What's up with this Foton zoom?

[jordan levy]

anyone have any experience with this lens? seems pretty interesting to me, small, nice range, i assume it has character. i also assume if something goes wrong with it you are F$%#@.

 

[Matt Uhry]

I got one for my Konvas in the pre digital film days, it was pretty bad. Sent it back and got an Ekran 25-80 which was decent for it's time.

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com

 

[Mike P.]

I've heard only bad things, particularly with higher-res sensors. Actually Timur used to have one that he used on his F3, but said it just didn't "work" well on Scarlet/Epic (presumably because its "character" looked more like "shite-lens syndrome" at 4k+.) Also, I think you have to rock a solid t8 for it to actually look okay regardless of what sensor it's paired with, which is pretty crappy for anything other than exterior daylight.

Editor's note: This is all hearsay, as I haven't used one on MX, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Christopher Mills]

I have one... And have only used it as a prop on a non funtional film camera so far because the PL mount built for mine is not yet collimated properly on the lens..
I did put it on the camera and set focus by eye. It is not inherently sharp.. color rendition is ok.. not special.. just ok..

kinda like the old 16mm format angenieux 12-120.. it worked, but was not that pretty

It does have a couple uses.. Its a useful set of focal ranges for daylight events..
and it accepts a now very scarce anamorphic front adapter.. I am going to try putting a panasonic anamorphic adapter on mine and play around a bit

 

[jordan levy]

thanks guys! good report, seemed too good to be true, nice range in such a little zoom though, but if its crap footage then who cares!

 

[Nick Gardner]

I just shot an entire day with the foton and the front anamophic adapter. I am not sure why, but a lot of the time it looked great, and some of the time it looked like a train wreck. Maybe I just missed focus horribly a few times. It has a look, that's for shure. I haven't really played with it with out the anamorphic front. It is not what one would call sharp, but looks pretty good around an 8/11. I shot a bunch of stuff with a 2x extender and the whole shebang, so that's 280mms front anamorphic. I'll post the piece when it's done in a week or so. I shot it because I was going for the look of old Polaroid land camera stuff. Pack film. It has that feel with the larger format and the desaturated color palette. I could have gotten the same effect a different way, but I like doing stuff in camera.

Nick