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$13,000 for a rehoused Minolta 35mm still lens????


Matt Pacini

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There has been quite a bit of discussion on this board in the past about using 35mm still camera lenses for motion picture photography.

I'm a Nikon glass fanatic, so this really appeals to me (and I already own the lenses!).

 

Anyway, at the Century website, they are selling rehoused Canon 17-35 EOS lenses, and a Minolta 28-70.

 

http://www.centuryoptics.com/products/film...enses/index.htm

 

The Minolta is $13,000 and the Canon is $15,000 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yes, I know they've changed the mounts, done all sorts of other stuff to make it easier to shoot motion picture photog. with, but it's the same glass, right?

I mean, could a Minolta lens possibly look better than my Nikon still lenses?

 

Matt Pacini

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First off, these are very good pieces of glass, otherwise Century wouldn't choose them to rehouse. Second, they don't just change the mounts. They completely remove the glass elements and throw away the old housings, starting again from scratch. The new housings track properly, turn more than 300 degrees for their focus and zoom ranges so that an assistant can accurately use the now-detailed scales to set them correctly. The housings are much larger in scale to allow for easier attachment of accessories, and to accomodate sound dampners to help keep camera noise from projecting through the lens. The focus also does not breathe when adjusted which is a major thing to rework.

 

There is considerable R&D and many, many man-hours that go into the making of these lenses. If Century sells 100 of them in the next ten years I'd be surprised. So they have to charge that kind of money to turn even a modest profit.

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and a Minolta 28-70

Damn, one of my first lenses for still photography was a Minolta 28-70! It cost me a little over one or two hundred bucks if I recall. I even used it on my Bolex with the C-mount adaptor, although I was limited to closeup work with it.

 

Too bad you can't attach these lenses to an Arri mount with an adaptor (unless, as with my Bolex, you're willing to put up with a limited focus range). Would save me thirteen grand :huh:

 

- G.

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Mitch, I agree with what you're saying.

I guess I should clarify a bit.

I'm not so shocked that it cost this much for the lens, I mean, if they took the oldest, crappiest lens ever made, and did this workover to it, it would still cost this much.

I guess my main point is, that yeah, it's going to fit standard accessories, be easier to use, etc., etc., but still, it's not going to look any better than if I get an adapter for my Nikon still lenses, Canon still lenses, Minolta still lense, or whatever.

 

I guess it's just that we all assume that a $15,000 lens is WAAAAAAYYYYYYYY sharper than what we're using for still photography, because of how much more it costs.

I just wonder if cine lenses really are any better, in terms of just image quality.

 

Anyone here have much experience with any real testing that's been done comparing still lenses to cine lenses?

Because this makes me even more excited about using my Nikon still lenses for MP photography.

Being on the cheap like I am, I am willing to sacrifice things like it being more difficult to pull focus, and the other things you mentioned.

 

Matt Pacini

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Anyone here have much experience with any real testing that's been done comparing still lenses to cine lenses?

Because this makes me even more excited about using my Nikon still lenses for MP photography.

Being on the cheap like I am, I am willing to sacrifice things like it being more difficult to pull focus, and the other things you mentioned.

Plenty. The big problem is that these lenses rarely match from one piece of glass to another. Often they don't match even within the same model (same holds true for many cine lenses). I know that Century has to buy a few dozen of those little Minolta lenses to gather the best parts for a single conversion zoom.

 

So a single small range zoom that is used for an entire project or even just an entire scene can be used effectively, but trying to shoot on multiple lenses as a set often brings up issues of varying color rendition, contrast, exposure (the tollerances on the aperture rings on those cheap lenses can leave something to be desired) and other issues. And while the resolving of the lens may be okay for a larger 35mm negative, they can often leave a lot to be desired for the smaller 16mm frame. The lens will breath a lot when focusing because this is not an issue with still lenses so the manufacturers are happy to let this happens as it makes the lens considerably cheaper to manufacture. You're going to really be struggling with these lenses to focus as there will be times when you cannot judge through the eyepiece and the scale is either innaccurate or too imprecise to read or both. And finally remember that these lenses are made to cover the 35mm still format not 16mm, so you'll generally only find them useful for relatively long focal lengths.

 

All that said I occassionally use telephoto Nikon lenses on my camera and I own a set of Zeiss Contax lenses that have the mounts converted to fit my Aaton. The Zeiss Contax lenses are actually the same as their cine SuperSpeed counterparts except with cheaper housings. For specific uses still lenses can be quite useful in cine work. It can be an interesting sight to look at an incredibly expensive IMAX, VistaVision or other specialty camera with a cheap Nikon sitting on the front.

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Hi,

 

Shame this doesn't work for video, where odd colour-splitter issues complicate lens design even further and the focal lengths are so short that still lenses are often worthless. One of the most touted features of the XL1, its ability to mount Canon's EOS stills lenses, is only ever of use to wildlife photographers and other people with a need for 800mm lenses - because the widest lens ever made in EOS mount was the wide-angle one for the XL1.

 

Phil

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It's not so much that you're paying for extra sharpness -- the sharpness probably being the same as it was when it was a cheaper still camera lens. You're paying to bring it up the standard for motion picture work in terms of focusing, breathing, exposure variation during a zoom, etc.

 

Still lenses don't have to deal with any of those problems because you won't see a focus change in mid shot with a still image, nor would you notice that the image got darker when you zoomed in, or that the zooom didn't track with the optical center, etc.

 

So I don't think that sharpness is what you're paying extra for. One reason that efx people may use a cheap Nikon lens on a VistaVision camera is that they are generally not doing a lot of standard focus-pulling during dialogue; they tend to be used for background plates and are also generally working at higher light levels and stopped down.

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