SLR Magic APO HyperPrime mini review

[Ericsson San Pablo Chu]

Just got my 32mm, and first impression is really good. Will post back here with color match test soon, and other thoughts.

Anyway, something I've noticed, and wanted to see if it was the same for others - my 85mm's aperture ring is quite a bit looser than the rest (most of the lenses have noticeably stiffer aperture rings vs focus, but the 85 not so)... it almost exhibits like a slight bit of play when reversing aperture direction (like I can feel a very slight click, whereas the other lenses do not do this). Is this normal, or something to be concerned about? Perhaps it is just not dampened as much?

Btw, the 25 focus ring seems to have broken in, and the focus rings are all similar in feel now to me (the difference in friction is there, but negligible; that said, if I were to quantify from loosest to stiffest - 85, 32, 50, 25).

 

[darren scott]

The aperture feels the same on all of mine. All feel noticeably stiffer than the focus. Looses to stiffest on focus ring would be 50 (noticeably looser), 25,85,32. 25 and 85 more similar but I think the 32 needs a bit more time to break in.

 

[Tommaso Alvisi]

The aperture feels the same on all of mine. All feel noticeably stuffer than the focus.

That's how it should be then! I always ask for this when I service my lenses, this really help to be more precise when setting the aperture and to keep its ring from rotating too freely... ;-)

 

[rand thompson]

SLR MAgic APO Hyperprime lenses

Made by: Jeroen Damen © 2019

Talent: Rosanne de With
Shot on SLR Magic APO HyperPrime T2.1
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K
Graded using Davinci Resolve

 

[darren scott]

SLR MAgic APO Hyperprime lenses

Made by: Jeroen Damen © 2019

Talent: Rosanne de With
Shot on SLR Magic APO HyperPrime T2.1
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K
Graded using Davinci Resolve

Looks great Rand. The 50 looks a little soft here. That's my other set up if I'm not using my Ursa mini pro combination also...but using it with this https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...es_mbsppl_m43_bt1_pl_to_micro_fourthirds.html to get super35mm FOV . I love that the lenses arent razor sharp.

Was it all shot wide open?

 

[rand thompson]

Darren,

Unfortunately, not my video but Jeroen Damen's, but Yeah I like the look even if they are being used on a Blackmagic 4k Pocket Cinema Camera. They would probably look even better on a Higher resolution Red Camera.

 

[darren scott]

Ok so after some shimming and alot of testing my lenses are hitting the marks.

 

[Ericsson San Pablo Chu]

TIFF's - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g8scmd8qw1k1srg/AAB43VGwzT5VQy5LKteXi9tMa?dl=0

Hi guys, here is the quick color test I did this weekend with the newly arrived 32mm. Shot in the evening with one aputure 120d ii light bounced off the ceiling. Everything got the same LogC to 709 color transform thrown on. I also threw a sigma 18-35 in there, because I recall someone was interested in the similarities/matching at some point, and I had one on hand. I'll try doing the tests again matching field of view when I've a bit more time, was a bit rushed again.


Some things I noticed:
- the 32mm at t/2.8 is about half a stop brighter than all the other focal lengths at the same T stop. I went back and checked Joe's test as well to compare(https://www.dropbox.com/s/cmihxx1xnkaneg5/APO_COLOR TEST.jpg?dl=0), and I notice now that his 32mm at t/2.8 is also comparatively brighter. I emailed SLR Magic, and they replied that "The lenses are made as a batch so it will be the same"... I'm not sure what to think about this? I wonder if others are also experiencing this? I thought the whole point of T stops was consistency in transmission between lenses? The sigma 18-35 at F/2.8, actually matches better.

- The 25mm definitely skews green. SLR Magic's reply on this issue: "We heard feedback the 25 has slightly different tint than the other lenses. If you have tried two copies and it is the same then they are all the same. A customer at Hot Rod Camera tested his copy with the Hot Rod copy and it is the same as well." In regards to hitting marks, they suggested to try one of the shims... I will when I get a chance hopefully this week, and report back.

I'm still not sure if this T-stop variance issue is a deal breaker for me... I wish it wasn't an issue. The 32 looks like a winner otherwise. It's too bad the wider focal lengths seem to have matching issues, because they are my most used focal lenghts personally! Exchanging is a little bit of a hassle for me, but I would if I knew this was a copy issue.... but from what SLR Magic says (and from Joe's test as well), this seems like a repeatable variance with all the 25's and 32's. I like the look of the lens individually a lot, but having a matching lens family was a big part of my buying decision. I would like to test the Sigmas and Tokinas as well if I get a chance.

Let me know your thoughts, would love to hear!

