50mm Spherical Lens Test

September 12, 2020

50mm Spherical Lens Test

When selecting a lens to a production, I usually go with the "usual suspects" to play it safe or then take risks with exploring the unknown. I have been in hopes to get to do comprehensive tests and hands (or eyes) on feeling of different possibilities but the lenses rarely are all available for testing.

During COVID-19 "lockdown" almost every production was cancelled or moved to somewhere in the future. And that as well was a situation with camera rental companies reservation books.

Well... I had a lot of spare time to spend and rental companies had almost every lens set available. What an excellent excuse for some testing! I decided to share all the test material as I guess someone else have had similar hopes in mind. I have intentionally left out all the speculation of look and feel to left room for everyones own interpretation and adaptation to different needs. I am, however more than willing to discuss and share thoughts of these tests.

Lenses

Originally the idea was to have as many different lenses as I could get. But after few calls to rental companies I decided that spherical prime lenses are the ones to concentrate. I do love anamorphics but spherical primes are those I use most. I got pretty good amount of different lenses from Angel Films, Kamerafirma and Kinos Rentals. Kinos also offered me facilities, some lights and Arri Mini LF camera for testing purposes.

To test every lens from each set available would take ages, so I decided to choose only 50mm (or close that) lenses. For being not too wide and not too long I figured that lens to give best general view of the characteristics. I classified the lenses being either as "a modern" or "a vintage".

Vintage Lenses

Schneider Vintage Xenon rehoused by Whitepoint Optics

Cooke Speed Pancro S2 rehoused by TLS

Cooke S2 rehoused byVan Diemen

Zeiss High Speed MK2

Zeiss Super Speed Opton

Zeiss High Speed MK3 Planar Uncoated

Canon FD rehoused by Whitepoint Optics

Leica R rehoused by GL-Optics

Lomo rehoused by GL-Optics

Whitepoint Optics HS

Modern Lenses

Samyang Xeen FF Cine

Schneider Cine-Xenar II

Tokina Vista

Zeiss Compact Prime CP. 2

Cooke S7

Cooke S4

Cooke S4 mini

Zeiss Supreme Prime

Arri Master Prime

Arri Ultra Prime

Leica Thalia

Leica Summilux C

Leica Summicron C

Celere HS

Tests

I had three different set ups for the test.

The first is something I call "Deakins" test. Just a simple bulb on a black background. It tells exactly how lens flares, how it hazes and how it works with high contrast. These I shot full open aperture and full frame.

Second test is normal set with mixture light of daylight and tungsten. Every lens is set on 2.8 T-stop based on slowest lens speed. This was cropped to S35.

Third test is a basic focus chart shot on 2.8 T-stop and full frame. It tells us lens sharpness, coverage on full frame and barrel distortion.

The Bulb

Test video in Vimeo https://vimeo.com/440944321

The Set

Second test is normal set with mixture light of daylight and tungsten. Every lens is set on 2.8 T-stop based on slowest lens speed. This was cropped to S35.

Test video with c-log

https://vimeo.com/455733392