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Thread: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

  1. #41
    (Shrek)
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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    If you're a cinematographer shooting a big-budget motion picture on film, you need to worry about the color cast of your lenses. Since the same scene will be shot with several different lenses from different angles, and the result edited together to create the scene, you can't have color shifts between focal lengths in your kit. So you spend +$100K on a set of matched Cooke or whatever lenses. But even most of today's 'cinematographers' shoot digital with their camera set on auto-white balance, and could just as well shoot their movie with a 1980s aftermarket 35mm zoom lens for all the concern today's movie-goers show about cinematography. If all you've ever seen on the big screen is garbage, you're not likely to be a discerning viewer.

    For a large format photographer today to worry about color cast in their lenses would imply that s/he has access to a professional lab that can give perfectly reproducible results day after day, year after year, and furthermore this hypothetical lf photographer has an inexhaustible supply of freshly-made lf film from a firm with perfect quality control. To my knowledge, neither condition can be met today. Nor are there any customers left who demand perfect and reproducible color rendition from large format film images. So it's a bit of an academic exercise at this point.

  2. #42

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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    Drew, do you agree once a sheet or frame of color transparency film has been exposed, processed altering the color balance IN the color transparency film is not so easy to do?

    That said, back in the day when color transparency film was THE means for color image reproduction for publications to high quality color prints there was an entire industry that supported this need_demand_expectation. Now Drew, tell us how much of that once HUGE color film industry remains in the here and now?

    Or why image maker has once opportunity to get the color balance on a sheet of color transparency film correct, "There is No Try, Only Do." and once at that.

    ~Hint, still a stack of Sinar & Hi-tech color correction CC filters in the filter pile that was once often used to balance out lighting, film color per lot, E6 color processing and a LOT more. The Minolta color III meter is gone. That was the other mandatory tool to aid in achieving proper color balance in a exposed-processed color transparency sheet of film or frame per roll.~

    I'm FAR from being apathetic about critical color rendition, fact is knowing what was once possible and what is nearly impossible to achieve today and why it is SO difficult to achieve for an audience that is less appreciative of what a really good color print could be is simply Depressing.

    Given that, how far does one want to push that ten ton boulder up a hill?


    Bernice


    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post

    Color rendering differences with analogous design modern LF lenses from the big four? Sheer bunk.

    And if someone like Bernice implies that there's somehow apathy over such things today, them thar is fightin' words to me.

  3. #43

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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    Quote Originally Posted by Jody_S View Post
    If you're a cinematographer shooting a big-budget motion picture on film, So you spend +$100K on a set of matched Cooke or whatever lenses.
    These are rented



    Quote Originally Posted by Jody_S View Post
    But even most of today's 'cinematographers' shoot digital with their camera set on auto-white balance,
    You show the camera a color checker, this calibrates the thing. Also edition software makes a nearly perfect auto match between scenes, generating a 3D LUT conversion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0YQNm7TlNM

    _____

    Anyway, top notch movie digital cameras this 2020 cannot reach, by far, film performance in key features. This (Dec 2019) StarWars Episode IX has been shot in film, and probably next planned trilogy (2022-24-26) will be also shot on film. I guess that one day digital cameras will reach what film does...

    Average technical level in cinematography dropped a lot since digitalization. Too much work done with mouse clicks and no solution for a good capture ! Fast food cinematography Fast food rocks !

  4. #44
    (Shrek)
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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    Quote Originally Posted by Pere Casals View Post

    You show the camera a color checker, this calibrates the thing. Also edition software makes a nearly perfect auto match between scenes, generating a 3D LUT conversion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0YQNm7TlNM
    I watch a lot of independent movies, because I don't much care for the movies about the guy with the superpowers chasing after a bad guy with superpowers because he stole some shiny thing with superpowers.

    I swear a lot of them are shot on mid-range dSLRs set on full auto, using the kit lens that came with it when they bought it at Costco. When they want to get fancy, they buy a $40 Soviet Helios 44-2 biotar copy for the 'bokeh'. I still watch, because we all have to start somewhere, and I enjoy a good story told in images.

