4/3 lens and future upgrade to Scarlet S35.

T

Thomas Church

Active member
I'm one of the many that is planning to buy an AF100 as a "waiting for Scarlet" camera.

My question is, will 4/3 lens have vignetting on an S35 sensor?

I'm a bit cautious about investing a significant amount on lenses for the AF100 that I'm not gonna use once Scarlet S35 comes out (whenever that is).

My original idea was investing on Canon L lenses thar I could use on Scarlet S35 and as still lenses, as I'm also a still photographer.

Is 4/3 going to be a new "big sensor" standard for video, so that these Panny lenses hold their value in the video realm?

What about using DX Nikon lenses? Will be only be able to control aperture through "hacks"?
 
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My question is, will 4/3 lens have vignetting on an S35 sensor?
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Probably. It seems there is a little bit of interest ( but just a little ) in a 4/3 mount for the 2/3" Scarlet. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
My original idea was investing on Canon L lenses thar I could use on Scarlet S35 and as still lenses, as I'm also a still photographer.
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The Olympus SHG lenses are highly rated and expensive, but it only makes sense to invest in glass like that if you plan on staying with the system. You could always rent some to see how they are?
 
I'm probably going to skip Scarlet 2/3 altogether.

For most "small" jobs, the AF100 will probably be a more adequate camera, in terms of ease of post production, storage, acessibility of lens, and of course shallow depth of field.

I can see the AF100 dominating commercials, corporate video, etc for some time.

Doesn't make much sense to shoot 3K RAW for jobs that won't go past DVD and the Internet.

Anyway, knowing this I'm probably going to buy just a couple of cheaper Panasonic lens, and I'm not gonna invest heavily on the 4/3 system.

It's only a matter of time before I move up to Scarlet S35, which is pretty much the "ideal" camera for the foreseable future.

Sony is supposedly also releasing an S35 camera next year. I wouldn't be surprised if Canon and Nikon start adapting their SLR lenses for the Cine S35 format in the next few years.

So maybe the best decision is not to invest on expensive lenses just yet.
 
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Thomas Church said:
My question is, will 4/3 lens have vignetting on an S35 sensor?
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I don't know as I can't find the projected image circle spec for any of the 4/3" lenses. I'm guessing the wider lenses would probably vignette a bit, the longer lenses less so or perhaps not at all.

Thomas Church said:
My original idea was investing on Canon L lenses that I could use on Scarlet S35 and as still lenses, as I'm also a still photographer.
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Personally, I think this is a great idea. You should be able to use the Birger EF mount for the AF-100 and retain electronic control of the lenses. You should be able to use the EF mount for Scarlet as well. And you only need one set of lenses between still and motion work.

Thomas Church said:
Is 4/3 going to be a new "big sensor" standard for video, so that these Panny lenses hold their value in the video realm?
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For Panasonic, I think so. It's a sensor they have already developed and successfully marketed as "close enough" to 35mm.

For Canon or Sony, maybe, maybe not. Canon may get around to using an APS-C chip, or even a FF35 chip. Sony may follow suit with Canon, or get on the 4/3 bandwagon.

Thomas Church said:
What about using DX Nikon lenses? Will be only be able to control aperture through "hacks"?
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I don't think there has been an announced DX electronic lens mount.

AdrianF said:
It seems there is a little bit of interest ( but just a little ) in a 4/3 mount for the 2/3" Scarlet. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
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Remember, a 4/3 mount for the 2/3" Scarlet is a mount for any other 2nd generation RED camera - S35 Scarlet, or Epic - as well.

AdrianF said:
The Olympus SHG lenses are highly rated and expensive, but it only makes sense to invest in glass like that if you plan on staying with the system.
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I agree. If you already considering moving to another format, I'd say buying 4/3 or m4/3 lenses would be something of waste if you could also get equal quality from a lens that would be put into service elsewhere.


