PannySVHS

Thank you for sharing, Andrew. This is looking great. I will watch it as soon as they show it in the cinemas over here. I am still curious to test a GH5 MK II due to it been tested by slashcam for displaying great rendering of texture and offering one of the best 4K images of any dslms out there in that regard. Its optional 1.4 crop mode makes it a great digital 4K S16 cinema camera. GH7 in 4k pixel per pixel mode might be closer to 16mm crop though. I would love a M43 sensor sized lumix pocket cinema camera with flexible cropping, like S16 1:1.66, S16 4:3 with full Super16 width, 2/3" 1:1, you name it. And while you are at it, Panny please give it an internal ND and still keep the EVF and great battery life plus full size Hdmi.:)

Nice work 🙂

I thought I would add my project to this thread as I was somewhat inspired by it. Long story short, I modded my BMPCC to turn it into a D-mount camera. 
 

A great read, Kye. Way to roll with the punches. It's neat to have what is probably the only instance of this lens in use with this camera in the world. I look forward to seeing your footage with this setup.

An update...
My 2.8-12mm zoom lens arrived and I've completed the mods.  It's a nail-biting tale of daring and disaster, but as sure as Hollywood using action cameras with zoom lenses, has a happy ending nonetheless.
First impression was that the envelope with the single layer of bubble wrap that was protecting the lens had lost its air long ago, probably while still in mainland China, but concerns of damage were quickly alleviated when I discovered this this is a beast, is heavy, and is made completely of metal.
It's also somewhat larger than I anticipated..  here it is next to the camera and existing 8mm lens:

I put it onto the camera and couldn't get focus, even if I screwed it all the way in.
Naturally, my first impression was to take the camera apart, and modify it to get infinity focus, however it later turned out that this was wrong, and that I had screwed the lens into the camera too far, but back to me going down the wrong path...
Camera in pieces:

The bit I chopped off thinking it was the only barrier between me and cinematic goodness:

It was around this time I realised my error, and that the lens got good focus (across the whole zoom range) with only 2 turns of the lens into the mount.  
This meant that clearance between the rear element and the sensor wasn't in danger, so I installed the IR Cut filter onto the rear element of the lens.  Luckily this lens had a flat rear-element, which made getting the IR filter also flat quite a straight-forward process.  I found success with the previous lens by using PVA woodworking glue, which dries clear and holds the IR filter securely (which I accidentally tested by dropping that lens ~1m onto a tiled floor and it stayed on just fine!), so here's the filter:

I applied the PVA with a pin and I find that if you give yourself a big lump of glue then you can tell how quickly the glue dries by watching your lump dry, which isn't required in this case but is useful if you glue somewhere that you can't see:

Next job was to modify the front plate to allow the lens to sit where it needs to.  In this case the front part that clips in needs to be removed:

It comes out easily and looks like this when mounted back on the camera:

You can see that the mount in the camera is only plastic, which is quite concerning for robustness, but it also presents another problem, which is that the focus and zoom controls on the lens are stiff in parts of their range, and the lens would rather twist in the mount rather than adjust, so my previous trick of putting plumbers tape into the threads did nothing.
This is where the story takes a turn - I decided to glue the lens into the mount.
I did this for a few reasons.  Firstly, this lens give the focal range I need and so I wouldn't need to change it ever again.  Secondly, it will help resist turning in the mount, and will also make the whole thing more robust.
In terms of risks, I figured that if I needed to remove the lens for some reason I could potentially break the seal on the glue and get it out.  If that didn't work then I might break the lens thread in the camera, but maybe not enough to prevent other lenses being used that go deeper into the camera (the previous 8mm lens I had in there went in quite a way).  There was never going to be damage to the new lens as it's all metal, including the mounting threads.
Worst-case is I kill the SJ4000, which was under $100, and could be replaced.
So, I went for broke, and put in quite a lot of glue, both onto the lens and the mount.  I made sure to dry it lens-down so that any squeeze-out would drop down the outside of the lens rather than on the inside of the lens mount and potentially onto the sensor.
I waited until my lump of glue was completely dry, and then put a battery in and fired up the camera.
Disaster.

