Planetwide
Member
i'm not seeing any CA, looks like a very clean lens. How do the corners hold up?
FS7: How about this sony 18-110 lens
- Thread starter Publimix
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Bern Caughey
Veteran
How's the lens look in UHD/4K where electronic distortion correction is not available?
I also dont see CA on the original Files via resolve and output on a 10 bit monitor.
Maybe it had been better when i had used a better object with better contrast. I dont have a lot of experiance in lense testing, i am no professional. I just tried to do my best.
FallIng down exposure in the edges ... i would say not clear visible in field Situation. To be clear this should be testet in a pro studio surrounding.
How CA or distortion is in 4k or UHD i did not test. I hope i can go ahead soon and follow also with some sharpness comparisons.
Klaus
Maybe it had been better when i had used a better object with better contrast. I dont have a lot of experiance in lense testing, i am no professional. I just tried to do my best.
FallIng down exposure in the edges ... i would say not clear visible in field Situation. To be clear this should be testet in a pro studio surrounding.
How CA or distortion is in 4k or UHD i did not test. I hope i can go ahead soon and follow also with some sharpness comparisons.
Klaus
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here some landscape sharpness comparisons Sony 18-110, Sigma 18-35, Canon 24-70, Zeiss CP.2 28, 50mm
Klaus
https://youtu.be/y_w1LNroly0
Klaus
https://youtu.be/y_w1LNroly0
Wes.
Well-known member
Thanks for posting Klaus,
What's your overall take on the sharpness? Seems to be pretty legit to me. I kind of want this lens to replace my 24-105/speed booster combo I've been running and gunning with for the past year and a half. I have a set of rokinon primes for interviews (for now)...
Ugh. And the internal debate of this or the FUJI's begins all over again lol. Perhaps buy the fuji's and rent this for run and gun jobs.... hmm..
What's your overall take on the sharpness? Seems to be pretty legit to me. I kind of want this lens to replace my 24-105/speed booster combo I've been running and gunning with for the past year and a half. I have a set of rokinon primes for interviews (for now)...
Ugh. And the internal debate of this or the FUJI's begins all over again lol. Perhaps buy the fuji's and rent this for run and gun jobs.... hmm..
Wes,
as more i use the 18-110 the more i like it for MY situation run and gun, docu. Of coures it is only f4.
No discussion about look, its a personal taste. The lense with all its functions fits very good to FS5, FS7.
manual-auto-push autofocus, autoiris, zoom work fine, focus range very good, lightweight, no breathing
parfocal, for me no CA, good focus rotation ....
I miss a professional comparison FUJIs to Sony.
Of course the Fujinon 18-55 and the brother may be a very interesting set, for some maybe perfect.
I also had a eye on those since they were anounced...i read all discussion.
As for my preferences i do not regret that i bought 18-110 and if you ask, i would buy again.
As there are not many tests fo the 18-110 out there (only explanations), i wanted to give the guys a impression with the side note, that i am not a professional tester, i did it firest time. I wanted to see how Sony worked in the field.
In general i want to go away from still lenses for easier work...exept in some situations ...Sigma 18-35, Tokina for very wide.
My recomendation, take it in your hand and try it out (if not availabel...wait)... and do not forget: the story makes the film (not the lense).
I hope it helps a little bit.
cheers
Klaus
FUJINON 18-55 see Alister
http://www.xdcam-user.com/alisters-blog/
as more i use the 18-110 the more i like it for MY situation run and gun, docu. Of coures it is only f4.
No discussion about look, its a personal taste. The lense with all its functions fits very good to FS5, FS7.
manual-auto-push autofocus, autoiris, zoom work fine, focus range very good, lightweight, no breathing
parfocal, for me no CA, good focus rotation ....
I miss a professional comparison FUJIs to Sony.
Of course the Fujinon 18-55 and the brother may be a very interesting set, for some maybe perfect.
I also had a eye on those since they were anounced...i read all discussion.
As for my preferences i do not regret that i bought 18-110 and if you ask, i would buy again.
As there are not many tests fo the 18-110 out there (only explanations), i wanted to give the guys a impression with the side note, that i am not a professional tester, i did it firest time. I wanted to see how Sony worked in the field.
In general i want to go away from still lenses for easier work...exept in some situations ...Sigma 18-35, Tokina for very wide.
My recomendation, take it in your hand and try it out (if not availabel...wait)... and do not forget: the story makes the film (not the lense).
