EF Lens adapter / EF Lenses / EOS Lens

Chris Hurd · May 17th, 2003, 07:17 AM

Bob, please let us all know how that works out for you. If you get some good still frames of those eagles, please send a few of them to me along with some stills of the camera and lens set-up, as I would love to add them to the Images Gallery on the XL1 Watchdog site. Thanks,

Bob Deming · May 17th, 2003, 08:32 AM

Okay,

But but for now, just for kicks this is of a Coopers Hawk taken through a double glass super UV Window and the screen. Standard 16X IS on XL-1. Subject in tree was about 6 meters fr the lens.

http://robertdeming.mystarband.net/

Couldn't get a good focus due to the conditions. But I got close.

I can't remember if this was a still or shot in frame mode.

I forgot I had this site that starband provides.

I also have some shots of the eagles I'll lset you look at. They were shot though a Celestron F8 telescope. I made my own mount for the XL-1 to the Celestron mount. I'll take a shot of the mounting adapter.

Oh, ya. BH sent the wrong lens. They sent the "import" or "grey market" lens instead of the USA. So I will have the lens next week.

I will get some shots with the XL-1S with the 16XMS Lens and then do a few shots with the 350mm.

Jeff Donald · May 18th, 2003, 03:57 PM

I don't know how well this will work, but for those interested in shallow DOF, the following will be your best shot at achieving it.

I will first preface this by saying I have not attempted this. Three pieces of equipment are need, in addition to an XL1. For this experiment you'll need the Canon EF XL adapter to adapt Canon EOS EF lenses, Canon 24mmEOS T/S lens and a wide angle convertor.

A lens with Tilt allows the user to control DOF. Normally the tilt function is used to maximize the DOF in 35mm work. However, negative tilt could be used to achieve much shallower DOF than normally obtained with 1/3 inch video chips.

The EF XL adapter would allow the 24mm T/S lens to be attached to the XL1. A .6X wide angle adapter would make the effective focal length about 100mm (slight telephoto on 35mm). By my estimation, very shallow DOF would be able to be obtained with reasonable working distances from the subject.

Rob Lohman · May 20th, 2003, 03:31 PM

Wouldn't you introduce distortions in the picture with all that
glass etc.?

Jeff Donald · May 20th, 2003, 04:38 PM

I would say it's possible Rob. However, the EF 24mmT/S is an "L" series lens. I rented the lens when I lived in Cincinnati and for 35mm film was very sharp. So, the question is would the Century WA adapter introduce excessive aberrations or vignetting into the optical system. If the WA adapter can't be used, the lens would end up around 170mm. A little long but I've used longer lenses for portraits. However, I don't have the 24 T/S to test and there are none for rent in Tampa/St. Pete.

Joseph George · May 20th, 2003, 11:14 PM

If you have a 50 mm, T2 (close to F2) lens that you're using with 1/3" chip, it does not matter if it is a lens made for that format, or for 35 mm still format, the DOF will be identical, as seen by the chip. So on the Canon camcorder this 50 mm lens will be extreme telephoto and will have the same DOF as a normal focal length on 35 mm still camera. There is no way around it.

Use 21 mm lens on a 35 mm camera -- it is extreme wide angle on that format -- and everything will be pretty much in focus. Set your Canon lens to 21 mm, which will be telephoto, and you'll get the same DOF -- practically everything will be in focus.

The Mini 35 adaptor changes the target size and therefore you need a lot longer lens for the same angle of view as with the small CCD size. That's how they achieve shallow DOF.

The Canon shift lens changes it's focal length for different areas of the picture. If you shoot building from the ground, the focal length (and magnification) will be higher at the top of the picture, which will change the perspective.

Jeff Donald · May 21st, 2003, 05:53 AM

Joseph, without getting into a discussion of DOF, you don't understand how tilt or shift works. Tilt changes the areas of the picture that will be included in the DOF. Your assumptions on DOF are only partially correct. If you have additional thoughts or comments on DOF, please post them in this thread after taking the time to read it.

The focal length of a shift lens does not change, nor does the perspective change. A shift lens has a greater angle of view than a non shift lens. This greater coverage allows the photographer to control the perspective, but it does not change. Perspective changes when the camera (film or chip) is moved, not the lens.

Joseph George · May 21st, 2003, 01:25 PM

Jeff, I agree with you. I just want to say that there are 3 facors that affect DOF:

frame size (film, CCD)

angle of view

lens F-stop.

If you have the same angle of view and lens F-stop, then changing the target area is the only solution. Here comes the mini 35 with an ingeneous solution.