Thomas Church said:
Doesn't make much sense to shoot 3K RAW for jobs that won't go past DVD and the Internet.
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I'll just say that the benefit of resolving a clean and true 2K is debatable and leave it at that :)

And unless you need depth of field less than six inches @ an S35 35mm equivalent FOV, depth of field is a non-issue on the 2/3" Scarlet thanks to the mini-primes.

Consider also...
Codec (REDCODE at levels approaching mathematically lossless on the 2/3")
HDRx (18-stops at S35, I'm guessing 16-stops at 2/3")
Frame rates (3K up to 150fps)

These are things which may provide creative ability and image fidelity that is independent of resolution.People have and continue to choose to shoot on film for SD delivery despite the myriad digital options available.



Thomas Church said:
It's only a matter of time before I move up to Scarlet S35, which is pretty much the "ideal" camera for the foreseable future.

Sony is supposedly also releasing an S35 camera next year. I wouldn't be surprised if Canon and Nikon start adapting their SLR lenses for the Cine S35 format in the next few years.
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If you plan on going between formats, I wouldn't invest heavily in anything that won't cover the S35 sensor unless it makes sense in another way (you'll be using the AF-100 as B-cam, and could still use the 4/3 mount lenses, for instance).

Also, Sony's camera is likely to cost at least $30,000.

And I do think we'll start seeing some cinema format lenses from both Canon and Nikon. Peleng has already started doing it.


Cheerio! :beer:
 
If you are a still photographer you can go with canon glass and consider it an investment, I would think the berger mount should be ready in time for release, or close to. For motion work the only lenses that would be considered an investment have a PL mount and aperture ring, Stupid expensive, yes but will last through your next 10 cameras or more. The zeiss ZF would be next choice as a long term investment, again fully manual an aperture, also cover ff35, so you are covered no matter sensor size. If you want full electronic control, whatever panasonic offers, would be considered part of that system, and will only stay with you if you stay with the next generation of m4/3 camera. I would hope that these lenses end up being commodity priced and will pay for themselves in the life of the camera.
 
If you plan to upgrade to Scarlet S35 in the future, then sticking with 35mm lenses for the AF100 would make most sense. 4/3 lenses would cover 3k resolution crop on an S35 Scarlet, and might cover for some focal lengths on quad HD format, but they would not cover the widescreen cinema formats. There is no indication at this point that Red will make a 4/3 mount for their cameras at all. That could change, but I wouldn't count on it since it is such a new format and there are not any lenses specifically optimized for motion work for it at this point.
 
dop16mm said:
If you are a still photographer you can go with canon glass and consider it an investment, I would think the berger mount should be ready in time for release, or close to. For motion work the only lenses that would be considered an investment have a PL mount and aperture ring, Stupid expensive, yes but will last through your next 10 cameras or more. The zeiss ZF would be next choice as a long term investment, again fully manual an aperture, also cover ff35, so you are covered no matter sensor size. If you want full electronic control, whatever panasonic offers, would be considered part of that system, and will only stay with you if you stay with the next generation of m4/3 camera. I would hope that these lenses end up being commodity priced and will pay for themselves in the life of the camera.
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Would the same be true of the Zeiss ZM lenses? Thanks.
 
I think I'm gonna play this one safe.

Buy a couple of cheaper Panasonic lenses that I can sell with the AF100 once Scarlet is out.

Regarding Scarlet S35 I think right now it would be wiser to hold on for a little while, Canon or Nikon may very well release their Cinema Adapted lenses in one or two years.

It would be the best, because by using L Lenses on an S35 sensor it would be impossible to have that extreme wide angle look.
 
If you're interested in investing in glass, why not start collecting PL lenses? They're pretty much guaranteed to work with whatever digital cinema camera you purchase in the future.
 
all of the zeiss z series lenses cover full frame 35mm or vistavision in movie terms, so are a good bet at being future proof, but only go to 18mm at wide end, so you'd have to go for m4/3 system lenses to get down to 14mm and wider at a reasonable price point.