You will note that the windowsill is in focus, so the diffusion is not from poor focus.  I suspected some kind of haze from the glue, considering it was fine with the lens installed prior to my glue-up.
I have a theory about haze.  If something can become a gas and then solidify onto a surface, then it must be able to become a gas again and everything that condensed should evaporate again leaving a clean surface.  Assuming that it doesn't perform a chemical reaction or anything.  I thought that PVA is water-soluble, so I figured that the haze could simply be condensation, considering that the little chamber between the lens and sensor would have been where a lot of the water would have gone.  
First attempt to cure it was the late afternoon sun:

I pulled the battery and SD card after taking this shot, to remove power and the possibility of them being damaged, and to also let more air in and out via those openings in the case.
After sunset I fired it up again and the haze had turned into evenly spaced strange little globs, maybe 10 across the width of the sensor.  I didn't get a photo of that, but I thought that movement was good, showing that whatever it is isn't stuck there forever.  I left it there overnight and thought I'd contemplate the next strategy the next day.
The next morning.....  BINGO!

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes!  I suspect dry air from the air-conditioning gave it the time required to dry out.
So, having flirted with disaster but avoiding peril with great skill luck, what do we now have?
FOV at wide end:

FOV at long end:

iPhone 8 FOV:

My completely non-scientific analysis suggests that it's about equivalent to an 18-60 lens, and the f1.4 aperture should mean that exposures are good until the light gets low, which is good because the sensor is likely to have poor ISO performance.
So, how is it to use?
Well, if there was a competition for least par focal lens in the world, this would be my nomination.  Each end of the zoom range has its infinity focus setting at each end of the focus range, and if you go from being in focus at one end of the zoom range and take the zoom adjustment to the other end then the bokeh balls are 1/6th the width of the frame (I did measure that) so it's not a subtle effect.  I checked if the zoom and focus rings should be locked together but they deviate slightly over their range.
The locking pins are useful for controlling the zoom and focus, but if you screw them in completely then they lock the controls, so I'm thinking that I should glue them in place so they're solid.  I'll have to be careful not to get glue into the mechanisms but that shouldn't be too hard.
So, how the @#&@#$ do you focus using the 2" 960x240 LCD screen?  Why, by using the up and down buttons on the side to engage the 4x digital zoom function of course!
In terms of natural diffusion and flares, the lens also looks promising, and I've already noticed a round halo if you put a bright light in the centre of frame, so that should be fun to play with.  There's probably little chance of this lens ending up in the clinical lens thread!
I've matched the colours to the BMMCC via the test chart, so already have a nice post-workflow for it too.
I haven't shot anything with it, but will do soon, and considering its size it should be quite easy to film in public without drawing too much attention.
So, is it a pocket cinematic beast?  Only time will tell.

 

Another vignette..  
I'm now officially over the IR sensitivity.  It makes people look, well, awful.  I'm also a bit over the focal length being a bit too long for some situations.
Lucky, I have IR Cut filters on order, and I say filters, because I'll need one for this lens and one for the new lens I have on order, a 2.8-12mm zoom lens.  This will give around 20-85mm equivalent FOV, and (I think) has a focus control, so I might be able to focus closer too, so that will be fun.

I also found the quality setting on the camera was not set optimally, so did a modes test and found the best looking settings, and also optimised a grade and saved it as a Powergrade in Resolve, so now I can just apply it whenever I want and save time pixel-peeping in post.
Here's the modes from the camera:

and here's the powergrade applied, with each shot having the edge softening optimised to cancel out the halo from the sharpening and compression applied:

The middle one looks best, so that's what I'll go with.  
The goal of this project was to get me shooting and doing smaller projects and it certainly has done that, so that's a success in my book.

Thank you for sharing, Andrew. This is looking great. I will watch it as soon as they show it in the cinemas over here. I am still curious to test a GH5 MK II due to it been tested by slashcam for displaying great rendering of texture and offering one of the best 4K images of any dslms out there in that regard. Its optional 1.4 crop mode makes it a great digital 4K S16 cinema camera. GH7 in 4k pixel per pixel mode might be closer to 16mm crop though. I would love a M43 sensor sized lumix pocket cinema camera with flexible cropping, like S16 1:1.66, S16 4:3 with full Super16 width, 2/3" 1:1, you name it. And while you are at it, Panny please give it an internal ND and still keep the EVF and great battery life plus full size Hdmi.:)

