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What are the sharpest cinema lenses? What lenses have the highest resolving power?


John Carl

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Greetings. This is my first post here but have been an avid reader here for years and years.

- My main question is this: What lenses have the highest resolving power and/or are the sharpest of all lenses? (Ideally for a s35 sensor.)

Background: I am a NYC commercial cinematographer specializing in product/tabletop cinematography. I primarily shoot Red/ARRI/Phantom for all the usual reasons but lately have been experimenting with using the Blackmagic Design 12k camera as a potential solution for some clients of mine that, for time and budget reasons, prefer to pull stills from our video footage rather than taking the time to swap in our Phase One camera and strobes. The larger resolution of the Blackmagic 12k camera seems like it could help them. The Blackmagic 12k camera also allows for shooting 240fps at 4k, which is useful for when the creative calls for 4k slow motion but the budget does not allow for a Phantom. (I realize that the 12k is not the same caliber as Arri/Phantom/Red.) The problem with a 12k sensor though is that the resolving power of the sensor is now higher than the resolving power of some lenses. So the hunt is on to find the best possible lens or lenses to pair with the 12k to have - in theory - the highest resolution sensor paired with the highest resolving power lens. I've experimented with the Arri Master Macro 100mm, which was certainly better than my personal Sigma Cine Zooms (used only for projects that have no budget for lens rentals), but I'm curious if there are even better options out there.

- Has anyone ever compiled a list of lenses organized by resolving power? If so, what lens beats the rest?

- Lastly, am I making a mistake experimenting with the Blackmagic Design 12k camera? Should I just stick with an 8k RED or Venice 2? (I've been avoiding full frame because my directors always want deep focus so I actually prefer s35 as it gets me more focus depth with the same FOV but would I get greater sharpness from a larger sensor and full frame glass?) Is there a better camera/lens combo for sharpness?

I'm basically curious to hear any and all knowledge from you all related to how I can deliver the most pristine, sharp footage to my commercial clients.

To anyone that kindly shares their time answering this: thank you so much! I super appreciate it. ?

Edited by John Carl
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The highest resolving lenses I’ve seen (as a rental house lens tech who checks them on a lens projector) are Signature Primes, followed by Zeiss Supremes and Panavision Primo 70s. I haven’t had a chance to look at the new Leitz Primes but from the price I imagine they made no compromises.

But many other lenses resolve very highly if you stop them down a few stops. It can vary by focal length too. Some lenses might be super sharp in the centre but drop off at the edges. Most modern cine lenses that aren’t deliberately designed to have some “character” (meaning aberrated) are pretty sharp though. 

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5 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

The highest resolving lenses I’ve seen (as a rental house lens tech who checks them on a lens projector) are Signature Primes, followed by Zeiss Supremes and Panavision Primo 70s.

Do the Signature Primes/Zeiss Supremes resolve more on super-35 than an equivalent Master Prime? I’m curious because I haven’t seen that comparison. I’ve heard of a number of productions using the Supremes with a Mini (not LF), and I thought it was a bit odd. Although there is also a weight difference.

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I got to see the new 18mm Supreme on a projector at Zeiss's LA facility just after NAB, and I have to say it looked pretty spectacular. Some slight smearing and aberration in the very corners of the LF area, but sheesh, when you see it projected and you realise the crazy angles it has to contend with, it's astounding.

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On 10/8/2022 at 6:00 PM, Dom Jaeger said:

The highest resolving lenses I’ve seen (as a rental house lens tech who checks them on a lens projector) are Signature Primes, followed by Zeiss Supremes and Panavision Primo 70s.

When you say highest resolution, are you saying they are highest res looking at just the Super 35 area of the image circle?  Or are you projecting the whole image circle on the same size screen and evaluating the lenses as they would most commonly be used?

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Hi Mark,

Great call-out. Thank you. In our case, that isn't what we're running into. Usually our clients want to pull a still from the so-called "hero moment" after the camera and product have landed in their final, ideal locations and all movement has ceased. In the rare case they want to pull stills during movement then I do alternate takes with quicker shutter speeds or higher frame rates to address motion blur concerns. Our camera and/or products are often on motion control arms so we have the ability to slow things way down. It sort of becomes slow motion in real life rather than slow motion in the camera.

