Zoom Lenses for FS100

I bought a Vivitar Series 1 28-90 F2.8 FD mount (although in another thread I heard that it may ramp to F3.5 at the 90mm end).
It's a pretty nice lens, I got it on ebay for $50. It too is a 'pumpgun'. Here is a video shot entirely with it, so you can
judge for yourself how it looks. I personally like the look, but decide for yourself. All shots are totally ungraded without
even exposure adjustments in post. This is straight off the camera:

http://vimeo.com/33798772

Some very nice shots there Gabe, great job - especially for ungraded.

I also think that this is some very special glass. But you have to be a man to handle it, they are not easy.
Like my old Zeiss medium format primes form the 60s.
A very distinctive signature that I like.

Frank
 
I bought a Vivitar Series 1 28-90 F2.8 FD mount (although in another thread I heard that it may ramp to F3.5 at the 90mm end).
It's a pretty nice lens, I got it on ebay for $50. It too is a 'pumpgun'. Here is a video shot entirely with it, so you can
judge for yourself how it looks. I personally like the look, but decide for yourself. All shots are totally ungraded without
even exposure adjustments in post. This is straight off the camera:

http://vimeo.com/33798772

Nice images. What picture profile did you shoot with on those shots?

I have a Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm f2.8-3.5 ($110.00 on eBay) and a Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f2.8-4 ($35.00 on eBay), both with Nikon F mount. They are push pull lens, not constant aperture and not parfocal, but I do like them. The optics are very good and they are built like tanks. Bang for buck wise, I think they rate very high.

Frank is right (As is always the case it seems!!!) they do have a very cool look to them. For vintage lenses they are very sharp. However it is something about them that I really dig. I have not put my finger on it, but, even though I really hate to use the word, but to me, they seem to make the images very "Filmic". I have not used them very much, and am really going to do a good shake down on all of my lenses very shortly, but my first impression of the images from the Vivitar Series 1 zooms was a ... well, ...kinda of a seventies film vibe look to them. Not the grindhouse lowbudget look, but more along the lines of the Hollywood NY crime drama look (Re: "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" or "The Seven Ups). I get that feeling from alaskacameradude's video also. The 70-210 also makes great macro images. The push-pull zoom makes it a little tricky to get used to, but well worth it. I haven't tried the macro on the 28-105, yet.

I tell ya, the choices of lenses we have with cameras like the FS100, and the different looks we can create just blows my mind.
 
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Nice images. What picture profile did you shoot with on those shots?

I have a Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm f2.8-3.5 ($110.00 on eBay) and a Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f2.8-4 ($35.00 on eBay), both with Nikon F mount. They are push pull lens, not constant aperture and not parfocal, but I do like them. The optics are very good and they are built like tanks. Bang for buck wise, I think they rate very high.

Frank is right (As is always the case it seems!!!) they do have a very cool look to them. For vintage lenses they are very sharp. However it is something about them that I really dig. I have not put my finger on it, but, even though I really hate to use the word, but to me, they seem to make the images very "Filmic". I have not used them very much, and am really going to do a good shake down on all of my lenses very shortly, but my first impression of the images from the Vivitar Series 1 zooms was a ... well, ...kinda of a seventies film vibe look to them. Not the grindhouse lowbudget look, but more along the lines of the Hollywood NY crime drama look (Re: "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" or "The Seven Ups). I get that feeling from alaskacameradude's video also. The 70-210 also makes great macro images. The push-pull zoom makes it a little tricky to get used to, but well worth it. I haven't tried the macro on the 28-105, yet.

I tell ya, the choices of lenses we have with cameras like the FS100, and the different looks we can create just blows my mind.

That is EXACTLY what I thought. I could not for the life of me really say what it was, but to me the Vivitar just has this 'look' that is 'not video'
to it. The term 'film look' is way overused, but that's kind of the feeling I get. It is a heavy lens which is why I ended up buying a rig with
rails and lens support. I was NOT planning on 'rigging' it out, but I found a cheap way to do it without spending tons of money and I didn't want
the E-mount supporting all that weight by itself. The lens is funky to use with the push/pull design (but still when you consider if it was
a prime you'd be switching lenses, it helps you forgive somewhat). But it's just got something too it that I like........not to mention the price.