A couple of years ago, I was saying on Forums that Arri would fail, and people were calling me stupid. Ohhh its image is so special, etc etc how peasants could understand this. But the problem is you can't sell a lot of 70-100 000 usd cameras, the market is what it is, even more so when you have very capable cameras coming for much less. You reach a level where that 5% more cannot justify the 10, 20x the price. Before you had the highend market where camera cost/rent is peanuts compared to the overall cost, but that secondary market, the people that used to rent those highend cameras, can now buy a camera that will do 90% of what they need, and will rent only 10% of what they used to do.
Arri and most US/german companies are going to be eaten by the Chinese ones. They still live in the rental business, for camera and other gears light lighting etc. The principal of the Chinese is that they will produce affordable equipment for the many, that will help them also produce for few highend that they will sell. You will find Aperture/Godox/Nanlight models that will cost less than a hundred dollars, to 4k led light costing more than 10 000 USD. They will sell a thousands of the 300 USD 300 watt cob monolight, for perhaps every 10 000 USD 5000 watt one. But those thousands of 300 USD lights will help them for R&D for those big lights. same for camera, imagine if Arri had repackage the original Arri LF in a more affordable casing, taking out some features of frame rate and sell it for 10K. They would be selling thousands of them, perhaps at the detriment of their higher ends, but those thousands of 10k models would overall bring so much money. 

Dude, my infomercial will be future-proof! In 10 years, humans will evolve and they'll be able to see that 12k detail on their phones. Adapt or die, man!

Thank you for sharing, Andrew. This is looking great. I will watch it as soon as they show it in the cinemas over here. I am still curious to test a GH5 MK II due to it been tested by slashcam for displaying great rendering of texture and offering one of the best 4K images of any dslms out there in that regard. Its optional 1.4 crop mode makes it a great digital 4K S16 cinema camera. GH7 in 4k pixel per pixel mode might be closer to 16mm crop though. I would love a M43 sensor sized lumix pocket cinema camera with flexible cropping, like S16 1:1.66, S16 4:3 with full Super16 width, 2/3" 1:1, you name it. And while you are at it, Panny please give it an internal ND and still keep the EVF and great battery life plus full size Hdmi.:)

I second it, in terms of the A7 cii. High Iso grain is not as blotchy as in the A7iv, and honestly, the evf was one of the reasons to switch from the A7iv. The body is so big that the centered evf is very uncomfortable to use, at least when you have a big nose like me. Additionally, it somewhat flashes the eye in a rather stressfull way. From that perspective, I find  the more ‚low res’ evf on the A7c ii to be more comfortable to use.
While video on that sensor is beyond any doubt, with stills, I‘ve struggled on both cameras to get the raws right, i.e. realistic, more often than not. Counterintuitively, the highlights are more malleable than the shadows, and the greens tend to be rather harsh and hard to bring back into line.

I don't think there's much wrong with the slower sensor to be honest, I have come round to it, and I really like the FX2 as well - the images speak for themselves and it's one of the only cheap cinema cameras with both a proper EVF and mechanical shutter, and we all know that hybrid is where it's at... And again worth saying that unlike Panasonic S1 II - it is in the body of the flagship pro camera, not in the cut-price shell of a mid-range consumer camera.
The partially stacked sensors are of course the current cutting edge, a7 V will be great but only if you NEED the speed. I don't shoot much 4K120p or 60p. Cinema 24p is still my most valued spec in terms of frame rates and as for 30p, it is still a TV / YouTube frame rate and doesn't look cinematic.
Getting all this sensor talk in perspective, we'll go back to the very start.
Canon used a Panasonic CCD in their first 1D DSLR, their own pioneering CMOS tech was not yet ready in time so they switched plans. Then, from the first Canon 1DS it was ready to go - BUT CMOS at this time was much slower than CCD. The 1D classic is the only FAST pro sports cameras ever made with a CCD!
In the following years Canon were able to go from behind with CMOS and take the speed crown away from CCD sensors. The in-line A/D line-by-line readout tech of CMOS is what enabled video. Sony in 2005 commercialised their first CMOS sensor in the Sony R1 APS-C bridge camera. It had video only in terms of it could do live-view. The 10MP raw photos still stand up today. The way CMOS handles dynamic range is also different to CCD - a linear sudden blow-out in the highlights, but on CCD a more film-like non-linear and gradual highlight roll off and it was not until the Sony a7r III in 2018 that CMOS started to match CCD for colour fidelity and latitude.
That is 18 years of development progress.
The a7 IV sensor is a faster version of one of that chip, one of the most groundbreaking sensors of the last 25 years. 33mp instead of 42mp, but it sped up to enable a 7K full width pixel readout rather than pixel binned 4K.
In 2025 it's still one of the only mid-range cameras to go past the 24mp mark.
I think for £1500 that is a decent offer?
Have you seen the a7r III's images? It's absolutely stunning, in some ways beats an a1 and z8.
The a7 IV's "slow sensor" is at that level.
From those very early days in early 2000s, video took another 8 years following the debut of CMOS - first with the Nikon D90 and then with the 5D Mark II. It took a further 6 years until 2014 for anyone to make a 4K capable full frame CMOS sensor. The a7r II was the first to do oversampled 5K->4K in S35 mode and full frame pixel binned 4K. Oooooodles of stuff has been shot since on this camera and on many other cameras with a similar level of rolling shutter. Of all the specs I care about, rolling shutter only occasionally presented itself as problem in the real world.
I've owned countless full frame cameras... Panasonic S1, S1R, S1H, Sony a7s III, Sony a1, Nikon Z9 and Z8 but sold all of them. The only mainstay for me is the GFX 100. The only thing the faster Sony and Nikon cameras offer to the creative process, is speed and less rolling shutter. If action sports and slow-motion is your bag then great.
When the a9 III with global shutter (and the slightly noisy base ISOs) comes down to under £2500 I might consider one of those but until then...For cinema... I think the a7 IV and FX2 are the best images you can get for the price.
Although the Panasonic S1H has the edge in low light, and for HDMI RAW output to a hateful Ninja, it lacks the autofocus, the ecosystem of E-mount, and also of course the small and light body size.

