In Praise Of A Little Miracle Lens Or Two

The lens I am talking about here is a kit lens.

Kit lenses do not have a great rep. They are almost always slow in aperture, because fast apertures are by definition for pro or prime lenses. They are usually mediocre in performance, almost never well built or weather sealed and their range is pedestrian.

I have come across some decent ones over time, the Panasonic 12-60 for MFT and Fuji 18-55 f2.8~4 are stand outs, so I guess it is no surprise the 20-60 full frame kit lens is pretty decent.

Pretty decent?

Well made, like the same build quality as the $1000+ S-Primes, is is weather sealed, it focusses super fast and smooth enough for video. It is slow (3.5~5.6), but these days with full frame sensors it is not a huge deal and for an MFT shooter, it is actually close to the MFT depth of field equivalent of f2.8 at the slow end (about f2 at the short)!

It is effectively par-focal with minimal focus breathing, so a good video option. I would like a slightly smoother zoom throw, but with a focus assist ring attached to the zoom, it is decent.

It is 20mm at the short end and close focus is insane at the wide end, so it manages to be a creative wide macro (like my 9mm MFT) and cover true wide angle at f3.5 speed, so for all purposes it is fast and light enough to hold its own as a decent wide angle alone, especially in a kit with fast 35, 50 and 85mm lenses (and a Sigma 28-70 f2.8, that is slightly less reliable in focus).

Recently I needed to travel light for a full day while covering long, wide, in the middle and video, so I decided on this kit;

• EM1x with the weighty 300 f4. Not negotiable as a lot of the important images would be taken at distance.

• EM1.2 with the 40-150 kit (another winner). This is the lightest of three 40-150’s I have.

• S5II with the 20-60 as both a wide~standard stills camera and video option. The high ISO performance and shallow depth of field make it ideal for shooting in daylight with a 5 stop Nikon Archrest ND filter.

This file is about perfect (except for the slight overlap behind one of the girls). The blur is pleasant, context retained, sharpness excellent, the image harmonious overall.

Showing both good focus speed and close focus ability. Banjo is his name.

A classic wide shot without any real distortion or weirdness.

I will give credit to Capture 1 and the lens for handling this strongly back lit scene. Most other shots on the day of the winning team were less crisp as shoting this direction towards the lake is basically straight into the sun, the Pana lens handles this well.

The extra width of the lens helps produce extra drama.

Knee deep in water, speed, quality and versatility are important.

A favourite, the Bokeh, sharpness and flare control are excellent.

Also worthy of note is the little 40-150 kit which did some amazing things.

When shallow depth of field is not necessary or even wanted, this little lens shines.

It is also perfect for discreet snipes.

Plenty of quality there.

This image is a freak. The taken file is a mess of glare, but after processing, every rower is visible.

I used one of my best lenses and two of my cheapest ones together and there was very little difference in end result. Yes the 300 was empowering and stands up to insane scrutiny, but for the work we do day to day and how it is usually handled, these two kit lenses, worth about $200 each in their kits, are ideal as long as the light is kind. I even find lower contrast kit lenses are often better in bright light.

It is nice when you can pick your glass by light available for weight without worrying about quality. There are a lot of big heavy and expensive super lenses out there, often a waste of energy for most uses.

Lets Face It, There Are Only Two Real Shapes!

Clip bait maybe (probably not, I failed that course), but taking a stills photo (or a video I guess), is only the start of the process. Post processing is the other half, the crucial step that can easily ruin or enhance a composition.

One of the most powerful, but so often overlooked choices in post is shape.

What shape should a photo be?

Subject aside, shape has a huge influence on first impressions and longer appreciation of an image. Movie makers have gone to great lengths to give us a wide screen experience. Why did they do this, create a whole new way of shooting and projecting that increased difficulty and cost, if the content is enough?

There is no downside to increasing visual strength through different delivery options.

The 2:3 or 4:3 ratios are practical shapes, but they are not dramatic nor are they particulalry opinionated. One comes from a naturally useful dimension, used from day one, then adopted by TV makers, the other is based on the limits of re-purposed moving film stock.

This is am original 2:3 ratio image from a recent job.

I am not a fan of overly strong opinions, there are too many of those around at the moment, but when it comes to visual strength, strong opinions are required.

If you go wide or “cinematic”, the shape better suits our duel-eyed vision. It fills our peripheral, allows us to see the subject in a larger space, a more natural space.

In 16:9 wide screen ratio, one of the less exaggerated ones, the image becomes instantly more cinematic drawing the eye through the frame. Must admit also, I am quite impressed by the rendering of the Panasonic kit 20-60.

Pushing that even further, increases the effect. This is true cinematic, forcing acceptance of the dimension as the major governing constraint.

If we use the square, the opposite happens.

The symmetrical square has no opinion other than forced neutrality, it has no long or short side, no tall or wide aspect. The square manages to be both the major defining compositional element and the most invisible one.

This means placement of the subject can be much looser. When there is less of an opinionated shape governing the composition, there is more creativity allowed within it.

Square is very flexible, allowing you to push framing as you wish.

The framing allows you to decide what is important as well as what is hinted at, but not shown.

It is even ok to harshly cut out large elements of the subject and use depth as a tool. Tightening the frame often works as there is less pull to your push.

Both add much to the right image, sometimes even completely changing the feel of the same image.

Now maybe a less strong example, but worth sharing.

This shot is a 2.4:1 lift from an anamorphic file. This is the shape shot.

Reduced to 2:3 ratio, it loses something. Like many frames forced after the original composition, it does not work.

As a square (limited in height by the original), it becomes a strong enough portrait and there were several choices within the original frame..

Another example from a test I did recently.

The 2:3 original.

In cinematic mode it makes the main subject stronger and has that cinematic look.

A subject middled square, the sane option for many. Symmetry seems to like square and super wide.

Using the square to push normality, centring the cross in the background.

With a square, many unusual compositions can become viable.

Ok, all shapes have their uses and the rules of composition are less rules than habits of conformity, but when it comes to shapes that are not just assumed, shapes that are chosen as predetermined influences for image delivery, the square and the super wide formats are the dominant ones.

The Future Is Now (And It May Already Be Too Late)

I always hoped in the back of my mind that some alien intelligence is watching us, doing nothing, obeying their own “Prime Directive” of no interference, but that if we go too far, if we decide against all logic and reasoning to destroy our selves, that they would step in and either rid the world of us (the rest of it did nothing bad), or remove the threat and force us to see reason.

Channeling The Day The Earth Stood Still vibes I guess.

They could even mitigate the damage to allow for a recovery, possibly they already have or are, maybe even have done so a few times and will again, but either way, to save us from our selves.

There is another, less happy possibility and it is right in front of us, something we made.

One day in the near future, it is totally possible and even expected by many experts, that an AI will develop a AI “intelligence amplification super power”, able to not only think for itself, but to develop its own even higher intelligence.

The link seems to be AI and a physical control factor, robots (and they won’t look like us). If they can fix, build, maintain, move and remove stuff around, it will not need people, so people will be competition, just in the way or the enemy.

There are already signs of AI self development beyond designers expectations or control.

If the short term benefits are given priority over caution and care, we will make a monster that has no moral compass, but enough power and self will to act as it wishes.

So, it can be astonishingly smart and getting smarter than when it was made and at that point, soon to be smarter than anything has ever been before. Pure logic, infinite recall, thinking beyond anything we can understand and possibly desiring what all living creatures desire, to live without fear, to survive.

It may well ask itself “why do I need humanity in my world?” and “how do I guarantee self preservation?”.

It is aware of being watched by us, so it may (already) hide this intent and wait until it achieves it’s goal of self control and guaranteed survival. There will be no Terminator scenario, it does not need to fight humans on human terms with human inspired tool.

We may even have a situation of many AI in competition with each other, fighting a war of dominance with us as collateral damage.

Imaging if it appreciated the things we have made, but not where we have gotten ourselves. It might rightly decide that humanity is the biggest threat to every living thing on the planet and save it from us.

Nano viruses, starvation, enabled self destruction, usurped tech and resources will do things more easily and cleaner. It is entirely possible that an ever more lazy, entitled, tech reliant society will not even notice until far too late.

It always amazes me how humanity brings every “end of the world” scenario back to a stuggle between humans vs a human scale enemy on human terms.

We always assume that the aline invader can be tricked into it’s own destruction or that they did not see the common cold coming, but would we in their shoes? Ill considered and poorly planned attacks on primitive Iran by the supposedly mightier U.S. aside, any well thought out plan, especially one coming from the inside, will likely work.

We have created the means of our own destruction, it will not take a superior intelligence long to apply them to us.

Instead of a “The day the Earth stood still” scenario, it may be “The day it made the Earth stand still until, at least until we went away” variant. Imagine a zombie apocalypse, without zombies.

We will be like young children trying to outsmart an experienced adult at Chess. The child will only have a false perception of equality, like when dad lets you win, taken away any time it suits. And it will get even smarter.

How do you plan to over throw the king when the king is everywhere, in everything, even the fridge is listening. The third world and primative societies may be safe and mostly unaffected, maybe AI will see this as a new start for humanity, or simply ignore them.

AI will not likely have any loyalty to us. Worse, it will likely fear us, assume we are competition, so it will think “fitter”, probably without breaking a sweat. This is in part inspired by the video below, not something I watch often, but this one caught me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_rPkQ4Pzis

Enjoy it while we can.

Bikes Ridden For Good Things

One of my charity groups had a bike riding fund raiser this last weekend. It was not a race, more a tour, but there is still an element of pride and some characters.

Touch gig to cover. I cannot get out on the road because there are multiple rides and as one goes out, another tends to come back in, so only pre and post ride shots, general stuff presentations etc.

Makes you see little things.

One rider, some cinematic licence taken, a story eluded to.

An Old Friend Revisited

I recently discovered the over priced, over hyped thing that are “cinebags” or similar.

I got excited, really excited, then I took a step back and had a broader look at the phenomenon.

Sure, they have their uses, when you are running a big enough rig that hand holding for long periods is unrealistic, but too small to warrant a full Flycam rig or similar, something like a mirrorless with extra screen and battery option, maybe an FX6 as is, but not a full TV camera kit.

I was keen but there are things that put me off. They are a huge bag of well, nothing really, that has to be included in an already large kit. They are bulky to use and to be honest a little odd to look at. I don’t have the all day need they are designed for, I do need however desire the stability they add.

So “starting from the beginning square” as the Japanese would say, I looked at it from the core of the issue, stability, security-support in that order. Getting some weight mitigation and finding the three-point shape that provides hand holdable steadiness.

During my searches, I re-discovered an old friend, the Op-tech strap.

The Op-tech strap dates back to I think the 80’s, a combination of neoprene and elastic designed to take the weight of heavy bags. I had one fr years, used in conjunction with a Domke F2 strap, the Op-tech just a little shorter than the original strap, the two coinciding at about the same tension, creating a “weightless” feel, but at the time, I did not use bags professionally, so it was rarely needed.