As for picture profile, I very slightly modified one of Frank's PP, I read some stuff about 'crispening' and detail and used whatever I read
to logically try to 'soften' the detail just a little, and also tried to tone down the color saturation a little in the red channel if I remember
right. I honestly don't remember exactly what I did (although I know it made sense at the time) but I have the PP saved, and if there is interest, I will post all settings from the picture profile.
 
That is EXACTLY what I thought. I could not for the life of me really say what it was, but to me the Vivitar just has this 'look' that is 'not video'
to it. The term 'film look' is way overused, but that's kind of the feeling I get. It is a heavy lens which is why I ended up buying a rig with
rails and lens support. I was NOT planning on 'rigging' it out, but I found a cheap way to do it without spending tons of money and I didn't want
the E-mount supporting all that weight by itself. The lens is funky to use with the push/pull design (but still when you consider if it was
a prime you'd be switching lenses, it helps you forgive somewhat). But it's just got something too it that I like........not to mention the price.

As for picture profile, I very slightly modified one of Frank's PP, I read some stuff about 'crispening' and detail and used whatever I read
to logically try to 'soften' the detail just a little, and also tried to tone down the color saturation a little in the red channel if I remember
right. I honestly don't remember exactly what I did (although I know it made sense at the time) but I have the PP saved, and if there is interest, I will post all settings from the picture profile.

If you could post the PP that would be great.

I know what you mean about the weight of the lenses. I have a lens support on my base plate and rails. That is one thing that is a little tough with the push pull lenses, the only place you can put the lens support is pretty far back on the lens, between the aperture ring and the adapter, anywhere else and you have to deal with moving parts.
 
OK, here's the picture profile I used on the Winter 2011 shoot with the Vivitar lens.

Picture Profile 3 (Like the name??) :laugh:

Black Level -2
Gamma Cinematone 2
Black Gamma
Range High
Level -1
Knee Manual
Point 102.5
Slope -1

Color Mode
Type Standard
Level 8
Color level +1
Color phase +1
Color depthR
R -2
G -6
B -7
C 0
M +2
Y +5

WB shift
Filter type LB-cc
Everything else at 0

Detail
Level -4
VH balance +2
B/W balance type3
Limit 7
Crispening 2
Hi-Light detail 0

I too have the issue with the lens support being so far back towards the Emount itself. I wanted to put it
more toward the front of the lens, but then I either couldn't change the zoom or focus, so I had to put it
right behind the aperture ring, kind of on the actual FD to NEX adapter.....O well, I guess it's better than
no support at all.
 
I just bought a Tokina/Angeneiux 28-70 t26/2.8 in A mount, and am impressed with the images, it cuts cleanly with my Zeiss 24-70 & 16-35 zooms, color and contrast are very close.

A few good things to this lens, internal focus and zoom means no growing lens, so it sits behind the MB, it's pretty good parafocal, and has decent manual focus & zoom rings.

And a few challenging things-
1) It's not light (but support is easy between the rings),
2) there have been reports of a ton of flare, i noticed the Angenieux version has a hard matt permenantly mounted on front of the lens, something the Tokina is missing, but it's not a hard thing to retrofit and i may do it to cutdown chance of flare.. that said - when testing it, i did not see excessive flare in the copy i now own.
3) when at 28mm and WFO, the lens is 2.6 but the twiddle button can't seem to get it to land on 2.8, and when at 2.6 the camera still tells me it's 2.8... so setting a scene for 2.8, and getting this lens to expose properly seems pretty much impossiable if you want the short end of the zoom, i normaly aim for a 4/5.6 for interiors anyway

Worth a look if one can be found at a reasonable price... for my use on a second FS used as a B cam it looks like it's a solid winner, A cam gets the Zeiss midi, B gets the Tokina/Angenieux, they can both share the short Zeiss and long Nikon zooms.


d
 
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I'm using a Sigma 17-50. It's far from perfect, its focus ring goes from the entire scale in a very short turn (although it has hard stops it's impossible to focus by mark), it's not par focal, and it's a-mount. However, it has OS working perfectly with the LA-EA1 adapter, and that's a major plus. If I had more time to wait, I'd probably would have gone with the sony 16-50, but the sigma is a relatively cheap all around lens for while we wait for more options.
 
