FS7: How about this sony 18-110 lens

chappelldigital said:
Any observations on sharpness as compared to your typical 24-70 (Canon, Tamron, etc) ?
Wondering if this might be a better option and ditching my 24-70!
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not yet in detail but at the first check it looks very good. I used the SB / Canon 24-105 very rarely because I do not like the massive extension of the tube. No direct comparison but from the gut I would say it the Sony is at least even.
 
I've had this lens for a couple of weeks and used it at a shoot last week.

It handles wonderfully. Optically, it seems better than the 18-105mm. Focus lagging is nonexistent and it has a really nice long focus throw compared to stills lenses. AF isn't terrible, but I haven't tried it on my A6500 since it's in the shop.

Servo zoom is smooth and not nearly as slow as the 28-135.

f/4 sucks a little at the price point, but it's a tradeoff.

It's awkward handheld on the FS5. If I keep it, I'll need some kind of rig. FS5 + 18-110mm is pretty killer on the wrist and it's a hard lens to support SLR-style.
 
I am pretty excited to have a 18-110 lens range on the Ronin without lens changing or re-balancing. I needed the extended arm and an alterative stand. I am thinking about the pan extension from cinemilled

5s3T
 
jbregar said:
I wouldn't put this on a gimbal. It's huge and heavy. I'd use the 18-105mm instead.
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works pretty well. 4.1kg payload and the Ronin takes more than 7kg. I have seen way heavier set ups with RED, V-Mout batteries, zooms, wireless FF and wireless transmitters.

I would never use the 18-105 with it's horrible distortions in 4K.
 
Rented one to send out on a shoot yesterday (I'm not the one using it unfortunately).

No time for image quality tests. Only initial impressions of having it on my shoulder for <5 minutes

- good weight, feels well balanced on FS7 + XDCA + Zacuto VCT plate
- servo isn't as fast as ENG glass, but about what I'd expect for S35 budget lens
- There isn't noticeable lag in the fly-by-wire manual focus, but it also doesn't feel fine tuned. At first I assumed it was a mechanical connection due to hard stops, but there's just something about the lack of kinetic response that made realize it was fly-by-wire. Canon 24-105 & 18-80 feel "right". I could get used to it at this price point.
- There IS noticeable lag when adjusting the iris.
 
nice comparison of 18-110 vs 28-135. To my eye the 18-110 looks sharper and quite good on 27" apple monitor - though I wish they spent less time showing you that it is indeed wider - duh. However the one shot of center crop at 110 is kind of disappointing, though whenever you are shooting a long distance through atmosphere over water with a long lens its hard to know if you are seeing the lens breakdown or just the atmospheric haze getting in the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93o2Tle_evw
 
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Just spent an afternoon comparing the 18-110 on my friends new FS7 Mk II and my FS7 with lots of other lenses - Canon 17-120, Tamron 24-70 etc. In every comparison the 18-110 looked woefully soft, but when the 18-200 Sony was way sharper I said, "This is suspicious - lets switch cameras."

It was a camera problem!!!!! The brand new FS7 Mk II was simply soft and we checked and rechecked every setting we could think of and came up with nothing. I never thought these cameras could be that different and I'm not at all sure that it is a general problem of the MkII more likely just a lemon, but it would be instructive to test other MK II's. Very bizarre afternoon.

Upshot is I didn't really get a good test of the 18-110. It sure looked better on my camera but we plan to check the lens again next week.

Lenny Levy
 
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There are plenty of example videos from the 18-110 hitting youtube and as I suspected the image looks no better than the 18-200 perhaps a fraction sharper. It appears to have the same soulless nature and complete lack of character that Sony seems to do so well with their lenses. Everything so far looks perfunctory.

At least with the 18-200 it has quite an amazing close focus even at 200mm which makes it extremely useful for macro work. I shot some abstract slo-mo macro bugs for an art installation with it which when projected look impressively terrifying.

Everything so far I've seen from the Zeiss 21-100 looks impressive and the Fuji 18-55 is a close second. As I'm tight I'd prolly buy the Fuji but really think seriously about the Zeiss.
 