Jeff Donald · May 21st, 2003, 02:20 PM

Yes, the mini 35 is a great way to get DOF similar to 35mm film. However, it costs upwards of $8,000 and no lenses. The point of this thread was a more economical way to achieve a similar effect (shallower DOF). The 24mm T/S lens, new, is around $1,100, the EF XL adapter, is around $450, and the Century WA adapter is around $600. Total investment is less than a quarter of a mini 35 with lenses.

The 24mm is limiting, but for some XL1 users, it may be worth the experiment. I already have the EF XL adapter and Century WA adapter. In larger, metropolitan areas the lens rents fairly inexpensively (I rented it for $20 a day). The mini 35 rents for hundreds a day and no lenses. If a project required just a few shots with shallower DOF, this might be a viable alternative for some XL1 shooters.

Rob Lohman · May 21st, 2003, 04:40 PM

Please let us know, Jeff, if you ever manage to test this thing
out!

Andrew Petrie · May 23rd, 2003, 08:17 AM

I'm just really interested to know what picture quality improvements can be made using an EOS lens, instead of a made-for-XL1 lens (16x, 3x, etc).

Can anyone direct me to some footage captured using such a hookup?

I noticed Bob Denning's post in a nother thread, and he pointed to the PappasSystem article: http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/articles/article21.htm

This is what you're attempting to do, yes?

Jeff Donald · May 23rd, 2003, 03:26 PM

Hi Andrew,

The Pappas System goes about putting EOS lenses on an XL1 series camera for some of the same reasons. But the effects would be accomplished differently.

One of the reasons to use Canon EOS EF lenses is they are sharper (resolve more paired lines) than the standard XL lenses. They only use the center portion of the lens and the center offers the most optical correction for aberrations. The center is also the sharpest part of the lens.

However, beyond sharpness and optical correction, the Tilt/Shift (T/S) lenses offer the ability to control DOF through the tilt mechanism. Large format view cameras have the ability to tilt, swing, shift etc. Canon's lenses don't offer all the controls or as great a degree of movement as view cameras. But to control DOF, only tilt (swing) would be required.

The basics of how Tilt works is out lined in the Scheimpflug Principal. You can read about it and see examples on the Zork site. The page details how to use the Scheimpflug Principal to increase DOF (something desirable in large format photography). However, if you go against the principal, you can make DOF decrease dramatically. Of course it's the dramatic reduction that would be of interest to video users.

Charles Papert · May 23rd, 2003, 03:53 PM

Jeff:

I used swing and shift lens setups when they were in vogue for commercials and music videos a few years back. I'm sure you are familiar with the image characteristics but I find the images on the Zork site a bit misleading for those who haven't used the technology before--they seem to present the notion that you can decrease the overall depth of field of the image as opposed to creating selective focus. The example with the teeth could easily get folks excited but one should be aware that with this image, the effect being shown would look similar if it was shot with shallow focus OR a swing/shift effect. Other situations would net different results.

For example--if you had a subject in the middle of the frame, one could, with a swing/shift setup, soften the background to one side of the subject, but not both. In fact, if there was a foreground element on the other side, it would come into focus along with the subject! This is not the same, of course, as being able to throw the entire background out of focus.

It would be a fun setup to play around with (myself, I'd be perfectly happy not to dick around with swing/shift ever again, I found it fiddly!) but I think if someone thought they would be able to achieve classic shallow depth of field with this, they'd probably be disappointed.

Jeff Donald · May 23rd, 2003, 04:22 PM

Agreed, the tooth images weren't what I was referring to. I should have been more specific in my post, thanks for the correction. I was referring to the images of the tiles at the bottom of the page (below the teeth). The DOF would swing and you would have to be careful about blocking your scenes etc., as you point out. But on a small chip camera the degree of tilt and shift would be much greater than 35mm, because of the smaller target.

I think, short of a mini 35, this would present the only way to really control DOF with the camera. It certainly isn't ideal by any stretch of imagination, though.

Joseph George · May 23rd, 2003, 08:23 PM

Jeff, Of course the EOS lens resolution is a lot higher, but the frame size is about 6x less on the camcorder, if I'm correct. So unless the EOS lenses can resolve more than 6x more lines in the center, you may not actually see any sharpness improvement. Plus the XL1 lenses may have higher resolution that the format requires. I think the horizontal on the chip is only about 6 mm and the format has 530 line resolution. Let's say that the XL1 lenses resolve at least 100 lines per mimeter. IMHO the EOS lenses would have problem resolving this much, unless I'm missing something, like use of .5 extender between the lens and the camera or something.

