A cheap cinema lens is a little like a cheap sword.
A cheap sword can hurt, even kill, it just sometimes lacks finesse.
Equally, a masterwork blade in the wrong hands is more likely to hurt the wielder than the intended target.
A cheap cinema lens is not a weapon, but the comparison stands.
They look the goods, do the job more or less, but what are the pitfalls, what are the catches.
I own a few, quite a few.
I have some 7Artisans Hope, Spectrum and Vision, Sirui anamorphic and Nightwalker lenses and a lone IRIX tele-macro. All were carefully chosen from many offerings to better match each other than even their actual set-mates often do, which is part of the reason for this post.
It has not all been perfectly smooth sailing, but a fun voyage.
I have returned one Hope lens due to poor mechanical and optical performance, which can happen to any lens offer and as I have said above, another reality of buying cheap lenses.
So, what are they in reality and how do they hold up compared to dearer glass?
The premise is, cine glass is allowed some “character”, does not need modern mechanical refinements like AF or complicated zoom construction, does not need to be light or compact and super fast lens speed is often considered excessive.
Mechanical consistency is important and these have that potential by design, but it is often more than just intent that is needed.
I have found that they are not reliably consistent in focus or aperture ring resistance nor mount tightness.
Some a delight, genuinely, some have issues enough that I need to be aware of what they will not do for me.
These are my favourites to focus pull without a speed focus attached.
The 35 Spectrum is quite tight compared to the very nice 50, the 50 Hope is slightly heavier to pull than the near perfect 25, the IRIX is professionally damped-near perfect (a little tighter than the Hope 25) as I will assume all of their lenses are, the Sirui anamorphic is slightly heavier than the Hope 25 similar, the 12mm Vision a little lighter, the Sirui Nightwalker so light it almost feels broken.
I guess I should also include the Lumix S-Primes in this group, a set of semi-matched lenses with stills/cine features. Mechanically, they are excellent, but need to be on a Lumix cam to give you long throw.
Lens mounts have on the whole been good, with only a few exceptions. I can handle a slightly loose mount as long as the lens is light in other respects. The Hope 16mm failed here, tight to focus, but loose on the mount, making it genuinely compromised. The thing actually made a slight clunking sound and shifted when used, not ideal for a video lens.
My Vision 12mm, Sirui anamorphic and Spectrum 35 are loose on some mounts (S5II, G9II). The 12mm is the loosest, but it is so light to focus pull and so wide, I rarely care.
The rest are more or less tight depending on the camera (my S5 and GH5s have tight mounts).
In comparison my stills lenses that are most often used for video, (L-mounts, 12-60, 9mm Leica), lack longer natural focus throw, manual apertures and take a follow focus without attaching a separate ring, but on average are about as consistent mechanically (the 20-60 and 28-70 are also slightly loose on the S5II’s mount).
Optics.
This is difficult to clearly measure.
Cinema lenses are usually extraordinary in some ways, but also often quite poor in others. They have character, which can also be labeled “workable flaws”, especially anamorphic and legacy glass. These obvious flaws are embraced, but have to (1) fit in with the creators vision and (2) not stand in the way of that creation.
Below are a some test images recently taken with my Hope 25, an example of a “heart breaker” budget offering. this lens is a pleasure to use and could easily slip into my stills kit.
Flare is acceptable until it is not, distortions also. Sharpness needs to be “transparent”, so the lens does not show itself as the hero of the shot. Soft edges can be accepted even sought after as can distortion, chromatic aberration and flare. Contrast and colour is often flatter to allow for wider dynamic range capture, more can be added later.
The stills lens paradigms of razor sharp, super high contrast, super saturated, super smooth Bokeh, perfectly corrected and flare free need to be ignored in favour of a smooth rendering, predictable flaws and a more natural look.
Distortion? Sure, we have plenty and for top end directors like Wes Anderson, they become signature, taking a short coming and making it part of the process.
Some top end cine lenses are actually near perfect, because sometimes that is wanted, but even then, they are capable of rendering moving stock differently to highly corrected stills lenses.
This image taken with my Sirui Nightwalker at minimum distance and wide open at T1.2 is beautiful, but falls short of being usable in most situations.
They have that special something.
This is the key to it really, a cine lens needs to add beauty in some form without distraction, or if it adds distraction, it needs to be intended and still beautiful. Cinematographers often chase a distinctive look, but that look needs to be transcendent, spectacular, not just crude gimmick.
The reality is, to get the very best, the cutting edge control of aberrations and clarity, but also some magic, the best lenses are needed. I recently googled the lens used by the makers of The Bear and was stunned, but not surprised by the $38,000u.s. price tag. I guess if you want both quality and character, it costs.