What I'm noticing -- I believe -- is optical in nature. Our first tests were with static objects to compare the 79.6 megapixel Blackmagic 12k and the 151 megapixel Phase One stills camera. For these initial tests, I was just using my personal set of Sigma Cine Zooms and I was surprised and disappointed by how soft they were when we would punch into the image even just to set focus much less pull stills. On the 12k you can punch between 4x-8x times on the sensor for focusing. On the Phase One you can do a similar thing but on the Phase One, the punched-in image looks absolutely tack sharp. Tiny text is perfectly legible. To my eye there is no chromatic aberration or fringing. Often times during shoots the digital tech (photo version of a DIT) will have a pretty severe permanent crop setup so that what they are delivering to the client is less than half or a third of the full frame image the camera is capturing and the client still has plenty of resolution left. Once directors hear that my camera is, in theory, an 80 megapixel camera, they start wanting to treat it the same way but I find that the image doesn't hold up. I'm not sure if this is due to in-camera sharpening processing or the larger/better sensor/glass or the difference in resolution between 80 and 151 or the glass or an improperly shimmed mount or some sort of magic happening in the Capture One software or what.

But in any case, even if the discussion is purely academic, I still think it would be useful and constructive to hear from other cinematographers what they find to be the highest resolving lenses. It's one more variable we can eliminate in hunting down the best possible final image for our clients.

Thank you so kindly all for the help so far. I will absolutely check out the Signature Primes on my next job. Perhaps the client will give me permission to share screen grabs here for the group to pixel-peep.

If anyone else has further suggestions for lenses that can best resolve very fine detail, I am all ears. Thanks again.

Edited by John Carl
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3 hours ago, John Carl said:

What I'm noticing -- I believe -- is optical in nature. Our first tests were with static objects to compare the 79.6 megapixel Blackmagic 12k and the 151 megapixel Phase One stills camera. For these initial tests, I was just using my personal set of Sigma Cine Zooms and I was surprised and disappointed by how soft they were when we would punch into the image even just to set focus much less pull stills. On the 12k you can punch between 4x-8x times on the sensor for focusing. On the Phase One you can do a similar thing but on the Phase One, the punched-in image looks absolutely tack sharp.

I don't have a 12K or Phase One – I've never used either – but the pixel arrangement on the 12K is not a traditional Bayer Pattern and is designed for scalability rather than maximum resolution/sharpness.

Which is to say, it's not as sharp as a 12K Bayer video camera would be, and that would be most evident at a per-pixel level.

But a given 12K Bayer video camera would likely also not be as sharp as an 80MP still camera anyway; I've found video cameras have much stronger optical low pass filters (to avoid moire – while a Phase One back I suspect lacks one to maximize sharpness) than video cameras do. I remember the Panasonic S1H has an OLPF where the S1 doesn't, for instance. 

Try the same lenses on both. I don't think your issue is primarily optical. There are exceptions for macro work (and I think the Sigma zooms might suffer there, particularly the 18-35mm), but in my experience once you're stopped down to t5.6 or whatever any modern lens is fairly sharp. 

The Venice 2 or A1 (poor man's Venice 2?) and either Sigma Art or Tokina Vista (or Otus if you're not thrown off by the mechanics) would probably be worth renting and trying. I'm pretty sure your issue is with the cameras, not the lenses.

I've heard the Otus lenses are still the sharpest thing out there (if you can't afford Signature Primes, which I'll probably never even see in my lifetime).

Anyway, long story short: the issue is almost certainly with the camera, not your lenses.

But the sharpest affordable lens would probably be Otus or a high end macro lens depending on the subject.

Edited by M Joel W
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16 hours ago, Dan Finlayson said:

When you say highest resolution, are you saying they are highest res looking at just the Super 35 area of the image circle?  Or are you projecting the whole image circle on the same size screen and evaluating the lenses as they would most commonly be used?