May 17th, 2003, 07:17 AM	#181
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	Bob, please let us all know how that works out for you. If you get some good still frames of those eagles, please send a few of them to me along with some stills of the camera and lens set-up, as I would love to add them to the Images Gallery on the XL1 Watchdog site. Thanks, __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

May 17th, 2003, 08:32 AM	#182
Bob Deming Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Tucson, Arizona USA Posts: 93	Should be good shots Okay, But but for now, just for kicks this is of a Coopers Hawk taken through a double glass super UV Window and the screen. Standard 16X IS on XL-1. Subject in tree was about 6 meters fr the lens. http://robertdeming.mystarband.net/ Couldn't get a good focus due to the conditions. But I got close. I can't remember if this was a still or shot in frame mode. I forgot I had this site that starband provides. I also have some shots of the eagles I'll lset you look at. They were shot though a Celestron F8 telescope. I made my own mount for the XL-1 to the Celestron mount. I'll take a shot of the mounting adapter. Oh, ya. BH sent the wrong lens. They sent the "import" or "grey market" lens instead of the USA. So I will have the lens next week. I will get some shots with the XL-1S with the 16XMS Lens and then do a few shots with the 350mm. __________________ Bob Deming evc@starband.net

May 18th, 2003, 03:57 PM	#183
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	Shallow DOF with XL1, EF EOS Adapter and T/S lenses I don't know how well this will work, but for those interested in shallow DOF, the following will be your best shot at achieving it. I will first preface this by saying I have not attempted this. Three pieces of equipment are need, in addition to an XL1. For this experiment you'll need the Canon EF XL adapter to adapt Canon EOS EF lenses, Canon 24mmEOS T/S lens and a wide angle convertor. A lens with Tilt allows the user to control DOF. Normally the tilt function is used to maximize the DOF in 35mm work. However, negative tilt could be used to achieve much shallower DOF than normally obtained with 1/3 inch video chips. The EF XL adapter would allow the 24mm T/S lens to be attached to the XL1. A .6X wide angle adapter would make the effective focal length about 100mm (slight telephoto on 35mm). By my estimation, very shallow DOF would be able to be obtained with reasonable working distances from the subject. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 20th, 2003, 03:31 PM	#184
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Wouldn't you introduce distortions in the picture with all that glass etc.? __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 20th, 2003, 04:38 PM	#185
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	I would say it's possible Rob. However, the EF 24mmT/S is an "L" series lens. I rented the lens when I lived in Cincinnati and for 35mm film was very sharp. So, the question is would the Century WA adapter introduce excessive aberrations or vignetting into the optical system. If the WA adapter can't be used, the lens would end up around 170mm. A little long but I've used longer lenses for portraits. However, I don't have the 24 T/S to test and there are none for rent in Tampa/St. Pete. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 20th, 2003, 11:14 PM	#186
Joseph George Permanently Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 265	If you have a 50 mm, T2 (close to F2) lens that you're using with 1/3" chip, it does not matter if it is a lens made for that format, or for 35 mm still format, the DOF will be identical, as seen by the chip. So on the Canon camcorder this 50 mm lens will be extreme telephoto and will have the same DOF as a normal focal length on 35 mm still camera. There is no way around it. Use 21 mm lens on a 35 mm camera -- it is extreme wide angle on that format -- and everything will be pretty much in focus. Set your Canon lens to 21 mm, which will be telephoto, and you'll get the same DOF -- practically everything will be in focus. The Mini 35 adaptor changes the target size and therefore you need a lot longer lens for the same angle of view as with the small CCD size. That's how they achieve shallow DOF. The Canon shift lens changes it's focal length for different areas of the picture. If you shoot building from the ground, the focal length (and magnification) will be higher at the top of the picture, which will change the perspective.

May 21st, 2003, 05:53 AM	#187
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	Joseph, without getting into a discussion of DOF, you don't understand how tilt or shift works. Tilt changes the areas of the picture that will be included in the DOF. Your assumptions on DOF are only partially correct. If you have additional thoughts or comments on DOF, please post them in this thread after taking the time to read it. The focal length of a shift lens does not change, nor does the perspective change. A shift lens has a greater angle of view than a non shift lens. This greater coverage allows the photographer to control the perspective, but it does not change. Perspective changes when the camera (film or chip) is moved, not the lens. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 21st, 2003, 01:25 PM	#188
Joseph George Permanently Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 265	Jeff, I agree with you. I just want to say that there are 3 facors that affect DOF: frame size (film, CCD) angle of view lens F-stop. If you have the same angle of view and lens F-stop, then changing the target area is the only solution. Here comes the mini 35 with an ingeneous solution.

