meudig

Media Division released another video, I bet many of you already watched it. This time they are examining the Canon FDs and their similarity to the legendary Canon K35s. It's one hour and 24 minutes long, and holds the same quality as their video on the C/Y Carl Zeiss video. 
By the way, there's a segment on removing yellow tint on thorium coated lenses with a cheap Ikea lamp @ 1h15m. I thought you might be interested @mercer

A few stills from a shoot last night all on the Pocket 4K XL and CZ 35mm 2.8. 

Could be quite an interesting anthology! Some Night on Earth type thing.

Ive wanted the 35 1.4 ais forever. I love the way it renders out of focus areas.

 

I've found my favourite lens ever guys. Totally has surpassed the PEN-F 38mm f1.8. 
Can anybody guess which one it is? Hint: it's a Carl Zeiss made in Japan

Hiya!
Another extensive post coming from me - brace yourselves!
Long story short: I tried to minimize my 35mm eqv. setup and see what potential drawbacks would this bring.
 
Left side: newly acquired Newyi 25/1.8 CCTV C-mount lens bought for astonishing 23$.
Right side: Zhongyi Lens Turbo II + Nikkor 35/1.8 G (officialy it's a DX lens [meant for Nikon APS-C cameras], but it happens to cover FF quite nicely).

 
Goliath vs David:

 
Operation-wise, it's difficult to pick a clear winner.
Newyi, being a CCTV lens, is so tiny that it's rather tricky to wield, even with my  small fingers. Aperture ring is stepless and smooth, whereas focus ring is a bit stiff near infinity.
Can't say a bad word about focus throw or focus zones overlaying one another - those are all good and allow to precisely nail the focus.
Nikkor, on the other hand, isn't the most intuitive lens and is rather quirky to operate manually. There are no focus marks and the focus ring has little steps that can be felt while fine tuning.
There is no aperture ring and the only way I can affect the aperture is via an AI - EOS adapter with built-in aperture lever.
Having said that, Nikkor simply feels better in my hands. It may be bigger, heavier and not meant for manual use, but it is what it is.
 
Newyi is advertised as a f/1.8 lens, yet it doesn't gather as much light as it really should.
The same scene, shot in the same conditions, required a shutter speed of 1/60 when I used Newyi wide open, compared to a shutter speed of 1/105 when I used Nikkor (via dumb adapter, not a speedbooster).
Speedboosted Nikkor gave me a reading of 1/160.

That's a 2/3 EV of difference, which makes Newyi rather a T/2.2 (if not less) lens, not a T/1.8 one.
Speedboosted Nikkor is almost a T/1.4 beast.
 
Field of view between those two is almost identical.
Nikkor has some serious barrel distortion, but it's due to it being a DX lens.
 
Sharpness and contrast:
Wide open Newyi is not only tack sharp in the center, beating the Nikkor easily, but also free of any noticeable aberrations/fringing.
Unfortunately, it's less contrasty and introduces some ugly beige/red tint to the shadows.
Some 100% crops.

 

 
Those are my thoughts after owning the Newyi for 3 hours.
I really wanted it to replace its bigger competitor, but to me contrast, color rendering and ability to gather more light is more important than sharpness and portability.
 
Nonetheless, the fairy tale has a happy ending and Newyi managed to find a new host - Sony NEX-5.
I hope my sister enjoys it, lol.

 
Here is a photo taken with it on a NEX-5:

And a 100% crop:

Mir-1B, Helios 44-2 (black, white markings), Jupiter-8.

The front preset ring on all of these are super tight, but the second aperture ring is a tiny bit too loose, making fine adjustment difficult. The jupiter-8 is still pretty tight, and I do like the 85 mm, but as I don't shoot full frame it rarely gets any use.

Mir-1B, Helios 44-2 (black, white markings), Jupiter-8.

The front preset ring on all of these are super tight, but the second aperture ring is a tiny bit too loose, making fine adjustment difficult. The jupiter-8 is still pretty tight, and I do like the 85 mm, but as I don't shoot full frame it rarely gets any use.

