What lenses to buy next

[puredrifting]

Lenses with "character" yet with the most modern and flare resistant coatings?

Lens "Character". Personally I find shooting commercially and for clients with a baked in look annoying. If you're making your own art film, go sick. But on wide release stuff or stuff you are shooting for clients, not as much. Kind of like on "A Star is Born". Yeah, there is all of that "DP being creative, having vision, doing it in camera so the Colorist and VFX can't misinterpret your vision thing" which I get. Good looking film but the lens flares were too much in your face the whole film, it got really old, really fast for me. Matthew Libatique is a great DP, but I found the lens flares in that movie too in your face and distracting. Worse yet are digital lens flares ala Michael Bay. Ughh.

What other elements of "lens "Character" are there? Inappropriate use of anamorphic? Color tone of coatings? Softness? Halation of light sources? I am beginning to the see the beauty of shooting with a relatively "neutral" set of lenses like the Sigma Cine Primes or the Canon CN-E primes and add "character" in post. Or don't. At least then you have choices.
I think there is a quantifiable difference between lens "character" (almost always with really old, outdated lens coatings and lenses that were manufactured when technology wasn't as advanced) versus using a set of lenses for a particular optical quality (Cookes, Zeiss Primes that are razor sharp, for instance). That line between the two is fine though,
where does lens "character" differ from intrinsic qualities of glass?

 

[Polaroid22]

Lenses with "character" yet with the most modern and flare resistant coatings?

Yeah lenses with character hopefully dont only mean bad flaring
The coating is just a layer on a lens would it not be fixable with some kind of filter?

 

[cpreston]

Yeah lenses with character hopefully dont only mean bad flaring
The coating is just a layer on a lens would it not be fixable with some kind of filter?

I guess you would need to define character. I have lenses with a convex focal plane that can be a bit odd to work with. There are many lenses with mustache or abnormal distortion. Tilt shift lenses have character that isn't based on flare. If you want to add character to your shots, I would actually suggest experimenting with filters while using the sharpest lens that you can buy. Or just adding the filtration effect in post.

 

[Polaroid22]

I guess you would need to define character. I have lenses with a convex focal plane that can be a bit odd to work with. There are many lenses with mustache or abnormal distortion. Tilt shift lenses have character that isn't based on flare. If you want to add character to your shots, I would actually suggest experimenting with filters while using the sharpest lens that you can buy. Or just adding the filtration effect in post.

Yeah I do like the distortion that a lot of people hate (also a lens that swirls is a plus in my book, only most of the swirl lenses are way too soft). I love the anamorphic look. Not a big fan of any kind of flares though. I like my lenses not too super sharp, because on these digital sensors these days everything is already super sharp. I often use black pro mists. But there again I have the problem when light hits the filter, the whole image milks out, otherwise great filters.

 

[ProfessorU]

I'll second the SLR Magic APO Hyperprime recommendation. They are insanely nice lenses for the price. I have all four, and use them a LOT more than my CP2s (which cost 2x as much). IMO, Andrew should put a different label on them and sell them for $15K each. They don't end up looking "clinical" like Zeiss often does. I wouldn't say they have "character," whatever that is... more of a natural look. They flatter people similar to the Cooke S series, with bokeh and flares more like ultraprimes. They can field-convert from PL to EF and back.

For now, the only drawback I see is the 25-85 range.