Michael Lindsay

I normally want Zeiss lenses to be less zingy sharp and with less contrast.. so they sound good to me!

this is the cool bit! I do feel you guys did a great job and Art did a great job explaining things BUT... I honestly think if we (or anyone I know) are using the negative set I'd take a 2nd mount shimmed to work rather than shim a load of lenses..

Hi Gregory Great to hear what you are up to! Are seeing any focus shift when dialling in the effect? Could you ramp in shot..? thanks Michael PS we played with the idea of rehousing the Nikon 100 and 135 that allow spherical aberration correction to be dialled in and out but the focus changed so we decided not to try.. This could probably be solved but it was complex..

Pretty sure the 49 is a 50mm f0.95 If people are scratching there heads wondering what these are...A young Uk Dop has set up a resource to explain these lenses... https://canondreamlens.com no affiliation to either party but I do own a set in the uk and am obviously biased due to that.. ?

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!

The irony is Arri sold them really cheap at one time... I bought 2 sets for S3d for a really reasonable amount. I wish I had them now as they where fantastic for windowed HS work. I did hear a rumour Zeiss dumped some stock rather than sell cheap but assumed this was not true.. from memory they where brutally sharp!

I have tried reading the above sober and drunk and it made no sense sober and some sense drunk but I am sober now so I can't remember what I thought it meant when I read it drunk ? Sorry to be no help!

Some good stuff in there.. but Oddly named series that is maybe only meant for people under 35 with brains wired for conspiracy? Also Why nothing on PV's very expensive abandoned digital camera?... https://nofilmschool.com/2013/01/red-epic-dragon-arri-alexa-sony-f55-f65-panavision-70mm-camera actually most of the list is cameras which did actually come out.... or does abandoned inc coming out but not selling well? .. surely failed is better name as all cameras are eventually abandoned? even my crap memory remembers loads of other abandoned cameras http://www.urbanfox.tv/articles/cameras/c19joedunton.htm what about Kinetta from Jeff Kreines... thank you Simons for your mechanical list ...

Ok I just quickly looked again at the 25mm and the 57/58mm very rough test indoors but set to infinity and stopped down.. the Signature 58mm was now a tad longer but very close.. (as it should be) the Signature 25mm was still a little wider but much closer than before... So breathing is a big deal.. I do think the optical design of the reducer prob needs tweaked per lens so maybe .71x is just an average or ideal use abstraction... As I mentioned on another forum the Mamiya 45mm N is narrower via the Kipon than the Mamiya C older design used in the same way..

to re-iterate Dom's point re breathing... Mamiya FOV really change massively with focus I quickly tested the TLS Mamiya 25mm (as you know made from a 35mm 645 lens and the Kipon reducer) against a Arri Signature 25mm TLS Mamiya 57mm (as you know made from a 80mm 645 lens and the Kipon reducer) against a Arri Signature 58mm TLS Mamiya 78mm (as you know made from a 110mm 645 lens and the Kipon reducer) against a Arri Signature 75mm I tested at 5-6ft (so the mamiyas will have contracted quite a bit due to breathing) and did my best to line up the entrance pupils! In every instance the signatures are wider! ... and if you consider just a 16mm portion from the centre then even more so.. But due to breathing I would assume I'd see the results I got.. I can measure the focal length of lenses but I am not quick or clever in doing so... others would laugh at my process and I have to assume non variable magnification across frame. If I get time I will try at infinity ALSO but on refection I think I need to look at the the whole image as the Mamiyas are far from rectilinear in projection so it gets a bit complicated re focal length..

I was interested in this and talked to Arri.. (I may have misremembered but this is what I took away) Yes the space is for the obvious stuff like OLPF + IR and UV filers etc but also for the Variable ND systems of now (Arri's current tech) but also for the unknown innovations in the future and if you don't leave enough room now then there will never be enough room.. Maybe a new creative filter system, or a Vari con or a more extensive ND system from Arri with more granualirty and range? Ultimatly it was perhaps Arri being conservative but that seems to be key to their brand... Also with a increased width it is more possible to have optical elements driven far closer to the sensor than 44mm .. Look how far rear element extends beyond the LPL flange here https://www.instagram.com/p/CcHE_j9vuqX/?hl=en

Thanks Phil I will also ask Cooke and Leitz what back caps they use when selling LPL lenses..

