XL-H1 with nikkor adapter

[Marc Plomp]

I'am the proud owner of a XL-H1 with a nikkor adapter for my sigma 50-500 mm lens with Nikkormount. I try it for a few days now, but I notice a lot of quality loss when I compare it with the 20x HD lens and my Sigma lens. The sigma losses a lot of contrast.
I use a Novoflex adapter without glass in it. Has anyone experiens with the nikkoradapter without glass.

When I use my sigma on my SD panasonic 1/2 inch DVC200. the lens is perfect and even better than a fujinon broadcast SD lens.

Did anyone know if the canon XL adapter with glass is better. Is there someone who has compared the Nikkor and Canon-adapter.

Please let me know if there is some experience with it.

[Laszlo Bodo]

Sigma lenses are soft even on a Canon 300D.

[Chris Hurd]

What I've noticed with Sigma is that you get what you pay for. If it's a low-cost Sigma lens, then the optical quality just isn't there for HD. If you want to see how badly the chromatic abberation can affect some Sigma zooms at full telephoto, just check out my XL2 page at http://www.dvinfo.net/canonxl2/articles/article10.php

Sigma makes some better high-end glass, don't get me wrong, but a lot of their line just is not up to Canon or Nikkor quality, which is why it's priced lower.

[Marc Plomp]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reaction. With my SD camera I get very sharp footage with the sigma 50-500, But I think they didn't are good enough for HD.

Please Is there someone who has experiens with the Nikkor 80-400 in comparison with the Canon HD 20 x .

When the original Nikkor is better I must switch, I think

[Ron Pfister]

Marc, I think you should also consider primes - or at least high-quality zooms in the 3x-range. Those offer much higher optical performance than longer zooms (Canon 100-400mm L vs. 70-200mm L come to mind). Try to find someone that will loan you the lenses you'd consider and shoot some test footage.

HTH,

Ron

[Luis de la Cerda]

The sigma 50-500 aka bigma is a very fine piece of glass. You should check with other lenses. Maybe the adapter is the culprit. What aperture were you shooting at?

[Marc Plomp]

thanks for your reactions, Today I was testing with three Sigma-lenses (2x nikkormount and 1x canonmount with the XL adapter) All three give me the same results.

from 50 mm till 300 mm the picture is sharp but there is some missing of contrast.
from 300-500 mm the lenses missing sharpness and a lot of contrast. I can't notice any difference between the Novoflex Nikkor adapter without glass and the canon adapter with glass.

When I compare the Sigma with the original 20x HD canon lens, the last one is much sharper with more (more beautiful) contrast.

Wednesday I will test a original nikkor 80-400 mm and a sigma 120-300 (2.8). I hope I can loan a 100-400 from canon for a testfootage too.

I notice also that the lens is the best between f 5.6 and 8.0 (but this doesn't supriesed me, because that was the same on my Panasonic).

When there is someone with good experience please let me know (I use the camera for filming birds and other wildlife, so I am looking for the best zoomlens with a good telerange)

[Bill Taka]

Hi Marc,

The best wildlife telephoto zoom lens for the H1 is the Canon EF 100-400mm
f/4.5-5.6L IS and it is relatively cheap. As Chris stated, it comes down to what you can afford. You won't notice the fine detail like the HD lens until you use either the Canon or Nikkor primes which Ron has mentioned. So I'm pretty much endorsing what they have already said and experienced with my lenses. Also keep in mind, at such long focal lengths, you will see distortion especially from late morning on. Plan to shoot on overcast days with long lenses!

Originally Posted by Marc Plomp

from 300-500 mm the lenses missing sharpness and a lot of contrast. I can't notice any difference between the Novoflex Nikkor adapter without glass and the canon adapter with glass. When I compare the Sigma with the original 20x HD canon lens, the last one is much sharper with more (more beautiful) contrast.

Please keep in mind that it is difficult to compare the sharpness of the stock lens (especially HD) at a focal length of 720mm versus the Sigma at 2,160-3,600mm

[Daniel Epstein]

You might want to set up a Custom Preset for the longer lenses which compensates for the Contrast/Sharpness issues you are seeing. Different settings on the pedestal and sharpness for when you are using the adaptor. Use a grayscale chart and Waveform/Vector for reference.

[Marc Plomp]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for your reply. Today I tested a Sigma 120-300 (f2.8), but these is no difference. An other dutch cameraman gives his settings for canon EOS lenses. they are:

GAM N SHP 3 CMX N RGM 0
KNE L HDF M CGN 2 RBM 0
BLK P DHV 0 CPH 0 GRM 0
PED -1 COR 0 RGN 0 GBM-1
SET -3 NR1 0 GGN 0 BRM 0
NR2 0 BGN 0 BGM-1

With this settings the image is much brighter with more contrast. on the 500mm (with my 50-500) it isn't 100% sharp, but till 400 mm it is more dan resonable.

Tomorrow I do some tests with the NIkkor 80-400 lens. I will let you know the results

[Daniel Epstein]

Marc,
His settings don't look bad based on the numbers (I am not sure why he is adjusting the matrix but that is his option.) I see he has bumped up the Sharpness to +3, HDF to middle and Ped -1 and Set -3 and Black Strech to Press all of which add contrast and may interact,. If you looked at a chart and scopes you could see if there is anymore room to lower the ped before crushing the blacks any more. You might want to play a little with the Coring for sharpness as well. Each lense could end up with slightly different numbers if you are being exact. You could also take a look at CineGamma for Contrast