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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 :)

WARNING: NON CINEMA LENSES BREATHE!

B

BRANDON JAMESON

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DANG!!!

I invested in a set of CONTAX ZEISS primes and had them cinevised to PL mount and they look amazing!

The glass is incredible and they look stellar on the RED One and EPIC...BUT

THEY BREATHE!!!!!!

We threw them on for a beauty shoot today with a follow-focus rig and they were UNUSABLE.

Even the slightest focus pull moved our matte box forward, looked bumpy and changed the frame line in a very visably unappealing way.

So, here's my question...

Are all the guys on here who sing the praises of non-cinema lenses actually pulling focus at all?

Do the ROKINON cinema lenses breathe too?

I dont even want to say how many tens of thousands of dollars we invested in this set..and now they seem pointless.

Your expertise and guidance is very appreciated.

Thanks
 
I have a full set of contax zeiss primes. Ive noticed some breathing but nothing crazy as far as image goes. I shot a whole feature with them. everyone that saw it said it looked amazing. Ive been rather happy with my set, though my applications may be slightly different than yours.
 
I'm surprised you didn't do your research Brandon. ALL photographic lenses breathe, ALL of them, even some Cinema lenses do.

Contax don't breathe as much as other ones (Especially ones with AF motors), and shouldn't be too much of an issue to fix in post. I've never had a shot ruined by breathing unless you're pulling from infinity to near focus... in which case you will need to deal with it some way.

If your investment is deterred because the lenses breathe, you shouldn't blame the lenses but the lack of research on your behalf. You can't blame non cinema lenses for cinema performance, it's just common sense.

Spend your money on proper Cinema primes if you want optimal performance.
 
Tons of lenses breathe. It's only the most recent sets of lenses that don't breathe at all. Go watch a zillion movies. Raiders of the lost ark has some really obvious bad anamorphic breathing, but I don't think it ruined the movie for any one.

Vary rarely do you pull focus from one thing to another with no camera movement or actor movement so it usually gets masked pretty well. If you are doig product shot rack focuses form a bunch of inanimate objects with a static camera, then maybe a different set of lenses is in order, but in general it's not that big of a deal.

Nick
 
All lenses breathe Brandon. Maybe the MPs less than others. I heard that Cooke mini S4s don't breathe much . That's why they so big and slow ;) they had to make them telecentric to minimize the breathing so they could not open the aperture more. Big Optimos don't breathe much.
The precious Super speeds breath like mother f....s. Cooke zooms breathe, Angies before Optimos breathe, UPs breathe S4s breathe. DPs make it work to their advantage all the time, even photogs don't care and they are composition obsessed. It will be much easier (and cheaper) to learn to use it than trying to look for optics that will not breathe....
 
Nick Gardner said:
Tons of lenses breathe. It's only the most recent sets of lenses that don't breathe at all. Go watch a zillion movies. Raiders of the lost ark has some really obvious bad anamorphic breathing, but I don't think it ruined the movie for any one.

Vary rarely do you pull focus from one thing to another with no camera movement or actor movement so it usually gets masked pretty well. If you are doig product shot rack focuses form a bunch of inanimate objects with a static camera, then maybe a different set of lenses is in order, but in general it's not that big of a deal.

Nick
Click to expand...

Thanks, Jacek, Kemalettin, Domenic, Shervin and Nick.

Your posts are very appreciated

I combed these pages for Zeiss Contax posts and missed the breathing thing.

Hope this thread helps others who may be shooting beauty and need to rethink their choices.
 
Don't let the breathing issue get to you, by all means the Contax are amazing value for their money and will hold tremendously against other photographic lenses from today. They have a character and look to them that I think FAR outweigh the mechanical drawbacks of the Contax lineup.

If you're serious about offloading them and moving on they should sell very well, but again, they'll be better in your hands for some time and are almost guaranteed to increase in value over the next few years (Especially when Dragon and other full frame digital sensors come out).

PS: The reason why breathing wasn't an issue that was addressed in Nick's threads is because it's not a huge deal. Go figure.
 
What Shervin said.
Buy yourself bellows for your mattebox and don't shoot completely locked on tripod when focus breathing disturbs you
 
BRANDON JAMESON said:
DANG!!!

I invested in a set of CONTAX ZEISS primes and had them cinevised to PL mount and they look amazing!

The glass is incredible and they look stellar on the RED One and EPIC...BUT

THEY BREATHE!!!!!!
Click to expand...


Did you actually have your still lenses re-housed and re-built with a proper PL-mount? Who did the work?
 
Adrian Jebef said:
Did you actually have your still lenses re-housed and re-built with a proper PL-mount? Who did the work?
Click to expand...

Yes Adrian, we sure did.

The work was done in Korea, cost a great deal of money and took a few months to complete the first round.

We have 5 of them here and 5 are in the process of re-housing.

Obviously, I don't recommend it , but that's my OPO. :)
 
The one little detail I see in your post is the part about the matte box moving. I assume from this that the matte box is a clip-on and that the lenses don't focus internally. Correct? In that regard, I'd just note that the Rokinons do focus internally, so at least that aspect of your trouble would not be present. Just FWIW.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
The one little detail I see in your post is the part about the matte box moving. I assume from this that the matte box is a clip-on and that the lenses don't focus internally. Correct? In that regard, I'd just note that the Rokinons do focus internally, so at least that aspect of your trouble would not be present. Just FWIW.
Click to expand...

Yes Terry, we have a clamp-on matte box.
 
You also might try not using a clip on mate box and see if that helps with the lumpy feeling. . The Ziess speeds are notorious for binding up and getting stiff if the clip on is overtightened just a little bit.

Edit: I was just using the speeds as an example of a lens design that gets grumpy when you squish the front barrel. It's pretty common.

Nick
 
Nick Gardner said:
You also might try not using a clip on mate box and see if that helps with the lumpy feeling. . The Ziess speeds are notorious for binding up and getting stiff if the clip on is overtightened just a little bit.

Nck
Click to expand...

This is incredibly helpful and makes sense
..thank you, Nick!
 
The Samyang 85mm is breathing very little, the 35 is breathing a lot.

But you said something about the line of sight moving, right? That could be a bad re-housing then, my Contax lenses breathe to some degree, but they stay centered much better than any electronic lens. Check the centering!

BTW, with the incredible resolution of a RED camera, you can always reframe in post to compensate. Even Fincher reframed in TGWDT.
 
Uli Plank said:
The Samyang 85mm is breathing very little, the 35 is breathing a lot.

But you said something about the line of sight moving, right? That could be a bad re-housing then, my Contax lenses breathe to some degree, but they stay centered much better than any electronic lens. Check the centering!

BTW, with the incredible resolution of a RED camera, you can always reframe in post to compensate. Even Fincher reframed in TGWDT.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback on the Samyang, Uli, this is great information!
 
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