best c-mount lenses

[mattias]

- what subject matter?
- what kind of look are you going for -- I like your quote I don't shoot Super 8 because it looks good - I shoot it because it looks bad!
- I take it you're definitely aiming for a 35mm blow up?
- and what stock are thinking of shooting on?

it's a coming of age comedy. i think super 8 is beautiful, it's just that if i didn't want grain and jitter i would shoot something else. yes it's for blowup, it's currently the only way to really get a feature screened and we have good experiences from having my previous feature on 35mm. i'm thinking of shooting vision 500, i hear the ugly shadow grain is gone since v3. but you're right, let's start a new thread for this and keep this about lenses.

[PyrodsTechnology]

Mattias wrote:
interesting. since they cover 2/3" i could use them with the si-2k or ikonoskop dIi too, and my 16mm windup for that matter. the price is actually pretty fair for brand new primes, isn't it?

sounds like you have a lot of cameras to deal with. I think instead that is better to invest first in a superb primes, and then in a good camera, since it is a good glass that create the image (as you for sure know better than me). An ultra high/best/sharp resolution lens on a video camera is a vaste of money, due to fixed pixel patern; on the contrary, it can pull the best out from motion picture technology, due to summatory of film grain. Have you never shoot and projected a super8 at 50 fp/s or telecined to 720/50P ?

[mattias]

yeah i have access to any camera possible, it's called renting. a major part of the cost is the glass so it could indeed be a good investment. most cameras i rent have pl mounts, but there's no way i could afford those lenses. the c-mount seems to be coming back though, in the cameras i mentioned for example, which is great for us low budget filmmakers.

as for being a waste on video, that makes sense but still not. you actually need quite a good lens just to fill that "fixed pattern". a cheap lens resolving only 30 lines can look soft even on sd. because of the small frame size at least 100 lines/mm is probably needed for a perfectly sharp image on both super 8 and 2/3" hd, and that means not just any glass.

[S8 Booster]

the RX vs non RX lenses are discussed and explained in earlier posts on this forum but is difficult to search these days,.....

this however - should do the trick:

http://www.bolexcollector.com/articles/07_03_21.html

shoot.....

[BK]

Hi Mattias,the 5.5mm EBC Fujinon off the ZC 1000 is a sharp lens, decent speed at f1.8. and wide, depth of field is so great you don't have to worry about focus most of the time. You can even add a video camera wide converter in front to make it even wider. Ultimate lens would be the 10mm for the Leicina Special, great sharpness even fully open, you have to use a M to C mount adaptor though. Not sure how easy it is to get these lenses nowadays, or what the current prices are. From my experience, both are fantastic lenses for the super 8 format.

Bill

[S8 Booster]

in my view the film material is the by way most limiting factor as far as visual sharpness goes.
watch this clip and you will see what i mean: S8 E64T V200T F500T sample Clip
it has got a long black tail by mistake.
anyway it shows the different filmstocks Kodak E64T V200T and Fuji F500T and as it appears the Fuji F500T appears by far more sharper in contrast although by far most grainy.
all films were shot with the same cam and approx same settings in focal lenght - usualliy using the "normal" for the format: 10mm when possible.
as it turns out the e64 appears very soft, possibly it could sharpened up with some exposure override as i think i experienced on other "takes".
the E64 and V200t was all fresh and new, the F500T i am uncertain of - it was bought as 35mm in box from Canada as a leftover from a pro shoot and sent to PRO8mm for split and perf. anyway it comes out by far "sharpest" for the eye. at the end of the F500T sequence i shot wide wide open wide below the cam reading in the very dim light in the bunker of Hitler in Obersalzberg - the real eagle´s nest. the shoot still appears very sharp in that light - when properly focussed.
the camera used was a Canon 1014 XL-S with 6.5 to 65mm totaly linear zoom - ie the F numbers are totally constant all over the zoom range. i do not know the true resolution of this lens but the original Canon lens collimation projection film is 125 lpm so the lens has to have pretty much higher res than that - and it has identical res in center and edges of the lens - and no vignetting - ref Canon Maintenence manual.
all films shot at 18 fps - transferred one light at 1:1 25 fps PAL SD for NLE speed adjustment.
all bunker light shots were shot with 220° XL shutter opening with in my view no dramatic degrading in image quality.

would be very interesting to see a HQ feature film originated on S8/8mm.

shoot...

[mattias]

there's no limiting factor, no bottleneck, the effects add up. a sharper lens will always produce a sharper image, even on vhs. the lower the res the less it matters, but it's always there, and with film where emulsion and lens are very similar in resolving power, at around 100 l/mm, both have a huge impact. small details is subject to low pass filtering by *both* the emulsion and the lens. so you're right there's a big difference between emulsions, but given a certain emulsion there will also be a big difference between lenses.

[RCBasher]

this however - should do the trick:

http://www.bolexcollector.com/articles/07_03_21.html

So it is ok to use an RX lens on a non-reflex camera providing you can live with some drop-off in edge performance at full aperture?

@mattias: my offer is still open if you want to try it.

Frank

[mattias]

yeah given that I'm looking for a sharp wide angle lens with a large aperure it doesn't really make sense to use technology that makes wide angles soft wide open. ;-) thanks anyway.

[mattias]

ok, so this is a zoom but it looks awesome, doesn't it? most cctv lenses seem to be designed for "megapixel" cameras, and since super 8 is slightly smaller than 1/2" it should mean somewhat less. will it be sharp enough for my i-want-sharp needs? there are also 3mp cctv lenses, but this one is the only one i've found that looks like a real lens with real rings to be turned. ergonomics are important too.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/3 ... _48mm.html

[StoneBuilder]

Yes, that's a good find for a reflex camera. And 8mm would be very wide on 16mm film. The only criticism is that it's a zoomer.

[mattias]

it would probably vignette too, i think a 1/2" sensor is only 7 mm wide or so, and 16mm is 10. it's unfortunate that it's a zoom for sure, there are very few fast primes in c mount. fujinon has some that look awesome but they are all f/2.2. anybody got any idea which is sharper in general, a 40 year old high end lens or a brand new cctv one?

[StoneBuilder]

These forty year old high end primes have been taken by persons with 4/3 digital cameras and galleries of photographs have now been posted all over the place. Good starting place. There also used to be an Arri web site that had a page comparing quite a few classic c-mount lenses, all with the same camera, filmstock and subject. That was very useful!

[mattias]

thanks, i'll look for that arri website. problem with the c mount on gh1 tests i've seen, and i've seen many since i've researched dslr's almost as much as i researched super 8 after i rediscovered it 15 years ago, is that the sensor is so much bigger so resolving power isn't as much of an issue, and as mentioned bokeh seems to be what they're testing instead, meaning endless pans over out of focus foliage (and i'm not going to get any bokeh out of a 5mm fixed focus lens anyway). plus they always test the ones that cover the sensor (more or less) so the wide ones are never tested. i might just buy a bunch of lenses, i can fit several within my budget including that zoom, a couple of cctv primes, and a switar 10mm, test them, and sell what i don't need on ebay later.

[S8 Booster]

You may toy with 1 of these. I have one by thanks of Magic Alex.

This is a sound and 50m mag version - oh those were the days

Cortesy SV8 man

http://home.pacbell.net/mnyberg/super8mm/super8_26.html

Shoot....