Yeah they look nice from the pics and the seller had good feedback, so fingers crossed 

To really love a camera it must be a comfortable, fast sportscar, not a mundane commuting experience.
Here's what I've grown to like the most, from the past year of camera releases which I've owned and shot with.
NEW BLOG POST!

I have no idea even though I'm shooting on an em10iii now. John Brawley is a cinematographer that is familiar with Olympus cams. You can ask him directly as he might know. 

Has anybody tried taking the IR cut filter out of their GX85 yet
I did for the EOSHD low budget camera challenge
I broke mine but second attempt went well on a body I found for under £200.
Should really share that footage some day

Mamiya Sekor N 35mm 3,5
 
 

More Tokina 28-70 2.6-2.8

10-bit 422 internally is a must from now on for any higher end mirrorless body. I’d much rather have that than 5.5k raw. 
 
 

Just before the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, me and my wife decided to make use of some tickets we had booked 2 months before and visit our friends in Kiruna, Sweden. It proved to be a risky trip as many flights where cancelled one after another and we could stuck at any airport during our transition or return but it also proved to be one of the greatest trips of our life so far.
I managed to squeeze a Mavic 2 Pro and an Osmo Action into my luggage (sadly my beloved GH5 and it’s accessories had to stay back in Greece) plus a bunch of masks, gloves and alcohol wipes…
So, short story, below you can take a glimpse of our 7-Day trip into the Arctic Circle. The vast majority of these shots (almost 95%) where taken with an OSMO action (handheld, no accessories) and i was personally amazed with this little gem.
Of course i missed my Lumix, my motorised slider, my gimbal etc but on the other hand, if i had all of these with me i wouldn’t have the ability to walk 10 km into the frozen Abisko National Park while interacting with my companionship.
 

Set Decorator was lazy that day.

A little more time spent on grade. Was a test of the 4:4:4 out, love the color flexibility.
 
 

I always appreciated an honest point of view. Because it was just that: a personal opinion, which was not worse than mine just because of being different from mine. It becomes of course very unpleasant with obvious misantrophic and cyninc opinions.
Some people and friends on this forum happened to have voted for the current president. They are awesome contributors and human beings, kind, helpful, gentle.  I am sure that Andrew will not ban them! For the hateful commenters I would wish to give them another chance at showing their humane side. A very few self proclaimed liberal contributors have not been too well mannered neither, with a few stronger lacks of reason and logic in their argumentation, lack of the least amount of manners as well.
Like I stated before a few months ago, I find that technology race for 8K kinda obscene, all the natural resources, all that power hungry streaming, all that for some lowest common denominatr of media content, subpar entertainment. We are all involved in that kind of 1st world obscenity and hypocracy. Let´s not get sucked into mob mentality. I would have loved a Blackmagic Cinema Camera 2.5K with 60p mode and a 15ms readout and decent battery life. Enough camera for fantastic cinematic image quality and engough space for nerdom, lens freakery, diy stuff, behind the scenes footage... Andrew should repost some of his awesome blog posts of the past. They hold so much more inspiration for the future filmmaker than some dull tech reviews of current hyper, 8k, 2000fps camras on some gadget websites. I mean ladys stockings for lens filter, hallo, now we are talking and testing!:)

@Andrew Reid - one of your favorite YouTubers is back.
( :
Beware: this video is 50 minutes long.
 
 

Some sigma fp 4k Vimeo footage I found
 

BMMCC (ProRes LT), Sankor 16c, VidAtlantic Clamp, Cosmicar 25mm f/1.9 c-mount lens, Tiffen +1, +2, +4 diopters, Tiffen +1/2 Split Diopter, Firecrest IRND
I really love this camera/lens combination, and I'm happy to be shooting anamorphic again after selling my previous lenses 6 years ago. The BMMCC's Super 16 sensor goes well with anamorphic because you can still get a shallow enough DOF, but deep enough wide open to be usable/practical. You get sharp, low light anamorphic that's actually in focus (this whole video was shot wide open at f/1.9. I can get similarly sharp/usable results at f/1.4 with my Canon TV-16 25mm, which is why I need to fix it).

