Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Sony lenses

not to change the subject, but we were talking about the Sony lenses? The first set they built were nice and sharp, but the housings were plastic and not very good. the new set has metal housings, are much better built, and are still very good glass. I have heard a couple of experts make positive comments about this new set. I, for one, am interested.
 
Its funny how people here always assume what what ever you say - the opposite must be true as well. Like when you say you like black - it must mean you hate white...
I have never said that S35 (current "cine") lenses are obsolete or anything of that sorts. I have simple stated my opinion that investing NOW (lenses You are planing to buy and do not own yet) in glass that does not cover FF-35 is waste of money. Digital cinema sensors are clearly moving towards FF-35 (just look at Canon). Many of us are starting our own cine-lens collections as the prices continue to fall. DP's didn't use to own cinema cameras - RED changed that. Same way DP's didn't use to own lenses - and RED has changed that as well (along with few others). My simple honest opinion and advice is not to invest into glass that does not cover FF-35. It is only my personal opinion and it was clearly marked as such...

Peter
 
Peter Majtan said:
I have never said that S35 (current "cine") lenses are obsolete or anything of that sorts. I have simple stated my opinion that investing NOW (lenses You are planing to buy and do not own yet) in glass that does not cover FF-35 is waste of money. Digital cinema sensors are clearly moving towards FF-35 (just look at Canon).

My simple honest opinion and advice is not to invest into glass that does not cover FF-35. It is only my personal opinion and it was clearly marked as such...

Peter
Click to expand...

Peter, Its ok.... that's all anybody does is voice their opinions. I saw a funny one the other day someone said they lost sleep because somebody on the internet had a different opinion.... hilarious!

But I do take issue with your statement that "digital sensors are clearly moving towards full frame", I'm not sure that's true. Red with the new Dragon will have a slightly larger sensor with a windowed 5k option for cine 35 lenses. Is there one other "cine" camera you know of coming out in full frame, other then DSLR's? If so I must have missed it.

Red is marketing their new cameras and sensors toward a stills market as well as cine, and its a different breed when your talking stills. The 5k windowed Dragon is all you'll need for a perfect delivered 4k project, and the 6k's will be great for stills and other special needs. Until we start seeing manufacturers stepping into the "full frame sensor" camera's (and lenses) I just don't see it coming at all. An investment today in normal 35mm lens coverage is a good investment because lenses tend to be good investments. For "Full frame" lens coverage its pretty slim pickins (in prime PL anyway) unless your in love with the Zeiss Cp.2's. I think the Cp.2's are fine lenses myself but many people have issues and the slower wides are unfortunate. If you have projects to shoot and money to invest and you want to wait for Full Frame (consistent aperture) set of "cine" PL primes.... you may be waiting a very long time. (in my humble opinion).

cheers, Erich
 
Erich Roland said:
Peter, Its ok.... that's all anybody does is voice their opinions. I saw a funny one the other day someone said they lost sleep because somebody on the internet had a different opinion.... hilarious!

But I do take issue with your statement that "digital sensors are clearly moving towards full frame", I'm not sure that's true. Red with the new Dragon will have a slightly larger sensor with a windowed 5k option for cine 35 lenses. Is there one other "cine" camera you know of coming out in full frame, other then DSLR's? If so I must have missed it.

Red is marketing their new cameras and sensors toward a stills market as well as cine, and its a different breed when your talking stills. The 5k windowed Dragon is all you'll need for a perfect delivered 4k project, and the 6k's will be great for stills and other special needs. Until we start seeing manufacturers stepping into the "full frame sensor" camera's (and lenses) I just don't see it coming at all. An investment today in normal 35mm lens coverage is a good investment because lenses tend to be good investments. For "Full frame" lens coverage its pretty slim pickins (in prime PL anyway) unless your in love with the Zeiss Cp.2's. I think the Cp.2's are fine lenses myself but many people have issues and the slower wides are unfortunate. If you have projects to shoot and money to invest and you want to wait for Full Frame (consistent aperture) set of "cine" PL primes.... you may be waiting a very long time. (in my humble opinion).

cheers, Erich
Click to expand...

Those are good points Erich.

I'll reconsider my lens choices when two things happen:

1) If FF ever catches on beyond occasional use, right now it's DSLR only.

2) If there are good quality lenses to switch to. The FF Cine lenses, as of now, barely match or perform as well as the better S35mm ones do now, and that is the center of their lens's image circle! We should all acknowledge that if we were to ever want to see the optical and mechanical quality of our Cooke, Zeiss, and Angeniuex lenses over the entirety of a FF sensor, as we see them now on our s35mm sensors, they are going to be bigger and more expensive. The FF-cinema lenses we have now are photography lenses and they carry inherent trade-offs in order to be affordable and small. They no doubt behave way out of suitable cine-lens tolerances we hold most our higher end lenses to now. Unless we compromise on quality, these FF cinema lenses aren't very suitable for Cine-FF shooting (unless stopped down) in the same capacity as our S35mm Cine lenses are for s35mm.