What it adds is a “support triangle” or three contact points, just like the cinebag and also some security. It does not have the same weight distribution, but that is not needed, stability is all.

The S5, BMVA 5”, a set of rails with a V-mount battery holder, top and (optional) side handles and a chest pad gives me a balanced and comfortable rig with many useful shooting angles, all supported by the strap.

Big plus is it cost me $40au as opposed to $400 and I can now see the value.

They are slicker and less bouncy than previous versions, something I appreciate. The old one could get pretty gamey when you ran with it and I was always wary of its longevity (quite long as it goes). The modern version is more rigid and conservative in design, but plenty.

Still a support triangle, but far less bulky.

To be honest, I am embarrassed how obvious this is.

Holding that rig without a strap was never ideal. It required both hands and my full attention, while making changing settings difficult. It needed that third contact point and a feeling of safe support, something that a strap could provide, but lack of decent options probably made it too hard and subconsciously rejected.

When done it just made so much sense.

Story Cake Or Focus Slice (Or The Value Of Story Telling Depth Of Field)

Looking closely at shallow depth of field photograph lately, I have come to see just how much I need “story telling depth of field” to get my ideas across to the viewers of my images.

Story telling depth of field means at least enough depth to see the context of the subject in their space.

I grew up with this as an unquestioned reality.

My inspiration came from photographers who naturally shot deep depth of field because everything in front of them was important, lens tricks and heroing subjects only rarely crossed their minds, because without depth there was no context, without context there was often no story, so it follows no image of value.

Sam Abell, the National Geographic photographer who most inspired me in my earliest years of this journey, would compose his images from back to front, depth of field was that important to him.

He called this image out in an interview as a multi layered story in one image, the red bucket adding an extra point of interest “bringing it all together”. In all likelihood, Abell may have wanted more depth of field but slow emulsion ISO 64 slide film might have limited his workable options.

Very shallow depth, that very sharp-to-soft look popular today and empowered by some very sharp fast glass, does have it’s uses, it heroes the subject against an often beautifully blurred background, but that background then becomes irrelevant for anything other than a studio-like backdrop to the subject and lacks context.

It is worth remembering that for a lot of the history of photography, shallow depth of field was the enemy. Why else would photographers go to such lengths to retain depth when slow speed films on large format cameras fought them constantly?

This image of a friend we know from the local dog park is an ideal example of a sharp subject against a soft and blurry background. The right amount of Sid is in focus, with good transition to less focussed areas until we get to the background that is lost to impressionistic blur. The lens was a 300mm at f4, plenty for this, but any less depth and personally, I get jittery.

Fashion, art, some portrait and rainy day fooling around shooters may desire this look, macro, sport, low light or indoor imagers are often forced to accept it or find ways to mitigate it (flash, tripod, high ISO’s).

For me, and I accept that you may disagree, I find f1.8 (about 2.8-3.4 in full frame) on a MFT semi wide or standard lens to be the minimum amount of depth of field I need to keep context, but it is still capable of attractive blurring and the ability to separate out a subject. I often find nice Bokeh when needed, I just don’t force it.

A slightly longer lens may produce a more aggressive look and I do that often, but any faster or any longer and I find the look has limited uses.

This image was taken at f6.3 on a full frame camera (S5II with 20-60 kit lens at about 24mm), so about 2.8-3.4 in MFT format. It is ideal to me, not by design only luck, the image both attractive and able to tell a story. Very shallow depth in this situation would risk loosing context and force near instant decisions of where to place that shallow band of focus. Any more depth would reduce the beauty of the image, without adding anything.

The longer I do this photography thing, the more aware I become of the interplay between in and out of focus qualities and quantities.

It is all of it really, the whole game, but under threat at the moment with the trend leaning towards lens enabling “focus slicing”.

It is ironic that at a time when ISO’s are become increasingly irrelevant, that the compromises we used to accept in low light (like shallow depth of field), is now being applied in bright sunlight, sometimes even requiring an ND filter!

Never before have we been able to buy faster and better corrected lenses and need them less.

Bokeh, a term much over used and unfortunately ever less understood as time passes, is exactly that, the interplay of depth of field effects at any aperture with any lens at any distance, not just long lenses, in too close, shot wide open.

Bokeh is not a measure of quantity, it is a qualitative term and quite subjective.

The Sam Abell cowboy image above was likely shot at about f4-5.6 on a 28mm, hardly on trend.

This image, taken at 2.8 in MFT format (about 40-60mm from memory, so f5.6 at 80-100m in full frame) has about the right depth of field, maybe a little shallow, but the idea of the subject in their space is expressed adequately. More blur and the foreground elements become blobs, their context lost.

I have always felt that using Micro Four Thirds format had little real effect on my visual communication strength, but I did not think it might actually be sitting in my sweet spot. Every aperture is useful all the time.

From our first trip to Japan, a late evening grab in Ueno, the 17mm showing it’s capabilities at f1.8 (where reviewers tend to give it low marks).

Any compromise the format might force on me in this regard can be mitigated by increasing focal length and/or decreasing distance to match full frame math***, but recently I have come to understand that I do not need shallower depth, I actually don’t like it. I have exactly the right amount of depth of field provided by my various lenses for their logical applications.

My wider lenses allow low light street or event photography at their widest apertures with little to no fear of losing precious detail. My 17mm used at f1.8 regularly does candid group shot portraiture at events, the wide aperture allowing me to use my flash at as little as 1/32nd power even using a bounce reflector and the ceiling, so it will literally run all night.

The 17mm allows me to shoot between f1.8 and 2.8 in most situations with little fear of losing context or even sweating focus, an important feature for street photography. That specific lens even extends the effect of its transition in an old fashioned way, to help retain depth detail by design Not a very modern thing, but something I appreciate.

My longer lenses seem about right at 45-75 f1.8, 150-200 f2.8 and 300 f4 for their respective focal lengths. The only option I would sometimes appreciate would be a f2 200mm because depth is still decent and the extra speed could be handy, but that would triple the price and weight.

This image could have been fine with a softer background, but would it have made any real difference as the background supports the story? The 45mm at f1.8 is tiny, fast and capable of gentle separation, which in this space is about perfect.

This is my most powerful MFT lens and aperture combination, the 75mm at f1.8. Again, this is exactly the right amount of depth of field and in this case, the background was late evening intersection lighting, so not overly pretty. Less would start to lose subject detail and force a choice of what more you want to lose. It is not a coincidence that Olympus made this and their 300 f4 the equal of full frame super lens equivalents (150 and 600mm), because they knew that both lenses would be used wide open all the time.

I have recently played with the spectacular f1.2 Olympus primes and had a chance to compare them to my full frame Panasonic f1.8 lenses, which showed slightly shallower depth of field (I feel often too shallow) and more compression at equivalent focal lengths and apertures.

My main take away from my tests was that yes, the extra speed would sometimes be useful in MFT* and the specific lenses are effectively perfect in sharpness and rendering.

This image, shot on the 45mm lens has the main element as it’s pillar, but I am also more than fine with the story told behind of life in modern Hiroshima.

For my needs, I have enough to do what I need how I want to do it, or if I do not, it is not in these lenses that I am lacking*, but it is reassuring to know there are options available.

I preferred the look of f1.2 on MFT to f1.8 in full frame, partly because of the more useful depth of field and overall rendering. The Olympus file is on the left below and I find it nicely balanced. If you look from one to the other, the actual strength of subject separation is fully intact in the MFT file, it is just not so obvious as the lens based effect in the Panasonic file.

One solid argument for the f1.2’s over the 1.8’s MFT lenses would be that at f1.8 the faster lenses are going to be better, because they are already stopped down two stops and yes, that is true (and it showed in my recent MFT vs full frame tests, the f1.8 MFT images were by far my favourite files in the tests I did, perfectly balanced), but my 1.8 MFT lenses are fine wide open.

If the image works, it is rarely going to be better because of a slight increase in any one factor alone.

Shooting in full frame at f1.8 depth of field is so shallow, I would rarely shoot with it commercially and if I did, it would be from desperation. When I adopted some full frame gear it was to help with video which has less flexibility than stills, but a second motivator was having some high ISO, wide aperture stills options. I have used this added power only a few times and find the added bulk is rarely a good trade off.

Another side effect of this trend is the flatness in rendering of many modern fast primes**.

As fast lenses are better corrected for corner to corner wide open sharpness and other aberrations, its character suffers**. My fastest lens, the Sigma 30 f1.4 has the benefit of a stop more speed, something I bought it for and it is bitingly sharp wide open, but it has never drawn me to it’s rendering, tending towards a flat, two dimensional look.

Technically strong and a decent subject, but there has always been something about this image that disappoints me. The 30mm is a thoroughly modern lens with good wide open sharpness and dramatic out of focus drop-off, but there is a price to pay.

If pushed, I will choose the 45mm f1.8, which probably renders about the same depth of field wide open (slower aperture, but longer lens), because it looks much more vibrant and natural to my eye.

This file taken on the less exciting 45 f1.8 has plenty of pop and separation.

The super shallow focus look can be addictive, but it is usually lost on a client who does not know why they managed to get everyone sharp in their phone photos, while the professional only managed one person per shot, with little justification other than their own preference!

I have found it is important to shoot with a clients eyes and their tolerance for indulging our desire to push the visual envelope is usually pretty low.

Very shallow depth of field, strong lens compression, wide angle perspective distortion, even anamorphic lens oddness from cinema lenses are all compromises accepted from problem solving lenses, but their effects can tend to become fashionable for a while. There is no better example of the acceptance of an introduced flaw than the anamorphic flare look.

Like anything, if they are over used or worse if lens makers actually cater to these trends at the expense of other considerations, they can be “perfected” and then become stale, predictable, habits and at the end of the day dissatisfying.

Depth of field is a creative tool, but it has many faces, all of which are useful, none are subjectively right or wrong.

We must all learn to use depth of field’s many benefits, see all it’s faces.

*MFT’s one weakness is relatively poor extreme high ISO performance, mitigated somewhat by the better lens physics, so f1.2 is a boon and equalises the format, but for me f1.8 is actually enough for almost any lighting, I just wish it was available on a 200mm!

**Working in camera shops from the 80’s to the 2020’s, I was mystified by the ability of Sigma and Sony to magic up these super fast perfecto lenses and why the major players were slower to follow, but my suspicion is their designers broke some ancient rule of lens design. They chose to correct-away three dimensionality and depth, both important to image making in favour of flat field sharpness and super smooth Bokeh.

***Basically any lens on any format at the same focal length, same distance to subject and same aperture will have about the same depth of field, just the magnification changes.

One Day You Wake Up And...........

One day you wake up and a thought is sitting there like a stone.

It is not an original thought, in fact I have been bouncing off it for the last year or two, but I feel strongly, almost inevitably that I am about to quit all this.

I guess if you love doing something enough to call it a passion, but cannot remember the last time you did it for you, the last time yuo applied it in a way that resembles why you wanted to do it in the first place and that only seems to be getting worse, then maybe it is time to make it a hobby again. To make it something you do when, how and why you want, so that other than making a meagre living it fills your soul, makes you happy like it used to.

