C100: Know of a Non-Distorting 11mm Lens?

nedcam

nedcam

Well-known member
I have an interesting challenge of a shoot (one long, long pan) on August 19th and I did a test yesterday, now I need lens advice. How to non-distort.

My client is big into digital signage in their buildings. Their graphics department wants me to do a long pan of a new room, probably 120’ x 200’, and then they plan on using only the horizontal middle 3/5ths, so they will crop the top and bottom to fit the row of 3 or 4 monitors that are laid side by side on the wall. (I hope that makes sense?)

Did a test using my Tokina 11-16, using 11mm, on my Super 35 Canon C100. The good news is I could keep those middle 3/5ths clear for the action, but the bad news is: At the edges of frame my verticals distorted inward, we used to call it barreling, there’s probably a different term now, but I feel it distracts and want to know if there’s anything available to rent at 11mm that does not distort?

I have known architectural still shooters who either had speciality lenses or software that would correct in post. Does anyone here know of a wide lens for rent that does NOT do barrel distort? I do not think that this could be done with software since the shot is constantly (slowly) panning and there will be about twenty extras moving around.

Thanks,

Ned
 
Which version of the 11-16? 1 or 2? I have the 2, and I've never noticed barrel distortion (though honestly, I've never looked for it either).
 
The architecture photographers usually use a tilt-shift lens...at least from the few I've interacted with, and they take lots of photos and, I'm guessing, they stitch them together later. You do have some ability to fix the distortion in Premiere and After Effects. Not sure about other video editing software. The Lumix 12-35 is pretty wide on the AF100 and I haven't noticed much distortion.
 
A rectilinear lens eliminates barrel distortion, yes. But, what about trapezoid effect? Nope, not going to happen with that Laowa or the Canon 11-24. Canon TS-E 17mm is what I'd be grabbing for that job. Maybe if the top and bottom are cropped-out the effect wouldn't be as prominent...
 
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Looking at bench test of the Tokina 11-16mm zoom lens, it doesn't look like there is a huge amount of distortion with this lens. ( certainly something that should be fixable in post )

LensTip.com Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX II AF 11-16mm f/2.8 Distortion

Are you sure that it's not a perspective distortion problem because of how close or how your camera is positioned relative to the signs ?
( if it's a perspective distortion problem then no lens will fix the problem )
 
You could consider shooting a timelapse with a DSLR - the raw files will correct in post

or maybe just spit your video into still frame tiffs, correct in lightroom, apply to all, export, rehash together as a mov file.

clearly having the camera flat on all axes is good
 
Just spoke to a tech at Lensrentals.com I figure no one will know more than them. He said anything under 24 will have barrel distortion. Mine is more noticeable because I am panning, so as a vertical, such as a pillar, approaches the frame edge it bends in at the top of frame.

Software is a non starter because the image is moving, plus there's lots of humanoids who would be affected.

I used to do QTVR (Quick Time Virtual Reality) where I had a specialized tripod head, I'd take 18 shots in a 360 pan, and the software would stitch it together. But this gig the client wants live action so I can't ask people to freeze. There are multi camera 360 rigs such as used in Google View but they also distort, plus I have no idea how to use them nor desire to learn.

There is a new Chinese lens on Kickstarter that claims to have no distortion as mentioned above, "The Laowa 12mm f/2.8 is the Widest f/2.8 Lens with 'Zero' Distortion", but I did a search and either it hasn't been made yet or it is no where for rent. To get the humans head to toe in the middle 3/5ths, I know from my test that I have to be 11mm.

Thanks everyone!

Ned
 
nedcam said:
Software is a non starter because the image is moving, plus there's lots of humanoids who would be affected.
Click to expand...

I've seen video shot with a full-frame fish-eye that was de-fished and the results did not look that distorted, so I would imagine that removing a small amount of distortion ( LensTip puts it at less than 3 percent for the 11mm setting ) would produce excellent results too. It should not make a difference if people are in the shot, as you are removing distortion from the lens image so the distortion on the people should be not different than anything else. ( Panasonic and Olympus Micro 4/3 cameras have been doing this kind of distortion correction in-camera from day one of the MFT format )
 
Software is fine - the reason I suggested still software is that it is more developed - there is also lens correctoon in resolve I think
 
Ive never used a rectilinear "wide" and would suspect vaporware in that Chinese lens. I love wides and have rented many cine primes but none are rectilinear. That said, I do not like moving much with wides, especially with foreground elements. it just screams "effecty". I think your fighting physics to pan a wide shot if you dont want toi center extract. I think my first test would be to truck not pan. Any chance you can use a dolly, maybe on curve track, maybe pan against the truck (holding center)
somewhat?
 
I would term it as barrel distortion because both the top and bottom of the verticals distorts towards frame edge, and it's much more pronounced at 11 than at 16. Those few five millimeters make a huge difference when panning. Or perhaps I should say the middle of the vertical bulges towards frame edge, thus the term barrel.

However, I await the client's response once she imports it, crops the top and bottom and tests it on her hallway monitors. Maybe the distortion could possible add psychologically by making the space appear larger? Who knows.

Lastly, I discovered this arcane corner of video production by accident but if you pay attention in your daily life walking around, especially corporate office buildings, airports, etc., this digital signage is now everywhere, usually no audio so there's lots of text treatment, and it is the bailiwick of in-house graphic artists who do not own or understand pro cameras, so I may market to these types. They tend to repurpose video they already have but I now see it's best for them to contract a pro to "shoot-to-order".
 
Rokinon/Samyang 12mm T2.2. Beast of a lens for it's price. Great colours with minimal distortion (YMMV, for what I do it's great). Step it down to F4 and it's super sharp as well (but very sharp at 2.2 as well).
 
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