But how I see it, many DSLR generational users are used to the compromising quality of photography lenses, at full frame and wide open, so maybe the future is simply using 'good enough' optics. I hope not.

Call me crazy, but until I'm forced to do it from market demand, I'd rather have better quality optics at S35mm than play around in the shallow-as-hell sandbox with lesser quality optics. I mean, who really wants 3.5 stops of vignetting on the edges of their frame?!
 
To toss another opinion in the pot. (mmm smells good)

They key word here is "format".

S35 as a format isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Red and other manufacturers acknowledge this. However, there is a desire for larger sensors by some, myself included. The future is 4K delivery (and 4K post pipelines). Red is focusing on that at the moment. From my perspective it's the right focus.


Dragon 6K gets me excited because of the pure resolution, the larger than S35 format, and the additional production/post production based flexibility.

Dragon 5K gets me excited for more of a typical production workflow, especially for narrative work. Also S35 lenses will give you "what you expect" from that format FOV-wise. That's a good thing.


Either way, a high quality 4K delivery is possible. And 4K delivery is what "the biz" will be mostly about for the next several years. Let's not forget how well REDCODE scales when shooting at other resolutions. That's important here too.


If Red sticks to the "OG" game plan we'll be seeing larger special purpose sensors. Perhaps down the line we'll see a 10K+ sensor with a focus on 8K delivery. That's getting us into the more traditional IMAX sized negative formats too if we take into account current pixel specs for Dragon. Data rates get scary up there though.
 
Erich Roland said:
But I do take issue with your statement that "digital sensors are clearly moving towards full frame", I'm not sure that's true. Red with the new Dragon will have a slightly larger sensor with a windowed 5k option for cine 35 lenses. Is there one other "cine" camera you know of coming out in full frame, other then DSLR's? If so I must have missed it.

cheers, Erich
Click to expand...

Panavision is moving beyond S35 as well.
 
Clayton Burkhart said:
Panavision is moving beyond S35 as well.
Click to expand...

PV is taking a note from the Red playbook. Their new sensor provides different modes to shoot S35, 65mm/70mm. New lenses to boot. You and I can never own one though. They are a long way from being done as well.
 
Clayton Burkhart said:
Panavision is moving beyond S35 as well.
Click to expand...

Ive heard that also. We shall see if larger sensor is really a trend. Panavision is its own biosphere and they are big enough to do whatever they want to do.... god speed. Poor Panavision was blind sided by Alexa success and I suspect they feel the need to trump-bypass Arri rather then get into a pissing match on the same playing field. This 70mm may be the answer, and it may just sink them if its not a major better camera then Alexa.

5k now (and 6k coming in Dragon) is slightly larger then S35. Many current lenses cover fine, some do not. Anything larger and were into new FF lens coverage that for the most part.... don't exist in Cine lens designs, mostly only in the stills world with very few exceptions. Even the Cp.2's are re-built still lenses. This race for full frame sounds enticing but I don't see evidence that any company is working towards this frame size, do you? It was on the drawing board for RED years ago but a lot has changed since then. I suspect any sensor larger then S35 will be for special purpose ONLY until lens makers get on board for larger sensor "cine" lenses, and they have not as of yet, other then a few re-barreled stills lenses.

When Zeiss or Cooke come out with a new set of "cine" primes for "Full Frame" then we can talk about this new trend. :))

Cheers, Erich
 

Attachments

  • sensor_chart.jpg
    sensor_chart.jpg
    60.5 KB · Views: 0
Erich Roland said:
When Zeiss or Cooke come out with a new set of "cine" primes for "Full Frame" then we can talk about this new trend. :))

Cheers, Erich
Click to expand...

As a matter of fact the only thing keeping me from buying CP.2's today, is that Zeiss is coming out with new stills glass that will be MUCH sharper across the whole frame at F1.4 than anything out there, with the exception of Leica C lenses. I think they will sell like hotcakes. Expect NAB to be very interesting on this front.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iizSm70dag

http://nikonrumors.com/2012/11/02/sample-images-from-the-new-zeiss-distagon-55mm-f1-4-zm-lens.aspx/

http://prophotocoalition.com/dcarr/...um_lens_range_for_dslrs_starting_with_55mm_f1

$3000 per lens by the way. Looks darn close to a cinema lens if you ask me. Clearly oriented towards the video market as well.
 
I don't think that any lens manufacturer with the right mind would leave the electronics out of a new lens line. IS (VR) USM, EXIF are so useful that not including them will be catastrophic for a company. Especially if that company already owns that technology.
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
I don't think that any lens manufacturer with the right mind would leave the electronics out of a new lens line. IS (VR) USM, EXIF are so useful that not including them will be catastrophic for a company. Especially if that company already owns that technology.
Click to expand...

Seems like it's more of an issue for people who build adapters that depend on electronics.
 
