Quality of Fujinon XS8X4AS-XB8 ?

Great list, Parker. I saved that for future reference.
I was looking at the wider lens, the 3.3x13 lens as a step up, but it's 14 grand.

I just got done shooting a wedding today, which included shooting inside a limo, shooting in cramped hallways at the bride's house, shooting B&G visiting table guests at the reception, and numerous other 'tight' situations where I'd have to take a step or two back with the stock lens (though impossible, as I'd be stepping through a wall, or on top of a table or on people's toes behind me.) Each of those situations utilized the full width of the 4mm 8x lens.

I'm having serious misgivings about returning the lens, after shooting one wedding.

Shooting 720P/60 looks so nice and clean on the EX series, too. I dialed in a nice picture profile that brings out the golden tones, gives a warmth to the look (even if the lighting is a bit cold). The pictures look amazingly rich and clean.
 
The quality of the Fujinon XS8X4AS-XB8 may be a disappointment for 1080P work, but it's a wash in 720P between it and the stock (for sharpness), albeit with more visible CA, the latter of which looks extremely ugly in 4:2:0 color subsampling because of the pronounced blocks that make up the CA halos. I think CA would not be so distractingly-annoying to me if 4:4:4 subsamping were the case. I suppose that's why D-SLRs get away with it, while long GOP video makes it look so bad.

Anyway, that said, I researched conversion lenses and found out that all of them require autofocus and macro mode in order to work. That essentially puts the camera in consumer mode (autofocus) which means no control over what the camera chooses to focus on (usually not the intended subject). Using a converter lens not only will look even worse thatn the Fujinon XS8X4AS-XB8, but will take away manual focus capability, putting the video production quality at the perils of auto focus.

Given there seems to be no other wide Fujinon-compatible lens in this price range, that pretty much means it's wide and soft with CA, or it's stock lens only, or it's spending 14 grand with no garantee that the images will be of any better quality.

I think this shot, from yesterday's wedding shoot, pretty much shows the power of this lens, compositionally:



So I think that pretty much wraps it. I'm not happy that the lens can't be as clean and sharp as stock, but it's that or the highway, and nothing decent as an alternative.
 
Found this whilst browsing and thought it was interesting, I am still toying with buying the lens. Or maybe I should get a pmw 350k as there seems to be lots of choice amongst the 2/3rds range? perhaps a sharp wide angle at lower price?

The item;;
WAYNE, NJ, September 8, 2009 – Acclaimed filmmaker Marek Poray-Heywowski recently traveled to Switzerland to shoot The Interrogation of Harry Wind for Sunvision Filmatelier, with Fujinon’s XS8x4AS-XB8 wide angle lens mounted on a Sony PMW-EX3 camcorder. The spy thriller recently wrapped principal photography and is scheduled for release in early 2010.
The film, from Swiss director Pascal Verdosci, stars Sebastian Koch (The Lives of Others) and Klaus Maria Brandauer (Mephisto, Out Of Africa). Set in Zurich in the 1950s and based on a true story, Wind follows special agent Rappold (Brandauer), who, shortly before retirement, has to bring down influential Swiss businessman Harry Wind (Koch), accused of spying.
Principal photography was shot with a pair of Panavision cameras. The film’s second unit was outfitted with the more lightweight Sony PMW-EX3 camcorder to shoot a sequence from a vintage 1950’s helicopter. According to Poray-Heywowski, the wide angle adapter for the original lens caused distortions. The XS8x4AS-XB8 wide angle Fujinon lens was selected based on a recommendation found within the camera’s instruction manual.
“The distortions we were getting from the other lens due to the wide angle adapter were unacceptable, so we were pleased to see the incredible difference upon using the XS8x4AS-XB8 wide angle Fujinon lens,” Poray-Heywowski explained. “It is really one of Fujinon’s best kept secrets, and I consider it a wonderful treasure. We were able to intercut images shot with this lens with our original Panavision footage in spite of the equipment variation.”
Poray-Heywowski said it is unusual to find such a pristine image in a lens designed with zoom construction. “The biggest surprise for everyone on set was how compact the lens was,” he added. “The Fujinon lens is much shorter than the camera’s original lens, plus wide angle adapter.”
With the Fujinon lens, Poray-Heywowski was also able to shoot in an elevator shaft on location in Switzerland, thus avoiding the time and expense of employing a set designer to create one. “The Fujinon lens literally came to the rescue and made these shots possible,” Poray said. “We were able to create a beautiful shot in a very small space without any fisheye effect. The lens created a perfect recta-linear image without bow lines that wide angle lenses tend to create.”
 