I like the picture profile. How much of a difference does the glass make vs the PP?

or, Have you shot anything with that PP with the kit glass?
 
I just bought a Tokina/Angeneiux 28-70 t26/2.8 in A mount, and am impressed with the images, it cuts cleanly with my Zeiss 24-70 & 16-35 zooms, color and contrast are very close.

A few good things to this lens, internal focus and zoom means no growing lens, so it sits behind the MB, it's pretty good parafocal, and has decent manual focus & zoom rings.

And a few challenging things-
1) It's not light (but support is easy between the rings),
2) there have been reports of a ton of flare, i noticed the Angenieux version has a hard matt permenantly mounted on front of the lens, something the Tokina is missing, but it's not a hard thing to retrofit and i may do it to cutdown chance of flare.. that said - when testing it, i did not see excessive flare in the copy i now own.
3) when at 28mm and WFO, the lens is 2.6 but the twiddle button can't seem to get it to land on 2.8, and when at 2.6 the camera still tells me it's 2.8... so setting a scene for 2.8, and getting this lens to expose properly seems pretty much impossiable if you want the short end of the zoom, i normaly aim for a 4/5.6 for interiors anyway

Worth a look if one can be found at a reasonable price... for my use on a second FS used as a B cam it looks like it's a solid winner, A cam gets the Zeiss midi, B gets the Tokina/Angenieux, they can both share the short Zeiss and long Nikon zooms.


d

I'm curious, where did you get this lens - i assume it's manual focus and no longer available?

I have a Leica R 28-70 and a Contax Zeiss 28-70 on it's way to compare. I get my FS100 next week hopefully. I have a ton of adapted rangefinder lenses and other old SLR primes to play with.

I believe there is a sigma 28-70 f2.8 MF but the reviewed performance seems to indicate that it's awfully soft. This tokina seems interesting, especially as it is internal focusing (and internal zooming?). The Leica is nice because it doesn't change size either

cheers
paul
 
I'm curious, where did you get this lens - i assume it's manual focus and no longer available?

I have a Leica R 28-70 and a Contax Zeiss 28-70 on it's way to compare. I get my FS100 next week hopefully. I have a ton of adapted rangefinder lenses and other old SLR primes to play with.

I believe there is a sigma 28-70 f2.8 MF but the reviewed performance seems to indicate that it's awfully soft. This tokina seems interesting, especially as it is internal focusing (and internal zooming?). The Leica is nice because it doesn't change size either

cheers
paul

Yes. all the check marks are checked to some extent

internal focus? check
internal zoom? check
parafocal? check (kinda, at WFO & full long i would not trust it)
breathing? not a trace

I found it on the local Craig's list.. the back story of these as far as i can tell is;
1) Angenieux makes a 28-70 2.6/2.8 mid zoom for the still market, made like a cinema lens & too heavy + expensive for the market - only lens they have ever made with autofocus, gets dropped from the lineup
2) Tokina buy the design, make the ATX PRO 28-70 2.6/2.8, still expensive & heavy, removed the hard matt on the nose, and add rubber on the focus and zoom rings.
3) Tokina replaces it with the ATX PROII, 28-70 2.8, lighter, cheaper and maybe not quite as sharp on the pointed end of the stick
4) Tokina then make a ATX PRO SV... even lighter, much cheaper, now all Tokina design inside, still all internal focus and zoom
5) Tokina then make a 28-80 2.8, targeted at the prosumer market and priced to match, grows while zooming making it a no-go for matte box users like me.

