Putting lenses into perspective.

cyvideo

cyvideo

Veteran
I was asked yesterday "Why can't I have a really long parfocal lens on my s35 camera?" I said within reason you can if you are prepared to pay for it and put up with a big increase in size and weight. After I showed my young enquirer the following video he said he was now much better informed as to why certain limitations exist on various size sensors and lenses. I also added that for fast broadcast live work there are no changing of lenses and the sort of setup examined in the following video is really the only answer for live sport, entertainment, and any large outdoor coverage requiring long-throw shooting. I just thought if anyone out there is interested in the topic they may find a peek at the following video might give them some answers. Having worked with these sorts of setups for many years in the past I can only say that for the efficiency of function for the job these sorts of kits were designed for they are at the pinnacle of their performance. They make the cameraman's job so much easier because you can get totally involved and into the zone of talent/sports movement and prediction with so much smoothness and precision it becomes second nature and without having to even think about your rig once you have set it up to your working style.

Chris Young

[video]https://fstoppers.com/education/ever-wondered-why-broadcast-cameras-are-so-big-427819[/video]
 
One of the reasons I prefer the 1"/16mm/S16mm sized formats for general run and gun doc work. Fast wide range parfocal zoom lens are compact, light weight and practical. My Angenieux T2.1 12-120 is about 7 inches long and weighs 2lbs. The S35 T3.5 25-250 version is 17 inches long and weighs 17 lbs.
 
One thing I think is underestimated is the value of a lens. Particularly a zoom lens.

For example the might be dbate on the Fullframe C500 and the S35 C300 - and actually you need to buy the camera to hang off the lens of your choice. S35 would support the canon 18-80 and 17-120 the c500 not. In budget world a 24-105 probably eats a 17-50 so the person on a lens budget would be going full frame.

One of the tradgedies is the lack of a pro (wide to tele zooom) lens in the MFT format. Such a lens could be cheaper/smaller than a S35 17-120 and present a good compromise between 'the cine look' and 'the 2/3 look'

The canon 8-64 S16 zoom lens is a constant temtation to me.. even though a crappo 18-200 AF lens probably makes more sense. Although I was playing with my chums parfocal 4.7 2/3 zoom and.. it is just cool :)
 
further putting lenses into perspective:

They don't matter as much as Cinematography culture so often suggests that they do.

Successful films shot on Masterprimes would be just as successful if shot on Rokinons.
 
mcbob said:
“Buy S35 lenses” they said... “they’ll last you forever” they said.....

Grumble grumble.
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They will. Only drones buy FF cinema cameras. Creatives are sticking with S35 because it'e better, except in low light.
 
cyvideo said:
"Why can't I have a really long parfocal lens on my s35 camera?"
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But the video is about a lens for 2/3" cameras. The reason it is so big is because its zoom ratio is astronomical: 100x. Your young enquirer was asking about S35 and likely a modest zoom ratio like 10x. So I'm unsure what specifically they learned from the video to answer their original question.

There is a clue in there. At 4:41, the host reminds us that the f-number will tell you how big the iris must be. This lens goes to 900mm (really, optically 900mm, not crop-factor adjusted). At that point its maximum f-stop is f/4.5. Therefore the iris must be 200mm in diameter (900 / 4.5). That's almost 8 inches.

It's already a huge lens, but if you wanted to make one with the same specs for S35, then its maximum focal length would have to be 2327mm. Without enlarging the iris, the max f-stop would have been only f/11. So to make it f/4.5 again, you would have to make the iris 1⅔ feet wide.

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An example of an S35 lens of more reasonable zoom ratio is the Canon 25-250mm. I was actually surprised how small it is: about a foot long and 6.7 lb. Even so, compared to your average lens for 2/3", this S35 lens is still 50% longer, twice as heavy, half the zoom range, and an f-stop or two darker.


Razz16mm said:
One of the reasons I prefer the 1"/16mm/S16mm sized formats
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I can't find fault with Razz16mm's sentiment, encoded in his username in fact, but also mentioned by others here from time to time (like puredrifting). Razz speaks of run-and-gun work, but even Hollywood sought modest apertures for modest depth of field (f/4 or f/5.6) that can be matched by an S16 sensor at f/2 or f/2.8. Hollywood actually liked deep focus. They shot on 35mm for its resolution. The industry's pursuit of S35 --- and it feels like they're not really done until everything is FF35 --- seems to be sheer madness. (But it would be hard to fit 8K in S16, which reminds me of a nursery song about an old lady who swallowed a fly.) There's nothing wrong with pursuing more of something, as long as it's the right more.

The mid- to low-end cameras pole-vaulted, from 1/3" to FF35. This is because at 1/3" they had no bokeh, and FF35 gave them bokeh. But I wonder how well they would have been satisfied with a bunch of S16 cameras, seriously done. The jump to FF35 is an artifact of history: "Oh, we're already making FF35 for still photographers, so we'll just add video to them." Someone doing a clean-sheet design, what would they have come up with as the ideal sensor size?

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Incidentally, aperture is also why two S35 cinema primes can vary so much in price. Even though they are both 32mm prime lenses from Arri, the Master Prime ($30,000) opens to T1.3, while their Ultra Prime ($20,000) opens only to T1.9. One f-stop = $10,000.

Yes, I know there are other factors that affect price, size, and weight. And I have not studied it exhaustively. But I keep running into physical aperture size as an important factor, one that is quite hard to get around, even with the latest technology.
 
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JPNola said:
further putting lenses into perspective:

They don't matter as much as Cinematography culture so often suggests that they do.