Steve, this article was one of the principal reasons why I was convinced to buy the XS8 lens.


That director was concerned about only one type of distortion--the fisheye/barrel distortion, on which this lens is indeed superb.

Unfortunately, he must be cutting on a 9" screen, not to be able to notice the very dramatic loss of detail and the introduction of gross amounts of chromatic aberration. The only other camera lens where I've seen this much CA was my HVR-V1U at full wide. It also depends on what was in the scenery.. if it was a large, flat expanse with few detailed features, the lack of clarity may be less apparent. But shooting architecturals, it stands out dramatically.

He IS right about the rectilinearity of the lens though. But it comes at a terrible cost--the loss of HD picture and a more SD-like picture clarity. Annoying me most is it's a smeary kind of blur, and it comes with jagged red and blue ghosting along sharp edges (due to 4:2:0 not handling primary colors well).
 
basspig said:
UPDATE:

I just received my Fujinon lens back from the Teaneck, NJ repair facility.

On the work order completion report they wrote:

SYMPTOM
Check for resolution and chromatic aberration: no history.

REPAIR SERVICE
No problem found: lens within Sony's factory HD optical MTF specs.



My thoughts: Sony must have some really slackard specs for lens quality.


Other news: I got an e-mail from them informing me that I sent the loaner lens back to their Wayne, NJ address, not their Teaneck, NJ address. The problem is, the Wayne, NJ address is the only one they ever gave me in our e-mail communications, so it never occured to me that the loaner had to go back to a different address. I hope that does not raise a problem with crediting my card.
Click to expand...


this was similar to my experience with the stock lens and stuttering zoom. sony just shrugged their shoulders. it's a great out to say that a substandard piece of equipment meets spec. i mean, if you're the manufacturer, you get to put "spec" where ever you like, right?

unfortunately being reasonable with them is spitting in the wind. playing the charge-back card through your credit card company is a perfectly legitimate way to deal with people who refuse to stand behind their products. i'd like to say i'd never buy a sony product again, but that's obviously not realistic.

i hope you can reach some resolution.
 
..and similar to my experience with the bad audio system on the HVR-V1U.. these monolithic corporations just play the 'silent game' when confronted with facts they do not want to admit publicly.

Are we to consider ourselves at an unfair advantage, having been 'given' stock lenses that are so close to perfection as to fully-utilize the full raster sensors in the EX3?

Is it that the $4000 wide angle lens is 'just the normal quality you can expect' and not the exceptional quality of the stock lens being an accident of good fortune for EX3 owners?

Two weeks ago, I was 90% of the way to doing a charge-back, but then I started shopping for conversin lenses. This ain't the world of Raynox .66 slap onto your VX2000! Gone are the days when adding a converter lens would hardly degrade the picture.

The Century, Zunow and some other lens I looked at, costing up to $1,700, were all terrible. 10X worse than the Fujinon. So bad, that chromatic aberration was visible on the Zunow review videos at 320x240 YouTube resolution. The Century lenses turned every straight line into a sharp curve, and added about 10 pixels of red and blue fringe to every edge. The alternatives are just SO MUCH WORSE, that I decided that in this price bracket, there really isn't any alternative.

Fujinon's lens is just mediocre. I'd love to see an Imatest report on it. It'd probably do very poorly.

I shot some footage of my daughter in the park this weekend. It became apparent that the lens loses sharpness in areas that are not dead-center. Unlike the stock lens, which is sharp, corner to corner.

I made a huge (13x19") Seimens star from a vector PDF I downloaded from Wikepedia, printed at 1200dpi and hung it in front of my 12' movie screen and did a flangeback from 30' away. Still no improvement. I'm convinced this lens goes a bit softer at full wide, than when it's at full tele. Seems like at full tele, it resolved about 850lph, but at full wide, it drops to around 650lph. I have to do more testing to verify this.

But at the moment, I think we're in a no man's land for good wide lenses.
 
Could this possibly be the last post on this !!!!!

Maybe you should just go and buy an IMAX camera and shoot 70mm for your weddings already.

Stop the whining.
 
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Hey this kind of info is useful to those that may want to buy the lens and have expectations that it will be crisp and clean. Basspig is doing us a service.
 