  5. #45

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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    Quote Originally Posted by Jody_S View Post
    shot on mid-range dSLRs set on full auto,
    Canon... with Magic Lantern !!!

  6. #46
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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    Quote Originally Posted by BrianShaw View Post
    Have you ever had an opportunity to compare it to a Kodak Commercial Ektar?
    I don't have a smaller Commercial Ektar for 4x5. I have one for 8x10 but the Ilex shutter doesn't work as nice as the Shannel shutter. I'd expect a smaller commercial ektar would be a great choice too if the buyer can check shutter function first. But that's getting off topic in a discusson about Japanese lenses. Not as off topic as armchair cinematography color judgement.

  7. #47

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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    Quote Originally Posted by jp View Post
    I don't have a smaller Commercial Ektar for 4x5. I have one for 8x10 but the Ilex shutter doesn't work as nice as the Shannel shutter. I'd expect a smaller commercial ektar would be a great choice too if the buyer can check shutter function first. But that's getting off topic in a discusson about Japanese lenses. Not as off topic as armchair cinematography color judgement.
    True, a bit off topic. But thanks very much for the reply. To get back on topic... as time goes on I’ve been preferring American lenses to either German or Japanese. My favorites are the Commercial Ektar and the Gundlach Radar.

  8. #48

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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    -Story Repeated-

    Back in the late 80's and mid 90's when doing color transparency film test on LF lenses was a matter of going to the local Foto store, pick up a few boxes of film from the film fridge then dropping the exposed film to The New Lab for processing with results in two hours was not difficult to do. Had the chance to try out LF lens samples from the big four (Fujinon, Schneider, Nikor, Rodenstock) and a LOT more thanks to working Foto friends and a LARGE Foto dealer.

    This is how Kodak Commercial Ektar f6.3 & Ektar f4.5 became the favored lens to use for both color and B&W. Problems with the shutter was addressed by using a Sinar shutter. This allows using lenses in shutter or barrel with good shutter accuracy, repeatable, reliable.

    ~Using vintage lenses like this is NOT recommended for those beginning LF due to possible shutter problems and all the stuff that comes with using vintage lenses~ difficult enough to deal with the LF learning curve, adding the potential problems with a shutter compounds the problems from exposure and a lot more greatly.

    Learn LF using a modern LF lens from any of the big four then once far enough up the LF learning curve, experiment and figure out what LF optics fit your needs and intended print results.


    Bernice


    Quote Originally Posted by BrianShaw View Post
    True, a bit off topic. But thanks very much for the reply. To get back on topic... as time goes on I’ve been preferring American lenses to either German or Japanese. My favorites are the Commercial Ektar and the Gundlach Radar.

  9. #49

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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    Respectfully noted. If one isn’t willing to get vintage gear overhauled and put back in spec the you’re right, life could be difficult. But with a rudimentary understanding of photographic exposure theory and a decently operating vintage shutter there shouldn’t be much trouble at all. Under some circumstances I completely understand and agree with your point... by under other circumstances or really might not matter.

    Having lived theough the 80’s also... it was a much different experience that I’m glad I was able to enjoy!

  10. #50
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: "The big two" - Please tell me about your japanese lenses!

    The FACT is that no extant color printing medium even exists which is capable of reproducing the very minor variations in hue rendering between late major brand LF lenses. Inkjet is particularly limited. There are contrast issues which vary via specific design, coating, shading. And Bernice, please tell me something I haven't already known for the past for the past 40 years. And all one has to do is a little homework to discover that companies like Fuji and Nikon themselves have some very expensive lens capability well beyond the needs of typical still photographers. Very high quality control has been routine for a long time now. They don't use beer bottle glass. If a lens looks interesting to the Antiques Roadshow, well, I guess that would be a different topic. Commercial Ektar expectations are routinely exceeded today. My own brother sold em, and had access to the pick of the litter; but every single LF lens I own is better corrected.

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