Category Archives: cinematography

cinematography, Technology, Venice

Day For Night With Infrared.

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Many of you may have already seen articles about how DP Hoyte Van Hoytema used a Panavision System 65 film camera paired with an Alexa 65 modified to be sensitive to infrared light to shoot day for night on the film “Nope”. https://www.cined.com/filming-night-scenes-thinking-outside-the-box-on-the-film-nope/

Can You Make It Work?

Well, I was recently asked if I could come up with a rig to do the same using Sony cameras for an upcoming blockbuster feature with an A-list director being shot by a top DP.  This kind of challenge is something I enjoy immensely, so how could I not accept the challenge! I had some insight into how Hoyte Van Hoytema did it but I had none of the fine details and often its the fine details that make all the difference. And this was no exception. I discovered many small things that need to be just right if this process is to work well. There are a lot of things that can trip you up badly.

So a frantic couple of weeks ensued as I tried to learn everything I could about infrared photography and video and how it could be used to improve traditional day for night shooting. I don’t claim any originality in the process, but there is a lot of information missing about how it was actually done in Nope. I have shot with infrared before, so it wasn’t all new, but I had never used it this way before.

As I did a lot of  3D work when 3D was really big around 15 years ago, including designing award winning 3D rigs, I knew how to combine two cameras on the same optical axis. Even better I still had a suitable 3D rig, so at least that part of the equation was going to be easy (or at least that’s what I thought).

Building a “Test Mule”.

The next challenge was to create a low cost “test mule” camera before even considering what adaptations might be needed for a full blown digital cinema camera. To start with this needed to be cheap, but it also needed to be full frame and capable of taking a wide range of cinema lenses and sensitive to both visible and infrared light. So, I took an old A7S that had been gathering dust for a while, dismantled it and removed the infrared filter from the sensor.

IMG_0078-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.
A7S being modified for infrared (full spectrum).
IMG_0092-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.
Panavised and Infrared sensitive A7S with Panavision Primo lens.

 

As the DP wanted to test the process with Panavision lenses the camera was fitted with a PV70 mount and then collimated in it’s now heavily modified state (collimation has some interesting challenges when working with the very different wavelength of infrared light compared to visible). Now I could start to experiment, pairing the now infrared sensitive A7S with a second camera on the 3D rig. We soon found issues with this setup, but it allowed me to take the testing to the next stage before committing to modifying a more expensive camera for infrared.

IMG_0087-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.



This testing was needed to determine exactly what range of infrared light would produce the best results. The range of infrared you use is determined by filters added to the camera to cut the visible light and only pass certain parts of the infrared spectrum. There are many options, different filters work in slightly different ways. And not only do you need to test the infrared filters but you also need to consider how different neutral density filters might behave if you need to reduce the IR and visible light. Once I narrowed down the range of filters I wanted to test the next challenge was find very high quality filters that could either be fitted inside the camera body behind the lens or that were big enough (120mm +) for the Panavision lenses that were being considered for the film.

Once I had some filters to play with (I had 15 different IR filters) the next step was to start test shooting. I cheated here a bit. For some of the initial testing I used a pair of zoom lenses as I was pairing the A7S with several different cameras for the visible spectrum. The scan areas of the different sensors in the A7S and the visible light cameras were typically very slightly different sizes. So, a zoom lens was used to provide the same field of view from both cameras so that both could be more easily optically aligned on the 3D rig. You can get away with this, but it makes more work for post production as the distortions in each lens will be different and need correcting. For the film I knew we would need identical scan sizes and matched lenses, but that could come later once we knew how much camera modification would be needed. To start with I just needed to find out what filtration would be needed.

At this point I shot around 100 different filter and exposure tests that I then started to compare in post production. When you get it all just right the sky in the infrared image becomes very dark, almost black and highlights become very “peaky”. If you use the luminance from the infrared camera with its black sky and peaky highlights and then add in a bit of colour and textural detail from the visible camera it can create a pretty convincing day for night look. Because you have a near normal visible light exposure you can fine tune the mix of infrared and visible in post production to alter the brightness and colour of the final composite shot giving you a wide range of control over the day for night look.

