Shot 4 days with the 13x3.5 Wide Lens - and will never go back!

[Tim Dashwood]

Hi Guys & Gals,

I'm finally back from my shoot. It has taken a few days for me to catch my breath and spend a few minutes back at dvinfo. I see there are probably about a hundred posts I need to catch up on.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about the wide lens. This shoot was the first "real world" test of the 13x3.5 for me, and it performed amazingly well. We had three cameras for the duration of the shoot: one with the stock 16x5.5, one with an older Fuji 17x5, and the main camera with the 13x3.5. I had tested all three lenses prior to the shoot and had determined the strengths of each. For the most part I used the camera with stock lens for medium focal length work (no more than 45mm,) the 17x5 for long lens stuff (up to 80mm) and of course the 13x3.5 for most everything else. I attempted to maintain F4 to F2.8, but would sometimes have to open to F2 for overcranked 60P at 1/100th shutter.

We were shooting for two days in a hotel suite and I found myself using 3.5mm and 4mm focal lengths regularly. I'm not sure I could have made this movie in real locations without that lens. The wide adapter on the stock lens just doesn't cut it.
Also, there were no worries about CA, even though it is still present. I was watching for it constantly on the monitor. I'm starting to think that some amount of CA is caused by the prism used on the 1/3" CCDs. If there was a way to test these lenses on a single chip camera, it might prove my theory. (BTW, I tested the XLH1 prior to the shoot as well, and it has a touch of CA, even though flourite is used, and back-focus issues on the wide end. In 24F mode, it did not perform very well for resolution - I think the best I got was just under 600 lines vertical!)

Anyway, I'll be putting together a trailer soon, and will post the link here when it is ready.

Tim

[Stephen L. Noe]

Just when I was writing a treatment named "LOST" featuring T.Dashwood you come back with excitement over the 13x lens!


PS. Can't wait to see content ;-)

[Steven Thomas]

Thanks Tim!

What is the best deal you've seen on the 13x3.5 lens?
I could only imagine how well that footage must look.

Also, has anyone heard more on the upcoming NAB lens offerings?

[Council Bradshaw]

I had a feeling this lens was going to add so much more to this already amazing camera.. I can't wait to see the trailer. and when you think about it, in terms of glass(lens) its reasonably priced. I mean have you ever priced a wide lens for a 2/3 chip camera. Now that'll knock your teeth in the dirt.
Consider the 13x on my short list.

[David Chapman]

I guess I know what I will be asking Santa for Christmas. Well... maybe the newer version of the w/a since December in the industry is like 3 years of new ideas down the road. O well.

[Chris Basmas]

Well, i feel strongly for this lens. But with just one body its use is limited. It will outlast the HD100 by many years. I'm not sure the 1/3" mount is as secure for the future as 2/3" or even 1/2" is. When i see JVC or any MFC produce an updated body i'm ready to invest.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

BTW, I tested the XLH1 prior to the shoot as well, and it has a touch of CA, even though flourite is used, and back-focus issues on the wide end. In 24F mode, it did not perform very well for resolution - I think the best I got was just under 600 lines vertical!

Welcome back!

While Static tests show about 785 TVL for the H1, in real-world shooting, Dynamic tests indicate one will only capture about 540 TVL. So your 600 TVL estimate is right on the mark.

Curious what the H1's horizontal resolution looked like to you?

[Panos Bournias]

Hi Tim, I myself think that the CA is at the prism.
3 days ago I went shooting on the mountains for the Balinese new year; very spectacular. During the afternoon light everything looked perfect. I got some amazing footage, vibrant colors, a lot of definition with the detail at Min..
When the light went down I switched in higher Gamma settings etc. and the CA that I got at the end was terrible. I saw it later at the TV Logic Monitor.
A thick blue line, very visible, around white shirts, heads against the sky, etc.

From my experience with the lense, it is really superior to the 16X, sharper with nicer colors and better overall feeling.
It is as wide as someone would need- ~28mm (anal. 35mm) for narrative work, also as much tele as it should be, ~300 (anal. 35mm), for my taste.

Who can advise about this phenomenon of CA. It is so far more obvious with the HD100 than with the other HDV cameras.
Maybe it becomes milder with the "A" update?

[John Mitchell]

Look forward to seeing the footage Tim.

The 13x lens has not been well examined yet, and we're lucky that such an experienced HD100 user has been working with it for an extended period of time.

[Tip McPartland]

Having done a few shoots now with the wide lens, I can say with some certainty that in the real world, without micro-critical examination, it is wonderful and CA is not an issue on the in-focus image.

I agree with Panos that it may be caused by the prism. Although no doubt just about every optical system potentially refracts various wavelengths in undesirable ways, a prism is obviously designed to separate colors.

I would think the way to diagnose the source of CA is to see where the fringing occurs and what color it is. The same color fringing toward both edges of the image would indicate the radial symmetry of a lens problem. I would think that if caused by the prism, the magenta would be on one side (right or left) across the whole image and same with the green but of course on the other side.

In a three chip camera, as we all know, the prism's job is to divide red, blue and green into three distinct colors and direct them to their respective CCDs (or CMOS chips!). But the prism creates a continuous spectrum, with all colors blending together in what amounts to one big multi-color gradient.

Grabbing just the right slices of that "rainbow" and then evenly applying them when they can't possibly BE totally even to get three pure monocolor images has to be technically challenging, the more so the smaller and higher rez the CCD. It would be amazing, and perhaps impossible, for such a system NOT to yield some CA.

As for the JVC camera having more CA than other brands, that perception may be simply because we're using the JVC and encountering it's foibles and are not having enough time with other brands to see their flaws.

Read the Canon HDV forum here on DVinfo and see how bad they're freaking out about CA too. It would have to be potentially more problematic on that camera due to the much greater pixel count -- and who knows what strange things happen when you combine the inevitable level of CA, and by many reports it is a large amount, with horizontal pixel shift!

Tip

[Daniel Patton]

The only time I have found CA to be an issue with the HD100 is when shooting Wide Open or very close to it, and even then it's not consistant except in lower light situations. Otherwise I found it to be no worse than the Panasonic or the Canon, IMO. I prefer the range of the JVC, far better latitude. But, I'll add that I was very impressed with the Panasonics color reproduction (it was nearly perfect right out of the box), with no "tweaking" of settings. I also like the WYSIWYG in regards to the color on the flipout and VF on the Panasonic. It's all a series of trade-offs regardless. And I'm still shooting 95% JVC, but it will not be the end all to our camera arsenal. Just as a hammer does a crappy job at cutting down trees, I beleive in using the right tool for the job at hand.

Hey Tim, you want to trade that 13x for a week with one of our toys? We are a regular Toys "R" Us, I would love to run it through it's paces. =)