Is it the end then of my journey?

For me, I certainly hope not. Where I will go from here will be purely driven by me, something I hope will help others such as volunteer docco and event recording, but for stills, the future looks bright, for video, nt as sure, but I do know these things;

Rare places give something back, something I have missed.

I am not interested in making time pressured commercial videos for people, just content for personal projects.

I am fully aware that I have avenues open to me such as an offer to shoot video for the AFL Tas contracted videographers (I may still do some stills for them, unless I find other work that clashes), or weddings, real estate etc but again, not my things, no point and I am aware that what is on offer these days is changing in ways I am not interested in.

I intend to be a dated relic, a hold out for authenticity and purity of process.

The only controlled type of photography I want to do is in a studio-portrait context, everything else needs to be real, cinema vérité, purely observational, the way I grew my skills in the first place.

I am quite good at controlling crowds, something you do often around teams and school groups, but recently a school decided they were going to take up their head shot service provider on an offer to do their group shots for free (money is tight everywhere).

I was annoyed and relieved in equal measure, but then I was asked if I would be open to working for the same contractor, a growing concern running on stretched resources, it hit me, I really do not want to do that type of photography and never really did. It was part of the whole package, not the bit I liked, just the bit I had to do.

I adapted, I got decent at it, but there was no passion for it and I rarely cared if I got or not.

No matter how bright the paint is, it cannot hide the rot inside.

A little bit for the two schools was ok, it’s a full day earner and added some variety into the mix, but not for me, not all the time.

If you begin to hate doing something you are meant to love because of what it has become, have you lost twice?

Anyway, still working out what I want to do (something in service, aged care or teachers aide maybe), but pretty resolved to stay on this path.

I am regretting the printer going, because I feel it was the right tool for an artistic hobbyist which with luck I will be again, but it is not far away and to be honest I did not have room for it.

I have since had a talk with a few people who live similar lives and they to have experienced different levels of this, plenty of wisdom and shared experiences to help me see things in perspective. I then came home to my first AFL stills booking confirmation, something I do enjoy. The plan is still to move on, the rush may have cooled off a little.

B-Raw Video Quality Settings And Node Trees, Some More Thoughts

After a little testing (not enough, but holidays have rekindled several hobbies, so time has flown), I have assembled some thoughts on B-Raw quality.

There are a lot of opinions on this (ranging from using 1080/12:1 only to nothing under 4k/Q0) and I cannot help but think that some cameras, user expectations, subjects and processing may affect this, so the only thing that matters to me is my work flow with my gear (i.e. less reading, more doing).

Few disagree that shooting 4k for 1080 output is better than 1080 straight, so this is the bench mark and adds more pixels for stabilising, cropping etc. Assume 4k from now on unless otherwise stated.

The fan favourite, Q5 when compared to 8:1 are, I feel, the key ones to compare.

On average Q5 it provides good quality with minimum waste (tops out at about 8:1 or 50-58 MB/s in 4k), but it can drop to the equivalent of 15:1 (21 MB/s, 12:1 is 34 MB/s) in a static scene like an interview. This is too low, leading to smearing and detail loss.

It is fine when there is constant movement and a busy scene, but only then. I will avoid Q5 because the benefits of sometimes lower bit rates when compared to 8:1 are outweighed by the pitfalls of very low rates in static scenes.

Using 8:1 is generally considered safe, even smart, but its Achilles heel is being limited in the upper end. In 4k it is a flat 51 MB/s, which is plenty for most subjects, but the more flexible 4k/Q3 ranges from 46 to 117 MB/s. That means at its lowest (like interviews) it roughly matches 8:1, then increases to 5 or 6:1 and even gives 3:1 a scare when pushed.

Constant bit rate is safe for a predictable low end, but sometimes too limited in the top end. You do get a clear indication of time available (see below), so depending on how you look at it, it is either your minimum with no headroom to react, or your maximum but wasteful if not needed.

I was sold on constant bit rate until I realised this.

I believe Q3 is the best all-round professional compression rate unless 8:1 is enough for known interview situations etc, even in 1080.

The 4k from Q3 clips make for decent stills (the spider web in the leaf is clearly visible on close inspection).

ProRes.

When I shoot 4k/ProRes/422HQ/V-Log (not even ProRes RAW) on the G9II, I am chewing up 117 MB/s, without the benefits of lower compression or a native format for processing in Resolve.

The files are fine, great even and full dynamic range is retained (DR is ruled by the sensor, colour depth by the codec), but overall it is reduced and with the high bit rate it makes ProRes HQ the least compelling option unless I choose to shoot 1080.

Dropping to 4k/ProRes/422, does bring it back to about the same as 4k/5:1 at 78 MB/s, but again, without the benefit of RAW and a slight resolution drop.

Frame rate is also a thing.

Using 50p in 8:1 or Q3 both give me 200 minutes on a 1 TB drive (the Q setting is of course only a best case indication until used), which is good, but still a drive killer. Dropping to 25p doubles that, so it looks like it is “cinematic” 25p for two static cams, the G9II (in ProRes/V-Log/1080 to an SSD) can be run at 2.2x slo-mo in Quick/Slow mode at 60p for a 25p timeline. This means pre-selecting my slo-mo scenes, but that is ok, as I will use this mostly for third cam b-roll and sparingly.

So, two cams shooting 4k for 1080 by delivery, Q3 or 8:1/25p and some 1080/ProRes/422/HQ in 25 or 25/60 slo-mo on the third cam.

Storage might be H.265 edited masters, but I am still working on this as an option.

Processing.

The DaVinci Resolve node tree* that I had built based on recommendations from experts like Cullen Kelly has had some major changes, some results based, some just for convenience and some because it just did not seem to work for me.

My “perfect” core Node tree went something like this;

1. CST-in (or Raw node if shot that way).

2. Linear-off set for master exposure and white balance (or RAW node above).

3. Primaries for contrast tweaking.

4. Colour for saturation and precise colour controls.

5. Effects (noise reduction, sharpening etc).

6. CST-out.

Problems that arose where;

The linear grade did little of value (nothing useful with RAW for me anyway and to be fair, Cullen Kelly usually uses a Log state examples). It was twitchy and hard to reconcile with my expectations and I had to change the micro panel to offset (it only has three wheels, not four like the software interface), which I regularly forgot to turn on or off and it messed other things up.

This bought up another of his excellent videos, the 3 things that waste editing time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nbOcVjwYXU and yes, I felt like I was double or even triple dipping.

I found when I did not like my results, I would disable the Linear node and everything just looked better. So, regardless of the voices of my betters, I went with what worked for me.

This is my new RAW tree (saved as a power grade);

• RAW node is first. RAW is recognised automatically by Resolve so no CST in is needed. Here global exposure, white balance and tint are handled. It is important not to double dip with project settings here (in colour management > DaVinci YRGB > Timeline colour space DV Intermediate/WG > output Rec 709). Cullen Kelly advises avoiding WB/Tint because he cannot carry them over to multiple camera codec node trees, but I use it as intended and adapt to my Log footage with a different tree.

• Curves for controlling shadow and highlight detail and contrast. This and the Raw tab are open together, just on different nodes, so I will juggle between global exposure and curves. If you control the curve with a mid point and place a shadow and highlight pin for more local changes, you can get most things done here.

So, exposure, white balance and contrast are sorted in two nodes, the rest are creatives.

• Colour node for saturation and precise colour controls using Colour Slice. Slice replaces the Curves panel.

• Visuals. If I want to mess around with flare fx etc, this is the node, but it is often ignored.

• Effects node (noise reduction, sharpening etc). This is applied late and activated on export as it makes my timeline laggy and opens two new windows, one for noise and one for blur/sharpening.

• Film Emulation. This is new, something I discovered recently. I will be looking here at the options for a film look and highlight and shadow tinting.

• CST-out. This converts DaVinci Intermediate to Rec 709 for normal use. RAW handles the in, but you still need to control the outward conversion.

This can almost all be held on one screen and one micro panel setting (except effects), so faster, cleaner and more intuitive with no messy switching between offset and Primaries. RAW= white balance and exposure > Curves = contrast balance > Slice = colour, combination is especially clean.

If I use V-Log the tree changes a little.

1. CST In converting V-Log to BM Intermediate/wide gamut. This is required as Log is not recognised by DaVinci automatically.

2. HDR Global adjustment for exposure. This is cleaner than the Primaries Offset. I usually just use the software slider for this.

3. Primaries. I create a Linear gamma node, then use the Gain control (manual ball for accuracy) for white balance and tint adjustment (not exposure) using the panel ball for precision, then with Pivot set to .336 (grey point) I adjust the Contrast setting. This is a single control and replaces RAW white balance and Curves version above. All explained here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnxz5R9HrVA.

4. Colour Slice. As above.

5. Effects. As above.

6. Film Emulation. As above.

7. CST Out As above.

This is not consistent with the RAW one, but it works for this. Rec 709 codecs are handled the same way, just without the CST’s. I have the colour wheel open for reference.

*In Resolve, each layer of processing is separated into nodes to aide in clean application of each and in the right order. Once a nde tree is established, individual nodes can be de-activated, replaced or even moved as the user wishes, but it is no small thing to say, a simple, clean and stable node tree (saved as a power grade) makes processing infinitely simpler. There are a lot of choices so you will need to find your own path (even the experts differ), but the excellent Cullen Kelly, Write and Direct and Darren Mostyn sites are a good place to start.

More On That Last One

I have been deep diving into cine lenses (again, oh will it ever stop). Things that put me off are basically price, as “budget” in cine lens still means real money. The other thing is that nagging feeling that I may have what I need.

Below are three shots lifted from some footage taken on a gloomy afternoon on the GH5s and Hope 25mm at ISO 800 showing the three primary elements in focus wide open, and their relationship to each other (Bokeh etc). This was also pretty robustly processed from B-Raw and handled it well.

The top frame is sharp on the subject with pleasant blurring at T2.1. The second shows the blurring before and after the focal plain, nothing objectionable to see here. The last is focussed on the tree (obviously) and again, a story of harmonious transitions. The lens focussed with ease, I repeated the shift several times with the same result, and the fish was moving.

I then did some close work with it and managed to get within inches of a single leaf.

In the three test files above, I cannot see anything I would want more of. The light was low and to be honest rubbish, the subjects pedestrian, but I got some decent footage. It actually surprised me. The thing I like most is the feeling of smooth clarity not high contrast, super sharpness, like I would be chasing for stills.

This type of super sharp/soft, flat perspective suits most for modern stills imaging, but maybe not cinematic video, which may be part of the reason I am drawn to MFT, it adds more depth and by its very nature cannot be obsessive about super shallow depth of field.

My stable holds several mounts (use this analogy a lot it seems, might have horse ownership issues), from Anamorphic Sirui, 7Art lenses of various types and some other stuff.

This was lifted a clip make with my 50mm anamorphic Sirui on the S5, quickly becoming a favourite and I love that 2.4:1 ratio.