I hope it helps a little bit.
cheers
Klaus
FUJINON 18-55 see Alister
http://www.xdcam-user.com/alisters-blog/
Clermond
Veteran
I posted some stills on on the beginning of the thread. Unfortunately Dropbox killed all the links from the public folder. Doing a test posting more will predictable result in comments like "f4 is a no-go", "I don't like the electronic focus" and others. That's not very motivating.
yes, it has distortion in 4K (the Fujinon is worse)
yes, it has distortion in 4K (the Fujinon is worse)
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Klaus,
Thanks again for posting such detailed tests. I was still a little confused though by why you chose focus points that were in front of infinity as the bulk of the details for trees and buildings was in the distance. Because of that I found the first set of tests at 5 meters less valuable since it was mainly the tree in focus. However even those were interesting . I'm wondering how you did your focusing , was it manual and if so only through the EVF or did you have a monitor to help nail focus? I ask because especially with the 5 meter tests sometimes the focus point seems a little in front or behind . As in the first set of tests it seemed the Sigma often seemed focus a little in front of the Sony.
The other general thing I noticed especially comparing the 3 zooms was that they seemed to perform differently at different focal lengths. Interesting and not especially encouraging.
All in all, sadly I was not impressed as much as I wanted to be by the Sony, and the Sigma surprised me by also not looking very impressive, whereas the Canon surprised by generally looking pretty darn good. Of course the primes were always the best performers but It was interesting to see that so clearly.
One thing that can throw it off really quickly though is that even slight overexposure seems to make things appear less sharp . I wonder if a little bit of correction would skew the results.
Thanks again Klaus.
Thanks again for posting such detailed tests. I was still a little confused though by why you chose focus points that were in front of infinity as the bulk of the details for trees and buildings was in the distance. Because of that I found the first set of tests at 5 meters less valuable since it was mainly the tree in focus. However even those were interesting . I'm wondering how you did your focusing , was it manual and if so only through the EVF or did you have a monitor to help nail focus? I ask because especially with the 5 meter tests sometimes the focus point seems a little in front or behind . As in the first set of tests it seemed the Sigma often seemed focus a little in front of the Sony.
The other general thing I noticed especially comparing the 3 zooms was that they seemed to perform differently at different focal lengths. Interesting and not especially encouraging.
All in all, sadly I was not impressed as much as I wanted to be by the Sony, and the Sigma surprised me by also not looking very impressive, whereas the Canon surprised by generally looking pretty darn good. Of course the primes were always the best performers but It was interesting to see that so clearly.
One thing that can throw it off really quickly though is that even slight overexposure seems to make things appear less sharp . I wonder if a little bit of correction would skew the results.
Thanks again Klaus.
Alpha Beta Omega
Veteran
What I've seen so far from this lens doesn't reveal any real issues. It looks like a solid choice for the FS7/FS5 if one wants to use these cameras in ENG mode. I wouldn't expect the 18-110 to achieve footage with a wow factor, but it would probably prove itself to be a good solution in many situations.
basspig
Veteran
I just did my first significant outdoor shoot with the 18-110 Sony lens this weekend.
Overall, I'm impressed with the lens. It's as sharp as my Sigma 50-100, but without the CA. The only place where it falls short is at the full long end of its range, where there is a kind of cross blur to images of fine detail.
I must add that this is the first lens I've owned where the auto focus is actually useful! It doesn't 'hunt' and rack in and out wildly like other lenses I've tried. It subtly and transparently finds focus and always seems to make the right decisions. I shot in auto for 98% of my hike on Sunday.
My FS7 is equipped with the XDCA extension and is powered with a 160Wh battery. The RAW signal is being fed to a Shogun Inferno, which is set to record in Prores HQ. I hiked all up the mountain along the river with this behemoth, weighing in at probably 30-35lbs and almost 3 feet from matte box to the edge of the Shogun Inferno. By the time I finished my excursion, up steep slopes and over tree roots at the edge of cliffs overlooking the river, it felt more like 70lbs. And if it weren't for my weekly intense workouts in the gym, I would probably have trouble just holding the camera for five minutes. It was quite a haul, and other hikers asked me about the camera and if I was making a documentary or shooting for National Geographic. I told them I was an unemployed cinematographer, just trying to keep up my skills! LOL
I found the iris control, via the thumbwheel on the camera to be quite smooth and for some reason, I never had the thought to use the iris ring on the lens itself. But the transition was smooth, not stepped, like with the EF mount lenses I was used to using.