So the good thing is that although the Angenieux runs into new Zeiss zoom prices on Fleaybay, the orignal Tokina is sometimes priced similar to the newer prosumer 28-80.. i answered an ad for a 28-80 on a whim, and partialy due to the rareity of seeing one of these in an A mount, and the guy brought by an orignal ATX PRO lens for me to test and apologised for not haveing the extra 10mm...

I if had a leica R hanging about tho, it might have found a home on the FS.. advantage to the Tokina is when the v2 of the E/A adpt comes good i'll have a decent mid zoom with autofocus/auto exposure option should i require it...

I'm dropping off my Tokina at my repair shop to see if they can obtain and mount the Angeieux hard matt on the front of this lens, flare is it's weak point, and the hard matt is a big help in keeping that under control... here's a piccie i grabbed from the web to show my tech what i want;

14496-1.jpg
 
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I like the picture profile. How much of a difference does the glass make vs the PP?

or, Have you shot anything with that PP with the kit glass?

You know what? I don't think I have shot anything before this with this picture profile. I will have to
try it with the kit lens and see how it looks. Of course, you should realize that much of this picture
profile is from Frank. I just changed a couple little things that I thought might work. That's the
cool thing about people like Frank that share their picture profiles. You don't have to totally re invent
the wheel, you can just tweak a little thing here or there that you want to change. In that vein, I support
the 'picture profile sticky' idea and would be glad to contribute to it as well. You can certainly build a
decent library using the Abel profiles and Frank's profiles. That's where I'd suggest the sticky would
start.
 
Yea....I tried both of Franks PPs and one of them was just way too "green" for me. Trouble is....I just haven't messed with the settings much, not enough time over the holidays.
(and a complete non understanding of most of the settings)

Sooner or later I'll see something I like though.
 
Hey Dermot,
As part of my big lens shoot-out (we spoke a few months ago as a few of your lenses were on my hit-list) I identified the Angenieux designed Tokina 28-70mm f/2.6-2.8 lens as a potential great fit for the FS100 - for the same reasons you outlines above. My review has a nice little write-up on that lens.

I found a local Nikon mount copy but it has issues so after my shootout I decided to keep pursuing a Sony mount copy of that lens and finally found one on eBay that I purchased. It is in much better shape than my Nikon mount copy but the lens flare scares me. Can you let me know if you are successful in controlling that? I'm thinking a matte box/french flag would help but I haven't gotten around to getting one yet and at the end of the day I want my lenses to not have flare and ghosting for when I can't control stray light sources.

BTW, in this quick lens comparison I included the Angeniex designed Tokina 28-70mm f/2.6-2.8:
Vancouver videographer tests Sony FS100 lens options

The other lenses were the Sony SAL1650 16-50mm f.2.8 and the Konica Minolta 28-75mm f.2.8. You can see that the new Sony lens our resolves the other two by a tiny bit and the blacks and whites are truer. So I'm surprised you found the Tokina cut nicely with your Zeiss zooms but with a bit of colour correction and if you aren't looking side-by-side, I guess it doesn't make a huge difference because of the huge sensor on the FS100.
 
Hey right back Shawn!

I read your review top to tail, and then twice again... it was one reason i was not going to spend 1,500-2K on the Angenieux, and was surprised when the 28-80 on offer for $200 tuned out to be an orignal 28-70 ATX PRO...

I almost always use a matte box, and did when i tested it, flare was not an issue then, but i am well aware there will be times and places where a MB is not a good call... i tired to find time to get it to VanCam today and failed, hopefully next week... i'm thinking Angenieux knew why they had a hard front on that lens when they sold it...

And yea, cutting back to back with the Zeiss was a surprise to me, it still needs some CC, but nothing substaintial, much closer than cutting the Zeiss against my Zuiko long zoom, or Nikon primes.. they are all from a different planet... the Tokina and the Zeiss are a decent match.

Breathing or really lack of breathing on the Tokina clearly shows the lineage of a cinema glass maker... i may be selling the Zeiss midi zoom, and would love to see the Zeiss short zoom against the Sony 16-50... maybe the Zeiss twins get turned into a Sony & Tokina, and free up some resources for a really great long zoom.. the Zuiko is dead sharp, but very warm and it grows...
 
