Zoom lense reservation

Remember that the HVX and the HD100 were both announced as "priced under $10,000"; they both came in at around $6000. So "under $10,000" may mean $9999, or it might mean a whole lot less.

A cine lens is going to be much more desirable than a still camera lens for many reasons, not the least of which is focusing. Cine lenses are designed with a large radius focus ring (usually around 270 degrees) for very smooth and precise focus changes. Still lenses aren't. And still lenses sometimes breathe horribly, because it doesn't matter -- you don't change focus during a shot when using a still lens on a still camera. Cine lenses are usually optimized to minimize or eliminate breathing. So adapting still lenses into a cine workflow sometimes reveals unwanted consequences.

18-85mm would cover about, oh, 80% or more of standard shooting circumstances. Did they announce the aperture on the zoom lens? That's another key point, cine primes are usually way faster than cine zooms, which means a lot more light gets through. A zoom lens might have a t-stop of f/2.8, primes might be f/1.4 or f/1.2, which means the zoom would need four to six times as much light to get comparable exposure as compared to what the prime lens would need. But then again, with an S35-sized sensor, it's possible that the RED will be so light-sensitive that it's not much of an issue.

For those who shot the footage -- do you have any ballpark idea as to what the relative ISO sensitivity of the RED is, or what you're aiming for?
 
I thought I had heard 2.8, so yeah.

Well, depending on the ISO sensitivity, 2.8 is probably fine. It's soooooooooooooo much more convenient to work with a zoom than with a set of primes, but true cine primes typically offer higher speed and sharper quality. I'm sure a set of Zeiss UltraSpeeds would probably offer the same relationship as compared to the Red cine lens, but still camera lenses? It may be that the zoom is sharper, better focusing, and eliminates 80% of lens-changing issues.
 
Barry_Green said:
I thought I had heard 2.8, so yeah.

Well, depending on the ISO sensitivity, 2.8 is probably fine. It's soooooooooooooo much more convenient to work with a zoom than with a set of primes, but true cine primes typically offer higher speed and sharper quality. I'm sure a set of Zeiss UltraSpeeds would probably offer the same relationship as compared to the Red cine lens, but still camera lenses? It may be that the zoom is sharper, better focusing, and eliminates 80% of lens-changing issues.
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As usual, some accurate observations from you. I mentioned the zoom being f2.8 on my previous post #17 of this thread. My post was abbreviated because I'm slammed with things to do, but I did touch on some of the points in this post of yours and your other one on this page. I do believe that the size of the sensor will make f2.8 excellent for normal light shooting. We also hashed through those points in detail in that mammoth lens thread here.

Seems weird to think of you in Carolina, rather than Vegas. How are things out there?

Gibby
RED #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com
 
Gibby said:
Seems weird to think of you in Carolina, rather than Vegas. How are things out there?
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Absolutely gorgeous -- the humidity finally broke, and it's completely magnificent out here! :thumbsup:
 
This is actually a really good price on this lens considering what it is...

1st of all 18-85 is a massive zoom range and if it is a constant 2.8 then you will have tons of DOF control. Anything for a prime under 2.8 is going to give you a razor thing focal plane, and in fact, most shots really would be in that ideal F6-F8 range.

In addition to what Barry said regarding cinema to still image lenses, compare what Red is offering compared to a Nikon.

The Red will be <$10K. Nikon's top of the line zoom range lens comparable is the 17mm-55mm 2.8 lens. This Nikon is designed for digital cameras, which means it won't work with a full sensor. Furthermore, this Nikon is $1400 and offers 30mm less zoom (and technically with the crop factor the Nikon is really 26-84mm).

I think that this Red glass could be amazing and could really put Red on the map as a premier optical company the likes of which Lecia and Zeiss could fear.
 
The zoom looks pretty sweet, but $10K on top of the $17.5K camera body (and $2K for a couple of digital magazines, and who knows how much for various other accessories) is probably a bit out of the price range of a lot of RED's potential budget customers. Also, Mike over at HD for Indies is saying it probably won't ship for a year, and the camera will hopefully ship well before that.

My plan right now, assuming Nikon lens support happens, is to buy a couple of still zooms, for probably under $3K total, and use those while saving up for (and waiting for the release of) the RED zoom. Nikon has a 17-35 mm f/2.8 lens that's supposedly a pretty impressive piece of glass (review), for around $1400, and various longer options as well.

If Nikon support doesn't play out, I'll probably see if I can pick up some used PL primes.
 
Consider that the RedOne sensor is comparable in resolution to a frame of film, and still-camera lenses are designed to meet the resolution needs of a frame of film. The average viewer won't distinguish enough of a difference between the picture qualities of a 35mm lens and a Red lens as long as the lens is not changing focus... and as long as they aren't shown one next to the other.