First I'd like to say that I appreciate that the Lenses sticky thread is now it's own Sub-Forum. It really allows members to post more specific topics and it allows readers to ignore topics that may not be useful for them.
With that said, @noone had a great idea creating a topic with one of his favorite lenses... so I figured I'd follow suit with one of my favorite lenses...
Nikkor 35mm 1.4 ai-s
As I started writing this brief, real world review, I realized that this lens represents a larger story of me as a filmmaker as it chronicles the highs and lows of my life since I started shooting my film...
So what started as a brief review morphed into a much longer story. If you don't have the time or inclination, stop now.
For those that are still interested... here we go...
I love fast, wide angle lenses. They offer shallow depth of field while allowing you to get close to your subject. And a fast 35mm straddles a wide angle FOV and a normal FOV making it almost the perfect full frame, focal length for my style of filmmaking.
This is my second copy of this lens and truth be told... I've almost sold this lens a half a dozen times over the past year.
My first copy I bought when I started shooting my film. I had a simple game plan... the Canon 24-70mm f/4 IS lens for daylight and the Nikkor for lowlight.
Here are a couple frames from the first shots I took with the lens for my film.


For some reason I decided to go a different route for my lowlight shots and bought a Canon 35mm f/2 IS lens. In most ways, the Canon is a better lens, but it lacks the charm of the Nikkor even if it did match my zoom a little better.
At the time, my film was moving along at a steady pace, so I decided to keep the Nikkor for a different, upcoming film...
Well...
Life had a different plan, like it often does, and some unforeseen medical issues in my family slowed production to a near grinding halt. With those medical issues came some unforeseen financial issues and I was forced to sell a bunch of lenses. For a brief time I thought I'd be forced to sell my camera as well, but I luckily made it work.
Before I sold the Nikkor, I decided to take it out for a final spin. Here are a couple frames from that last day with the lens...


By this time, I was also forced to sell my Canon zoom and my Canon 35mm f/2. Over the next 6 months I raided my closet to test any and every lens I had that could work for my film. Luckily, during that time, I found a Canon 28mm 1.8 listed on eBay "For Parts" for peanuts. Needless to say, I won the auction and found another one of my favorite lenses born from need.
For the next 6-8 months, the Canon 28mm 1.8 lens became the only lens I used to shoot my film and at the time, I couldn't be happier with the results. But I still missed my Canon zoom and my Nikkor 35mm 1.4.
Last year, I came into a little extra money and immediately sought another copy of the Nikkor and after a few weeks, I found one.
With the extra money in my account, I took the opportunity to test a bunch of lenses I couldn't otherwise afford but always wanted to try. I tested some beautiful lenses but being a hobbyist, I needed to contain my obsession and build a couple logical lens sets.
I used the end of my sporadic shooting days to test a lens. My method was simple, use my main actor as a model in the same locations I was shooting my film.
Here are a few frames from those tests...




After hours of deliberation and footage, I finally realized that I don't change lenses that often and I grew to like the idea of a single POV, from a single lens, as if the lens' FOV represents an invisible narrator's eye. I used my feet to zoom and put together a simple rig consisting of a closed monopod with a tilt head and a tape measure pouch clipped onto my belt. The bottom of the monopod fits snuggly inside the tape measure pouch giving me a stable image with a handheld-like flexibility.
During these tests, I realized that I had way too many lenses and could easily shoot a short film a month, for well over a year, and never reuse the same lens...
What was I thinking?! I am just a hobbyist with no delusions that I will make the next great indie film. 
This was getting out of hand.
So I set up a final round of testing and narrowed down my keepers to a grand total of 5 lenses with the only "set" consisting of my Canon FD 50mm 1.2 L and my Canon 28mm 1.8.
At the time, I even contemplated selling the Nikkor 35mm 1.4 one more time to keep with my minimalistic utilitarian approach.
 But after some careful thought, and some good advice from some other EOSHD members, I decided to keep it. Although I was still unsure if I needed the lens, after a recent go at some of the footage with my mediocre color skills and my crappy monitor, I came up with these frames from one of my test shots...