If I was putting together a prime kit for the camera I'd get the 14mm and 20mm panasonic pancakes and go with standard full frame manual primes for 24mm and up, nikon, zeiss, pentax, canon... whatever you have or whatever you like, there are adaptors for them. You can get f2.8 versions of most focal lengths fairly cheap. With the apparent speed of this camera, the days of needing f1.4 are gone. In all honesty you wont want to shoot faster than f4 if you don't have a really good focus puller on your crew.

I've shot night exteriors on 16mm with 500 asa stock with a couple of 1k redheads, keeping an f4 and background streetlights held fine. If this camera is clean at 800-1600 with decent shadow latitude as is common on digital cameras, there should be no reason not to be able to use the 14-140mm in most cases, and have the advantages of electronic focus tracking, because you'll likely be shooting on your own without an ace focus puller and you will need it. Hopefully panasonic will come up with a decent video zoom, like a 12-60 2.8 would cover well in most situations for controlled narrative.

I'm actually excited about this camera for the opposite reason of shallow depth of field, extreme wide angle with minimal distortion ala the 7-14mm, this nearly impossible with small chip cameras.
 
Thomas Church said:
Doesn't make much sense to shoot 3K RAW for jobs that won't go past DVD and the Internet.
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People have a mistaken idea about the Scarlet anyway. The 3K scarlet is a single sensor system that really resolves about 2.2k-2.3k. (Filtering to produce colors isn't needed on a 3 sensor camera like the AF100 or EX1/3, only one chip cameras.)

So in reality its down rez'd to a 2k (2048) system and that's not significantly better resolution than 1920.
 
Duke M. said:
So in reality its down rez'd to a 2k (2048) system and that's not significantly better resolution than 1920.
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I would highly doubt that the AF-100 actually resolves 1920 lines though... the Scarlet 2k will be tack sharp.... if it sees the light of day.
 
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Quite. There is a difference between something that is 1080p and something that actually resolves 1080p. DSLRs are an excellent example of how such a disparity can exist. Of course, the resolving power of the AF-100 remains to be seen.

Plus, there is so much more about RED now than resolution. If anything, I feel that is their dullest spear.
 
I don't see Scarlet 2/3 having 30% of the impact it would've had one year ago once it releases.

RED's truly revolutionary camera is Scarlet S35.

But that's another topic.
 
Duke M. said:
People have a mistaken idea about the Scarlet anyway. The 3K scarlet is a single sensor system that really resolves about 2.2k-2.3k. (Filtering to produce colors isn't needed on a 3 sensor camera like the AF100 or EX1/3, only one chip cameras.)

So in reality its down rez'd to a 2k (2048) system and that's not significantly better resolution than 1920.
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gh1 and af100 etc, what is that considered 1k or 2k? I can't tell if you're supposed to go by the first pixel number 1920 or by the second 1080...first is about 2k second is 1k
 
Thomas Church said:
I don't see Scarlet 2/3 having 30% of the impact it would've had one year ago once it releases.

RED's truly revolutionary camera is Scarlet S35.

But that's another topic.
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yes and scarlet s35 is even a bigger piece of vaporware flop than the other scarlet. i doubt it'll even see light of day
 
DSLRs tend to resolve somewhere between .8 and 1.2K. GH13, maybe more. 2K refers to horizontal resolution, which the DCI standard makes out to be a 2048x1080 frame.

And I suppose it's any individual's prerogative to believe any product in development won't make it to market. Given the fact that the S35 Scarlet is basically just a less capable EPIC, I feel like it will be coming to market since EPIC is out and about in pre-release form right now. C'est la vie.
 
Homunculus said:
gh1 and af100 etc, what is that considered 1k or 2k? I can't tell if you're supposed to go by the first pixel number 1920 or by the second 1080...first is about 2k second is 1k
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1k is 1024
2k is 2048
4k is 4096

Computers work using binary not base 10. So powers of 2. Therefore HD with its horizontal pixel resolution at 1920 which is just under 2k and slighty lower resolution.
 
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