richg101

Please can we stop all these reposts.  It's getting tiresome now and is dragging Andrews superb forum down.  It's not a soap opera, it's a cinematography forum.

You're judging the L series lenses, not the camera.  The use of modern canon lenes is the reason it looks like video, not cinema.  Weak acting doesn't help things.

if only that awesome monitor/recoder did 4k prores for £500.  still even 1080p is awesome at that price!

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looks like the cheeky buggers have taken the glass from the FM Lens...    The front shot looks remarkably similar to the front of the fm

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Yes, this is indeed true.  however, there are very few lenses that will resolve onto 5micron sensors.  the majority are designed for small sensors.  bigger sensors up until the last year have been limited to 24mpx - which is still more than most 135mm format lesnes are able to deliver in their typical aperture range.  

I belive there are only 2 135mm format lenses that will deliver 36mpx onto the d800e.  these are the otus lenses.  and they only just do it.  

https://www.schneideroptics.com/pdfs/Digitar.pdf  thi pdf is pretty good at explaining the theory

There are very few lenses that will resolve 8k onto a full frame sensor.  even less of them with character or soul.  it's a shame RED always seem to use the number of pixels as a marketing thing - like consumer companies rate stereos in pmpo watts.    Imagine they did the a7s route - a 4k full frame sensor with huge pixels., but with the red raw back end.  

That said, a 4k downscale from the 8k full image area will be insanely clean.  it's only now that a high end medium format to full frame focal reducer is a worthwhile venture - squeeze an 80mm image circle of 40/lp/mm onto that sensor and the 8k will be viable!  forget the speed improvements, its now resolution that is the goal from lenses.

I think they missed the boat on this one.  a product aimed at owners, but something that doesnt really offer anything more than a isco54 - which will also do 25mm on m4/3, and allow a lot faster taking lens than t2.2.  for this price you;d get a rama 54, and a 0.95 voigtlander.  And be able to then change the taking lens as and when.  

IMO at those apertures and for m4/3 a century 1.33x will suffice since no amount of squeeze ratio will make up for the depth of focus of a 25mm t2.2 on m4/3.  The Century is half the length of that lens. - which is enormously long since they've had to cram a load of elements in there to allow for the 2x squeeze/ 

Their Cinema EOS range has pretty much killed all hope of the 5dmk4 being anything more than a bombproof stills camera with a below par video function.  Unless ML get hold of it before launch and remove all the crippling features canon include in the firmware.  

I'm pretty sure Black Magic will unveil a 4k pocket camera, using the sensor they currently use in their 4k '16mm sensor'd ipad with a lens' camera.  I've dug high and low for a camera head using this sensor with no luck meaning it may be exclusive to them - and thus they'll probably make use of it in a more widespread product.  

wonderful.  i love the subject of the video too!  hilarious.

The magic of the kinefinity cameras is the sub PL mount they employ.  I made a custom speed booster for Rob Bannister a few months ago, and I have been told that Kinefinity are actually offering their own speed booster mount soon - meaning the low light and cleanliness of the image will benefit from the addition of another stop of lens speed, and the fov advantage too.

what a shame about the fixed lens.  imagine this with some nice c-mount glass on there.  crop in by 30% to get the 16mm frame size and you still got more than 2.5k of res.  they fixed the lens because they don;t have their own range of glass to sell for it.

If being used on a weekly basis (commercially) for the year it's still viable as a commercial shooting solution then the price is worthwhile - particularly if you need to notch your profits down to stay below a tax bracket.  As a consumer purchase (ie, used for what the majority of us will do), the price is still madness when compared to consumer cameras like the a7s and gh4 - both of which surpass the needs of non commercial shooters.

is the banding already there?  or is it appearing after export?

I find using 32bit effects in premiere are the best way to avoid banding appearing.  

i too think some of the vlc efx are awesome and wish they were avialbale as plugins for premiere

the only flaw in your test is the camera.  the s16mm sensor is very forgiving to lenses.  assuming you ever wanted to shoot on a bigger sensor the differences will be more obvious - particularly at the edges.

the tokina was originally designed for use with a tokina at-x 70-200 f2.8 zoom, on full frame.  to bring minimum focus distance down from around 1m to around 0.6m if i recall.  if the achromatic qualities were not worth having, tokina wouldnt have bothered and would have sold a singlet.  so we know that for f2.8 70mm on full frame, achromatic diopters are required for clean performance.  since full frame tends to use around an 85mm lens for anamorphic attachments the achro is almost 100% required for undegraded performance to the edges of the 44mm image circle.

so, if you plan on upgrading to a bigger sensor, you'll be thankful to have kept the achro IMO

the key dfference here is that all other adaptors rely on the pin itself to stop rotational play.  as the leaf springs become older they seem to loose their strength and dnot pull the lens in tight, and the play in the pin shows itself even more.

I'd been eyeing up Lockcircle's range or PL mounts for nikon / ef.  As a fellow fan of ciecio7, these adaptors are the only thing tempting me away from the lockcircle offerings.

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I agree.  Unfortunately it looks like some corners have been cut with the design.  The lens seems to be introducing a lot of fringing at the edges and there seems to be a prominent fringing effect of the actual bokeh - similar to a poorly collimated oct18 squarefront - where the prime is slightly off from the squarefront itself.

also, the requirement to use a 35mm to obtain usable results (even on m4/3) would suggest a big limitation for users of s35 or full frame sensors who will want to use a 50-85mm lens to obtain the same fov.  Does the supplied documentation suggest using on m4/3 only?  I've been waiting to see some stuff shot on bigger sensors

both this and the previous 1.33x version appear to have been reworkings of the century 1.33x anamorphic (premium focusable unit), a seriously flawed design when used on sensors bigger than 2/3".

