addressed the issue and have re-designed the lens to make sure it doesn't happen again. I've just finished a 6 month TV series using them day in and day out and this has been the only issue with them, even though they've been on prestons / motors with clamp on's all this time.

Here's a couple of clips all shot with SLR Magic lenses.
https://youtu.be/7NuMtOARC58
https://youtu.be/Y6HaEM6jy-U
https://youtu.be/s6fFUCSZzOg (everything except super macro shots which were Cp2 50mm macro)

www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/40047076045

Andrew also sent me copies of their new E mount, MFT and EF adaptors.

www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/40941422171
www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/40047075035

This means you can use your APO primes on any of the above mounts and with the SLR Magic adaptors they've kept the tolerances very tight so the witness marks should line up perfectly without having to actually re-shim the mounts / lenses, though you can do that if you need to.

As a bit of a surprise, Andrew also sent me some brand new ND filters that he's been working on.

Many would already be familiar with the Variable ND's they make, which many rate as one of the best made and offering very good IR protection as well. Some of you may know I shoot a lot of MFT lenses on Olympus, DJI and Blackmagic MFT cameras so I use a lot of smaller lenses with screw in ND's.

Lately I've mostly been using the Hoya / Kenko PRO screw in ND's as they seem the most neutral. Andrew tells me he decided to make these after he decided to buy some Hoya Pros for his own work and was firstly forced to buy them from three different countries because no one stocked the full set and he THEN found that the deeper stop copies had more than 2/3 of a stop variation in exposure from where they should be.

Well SLR Magic have done their own take on ND filters. They've aimed to be less than 1/3 of a stop variation and to sell them together as full sets.

They make a set of N3, N6, N9, N1.2 and N1.5 (1-5 stops) and a second box of N1.8, N2.1, N2.4, N2.7 and N3.0 (6-10 stops) and each set is only $399. Pretty decent deal.

I don't want to come off as a shrill, but I really like what these guys are doing and I especially like how responsive they are to feedback from us that use these lenses. In lieu of them having better marketing I'll try to let as many know as I can about what they're up to.

JB
 
John Brawley said:
Here's a little update Andrew from SLR Magic has allowed me to share. I want to share as much as I can remember from my phone call with Andrew so hopefully it's relevant to those of you who are interested in these lenses.

www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/40047075535
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Great to see it in the wild (ish)

That rear element looks quite large, I wonder whether my existing c7 PL to EF adapters would work with that, what kind of width is that element on the 32?

Did you get any vague idea of shipping times?

cheers
Paul
 
paulcurtis said:
Great to see it in the wild (ish)

That rear element looks quite large, I wonder whether my existing c7 PL to EF adapters would work with that, what kind of width is that element on the 32?

Did you get any vague idea of shipping times?

cheers
Paul
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Hey Paul.

I got the impression that Andrew will be announcing this at NAB, but this is a pre-production copy, as opposed to a prototype or beta version, so I think that should tell you how close they are :-)

JB
 
I'm looking for a Lensset to buy and checking out everything under the 15k pricepoint for my scarlet-w. Like the sigma for their price and sharpness but didn't has character for me. I also own a set of contax zeiss but ca and the ninja star is what i don't like that much on them. Celere HS doesn't get to much good coverage on tests, flaring looks strange. Xeen are also a bit to normal. So i came across these ones. I like the cinematic feel, handling of CA and creamy bokeh.

Is it still good to pull the trigger now or should i wait till NAB?

The ND set looks nice too.
 
You might save a little money if he packages a 4 lens set at NAB

I think there has been a modification to the 25 so I wouldn't buy one that's been in stock on the shelf for a while
 
Thank you for the update, John.

Not to make you into SLR's representative, but are you aware of any means by which someone purchasing the 25mm can know that they are getting the updated "B" version and not a copy of the "A" version?
 
It's a pretty recent change I believe, mine had same issue. It's returning to me Monday. So I'd just send them an email and ask, they respond super quick, heck, andrew called me personally 5 minutes after I emailed, they are in Asia though
 
I had one of the very first 25mm and the issue developed over time. It wasn’t even that major of an issue for me, I kept reshooting with it when I could have returned it.

Andrew I’m sure would fix it for you if it did happen that your copy developed the same issue.

JB
 
John,

Your work really makes these lenses shine.

Quick question, given that a lot of sample photos show that these lenses skew green, are you factoring that into your LUT for your client monitor?
I can see using these and getting a lot of critical eyes commenting on that.

Also, I shoot a lot of material in 709 color space for quick turn. Would you correct for this in lighting or look to another lens set without the color shift?

Thanks,
 
Just change the tint in camera slightly to compensate
 
Bill Totolo said:
given that a lot of sample photos show that these lenses skew green
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Which samples? John Brawleys clips that he linked in his post?

It is curious that there would be the characterization of the SLR APO Hyperprimes as skewing green when I have read reviews where they were characterized as skewing warm and even Cooke-like. ( maybe the SLR APO's are a warm-green? ) But such is the nature of individual impressions, I suppose. I've seen the Sigma Cine primes knocked as being too clinical and lacking in character...and I have seen where the Sigma Cine primes are complimented for having character and not being clinical as are the Leica cinema lenses.
 
John David Pope said:
Which samples? John Brawleys clips that he linked in his post?

It is curious that there would be the characterization of the SLR APO Hyperprimes as skewing green when I have read reviews where they were characterized as skewing warm and even Cooke-like. ( maybe the SLR APO's are a warm-green? ) But such is the nature of individual impressions, I suppose. I've seen the Sigma Cine primes knocked as being too clinical and lacking in character...and I have seen where the Sigma Cine primes are complimented for having character and not being clinical as are the Leica cinema lenses.
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Just check out the photos in this thread. paulcurtis who started the thread posted a few as have others.
 
There's plenty of glass with a green cast...some Leica -Rs, old Cooke SPs, some Lomos, and more!

The only thing that matters is if it's consistent between all the FL of this set...

I'd really love to see some grabs of a chart + color checker taken with each lens (25 32 50 85) @ 3 aperture values...WFO plus T2.8 and T5.6...

just 12x R3Ds in total (or CinemaDNG in John's case he he or PNG screens since he often shoots ProRes on the Alexa+UMP)
 
Yes they are warm/green. I have 3

No biggie, slight tint adjustment
 
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