Looks fantastic.
Any interviews with the cinematographer / crew out there?
They used Panasonic GH7 + Lumix 12mm F1.4 for most part
https://www.eoshd.com/news/in-ny-and-la-theatres-january-major-new-movie-magellan-is-shot-on-the-panasonic-gh7/

Pixel binned raw 4k120 of ZR has the same amount of details of FX3, if not more, which is a native 4k sensor

 

A bit small and lacking in res for 2025, but otherwise looks a decent spec overall but nothing especially exciting.
 
That sounds pretty decent though...
With a clean sheet, I'd still go Nikon personally, - I just prefer their history and direction they are going in.

Yes, 100% Tokina made and these lenses predate the Kino and Komine partnerships. Vivitar lenses have a serial number system that will tell you which original manufacturer made the lens normally but these older 60’s preset versions predate that serial number system. I’ve researched them quite a bit over the years however and found information confirming Tokina. 
My 35mm is doing great and solid, maybe you got one that was not very well taken care of? 

1) This didn't go well for Sony when they released the QX100 and QX10 years ago.  It also didn't work well for Olympus with the Air A01.  Of course, none of them stuck a stupid bullshit "AI" label on the end of the camera name so who knows, maybe that's what was missing.
2) Fuck GenAI.  Of all the things I want integrated in my camera, that's at about the rock bottom of the list.
3) Note that at least 3 of the 6 testimonials that they include (screenshot below) don't actually say anything positive about the camera. "That's very different" is not an endorsement.  In fact, where I live, saying "that's different" is usually a form of backhanded insult.
4) It looks like it only supports wifi connection to the phone without a wired option.  In a best-case scenario, screen lag will be tolerable.  Go to any reasonably-crowded urban area, though, and enjoy the slide show and/or "connection lost" messages.
5) Even though they say you can choose from over 100 M43 lenses, I'd be worried about magsafe supporting any moderately heavy lens.  Even if it does, the camera will be really unbalanced.
6) When Caira goes out of business, there will be nobody left to update the app and the camera isn't usable without it.  Cross your fingers that Apple doesn't change some necessary API during an OS update.
7) Super early bird pricing is $695.  You can go buy a used Panasonic G85 in like new condition for about $430.  You can get an OM System OM-5 in like new condition for about $760 or in excellent condition for about $690.  The G85 is cheaper and pretty good - at least on a spec sheet, they seem similar - a little bulkier, maybe.  The OM-5 should be at least as good of a camera, also is quite small (not as small, of course, but very small by modern camera standards), and will keep working whether or not OM Systems stays in business or decides they want to stop making cameras.
8 ) Phone cameras are already very good these days.  Mine is more than good enough for any of the sort of images/videos that they seem to be promoting on their site.  If not, I'd probably just get a newer/better phone and not some janky add-on.  🙂 
9) Small company + Kickstarter means you'll probably be waiting a good long time and/or never actually receive the order.  Even though they say they have 500 mainboards already in stock, actually building and shipping hundreds of units is a really hard challenge that a lot of kickstarter projects don't take into account - and sometimes not even due to fault of the creators.  My 4x10 film camera that I ordered from an established brand (Ondu) who already made/shipped lots of pinhole cameras for years beforehand took WAY longer than expected, at least partly because suppliers kept sending out-of-spec parts to them.  The owner is a really great guy and we had some nice conversations when I asked my camera hadn't come despite that he said they were caught up on orders (turned out that their tool to collect shipping information lost a bunch of responses so he had to go manually collect them from a lot of people).
 