The thing that kept jumping out at me as I editing my footage this evening was sharp, sharp sharp detail! There were distant tree branches that were only a single pixel wide, but the lens resolved them. Even against the deep blue sky, which was like the shade of blue that is normally only seen at 60,000' altitude in the cockpit of a fighter plane, which was made that way via a 4" glass polarizing filter that I had in my matte box's filter tray, and rotated about 45° to get the deepest blue out of the sky. There was so much detail, that Prores HQ even broke down with macroblock artifacts visible in 400% magnification. Only CDNG gets around this kind of problem in a similar test I did, but it looks fine on a 31" 4K production monitor.
The deep blue skies break down badly when rendering out to any 8-bit CODEC. The flatness of the color and the lack of noise to dither it results in concentric ring banding in the final render. The master looks great though.
The focus ring slides to and fro with much less effort than my 28-135 lens. It's very smooth, sure and feels almost power assisted. The lens was sharp enough at f/4 that I stayed there most of the time and with ND 1/16 and 1/96 shutter.
The bokeh is nice and smooth and creamy when pulled partway into a subject.
This lens is much lighter than the Sigma lenses, hence the camera balances much better, being less front heavy.
The power zoom is much smoother than anything I own in the XDCam line. It's easy to start up a creep zoom that is so slow the viewer doesn't realize it until the focal length has changed substantially. There is a slight lag when stopping zoom. And maximum speed is pretty fast but not a crash zoom speed. For that, you go full manual and turn the ring. There isn't any perceived delay there.
The support foot at the bottom of the lens hangs down about 2.5mm lower than the support feet on my Sigma lenses, which line up nicely with the center rail for my handles. This lens won't go over that support. Fortunately, it's not a heavy lens.
I got some shots of contrails in the sky and both times, the lens' auto focus nailed focus perfectly. I remember so many times trying to manually focus to catch a plane in flight and having a difficult time. I also remember past autofocus lenses would hopelessly rack in and out of focus, unable to find the jet. That's why this lens surprised me. Sony hit it outa' the park with this one.
Here's the highlights from the hiking trips, all shot with this lens:
https://youtu.be/TTfrlczs-1E
Overall, I'm impressed with the lens. It's as sharp as my Sigma 50-100, but without the CA. The only place where it falls short is at the full long end of its range, where there is a kind of cross blur to images of fine detail.
I must add that this is the first lens I've owned where the auto focus is actually useful! It doesn't 'hunt' and rack in and out wildly like other lenses I've tried. It subtly and transparently finds focus and always seems to make the right decisions. I shot in auto for 98% of my hike on Sunday.
My FS7 is equipped with the XDCA extension and is powered with a 160Wh battery. The RAW signal is being fed to a Shogun Inferno, which is set to record in Prores HQ. I hiked all up the mountain along the river with this behemoth, weighing in at probably 30-35lbs and almost 3 feet from matte box to the edge of the Shogun Inferno. By the time I finished my excursion, up steep slopes and over tree roots at the edge of cliffs overlooking the river, it felt more like 70lbs. And if it weren't for my weekly intense workouts in the gym, I would probably have trouble just holding the camera for five minutes. It was quite a haul, and other hikers asked me about the camera and if I was making a documentary or shooting for National Geographic. I told them I was an unemployed cinematographer, just trying to keep up my skills! LOL
I found the iris control, via the thumbwheel on the camera to be quite smooth and for some reason, I never had the thought to use the iris ring on the lens itself. But the transition was smooth, not stepped, like with the EF mount lenses I was used to using.
The thing that kept jumping out at me as I editing my footage this evening was sharp, sharp sharp detail! There were distant tree branches that were only a single pixel wide, but the lens resolved them. Even against the deep blue sky, which was like the shade of blue that is normally only seen at 60,000' altitude in the cockpit of a fighter plane, which was made that way via a 4" glass polarizing filter that I had in my matte box's filter tray, and rotated about 45° to get the deepest blue out of the sky. There was so much detail, that Prores HQ even broke down with macroblock artifacts visible in 400% magnification. Only CDNG gets around this kind of problem in a similar test I did, but it looks fine on a 31" 4K production monitor.
The deep blue skies break down badly when rendering out to any 8-bit CODEC. The flatness of the color and the lack of noise to dither it results in concentric ring banding in the final render. The master looks great though.