So – now I know how to do it, the next step was to take it from the test mule to a pair of matching cinema quality cameras and lenses for a full scale test shoot. When you have two cameras on a 3D rig the whole setup can get very heavy, very fast. Therefore the obvious camera to adapt was a Sony Venice 2 with the 8K sensor as this can be made very compact by using the Rialto unit to split the sensor from the camera body – In fact one of the very first uses of Rialto was for 3D shooting on Avatar – The Way of Water.

With a bit of help from Panavision we adapted a Panavised Venice 2, making it full spectrum and then adding a carefully picked (based on my testing) special infrared filter into the cameras optical path. This camera was configured using a Rialto housing to keep it compact and light so that when placed on the 3D rig with the visible light Venice the weight remained manageable. The lenses used were Panavision PV70 Primo’s (if you want to use these lenses for infrared – speak to me first, there are some things you need to know).

IMG_0097-2-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.
3D rig with an Infrared capable Venice Rialto and normal Venice 2 with Panavision Primo lenses.



And then with the DP in attendance, with smoke and fog machines, lights and grip we tested. For the first few shot we had scattered clouds but soon the rain came and then it poured down for the rest of the day. Probably the worst possible weather conditions for a day for night shoot.  But that’s what we had and of course for the film itself there will be no guarantee of perfect weather.

IMG_0101-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.
Testing the complete day for night IR rig.

 

IMG_0122-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.
Testing how smoke behaves in infrared. Different types of smoke and haze and different types of lights behave very differently in infrared.

 

The large scale tests gave us an opportunity to test things like how different types of smoke and haze behave in infrared and also to take a look at interactions with different types of light sources.  With the right lights you can do some very interesting things when you are capturing both visible light and infrared opening up a whole new world of possibilities for creating unique looks in camera.

From there the footage went to the production companies post production facilities to produce dailies for the DP to view before being presented to the studios post production people. Once they understood the process and were happy with it there was a screening for the director along with a number of other tests for lighting and lenses.

IMG_0114-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.

Along the way I have learnt an immense amount about this process and how it works. What filters to use and when, how to adapt different cameras, how different lenses behave in the infrared spectrum (not all lenses can be used). Collimating adapted cameras for infrared is interesting as many of the usual test rigs will produce misleading or confusing results. I’ve also identified several other ways that a dual camera setup can be used to enhance shooing night scenes, both day for night and as well as at night, especially for effects heavy projects.  

At the time of writing it looks like most of the night scenes in this film will be shot at night, they have the budget and time to do this. But the director and DP have indicated that there are some scenes where they do wish to use the process (or a variation of it), but they are still figuring out some other details that will affect that decision.

Whether it gets used for this film or not I am now developing a purpose designed rig for day for night with infrared as I believe it will become a popular way to shoot night scenes. My cameras of choice for this will be a pair of Venice cameras. But other cameras can be used provided one can be adapted for IR and both can be synchronised together. I will have a pair of Sony F55’s, one modified for IR available for lower budget productions and a kit to reversibly adapt a Sony Venice. If you need a rig for day for night and someone that knows exactly how to do it, do get in touch! 

I’m afraid I can’t show you the test results, that content is private and belongs to the production. The 3D rig is being modified as you don’t need the ability to shoot with the cameras optically separated, removing the moving parts will make the rig more stable and easier to calibrate. Plus a new type of beam splitter mirror with better infrared transmission properties is on the way. As soon as I get an opportunity to shoot a new batch of test content with the adapted rig I will share it here.

cinematography, Shooting Tips, Venice

Not all ND filters are created equal.

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Over the last 2 weeks I have been shooting some tests for a major feature film. The tests involved a special process that involves the use of  Infrared light and shooting outdoors. 

On the test day we had some fairly bright light levels to deal with. So as you would normally do we added some ND filtration to reduce the light levels. Most of the equipment for the shoot was on hire from Panavision, the main cameras being Panavised Sony Venices with PV70 mounts and Panavison lenses. But for reasons I can’t go into yet, we were unable to use the Venice internal ND filters, so we had to use external ND’s.

The first ND’s we used were circular Tiffen IRND’s that were the correct size for the PV lenses. But much to my surprise these made very little difference to the amount of IR reaching the camera. For our application they were absolutely no good. Fortunately, I had a set of Formatt Hitech IRND’s in my camera bag and when we tried these we got an equal visible and infrared cut. So, the Tiffen’s were put back in their boxes and the Formatt filters used instead.