JDDallas, this is one of the most informative threads i have read in a long time. although i only have the EX1 and not the EX3 it still gives a reality check on gear and fairly high priced gear like basspig's fujinon lens.

david
www.davidprobst.com
 
All I'm saying, is that, a $4000.00 lens or a $800.00 dollar wide angle adapter is not considered "high priced" gear in the realm of Professional Cinematography.
And does Basspig build lenses for a living? Does he work at Panavision in the lens dept? no

He is expecting that a low cost lens or adapter is going to perform like a Digiprime, well it's just not going to happen. And the bagging on Fujinon is uncalled for. I'm sorry, but truth is, a mammoth lens company is not going to bend over backwards for a complaint on a very low priced lens. Getting this critical on a $4000.00 lens is just overkill. IMO

Testing and opinions are fine but take them with a grain of salt. What looks horrible to him, may work just fine for you or someone else. Test for yourself.
And "content is king" no matter what, I've worked on million dollar shows, that have used flip cameras for air. Composition and content mean more, that's what you should be worried about.
 
JD, by your reasoning, the stock lens on the EX3 should produce crappy images, too, but it doesn't.

Look at these comparison images, from an earlier post:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1977355&postcount=17


Is it unreasonable to expect that the only other lens designed for the EX3 be able to match the image quality of the stock lens for the EX3 (which is very, very good)?

And, just because I happened to use this lens to shoot one wedding, does not mean that I bought it for that purpose alone.

Composition and content are certainly important, but consistent quality is also important, and since I and others like me are going to be watching that footage in the editing suite for fifty or more hours, it'd better darned look great. When I edit the footage from the stock lens, I find that enjoyable, but when I edit footage from this other lens, I feel like my $8300 camera just became a $700 HDV camera.

I can still remember how many people bitched at me for complaining about the severe bass rolloff on the Sony HVR-V1U. Heck, I got kicked off two forums over that little flap, but you know what? I sold both of those cameras and got the EX cameras, so no more audio problem. But dogonnit, I really don't feel like doing yet another camera upgrade to get a decent wide angle lens. Fujinon can think what they want "cheap lens", but the fact remains, it's inferior to the "free, included" lens that comes with the camera.
 
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JDDalllas said:
All I'm saying, is that, a $4000.00 lens or a $800.00 dollar wide angle adapter is not considered "high priced" gear in the realm of Professional Cinematography.
And does Basspig build lenses for a living? Does he work at Panavision in the lens dept? no

He is expecting that a low cost lens or adapter is going to perform like a Digiprime, well it's just not going to happen. And the bagging on Fujinon is uncalled for. I'm sorry, but truth is, a mammoth lens company is not going to bend over backwards for a complaint on a very low priced lens. Getting this critical on a $4000.00 lens is just overkill. IMO

he is just expecting that it should perform close to the included stock lens. i would hope for the same. i think its fair to say that anyone that buys the EX3 may well plan to buy an additional lens. this lens seems to be one of the obvious choices. this thread sheds good light on what you get (or dont get) for your money.

if this is all the quality that Fuji is willing to put in a $4,000 ala carte lens then so be it. at least its good to know what your getting into when buying it.

david
www.davidprobst.com
Click to expand...
 
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there are 5 others that do wide zoom

there are 5 others that do wide zoom

Re: your complaint about the Fujinon XS8x4AS-XB8. It's the entry level on a 6 tier! Maybe you should've gotten the XS17X5.5BRM. Here are your options for the EX3 sorted by quick Froogle prices as of today:

XS8x4AS-XB8 = $3,800
XS17X5.5BRM = $7,600
HSs18X5.5BRM = $11,000
XS13X3.3BRM = $14,000
HS18X5.5BERM = $16,800
HS16X4.6BERM = $20,900
 
There's a lot more zoom in those other lenses, which basspig was willing to give up.

Plus, Basspig was going for a wide lens. The stock lens is 5.8-81.2mm, and most of those you listed are 5mm at the widest. Who'd pay $10k for a barely noticeable change? On the other hand, only the XS13X3.3BRM at $14,000 and the HS16X4.6BERM at $20,900 are as wide or wider.

I don't think its unreasonable to expect a $4,000 lens to have decent focus. I'd have sent it right back even if it was the only choice simply because this lens isn't transferable if he upgrades to a new camera in the future.

I think Sony and Fujinon blew it because they are making a real good case for buying an EX1 instead, and saving you money for something else.


 
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