F3: How well do you know lenses?

I dont know, to me a tiny little crop thumbnail is not what I judge my cinema lenses on. To me this could have been an iPhone, Cooke S4's, and MP's wouldnt have made a difference. Image too small, and subject too flat. Now if you posted a real DPX/TIFF export from the footage that would be different... This just was a crap shoot, anyone could say anything about the lenses.

Thats not the right way to see who "knows their lenses best" I think its just way too small and compressed to make a difference what lens it was. A full 1.85:1 frame grab of a scene would have been completely different. We don't watch a movie or show looking at a 1" square of the entire scene, we look at the whole image. Silly and kinda pointless. I'll do the same thing with my lenses and no one is going to be able to tell. It's just rolling dice.
 
Duke M. said:
Here they are:

A = Nikon

B = Cooke

C = Rokinon

Only Liam Hall had them all right.
Click to expand...
I guess my prize is in the post:-)


I actually thought it was obvious which was which. Rokinon is known to be overly warm, Cooke a touch warm and Nikon a little cool.
 
Duke M. said:
Here they are:

A = Nikon

B = Cooke

C = Rokinon

Only Liam Hall had them all right.
Click to expand...

well done, Liam. :)

thanks Duke, that was fun. i've never seen a rokinon, but i have swapped out a nikon for a cooke on set before. anyway, it's interesting to look at the various ways they differ up close like this.
 
Liam Hall said:
I guess my prize is in the post:-)
Click to expand...

Your prize is in the confirmation that you have great eye sight and observation of details. That makes you a winner.

Liam Hall said:
I actually thought it was obvious which was which. Rokinon is known to be overly warm, Cooke a touch warm and Nikon a little cool.
Click to expand...

What I had hoped to do was have a little fun and spark some conversation about the differences in the lenses and their reputations vs actual results. I think its not so obvious since everyone else go it wrong. LOL

Every time I've seen a comparison (here, Zacuto, etc) some people always says its a waste of time. I think all comparisons are useful if you take the time to examine the results.

MY OPINIONS:

ROKINON: My own perception is that the Rokinon is a little brighter, as in a slightly faster lens that the others. It doesn't strike me as overly warm, but YMMV. You can't see it in this image but sharpness seems consistent edge to edge. On testing it seemed CA was among the highest up and down, but among the lowest side to side. More comparison info on CA below.

COOKE: I also wanted to see how the Cooke performed as to sharpness. It has the reputation of being creamy on skin tones but still sharp on other colors. Sometimes people perceive this as soft overall. I wanted a comparison on non-skin tones, and in those areas it seems just as sharp as the other two. In this case it seems the reputation is warranted as its behaving exactly as described. The non-skin tones are sharp (and from personal experience the skin tones are creamy.) I was told this was due to coating designed to affect only certain wave lengths. It was a revolutionary lens when first sold in 1971 for $30,000.

NIKON: I agree that Nikon lenses tend to be cooler overall and this one is no exception. The Rokinon and Nikon 35mm lenses both drop off sharply in resolution when wide open. The curve is very similar. Not so with the 85mm lens. In the 85mm lenses the Rokinon has a flatter curve more like the Zeiss lenses.

CA: Since the Rokinon has a graph for more CA up and down, but less side to side, I wanted to see a real life comparison. If you look at the bottom edge of the bottom edge of the paper you'll see a blue line. There's a really severe blue line on the curved edge on the right side of the paper. However, when you compare all three images they all have pretty much the same CA.

THOUGHTS: I'd love to hear other people's thoughts, but in comparing three lenses that cost $360, $2,000 and $30,000 (new) the Rokinons give outstanding performance for the price. The CA didn't seem worse than the rest.

The Nikon did fine but didn't seem outstanding in any way, just a good solid performer. Since the used prices are lower its not a bad choice for anyone.

The Cooke seems to live up to it's reputation and give that little something extra. If you can handle the size, weight and price it still has that magic.

And, since most people couldn't tell the difference I agree with Nate that it means that under optimum conditions any of these look great. (But in real life we don't often get optimum conditions.)
 
Duke M. said:
Your prize is in the confirmation that you have great eye sight and observation of details. That makes you a winner.



What I had hoped to do was have a little fun and spark some conversation about the differences in the lenses and their reputations vs actual results. I think its not so obvious since everyone else go it wrong. LOL

Every time I've seen a comparison (here, Zacuto, etc) some people always says its a waste of time. I think all comparisons are useful if you take the time to examine the results.

MY OPINIONS:

ROKINON: My own perception is that the Rokinon is a little brighter, as in a slightly faster lens that the others. It doesn't strike me as overly warm, but YMMV. You can't see it in this image but sharpness seems consistent edge to edge. On testing it seemed CA was among the highest up and down, but among the lowest side to side. More comparison info on CA below.

COOKE: I also wanted to see how the Cooke performed as to sharpness. It has the reputation of being creamy on skin tones but still sharp on other colors. Sometimes people perceive this as soft overall. I wanted a comparison on non-skin tones, and in those areas it seems just as sharp as the other two. In this case it seems the reputation is warranted as its behaving exactly as described. The non-skin tones are sharp (and from personal experience the skin tones are creamy.) I was told this was due to coating designed to affect only certain wave lengths. It was a revolutionary lens when first sold in 1971 for $30,000.

NIKON: I agree that Nikon lenses tend to be cooler overall and this one is no exception. The Rokinon and Nikon 35mm lenses both drop off sharply in resolution when wide open. The curve is very similar. Not so with the 85mm lens. In the 85mm lenses the Rokinon has a flatter curve more like the Zeiss lenses.

CA: Since the Rokinon has a graph for more CA up and down, but less side to side, I wanted to see a real life comparison. If you look at the bottom edge of the bottom edge of the paper you'll see a blue line. There's a really severe blue line on the curved edge on the right side of the paper. However, when you compare all three images they all have pretty much the same CA.

THOUGHTS: I'd love to hear other people's thoughts, but in comparing three lenses that cost $360, $2,000 and $30,000 (new) the Rokinons give outstanding performance for the price. The CA didn't seem worse than the rest.

The Nikon did fine but didn't seem outstanding in any way, just a good solid performer. Since the used prices are lower its not a bad choice for anyone.

The Cooke seems to live up to it's reputation and give that little something extra. If you can handle the size, weight and price it still has that magic.

And, since most people couldn't tell the difference I agree with Nate that it means that under optimum conditions any of these look great. (But in real life we don't often get optimum conditions.)
Click to expand...

All interesting observations. Maybe you should post the full sized uncropped versions??
 
Gary Huff said:
I bet that the differences would be even less pronounced will full images.
Click to expand...

Okay I'd like to see that test. I'm not saying the test is not helpful just pointing out that the reputation of those lenses is based on more than just a centre crop at optimal aperture setting. There's build quality, edge sharpness, focus breathing etc.

But of course the Samyang is a total bargain, there's no denying that.
 
I just got a Samyang 85 T1.5 and it is a super bargain of a lens. Shot this interview with the lens and it looked great.
attachment.php

What camera did you use for this ? great picture!!!!
 
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