Back at Panavision we did some further testing and found that both the Tiffen and Schnieder IRND’s that we tested had very little IR cut. But the Formatt Hitech and Panavision IRND’s that we tested cut the IR by a very similar amount to the visible light. In addition we were able to test the Venice built in ND filters and found that these too did a very good job at cutting both IR and visible light by similar amounts.

So, my recommendation is – if you are ever concerned about infrared light contaminating  your images use a Venice 2 with it’s built in ND’s, Panavision or Formatt Hitech IRND’s.

cinematography, Shooting Tips

Zebras and Log – Use a narrower window/range.

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If you are using Zebras to measure the exposure of a log gamma curve you should consider using a narrower Zebra window.

Why?

From middle grey to white (50% to 90%) in the world of standard dynamic range Rec-709 each stop occupies approximately 16% of the recording range. Typically the default zebra window or zebra range used by most cameras is 10% (often +/- 5%). So, when Zebras are set to 70% they will appear at 65% and go away at 75%. For Rec-709 and most conventional SDR gammas this window or range is around 3/4 of a stop, so less than 1 full stop and generally reasonably accurate.

But if using most Cineon based log curves, such as Sony’s S-Log3, between middle grey and white (41% to 61%) each stop only occupies around 8% of the recording range, half the range used by Rec-709. As a result if you use a default 10% zebra window, zebras will appear over a 1.2 stop range, this is excessive and introduces a large margin of exposure error. Compared to Rec-709 the zebras will only be half as precise, especially if you are trying to measure the brightness of a grey card or white card.


I recommend reducing the width of the Zebra window to 6% when using Zebras to measure skin tones within the S-Log3 image (if measuring a Rec-709 LUT there is no need to change the window). This will then give a similar range and accuracy to a 10% window in 709. If you are using zebras to measure a white card or grey card then consider bringing the zebra window down to 2%  to gain a more accurate reading of the white/grey card.

fx-cameras-zebras_4.32.1-scaled Zebras and Log - Use a narrower window/range.
FX6(left) and FX3 (right) zebras set to measure S-Log3 white card exposure.


The zebra window or range can normally adjusted in the cameras menu under the zebra settings. On the Sony Alpha’s and and FX3/FX30 you can adjust the range of the C1 and C2 custom zebras.

cinematography, Lighting

Origins of the term “High Key” in video lighting.

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You’ve probably heard the term High Key as well as Low Key a million times in the world of photography, video and film. But where exactly does the term come from and what exactly does it mean?

I had to ask myself this today when during a discussion about a future shoot it was stated that we would shoot some low key scenes. But I wasn’t really 100% certain in my own mind what that meant. Does it mean dark? Does it mean a low key light level (relative to the background), or is it the positioning of the key light?

Look, this isn’t a term that’s new to me, I’ve come across it many times, but I’ve never particularly liked the term because it always seems to mean slightly different things to different people, so you can never be sure what they really mean.

First of all what is a “key light”? Generally the key light is the main source or most important source of light in a scene. I don’t know the origins of the term or how long it’s been in common use, but it seems to be a relatively new term specific to photography and video.

When I googled “High Key Lighting” I got an equally confusing description of what it is. On Wikipedia for example, high key is described as “High-key lighting is usually quite homogeneous and free from dark shadows”. OK, so that would mean low Key to have dark shadows and not be homogeneous – ie. high contrast. And this doesn’t really seem to match what a lot of people consider low key to be. Elsewhere I came across all sorts of frankly bizarre definitions of high key such as….
High-key lighting creates a clean focus on the center of attention and then in another article it stated that it means that when you use a high-key setup, the key light is stronger than the fill lights. but then went on to say So usually, the shot has very little to no shadows present. Hmmm… how can you have a key light stronger than the fill and then also not have shadows?

Well, at least I know I am not the only one not entirely sure what these terms that get thrown around all over the place truly mean. Let’s face it if I said I was going to make my shots “contrasty” or with “deep shadows” or perhaps “flat” I am sure everyone would be on the same page.  But “Low Key” what does it mean? Is it just dark? Is it contrasty? Is it flat? 