 

[Ericsson San Pablo Chu]

Interesting, while researching I read this from Dom Jaeger on cinematography.com - "with modern digital monitoring tools, there can sometimes be visible differences noticeable between lenses set to the same T stop, which could be due to quality control issues, undocumented ramping or variations in transmission through a zoom range, or even coating differences that alter apparent brightness depending on the colour spectrum. I once had a conversation with a particular lens manufacturer's rep who complained that a rival lens company "cheated" with their T stop marks to achieve faster apertures than they really were."

And quoted from David Mullen - "Now in reality though I've found that even T-stop marks are not completely accurate, something you wouldn't have spotted shooting film but you can see on digital cameras. For example, shooting on the three lightweight Angenieux zooms, 15-40mm, 28-76mm, and 45-120mm, I've always found that the 45-120mm image was slightly brighter than the other two if they all had the same T-stop."

I guess my big question is whether others with the 32mm are also experiencing it being about a third to a half stop brighter than the other apo lenses. I'm assuming that everyone's 25mm skews green the same way mine does (but pls do post here if yours does not exhbiit this!)

 

[Aaron Lochert]

Is the 32mm also brighter wide open or is it only something that happens when the aperture actually comes into play?

If it's actually brighter than T2.1 wide open that actually somewhat sounds appealing to me. It against the Sigma 18-35 wide open would be nice to see.

 

[Ericsson San Pablo Chu]

I can confirm my 32mm is also brighter wide open, so yes it can be seen as a benefit if you want to consider it as a faster lens

Where I may find it annoying is when I switch lenses in the same scene, as I might be expecting t2.8 to be the same across all the lenses in terms of brightness (in the case of my test above, I adjusted approx. half way between 2.8 and 4 to match 2.8 on the other lenses [using a grey card and false color]... so as long as I keep that in mind I guess I am ok).

When I do my next batch of tests I'll take samples of everything wide open for comparison, and post back.

 

[darren scott]

Been 2 busy to check anything myself but I think the 25mm is the same across all 25mm....because I think we all reported that it was greener.

Here is a commercial i shot with these lenses. Almost all the commercial is shot on the Ursa mini pro (drone shot is inspire 2 and inspire 1) before I had the 32mm. The shot with the little boy in class was a cutaway on another day after I got my 32mm and Pocket 4k so i wanted to try them out there (so the FOV is more like 50mm in this scene). Unfortunately I was only given the 1080p file as that was what went to broadcast. However we shot 4.6k raw on the Ursa mini and 4k DCI raw on the pocket 4k. The shots of the crowd cheering has alot of veiling flares because the director liked the look so I took off the french flags off the mattebox.

I also used 1/8 hollywood blackmagic diffusion filter.

https://vimeo.com/312657226

 

[Ericsson San Pablo Chu]

looks great darren! thanks for sharing. I hope I don't come across as not liking the lenses from my comments, I really do love them, I just am trying to figure out how well they match.

I have to make a correction, my 32mm is NOT faster than the other lenses at t/2.1 / wide open. I will post some more tests soon with false color comparisons, but it looks to me like wide open the 85mm is actually the fastest (looking at parade, and false color readouts in davinci). The 32 and 50 are pretty close to each other, and just a touch darker than the 85 (with the 32 being slightly brighter). The 25 is the darkest. I'll post more results soon with more quantifiable accompanying visuals. Color wise the 32, 50, 85 seem to match well, with of course the 25 needing a slight tint adjustment. These are my initial observations, and I hope to post again once I've more time to look/compare.

Once you start stopping down, in terms of luminance, the 25, 50 and 85 are matching each other very well. The 32mm is always slightly brighter at t/2.8 and t/4 though. The apterture ring on my 32mm is the stiffest of the set as well... I wonder if this is just a matter of breaking in the lens more; maybe the aperture is sticking at these t-stops, or not hitting them as accurately/smoothly? Once we hit t/5.6 the 32 seems to match the other lenses pretty well again, so I'm not sure what is happening there. Would love to hear if others are experiencing similar results with their 32mm lenses.

 

[Richard_D]

I'm wondering if we can come to a consensus on a standard correction in Resolve to adjust the 25's color to the other lenses.

I have the 3 lenses but do they have a camera yet so haven't had a chance to use them other than a quick test.

I'm looking to get the 32 and the tokina 11-20 Atx to round out the kit.

 

[Uday Bhaskar Karra]

In your experience... Whats the typical turn around on SLR Magics Lens orders placed through B&H or other vendors?
Its been 4 weeks since i placed an order for 50mm and haven't received my unit yet. When i reached out to B&H, they mentioned SLR Magic didn't send them the stock yet...

