Brent Barbano

Thanks Mark! I really appreciate it. Please share it with your film community!

Hey guys!

Please check out The Ultimate Anamorphic Lens Test where we tested 13 brands, 40 lenses and created over 500 tests and 130 4K videos. You can compare them all in our 4x side-by-side viewer here.

Brands tested include:

Angenieux Optimo 44-440mm T4.5 AS-2 Anamorphic Zoom

ARRI / Zeiss Master Anamorphic

Atlas Lens Co. Orion Series Anamorphic 65mm T2.0

Cineovision Anamorphic

Cooke Anamorphic /i Special Flare

Elite Anamorphic

Hawk V-Lite Vintage `74 Anamorphic

Iscorama Pre-36 Anamorphic Lens Adapter

Kowa Cine Prominar Anamorphic

Lomo Round-Front Anamorphic

Panavision Auto-Panatar Anamorphic

P+S Technik 35-70mm T3.2 Cinemascope Zoom

Todd AO High-Speed Anamorphic

Hope you enjoy it. Please let me know if any questions!

Ah bummer. Thanks! I'll be sure to post it here when we're done!

Great point on both accounts. Personally, I think it'll become just another tool. I don't think it will be the new normal. Just another marketing tool for manufacturers who have, in some cases, "perfected" optics. But it's just another way to achieve something that can already be done in Super-35 with Master Primes as you pointed out David.

David:

On that note, we are shooting our next lens test but with anamorphic lenses in Los Angeles on May 27th and 28th! You chimed in last time I shared our spherical lens test on here a few months back. Would you have any interest in joining us? Phil Holland, Matt Duclos, Panavision, and a number of amazing DP's are involved with over 10 sets of lenses (Masters, Cookes, Lomos, Kowas, Hawks, Panavision T-series, Cineovisions, Todd AOs, etc). Let me know and I can send you our full list of lenses and more info. We'd love to have you. Please check out our previous test below:

http://join.sharegrid.com/ultimate-vintage-lens-test.html

http://blog.sharegrid.com/ultimate-vintage-cinema-lens-test

Thanks!

Hey guys. Check out this nice article about this full frame lens phenomenon we're seeing in 2017. If anyone was at NAB or followed it, you know how big full frame lenses have become this year. We sat down with Matt Duclos of Duclos Lenses and Mark LaFleur of Old Fast Glass to discuss what this means and where we're heading in cinema.

http://blog.sharegrid.com/blog/why-full-frame-lenses-expose-the-future-of-cinema-cameras

Check out this video on Matthew Duclos and why vintage lenses are so popular in today's modern cinematography era.

Hey guys, my company, ShareGrid, teamed up with Duclos Lenses and Old Fast Glass to build an incredibly large lens test. 8 sets of lenses, 40 lenses, 79 test videos. All under the same control, same lighting, same set up. And you can watch up to 4 test videos side-by-side at any time!

Check it out!

http://blog.sharegrid.com/ultimate-vintage-cinema-lens-test

ARRI / Zeiss Master Primes (as our benchmark)

Canon K-35s (TLS Rehoused)

Cooke Speed Panchros

Kowa Cine Prominars

Leica Rs (G.L Optics Cine-Mod)

Lomo Round-Front Anamorphics

Nikon AI-S (Duclos Cine-Mod)

Zeiss Super Speeds MKIII

You can find stats, a bokeh chart, testimonials, and other information as well as a 4x video player for all 79 test videos of these lenses. I attached the bokeh chart for fun.

I hope this is helpful for some of you as I know it's been helpful for me and my colleagues.

Macks, Thanks so much! That's very nice of you.

Yes, That is the hope! We want to keep adding, including more anamorphics, both modern and vintage, high-end modern and mid-level modern lenses. Cheers to hopefully more!

Hey guys. It is finally here! Our Ultimate Vintage Lens Test. With 40 lenses, 8 sets ranging from, ARRI, Canon, Cooke, Kowa, Leica, Lomo, Nikon and Zeiss.

We have stats, a bokeh chart, R3Ds, fun videos, behind the scenes and most importantly, a 4x side-by-side player where you can view 4 of the 80 test videos at one time! Enjoy! Special thanks to Duclos Lenses and Old Fast Glass.

http://blog.sharegrid.com/ultimate-vintage-cinema-lens-test

I'll say this much, I think seeing a lens wide open is far more important then a lens closed down. It really tells you how good the glass is. As David points out, glass becomes more similar when stopped down. The need for good/high speed glass is really only warranted when near to all the way open.

 

Whenever I do a shoot, first thing I do is test lenses all the way open and figure out how much they can be pushed.

 

Looking forward to seeing the test! Thanks for sharing. :)

Tyler I agree. Thanks for chiming in!

 

Brent,

I'm sure the test will be of great benefit to myself and many others! I may, perhaps, be confusing two different tests and for that I apologize if I am. I would love to be a part of the next test, maybe I can throw in a couple hundred to rent that elusive Baltar set for the day. I'm sorry if I sound condescending, sometimes I come across that way and don't mean to be.