Salome_with_the_Head_of_John_the_Baptist-Caravaggio_1610-588x500 Origins of the term "High Key" in video lighting.The above image is of the painting Salome with the Head of John the Baptist by Caravaggio(1610).

Clearly the main light, what we would normally call the key light is the brightest source of light and it must be relatively bright.  Let’s imagine for a moment that the ratio between the Key light and rest of the scene is 8:1. This ratio is often quoted as the minimum for low key and suggests a bright key relative to the background. As light and contrast is relative you could actually achieve a similar look in a bright room – provided the key is 8 times brighter than everything else and then you stop down or add ND to the camera to bring your exposure down to a reasonable level. The high contrast ratio will ensure the background would be very dark compared to the foreground. But one thing remains, the key light is bright, not dim. It is high, not low compared to the rest of the scene. So where does the term low key come from?

The term Low key has been used in music for a very long time to mean a quiet or deep tone, but I don’t think the image above could be called “quiet” and low key lighting doesn’t always mean very dark, it normally means high contrast and often includes very bright highlights.

I’d like to offer up an idea of where the term actually comes from when applied to photography and video: TV soap and episodic multi-camera lighting. Perhaps when we use the term high key today it is a discombobulation of different concepts and terms and that is why there is often confusion. 

Traditionally daytime episodic TV has always been shot quickly using multiple cameras. To make this possible the lights are normally up above the set suspended from the ceiling on some form of grid or truss system. This ensures that the lights are not seen by any camera whichever angle they are shooting from. In addition the lighting will generally not cast deep shadows so that you can shoot from multiple angles without issue.

High Key isn’t about how bright the scene is, you could be shooting a night scene. But the lights are up high, above the set and the lighting will be free of strong shadows. So High key isn’t about brightness, it’s about contrast and also the key light position, up High so you don’t end up with cameras shooting directly towards the light.

The the opposite of high key will be low key where perhaps the key light is creating a lot more contrast, where the key is brighter than the fill and not only brighter, but perhaps more commonly at a lower height so that the low key light casts shadows across the scene to create a sense of depth rather than just on the floor. Arguably this doesn’t mean the scene will be dark, just that there will be contrast between the key light and the rest of the shot.

So, in summary:
High Key = Uniform lighting of both foreground and background with minimal shadows. But could be either overall bright or overall dark, often with the key light(s), of which there may be many, placed high above the scene/set so you can shoot the scene from any angle.

Low Key: A relatively bright key light so that there is contrast between the key lighting and the rest of the scene/shot. Overall the scene may be bright or dark, but it will have high contrast and shadow areas. Possibly the key light will be at a lower level so the low level key light  will cast shadows across faces and objects to provide depth and modelling.

So many descriptions of High Key and Low Key simply refer to the overall brightness of the scene, this is not correct. A High Key scene can be dim and a low key scene MUST contain areas of great brightness in order to have the contrast associated with low key. All too often stating that the term High Key comes from the use of a bright key light over simplifies the situation to the point where it is no longer clear what is meant because to create nice looking Low Key you will will often need a bright key light.

Please discuss in the comments.

 

cinematography

The Rise Of The Small Cinema Camera.

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Screenshot-2022-10-27-at-16.33.42-556x500 The Rise Of The Small Cinema Camera.
Sony’s new 61MP A7RV camera.

Yesterday Sony launched the A7RV – that’s the A – 7 – R  – 5 mirrorless digital stills and video camera to you and me, not some kind of motorhome.

This camera is being sold as first and foremost as a photo camera, it is not a part of Sony’s Cinema Line, but as well as it’s high resolution photo capabilities thanks to it’s 61MP sensor it can also shoot very high quality video at 8K 24p as well as 4K 60p from a 1.24x crop of the full frame sensor. It has S-Log3, S-Cinetone as well as HLG and all the usual codecs we now see in Sony Alpha’s including XAVC-SI and XAVC-HS. As well as the RV there is also the A1, another camera capable of shooting great looking 8K video.

Screenshot-2022-10-27-at-16.41.19-600x220 The Rise Of The Small Cinema Camera.
Sony’s Cinema Line Cameras (not shown here is the FX30)



If we then look at the Cinema Line, we start at the bottom with the new FX30, which is an APSC/Super 35mm sized sensor camera that shoots great looking S-Log3 or S-Cinetone. It has a fully functional and very useful CineEI mode with built in LUTs and the ability to add user LUT’s. From there we move up through the FX3 and on to the more box shaped FX6 and FX9.