Yes the whole question of "what are the highest resolving lenses" is not really a simple one with a straightforward answer. 

There are multiple focal lengths in a lens series, all with unique attributes, so I really should be specifying "the 65mm Zeiss Supreme" for instance.

But then we also have the question of aperture - is it fair to compare a T1.3 Master Prime to a T1.5 Supreme to a T1.8 Signature Prime? I should be stopping them all down to T1.8 for a fair comparison, in which case the MP performance is considerably improved.

But then any lens will get sharper as you stop down, so maybe I should be comparing every lens at say T2.8, especially if it's a studio environment where lighting can be absolutely controlled and the operator wants the sharpest image they can get rather than a particular depth of field for instance. At T2.8 almost any modern lens that hasn't been designed to have "character" will be pretty sharp.

Then we have lens coverage. As it happens, Signature Primes and Primo 70s are generally sharper than Master Primes even if we only compare a S35 area. But again it will vary by focal length, particularly for the wides and longs. In lens design, angle of view is what dictates many decisions rather than focal length, so while 25mm for instance is a pretty wide angle full frame lens, it's not so wide for S35.  To complicate matters, a lot of S35 lenses are being used on larger sensors these days (or S35 Open Gate) and while they may cover a larger area they weren't originally designed for it, so you can get further image degradation.

Then there's the question of contrast and apparent resolution. A Master Prime has slightly more contrast than a Zeiss Supreme, but (depending on focal length again) it may also have more abberations at the edges of the S35 frame. But the higher contrast can make it seem sharper. 

Then we could talk about the types of abberations causing image softness. Is a bit of colour fringing at the edges (which Master Primes have) worse than a bit of spherical aberration or coma? It might depend on the lighting, or the colour of the scene, or the contrast ratio. Some aberrations disappear quicker than others when you stop down as well. 

In the end, when I mention Signature Primes or Primo 70s, I'm thinking about the consistency across focal lengths and the performance right to the edges. I've only seen a few focal lengths in the Supreme range, but what I saw was impressive. I'm also making certain assumptions - based on observation - that there have been design advancements since Master Primes (which used to be the benchmark for S35). 

The current mood is for lenses that are not "perfect", so a lot of designs now are going for vintage aesthetics which means choosing to retain certain abberations. 

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11 hours ago, John Carl said:

For these initial tests, I was just using my personal set of Sigma Cine Zooms and I was surprised and disappointed by how soft they were when we would punch into the image even just to set focus much less pull stills. On the 12k you can punch between 4x-8x times on the sensor for focusing. On the Phase One you can do a similar thing but on the Phase One, the punched-in image looks absolutely tack sharp.

Generally I would say use primes rather than zooms if you want the best image quality, although zooms have certainly come a long way. But there are always design compromises in zooms, and back-focus is quite crucial to keep the image perfectly in focus as you change focal length. 

It sounds like you're having issues with your camera rather than the lenses if you can pull sharp images from the stills camera. I'm not really familiar with BM cams, so whether it's the flange depth, the OLPF,  the sensor or something else I can't say. You might want to rent a different camera and see what results you get. 

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6 hours ago, M Joel W said:

My bad re: the OLPF, it looks like the Ursa 12K lacks one.

Regardless, I think it's an issue with the camera more than with the lenses. I don't know for sure, but try the same lens on both cameras and see.

I believe the ideology was that with such pixel density few lenses would exceed the nyquist sampling limit of the camera and therefore wasn’t necessary. 

re the 12k - it’s dumb. Whoever thought interpolating from an RGBW CFA was a good idea was a great salesman. 
Diagonal sampling limit is poor. And a 2.2ym photosite with an exceptionally small diode… 

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I appreciate the input regarding the Blackmagic 12k sensor. Very interesting. That is not what I had read.

Here is a link to an article about the 12k sensor, its 6×6 +luminance CFA pattern, aliasing, moire, required lens resolution, etc. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

One seemingly relevant clip from the article: "To actually resolve 12K, you need a lens that resolves 227 lines per millimeter (L/pm). Most lenses that are considered “sharp”, are around 200 L/pm, but the analog nature of optics doesn’t really have a fixed breaking point, that would render any other lens useless."

