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Sigma Art lens plus pro mist vs vintage without pro mist


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I really dislike the look of super modern sharp lenses without any filtration but when you've got a pro mist on there (I generally use 1/4 pro mist with sigma art lenses) does that close the gap between modern vs vintage lenses. Is there something I'm missing? I'm from a stills background where lenses are much easier, for me, modern Nikons work great, for cinematography, it's a world of complexity! 

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Old lenses generally tend toward softness around the edges, more so when wide open. Some of them have strange behaviour in out-of-focus backgrounds, and many flare differently to more modern, multi-coated designs. There may be chromatic aberration, and spherical or barrel distortion. Those aren't things that a Pro Mist will simulate, although there are filters with deliberate edge distortion if that's what you're after.

Lenses, at least in terms of their optical characteristics, have more or less the same consideration for both stills and motion. The big difference is that in motion world you're very often (not always, these day) shooting in effect APS-C sized images, which other than the field of view difference tends to crop off much of the corner strangeness and often has a tendency to make lenses looks more alike.

If you want something with a bit of personality, go old.

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Teleconverters are a great way to funk-up modern lenses if you need to. Shot wide-open they'll make any lens look awful, and you can control how far back towards "normal" you go, via your iris.

 

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56 minutes ago, Mark Kenfield said:

Teleconverters are a great way to funk-up modern lenses if you need to. Shot wide-open they'll make any lens look awful, and you can control how far back towards "normal" you go, via your iris.

 

Similar things happen if you use the optically-compensated adaptors to put short mounts like Olympus OM on EF cameras.

Still, an awful lot of stuff starts looking fairly normal once you close down a couple of stops. It's quite disappointing. One of the things about "interesting" old glass is that the "interesting" stuff mainly happens when they're wide open, or close to it, and that's also the point at which they look just... bad. This is true in spades of things like the Helios 44. There's a few versions of it but to get that spherical aberration in the backgrounds to be really noticeable you need to be wide open, and at that point sharpness and contrast are concepts spoken of only in hushed conversations around campfires in the wilderness.

P

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I was also having same problem with my Sigma Cine which are based off the Art series. Though it won't help art series and only work with cine pl mount version. I am experimenting with diopters on the rear of the lens after hearing about what Arri is doing with the Arri signature primes with rear diopter to get a vintage look. Be really awesome if a filter company could make something to go on the front of any lens to accomplish this. 

 

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It has always amazed me on how millions of dollars are spent on lens performance R&D and then in return we do everything we can to simply muk it all up! ?

G

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20 minutes ago, Gregory Irwin said:

It has always amazed me on how millions of dollars are spent on lens performance R&D and then in return we do everything we can to simply muk it all up!

I would really like to get some top DPs in a room, show them a bunch of lenses, including things like DNAs and the full-frame Cooke anamorphics, alongside some now-expensive old stuff like rehoused Canon FDs, and some interesting $50 options like the old Russian stills lenses, and see what everyone thinks of everything.

I'm not blind to the fact that some lenses are quite identifiable - the Cooke amber glow is pretty characteristic - but I suspect that we might find the emperor's bare buttocks glistening in the sun.

There's almost nothing more opinion-based than trying to evaluate not only how good something is or isn't, but the manner in which it is good or bad.

P

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32 minutes ago, Phil Rhodes said:

I would really like to get some top DPs in a room, show them a bunch of lenses, including things like DNAs and the full-frame Cooke anamorphics, alongside some now-expensive old stuff like rehoused Canon FDs, and some interesting $50 options like the old Russian stills lenses, and see what everyone thinks of everything.

I'm not blind to the fact that some lenses are quite identifiable - the Cooke amber glow is pretty characteristic - but I suspect that we might find the emperor's bare buttocks glistening in the sun.

There's almost nothing more opinion-based than trying to evaluate not only how good something is or isn't, but the manner in which it is good or bad.

P

I think a significant portion of the Master was shot with East German lenses that are still pretty cheap. 

 

 

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Depends what kind you want. There are things out there with "Carl Zeiss Jena" engravings that are pocketmoney. Possibly they're the multicoated, more recent designs that may not be bad enough to be good.

People snicker at them for using the Zeiss name, but these days bad is good, so...

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