Sony and Cooke 50mm test on F3

N

Nigel A

Well-known member
Here's a link to one quick test we did with the 2 50mm lenses. Hoping to post the short films we shot before the Sony event in Toronto.


 
wow those sony's are sharp, almost feel bad for the model :D

i do prefer the bokeh on the sony lens, it seems more dreamy.
 
also...considering a cooke s4 prime lens goes for about $15K I would say the $2K sony prime held up really well.
 
The octagonal bokeh of the Cooke lenses becomes stinkingly apparent when put up against the Sony lens. It looks like Sony is using 9-blades for their aperture, which is good. Its got a nice soft and attractive bokeh, even at T4, so it means it should be even smoother as its opened up more.

While its hard to tell the overall quality just by one footage, from this early sample footage, the lens seems optically to be excellent. Given the price relative to image quality of this lens its going to be increasingly difficult to justify the astronomical PL lens prices. If Sony sold these outside the kit I wouldn't be surprised to see these on non-F3 cameras.
 
Steve

The price is right. They mentioned it would only be in the kits for now, and I think its a way to get the cameras out with lenses. Checked with MTF in the UK and they emailed that they would probably have F3 to Nikon adapters for pre sale by the end of the year. Looks like the third party guys are on it

All the footage seemed to cut well between the Cooke's I had and the Sony lenses.
 
oh what to get myself for christmas :(
Question : would you consider posting one or three native F3 files ?
 
very informative. Yes the sony did hold up very well. A tiny bit more contrasty. Thanks for the quick test!
 
bgundu,

good eye on the contrast. Notice the blacks of the Cooke had a blue tint... something not characteristic of a Cooke lens. Just the opposite in fact. I think there must have been some bounced light from the person with a blue shirt and curling iron standing right in-front of the camera during the Cooke test but was back behind the subject during the Sony. Look behind her ear as he moves about. You can see the amount of blue shift. The loss in contrast is partly due to the man acting as a blue bounce board (or there is a door opening or something, because it's under the counter as well) in the Cooke test and is absent in the Sony. Why having controlled lighting test setups is important :)

Was there an optical flat in the camera? Where these color graded at all?

From what I can tell looking at the Sony lenses (not from this) the focus marks on the Cooke's are still better than the Sony, :) but from the test, if I were shooting something for Vimeo, those Sony's might not be a bad choice, however only three focal lengths is a bummer... Cooke has 17.
 
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while the bokeh IS more spherical on the sony, i find that the cookes are more pleasing for skin tones, and generous, and a touch sharper at the same time on edge to edge detail. personally i think octagonal bokeh is awesome :) but that's just personal aesthetics. While sony is feels a hair softer, it IS plenty sharp, but I find it kind of harsh on skin. will have to see more to more adequate comparison, but that's just initial impression. not bad though.
 
Good point about the blue shirt guy essentially providing a little bounce. I was mostly looking at the slightly harsher highlight from the Sony on her nose. Overall very impressed though.


Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
bgundu,

good eye on the contrast. Notice the blacks of the Cooke had a blue tint... something not characteristic of a Cooke lens. Just the opposite in fact. I think there must have been some bounced light from the person with a blue shirt and curling iron standing right in-front of the camera during the Cooke test but was back behind the subject during the Sony. Look behind her ear as he moves about. You can see the amount of blue shift. The loss in contrast is partly due to the man acting as a blue bounce board (or there is a door opening or something, because it's under the counter as well) in the Cooke test and is absent in the Sony. Why having controlled lighting test setups is important :)

Was there an optical flat in the camera? Where these color graded at all?

From what I can tell looking at the Sony lenses (not from this) the focus marks on the Cooke's are still better than the Sony, :) but from the test, if I were shooting something for Vimeo, those Sony's might not be a bad choice, however only three focal lengths is a bummer... Cooke has 17.
Click to expand...
 
If I remember correctly the F3 has a servo zoom rocker on the handgrip. Any word on whether/when Sony might be introducing a zoom lens for the F3?
 
Sony is apparently releasing a zoom in the summer with the F3 mount and you will have the zoom function in use. S35, zoom with a rocker like a video camera. It will be very nice. I was asking about pricing and size. All they said was 15x
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
bgundu,

good eye on the contrast. Notice the blacks of the Cooke had a blue tint... something not characteristic of a Cooke lens. Just the opposite in fact. I think there must have been some bounced light from the person with a blue shirt and curling iron standing right in-front of the camera during the Cooke test but was back behind the subject during the Sony. Look behind her ear as he moves about. You can see the amount of blue shift. The loss in contrast is partly due to the man acting as a blue bounce board (or there is a door opening or something, because it's under the counter as well) in the Cooke test and is absent in the Sony. Why having controlled lighting test setups is important :)

Was there an optical flat in the camera? Where these color graded at all?

From what I can tell looking at the Sony lenses (not from this) the focus marks on the Cooke's are still better than the Sony, :) but from the test, if I were shooting something for Vimeo, those Sony's might not be a bad choice, however only three focal lengths is a bummer... Cooke has 17.
Click to expand...

This the camera original footage. Shot with the native 4:2:0 codec 35mb with the Cine gamma 3. Did not have time for proper testing that's why I said it was a quick on the fly that is very basic. Just wanted to see the same shot with the same lens because we were moving quickly over the couple days we had the camera. There was a mix of light in the room. Tungsten here, windows about 15 feet away behind the camera. It was cloudy outside so some spill, and the photographer was using ring lights, so there was definitely spill
 
I do prefer the bokah of the Sony, its amazing how well they cut together, I was expecting a bigger difference.
 
It was a whirlwind weekend with the camera. I liked all the options in the menus for different gamma curves. A couple having the 9000/F35 characteristics. I like the option for that "digital negative" S-Log 4:4:4 workflow that will happen next spring. This flexibility of workflow from 4:2:0 to 4:4:4 opens up a wide range of work, from smaller projects to the big ones where there is a full post infrastructure, and with the 10 bit 4:2:2 out, it allows those 3rd party recorders. I used my Nanoflash right away and it worked with no problem. The camera was very sensitive. I shot a painter (which I'm uploading soon) and with the sun coming in I pushed it a little to see how far you could go with the highlights. I also shot some kids playing road hockey on a Jimmy jib. It was a grey cloudy day, but you could still see gradation in the sky. It didn't just blow out.

I wish I had more time to light some scenes and play in a more dramatic way, with underexposure and into the dark, but right out of the box this camera worked well. Sony has talked about this new sensor and the good signal to noise ratio it has. They said that's why it can handle the 4:2:0 35mb. I did notice that. It held up to some grading.
 
So you would say Nanoflash instead of 2-4 SXS cards? that's what I'm thinking

Nanoflash or Kipro ? Any advantage over one or the other?

Thanks Nigel. You have some great looking footage there. Good eye man
 
Thx for your comment rgd. I've owned a Nanoflash for the last year, and I've been very happy with it. The guys at Convergent Design are very responsive to questions and any concerns that come up. The big difference with the two is the Nanoflash uses the XDcam 422 codec and the Ki pro is Pro Res. Now with the Nano you can record at very high bit rates, and from my understanding its very close to SR, but you can ask them about the math.

I was very surprised on how well the 4:2:0 held up to grading. I like having all the options as well, and it gives clients that choice of having to log and transfer in or have the QT (like the Nano) ready to use with all the TC, audio etc matching the original files. One sidenote. The new XDCam transfer tool is very very fast. I couldn't believe how quickly it ingested all the footage, and you can lay back to SXS cards as well
 
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