May 21st, 2003, 02:20 PM	#189
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	Yes, the mini 35 is a great way to get DOF similar to 35mm film. However, it costs upwards of $8,000 and no lenses. The point of this thread was a more economical way to achieve a similar effect (shallower DOF). The 24mm T/S lens, new, is around $1,100, the EF XL adapter, is around $450, and the Century WA adapter is around $600. Total investment is less than a quarter of a mini 35 with lenses. The 24mm is limiting, but for some XL1 users, it may be worth the experiment. I already have the EF XL adapter and Century WA adapter. In larger, metropolitan areas the lens rents fairly inexpensively (I rented it for $20 a day). The mini 35 rents for hundreds a day and no lenses. If a project required just a few shots with shallower DOF, this might be a viable alternative for some XL1 shooters. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 21st, 2003, 04:40 PM	#190
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Please let us know, Jeff, if you ever manage to test this thing out! __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 23rd, 2003, 08:17 AM	#191
Andrew Petrie Major Player Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: London, Ontario, Canada Posts: 484	I'm just really interested to know what picture quality improvements can be made using an EOS lens, instead of a made-for-XL1 lens (16x, 3x, etc). Can anyone direct me to some footage captured using such a hookup? I noticed Bob Denning's post in a nother thread, and he pointed to the PappasSystem article: http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/articles/article21.htm This is what you're attempting to do, yes? __________________ Andrew \| Canon XL1s, ME66, Vinten Vision 3, GlideCam V16 (for sale!)

May 23rd, 2003, 03:26 PM	#192
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	Hi Andrew, The Pappas System goes about putting EOS lenses on an XL1 series camera for some of the same reasons. But the effects would be accomplished differently. One of the reasons to use Canon EOS EF lenses is they are sharper (resolve more paired lines) than the standard XL lenses. They only use the center portion of the lens and the center offers the most optical correction for aberrations. The center is also the sharpest part of the lens. However, beyond sharpness and optical correction, the Tilt/Shift (T/S) lenses offer the ability to control DOF through the tilt mechanism. Large format view cameras have the ability to tilt, swing, shift etc. Canon's lenses don't offer all the controls or as great a degree of movement as view cameras. But to control DOF, only tilt (swing) would be required. The basics of how Tilt works is out lined in the Scheimpflug Principal. You can read about it and see examples on the Zork site. The page details how to use the Scheimpflug Principal to increase DOF (something desirable in large format photography). However, if you go against the principal, you can make DOF decrease dramatically. Of course it's the dramatic reduction that would be of interest to video users. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 23rd, 2003, 03:53 PM	#193
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	Jeff: I used swing and shift lens setups when they were in vogue for commercials and music videos a few years back. I'm sure you are familiar with the image characteristics but I find the images on the Zork site a bit misleading for those who haven't used the technology before--they seem to present the notion that you can decrease the overall depth of field of the image as opposed to creating selective focus. The example with the teeth could easily get folks excited but one should be aware that with this image, the effect being shown would look similar if it was shot with shallow focus OR a swing/shift effect. Other situations would net different results. For example--if you had a subject in the middle of the frame, one could, with a swing/shift setup, soften the background to one side of the subject, but not both. In fact, if there was a foreground element on the other side, it would come into focus along with the subject! This is not the same, of course, as being able to throw the entire background out of focus. It would be a fun setup to play around with (myself, I'd be perfectly happy not to dick around with swing/shift ever again, I found it fiddly!) but I think if someone thought they would be able to achieve classic shallow depth of field with this, they'd probably be disappointed. __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

May 23rd, 2003, 04:22 PM	#194
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	Agreed, the tooth images weren't what I was referring to. I should have been more specific in my post, thanks for the correction. I was referring to the images of the tiles at the bottom of the page (below the teeth). The DOF would swing and you would have to be careful about blocking your scenes etc., as you point out. But on a small chip camera the degree of tilt and shift would be much greater than 35mm, because of the smaller target. I think, short of a mini 35, this would present the only way to really control DOF with the camera. It certainly isn't ideal by any stretch of imagination, though. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 23rd, 2003, 08:23 PM	#195
Joseph George Permanently Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 265	Jeff, Of course the EOS lens resolution is a lot higher, but the frame size is about 6x less on the camcorder, if I'm correct. So unless the EOS lenses can resolve more than 6x more lines in the center, you may not actually see any sharpness improvement. Plus the XL1 lenses may have higher resolution that the format requires. I think the horizontal on the chip is only about 6 mm and the format has 530 line resolution. Let's say that the XL1 lenses resolve at least 100 lines per mimeter. IMHO the EOS lenses would have problem resolving this much, unless I'm missing something, like use of .5 extender between the lens and the camera or something.