DSC_0691-2-300x225 The Rise Of The Small Cinema Camera.

These two cameras are clearly designed for video and they gain the benefit of a built in variable ND filter, SDI outputs and arguably better LCD screens for monitoring. But in terms of the quality of the images they record there is little difference between these and the FX30 and FX3. What is missing from the Cinema Line right now is a camera less expensive than Venice that can record at more than 4K. My guess is that this is something we will see in the next year or so.

In the mean time, I’ve been wondering if I should add an A1 or perhaps the new A7RV to my fleet of cameras to tick the “8K” box. Having shot with the 8K Venice and the A1 I can see that that for some projects starting at 8K does have benefits. I absolutely adore the images from the 8K Venice 2 sensor and the A1 looks pretty good too. I shot this 8K video in Norway.



So then you start thinking – Do I really need big cameras like the FX9 or FX6? Purely from an image quality point of view I don’t think you do. BUT from an ergonomic point of view there can be a lot of issues with small cameras. Let’s take a look…..

ND FILTER
No ND filter. The built in ND filter of the FX6/FX9 and Venice make life so, so much easier whenever you want to shoot outside. For most daylight shoots, when shooting at 800 ISO you are going to need an ND filter if you want to use a sensible shutter speed and aperture. Of course, you can add an ND filter to the front of your lenses, but it’s hard to ignore the convenience and consistency of a built in behind the lens ND filter system. It saves time, is less fiddly, makes swapping lenses easy and is one thing I miss every time I use a DSLR style camera body. BUT it isn’t a deal breaker, you can still add external ND’s.


OUTPUTS
Outputs: This is harder to resolve. The Sony DSLR style cameras all have some serious output limitations. They only have a single HDMI output and when you use the HDMI output there are limitations over where you can see the screen overlays and information about shutter speed, frame rates etc. Plus you get things like having to use the cameras touch screen to control the touch focus, but the live images only being on the external monitor (or in the EVF in the case of the A7RV, A1). The HDMI on the newer cameras is 10 bit and you could add a splitter or SDI converter if that’s what you need, but then you are hanging a load of extra boxes off the camera.

SIZE AND SPACE.
And talking of extra boxes – when the camera is so small, where do you attach any extras like a better external viewfinder, a monitor, wireless video sender etc? There simply isn’t enough real estate on these very small cameras, even the FX6 can lack sufficient space if you ave a lot of extra stuff you want to attach to the camera.


POWER.
There is the issue of powering it all. It’s not as bad as it used to be as in most cases you can use the cameras USB-C port and a USB-PD compatible power source to power the camera. But this isn’t as convenient as running everything of a single V-Lock battery. You can adapt from D-Tap to USB-C and some V-Mounts have USB-C, but it still gets messy and the USB-C connector is not very robust.

BURIED.
Finally by the time you’ve got the DSLR sized camera rigged up it becomes so buried in wires, cables and accessories that the tiny buttons become hard to get at, the built in LCD gets hard to see and it all becomes an ergonomic nightmare. While the camera remains the size and shape of a DSLR many of these issues will remain. 

So- while I have to say I am extremely tempted by the A1 or A7RV I still can’t see how one would replace my FX6 or FX9. I could perhaps see an A1 becoming an alternative to my FX3, but I would miss the Cine EI mode. The one thing that keeps the FX3 easy to use when shooting S-Log3 is that Cine EI mode.  Without it, I would want to use an external monitor with LUT’s and then that defeats the purpose of a very small camera like the FX3.

But still, despite all of the above, the A1, A7RV, A7SIII etc are extremely capable cameras. In the right hands there is no reason why they won’t produce stunning content that audiences would not be able to separate from content from full size cinema cameras. Of course, if you do side by side, like for like tests you will find differences, but show an average viewer 2 different shots, equally well executed, one from perhaps a Venice and the other from an A1, in most cases it would be extremely hard to categorically say which is which. So really it comes down to the skill of the operator, the lenses used, the choice of locations and the lighting. Whether you shoot with an A1 or and FX6, an FX30 or a Venice, the camera isn’t going to be what decides the final quality, it will be how you use it, what you shoot with it, your composition and lighting.