- - - -

The conversation seems to be splitting into two conversation, which is fine, but knowing that I think I should have formulated my questions more succinctly like this:

Assuming the perfect sensor (whatever that is), what lenses have the highest resolving power?

Assuming the perfect lenses (whatever they would be), what sensor resolves the highest level of detail?

- - - -

Also I just want to add the disclaimer preemptively that obviously sharpness and resolution aren't the highest priority in all or even most cases. In fact, the only expensive set of cinema lenses that I've purchased to own myself are LOMO Square Front Anamorphic lenses, which are technically just about the least perfect lenses in the history of cinema but aesthetically are just so romantic and dreamy and perfect. I feel all sorts of emotional ways about them. My absolute favorite for narrative, emotional storytelling. But anyway, on the flip side, there are times where clinical sharpness and resolution do matter, like shooting Apple TV screensavers or, in my case, doing detail-oriented product work. So I hope that's enough of a justification to still have this nerdy conversation and to prevent people from rightly pointing out that I probably seem like I'm focusing on the wrong thing.

Thanks again so much for all the input. I am getting all sorts of ideas for future camera and lens tests!

If anyone has further lens and/or sensor recommendations for best-of-the-best resolving power, I'm all ears.

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  • 4 weeks later...

One thing to keep in mind with the Blackmagic 12k sensor is that it has really tiny 2.2um pixels, so diffraction has a bigger effect at a per pixel level.

It looks like the Phase One 151 has a 3.76um pixel size, so the relative difference between the two is 0.585 horizontally and vertically.

What does that effectively mean? If you had theoretically perfect T2.8 lens on the Phase One, you would need a theoretically perfect T1.64 lens on the Blackmagic 12k in order to match the horizontal and vertical MTF at a per pixel level. (T2.8 * 0.585 = T1.64).

This is because increasing the f stop actually makes the spot size of light (the Airy disk) bigger.

So, if you are going to be punching in at a per pixel level, it's not just that you need a higher resolving lens (you do) but also that you need to keep your T stop in a decent range. 

For instance, on the 12k sensor, with a theoretically perfect lens, you hit the diffraction limit of the sensor at f8. (Meaning that the max frequency of 227.3 lp/mm will go to 0 MTF at f8).

None of this really matters if you're using the full sensor, but once you punch in at a per pixel level or close to it, physics itself is going to be contributing to the blurring you see.

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On 10/12/2022 at 2:49 AM, John Carl said:

 

To follow up on what Joshua said above (all of which, to my knowledge, is correct).

The article you linked has greatly misconceived the absolute negatives of the 12k sensor. And is very wrong! To an absurd degree... 

 

 

you get better DR, cause noise gets so small by down sampling that it almost looks like grain, so you can lift your shadows to a level, which would have not be possible before (or would have needed massive NR – with the well known side effects) 

Nope, it's a 2.2-micron photo-site; downsampling assumes the mean of assuming pixels, decreasing differentiation from the mean (SNR). However, the initial readout from the 2.2-micron photosite has a very high SNR due to size. 

A photodiode works by its electrons absorbing the Magna of energy from photons allowing charge to pass through. The charge is the G in the power source follower that enable the passing of VDD on the local photosite level (it's a local amplifier). Therefore the small charge that the photodiode gains allows a much greater voltage to pass through; therefore, discrepancy (differentiation from the mean) causes noise. 

A larger photodiode has a more significant amount of charge. A larger photodiode requires a larger photosite! 

TLDR; Big photosites reduce SNR, and downsampling reduces SNR; however, a larger photo site is preferred, as the sensitivity scales. By that, I mean the large photosites depletion region and the multitude of smaller depletion regions, if scaled perfectly, have the same sensitivity! But it doesn't! The size of transistors does not scale as well as the size of the diode and more importantly its depletion region; a smaller photosite has an exponentially smaller diode than a larger photosite in proportionality. Even with micro optics, this doesn't scale the same.