Alex at Zero seems to have answered your question! https://www.instagram.com/p/CcHE_j9vuqX/ LPL but they look promising!

Sorry for the very very boring question! We have 3 sets of LPL lenses and all the Arri back caps are really dreadful!!! they lose there ability to stay put after a few cycles of on and off... Anyone make good ones?? TLS make nice PL replacements so I assume someone makes replacement LPL caps but I can't find them... or has Arri addressed this (and not told anyone) with the caps you can buy now?

I have looked into this... but there are others who have looked much further into this so I reckon you should contact TLS and Zero . Would you accept rehousing them to LPL...? it leaves more room to work on the rear elements movement.. I fancy a very fast set in LPL but it won't be able to inc the 21mm for example... and which ones do you want to rehouse? https://www.truelens.co.uk/leica-noctilux-50mm-t0.95?deptID=9&subID=60 BUT if I understand you right you are thinking about changing actual glass elements? So the lenses protrude less? This I am think is not really practically possible.. Even the https://www.leitz-cine.com/product/elsie (which I was told are kind of based on the look and feel of Leica M glass) don't work in PL.. Any way good luck!

Please excuse the badly written post above with all its typos and errors... I have lost the ability to edit it? Is that a thing??

yes I think that is nisen and I believe, like you, it it the product of 'over' correction of spherical aberration.. Yes with the K35s colour fringing you are describing one of the consequences of Axial (or Longitudinal) aberration.. the reason different lenses have different fringing colours is not hard to understand but will take me a while to write so let me try find a link to someone smarter at describing these things. (but super simplistically if you have a quick look at a representation the visible spectrum in frequency and imagine you bring Red to focus in-between blue and green what colour would the before and after focus points be ...?) I have asked a few smart optical guys (inc Ian Neil, a lead optical guy at Arri, and a head guy at Leitz) what does it take to make fast lenses without Axial CA and basically it seems (if I understood the answers correctly;-) ...that if you want very high resolution fast lenses it seems it take a very expensive glass/approach or very particular lens designs that are not always appropriate for all cinema uses.. from what I have seen Otus lenses def are pretty clean but not as clean as Summilux-C, Signature and def not the new Leitz prime... As mentioned Ian Neil designed Cooke's new S8... he consults with Cooke in a pretty major way he was heavily involved with their S7s and so I believe their Full frame Anamporhics.. He has loads and loads of Anamorphic patents and many technical Oscars so has been around for a while... Cinema is such a niche market that there is really not that many full time designers in this space... I am a hobbist at best... and have built up lots of half baked knowledge but I suspect this book is a really good source of cine info https://www.cinelensmanual.com I have this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Applied-Photographic-Optics-Optical-Photography/dp/0240515404 which can be useful.. but not a lot of fun.. PS what is intrinsic and what is common is very difficult to tease out of an emprical/ anecdotal evidence based approach to lenses.. which is at best all I have... for example it seems that since lenses have got sharper they often demonstrate more axial CA but it may just be that the halation from early designs reduced contrast so much that they de-satured the colours in problem areas (and maybe even mixed the colours back to white a little in the halation) ? I have no really idea.... But the new S8s are NOT designed to be high resolution and they seem to have less CA than S4s or S7s?