The Beneficiaries

The Beneficiaries

Clayton Burkhart said:
Seems like it's more of an issue for people who build adapters that depend on electronics.
Click to expand...
And the camera manufacturers, and the post production, and the VFX, CG companies, and the shooters that shoot hand held . OH wait- that's pretty much everybody:001_tongue:
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
And the camera manufacturers, and the post production, and the VFX, CG companies, and the shooters that shoot hand held . OH wait- that's pretty much everybody:001_tongue:
Click to expand...

No not everybody. Most people who shoot film still prefer to have a long throw, a solid mechanical piece of design and a lens that they could depend on for the next 30 years. Plastic, motors and fragile are rarely a part of their vocabularly. Built in electronics mean delicate, difficult to diagnose, plastic obsolescence. I can guarantee you that most EF lenses could not handle even a single season of any episodic television series. Further Zeiss's ZM and ZF lines are doing just fine in the stills world. As a matter of fact this "everybody" you mention doesn't seem to include the tremendous resurgence of photographers and videastes who have rediscovered vintage glass either (or anamorphics I mght add). In this forum alone you will find two new threads on Contax Zeiss and Minolta for example.

I have no doubt your products are excellent (and even interest me), but there are times (often) when most 1st AC's and DP's would prefer to keep it simple. A follow focus and a set of lenses. The last thing they or I need is another set of wires and to worry about additional powering issues.

Frankly, catastrophizing the demise of Zeiss because they choose to produce a solid lens and a new lineup that doesn't compromise in terms of optical quality by introducing autofocus, IS, a short throw and a plastic shell doesn't strike me as a particularly worrisome issue. I think it's safe to say that we don't have to worry too much about Zeiss going under any time soon.


:tongue_smilie:
 
Clayton Burkhart said:
Seems like it's more of an issue for people who build adapters that depend on electronics.
Click to expand...

+1

i/data electronics is helpful. One of the reasons Hugo went with Cooke lenses. Now almost all new-top end cine lenses do or can do i/data (Angie/Fuji/Cooke/Sony/etc) or the LDS system (stands for lonely data system (arri) ) This system communicates with cameras and writes meta data with continuous information regarding lens length, iris position and focus distance, which are all used by VFX, CG, DIT's, CC, and other departments.

As a cinematographer and camera assistant (on narrative work), I don't find the need for any other internal electronics, especially internal motors for FIZ. I assume cine lenses will be much more robust in the field without internal motors and also any problems/issues can be more easily solved in the field when using external motors. As of now, a Cooke lens will work smoothly at -15*F to 131*F. Almost everything is mechanical except for i/data sensors. A cinema lens goes through decades of use, travel, and wear. Internal motors that small seem unlikely to last that long. Thus, if a motor dies during production, I simply replace the motor with another, we always have spares, or just stop FIZing and start FZing, hahaha. I don't have to send a lens back for service! If the motors are inside and break or malfunction, I have to loose the lens not just the motor!

Theoretically, internal saves you from getting bulky with motors and cables, especially if FIZing a three channel, but after working with lenses a long time in the field, and having many motor issues, I'd rather have quick access than internal compactness.

I can see how VR and IS can be beneficial, yet I can't think of a time I was on a narrative or documentary production where not having it killed me. If they put that into lenses, so be it. I don't really know how IS works, so I'm not sure if there would be tradeoffs or not.

Considering the cost to have them fixed. I like my lenses being as optically solid yet simple, robust and reliable over all else.
 
Autofocus lenses have been used for years by pro photogs in conditions equal or worse than cine lenses. If they didn't hold up they would not exist today.
They are also weather sealed which cine lenses- are not. Don't flatter yourself- our industry is a tiny spec compared to the still photography crowd. Canon has up to date sold 80,000,000 autofocus lenses. This is where the savings are -economy of scales- not cheaping out on materials. Our industry is always the last to adapt technology- following consumer and still photography. But look what happened in 2008 with the 5DII- the market voted with their wallets- 5,000,000 cameras. And you think lens technology is immune to that? Good luck being stuck in the past...
 
While tracing their roots to DSLR's - the new cine cams from Canon (like the C100/300/500) certainly aren't DSLR's. Sure they have their drawbacks - as do all cameras - but they are far bigger threat to RED then ARRI, SONY and PANASONIC combined. You can bet that the next C-series will be FF-35, just like the EOS 1D-C...
 
Erich Roland said:
When Zeiss or Cooke come out with a new set of "cine" primes for "Full Frame" then we can talk about this new trend. :))
Click to expand...


I seems to remember that this forum was doing just fine long before the first RED ONE was delivered. On the contrary - as Jim have pointed on number of occasions - this forum was crucial help for RED through out the R&D and manufacturing. It still is...
Limiting discussions to things of the past (that have been already released) is as short-sighted as investing now in non-FF-35 glass...

My 2 yen...

Peter
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top