I'm really not sure what you mean when you call a lens Soulless based on couple of youtube samples. I'm sure there are differences but my guess is you are mainly looking at Production differences. So far the only lenses I've seen in Youtube tests that I saw real Soul in were Cookes and I need to see exact comparisons of the same shot. There are some nice comparisons on the web of the Otus, Milvus and original Zeiss Planars and probably the Otus has a slight edge but I wasn't bowled over by the stills.

I did get a chance to just shoot a couple of quick charts in my abortive test of the 18-110 a few days ago. At around 50mm it was sharper than my Tamron 24-70 at f5 and seemed to have less CA. Compared to the 18-200 it was also a touch sharper but what mainly surprised me was that the 18-200 looked good. However I didn't get a chance to shoot any known sharp good lenses to compare to. Hopefully soon.
 
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Haha, IMHO Morgan charts just don't get the attention and respect they deserve from people who are mostly just eyeballing an image on their 17-24" monitors from Random shots. They can tell you a tremendous amount. Lotta soul in those charts if you know how to look for it. Too much talk about lens soul and not enough about charts .

Years ago when the Letus 35mm adapter came out and people were lauding how great & sharp it was I put it in on a chart and discovered they all had their back focus wildly off and were all out of focus. They subsequently added back focus adjustments. They can tell you a lot about axial CA.

Had we not looked at charts a few days ago we would never have noticed that my friends FS7 was defective. He came into the testing thinking his camera and lens looked great. Even after comparing to the Canon 17-120 he thought Oh well so its not a $30,000 lens, but the chart jumped out at us that something was very wrong.

That said - I thought the focus ring felt pretty natural, not fly by wire & that's a big deal. The old 18-105 was horrible. The AF worked much better than I expected. I thought it looked truly par focal but began to wonder when we put it on the chart . Will have to test again. The power zoom had a nice gentle slow creep with what seemed like a gentle start stop but need more time with it. It seemed to be stuck at one speed and not as variable as a true B4 zoom control. Not too heavy. It seemed to hold focus when I did a crash zoom but should test again. I'm not sure the T stop was a true f4 but need to test again. I don't think it got darker through the zoom but didn't test that too carefully. Didn't carefully check the IS. All in all it seemed pretty decent to me ergonomicaly but hope to look more carefully next week.
 
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At last we enter the exiting metaphysical world of lenses. All I ever wanted to know is the spirit and soul of a Sony lens compared with a Canon lens.

Once tried it myself, I lit some candles and burned some incense, drew a pentagram but all I got was a Noisy picture. :-)
 
To me at least slower lenses lacks punch and that could equal less soul. My Sony 24-70/4 is nowhere near as nice looking as my Canon 24-70/2.8 for example.
 
You can't really tell if a lens is sharp just by looking at the images on a computer screen or tv set the way your audience will. You gotta see what the lens looks like when digitally zoomed into the image on a chart because only that will reveal all the stuff your audience is never going to notice. :D
 
JPNola said:
You can't really tell if a lens is sharp just by looking at the images on a computer screen or tv set the way your audience will. You gotta see what the lens looks like when digitally zoomed into the image on a chart because only that will reveal all the stuff your audience is never going to notice. :D
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If the audience will never see it, then why does it matter? Isn't it the very definition of pixel peeping?

And you are wrong by the way, sharpness is a perceptual thing, not something that you evaluate with charts.
 
broughtonfilm said:
And you are wrong by the way, sharpness is a perceptual thing, not something that you evaluate with charts.
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I'm sorry but that just makes no sense, nor does all the resistance to looking at charts to analyze lens performance here. How the heck do you think these lens designers evaluate what their doing, by paying high priced DP's to shoot cool movies for them & then watch them on compressed videos on Vimeo? Its certainly not the only way to judge a lens, but it is one valuable tool. Likewise there's a role for pixel peeping as well.
You just need to keep all the information you gather in perspective.
 
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