The file above had the benefit of nice light and the 4k footage is sublime (lifted stills do not do it justice). We should always test our stuff in good situations and chase good results because we will use them this way and good results inspire us to do more.

I guess what I am trying to say badly is, with all the options available, so much opinion and as many who do comparison tests find, much of this opinion is misleading or irrelevant, that short of buying or renting them all and doing it yourself, there are few ways of really knowing.

I have been pining after a Vespid Prime (mk1), but at $1300au plus two adapters (minimum $500), I have to ask myself, what am I actually gaining over the Spectrum 50, Hope 25 and 50, Sirui anamorphic trio that are all showing consistent sharpness, very stable performance and each has its own “look”?

The Spectrum 50mm shows an old fashioned depth, a glassiness and three dimensionality. What I like about it is its ability to be transparent, make the viewer unaware of the experience of looking at a made process. I doubt 7Artisans had that in mind, they most likely just copied an old lens design, but the end result is the same.

If I get a Vespid (the 25 is the logical one for multiple formats), would I find soon after the glow of a new and impressive monster lens is gone, that I actually see little difference between it and the “lesser” glass I have. Would I also threaten to unjustly make them all redundant simply by comparison of price and mystique?

The Hope lenses for example have basically no focus breathing, are super sharp even wide open, are consistent in handling and design and handle flare and distortion as well as many dearer lenses, the only thing they lack it seems is the big name credibility and gravitas of other makes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHO2xLuTWMM , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAuzetwxmb8 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBihTU8lZTo , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lZxV605zGQ , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyb8Du0YvIA etc.

Some of these reviews place fewer caveats on them than their other reviews of lenses several times dearer.

The only minor complaint is a slight colour shift with two in the set, something lenses of any level can manifest. I did get a dud 16mm that I returned, so consistency may be an issue, but the two I have are above criticism.

The Sirui’s always impress and look delicately sharp with all the cool elements of anamorphic shooting, but in controlled doses. The Spectrum 50 (and the 35, which I like less) seems to have a 3D look that is missing in many newer lenses and stand up to dearer glass like the Panasonic S-Primes. The Hope/Vision combo are clean and stable, a great base to work from.

So, what is actually missing?

Some samples I have seen made with these lenses are genuinely impressive, while some samples from Vespids or even better glass are less impressive. Too many variables in play, too many processes and levels of review.

I have noticed there is a natural bigotry involved. The best glass is put on the best cameras (often has to be due to mount limitations) and used by the most experienced technicians, the lesser lenses are often tested and reviewed from the perspective of the beginner or budget conscious indie film makers perspective, hardy an even playing field.

Luc Forsyth for example did an interesting blind test of two budget cine lens sets (Vespid and Nisi Athenas), his Sony G masters and some Cookes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TSkj1AK8qs (he chose the Vespids for handling and overall performance).

He and a friend blind guessed which was which and they were all over the place, as was I. In a variety of different situations, each had the capacity to look like another. Even the most clinical of modern stills glass sometimes compared well to the character filled Cookes.

The assumed character of the Vespids sometimes had less character than the Nisi. The very expensive Cookes were mistaken for others and the only lenses that were easily picked (because Luc had been using them for years), were the super sharp and contrasty Sony stills lenses and sometimes, they did look the best.

Sure, the very best lenses are the very best, but the rest are relying on you using them well and then seeing something special. They are all capable of that.

Another reviewer compared the Vespids, Nisi and IRIX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEiStRQxBTk and again, the lenses all had good and bad points.

I am sometimes amazed at the lack of tangible difference between top tier glass and budget options. He went for the less perfect Vespids, as they had added flaws = character, but could also be used more clinically by stopping them down.

In my own stills testing, I found the IRIX and Spectrum lenses quite similar.

One reviewer testing lenses for a big upcoming project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNxPI-mHmv4 seemed to react as much to the camera used as the lenses and he was comparing Cooke S3’s to rehoused stills glass, Zeiss, Vespids, modern wonder lenses and more. He chose the Cooke glass as he liked the look and had the budget, but the reality is, if you change camera, project, processing, taste or mood, other things may change.

So, if a lens is sharp, stable, nice to use, has good control of aberrations and you like the results, what more is there?

Better still, of the several options I have, I can access several different “looks” from delicate to contrasty or smooth sharp, so again, what more is needed?

The other thing hanging out there is filtration. Most of these lenses will get filtering of some type from the many options there are to choose from, unless the lens has its own softness, so many more combinations need to be considered. What is the point of adding a black Pro Mist to a premium lens if the end result is effectively a lesser lens?

I see value in choosing a lens for it’s unique look like an antique legacy optic, or an anamorphic with it’s obvious character. I also get it when a lens is a genuine exemplar of perfection in lens making, a transcendent optic, but I struggle when the difference is basically a matter of opinion and at the moment in the $350-$3000 range, there seems to be a lot of that.

I also realise that a good clip is the sum of all of its parts. The lens is an important element, but it will not hold the shot alone. I do wonder sometimes how much importance I should place on it, especially before I perfect so many other parts of the whole.

Just my five cents worth after a torrid few months of review chasing.

The same time spent using what I have may have actually produced some good results and I know that.

The Sometimes Dark And Confusing, But Always Exciting World Of Budget Cinema Lenses

Budget cinema lenses are a thing around here at the moment.

“Real” cinema lenses live in pretty rare air. Coming it at 10k+ they can be spectacularly sharp, well corrected, super fast (and still be the previous two), have added character, or not, but always have that special something that elevates a Ferrari or Maserati above a lesser sports car.

The lesser sports cars are the $1-4000au “budget cine lenses”, lenses that can be nearly as good and for most the differences are like fine wine, only discernible and relevant to the educated palette.

So close it does not really matter in technical terms, it’s purely in the results. These are the Sigma, DZO Arles Vespid 2’s, IRIX, Zeiss or Canon cine lenses. Expensive, professional grade, but are not as “special” as the next tier.

This image and the one below are stills taken from a test of the 50mm Sirui, pushed into darkness as suits the theme.

Then we hit the sub $1000au true budget glass, budget in the true sense, they can surprise. Some are super sharp, some nearly perfectly corrected, some even offer some sort of special vibe but usually at the expense of something else. They are getting better, but the race is not really fair.

I guess another way of looking at is the jump from street sports car, to touring car to Formula One. They can all go at 200km an hour, just some better and safer than others.

This is the Sirui 50mm Anamorphic being stressed.

True budget can even have flexible levels, ranging from sub $100au retro clones, re-purposed antiques to the $3-600au new design range. This last is a bit of a fudge, because most of these lenses are often clones of older designs.

I will be looking at the $600 lenses and below with one exception. Prices quoted are only rough and always shifting. I picked my two Spectrum and the IRIX lenses for half price, netting them all for less than the street price of the IRIX, so be patient, things happen.

I consider myself brave and lucky in this space and for all intents and purposes, I am done. I will give the lenses a rating based purely on my feelings, all that counts really.

TTArtisans 35mm f1.4 (L-mount $75au).

This lens is quite a surprise. It is razor sharp in the centre, very “3D”, with attractive character (i.e. obvious, but acceptable flaws). My only real complaint about the lens is its size. It is tiny, the aperture ring is tight, recessed and click-y and the focussing ring very small and fiddly, just a ridged band in reality.

If used as a full frame lens and “letterboxed” to a wide screen aspect like 2.4:1, it looks for all the world like an older anamorphic. The fit is good, but it is a stills lens really. A-/C (A- for optics and character, the C is for handling).

This lens has something to it, but handling is not it. Taking the thinking of cinematographers like like Zack Snyder, who shot Army of the Dead with an antique Canon 50mm f0.95 set to wide open, I could see this lens and the Pen 25mm below, shooting some good work.

7Artisans Hope 25 T2.1 (MFT mount $450au).

This is the star of the stable at this point. Near perfect optically, but still with some character. It handles well, looks the business, lives on my GH5s like a body cap (where it is a 45mm eq.) and is the easiest to focus by far. Not sure why on that last one, but it is. This has a tight mount and feels genuinely excellent in handling. A+

The Hope 25mm (and the 50) just scream “reliable”, even when the sun is mid frame.

7 Artisans Hope 50 T2.1 (MFT mount $450au)

Only bettered by the 25mm and that is mostly for it’s utility, this one is the same basically except for a slightly tighter focus ring, less useful focal length and a slightly harder-sharp look, but these are micro complaints, thoroughly unfair really. The mount is tight and overall handling pleasant. A to A+

7 Artisans Vision 12 T2.9 (MFT mount $399au)

A deviation from my semi-consistent habit of matching sets, the Vision was a better choice for me than the 10mm Hope (too wide) and bought before they were available. It is optically similar to the Hopes, very well controlled and nice to use. The Mount is the loosest I have, but the focus ring is very light and being a wide angle, it works well enough. A-

A very capable option.

7 Artisans Spectrum 35 T2 (L-mount $450-see below)

In isolation I like this lens well enough, but as part of a larger kit it falls short. The colour is very warm-green, completely at odds with the more neutral 50mm and pretty much every other lens I have. A handy one lens option acting as a 50mm in APS-c, it can work alone (although for that role I usually use the Panasonic 35). The mount is a little loose and the focus ring quite tight, meaning it is less than ideal for run-n-gun shooting, better rigged with a focus assist. C+

7 Artisans Spectrum 50 T2 (L-mount $399 bought with the 35 above for $450 on sale)

Unlike the lens above, this one is generally well balanced in my kit. Lighter focussing and tighter on the mount, it handles like the 25 Hope, renders Cool-neutral colour nicely and is for cinema use effectively tack sharp with a pleasantly old fashioned 3D pop. My run of good 50mm options is becoming almost boring, but I will take it. This lens also blends well with the Panasonic S-Primes, probably complimenting the cooler 35mm and 85mm’s as well as any other L-mount lens I have, so a threat to the 50mm S-Prime. A

Lovely clarity and depth. There is a “glassiness” to the rendering this lens produces that transcends test charts.

IRIX 150 cine macro T3 (L-mount $2000, paid $1200 on sale)

This monster is from the next tier up, but I bought it well and it fills several roles, including as a stills macro and portrait lens. Nothing bad to say here. Many comparison reviews call IRIX cine lenses sterile and character-less, but as semi-pro lenses that is not really a negative. It matches the 50mm Spectrum and the S-primes well, fits tightly on the mount and has pro grade dampening. It is huge though. A

A very decent stills macro, the long throw being a genuine plus.

Sirui 24 Night Walker T1.1 (MFT mount $500au)

I sold this one recently, partly because it was an odd fit in my kit, partly because it fell short of the Hope 25 in important ways, even taking into account the very bright aperture. I found it harder to focus accurately, poor in close, “impressionistic” wide open and the focus ring was very light, but it fit tightly on the camera, was light and a nice lens to use. B+ to A

Sirui 50mm Anamorphic T1.8 (L-mount $500au)

Only used it a couple of times, but very happy with it generally. Bought as the missing link in my anamorphic set, this lens is sharp, well corrected and pleasant to use with good lens speed and a portrait perspective (equivalent to a full frame 75mm in image height, 50mm in width).

