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What's a Master Prime in Full-Frame world?

J

Jakob Wallis

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What's the closest thing to a Master Prime or Ultra Prime that covers Full Frame?

That can match the kind of contrast and sharpness you get from these lenses.
 
Arri Signature Prime. Leica Thalia. Cooke S7.

Tokina Vista is a step down in absolute resolution, but several steps down in cost.
 
Vistas out resolve both Thalias and S7s FYI, at least all 3 sets of those I've seen. Moderate wash on the Signature Primes as they are pretty good. Zeiss Supremes likely should be in the mix obviously. Then Sigma Cine.
 
The Vista Primes continue to amaze me. I’d buy signature primes but they don’t make sense for my market. I like the vistas better than anything short of the master or signature.
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
Call me naive, and perhaps a smart-alec, but why not use a teleconverter and call it a day? Anyway, do you really want to shoot Vistavision at T1.3? I sure wouldn't!
Click to expand...

I use an expander when I roll with S35 glass, but that comes at costs in the form of light loss and additional optical hits. I happily shoot wide open on high speed modern primes as the occasional calls for it both in light gathering as well as generally mood. Though most of the time I'm stopped down. And the nice juice you find when stopping a faster prime down 2-3 stops is very different than say a 2 or 2.8 starting point.
 
Phil Holland said:
Vistas out resolve both Thalias and S7s FYI, at least all 3 sets of those I've seen. Moderate wash on the Signature Primes as they are pretty good. Zeiss Supremes likely should be in the mix obviously. Then Sigma Cine.
Click to expand...

I was going by these projection tests:

https://www.sharegrid.com/learn/lens-sets/cooke-s7-i
https://www.sharegrid.com/learn/lens-sets/leitz-thalia
https://www.sharegrid.com/learn/lens-sets/tokina-vista

I own a full set (*) of Vista Primes, so not looking to knock them. But:

More than half of tested Signature Primes projected 200 lp/mm in the field WFO. Wow.
Thalia achieved 200 lp/mm in one case and not less than 140 lp/mm in the field WFO.
s7 was split 50/50 between 100 and 140 lp/mm in the field WFO.

Of these four lens sets, only Tokina fielded a lens (50mm) that did not resolve 200 lp/mm in the center, and a lens (35mm) that did not resolve 100 lp/mm in the field, neither WFO nor T2.8.

In fairness, for this list, only Vista Primes achieve T1.5. Thalia is only T2.6. With a wider aperture, minimal CA, minimal breathing, and a cost that's 1/3 to 1/4 the competition, you can see why I chose to buy a complete set and not worry too much about projection results from a single lens test on a single day in July of 2020.

In my own testing, I will say that there is a degree of field curvature that makes the wide lenses not really suitable for punching in to images at the edges (center punch-ins are fine). And due to the use of mechanically-tooled extreme aspherical elements, large bokeh patterns show tooling marks that sometimes need to be cleaned up. But I've gotten so used to their strengths that when I do use a lens that breathes, I find it disorienting until I remember "oh yes, that used to be normal." They are phenomenal lenses, especially on Monstro.

(*) 18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 40mm, 50mm, 65mm, 85mm, 105mm, 135mm
 
This may get some snickers and laughs, but don’t forget that the first season of Altered Carbon used Canon CN-E primes and Cooke S4/S5’s on the Alexa 65. I only bring this up because Phil mentioned the Sigma Cine primes and I think the Sigma’s and Canon’s match/intercut well. Both have good sharpness, contrast and skin tones.
 
I was going off what we measured at Duclos, Koerner, and even the manufacturers numbers, but I wasn't there for the portion of the lp/mm tests. I've never seen anything close to a 35lp/mm measurement on these across the field. Which makes me think more or less something is strange with the lens itself.

I have seen some grinding related things on some Tokinas, but it's similar to other aspherics. Seems those are tricky.

The tertiary points to be made here is which sets have other characteristics such as pleasing lens flare, micro contrast, etc. Somewhere in there all three of these sets have nice unique character.
 
I have a set that I used with my 8K Helium. I'm comfortable punching in (crop) even in the corners with these.
 
I used to own Masterprimes and now own Signatures (which I love and really wouldn’t swap for anything) but the closest Lenses to MP for FF (for me) are the Leitz FF cine Lenses.. I tested them for a few days earlier in the year and they do seem to be the sharpest cleanest lenses in the FF world... I would guess that they would out resolve MPs even at s35 and are def cleaner in terms of CA..
 
The Leitz FF lenses do look amazing, at approximately 10x the cost of the Vista Primes. As a "money no object" choice they certainly replace Master Primes in that regard.

I salute all the lens-makers who commit themselves to give us so many choices!
 
Hi:

I would say Zeiss Supremes are a close match IMO

Cheers!

G.
 
Gaston Fazio said:
Hi:

I would say Zeiss Supremes are a close match IMO

Cheers!

G.
Click to expand...

IMO No they are not.! .. Some focal lengths share 'look traits' but in most other ways they are not similar at all. I owned Supremes for a short period and they are a legitimate optical choice in a great sized packet but they are a very different animal..
 
Michael Tiemann said:
The Leitz FF lenses do look amazing, at approximately 10x the cost of the Vista Primes. As a "money no object" choice they certainly replace Master Primes in that regard.

I salute all the lens-makers who commit themselves to give us so many choices!
Click to expand...

I tested the Leitz FF lenses as a favour to a friend and went into the test with loads of preconceptions (I basically feel the main Leica company makes jewellery... not that I blame them for their premium brand approach to marketing as it is a tough market)...

But they are not particularly over priced if you really dig into what they achieved with the lenses.. I would be very confident that Zeiss's markup in percentage terms is higher with the supreme series. I also think they are probably better value than their other German made lenses.

The volume is tiny and they are very impressive and aggressive attempt to make the 'best spherical lenses out there'....

I don't actually really want or need what they where aiming for optically but it is still very impressive what they have achieved.

The imaging circle is huge and good into the corners of any LF camera out there. They even cover Alexa 65 from about 35mm and up.

The resolve more than any lens I have seen.

They have masterprime + levels of contrast

Which gives them a super colourful clean look... they are also really quite warm but in a neutral way (I am deeply suspicious that designers favoured blueish lenses in the past as they look sharp... check out the famous Canon 200 f1.8 lens for something near unmatchably blue.. )

They have super low distortion.

They have basically zero axial CA... much better then master primes.

They are not just bigger SUMMILUX-Cs the are something else

ALSO and importantly you can shoot film with them! Masterpimes often looked best to me when sticking a image into a piece of film and I suspect they lenses would do this wonderfully.

They managed all this performance and huge imaging circle through the PL mount (and a conversation with somebody who was on that optical journey left me with the understanding that this was not trivial)

As lenses they would be an inappropriate tool for me especially my kind of projects.... and on a personal taste thing a bit too heavy and perhaps they render a tad sharp.... which is of course just what MP did but the sharp to resolution balance is a tiny but kinder than MPs

PS I obviously believe that there is no single lens for ever job and there is legitimate artistic reasons to pick any glass! I personally love Arri signature lenses and find them to be the perfect replacemet for our master primes but not because they are the most like MPs in the FF world
 
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