Although, I realize that none of these shots are particularly spectacular, but each one represents something I like about cinematography and tells a story about my life over the past 3 years.
Sometimes the gear we buy is more than just tools for the stories we tell... they become part of the story... part of the journey. Maybe I am being too sentimental but when I look at these perfectly imperfect images taken with a perfectly imperfect lens, I remember the moments that brought me from then to now and what I learned during that process...
This lens taught me that my equipment is better than I am. I learned that I don't have to shoot everything wide open and that I probably shouldn't if I ever want to pull focus on an actor walking. I learned that some lenses have a vintage look when wide open, but when stopped down can look crisp and modern. But most importantly, I learned that I need very little to make a movie and gear is the least important.
If you're interested in a more technical review, I recommend Ken Rockwell's review of the lens. He gets into the nitty gritty of the characteristics of the lens. I feel he's a little too hard on the lens but everything he writes is dead on accurate...
https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/35f14ais.htm
For me, I can sum it up in one paragraph...
The Nikkor 35mm 1.4 ai-s lens has a warmer tone and when shot wide open, the images are dreamy, a little soft with a ton of coma on the edges. Stop it down to f/2 and it cleans up a little. By f/2.8 it's like you're using a different lens and that lens is as sharp as a knife. It's like having two lenses in one with both being sharp enough with a bunch of character.
So there you have it... thanks for reading. 

Simon Cade, DSLRGuide, the little chap who used to always shoot on a 550D was sharing as he learned and branched out. Right now he only posts a vid every few months or so when a sponsor of his pushes him to finish one before a deadline.
Bit of a shame. YouTube used to be Skillshare. A place where you'd get wiser. Where people were genuinely excited to share wisdom and had fun making videos they cared about themselves. Hardly the case anymore these days (though still a few around, luckily). All about creating a brand for yourself raking in that Googoo money. Might be a generational thing. People don't really want to know about the artform of shooting video anymore. It's about how to get results the easiest. Gadgets and gizmos play a big part in that of course. But that kinda shifts the focus away from the creative side... for which that should actually open up some capacity for due to these advancements, but kinda seems nobody is taking an interest in (in turn forcing the channels wanting to make a living offa being a YouTuber to shift more towards being gear reviewers; which doesn't necessarily leave them any happier. But atleast with a wallet full of stacks, so who's complaining).

Really? I've bought a few lenses from Japanese sellers over the years and every single one of them has been junk and not as described. Obviously not all Japanese sellers are bad but I've been burned enough to be very wary.
Yeah, I'm sure the 24mm f/2 and the 85mm 1.8 would be fine. A lot of people prefer the basic 50mm 1.4 over the 1.2 L, so I'm sure they're really good. I haven't used an FD lens that I hated. Luckily, I am finding that I should be able to intercut the FD 50mm 1.2 with my EF 28mm 1.8 in a pinch.
Canon 28mm 1.8
Canon FD 50mm 1.2 L modified to EF...
Other than a quick correction, both of these were SOOC with just the default Rec709 conversion in the Resolve Raw Panel. I think with a few contrast adjustments, I can get them to match pretty good.
With that said, I'll probably be on the lookout for some nFD lenses and try to build a rag tag set over the next year or two. I've never owned an UWA for FF, so the 17mm f/4 could be an interesting lens. 
 
Yup!!! It's absolutely nuts! We've discussed a couple times how nice of a lens it is but I can't believe it's +$2000 nice... you can probably find a Super Speed for that money.
You forgot to add my aging eyes and total disregard of skill, talent and craft.

My view of minimalism is that you don’t have things you don’t need, but that you still do have the things that you do need.
I think this is a misconception that people have about the whole movement - that you’re meant to be happy with what someone else thinks is the right amount of stuff, or that somehow less is better.  No minimalist would ever find themselves in the desert saying that not having water was the best idea, or being outside their apartment and not having their keys is a good idea!