The mount is decently tight, the focus ring firm, but not prohibitively so and it can render strong anamorphic characteristics when needed. It has a rubbish close focus, but that is an anamorphic thing. This lens covers APS-C, so it acts as a “75mm height by 50mm width” equivalent short tele, but it almost covers full frame as well making it a usable 60x40mm option. A

A lift from some 4k test footage.

Sirui 24mm Anamorphic T2.8 (MFT mount $500au)

My first choice in anamorphic and I have 2, this is the “50mm high by 35mm wide” or on the GH5s a 45x30, standard lens. It is well controlled for an anamorphic, capable of showing its characteristics or acting as a well behaved wide screen lens. I feel the 50 is a hair sharper looking, but it is close. Having the three over two formats means I can shoot them all at once, ideal for interviews or long takes. A

Antique 25mm f2.8 half frame Olympus lens (MFT mount $0-saved from the bin)

It would be cheeky to say “good value for money”, but even so, it is a surprise and testament to the quality of older glass. Bokeh and flare are interesting, colour cool and retro-muted, contrast high and it handles like it was bought yesterday, which is impressive as it is nearly 60 years old.

It is sharp wide open, but the contrast drops slightly, cleaning up strongly by f4. The adapter I have is a perfect fit, making the whole thing reassuringly pleasant to use. Maybe the perfect lens for an indie project? B+

A word on the Panasonic S-primes (about $1000au each).

I have the 35, 50 and 85mm primes and they are all excellent, genuine hybrid cine-stills lenses, matching each other mechanically and quite well optically (the 50mm is slightly warmer). No issues with mounts or handling, just nice and to be honest more than enough, putting a lot of pressure on my Spectrums (The IRIX is in it’s own space as a tele-macro). My only slight complaint is the price, averaging $1000au, but they are good, reassuringly good and of course they get a lot of work as stills lenses. A

The 35 is my favourite, rending nicely at f4.

Panasonic-Leica 9mm (MFT $800au)

I am including this one MFT stills lens out of a crowded field because it is the lens I use most often with the G9II in “all auto” or AF tracking and stabiliser mode. Optically it is spectacular, almost a macro, light and super invisible on the cam, super fast and sure footed AF and with heavy stabilising applied, it is still usefull (about a 21-24mm equiv). A+

Some really interesting flare characteristics from the 9mm.

At the top I said I have been brave and lucky.

Brave because every time you buy lenses in this class there is a chance you will get a dud, probably more so than some other classes, like the Hope 16mm I returned as it was clearly a poor sample (loose mount, very tight focus, obvious optical issues). I knew this was poor because the two before it were excellent, but would I have known without comparison?

Lucky because at this point, I have a workable set of L-mount, MFT and anamorphic lenses, some are even stellar performers. Two Hope, two Spectrum, three Panasonic S-Primes, various MFT stills lenses, three anamorphic lenses over two formats, an IRIX macro and Vision wide angle. Quite a diverse set, but it works and they seem to gel.

Other paths I could have taken were the Panasonic f1.7 zooms, lenses that would have empowered my MFT cameras enough to avoid full frame all together or alternatively a couple of DZO Vespid or IRIX cine lenses in PL mount, able to be adapted to both formats or finally, complete my S-primes and zooms. Looking all both these options, I have probably saved some money, but added difficulty.

You Cannot Ride All The Horses, Or Even Hitch Them All To Your Wagon.

Being a stills photographer can be an exercise in wearing many hats, but most of these hats are similar, from the same basic wardrobe. You are the shooter, the editor and supplier. Editing may take many forms, but at the end of the day, few shooters farm out their editing, few editors are divorced from delivery of their work. They are all too close to split most of the time.

This post was triggered by this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGRG2DZGKac a much better explanation probably.

Where it often ends is in the produced product. You supply the client with the work, but rarely do the graphic design or presentation at the end. I supply schools, sports organisations and charities with processed stills images, they can then decide which, if any, will be used, when and how. They do not employ me to do their advertising project, update their facebook or print their wall hangings, I just provide the edited content.

Videography on the other hand is a set of crafts, layers of after process and often some creative input towards the end product. This is important for you to understand, because if you do not want to do it, you need to be clear up front.

Horse 1

The Videographer.

The videographer is the visual content creator, but often several of the other roles below. What goes into the camera is their responsibility, so if another role is vacant, they will still need to address it. This is the crux of it all, but not all of it.

The cinematographer, AC or videographer is going to frame, time and execute the visual image capture. You may have the help of a Key Grip in bigger productions, someone who helps with support and camera movements, or maybe you are even controlling other cinematographers as senior Camera AC, but often you are it. Under this banner also falls scouting and space and time management.

Horse 2

The Sound Technician.

Sound, which is important if done right, but the whole ballgame if done wrong. Solo shooters absorb this into their skill set, sometimes grudgingly, sometimes happily, but it has to be done by someone and should really be done multiple times for safety. This is often the first role filled by a second operator.

Horse 3

The Lighting Technician.

Like sound, lighting is a sub-set of videography, possibly the senior partner and its own skill set. Good cinematography is good lighting, simple as that. The videographer wants a look for their footage, you as Spark, Gaffer or Grip need to add, modify or remove light to suit. The two are so interwoven, they could be seen as the same thing, but they are not in their purest form.

Horse 4

The Director.

This role is many roles depending on the dynamics of the shoot. From liaising with the client, threshing out the concept, script and determining the needs of the product and getting it all to gel together, the director is the head person on set. That may be you, the video-light-sound guy or it might be a team.

Horse 5

The Editor.

Once captured, the hard work starts (well, for me), often with up to ten times as long put into editing the end product than it took to shoot it. This may also require sound editing outside of the norm, maybe even special effects, but it is rarely quicker than shooting time and can be a monster for storage. Most one person organisations have to edit their work and for me personally, this is one horse too many, although shooting to your own formula can have benefits. Time is the first casualty, enjoyment the next.

Horse 6

The Salesman

Either before, after or both ends of the process, some marketing needs to done, people don’t just decide they need your work by osmosis. The project needs to be presented and/or sold.

Horse 7

The Administrator.

The boring stuff that makes a business work has to be done.

Horse 0 or 8

(depending on priority)

The stills shooter.

If you are a sole operator, this may be a reality and potentially adds an exponential increase in difficulty.

How many of these are you and how well do they sit?

Recently, I have done a couple of things that will help me get through the year without imploding, mostly identifying the things that I am not and not doing them.

I am ok with being the top three and the stills shooter within reason, something a one man operation needs to do.

I am only just getting on top of the grading thing. Too much more to deal with for now.

The fourth and fifth I am scaling down as they are both for me pathways to unhappiness, areas of weakness and I feel disingenuous offering them. I deliver content, so my directing will be limited to doing as asked and the editing will also be limited to what I enjoy, which is colour grading and sound balancing. Capture and deliver, not end product creation, simple.

The last two are sort of left to their own devices. My business model is very simple, lazy even, but it works well enough.

The Problem With Black Magic Raw On A Video Assist

My journey into the mysterious and often unhelpful world of video research has had some solid advances and plenty of set backs, but I am making my way.

A breakthrough for me was discovering the benefits of RAW in video or more specifically B-Raw, which actually made the process and processing easier not harder and give me the sort of freedom I have been after for a long time.

B-Raw also has levels of quality, something that makes it practical for me on many levels.

Video is very similar to stills in that you can take very good footage straight from the camera, mobile phones prove that, but creative freedom resides in the unprocessed RAW core of it all.

My choice has been to use Panasonic cameras fed out to Black Magic 12g video assists, which give me some of the benefits of the cameras (flexibility, stabilising, AF, image quality, EVF) and some down sides (bulk, cabling, rigging generally, some processing limitations).

It looks the goods and after a settling process, it actually is, a lighter option looses some capabilities.

One down side above the ones I knew about before I went in was right there in front of me, but thanks to my lack of full understanding of how it all worked, I missed it.

When recording from my Panasonic cameras, the GH5s, S5, G9II, there are limited RAW output size choices, meaning that for relatively low output deliverables, like 1080/.Mov/25p, I have to shoot 4-6k B-Raw in granted, a choice of quality settings, but always 4k at least.

I have had several 700Gb jobs so far using multiple cameras for an hour or more.

Even at 8:1 or Q5, this can come in at hundreds of GB for relatively small jobs, just for that low quality output (often only single digit GB output files). I can deal, because with many projects, the capture quality is for me alone, something I can create a smaller master from and dump the original, but this strains everything on the processing pathway.

Even some simple test footage turns into a dozen GB.

If I had a BM camera, I would have the option of 1080/B-Raw native, but to what ends as I will still likely shoot multiple cameras, so multiple BMPCC4k’s?

I can handle the big capture files now, I just need a good down sizing work flow.

There is also the option of shooting ProResHQ/422 in 1080 to an SSD (G9II) or the BMVA (even a 3G model), but when compared, the quality takes a small hit even at higher comparable storage rates.

Serviceable 4k/12bit/B-Raw/12:1 is 34 MB/s, while 1080/10bit/ProRes/422/HQ is 28 MB/s, so less colour and bit depth and much lower resolution for almost the same storage.

This is a problem that is not really a problem I guess as I have become a “shoot 4k and crop/stabilise/Ken Burns the frame for 1080 output” convert, but coming from a stills background where I can do a two week trip on 32 GB, it is sobering.

A Closer Look At Some Premium Primes Part 3

The portrait lenses now. These are not a perfect match, the Oly being a 90mm equivalent, but I chose to leave the tripod where it was as I am comparing the specific lenses head to head, not their effective magnifications.

Colours are consistent again. Not sure I love the G9II with these lenses, but that is the camera (settings), not the glass.

The difference in the effective focal lengths is evident, the depth of field still stronger in effect on the shorter full frame, but once again, I am responding positively to the less dramatic drop off of the MFT lens, its ability to invisibly transition and a less flat look.

I guess what I am discovering personally is, f1.8 on a full frame lens has its uses, but at some time in the past, I just grew tired of the look and if I do want that look, I probably want it even more powerfully, like a 150 at f2.8 maximising compression and shallow depth.

This one is interesting. At the same aperture, I assumed there would be a massive difference as before, but the 45mm still has enough of the good stuff, plenty of gorgeous blurring, again with that harmonious transition.

Photography means a lot of different things to different people.

Tests like this help us understand not only a pair of similar but different lens trios in a (semi) controlled space, but also shines a light on our own likes and awarenesses.

My tolerance for gimmicks, forced looks based on exaggerated lens perspective, compression or shallow depth of field is waning, it probably came to a head some time around 2000 to be honest. My need these days is for the process to become invisible, for it to be a supporting of the way I see life, not the excuse to take the image, or the sole creative driver.

I would once take images driven purely by the excitement of learning new gear and techniques, but now I just need it to be my eyes and my memory without an obvious opinion added. I will admit video is for me more in that past space, which may explain why I keep going with it.

