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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 :)

Vantage One T1 Spherical Primes

I'm all over these, IF they're as good as I would expect from Hawk at sane apertures. If they're solid from T2 up, great. If they can't hold up, they're a gimmick. I don't believe Hawk would produce gimmicks.

A very old ice-climbing saying; 'you can hold a long axe short, but not a short axe long'. With these babies T1.0, with everything that goes with it, is in your toolbox for you to use when you need or want that. I'd always choose a good T2 prime that I could open to T1 if I needed it, than a good T2 prime that didn't open past T2, if you follow my meaning!

Mike
 
Every DP who shoots at T1.0 should be required to sign an agreement that they will pull their own focus.

As a cinematographer I think its a cool idea.

As a focus puller I am running for the door.

And here I thought Superspeeds wide open, "lets shoot the rehearsal" was as bad as it gets.
 
Michael Hardwick said:
Every DP who shoots at T1.0 should be required to sign an agreement that they will pull their own focus.

As a cinematographer I think its a cool idea.

As a focus puller I am running for the door.

And here I thought Superspeeds wide open, "lets shoot the rehearsal" was as bad as it gets.
Click to expand...

I think that is a good idea :)
 
Michael Hardwick said:
Every DP who shoots at T1.0 should be required to sign an agreement that they will pull their own focus.

As a cinematographer I think its a cool idea.

As a focus puller I am running for the door.

And here I thought Superspeeds wide open, "lets shoot the rehearsal" was as bad as it gets.
Click to expand...

HaHa!! Totally agree
 
I feel like it's hard to take a lens seriously that has "Made by the Hawk guys" on it...
 
i think the point also is, if you need it you got it. DP's will know what they are gaining or losing. either add gain to the image, or bring in more light and get more optical artifacts. i know several dp's willing to go with optical quirks than more noise.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
I enjoy the vicious combination of a lens advertised to have close focus abilities and a T/1 maximum aperture. How useful is super close focus when wide open? Useful when closed down, yes, but kicking a dead horse when wide open, if you ask me. As a friend pointed out to me earlier today, at a certain distance, T1 really has 'nothing in focus'. The sliver is so narrow, that even having the subject in focus, the subject is generally three dimensional enough that it just looks all out of focus. When you get to fractions of an inch, things get hairy real quick.

For example: The CF of the 50mm lens is 1'2"! It's a humorous notion that anyone using the CF abilities of the lens would also be using the aperture abilities of the lens or vice-versa. In fact the Panavision DoF calculator won't even calculate the CF of these lenses! The closest near focus distance it will calculate for the 50mm is 1.8'. At s35mm 16:9 extraction, the TOTAL DoF at 1.8' is .22" of an inch (less than 1/4th of an inch.) The same with the 120mm (CF 2.5'.) Using the same criteria, the DoF for this lens at 4' feet (1.5' feet further than the CF) has a total DoF of .18" of an inch, less than 1/5th of an inch... I don't even want to know what it is at 2.5'. In fact, you don't even get an inch of depth of field until you are 9' distance. Under 9', the focus is in fractions of an inch.

Please do not interpret this as being critical of the lenses. I'm very excited to see what they have in store. I'm just laughing at the attraction of a T/1 lens AND using CF abilities. Both are great lens attributes, but seldom useful together.

Know what I mean? I have a feeling, if you rent these lenses, you did it for the aesthetic look the fast aperture gives you. So it is wonderful they can close focus so well, but unless using them closed down, your DoF gets unusably narrow. So I guess when you rent these lenses you better do so for the CF abilities or the maximum aperture abilities, because I see very little use for ever using both at the same time! I can't imagine more than one specialty shot... ever, where having DoF under 1/5th of an inch was desired.

Just some thoughts on the subject. Seems these lenses have some very unique qualities which makes them kind of a Catch 22 when using them.


I think focus on my Cooke Mini-S4's is hairy at CF and T/2.8... unless it's a locked off still life, just an actor breathing will go in and out of focus that narrow! :)
Click to expand...

Great post. Made me think of all the complaining that will arise when using these kinds of lenses. "I wasn't doing anything unusual. Just the standard setup, half a foot from the talent, set wide-open, began to roll and we could hear the fan. This camera is a piece of junk!"

So true too about the talent breathing. It's bad enough trying to maintain focus at lesser apertures. Would have to use a head rest like Daguerre did in the early days of photography. We've come full-circle.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
I enjoy the vicious combination of a lens advertised to have close focus abilities and a T/1 maximum aperture. How useful is super close focus when wide open? Useful when closed down, yes, but kicking a dead horse when wide open, if you ask me. As a friend pointed out to me earlier today, at a certain distance, T1 really has 'nothing in focus'. The sliver is so narrow, that even having the subject in focus, the subject is generally three dimensional enough that it just looks all out of focus. When you get to fractions of an inch, things get hairy real quick.