Successful films shot on Masterprimes would be just as successful if shot on Rokinons.
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Word! Everything you do in front of the camera, has a much bigger impact, than lens brand.
 
puredrifting said:
They will. Only drones buy FF cinema cameras. Creatives are sticking with S35 because it'e better, except in low light.
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I think there are optical advantages to FF lenses over S35. Just like there are advantages to medium-format lenses over FF.

But I agree with you that shallow DOF is far from universally desirable. It's hard to make generalizations. MFT would almost be a better all-rounder of capabilities and form factor.

But I agree with Sam - if you want pretty lenses on the cheap, full-frame is where it's at.

Cinema S35 lenses are going to be a noticeable step up in price from FF stills lenses. And high quality cinema lenses are going to be a very big step up from high quality stills lenses.

At any rate, I think that both FF and S35 format cameras will be continuously produced going forward and you cant go wrong buying either format lenses. Or holding onto the S35 lenses you bought 10-20 years ago.
 
To me, the one area where full-frame can make a big difference - is in speed. And that's thanks to zooms.

A T/2.8 full-frame zoom, like the Zeiss CZ.2s or the new Fuji Premistas (when used on a full-frame sensor), gives you the same shallow depth of field control as your workhorse T/2 primes do in S35mm (S4s, Ultraprimes etc.), but with the significant speed advantages of using zooms.

So now you can have the "look" of primes (which, let's be honest, for the last 20 years has simply meant shallow DoF - since optically, the zooms have caught up), but with the speed an convenience of zooms.

No one talks about it, but it can add a LOT of minutes to your day.
 
I guess making big things is easy - hense the tended superiority (faster speed per unit chip size) of FF lenses and the low price. It might seem illogical that bigger is cheaper until you note that 'miniturisation is expensive'. Of course FF MF lenses are cheap because there is a glut of old nikkor and FD glass - well a glut compared to old S35 cine glass.

Its such a constant stress that all lenses are horrible apart from MF stills, cine glass and canon/fuji broadcast zooms - so one faces MF only or a horrific experience.

Time for AF data to drive a focus motor which is where the high end systems are sitting?
 
morgan_moore said:
I guess making big things is easy - hense the tended superiority (faster speed per unit chip size) of FF lenses and the low price. It might seem illogical that bigger is cheaper until you note that 'miniturisation is expensive'. Of course FF MF lenses are cheap because there is a glut of old nikkor and FD glass - well a glut compared to old S35 cine glass.

Its such a constant stress that all lenses are horrible apart from MF stills, cine glass and canon/fuji broadcast zooms - so one faces MF only or a horrific experience.

Time for AF data to drive a focus motor which is where the high end systems are sitting?
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Yeah I foresee AF-driven focus motors bringing AF to an Arri lens near you.

Not sure what you mean about miniaturization and all that. I thought larger lenses were generally more expensive. I thought that stiff competition and economy of scale and diversity of options plus vintage offerings are the cause of FF lens relative affordability.

Incidentally regarding AF lenses being a horrific experience - it seems that Sony is launching a holy trinity of T3.1 zooms (16-35, 24-70, 70-200) in FF format for about $5k/each. The 16-35 has been announced but perhaps not released. "Lag-free linear focus response" they claim. We'll see what that means in practice but if it does what it says on the tin, you might get to have your cake and eat it too. But would 24-70 be enough range for ENG? Certainly wouldn't be the one lens to rule them all
 
Ahalpert.

For big lenses being cheap I mean a 50 1.8 FF is cheaper than a 25 0.9 MFT. Ultimately the glass need to resolve less LPI so it is easier to make (polish) the focus throw is longer so the threads have to be less fine etc - miniturisation is costly.

S35 16/2 dont really exist vs 24/ 2.8 being common etc.

Its a mix of physics and market - ff35 been round for an age - MFT is 'new'
 
ahalpert said:
if you want pretty lenses on the cheap, full-frame is where it's at
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This is a really good point, one that I forgot during my last post. So I think the market will converge upon 135, because of a combination of three reasons: (1) cheap lenses, (2) simplicity of choice, and (3) the blunt, animal belief that bigger is better.

I think S35 will shrink in market size but not go away any time soon. We could still have hipsters in the year 2100 paying top dollar for vintage S35 glass. However I just don't see a bright future for 4/3, regardless of what Panasonic is saying. The S5 proves that 4/3 has little advantage in portability or price.

And I'm fine with that, in the end. I'll buy a FF35 camera, set the lens to f/8, and jack the ISO to 6400. It will look fine :)
 
combatentropy said:
However I just don't see a bright future for 4/3, regardless of what Panasonic is saying.
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Panny need to put thier money where thier mouth is. A decent video zoom in MFT format would prove make MFT an irrestiable format for a certain crowd (me)

THink of it ,
-something not much bigger than an ENG lens with most of the reach and all of the feel of an ENG lens for $5k*

-voigt 25 .95 for your wanko interviews.

Perfection in a carry on size Billingham.




(hey this could just cover 85% of MFT if metadata switched format in camera)
 
morgan_moore said:
Panny need to put thier money where thier mouth is. A decent video zoom in MFT format would prove make MFT an irrestiable format for a certain crowd (me)

THink of it ,
-something not much bigger than an ENG lens with most of the reach and all of the feel of an ENG lens for $5k*

-voigt 25 .95 for your wanko interviews.

Perfection in a carry on size Billingham.
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Exactly my dream. I bought in early, with the GH2 and AF100... I gave up after they never gave us a decent cine camera follow-up, and my GH4 and 12-35 died ignoble early demises with no support willing to repair them from minor dings.

I consider it a ball dropped
 
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