Aliasing and Moire are vanishing without the need of a heavy OLPF, preserving important fine image information without artifacts.

After my longer-than-anticipated explanation above, I'll keep this long answer short. Nyquist sampling makes the above statement incorrect. But, to put it simply, the Nyquist sampling limit can't be higher than d scan /2; your article CFA is very wrong as there is no alternating white photosite... as that would mean the horizontal sampling limit requires 6 pixels which would make the horizontal resolution 2000 px. 

Color fidelity (especially in the higher frequencies) is way better – giving you better perceived sharpness and clarity – while still maintaining buttery skin, without the need of diffusion filters.

Nope, any tristimulus observer can resolve ANY COLOUR yes, that means your Canon T3i can determine the same amount of colours as the Arri Alexa 35 Pro Max Super Speed Digital Colour 3000 or whatever their new naming convention is. A wider gamut of colours to work with after acquisition is more a linear matrix deal than on a sensor level. See above the Nyquist sampling limit on why you don't achieve better 'colour fidelity' at higher spatial frequencies. 

Better SN ratio.

I like bold statements with no proof as well...

Better chroma resolution due to the full RGB color readout.

Nope, any tristimulus observer can resolve ANY COLOUR. 

Less artifacts

No. Nyquist sampling limit see above... I assume the article is just talking about moire. I will admit it! It does have a better sampling limit than a 4k Bayer CFA. Not a lower SNR, though! 

Great skin tones

Nope, any tristimulus observer can resolve ANY COLOUR. That's the linear matrix they choose to use... which is all overdetermined and error-prone. 

The richness, smoothness, and – in lack of a better word – fatness of the images, that the sensor delivers is amazing.

sure

 

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3 hours ago, Gabriel Devereux said:

horizontal resolution 2000 px. 

By this, I mean the ability to sample spatial frequency detail.

I should also emphasise this is not the case in the Ursa Mini Pro 12k, just the example CFA given in that link.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I, and my biz partner,  have done a bit of work were the editorial, commercial or PR print work came from the motion camera.. 

The smallest part of it all was the resolving power of the lenses. If I knew it was likely I would alway try and use masterprimes (now it would be Signature primes for me) but ultimately the success of the project came from other factors.. 

The main factor is the client actually happy with the look we will get from 'not' using flash (and its ability to really really freeze motion) and also not using cameras that have an OLPF... often the answer is not really! 

(many medium format digital cameras don't have an OLPF and the perception sharpness bump they get from all that false detail is difficult to argue with... no amount logical reasoning every helps cause people just point and say it looks sharper.. and it does) 

If they or borderline then I would try and push the motion look to accept a slightly higher shutter, shoot raw and rate the camera very slow (and babysit the highlights all day long).. I would also often shoot at deeper shots than I may have otherwise.

We mainly used Red camera (1st 6k Dragon now Monstro 8k) and there used to be a Redcine tool called ADD which was sometimes brilliant at creating a sharper image from multiple images! I have been told you can do the same thing with PS from multiple images shot very close together temporally and spatially. I would also try and shoot with as little compression as possible as this can soften the image on the older red cameras due to the wavelets compression design. The Red Raptor is slightly sharper than most other Red camera I have tested (the DCT compression may be the factor as it is crunchier than wavelets). I suspect the Venice 2 8k would be fantastic and a more useful aspect ratio... 17:9 cameras can be a challenge depending on the print channel needs.. 

I would always refine the pick and prep the frames for output.. and give them big files!!!! and make sure the meta data told them it was high DPI! (reason for the DPI thing is a funny story:  I was once told my image was not fit for print and all I did was change the meta data and resend.... they then said it was amazing! ) 

Occasionally if the stills are clean enough I have added a tiny bit of grain to increase the perception of detail... basically swapping one set of false detail for another ? 

PS I have tested the Leitz primes and Signatures and they seem higher performing than Masterprimes for resolving at S35...

I prefer the look of signatures over very crisp photographic lens  (Primo's also look great) But cheap Cine Sigmas will out resolve any camera (perhaps stopped down a tad) and maybe have the right look... the 28mm is amazing! 

 

 

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