And that makes this a really exciting time to be a film maker, because even a low cost camera like the FX30 could be used to shoot an award winning film.

In the coming years we will no doubt see replacements for cameras like the FX6 and FX9 and I am sure that these will get 8K capable sensors. But 8K isn’t the “be all and end all”.  Resolution is just one part of the image and other factors such as dynamic range, colour response and noise are equally and possibly more important. I’ve produced 8K demo content for various people, I’ve shot with the 8K Venice and the A1 and it IS nice to have. But it will be a very, very long time before most of us need to deliver in anything greater than 4K. Heck, even though 4K cameras have been around for a decade or more there are only a handful of 4K TV channels and I often struggle to tell whether the online content I am watching is 4K or HD.  So, after thinking this through and writing this I’ve decided to hold off for now. I’ll wait for an 8K FX6 or FX9, unless some project that absolutely must have 8K comes along that would justify the cost of another cameras. My FX6 and FX9 can and do produce wonderful images and will continue to do so for a long time.

cinematography, LUTs

FREE LUT DOWNLOADS.

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CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE MAIN FREE LUT DOWNLOAD PAGE.

Over the years I have created quite a few different LUTs and made them available here for free download. But they are spread all over the website, so sometimes they can be hard to find.  

You can see all the LUT’s that I have included here on XDCAM-USER, whether for S-Log2 or for S-Log3 as well as any articles about LUTs and how to use them by following this link. https://www.xdcam-user.com/?s=luts

But I thought it would also be a big help to have a single page with all of the more popular S-Log3 LUT’s in one place along with samples of how each LUT looks. So, I have created a new fixed page for my S-Log3 LUTs which you can find via the menu bar under the Picture Settings and LUT’s category or by clicking here https://www.xdcam-user.com/picture-settings-and-luts/alisters-free-luts/

Regular readers of the site may have notice that I currently have a couple of new advertisers on board and their financial support should allow me to generate more LUTs going forwards. Any new LUTs will be added to this new LUT page so do keep it book marked in your browser and check back for updates.

cinematography, Workshops and Events

Cinegear Expo LA 2022

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cingear-bt-1024x432 Cinegear Expo LA 2022

Cinegear expo will soon be upon us, it’s June 9th to June 11th at the LA Convention Center.  I will be attending the show and helping out Bright Tangerine on booth 480. So do drop by to see their latest products, but also come by for a chat or to ask any questions you have about using Sony cameras in the field or anything else you might need some help with. Sony will also of course have a booth and they will have their own experts on hand, but it is always good to catch up with friends and readers of the blog.

cinematography, Everything Else

Camera Test Charts To Print At Home

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Screenshot-2022-05-16-at-11.11.38-1024x622 Camera Test Charts To Print At HomeWhen testing and evaluating a camera, whether that’s a digital photo camera, video camera or digital cinema camera it is always useful to have a test chart or 2 (or more). While printing a chart at home isn’t always the best way to go, comercial charts can be very expensive to buy. So below is a link to an ISO 12233 chart, a Zone Plate chart and a Siemens Star chart that you can download  for free and print at home. You will need a good printer and good quality photo paper for the best results. 

For the ISO 12233 chart I divide this into quarters, print each 1/4 and then join them back together to make a larger chart.

The zone plate and siemens charts should be printed as large as possible, but in use they would not fill the frame, perhaps only a small part of the frame depending on the resolution of the camera you are evaluating.

I have not included any color charts or grey scale charts as it will be extremely difficult to know whether the colors or shades of grey your printer produces are actually correct, making the chart invalid.

Click on the green link or the images below:

Click here for ISO 12233 Test Chart as at the top of this page.

Zone-Small-150x150 Camera Test Charts To Print At Home
Zone plate derived from Imatest Software. Click on the image to go to full size file.
Siemens-100-chart-150x150 Camera Test Charts To Print At Home
Siemens 100 radial star chart – click on the image to go to the full size file.
cinematography, Review

Tokina 16-28mm t3.0 Cine Zoom Review.

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DSC_0334-copy-600x450 Tokina 16-28mm t3.0 Cine Zoom Review.