But the focusing on the still-camera lenses will be inferior to the Red lenses, as previous posters have mentioned. So the question is whether the improvement in focusing abilities is worth $9k to you... or whatever the final price of the Red lens will be (less the cost of a still-lens). I'm still hoping that the price of the Red Zoom comes down closer to $5k.

I once put back-to-back pictures (from a Canon-10d) together to form a time lapsed video, and the quality was crazy good. Unfortunately I lost those frames in a computer crash a few years back, but I've always remembered being so happy with the results that I've never had any concerns about using a still-lens (or a single-chip camera) to capture video.
 
Even more relevant is that still lenses are now designed to work well on dSLR cameras, which have sensors quite similar in size and resolution to RED's. Nikon's D2Xs, for instance, has a 12.2 megapixel 23.7mm x 15.7mm sensor, vs. RED's 11.4 megapixel 24.4mm x 13.7m sensor. And as a general rule, people are more sensitive to things like softness in still images than moving ones, so if a lens produces good results on on a D2Xs, it should be just fine on a RED, optically.

In terms of focusing, yeah, still lenses aren't exactly designed for smoothly racking focus. In fact, these days they're often designed so that as little rotation as possible is required for focusing, because this makes for faster autofocus. But as has been pointed out elsewhere, this is probably not that hard to fix with a suitably geared follow-focus system, which wouldn't have to cost a lot.

And there's an even cheaper approach (at least for narrative work), which is to just shoot shots that require serious focus racking a couple of times, until you get them right. When you have huge crews sitting around burning through money and you can't check the shot until you see the dailies, it's worth spending lots more on a lens to avoid this kind of thing. But the large crew situation isn't likely to apply for budget RED shooters, you obviously don't have to wait for dailies with RED, so occasionally having to try a shot a few more times, while certainly not ideal, is probably a workable option for a lot of people.

(Incidentally, it would be really slick if the focus assist could also be used when reviewing recorded footage as well as live.)
 
Even though current Nikon and Canon still lenses are designed to hold up to the needs of a D2X or the like, they are AF lenses, and your aperture is stuck at wide open.

If you're looking at picking up still Nikon lenses, go for the older MF AIS or AI lenses.
 
I didnt read this whole thread and im sure someone pointed it out already so sorry if im repeating but the other very viable option is to rent lenses on a job by job basis.

Sure youll want to have a lense or two of your own so you can shoot your cat at 4k when you are sitting around the house, but good lenses will remain to be very expensive. Renting a nice set of cooke primes on a job by job basis will probably be the way Ill go.
 
Still lens breathing

Still lens breathing

One thing about still lenses is that they breathe a shitload on focus racks. If you go from a close foreground subject to a far background subject, you get this crazy vertigo effect. Cine optics are designed to eliminate this problem. Just the same, I will be shooting with some sort of Nikon lenses when I get my red one.
 
If you're using a still photo zoom with RED that tends to breath a lot, racking during shots may not be the best idea. You might want to approach the use of that lens as simply a variable focal length lens, no racking, but a set focal length for each shot. The MTF curve for a lens can be very different at each focal length and each focal length/f stop setting. You'd probably want to figure out what the "sweet spots" are for that particular lens focal length/f stop setting, and stick with using it as a variable focal length lens.

Gibby
RED #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com
 
So the consensus is that Still lenses are fine as long as you don't change focus during the shot. I've read numerous times (and Mr. Blonde reiterated this) that Manual Focus lenses are the best bet if going the still lens route. I mentioned in another thread I have a set of Nikon lenses (the AI-S MF kind) and was wondering what the "breathing" was like on these? is it less noticeable then its AF brother?
 
Mr. Blonde said:
Even though current Nikon and Canon still lenses are designed to hold up to the needs of a D2X or the like, they are AF lenses, and your aperture is stuck at wide open.

If you're looking at picking up still Nikon lenses, go for the older MF AIS or AI lenses.
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All of Nikon's AF lenses except the G-series have manual aperture rings. For instance, the 17-35mm zoom I mentioned above does (as you can see in this photo).
 
If RED's zoom is anywhere in the ballpark of the Cooke T3 18-100, then it's peachy. People are going to have to realize that with lenses at this level there aren't any shortcuts. Stills may be a viable alternative, but there are trade offs involved (as mentioned by Jim, and many others). It's just a matter of what you're willing to work around and what the budget is. $10K isn't a lot of $ for a great all purpose cine lens. Yeah, it's pricey, but is a steal compared to even new Russian lenses.

Maybe if you want to work with cine lenses and have a fully kitted RED package, but want it for a price of a blue light special, then RED's not for you ... Or work with stills until you can afford the RED zoom. Frankly, some are going to realize they can't afford RED. That's cool. It'll be there when you can.

And why isn't the lens specs in T- stops. ? Thanks.:beer:



RED# wish I was higher
 
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