Lenses for 4K?

I think one of the bigger differences between a master prime and other photo style lenses is the degree of correction for the MPs - flare, edge to edge brightness, CA etc,. across the entire speed range.

Most photo glass has sweet spots and places you don't want to go. It's exponentially more difficult to create quality fast glass. There's a great deal of information from Edwin Putt about Leica and Lenses which offer good, if hard going, background.

Conversely with todays technology, both in design and manufacturing, modern lenses perform exceptionally - look at the new Sigma offerings.

cheers
paul
 
DanKov said:
On a recent shoot I was on the DP was shooting 5K on the epic with Duclos Zeiss ZF's. After the shoot we chatted about lens choice, and I asked why not use s4's, or Ultra primes, and he said he actually preferred the ZF's when he is operating. Client had nothing but great things to say about the image, and not sure if a 10K hunk of glass would have made it better. Now if you are using a 1st for focus pulling then cinema glass is a must.
Click to expand...


I can understand where he's coming from if he's doing his own focussing, although, personally, even then I prefer cine glass my self, if I have a follow focus - but that's because I used to be a 1st AC, so it is a bit more intuitive for me. Having said that, I wouldn't want to pull off the barrel.

The other thing people seem to like about cine lenses (the high end ones) is that they have the same stops throughout the range. Stills lenses seem to vary a bit from focul length to focal length (and then there's the matter of the variation you'll get from the same f-stop, at least with cine lenses you know T2.8 is the same whichever lens you grab).
 
Stills lenses are a compromise for def. Any focus puller will tell you they're a nightmare to work with. It's really essential to pull focus whilst looking at the image. I do this in conjunction with a follow focus for the greater control. The aperture control is a very trying too, it's not advisable to adjust the stop whilst shooting. Having said that, they work just fine when you get used to their idiosyncrasies and like anything it all becomes instinctive after a while. They are perfectly suited to a camera that with effectively, a full set of primes and 2 zooms cost the same as the last TV zoom lens I bought.
 
I have the sonys 18-200 motor zoom, a set of ze primes from zeiss and a set on CP.2 superspeeds from zeiss.
Key difference that i noticed while shooting raw is that if you want to get anything out of the picture you gotta leave the 18-200 lens home. Colors and contrast are pretty lame on that, expecially skin tones after color grading look bad.
On the ze primes compared to cp.2 lenses you will still loose quite a lot on colors and contrast when using ze lenses. I was amazed how big of a difference in richness of colors is between these two sets. The 4k raw really loves the cp.2 lenses, so i have desided to leave the others home pretty much on every shoot after i got the raw recorder.

The difference was not that obvious when recording internally. I also used to have a punch of canon glass but got rid of all those after getting the fs700 cause canon lenses do not render the colors nor contrast well enough for the camcorder. Nikon lenses work a little better, but i still leave those too to gather dust. Also the bokeh on still lenses is pretty horrible compared to cp.2 even canons cn-e lenses suffer from their really bad bokeh. So i will always go with the zeiss hence i cannot afford leica :)
 
sunnyjimfilms said:
Stills lenses are a compromise for def. Any focus puller will tell you they're a nightmare to work with. It's really essential to pull focus whilst looking at the image. I do this in conjunction with a follow focus for the greater control. The aperture control is a very trying too, it's not advisable to adjust the stop whilst shooting. Having said that, they work just fine when you get used to their idiosyncrasies and like anything it all becomes instinctive after a while. They are perfectly suited to a camera that with effectively, a full set of primes and 2 zooms cost the same as the last TV zoom lens I bought.
Click to expand...
With electronic FF still lenses are better for pulling focus than manual lenses. Albeit only with a monitor. Scales on still lenses are for reference only a rough one at that Still lenses do however send precise distance data so it's just a matter of reading and displaying it. We do that. You only need the right equipment to control still lenses and voila!!!
 
Sami2 said:
I have the sonys 18-200 motor zoom, a set of ze primes from zeiss and a set on CP.2 superspeeds from zeiss.
Key difference that i noticed while shooting raw is that if you want to get anything out of the picture you gotta leave the 18-200 lens home. Colors and contrast are pretty lame on that, expecially skin tones after color grading look bad.
On the ze primes compared to cp.2 lenses you will still loose quite a lot on colors and contrast when using ze lenses. I was amazed how big of a difference in richness of colors is between these two sets. The 4k raw really loves the cp.2 lenses, so i have desided to leave the others home pretty much on every shoot after i got the raw recorder.
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that the ZE and ZF lenses had the exact same glass as the cp.2. He touches on the issue here: http://matthewduclos.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/cp2vszf2/
 
Sami2 said:
I have the sonys 18-200 motor zoom, a set of ze primes from zeiss and a set on CP.2 superspeeds from zeiss.
Key difference that i noticed while shooting raw is that if you want to get anything out of the picture you gotta leave the 18-200 lens home. Colors and contrast are pretty lame on that, expecially skin tones after color grading look bad.
On the ze primes compared to cp.2 lenses you will still loose quite a lot on colors and contrast when using ze lenses. I was amazed how big of a difference in richness of colors is between these two sets. The 4k raw really loves the cp.2 lenses, so i have desided to leave the others home pretty much on every shoot after i got the raw recorder.
Click to expand...

Really? Would love to see some side by sides illustrating this. The generally accepted word is that the physical glass is the same between ZE and CP (although choosen well). I did some tests comparing ZE with Contax Zeiss glass and there are differences there for sure as you'd expect (Contax being warmer, ZE more clinical but technically better)

Also generally lower contrast can be useful for grading but i don't really see the skintone argument on the 18-200 vs CP, i wouldn't use the 18-200 because of softness, distortion but i don't remember ever feeling the skintones were bad, at least in a way that couldn't be knocked into shape.

cheers
Paul
 
I was under the impression that the cp.2 is the same glass as ze or zf before i shot them side by side. Difference is biggest on the vibrance of colours which can be seen even when recording internally. There is also an angle diffence between ze and cp.2. The diffence in image reproduction might have been increased as zeiss introduced the super speeds, however they should match with the older cp.2s.

The zoom lens skin tone reproduction problems came visible with the raw recorder prior to using that it was not that obvious.

There are a few comparison videos online between ze and cp.2 in which you can actually see the difference in colour reproduction.

I will try to get a few samples comparing ze and cp.2 glass on next weeks shoots if i have the time for those.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top