I just wish the FM unit was a £1500 piece, with glass better quality.  using better glass the focusing optics could be designed to do their thing with less extension and the whole thing could have been less length, wider internally and with a kowa for bell and howell or kowa inflight 1.75 would be one of the best anamorphic solutions in the world, having no problems dealing with 85mm f1.4 on full frame. 

that little panny 20mm wont take the weight of the iscorama36 - or at least it felt worrying when I did it.  And i had the advantage of having the panny being set to infinity so not extended at all.  I assume the slr magic 2x is about the same weight as the rama.  maybe more, and will need the panny to be focused.  that little motor in there wont like the added weight at all!!.  

​Thanks man.  I agree.  Lets see what happens:)

Hey Guys.  Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for the kind write up Andrew.

It's funny, this blog post and the comments about the brand name being immature coincide with my current direction as it is.

​I'll answer this rather stale and grumpy response first:) -

1. The name sums up exactly how the lenses would be considered by traditional photographers and technicians.    

2. Yes I guess it was a bit of a joke at the time.  2.5years ago I started offering the lenses specifically to be used with the Iscorama in order allow a more vintage look - since I always found results from my iscorama were a little clinical when comapred to smaller and cheaper optics which might not have had the sharpness of the iscorama, but have a charming quality due to their limitations.  I never intended on making more than about 5-10 of these.  for a few people who shared my own feelings of the iscorama.  I wanted the lomo look, but the sharpness and ease of use of the 'rama.

3. It did get your attention, as well as a load of bloggers.  Though as far as I remember this was never a marketing strategy, but a bit of a childish joke since the concept was never meant to be anything more than that.  If I hadn;t chosen such a ridiculous name, bloggers wouldn't have blogged it and I imagine i wouldn;t be pumping huge amounts of money into developing new optics - I'd be doing 2 weeks work a month making prototypes for dyson vacuum cleaners and doing occasional photography work.

4. As I've said, the name was never a marketing decision.  It just so happens that the majority of users 'get' the fact that they're buying carefully ruined lenses.  

5. The guys who make the effort to look into it deeper are the ones who seem to be enjoying the little lenses I'm making.  This passion meant they were willing to pre order a wide angle attachment meaning manufacture could go ahead.  No other manufacturer would even entertain developing and manufacturing a wide angle attachment of such quality.

6. Not a rebrand, but I believe the 'brand' will likely soon be a lo-fi division of a more traditional company name.  Since the newly developed optics like the FF38 and FF88 as well as the TRUMP lenses I feel deserve to live within a slightly more respectful label since they couldn;t be further from shit IMO. 

I think If I were Arri I wouldn't even bother with NAB just to make a point.  

Damn, If I was in the position to be taking out finance on an executive car, I;d sooner get finance for an alexa mini as a business asset, however buying cameras is a mugs game the way things are going.  The guys buying red dragons to shoot corporate dross in a cinematic way without even thinking about price can now spend their money on an Arri - and I imagine a lot will.    

those achromats really help things drastically.  flare is beautiful to my eyes - I love the coating choice slr magic used.

edges have a bit too much fringing to my eyes - especially since this was shot on gh4-4k.  what will it be like with s35>  probably even worse.  Overall though, this seems like some of the best results from modern cost effective anamorphics I have seen in recent years.  Those edges still feel a bit too much like a century 1.33x in terms of quality though.

From what I've seen this doesn't quite match what I've seen from the mighty schneider + FM unit. but certainly has a pleasing aesthetic to my eyes. 

I think SLR Magic may have dropped the ball for the second time..

It's as if they look at results from beautiful anamorphics like the iscorama and then design something that delivers the exact opposite.  Their 1.33x lens didn;t have any anamorphic aesthetic, and it looks like it may have not been because of the minimal squeeze ratio, but their process of designing the lens.  This, like the 1.33x lens seems to miss the point of anamorphic completely.  No character, yet all of the hassle and rather poor edge capability too - for the 4k crop mode (which is more than a 2x crop of full frame) I see rather unpleasant aberrations at the edges and a significant degradation on the performance of the panasonic lens.  Going from 720p up to 4k there is no additional resolution from what I see.  This will get worse on s35, and probably real nasty on full frame.

Your FM video has the anamorphic look:-

Why does the SLR magic not have the same 'magic' I see from the video above?  Both were shot on 4k crop mode, both by the same person.  Both are 2x

​exactly!  

Full frame, 85mm f1.4 planar, @f2.8 - 2mtrs/8foot

APS-C/S35, 50mm f1.4 planar, @f1.4 - 2mtrs/8foot

As anyone who knows lenses knows, there ain't much better than a 50mm contax/planar for sharpness wide open.  assuming this was a medium/close shot requiring a human face to separate from the background, I know which I'd choose for the money shot!

It's not all about wafer thin dof, a longer lens at a distance is better at obtaining separation between in and out of focus areas of the frame.  FACT.  If you don't value this attribte it's fine, but please don;t make the assumption that full frame doesnt have a creative and drastic technical advantage when dof control and sharpness are of utmost importance.