 

 

 

I guess I can understand that, Tyler - its just that I've never ever seen a test that took different brands of the same focal length and compared them side by side at a decent stop. Perhaps I'm one of the few that doesn't shoot wide open all the time. Or, maybe I'm just wrong.

 

Anyhow, sorry to ruffle the feathers.

Jay, it's all good! I know where you're coming from. Constructive input is always welcomed on this forum. Regardless, I'm excited to get this test out for all of us to use. And from there, hopefully we can do more and refine the process. And yes to the Baltars. Let's do it :-) I'll be sure to post here once its done.

Jay,

Not sure what Reddit post you're referring to. Perhaps someone else shared it there? And I'm sorry you're disappointed before ever seeing the final product.

As David pointed out, vintage glass has a resurgence because of their defects...and sometimes, you cannot highlight some of those defects at a T5.6.

All of that being said, I appreciate your feed back Jay and will certainly take that into account the next time we do a test. Maybe you can fly out to Los Angeles and help us do it. We aim to do modern lenses soon which will be a different test.

We had our model turn her head to either side and we also panned the camera left to right to show off vignetting and distortion as well as movement.

We shot close to 50 lenses and had limited time and money to do it. So shooting at another stop just wasn't in the budget as we made new clips for every aperture. We hope this will be useful for some filmmakers out there...

All valid points Dom. I agree completely. It's never a perfect test. Old glass will vary from set to set. Luckily, all of our sets were in pretty amazing condition. We sadly had to limit our shoot to what we could accomplish in two days but I wish we could've shot more. Super Baltars were on the list! Trust me! I wanted them. But our provider fell through at the last minute and with the shoot set in place, we had to forge ahead and do with out them. :-(

We shot them all wide open (T1.3 for example) and then at their next aperture (so T2.8 or sometimes T4) to show the differences.

We tried to cover some of the popular lenses used now in cinema...whether they were cinema lenses from the start or cine-mod from stills. Leica Rs seem to be pretty popular in the indie world right now so we thought it'd be nice to throw them into the test.

And Lomos are the only anamorphics actually. We originally we're going to stick to only sphericals for this test and focus on vintage anamorphics next time, but once we had the opportunity to shoot with these, we had to do it. FYI Master Primes are only in there as a foundation to compare to which can seem a bit random at first.

I'd love to hear what you'd like to see in the next round, if we ever get the chance to do this again!

Yea that's very true. Prices are so inflated right now bc they are in such high demand...

Great idea! I'll be sure to try and include that. The problem is, vintage lenses can vary a lot in price. Based on condition, and which series they are. So we'll probably have to provide a price range rather than a hard price. Master Primes will be the only set that we can accurately provide a price on because they are not vintage. But I'm open to suggestions on how to best display this.

Hey guys! My company, ShareGrid, collaborated with Duclos Lenses and other independent DP's to build one of the largest vintage lens test library. Set to release next month, you can check out our teaser below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJZWUT1q3Vs

We'll have side-by-side players so you can view almost an focal length of any set of lens and really see the differences. As well as stats, testimonials and R3D files to download. Here are the lenses we tested:

VINTAGE

-Canon K35s

-Cooke Panchros

-Kowas

-Leica Rs

-Lomos

-Nikon AI-S (Duclos Cine-mod)

-Zeiss Super Speeds MKIII

MODERN

-ARRI Master Primes (as our control)

I'd love any testimonials from any DP's who have shot with any of these lenses before. We want to include as many professional opinions as possible on this test page! Let me know if you'd like to be involved.

Hey guys,

I'm a DP in LA but I also founded a company called ShareGrid, where filmmakers can rent gear to each other with integrated insurance.

For our blog, I host interviews with filmmakers from our community about their experiences and we just recently released our newest series with DP, Jas Shelton (Keanu, Togetherness, The Stanford Prison Experiment).

VIDEOS

I would love for you guys to check it out. There's some valuable insight as Jas talks about how he became a DP out of film school, shooting with the Duplass Brothers, managing a crew, having a positive attitude on set and his visual strategy on his newest feature, Keanu (Key and Peele).

I hope everyone enjoys the series and finds it helpful!

Michael,

Thanks! He truly is one of the best DP's I have ever worked with. Not only is he incredibly talented, but his demeanor and fun personality is rare and so contagious. A lot can be learned by working with him.

Hey guys,

I'm a DP in LA but I also founded a company called ShareGrid, where filmmakers can rent gear to each other with integrated insurance.

For our blog, I host interviews with filmmakers from our community about their experiences and we just recently released our newest series with DP, Jas Shelton (Keanu, Togetherness, The Stanford Prison Experiment).

VIDEOS

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaCcqdDN6m8F1evAkIl54Bz-ZTsw-7Fqc

I would love for you guys to check it out. There's some valuable insight as Jas talks about how he became a DP out of film school, shooting with the Duplass Brothers, managing a crew, having a positive attitude on set and his visual strategy on his newest feature, Keanu (Key and Peele).

I hope everyone enjoys the series and finds it helpful!