Letus Extreme - Lomo test footage

[IanD]

Ok so I shot a quick and dirty test with a few of my Lomo primes. I went in ascending order from wide to telephoto. Shot very fast under changing lighting conditions so the exposures aren't perfect. No CC.

HVX 200 @ 720PN
180 shutter
56K preset WB

Lomos
18mm t1.6
35mm t1.6
50mm t1.4
75mm t1.6
100mm t2.2
Zeiss Jena MC 180mm f2.8 (medium format lens with OCT-19 adapter)

All lenses shot at 2.8 except 35mm @t2.0 and 180mm @f5.6

The last shot with the 180mm is to demonstrate the zoom capabilities of the Lex. I was able to zoom from around 74 to 99 with no noticeable image degradation.

More footage to come when I have time. Maybe even something dynamic with music!

Enjoy.

www.iandudleydp.com/LX-LOMO-TEST.mov

[P JAMAL]

very nice i can't wait to try mine .thanks

[William_Robinette]

Wow. That stuff is sharp! Nice set you have there.

[Kholi]

There we go. THERE WE GO. That's what I'm talkin' about on the zoom thing. Use it!

VERY sharp stuff. >=\ Can I have your glass?

[IanD]

Sure thing. A round of Lomo for everyone!

[bwest]

If im not mistaking.... I didnt see any breathing?

[rawfa]

Very nice and sharp. It makes me rethink selling my lomos.

[Andrew Brinkhaus]

bwest, there is definitely some breathing in there. Subtle on some shots, but it's apparent in the rack to the nearest shells in the first telephoto shots.

[jenningsp]

i tried for ages to find where i could buy some lomos. do you guys know of anywhere?

thanks

[bwest]

http://cgi.ebay.com/LOMO-set-lenses-28-35-50-75-135-with-PL-mount-Arri_W0QQitemZ290197924765QQihZ019QQcategoryZ4691Q QrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQtrksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQc mdZViewItem

[jenningsp]

thanks bwest. i swear i was on that guys ebay store 2 days ago.... he must have just added them

[bwest]

you may want to check the sellers profile, as its the second time around for these lomo's

[USLatin]

Sure thing. A round of Lomo for everyone!

Can I still get in on this or was it limited quantities sort of bull-crap?
:beer:

[P JAMAL]

ask all questions b4 buying them cuz they look like the lomo oct-18 mount lenses converted to pl mount but not sure .

1-age (serial #) ?

2-real condition of them ?

3-are they geared or not ?

[Kholi]

That's what it looks like. Converted to PL mount which is pretty beneficial, I think. And, I think he gets multiple sets of them or something.


Where's IanD!? He CAN'T be out shooting and doing things with his equipment, that's against the rules!

More footages. =P

[IanD]

Hey folks,

Just got back into town from a shoot in North Carolina. Brought my HVX/LX in my Petrol bag on the plane with me. Luckily it fit under the seat (mostly). My lenses unfortunately had to check through and luckily Jetblue didn't destroy them.

Anyway, a word of advice: don't buy the OCT-18 mount lenses. They will not convert well to PL (or OCT 19 for that matter). The issue is they use what's called a "focusing mount" just like some of the early Arri standard mount lenses which turns inside the camera's lens mount. This is metal on metal friction and can be very stiff to focus. This can be very troublesome especially when adapted to another mount. Gearing these lenses for follow focus is not a practical possibility as the torque needed to turn them will ruin the follow focus.

Just my 2c

[Kholi]

Thanks for the advice! Another question: can you give your compression settings for your Lomo test footage?

[IanD]

Pretty basic settings: H.264, medium quality.

[Tim Naylor]

I noticed with the wide angle a fall off on the edge to edge sharpness, most noticeable with the tree branches as they go from sharp to less then sharp when they reach the far edges. Is this a function of the Lomos or the LE? I had similar but worst edge to edge sharpness on a recent shoot with my wider lenses (Nikon 35 and 24) and it existed at all stops. I'm beginning to suspect the LE may have some edge to edge issues as it wasn't as apparent on my SG. Previous tests I've posted didn't have compositions with critical info in the far left and right.

The other issue I saw in the wide was visible grain like texture that panned with the camera, as if I could see the ground glass. Again, is this something that's endemic to your LE?

If there's anyone out there who has had edge to edge issues with the LE please let me know and if there's a possible remedy.

[Kholi]

I noticed with the wide angle a fall off on the edge to edge sharpness, most noticeable with the tree branches as they go from sharp to less then sharp when they reach the far edges. Is this a function of the Lomos or the LE? I had similar but worst edge to edge sharpness on a recent shoot with my wider lenses (Nikon 35 and 24) and it existed at all stops. I'm beginning to suspect the LE may have some edge to edge issues as it wasn't as apparent on my SG. Previous tests I've posted didn't have compositions with critical info in the far left and right.