After being lucky enough to have shot with the really rather beautiful looking Tokina Vista prime lenses with Sony’s Venice II (see here), I decided to take a look at the generation 2 Tokina 16-28mm wide angle cine zoom. This lens is available in a variety of mounts including PL, E-Mount and many others and is really very good value for the money.

The lens is parfocal, has minimal breathing and minimal chromatic aberration.  To try it out, I took a PL mount sample  to Windsor to test it out with my FX9 using a Vocas PL E-Mount to PL adapter. 

I often find it difficult to write about lenses because when a lens performs well, there is little to write about without being gushy. The 16-28mm from Tokina does what it should, and it does it well. I didn’t find any particular flaws in the images from the lens and overall, they look really good. At 16mm on a full frame camera the lens gives a very wide field of view with very minimal distortion. It remains sharp into the corners and there is no significant vignetting.

It is well constructed and the 300 (ish) degree of travel focus ring has a very nice weight and feel to it. The zoom ring is a bit heavier but this prevents the zoom moving when you don’t want it to.

A few people have commented about why use a larger bulkier lens like the Tokina over a more compact and lighter photo lens. I think a lot depends on the type of project you are working on. Being realistic, if you are running around on your own, trying to quickly grab footage on a lower budget production then a photo lens with auto focus might be the better option. But when you need maximum control over focus a proper mechanical long travel focus ring is what you want. If you want to zoom during the shot, the lens needs to be parfocal. So for a more controlled shoot, perhaps for drama or other scripted productions a true cine lens like this is often preferable.  so, it’s a case of picking the right lens for the type of production you are shooting. The Tokina 16-28mm t3.0 cine zoom is absolutely worth looking at for any movie style wide angle applications. 

See the video below for some example footage and a closer look at the lens.

 

cinematography, lenses, Review, Venice

A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses

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I was recently given the opportunity shoot some test footage with a Sony Venice II.  A camera like Venice needs good glass, so I put out some feelers to see what lenses I could get for the shoot. I was offered the use of a set of the Tokina Vista primes, lenses I have been wanting to try for some time, so this was the perfect opportunity to try these interesting lenses on Sony’s newest cinema camera.

DSC_0298-600x450 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
Shooting at Tower Bridge London with the Tokina Vista 135mm and Venice 2



Lets cut straight to the point: I love these lenses and I loved using them with the Venice 2.

I guess I had some concerns at first over choosing the Tokina Vista’s. Lets face it, Tokina are not the first brand that springs into most peoples minds when you are thinking about high quality PL cinema lenses. But I had been hearing nothing other than good things about them and when I had played with them at a couple of different trade shows, they did always look nice.

There are currently 8 lenses in the Vista range starting at the very wide 18mm and going up to 135mm. All are t1.5, are beautifully constructed with all metal bodies. The focus and aperture rings (with approx 300 degrees of travel) are in the same position on every lens in the set, so lens swaps are easy. The 9 bladed iris works well to give pleasing smooth bokeh.

DSC_0299-600x450 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
The Tokina Vista 135mm t1.5 on a Venice 2

 

Many manufacturers claim that their lenses have minimal breathing and this is definitely true of the Tokina Vista. Focussing from near to far resulted in only a very small change of the image size on all the lenses I tried. The breathing is truly minimal.

As I was shooting using the Venice 2’s 8.2K 17:9 mode this was a good test of the lenses resolution and sharpness. In the video at the bottom of the page you will see a couple of shots where I added a slow post production zoom in to the image, reaching 2x magnification. If you watch the video in 4K you won’t see any appreciable drop in image quality during the zoom in where I am in effect expanding the original 8.2K pixel image by 200%. This to me is a clear indication that these lenses are plenty good enough for 8K capture.

wide-shot-2_1.2.4 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
Wide shot, taken at 8.2K with the 18mm Tokina Vista.
mid-shot-2a_1.2.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
A crop from the frame above. Even in 4K this image looks great.

 

But, at the same time I also felt that the lenses were not excessively sharp. There is a “roundness” to the images from these lenses that I really like. The Vista’s are also very slightly warm looking and this combined with the roundness of the image and very slight propensity to flare a little gives them a very appealing look. I guess I could describe it as a vintage look, but that might make them sound old fashioned. These are not old fashioned lenses, these are clearly modern, high performance lenses. But the images they deliver has a beautiful, almost old school look that I found to be very appealing.

wide-shot-1_1.6.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
The Tokina Vistas and Venice 2 deliver great colours and skin tones.
Mid-shot1_1.6.3 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
This is a crop from the above image. When you have 8.2K of pixels and a high resolution lens its very easy to reframe in post production, even when delivering in 4K.