I found it on the local Craig's list.. the back story of these as far as i can tell is;
1) Angenieux makes a 28-70 2.6/2.8 mid zoom for the still market, made like a cinema lens & too heavy + expensive for the market - only lens they have ever made with autofocus, gets dropped from the lineup
2) Tokina buy the design, make the ATX PRO 28-70 2.6/2.8, still expensive & heavy, removed the hard matt on the nose, and add rubber on the focus and zoom rings.
3) Tokina replaces it with the ATX PROII, 28-70 2.8, lighter, cheaper and maybe not quite as sharp on the pointed end of the stick
4) Tokina then make a ATX PRO SV... even lighter, much cheaper, now all Tokina design inside, still all internal focus and zoom
5) Tokina then make a 28-80 2.8, targeted at the prosumer market and priced to match, grows while zooming making it a no-go for matte box users like me.

Thanks for that. Are there good ways to tell from images which version of the lens is which? I will keep an eye out.

Well the Leica R zooms have a chequered past too. Some were made by Sigma, Some by another company i can't remember. In theory to Leica spec but they're not 'real' Leica glass to me.

There is a real Leica made 28-70 f2.8 constant aperture, but only a few were made and they're accordingly priced, last one i saw was going for $10k (although was never sold at that)

Are all these autofocus? What's the turn on the barrel like for manual focus? Hard stops?

cheers
paul
 
Still haven't picked up a FS100 yet (trying to get my lenses figured out first). I think I may have narrowed down my options to two main lenses.

Sony 16-50mm f/2.8
Sony 70-200mm f/2.8

Both would require the LA-EA2 and the new firmware update, but at least I would have camera control over aperture and option for AF. I'm sure I'd pick up a handful of primes too (here's my wishlist), but the two zooms would be my main kit.

Thoughts?
 
Thanks for that. Are there good ways to tell from images which version of the lens is which? I will keep an eye out.

Well the Leica R zooms have a chequered past too. Some were made by Sigma, Some by another company i can't remember. In theory to Leica spec but they're not 'real' Leica glass to me.

There is a real Leica made 28-70 f2.8 constant aperture, but only a few were made and they're accordingly priced, last one i saw was going for $10k (although was never sold at that)

Are all these autofocus? What's the turn on the barrel like for manual focus? Hard stops?

cheers
paul

it's about a 1/2 rotation for focus, and hard stops.
It has autofocus, but i don't have anything to attach it to for testing it.. it was in autofocus when i bought it, and the guy who sold it to me always used it there with his Sony A series stills camera... he said he was selling it due to the weight - it was not being used.

If you have the lens in hand it's easy to see the markings on the front, all three of them look much the same otherwise.. in my search i came across this blog post about the history of this lens, he goes into much more depth;
http://nikonglass.blogspot.com/2009/11/tokina-at-x-pro-28-70mm-f26-28.html

The "real" Leica was what i had in mind, in the above article he mentions that some of the Lecia R lens were designed by Angenieux as well... might the Lecia 28-70 t2.8 share parentage?

d
 
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Thanks for that. Are there good ways to tell from images which version of the lens is which? I will keep an eye out.

I'm not sure why some sources make the identification of an Angenieux designed Tokina lens such a mystery. If the lens is f/2.6-2.8 it is an Angenieux designed lens.

If you are interested, I have a beautiful Sony mount copy that I am willing to part with. Just PM or give me a call.
 
@NextWaveG
Zooms look good. At some point I'll probably upgrade my 70-210 f/4.0 Minolta beercan lens to the Sony 70-200 f/2.8 lens but the 10x cost increase for a measely extra stop means this won't happen soon.

I wouldn't bother with the e-mount 16mm prime if you have a 16-50mm f/2.8 because I don't thing there will be much of a difference. The rest of the primes should outperform zooms though.

@Dermot
Glad my lens shoot out article was helpful. If you ever want to head to my studio in PoCo to play with lenses let me know.
 
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