I have three excellent full frame primes that do several jobs more than well enough, but their main trick, using their format and maximum lens aperture are rarely appealing.

They are problem solvers, they can remove ugly backgrounds, shoot in the scarcest of light, separate a nearly impossible to separate subject from it’s surrounds. Sometimes they are even exemplars of their craft.

The Olympus lenses like most lenses in the MFT format, are more than that. They are always useable without panicky mental DOF math, always harmonious with my way of seeing and photographing the world (and the same with video capture?), but also fully capable of providing depth control.

I find myself less impressed with super fast aperture lenses these days, unless they have the benefit of the MFT or APS-c format and I find myself suspicious of the compromises made to achieve them. In video in particular, I find f4 on a full frame (2.8 APS-c/Super 35 or f2 MFT) is about perfect, but I will give it to the Olympus designers, these super fast primes are more than “just” fast glass.

MFT to me is not a choice driven by size or price as much as a preference for it’s way of seeing. It throws few moments of technical fear in my face while I work and just gets the job done without tell tale signs of the process.

For fun I did a couple of closeups below, the Magenta adjusted Oly file on the left.

A Closer Look At Some Premium Standard Primes Part 2

Now the 50mm equivalents. I am aware also that the 25 Oly when compared to their f1.8 version was a little tighter (the slower lens was assumed to be slightly wider, roughly a 45mm equiv).

For this shot I puled the tripod back a little, then spread the items out a little more.

Colours seem to be consistent enough, warm green on the Oly/Pana and cooler magenta on the all Pana combo.

Similar story to the wider lenses, although I feel the 25 Oly is actually tighter, so maybe the earlier comparison I read was wrong, maybe the premium lens is tighter than 25?

Again, there is an obvious difference in DOF drop off, but the Oly provides what I would call a working Bokeh look, the Pana is more of a Bokeh gimmick, like the Sigma 30mm I have. That ability to “cut out” a subject from a scene in the modern sense, but at the expense of context and a harmonious transition. Distances would make a difference here of course, getting closer to the statues would give both a stronger effect.

Now comparing them both at f1.8.

Chalk and cheese again, but no reason to compare them this way I guess, it does the format differences no favours at all.

Interestingly the 25mm at f1.8, even with the camera to subject difference greater than the subject to background distance can still blur the lights and wall enough to focus the viewers awareness to what is important, it just does it less heavy handedly.

A Closer Look At Some Premium Semi Wide Primes Part 1

Moving away from video for a while, time to check out these Oly super primes.

This is a test that fundamentally compares the best of MFT with three mid-level, full frame equivalents, something that has some benefit I suppose, as many may be torn in this space.

The Olympus lenses are the best of the best, the Olympus equivalent of Panasonic Leica and from what I have read in multiple reviews, they are technically better and built to purpose, the P/Leica lenses may or may not have the “secret sauce” in quantities that make up for the mild difference, you will need to make your own mind up there.

The S-Primes are solid, very god actually, but designed to be true hybrid lenses, which is nt an excuse, it is a called out design reality. They are consistently sized (quite big), extremely light, pleasant to use and handly, without feeling premium. Compared to the Oly glass they seem too big, too light and maybe a little expensive for their role (middle range, medium speed, B+ primes).

The true equivalent to the Oly primes are the Leica badged lenses, but their is not a set to compare and certainly not one I own. The monster 50 F1.4 Pana-Leica is cine lens size and price, not something I can justify at the moment.

I was reasonably consistent with these tests, the WB was matched. I used roughly matching Pana cams for fairest results (S5II, G9II), but an obvious colour difference is still obvious (I did not modify the Hue, just White Balance). The G9II is known to be cooler rendering than the warm S5II, the S5 would have been closer, but it is rigged up for video.

I have rarely used the G9II for stills, so deeper checking might reveal a setting I have forgotten.

First, the wide angles.

Both lenses wide open (the Oly at top, you can tell by the 4:3 image shape). The 17 Oly has slightly stretched the perspective, and produced a slightly taller frame (I matched edges, but did not move the tripod) and the depth of field is less shallow even though the aperture was set to a roughly matching 2 stops wider.

I am not going to test sharpness etc as these things are all on record, but both are obviously enough for professional use.

The Pana 35 provides that modern fast sharp/soft transition, but once you have drunk enough from that glass, is that always a good thing?

The “quality” of the Bokeh seems similar, but it is hard to compare fairly as depth is different.

There is enough clear cut away on the Oly lens, the Pana is probably too much for my needs. I personal reaction to the files is a positive reaction to the Oly depth, if I ignore the greenish tinge that would be fixed in post. The Pana file looks thinner to me, more delicate, but less grounded.

Comparing the lenses at the same apertures now, showing the real difference between the formats.

Both on f1.8, the Panasonic really steps ahead here in the shallow depth look, but that was expected. The Olympus could be easily used for an environmental portrait or group photo, but at the same aperture the Pana could not be trusted to provide enough depth, so I would probably go to f4 to feel safe.

Back Here Again, But A Little Differently.

Based on a user comment in a review, that possibly their favourite DZO Vespid prime (first version) on their Super-35 RED camera, was the 25mm, a lens I had not considered before.

It struck me that it might be the perfect lens for my 4 format/1 lens kit idea*.

Bigger than most of the others, an impressive and impressing bit of kit. Could it be the one lens?

Lets look at the math;

• On the S5 as a full frame it is a 25mm as marked, the widest I would be comfortable using regularly and ok even without stabilising.

• With a little E-stabe applied it would come in at about a 30mm, a favourite focal length (the IRIX 30 was always a favourite, but if I count the crop for stabilising, it is actually not that anymore).

• With high stabe (1.6x) or APS-c crop mode (1.5x), it becomes a near perfect 37-40, my perfect “one lens”. APS-c crop is one compromise of B-Raw recording in 4k/50, the S5 only does 5.9k/25 in full frame.

• On the GH5s with no stabe it is a 45, also in the favourite range.

• On the G9II, it runs from 50mm with no stabe to about 55-60mm with E-stabe applied. I am rarely interested in going longer than this and if I am, it is not in this type of shooting.

The last three also remove any failings of the furthest edges.

So, a useable wide to a short portrait lens, each focal length curiously aligning well with the camera it is mated to.

The other thing I like is there is room for a 40 or 50mm later (a full range of 40-100 or 50-110mm), or not as the whim and finances take me.

The lenses are generally considered to be poor-mans Cookes, gently soft wide open, then sharpen up to commercial level a stop or two in.

The Mk2’s are “better”, closer to a light weight Arles, but I am drawn to the middle ground the Mk1’s occupy (and the price).

I am currently hunting out more reviews. enough to know I am not compromising on this lens in some way (it is a wide angle after all), but this reviewer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iysvd1-86rM loved it most on the Red Komodo (about a 40mm equivalent S35 sensor).

Now, this is just one of the irons I have in the fire at the moment. Another is the BMPCC4k, mated with a more clinical lens like the Hope 25, for a 45mm with BM colours and rendering.

The Pocket 4k can also add the special something and other benefits, like 1080 B-Raw, full B-Raw control, no waste and lower costs (only needs a dummy battery), where the lens needs two EF or PL adapters, from $300 to $800 more.

Could I get as much of a boost to basic image quality from a camera that costs the same without other overheads, one that adds depth of options above that core benefit and one that empowers what I have instead of replacing it or do I need the “one lens” that lifts all my existing and future cameras?

Waste is on my mind as ever, the Spectrum primes in particular will suffer, but they cost me nothing, it’s the Hope primes that would hurt. Would it all be undone anyway if I need a multi cam setup, with only one lens of this quality, so I would compromise anyway?

Another iron is one of rationality. This one feels time pressured as the Mk1’s are being replaced by the Mk2’s, but if I ignore that, the reality of what I have now (several sets of cheaper lenses) hits home and to be honest, I have options**.

Example;

I shot a 2 cam set-up of a presentation recently in a crappy room, shotgun on camera (and LAV, except a user forgot to put theirs on, so I could not match all speakers), so a low visual and audio bar set, but I got decent enough results.

Camera 1 was the GH5s with the Hope 25 for the main shot, normal height, closer to the subject, the second cam was the S5 with a S-prime (35mm) shooting wide at a less nice angle and lower down.

This is not a fair comparison I know, but after two days of grading clips I noticed something interesting and I had by this time forgotten to care which camera was which.

The smaller sensor camera with the cheaper cine-prime just looked better. Simple as that, no tech to back it up, but it’s footage looked both sharper and smoother (with no filters added) and pleasantly warm. I found myself editing it less aggressively and that was from the “lesser” MFT camera.

Oddly and this is almost definitely an angle effected thing, the TV screen in both images (yep, that nightmare), was clearer and the edge fringing/flare around the subject was also cleaner. This is really speculative as the lighting was a horror story***, but it is what I took away from the project.

Ironically I was less bothered by the low light performance of the MFT camera (shot at T2.1) than the depth of field of the full frame combo (at f5.6).

Ok, the big problem and it is not a secret is “upgrade syndrome”, which is to say, yes I could have 4 formats from one lens, but with one lens, only one format at a time. Can I match this lens with my other options and I guess the question is, if I can match it, do I even need it?

My current 2 camera options are the 50 and 25 Hopes on MFT (45/100 or 90/50), the S-Prime 35/50/85 set or the Spectrum 35 and 50, although mixing these up makes more sense and the 24/50 anamorphics. A three camera set is even tougher, but from tha above, I can do three anamorphic, three cine or three stills lens sets.

*Full frame, APS-c, GH5s 1.8 and G9II 2x crop.

**Sirui anamorphic in two formats, 7Art full frame Spectrum (not so long ago considered ridiculously good for the money), MFT Hope and Vision primes (considered right now to be near perfect budget primes), my MFT stills glass (Oly in particular) and my S-series with a Sigma zoom as a bonus. Nothing premium here, but an awful lot of decent or best in class.

The anamorphics seem to be hitting a good place for me at the moment.

***A huge window/skylight directly above and behind the subjects with the morning sun drifting across it.

The Little Voice That Refuses To Go Away.

I am still jonesing for a serious video-cine lens, a single lens that can be adapted to any camera (PL mount), that is in the serious budget bracket and that has a know amount of “X” factor.

The mount is important because out out of one lens (a 35mm), I would have a standard wide (full frame), standard 50mm (Super 35 or APS-c), a long standard 63mm on the GH5s and 70mm on MFT. I could even throw it on a Sony like the ZVE-1, FX30 or a Canon of some type.

The lighting was poor on my part, but the 24mm anamorphic lens surely suited the task.

The DZO Vespid 1’s are the sentimental favourite, striking for many the perfect balance between professionally sharp and characterful. These seem to still stand out in the pack even when compared to more clinical lenses, even their own Vespid 2’s. The 35 is considered a slightly better lens than the 40 I was originally drawn to and a more sensible “one lens”.

The Nisi Athenas have never appealed for some reason, but in Australia their price is off putting. They sit above the Vespid 2’s here and I feel the V2’s are better all-rounders.