Faces and skin tones looked really nice, of course this is a combination of both a great camera and great lenses, but the colour reproduction from the combination of Venice 2 and the Tokina Vistas was very pleasing.

night-singer_1.30.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
At t1.5 the Tokina Vista’s are great for low light and Venice at 3200 ISO looks great.


I did have a play with most of the lenses in the set and they all appeared to perform similarly. But for the video shoot in London I focussed on the 18mm, 40mm and 135mm lenses. 

The 18mm is very wide. It is not truly rectilinear, there is some barrel distortion, but nothing too severe. You do have to remember that this is a t1.5 lens and it’s not easy to produce very fast, very wide lenses for full frame. The 46.7mm image circle of all the Vista lenses means that they comfortably cover the full frame Venice sensor and even at 18mm there is barely any light fall off or vignetting at the edges of the frame.

One of the other things that really impressed me with all the Vista’s was the lack of chromatic aberration. Even when shooting very high contrast, backlit edges or specular reflections it was hard to spot any chromatic aberration. There is not a single shot amongst all of the material that I shot where I noticed anything nasty.

Trafalgar-day_1.27.1 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
Trafalgar Square, shot with the 18mm Vista. You can see that there is some barrel distortion, but it’s pretty good for an 18mm t1.5 lens.

 

The only negative I can really find about the 18mm is the size and bulk. This is a big and heavy lens. All the Vista have the same external diameter of 114mm. The 18mm is no different in that regard. But the 18mm is one of the longest lenses in the set, it’s 180mm from front to back. And it weighs almost 2.7Kg. A big part of the weight probably comes from the bulbous front element of the lens – which you will be glad to know does not protrude beyond the end of the lens housing, giving it some protection from accidental damage.

When you have an 8K camera, wide angle lenses can be used to capture a very wide frame that can then be cropped into to re-frame in post, so having that maximum t1.5 aperture which helps maintain a shallow DoF is important. 

lanterns1_1.8.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
London’s China Town, shot with the 40mm Tokina Vista



The 40mm lens is also really nice. 40mm is an interesting focal length, a shade longer than 35mm and wider than 50mm. I found it to be a very nice focal length for a lot of different types of shots with the Venice Full Frame sensor.  At 2.24kg it is a much lighter lens than the 18mm and a fair bit shorter at 160mm. Once again extremely small amount of breathing and near total lack of chromatic aberrations makes this a lovely lens to shoot with. When shooting high contrast point light sources such as street lights at night there is a bit of circular flare around the light source, but I find this to be quite pleasing. Strong light sources just out of frame can lead to some minor veiling flare on all the lenses in the set, but this is no worse than seen with most other similar quality lenses and the lens coatings give the flare a slight warmth that again, I find very appealing.

tower-bridge_1.3.2 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses

The 135mm lens doesn’t disappoint either, shooting at 135mm and t1.5 delivers a very narrow depth of field.  As expected this is one of the larger lenses in the set. It’s 187mm long so a bit shorter than the 18mm but it is heavier with the PL mount version coming in very close to 3kg. There isn’t much more I can say about this lens that I haven’t covered with the other lenses, extremely minimal breathing, near zero chromatic aberration etc all make for a great image. The consistent look across all the lenses means this too shares that well rounded not too clinical and very slight warmth that makes these all of these lenses very appealing.

night-busses_1.31.1 A Review of the Tokina Vista Prime Lenses
Tokina Vista 40mm on Venice 2 at 3200 ISO. I really like the way the Vistas flare.



The Tokina Vista’s are not re-housed photo lenses, they were designed specifically for digital cinematography. They are available in a range of mounts including PL, Canon EF, MFT, LPL and Sony E. I had heard good things about them from other users before I tried them and now I have had a chance to shoot with them I have to say that they are lenses that I will want to use again. Perhaps in particular when the project would benefit from a slight vintage or romantic look without being soft and without giving up any resolution. For the money they are great looking lenses and would recommend anyone that hasn’t tried them to give them a go.