So anyway - for me, Caira is a hard no.  I'm basically the opposite of their target market, though.

Yeah, they are the Alice people rebranded. A project that leaves their original customers behind and launches a "new" one. Lots of cases in Kickstarter, or in case of software it could be called "Luminar move"...

Very different from, like, the Pixii project.

The polite version is “no thank you”.

I love this thread. Keep em coming. If only the Canon FD 35 105 was not prone to gnarly focussing after several years of use due to ball bearings covered with desolving rubber. There is a very compact 38 to 100mm F3.5 under the Hanimex label, which I really like using for personal filming. Mine has a FD mount. I used to have a video uploaded showing this lens in action, which I shared here before. Vimeo deleted it along with 60 other videos when I canceled my plus account, because they deleted all groups and destroyed the whole community.
I really need to read into Nikon glass. All these different versions leave me puzzled.:) @mercer

I love this thread. Keep em coming. If only the Canon FD 35 105 was not prone to gnarly focussing after several years of use due to ball bearings covered with desolving rubber. There is a very compact 38 to 100mm F3.5 under the Hanimex label, which I really like using for personal filming. Mine has a FD mount. I used to have a video uploaded showing this lens in action, which I shared here before. Vimeo deleted it along with 60 other videos when I canceled my plus account, because they deleted all groups and destroyed the whole community.
I really need to read into Nikon glass. All these different versions leave me puzzled.:) @mercer

Although it's not exactly what you're looking for, I'd have to second the Nikon Series E lenses. They truly are remarkable little lenses. I haven't been able to find a good copy of the 35mm 2.5 but the 36-72, 50mm and 100mm are nice little lenses, especially the size of the 100mm. Also the older non-ai lenses are pretty spectacular as well. One lens I hate to mention because it does get such bad reviews is the 35-70 3.3-4.5 ai-s lens. It's tiny and a lot better than the bad reviews give it. I mean, it isn't great, but there's something very Nikon in its not greatness.
Another zoom lens I love, which I assume you're familiar with is the Canon FD 35-105mm 3.5. This lens is ALMOST parfocal. Obviously constant aperture. Internal zoom. Fairly compact. I've had a few copies over the years, then end up selling it because I didn't use it too often, regret it and seek another one. My most recent copy I put on the Sigma FP and here's a sample of it at 105mm wide open...

 
No mind-blowing image by any means, but fairly sharp wide open and I like the way it handles the highlights. Of course it's a mess in direct light... as I found out last week during a shoot. However, there are rumors that Canon considered putting the L badge onto it because they were so happy with the lens.
As far as primes, other than the Nikons, the Takumar lenses are a personal favorite of mine. I've heard people argue that the 28mm 3.5 is one of the best 28mm lenses they've used. I haven't used that one but the 35mm 3.5 is excellent.
I've used a couple of the wide angle Tokina lenses from the late 70s, early 80s and they were decent, but I think they were f/2.8 lenses. Obviously you could get a cheap Neewer fixed ND to pop on the lens and leave there to give you that slower stop and to protect the front of the lens. Also check out the old Vivitar lenses, I have a set of mostly Tokina made ones in the m42 mount and I have always been very fond of them. The image instantly feels like an old 70s made for TV movie. I'm probably going to sell them though, not because I don't like them, I just have too much stuff and really need to scale back.
I guess you could also look at some of the older Zeiss Jena lenses... even the MF ones would give you the slower apertures you were looking for wide open.
Great thread! Wish there were more threads like this on here like it.

Did you even really read my post?
I gave several suggestions and the OP never clarified or said his requirements were set in stone. Soft vs clinical, deep focus and circular bokeh right?
There are a few ways to achieve that look. Most vintage lenses are soft compared to modern lenses. Does OP want REALLY soft? Why? Very easy to take a vintage soft lens and add a desired look in post for anything extreme. My vintage Yashicas and old Vivitars all have many bladed apertures and produce round apertures at f/2.8 so I get some low light benefits as I need it while still being vintage soft. But I can live at f/3.5 or f/4 as desired. So no, I wasn’t just waiting to talk, I was offering a perspective and fostering a discussion. 

Some anamorphic goodness. Splendid shortfilm with jojo players performing and offscreen statements about their art and what it means to them in living their lifes. I found the bts on youtube which linked to the actual video. Filmed in HD 240fps with a 20mm Laowa Nanomorph, in Arri C.
 

Youtubers are snoring! Better quit watching, cuz it's so boring!