Mosaic Filter - yay or nay?

KyleProhaska

KyleProhaska

Veteran
I'm shooting a feature mid-January and can't decide if this filter is worth it for me. My gut says yes, but I'm still not satisfied. It'll be about $400 with shipping. This film is being shot with 5D's and 7D's. I realize the 7D doesn't have the filter available, but the 5D does. A good chunk of this film is in a courtroom so I'm a little worried about things like suits, and any woodwork in the walls and stuff. I can see that becoming an issue in any wider shots I do.

For those who have it, you think I should just do it and drop the dough? I haven't seen the location yet to test the camera, but with their shipping delays once I decide I need one for sure it might be too late.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Forgot to mention I own a GH2. Perhaps I could use that for the specific wide shots to solve the issue? I still have a concern about clothing though.
 
KyleProhaska,

First, I disclose that I am in no way a paid endorser of mosaic engineering. ;-)

Having said that, here's the test I did which include different fabric types.

[size=+2]VAF-5D2 Optical Anti-Aliasing Filter outdoor and fabric textures test 2[/size]

I say this filter has extended my 5D's usable life.

Having seen the prices of the new canon offerings I believed I made the right investment and bought me some time to still use the 5D until a more "compelling reason" (wink...price) comes along.

Hope that helps.
 
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Can you comment on how much the filter makes a difference when NOT using a standard picture profile? I know it must help...I'm just wondering if you have any comments there.
 
I almost always use either Neutral and Cinestyle. Using these with their lowered sharpness and contrast as compared to standard default helps.
I just used the standard pf in my tests to emphasize the aliasing and color moire.

In my tests the filter GREATLY minimizes and with 50mm and longer the filter removes the color aliasing.
In wider lenses the amount of color aliasing is now reduced to behave similar to traditional cmos chip prosumer camcorders.
If you wish please view the other test I did which uses charts to you can view and decide for yourself the lens choices and some workarounds.

I recommend you download the vids i posted to see on your monitor and timeline the behavior of the filter on the image.

ALSO, light lost is very minimal.
 
Hi chris,

I communicated with mosaic in late august and while at that time their website say they were backlogged they happened to have had one available so I got it mid september.
 
That's a great set of tests Ted, very complete. Thank you for doing that. Does everything I would expect an OLPF to do. Quite convincing. My biggest concern was loss of sharpness, but it appears to be under control and minimal. If you have any experience of that, please let us know.

The only thing I don't understand is that I thought the Tokina 11-16 was an APS-C lens, not for a 5D...
 
yoclay said:
That's a great set of tests Ted, very complete. Thank you for doing that. Does everything I would expect an OLPF to do. Quite convincing. My biggest concern was loss of sharpness, but it appears to be under control and minimal. If you have any experience of that, please let us know.

The only thing I don't understand is that I thought the Tokina 11-16 was an APS-C lens, not for a 5D...
Click to expand...

Thank you Yoclay,
The tokina 11-16 is an APS-C lens thats why you cannot use it at 11 HOWEVER- it is VERY usable at 16 and 15.5-ish, but to be safe just throw the ring to 16 and you have a cheap 16mm f2.8 for the 5D!
-AND this is still WIDER than when you use this at 11mm on the 7D or any aps-c canon, where it'll be 17.6mm at its widest. ;)

I originally bought this for my 7D so I'm happy it's vignette free at 16mm on the 5D.
 
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Yoclay,

Sharpness related issues was when using certain wide lenses, combining the results from my lenses with those used by philip bloom, the conclusion was that with certain lenses 30 ish and wider sharpness at the edges/sides can only be achieved at closed down apertures.

However, on Philips test and Pryzborski's use of the canon 24-70 f 2.8 zoom is ok at all apertures.
The 24mm f1.4 prime however is soft at edges until you stop down at 5.6 or 8.
the Canon L 16-35mm @ 16mm is also soft at f4 but gets better strting at f8. @20mm f22 is ok.

Most long and normal focal lengths won't have issues with the filter.

I don't know if you watched my chart tests but it also showed other manual lenses not tested by both Bloom and Pryzborski.

[size=+2]VAF-5D2 Optical Anti-Aliasing Filter Resolution Chart Test[/size]
 
I did see your test and thought it was great. I am more concerned with overall sharpness issues as opposed to corner stuff, so if you didn't find any particular issues for centered subjects then that is indeed good news.
 
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