SGPro Blade Review

Lenilenapi said:
I just got my Blade. Beautifully packaged and it looks lovely. It will be a few days before I can get to testing but yes Kholi...charts will be forthcoming.
It does take patience though. Want to drive up to San Rafael and help out?

I'll try to get together with Jeff ( aka Dino ) soon also to compare units.

Lenny Levy
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Sorry, Lenny... I'd only slow you down by saying "Forget this, let's go shoot some leaves!!!"

I'm glad you got yours. I must say that I am envious of the Blade Packaging. It's very professional lookin'!

When Jeff gets his Relay you should be around to help him shoot some charts as well.
 
Kholi said:
Yeah, I think a Lenny run-through is in order!!! Can't wait for his review/charts to pop up. Gotta have some serious patience for that stuff.
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Speaking of which......any Letus B4 Pro footage yet? Philip got his posted.......
 
Lenny,

Congrats on getting your Blade!

Could you post your link to a wedge chart, anybody can download and make a copy on paper. It's such a good way to see lens differences, adapter differences and camera differences.

I don't know how people can easily and properly judge edge to edge focus or CA without some type of resolution chart.
 
Dino said:
I don't know how people can easily and properly judge edge to edge focus or CA without some type of resolution chart.
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Yeah, Frankly it amazes me as well. I was taught - first you look at a chart, then you take it outside and see how it performs.
I wish I had a better place to set this stuff up rather than my study without space to light evenly.

Lenny
 
Dino said:
Speaking of which......any Letus B4 Pro footage yet? Philip got his posted.......
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I've only got test footages until this weekend. AKA Stuff that's not worth posting. This weekend is an actual production so I'll post from that.
 
Kholi said:
I've only got test footages until this weekend. AKA Stuff that's not worth posting. This weekend is an actual production so I'll post from that.
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Cool. But test footage of a resolution chart would be worth testing for me! Lenny can send you the link to a wedge chart download.
 
Alright Lenny, where's the download link? I downloaded a few charts from DSC Labs and adjusted my backfocus with one of them but what other free charts would be useful for testing purposes?
 
Leo Versola said:
Alright Lenny, where's the download link? I downloaded a few charts from DSC Labs and adjusted my backfocus with one of them but what other free charts would be useful for testing purposes?
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Here is a useful chart Leo. You can have it enlarged by a printer and mount it on a rigid backing.
 

Attachments

I have a couple charts that I enlarged to 17"X11". 50mm and 85mm taking lenses work well, wide open, ditto the camera.
 
Dino said:
I have a couple charts that I enlarged to 17"X11". 50mm and 85mm taking lenses work well, wide open, ditto the camera.
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Thanks again Jeff. I'll be testing the Blade with a few 2.8 Nikon zooms ranging from 20mm to 200mm as well as with a 58mm/1.4 Voigtlander prime.

I spent the day setting the 170 for the cleanest image possible which included resetting all the scene and user files, setting the master pedestal to -10 (the point which IRE with cap on was 0), and coring to +3. Using Cine D gamma and Cine Matrix, I captured a few 1080p shots which exhibited virtually no observable mid-tone noise (or any other noise for that matter) when viewed on a variety of output displays.

Despite the overcast and rainy weather which still provided some high contrast scenes, I thought the images were rather stunning; no grain, vignetting, or distortion, and little if any, CA, or noise. Of course, this was subjective on my part and needs further testing in a more controlled environment to yield more objective results.

I'm game on getting together to do some testing with you and Lenny if our schedules permit...
 
Jeff - only 17 x 11?

I enlarged my charts to 4'.
Stay calm over there, I'll shoot those charts in a day or so.

Lenny Levy
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you enlarge a resolution chart you will end with a bunch of lines and stripes with no relation - at all - to the resolution printed there! So I'm figuring... why?!
 
naavt said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you enlarge a resolution chart you will end with a bunch of lines and stripes with no relation - at all - to the resolution printed there! So I'm figuring... why?!
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Yes, there is a limit to how much enlargement should be used. The chart says 100X lines per picture height. My charts are 11" tall including outer border, so I think the chart is still okay for resolution, but I have real resolution charts which I would actually measure with.

This "Epson" wedge chart is still valuable for edge to edge focus and seeing CA, regardless. It is amazing how fast you can see differences between lenses or adapters--so much easier than a live action scene. I always look at the camera with it's stock lens first, then an adapter witj a couple of different taking lenses.
 
You can enlarge those charts as much as you want as long as you fill the frame with the chart - that's the concept. Thus the line pairs in the chart will always take up the same number of pixels.
The ISO chart Dino placed on the Timur Blade review thread holds up very well on a 4' blow up at Kinkos. Still sharp with good contrast.
Then you also have a nice big chart to bring on location to check your backfocus in the field BTW . I have a 4' and 3' to take to shoots.

My thinking is that I want to test the lenses in a real world type situation. I don't know enough about about optics to know if if focusing very close on small targets may affect their resolution especially in the corners .

A 4' chart fills the frame with a 50mm SLR ( full frame) lens at about 5'. That seems to me a good reliable way to test. Also can look at an 85mm or 105mm in my room and get close with a wide angle 35mm. Actually I'd rather have an even bigger chart to test the wide because getting that close with the wide's feels dicey to me though it may be optically the same as testing a 10' chart from further away. Anyone know more about those issues?

It is easier to light a 17" chart evenly though. My problem is I am testing in a study and there isn't room to really get lights to the side and evenly light it. So I have just alwayys put a caveat on those stills to ignore eveness of lighting.

Nice to see that people do care about what the charts show though.

Lenny Levy
 
What I am dying to see is the HMC150 with 6db gain paired up with the Blade. It would be like shooting without any light loss!!!!! :D
 
hey papa, do you thinkthe blade is a better option over the m2 encore, in your opinion as I may pull the trigger today for one of them. bokeh is inportant to me, and from the look of the new encore gg element it takes away the red rock mojo. but the blade razor one doesen't excite me either. your thoughts.
 
I would have to say the Blade for the simple fact that you can swap elements. If you want the least amount of light loss, you can go with either the encore or the blade, but you can also change the element of the blade to get the cinema bokeh.

I also think it's slightly less expensive. you won't go wrong either way, but you have the added bonus of changing elements with the blade. :)
 
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