 

[Richard_D]

Maybe they are busy fabricating the 32 mm? I ordered from them directly last year and it was rather quick to get the 3 lens set.

 

[Ericsson San Pablo Chu]

So here are so some chart tests. Let me know your guys thoughts. Here is a link to all the side by side tests - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5sd4z79t30yhfrq/AACaMeoDqFScmYlAv3iV_PgRa?dl=0

You can view all the charts I shot here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dn2a12yanmqdmyr/AACwGDwlIIuk6e8JxnEzy3Mqa?dl=0

First off, here is a chart of swatches from a grey card of the apo's, a sigma 18-35, and a canon 70-200. All camera settings matched in controlled room with no ambient/outside light.

Now, here are some swatches of the above in black and white, so we can better see tone variance between lenses. I'm using the 50mm as a control. My thoughts: It looks like the 32 is about a third of a stop to half a stop brighter than the 50 at equivalent apertures. Wide open, there is some variation between the APO's... the 25 is a touch darker than the 50, the 32 a touch brighter, and the 85 is the brightest wide open. Once we stop down to 2.8, the 25, 50, and 85 match pretty well tonally (but again the 32 stays bright).

The Sigma and Canon seem to actually match relatively well.

Here is a swatch of the lenses at 2.8 where I did a rough exposure match, so we get an idea of color variance using the 50mm as a control. My thoughts: The 25 is definitely green. It looks like I'm a bit off on the luminance match on the 32 (looks a tad bright), but it does look close color wise. 85 looks very close to the 50. Surprisingly the Sigma 18-35 and Canon 70-200 match the APO 50 better than the 25, and actually seem pretty close. But that's just looking at a swatch of grey, and we don't know how its affecting other colors/contrast, etc., and other lens characteristics... For that it might be better to look at the whole color card of each lens (and requires different types of tests), but I wanted to do this side by side because its a bit easier to see simple differences in color.

Again, you can view my charts all in the dropbox link mentioned in the beginning of this post, but for quick reference, here are some side comparisions of the charts at 2.8, with the false color as well to see exposure variance between lenses.

 

[Ericsson San Pablo Chu]

Also, Joe please let me know if you'd like me to take it down, but I've also applied false color to your charts for reference so we can see if this is tolerance issue. But it looks pretty similar to me... Would love to know everyones thoughts

 

[Richard_D]

great job Ericsson. I was about to order the 32mm. Any thoughts if I should hold off if there is a chance they might modify the design, or is it too late for that? Does anyone Have an idea why the 25 is skewed color wise? I don't have enough experience with my 3 lenses to have noticed. (I'm about to get a project that requires two camera shoots and will afford me to buy two Eva1's.

 

[Ericsson San Pablo Chu]

I don't think it is likely... between my and Joe's copies it looks like the variance between lens' is repeatable. Please see a quick snapshot of both of our lens' grey swatches at T/2.8 for comparison. If SLR Magic didn't revise the 25mm for the green, I doubt they will revise the 32mm. That said, I am in touch with SLR Magic, and they have been pretty good about communication thus far, so I'll post back here if they say anything that could be helpful.

Mine

Joe's (please forgive the low quality screenshots... just don't have the original files on hand, and its the easiest way to quickly show what I'm talking about)

Please see again below my swatch test once roughly matched in tone . It seems like once tone is matched, color is relatively close between the 32,50, and 85... the 25 needs more of an adjustment for sure (as does the 32 which also seems very slightly green... but this is not really enough to be bothered too much by imho). I quickly color picked some rgb values in photoshop of the grey, and here are the values for reference (I think these are from the t/4 chart, but I remember comparing between all t stops and the difference was consistent):

25: 59 59 50
32: 71 72 66
50: 59 58 56
85: 61 63 57

Now how much of an issue is this? It's unfortunate color character and tone don't match perfectly, but a lot of more expensive lenses also don't match perfectly in color/tone at equivalent t-stops. I think the closest I've seen are the Leica Summilux-C so far. My test was to try and determine if its worth me exchanging the lens, but from comparing Joe's chart with mine, it looks like the differences in my lens' are not a one-off issue. It would be great if someone else could post pictures of a color chart as well, and then we can really see a greater copy to copy comparison.

My findings in summary:
- The 32mm at t/2.8 and t/5.6 is a little more than a half stop brighter than the 50 (this disparity is less at t/8 up... at t/2.1 the 32 is about 1/10 of a stop brighter than the 50)
- the 85 at t/2.1 is a half stop brighter than the 50, and at t/2.8 a third of a stop brighter
- the 25 is greener than all the other lens', and at t/2.1 around 1/5 stop darker than the 50
- the 32mm is very, very slightly greener than the 50, and 85