Probably the thing that stands out with cheaper cine glass, even the IRIX, is a lack of a mature confidence, that feeling that “you will know it when you see it” quality. They are often good at some things, but fall short somewhere.
My Hope and IRIX glass is reliable, clean and well controlled. They are surprisingly well corrected, sharp, clean, smooth rendering and relatively problem free, but they are not adding that signature look, just reliable quality. They are the start of the road, but it is long.
The IRIX 150 is a favourite lens for any use.
My Spectrum and Nightwalker lenses are more character heavy, with some more obvious short comings, the Sirui anamorphic is also a good performer, ironically in a class of lenses renown for their fickle attributes.
At the level of of the IRIX ($2000au) each, there are lenses gaining a reputation for true cinema magic, like the Thypoch Simera-C and their stable mates the DZO Vespids, but the IRIX range leans more towards well corrected, slightly boring purity and lenses at this level still fall foul of the optical consistency gods. They are stills grade, but not yet perfect cine grade.
For more character, you can go super cheap, like legacy glass such as the Helios 44-2 or the TTArt 35 f1.4 for under $100au. It has bags of character, looking for all the world like an anamorphic lens without the wide frame, but is only really an option for art projects.
Super sharp in the centre, but obvious distortion, swirly Bokeh, soft edges, just like an antique anamorphic, all for chump change. It even gets “better” is you use it on a full frame and split the difference in cropping. Its tiny form factor gets it zero marks in the handling department.
Seriously, this is from a major Marvel production, complete with edge weirdness, CA and distortions galore.
I have faith in my cine lenses for their reasonable consistency across both M43 and FF*. They are solid, look great (i.e. impress clients) and work as indicated. I do not feel they are a compromise optically compared to my stills glass, sometimes they even have more pleasant Bokeh and a better video image overall (I am keen to try the Hope lenses in the studio), some even have effectively no focus breathing, but I also realise there are very special lenses out there with long and proven pedigrees and eye watering price tags to match.
Mechanically they vex me slightly, but it seems the bar is set quite high there.
In a nutshell, they do act like cine lenses and can produce professional looking results, just don’t be too picky when comparing one lens to another.
The IRIX macro is a mid range cine lens, my dearest by a wide margin, but still not in the top tier.
So, mechanically less than perfectly consistent and optically strong but boring or just ok, with character?
Even some mid range glass can be accused of the same, so still great value.
Subjectively measuring and comparing top end with budget lenses is largely pointless. Even if they cost ten times more, it is still possible a budget lens can beat them in some way.
The fact they often only come in mounts to suit the very top cameras, is always going to give them precedence. Hard to compare Arri Alexa footage on lens “X” to FX-3 footage on lens “Y”, when they cannot be or are just not ever directly compared.
As for the many AF super stills lenses around?
The trade off of using “best practice” manual focus and aperture selection has to be weighed against the advantages of touch screen AF. They both have their place.
On the plus side, the whole collection of 8 lenses, often bought on sale has cost me sub $4000au or to put it another way, about the same as a single mid-tier cine lens**.
If I went again, I would likely have bought the IRIX 150, 30 and something in between (65) at the insane sale price I found the 150 ($1100au), but in E-F mount and used them on all my cams with an adapter. The 30mm could then be a 30, 45 or 60 depending on the format used.
Of course lens selection is only one part of a complicated and inter-dependent web of factors, but it is no less important for that and if you ask a cinematographer, the matching of the right lenses to the right camera is the foundation point of the process.
My current process is;
Use the GH5s and S5’s (using B-Raw) which have the less reliable AF with cine glass and support rigs (various) for static and more serious work, especially personal projects.
I then use the G9II and S5II as “B” cams with the same or as my movement cams, relying on touch screen AF and in camera V-Log to keep the rigs small, I use stills-hybrid lenses.
If the G9II and S5II are used as “B” cams with their format mates, I will match lenses.
My most used lenses for a variety of reasons are the Hope 25 and 50, Sirui anamorphic 24, the 35, 50 and 85 S-Primes, 12-40 Oly and Leica 9mm in AF and increasingly for hybrid run and gun, the Sigma L-Mount 28-70.
*The Vision and Spectrum series are mostly consistent in ring placement, but vary wildly in rendering, wide open performance and colour temperature within their own sets, so I have “cherry picked” from these. The Hopes are closer, but still vary slightly in temp. The two Sirui lenses are both warm and similar in rendering even though they are different by design, closer than their own stable-mates.
**If I had my time over I would have simply gone the 10-25 and 25-50 f1.7 Pana zooms in M43 (only) and/or the full set of Lumix S-Primes for full frame, but then I may have missed out on some fun glass.