For example: The CF of the 50mm lens is 1'2"! It's a humorous notion that anyone using the CF abilities of the lens would also be using the aperture abilities of the lens or vice-versa. In fact the Panavision DoF calculator won't even calculate the CF of these lenses! The closest near focus distance it will calculate for the 50mm is 1.8'. At s35mm 16:9 extraction, the TOTAL DoF at 1.8' is .22" of an inch (less than 1/4th of an inch.) The same with the 120mm (CF 2.5'.) Using the same criteria, the DoF for this lens at 4' feet (1.5' feet further than the CF) has a total DoF of .18" of an inch, less than 1/5th of an inch... I don't even want to know what it is at 2.5'. In fact, you don't even get an inch of depth of field until you are 9' distance. Under 9', the focus is in fractions of an inch.

Please do not interpret this as being critical of the lenses. I'm very excited to see what they have in store. I'm just laughing at the attraction of a T/1 lens AND using CF abilities. Both are great lens attributes, but seldom useful together.

Know what I mean? I have a feeling, if you rent these lenses, you did it for the aesthetic look the fast aperture gives you. So it is wonderful they can close focus so well, but unless using them closed down, your DoF gets unusably narrow. So I guess when you rent these lenses you better do so for the CF abilities or the maximum aperture abilities, because I see very little use for ever using both at the same time! I can't imagine more than one specialty shot... ever, where having DoF under 1/5th of an inch was desired.

Just some thoughts on the subject. Seems these lenses have some very unique qualities which makes them kind of a Catch 22 when using them.


I think focus on my Cooke Mini-S4's is hairy at CF and T/2.8... unless it's a locked off still life, just an actor breathing will go in and out of focus that narrow! :)
Click to expand...

Well, Fincher/Cronenweth Shot Social Network Wide Open @ T1.3 on MasterPrimes and ND'd for exposure and there are shots in the film that have zero in focus as the focal plane is so small its nonexistent (as you pointed out), but whats important is the "fall off" from that sliver of a focal plane into bokeh and what that slope is. On MasterPrimes it's clearly slow enough of a curve to allow for a smooth creamy image that looks super clean and a basic slow falloff of sharpness since there is essentially nothing in focus. It may have been Fincher/Cronenweth's idea to soften the digital image with light physically bending thru the lens rather than post or another avenue. That is speculation on my part but it made for a beautiful image.

Options are what we crave and options are what we're getting.
 
Almost a year on and the silence is deafening… anyone know the status of this glass?

A google search shows basically nothing since the original announcement.

Mike
 
Funny you should bring them up..

I played with 17.5mm & 90mm T1 Mechanical prototypes on an Alexa at Keslow Camera a few weeks back and they were quite interesting.. I only looked at them on the prep floor which is usually the worst place to evaluate glass ( although its what I am used to and do on a weekly basis).
Its almost like two different lenses depending on the stop you shoot them at. Very very shallow..they looked good until you open them up and then they bloom and have a unique look and texture to them as they fall apart and from about a 1/3 stop open T2 to a T1.0. Master primes they are not but a very interesting lens.
Last week I saw the first shipped lenses Keslow received which are the 25,40 & 65mm. They were shipping out on a job and I know there are a lot of Dp's wanting to play with them.
Each one costs as much as a zoom lens.. so it will be like renting a set of V-lite scopes.. not cheap!

Good times for the focus pullers...everyones human!!
 
Mike 'Fireman' Ross said:
Almost a year on and the silence is deafening… anyone know the status of this glass?

A google search shows basically nothing since the original announcement.

Mike
Click to expand...

Was at Vantage last week, I did check them out. The size is just crazy small, I am talking Super speed territory. Well, in terms of performance, we did a quick test on one of the admin staff there. Lets just put it this way, we had difference of opinion on what do I think the cinema's out of focus should look like.

But pretty impressive for the size.
 
I would love to see a test with these versus the V-Lites at the same apertures. Actually, I would like to see ANY stills from these Hawk T1 lenses. After a year, I haven't seen any available to rent in the US. If someone has seen them available to rent in the US, please post here.
 
Pax said:
I would love to see a test with these versus the V-Lites at the same apertures. Actually, I would like to see ANY stills from these Hawk T1 lenses. After a year, I haven't seen any available to rent in the US. If someone has seen them available to rent in the US, please post here.
Click to expand...

i think Camtec received few focal lenghts too.
 
Kemalettin Sert said:
i think Camtec received few focal lenghts too.
Click to expand...

Correct. They have 25, 40, and 65mm. As does Keslow.

phfx_probstRedCFDragon_0004.jpg
 
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