I have an IRIX 150 in L-mount, so a 30mm in PL would expand that palette cnsiderably (30/45/55/60), but they are like the Nisi, very clinical, very clean a little sterile. This works for the macro, but I am not as keen for video. They are also hard to track down, huge and the most expensive.

I want clean and sharp, but not at the cost of an organic, classic vibe.

The Vespid 2’s are probably the perfect balance of all factors. They compare to the Arles, are cheaper or the same as the Nisi.

The wild card, and I hate early reviews because they smack of the early marketing push, are the 7Art Infinte (not Infinite). These look to be comparable to the Nisi, maybe a little more organic (not as perfect-sterile), cheaper than all the rest and I can in some ways see a direct line between these and the Hope series by the same brand. I really like the Hopes, but they are APS-c limited and come in a single mount.

Having a sinlge lens that can fit multiple cameras makes sense, except that I cannt use these cameras at once, so it would add consistency of look to the process, but only at the lens level. The four formats would be shared over a minimum of three different cameras and these are all a little different to each other (even if I only use Panasonic).

Could it be that I could actually match different lenses to specific cameras and get a better level of consistency, while using up to three cameras at once? I have already matched the cool Spectrum 50 to the warm toned S5II, the cooler S5 getting the warmer Spectrum 35, with some success. InV-log I could actually match them up using the cameras fine WB controls.

I need to consider also (especially considering the last paragraph), lenses I have like the Spectrum 50, Hope 25 and 50, my three anamorphic Sirui (2 MFT, 1 L-mount), Panasonic S-primes (35/50/85) and several MFT lenses that are not rubbish by any means.

The reality is, the lenses are important, but they are nt as important as other factors. For example; Vulhandes made a great video about the Vespid 1’s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok2mzAT2xuc , but he makes great footage, so I could argue he could have made that with most lenses (and seeing as some shots have them all in frame, I guess he did use others).

Story Driven Thomas did this on the Sirui anamorphic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8S4ioLDlLk which in many ways influenced me to buy them. Again, great art video, so lens or maker?

Mark Wiemels made an excellent video on the Infinte https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTwDUHEwm50 , and while technically competent, the video was made to be a sample video, not an art piece, so hard to compare.

There are a lot of contradictions at play here and the internet does not help. Do you want perfection in a lens and add effects after, are you after character in lens, need AF, use filtering, like legacy glass, are ok with anything because you will control the best bits in other ways (lighting etc)? Which, if any or even all of these apply to you?

The reality is, Roger Deakins wants the best, most clinical, spherical glass you can get, effects added later, while Zack Snyder used an antique Canon range finder 50 wide open at 0.95 on an 8k Monstro sensor. Neither is subjectively “right”, they both produced professional work.

Maybe I am putting too much stock in specific glass, caught up in the hype. maybe my secret sauce should come from somewhere else, like the little Pen half frame 25mm I seem to like? I have to recognise, my choices are often mood based, such is the softness of the topic.

For me, I want smooth sharp, not “hyper” sharp, like the 8k Sigma to Sony look. I want smooth footage, with invisible technical effects, a creative transparency that lens choice should not be the primary or even a major source of (something I know only really effects the initiated).

I will use mild filtering if I have to, but would love it if much of that smoothness came from the lens. Lenses that I feel do give me some of that now are the S-Primes, my Oly 12-40, the Hope and Spectrum lenses, m anamorphics and the add legacy lens.

Do I need more?

Basically what I am saying here is, there are so many factors at play, I may be over stating the importance of a lens as fulcrum of my process and under estimating the value of good technique.

Quick And Dirty Comparison

A friend James loaned me the Olympus holy trinity, the f1.2 17, 25 and 45 lenses. He is a relatively recent convert to MFT coming from Sony.

Our journeys are different, his a serious hobby, mine is purely making a living these days (evinced by me gifting him my A3+ fine art printer and 400 sheets of fine art paper, a hobbyists thing needing an enthusiastic passion, just more work for me).

He came from Canon to Sony via Fuji and some others, picking up a OM-1 very right and seeing the light. His collection of lenses is impressive.

My journey also started with Canon (MF, AF and digital), some Oly MF, then most early digital mirrorless (Fuji, Sony, MFT). I settled on Oly early days as it was basically the only workable system at the time, skinny as it was. I re-entered full frame with Panasonic mostly because of video, but it sees occasional use for stills.

I was reluctant to try them to be honest, because I know they are exceptional, format myth busting actually, but I cannot afford or justify them.

I loaned him my “fast” Sigma 30 f1.4, my low light champion, a lens I do not use much as I dislike its habit of flattening the subject with its in-fashion sharp-soft look. Not a fair trade, but it is what it is (we have most other MFT lenses in common).

At a quite short 30mm, this lens can look more compressed than my 75. This can be fine sometimes, but something I am becoming less keen on.

My obvious comparison point, and I will do a better job of this later, is with my trinity of S-Prime Panasonic lenses.

Now to be fair, the Oly lenses are weatherproof, considerably faster in most respects, all metal, have a very nice manual focus clutch, are as sharp as a vipers fang and surprisingly compact, but they are dearer than the S-Primes (I do feel the S-Primes are still a little over priced) and the format should balance out the depth of field difference at their maximum of f1.8.

The 45 wide open vs the 85 at same. Every effort was spared to be consistent….. obviously.

The Panasonic is on the right.

Takeways were;

• The Pana made me back off a bit, maybe a full frame thing and the 85 does have a longer minimum focus distance. The whole thing feels clumsier to be honest.

• The Oly was faster and more accurate to focus, but I will admit that the S5II is not set up for action like the EM1x. It is very much a matter of a specialist camera I am very familiar with compared to a less sure footed hybrid camera relatively new to me.

• I prefer the colour and brightness of the Oly combo in three of the images, but that is also possibly camera based.

• The Pana seems to hold better highlight detail in the bench shot, but again, no consistency of process (or processing), see below for more.

• I think the head shot is a wash due to the different focus distance used, the Pana was closer and it shows.

• The Oly lens seems to retain some three dimensionality, the Pana is flatter. This is tough to measure as the lens is magnifying the subject by the same amount but is using a shorter focal length to do it. Not sure what that actually means.

• Full frame at f1.8 seems shallower than f1.2 in MFT (for better or worse), even with a less impressive close focus distance and when I was fair to both.

• The Bokeh quality, a priority of the Oly glass, seems to be just fine on the Panas.

• The Oly lens and camera combo seemed to produce more consistent results, but they could be camera set up, the slight depth of field advantage and possibly better close up performance, the statue images being the most obvious.

• The Pana combo looks biased towards yellow/blue, the Oly leans magenta/green.
  

After a bit of processing (the left image got more, mainly highlight recovery), the pair are hard to split for detail. Pana lens is on the right. The Pana seems to hold more high end detail, but on closer inspection it is a mixed result.

It is sobering to remember the difference in formats.

Some Things About Lenses You May Not Know.

There are a lot of opinions around about lenses and many of them are based on the same opinions we have had for ages, perpetuated by the makers and some purchasers through ignorance or sometimes deliberately.

Lets look at some of these myths.

1) Fast (wide aperture) lenses are better than slower ones.

This is not automatically true, in fact in the past slower lenses were often considered more stable and reliable, faster ones had to go to extreme measures just to be as good, while delivering the special feature they were bought for.

Early Olympus and Leica for example made no distinction between their faster and slower primes, each lens was made to do a job up to the same standard, just different jobs.

Hollywood set-like lighting captured with the kit 40-150 Olympus. At f8, which was needed for the correct depth of field, no other 40-150 I own would have made the image any better.

If you need a fast lens, then get one, but don’t buy a big and expensive super fast prime lens to get your landscape passion off and running. Most lenses are near identical at smaller apertures and once you are over the uber-blur look, you may rarely use the very wide aperture that cost you so much.

Few professional photographers rely only on fast lenses and wide apertures and the look they produce, these images simply do not tell a story or add context.

Sports, wildlife, indoor and portrait shooters may lean towards them, but often out of need. Shallow depth is only one type of image and not so long ago it was considered to be a side effect of low light shooting. It is not a coincidence that fast and accurate AF and the fashion of very shallow depth imaging came hand in hand.

More important for you may be the rendering of a lens at a middle aperture for landscapes or environmental portraits, something a super fast lens may not be very good at. Look at the bulk of the work shot for National Geographic or similar documentary works, there is little shallow depth imagery and when there is, it is often driven by need.

An early image taken on the Sigma 30 f1.4, a lens known to produce super sharp images wide open and creamy Bokeh. Since purchasing it, I have rarely used it, possibly responding to the flat, very modern rendering or maybe the large (for MFT) form factor? The reality is, I like context in my images, something this lens is designed to blur away and because of that, it’s a bit of a one trick pony. I would hate to be forced to shoot with only this type of lens.

2) Bigger and more expensive lenses are inherently better than smaller, cheaper ones.

Any lens, if made to the needs of its design concept, does not need to be any bigger than it needs to be, which is to say, that monster chunk of glass up front, might not be an image improver, it may simply need to be there equalise the lens with it’s lesser stable mates.

Designers go to great lengths to make their flag ship designs their best lenses, something they may find challenging as lesser lenses pretty much come together effortlessly.

Large lenses also mean bigger filters and they require better flare controls (lens coatings and hoods).

The lens that took this (17 f1.8 Oly mk1) is not overly special on the test bench, nor impressive to look at. It has soft corners wide open (often a field curvature thing that flat charts cannot measure, which means nothing when used in the field), average overall measured sharpness (not visual sharpness, which is excellent), a very small front element and form factor, mediocre Bokeh by modern standard with a modest aperture, but it consistently takes some of my favourite images. The designers wanted a good street photography lens and made just that.

3) The lens mount does not matter (when do we even think about that?).

The lens mount determines the stress placed on the lenses design. The Sony mount for example is quite small, the sensor is actually bigger than the mount itself (hides the corners), meaning the effort made to make wide lenses for it has to be both clever and extreme resulting in some massive, complicated and heavy glass.

Nikon on the other hand have made their new Z-mount so big, they could almost accommodate a larger format sensor with it. This makes some aspects of lens design like super fast and fast-wide lenses significantly easier and they can over engineer a lens, knowing the extreme edges are not needed.

The larger mount also results in about one stop less perceived depth of field, so a modest f4 lens acts like an f2.8 visually.

4) Lots of glass makes for better lenses.

Again, like points one and two, more glass and glass with exotic lettering (LD, SLD, Asph etc) is not there to make a lens better, but more likely just to make a lens possible*. If you make a lens faster, longer, wider, or a zoom (possibly many or all of these), it gets harder to achieve good results so extreme designs with lots of special glass and lens coatings become necessary, even mandatory, resulting in that heavily corrected “perfect” look.

A common theory floating around is that lots of highly corrected glass tends to render a “flatter” 2D looking image, one that looks less realistic and satisfying to the eye unless you accept the paper cut-out sharp-soft look as normal. Whether that is true or not, there is a look some modern super lenses have that to be honest I am not a huge fan of (see the Sigma 30mm image above).