I thought the Primo's had the odd aspheric element.. but I def could be wrong as I have never even shot with them. Maybe not having them is why they where so big? The Cooke S8 are also an Ian Neil design but from my understanding a very different design brief. For example even performance of axis was def not in design brief.. Nisen bokeh..? do you mean the bokah that has a hard bright edge to the outside of a defocused point source? If yes I think this is from the over correction of spherical aberration and def not intrinsic to aspherical elements... The onion bokah is of course from ground aspherical elements but nowadays there are other ways to make aspheric elements (Signature primes for example) which don't have this artefact.. I really am not a fan of the onion bokah but I also accept normally people (the people that mater) never really notice it.. ? Also a never ever mentioned fact is the grinding of the aspherical elements (like Anamorphic cylinders) is the cause of the rainbow flares I do happen to like... so hey there is no perfect lens.. Michael

to try to slightly augment what Dom and David have said... Ian Neil was the lead optical designer of both the Leitz SUMMILUX-C cine primes series and the PV Primo project... and one of the stated (if I remember correctly) design objectives of the SUMMILUX-C's was to inherit the best of the Primo look. (it may have been more of a marketing claim) Perhaps digging out some old Ian Neil interviews would help you understand the philosophy? However you may want to furnish this list with what you like about what you see in the primo films you like ... so to get the most accurate 'other lens' recommends. I would assume that you like the modern, ca clean, easy going, smoothish look... but that is perhaps just my specific subjective prejudice. Even naming a few of the films might help. I am sure you have thought about this but lots of people use diffusion with clean glass... Especially 'back in the day' with Primos... PS I am a bit of a boreing lens geek so a director friend of mine a while back was so excited to tell me he had finally worked out what lenses he really liked the look of. It was SUMMILUX-C and his evidence was that he has just watched Stranger things and Mindhunter. He then listed a few post faux optical effects that had nothing to do with the intrinsic look of the lenses... not his fault of course..

On one Red shoot I had the Optimo 28-76 T2.6 and it's Rouge counterpart. They are both fantastic. I could see no reason to ever need to consider the 28-76 over the 30-80 for a 'Red' shoot. There is slight cosmetic differences between them (the Red rings are ugly and cheap looking). The 28-76 does feel very slightly more expensive in hand... but the picture is often what counts. They are cheaper so try and get a better deal? Michael PS I have a set of Ultra primes and the 30-80 compares very favourably to them. The other light weight lenses I have tried where all a compromise.

Hi I don't know anything about your project and it there may be considerations I am not able to guess.... however I am struggling to believe you could potentially be faced with a shoot that included a lowish end camcorder, with a spinning ground glass adapter and Master primes. (And I'm the kind of guy that will try anything) Having shot on a ps technik PL to B4 adapter on front of a F900/750p a couple of times (and not loving it for anything demanding) I don't feel the above combination represents good hire value. Surely a Red 1 with a very small set of SS/UP (or similar) would be similar in cost and far more useful? As for Digiprimes..? In the UK they are very expensive and I am unconvinced of the value of the match... They do look superb on the F23 or Viper. Also Digiprimes wide open on a 1/2 inch chip would be like shooting (DOF) at nearly 5.6 with a 35mm lens imaging on a 35mm sized plane. How many stops of light loss does the letus cause? regards and good luck Michael L

Funnily enough I priced them just before I bought 7 UP.. I appreciate these things are mostly done on credit. They are also normally done by established business who have the the business, personnel and equipment to back up the kit. Credit has had (in the UK) certain tax advantages. All this said I still believe that an individual would be advised not to do what Matt suggested unless they have the cash. You need to be able to afford to manoeuvre. I think we probably actually agree. regards Michael L

Master primes are absolutely NOT too delicate for normal use. Are they more delicate than UP? I recommend you ask Arri. I've found them to be very honest about this kind of thing. As for a business that just hires out a set (I assume a smaller set) MP? I'd say only do it if you can: 1)personally can put them on jobs (or have a formal agreement for at least some work) 2)Have very easy access to a projector or other way of checking them every time they come back 3)Are not using credit to buy regards and good luck MichaelL

I use diopters a fair bit.. (mainly the excellent Zeiss master diopters) The rule that you mention (+1 brings infinity to 1m, +2 brings infinity to .5m etc) is what I use. There can be no rule for min focus as each lens is different. The min focus is definatly changed. This change is obviously not as dramatically as the jump from infinity for max focus (the slight magnification achieved with diopters is not the way they achieve CF) Max focus rules are important with tracking shots (or a moving subject) hope that helps Michael