The focus ring slides to and fro with much less effort than my 28-135 lens. It's very smooth, sure and feels almost power assisted. The lens was sharp enough at f/4 that I stayed there most of the time and with ND 1/16 and 1/96 shutter.
The bokeh is nice and smooth and creamy when pulled partway into a subject.
This lens is much lighter than the Sigma lenses, hence the camera balances much better, being less front heavy.
The power zoom is much smoother than anything I own in the XDCam line. It's easy to start up a creep zoom that is so slow the viewer doesn't realize it until the focal length has changed substantially. There is a slight lag when stopping zoom. And maximum speed is pretty fast but not a crash zoom speed. For that, you go full manual and turn the ring. There isn't any perceived delay there.
The support foot at the bottom of the lens hangs down about 2.5mm lower than the support feet on my Sigma lenses, which line up nicely with the center rail for my handles. This lens won't go over that support. Fortunately, it's not a heavy lens.
I got some shots of contrails in the sky and both times, the lens' auto focus nailed focus perfectly. I remember so many times trying to manually focus to catch a plane in flight and having a difficult time. I also remember past autofocus lenses would hopelessly rack in and out of focus, unable to find the jet. That's why this lens surprised me. Sony hit it outa' the park with this one.
Here's the highlights from the hiking trips, all shot with this lens:
https://youtu.be/TTfrlczs-1E
Liam Hall
Veteran
How you can derive any sort conclusion about the 18-110 based on shooting this footage is beyond me. Technically and artistically the footage is well below par. Why take such a big rig on a hike? Why are the colours so unnatural and why is there so much banding in the skies? You need to look at your workflow, FS7 footage should not look this bad on YouTube.
basspig
Veteran
What are you talking about? Didn't you actually READ my post above, or are you trolling?
For the lazy, I will recite:
I used a polarizing filter to deepen the sky color.
The banding is a result of 8-bit h.264 with no dither--original master footage has no banding when viewed on a 10-bit display.
The sheer amount of high frequency detail is enough to break any CODEC. Thousands of branches and dense foliage will saturate the detail creation ability of any encoding scheme that's compressed.
I hadn't intended to get onto such steep trails, having come in on the Blue trail, but the rest in my group returned via the White trail, which took us to the edge of the slope overlooking the river. It was quite risky, yes, but I got some footage I would otherwise have missed.
The trip gave me a good idea of the ergonomics of the lens, and the diverse scenery enabled me to get a good idea of how well this lens' auto focus handled various situations.
icarusfilm
Veteran
Maybe basspig is working for canon?
basspig
Veteran
You're just being a nasty person. Your denigrating comments are uncalled for, and you deserve any vitriol that comes your way as a result.
I don't work for anyone, I'm retired. And I don't particularly like Canon lenses anyway.
Liam Hall
Veteran
I'm not being nasty. You are the one name calling. I just gave you my professional opinion on the footage you offered up to evaluate the lens. Can you please point out where I have been denigrating?
Alpha Beta Omega
Veteran
I have to agree basspig's footage shows little of the quality of anything since it is just a bunch of random clips put together in a row without seemingly any intent to make the best out of anything. I'm sorry to say it but it's useless as an example of a lens quality or real features.
It looks more like an exercise in how long a heavy camera rig can be hauled in the wild.
I would suggest for you basspig to set up your camera and 18-110 lens in something like the work so many of us do in real life. Faces, urban life, products, typical b-roll clips and the likes. That is something we can relate to.
It looks more like an exercise in how long a heavy camera rig can be hauled in the wild.
I would suggest for you basspig to set up your camera and 18-110 lens in something like the work so many of us do in real life. Faces, urban life, products, typical b-roll clips and the likes. That is something we can relate to.
basspig
Veteran
Frankly, any attempt at demonstrating lens quality is futile with online compressed media.
I live up in the northwest corner of the state, and this is the typical habitat. Sometimes I venture downtown, but I don't much like getting harassed by the authorities "where's your permit" etc. so I tend to avoid urban areas.
Unfortunately, the stuff I shoot for pay, I can't legally share on the internet, as I am not the copyright owner.
I live up in the northwest corner of the state, and this is the typical habitat. Sometimes I venture downtown, but I don't much like getting harassed by the authorities "where's your permit" etc. so I tend to avoid urban areas.
Unfortunately, the stuff I shoot for pay, I can't legally share on the internet, as I am not the copyright owner.