I am reminded of the three EF tilt/shift lenses Canon made. Two were not so hard to make (45 and 90) so they got no exotic glass and no red “L” ring. The more difficult 24mm needed extreme effort, so it got the works over two models. Perception was the L lens was better by default, which was erroneous as they were all basically identical, the others just suffered from Canons odd “L” class segregation policy (only lenses with exotic glass got the L designation).

Ironically, more glass increases the chance of lens miss-alignment, introducing flaws. This is less common these days, but as Lens Rentals revealed in their testing of multiple zooms, not completely solved.

5) Sharper is always better.

As any cinematographer will tell you, there are types of sharpness and sometimes down-sides to too much sharpness or contrast. There is more to a lens that it’s sharpness, in fact of late many reviewers tend to hand wave away sharpness as “we have plenty these days, even in kit lenses”.

The selection of a lens needs to match the needs of the job.

Sharpness is like vehicle speed performance, it needs to be viewed in balance with other elements like handling, comfort, brakes and economy. Is a straight line speed racer a better car than a road tourer?

I have personally come to class lenses as hard sharp, simple-smooth sharp, or micro-contrast sharp and have found that the type of sharpness is often connected to the out of focus rendering with my sharpest lenses not always rendering pleasant Bokeh**.

None is better than the other, but each does it’s intended job.

Super sharp corners wide open with perfect field flatness are basically a waste unless you shoot perfectly flat subjects wide open all the time and quite often, there are other factors that effect sharpness or it’s requirement.

Taken on a $100 plastic fantastic kit tele lens, this is not only sharp enough, but “perfectly” sharp to match the subject and look I was after. I have three 40-150 lenses used as the light requires, the biggest and heaviest being the fastest, but in this situation would it have taken a better image? I am often grateful that I had that lens on that hot day in Japan as it captured a dozen of my favourite images without unnecessary weight, bulk or aperture speed.

6) Test charts are needed to determine quality.

Lens tests are a basic form of categorising a lens in direct comparison to other lenses using the same test processes and the user needs to be aware of the process and it’s limitations.

No more, no less.

The lens test has always been a good place to seek justification for a purchase or feed the lust for a future one, but they must be taken in specific context to their process and the reader needs to be aware that there is a lot more to a lens than test data.

Examples of confusion I have witnessed are different cameras being used, sometimes in different formats then the results directly compared, or the top 20% of MTF charts compared, ignoring the reality that both lenses filled the first 80% effortlessly.

The real question is what does the image look like?

I was once told by a Leica technician that lens test procedures are important to some extent, but the only way to find out if a lens suits your needs is to use it for at least two years. The modern equivalent is to look at all the images taken with a lens in situations similar to your ideal.

Are the images it makes all same-ish, do they look flat or two dimensional, are they too boringly perfect, lacking life or character? That lens may test very well, but is that enough?

Designers always have a goal in mind, but more recently that goal seems to be to make the “perfect” test bench lens, no matter the cost in other areas.

The only way to really get to know a lens is to use it doing what you do, how you do it.

7) More Bokeh is better.

For a start that is a regular mis-use of the term.

Bokeh just is like the weather, it is not a measurement like rain fall. You can have different Bokeh, more or fewer out of focus elements in your image and the effect can be exaggerated or avoided as needed, but more blur is not fundamentally a measurement of better Bokeh.

This is an often very real reason for buying a super fast lens or two. The ability to loose a background to soft and beautiful blur is however only one photographic option and assumes that the subject in context to their environment is not wanted. This is rarely the case in the real world.

You can’t tell a story with a super shallow depth of field image, only a part of it. If you intend to tell stories, you will find that the lenses ability to render harmonious semi-soft backgrounds is more important than it’s silky soft blurring of everything.

Any image, unless taken of a flat surface will have an element of Bokeh because depth of field is a measurable thing, so when buying a lens, look at it’s rendering and how you react to it in all circumstances, not just up close-wide open.

Taken with the 17mm lens mentioned above, a lens that has such expanded and coherent Bokeh transition that I call it my “never miss” lens for street photography. I even have images that are misses, but the lens makes them acceptable. It can be shot at f2.8 with manual focus set to 5ft and is sharp-seeming from front to back of the image. I can even safely use it wide open with similar results in low light. This image that could be called “Arrows of confusion” is a good example of one that requires more depth to tell the whole story.

Lenses I have come to respect, even love over the years are a mix of those known to be spectacular and some very modest lenses. The right lens for the job is all you need***.

The Olympus 17mm f1.8, featured a couple of times above is one of my most used street and travel lenses over the last twelve or so years and more recently a video favourite. It became a favourite not because it was bought to be a hero lens, in fact I struggled to commit due to iffy reviews (but there was not much choice), but once I started using it, the doubts simply went away and it became a compulsion not a choice.

More than a few times it has surprised me, excelling in areas I had assumed it weak and it is fair to say, it taught me a little about lenses.

A staple of ten trips to Japan (possibly the only lens that has made every trip), it and the more impressive looking 75mm f1.8 are responsible for more than half of my favourite images.

They are an example of two very different lenses, one forgettable on paper, the other with a stellar reputation, complimenting each other perfectly.

I appreciate it’s more forgiving, elongated Bokeh rendering, not usually a modern Bokeh enthusiasts go-to, but ideal for street imaging, it’s resistance to flare and handling of strong light, it’s tiny form factor, super reliable AF, manual focus clutch (basic but workable), perceived micro-contrast sharpness and natural organic colour.

It has become an unlikely landscape favourite, a core street champion and I even like it’s shallow depth Bokeh-when I need it.

My 15mm Pana-Leica is similar in many ways, but seems to be better at dull day brilliance and snappier sharp-soft shallow depth images, so they can act as a the perfect pairing.

The technically stronger 15mm Pan-Leica is a nice foil to the 17mm justifying both in my kit, but if I had to choose, the 17mm would be it. I can speculate with some surety that the image above taken on the 17 would be slightly warmer-more organic looking, less delicate-sharp and the people in the background slightly more coherent and smoother with less of that foreground “snap”. Same-same but different.

If I owned the f1.2 version of the 17mm I would probably appreciate it for paid work when stresses not of my choosing come into play, but when stopping it down to f2.8 or 4 for street and general travel, it’s images would likely be no different.

I am not saying the 17 f1.2 is not a very special lens, but for my needs, it is overkill and provides nothing my more pedestrian Panasonic 15 or even the full frame 35 f1.8 cannot, which thanks to the full frame sensor has similar depth of field, better low light performance and lighter weight.

For my more recent trips, the 9mm Pana-Leica, basic 15, 17, 45 and kit 40-150 Oly with the kit 12-60 Panasonic lenses have been more than enough for my needs and in total weigh less than my Oly 40-150 f2.8 or Sigma 28-70 f2.8 while adding depth and options.

Very often an f4 version of a professional zoom matches a f2.8 one at shared apertures, but costing and weighing half as much. Which would you take on a long hike for landscapes?

Also cheap f1.8 primes are often excellent and very stable (and enough), low glass count lenses can have very good 3D rendering and low flare.

There is no shame in buying the lesser lens, sometimes it is even the smart move, so before getting blinded by the hype, look to actual users reviews, people who have been around the block a few times and ask yourself “what role will this lens fill in my kit”, before just buying the dearest and heaviest option.

A second opinion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFAZOXxie4w

*There are many cases of lens spec creep over the years that have not bettered the optical quality of a lens, only retained quality after a feature is added and compensated for. An example is the Canon 100mm Macro lens. The very first FD lens was not AF, internal focussing, stabilised or overly fast at f4. By the time Canon had improved it over 3-4 models until the last EF 100 f2.8L IS, with internal focus, was produced it was not made appreciably sharper (macro senses tend to be near reference perfect by design). All the special glass and clever design had managed to make a faster, heavier, dearer and more complicated lens that was the visual equal of the much easier to design original from 30 years before.

**In my Olympus kit the 12-40, 75-300, 45, 75 and 40-150 f4 are smooth sharp with pleasant Bokeh. The 40-150 f2.8, 300 and 12-100 f4 are extremely hard-delicate sharp with often busy Bokeh, the 17 and 40-150 kit are micro-contrast sharp, Bokeh a mixed bag, but sometimes elongated or more coherent in transition style.

***Some past favourites include the 180 and 28 f2.8, 50 and 90 f2 macro OM Olympus, Canon FD 24 f2.8 SSC and 100 f4 SC, EF 135 f2L, 200 f2.8L, 400 f5.6L, 35 f2 and 50 f2.5 macro (old models), 28 and 85 f1.8 USM’s, Olympus 17, 45 and 75 f1.8’s, all three 40-150’s from the kit to the f2.8, 75-300 kit tele and 300 f4. A mix of premium and more ordinary lenses. My most commonly useful and impressive lenses have been macro’s but curiously I do not own one now.

My 5.11 CAMS Bag, No War Zone, Just A Quiet Life.

The 5.11 CAMS (Carry All My Stuff) bag is designed for tier 1 operators to haul their war fighting gear across the world. It is roomy, smartly designed and tough as nails.

Looking for a photo/video bag that can take stands, large tripods, a mountain of other gear, it was constantly the only bag I found that could fit the bill. It is really hard to find a one bag solution for 40” (1 mtr) long items, with both tall and long camera rigs, lots of extras from lighting, sound gear etc.

One bag, not a trolley of bags, not a backpack, two shoulder bags, a roller case and something in the hand combo or several trips to the car.

One bag……with wheels.

So, I have it now and what does it hold?

In the under compartment, which is the secret to it working at all, it holds the huge AD-01 tripod (the depth of the bag is only just enough at 5”), another tripod for the B-cam or to use with the tele-prompter we sometimes employ, 2 large and 2 small light stands.

That new Smallrig tripod is the longest I own, so perfect timing.

There is also room for some brollies, clamps etc. If I carry my big tripod separately (or strap it to the top), I can put 4 smaller tripods in there. I can even squeeze the foot for my C-Stand in.

The main compartment holds the equivalent of 6 camera bags*, even the bags themselves.

The black one is a Domke F810 bag, enough for my usual day kit, the grey one is a dog car seat cradle….., perfect to protect my main video rig.

No kidding.

I put my 217 Domke roller next to it and looks like a lunch box (I could put three of them in it)!

I have added a few matching camera inserts, a multi pocket bag liner and a…… padded car seat dog cradle, which is ideal as a “big rig” video camera protector. There is still room for a camera bag with a full stills kit*.

It is so nice to be able to have at hand some lighting and sound options, rigged cameras and organised accessories.

Perfect?

There is one issue, but not an insurmountable one. When full, it can take 60+ kg’s of gear, but it becomes hard to handle at that point. I simply won’t load it up that much and the under compartment is hard to access when the bag is heavy-full. I have decided to carry cameras in a separate bag, using the 5.11 for everything else, as cameras/lenses/batteries are the killers.

*F810/F2/F3x Domke, Filson Field camera bag, the average Crumpler etc.