The other issue I saw in the wide was visible grain like texture that panned with the camera, as if I could see the ground glass. Again, is this something that's endemic to your LE?

If there's anyone out there who has had edge to edge issues with the LE please let me know and if there's a possible remedy.

Zooming in a bit more on the HVX is going to be a remedy. Similar to lenses with hotspots in the center.

I don't think it's a flaw of the Letus, because if it was an edge-to-edge issue with the Letus you would see it on all of the lenses, not just wides. I also, remember readin' somewhere that wide lenses often fall-off at the edges.

I see what you're talkin' about in the footage that IanD posted. I will have to check to see if I get the same fallOff at the edges when usin' wide lenses but I think that'd be a lens issue.

[Tim Naylor]

Where did you buy your lomos? RAF is always sold out. Any leads?

[IanD]

Hey Tim,

I've been collecting the Lomos for about 5 years and they are getting very scarce these days. I got some from Raf, some from Realrus and Russianmarket on Ebay and others from private sellers. I would contact Raf and tell him what your looking for and he'll keep his eyes open if any lenses pop up. I've always had great interactions with him in the past and trust him implicitly.

You can also post on the Konvas cinema group user list. A fair bit of gear is exchanged between the members there, myself included.

http://konvas.org/mailman/listinfo/cinema_konvas.org

Regarding the falloff in the shot with the 18mm, that's due to the CCD offset in my HVX which the Lex can't seem to compensate for. That's just the very edge of the image circle. If I zoom in a bit more it goes away but I lose too much fov. I'm hoping the Letus folks can come up with an adjustment to perfectly align the adapter with the CCD block. Otherwise I'm very happy with the edge to edge sharpness of the LEX, especially with the longer lenses.

[cardmaverick]

I was JUST looking at potentially buying a set of LOMO anamorphics and an SGPro for my Andromeda camera today... man, those LOMO's are nice.

[Mediacre]

In my opinion it looks quite soft. It looks nice but really not that sharp. It has a nice 70's soft look to it. Are your Lomos from the 1970's?
I wonder if this is because of the hi-speed Lomos, which I heard are quite soft, specially in comparison to the normal speed Lomos, or if it's because of the HVX200 low rez chips. I know it's not the Letus Extreme as I have razor sharp images from it and a EX1 with Nikon lenses.

[IanD]

Soft? Not really sure what you think you're seeing. Of course putting any lenses on a 35mm adapter in front of a HVX isn't a good way to evaluate sharpness and resolution, but these lenses easily outresolve the HVX chips.

These Lomos are the high speed variants from the late 80's and are plenty sharp- especially on film where I've intercut them seamlessly with Mk3 Zeiss superspeeds.
The main difference is the Zeiss primes have a bit more contrast especially wide open. In regards to the standard vs high speed Lomo lenses my experience has been that the standards are only sharper at T8 and above which makes sense since the high speeds are optimized for T5.6 and lower.

What you're noting may be the difference between the EX1 and the HVX or perhaps you're used to the detail cranked up in camera to add sharpness. My HVX detail is 0.

Anyway these lenses work fine for me. In my own less than scientific tests they equaled if not exceeded my Zeiss Contax primes in resolution. For whatever that's worth.....

[Essami]

really love the colors and the look in these shots. Is the yellow/brown tintish look in them the lenses or is it just the fact that the subjects are all that color?

-EDIT-
Or is it the golden hour?
-EDIT-

Sami

[Avenger007]

How do you feel the zeiss contax stack up against the Lomos?

[Mediacre]

Soft? Not really sure what you think you're seeing. Of course putting any lenses on a 35mm adapter in front of a HVX isn't a good way to evaluate sharpness and resolution, but these lenses easily outresolve the HVX chips.

These Lomos are the high speed variants from the late 80's and are plenty sharp- especially on film where I've intercut them seamlessly with Mk3 Zeiss superspeeds.
The main difference is the Zeiss primes have a bit more contrast especially wide open. In regards to the standard vs high speed Lomo lenses my experience has been that the standards are only sharper at T8 and above which makes sense since the high speeds are optimized for T5.6 and lower.

What you're noting may be the difference between the EX1 and the HVX or perhaps you're used to the detail cranked up in camera to add sharpness. My HVX detail is 0.

Anyway these lenses work fine for me. In my own less than scientific tests they equaled if not exceeded my Zeiss Contax primes in resolution. For whatever that's worth.....

Yeah, you're right. I'm probably getting the impression it's soft because I'm comparing it to EX1+Letus Extreme stuff. Not a fair comparison since the EX1 blows any sub 10K camera and even the HPX500 out of the water in the sharpness department. The HVX200 is already "soft" on it's own.
But I do find Lomos have a softer warmer look, very reminiscent from the 70's. The Zeiss stuff is more "contrasty" and maybe slightly sharper ans surely cooler/not so warm. Lomos are quite fuzzy. More like Cookes than Zeiss.
But I have to disagree with standard speed Lomos only being sharper above T8. They are sharper all the way across the board, at least the ones I have used. Their MTF is actually higher too, according to a Russian lens technician I talked to once. If I'm not wrong, it's the same thing with Zeiss. The standard speeds are also sharper than super speeds.

[IanD]

Sami: That warm kinda golden tone is from the Lomo optics themselves. I used the 5600 preset WB in open shade and that's how they render color. If I wanted a cooler, more Zeiss look I could manually WB and correct it. I rather like the color pallet of the Lomos. Sometimes that alone can leave the impression of less contrast when it's simply just a warmer rendering.

Mediacre: I've owned both standard and super speed Lomos and for the most part they are equally sharp to a T8. I'm sure on a lens projecter the standards would have a modest edge though. I only have two standard speeds left, an 18mm T2.3 and a 50mm T2.3. I used to own a full set of both and ended up selling off most of the slower lenses. I will shoot a side by side test one of these days and compare them to the Super speeds. I doubt it'll be a big difference due to the resolution bottleneck of the HVX ccds.

Avenger: I gotta say that resolution-wise the Zeiss and the Lomos were equal with the Zeiss having slightly more contrast. Again, that could just be the warmer tones of the Lomos appearing less contrasty. As much as I love the Contax lenses I had to go all in with the Lomos. Having fast, wide lenses is very important to me on 35mm adapters and the Zeiss 25/2.8 was just too slow with too much light falloff to be really handy. My Lomo 18mm/1.4 and 22mm/1.4 on the other hand....sweet.

[Avenger007]

Thats exactly the issue I have. I like the 18mm F4 but inside its tough to light. Great for exteriors though. I do love the pricetag however at under $3500 for 8 lenses. I have a set of Zeiss ZF and the set of Zeiss Contax I just mentioned and I find that they can be used side by side with very little difference. Unfortunately, I started with the ZF set which costs over twice what the used Contax lenses did. I imagine a similar set of Lomos would be over $10k?

Also, sorry if this has been asked but what kind of mount are those lomos?

[bffilms]

Great footage man. Can't wait till mine arrives. I have a project comming up and after I ordered my lex I had to redo some of the storyboard segments because of the footage I'll be able to get. Your encode is much nicer than mine. What program did you use and what settings?

Bob
www.bobfranklinfilms.com (http://www.bobfranklinfilms.com)

[puredrifting]

Ok so I shot a quick and dirty test with a few of my Lomo primes. I went in ascending order from wide to telephoto. Shot very fast under changing lighting conditions so the exposures aren't perfect. No CC.

HVX 200 @ 720PN
180 shutter
56K preset WB

Lomos
18mm t1.6
35mm t1.6
50mm t1.4
75mm t1.6
100mm t2.2
Zeiss Jena MC 180mm f2.8 (medium format lens with OCT-19 adapter)

All lenses shot at 2.8 except 35mm @t2.0 and 180mm @f5.6

The last shot with the 180mm is to demonstrate the zoom capabilities of the Lex. I was able to zoom from around 74 to 99 with no noticeable image degradation.

More footage to come when I have time. Maybe even something dynamic with music!

Enjoy.

www.iandudleydp.com/LX-LOMO-TEST.mov

Ian:

Can you tell us your zoom and focus settings n your HVX when shooting with the 18mm and 35mm lenses? I have to put my HVX to Z80 when shooting with the 28mm 2.8 Nikon D to get rid of the vignetting whereas I can be at Z73 or 74 when shooting with the 50mm and 85mm focal lengths.

Thanks,

Dan

[IanD]

Avenger: The Lomos use the OCT-19 mount which is a Russian version of the BNCR, a bit larger than PL.

Bob: I just exported from Final Cut Pro - h264 at medium quality. Pretty standard settings.

Dan: I'm away from my gear now (actually in LA for a bit) but from memory I have to zoom to about 85 for the 18mm and 22mm and 81 for the 35mm. My 50mm, 75mm, and longer I can zoom out all the way to the edge of the LEX image area, but usually find myself at 74 for good measure. Strange as it may sound considering my rig, I don't feel the need to duplicate 35mm FOV. I try to get as much usable FOV from my lenses and minimize my zooming in. The HVX's lens is best at mid ranges in terms of fstop loss, resolution and optical distortions.

[puredrifting]

Thanks Ian:

That puts my mind at ease that me having to zoom in more for my wide angle lens is normal and there is nothing wrong with it.

You doing a shoot out here? Wish we had time to meet up. Take care!

Dan