OptiTek
02-19-2011, 02:47 PM
I thought I share here(first!!!!:dita:)
Yesterday I accidentally had an opportunity to do a fairly throughout test of the 35mm prime.
Since the facility has pretty much all test equipment including MTF setup by Zeiss and a test projector I can call it a comprehensive technical evaluation.
We also had a 25mm Master prime for sanity check.:001_smile:
Let's get to it:
It's big, Master Prime big. But light-about 3+ lbs(1,5 kg)- from what it felt like in my hand- did not put it on a scale. Nice surprise really since my biggest issue with the majority of late lens designs is their weight. After a closer look it turns out the barrels are at least partially plastic- hence the low weight.
Phew- what a relief- I thought they put some levitation electronics in it:wink:
Not surprisingly the size of the lens pretty much is not an issue anymore with such a low weight.
This is not your mother's plastic lens barrel either- it feels tough and it's hard to tell from painted metal- some kind of advanced polycarbonate or hardened ABS I think.
Focus action and iris control felt smooth and fairly light- good for focus motors.
Only about 180 degrees focus rotation- could be better. The interesting thing about it is that it looks like they implemented non linear cam design- what this means in English is that the focus marks are properly spaced and seem focus puller friendly-they are not cramped together towards infinity. Very cool...
We put it on the Zeiss MTF machine and surprise!!!-very high numbers in center (we did not go off axis- not enough time and thought we'll see easily enough in projection) easily comparable to the Master prime. The objective in the Zeiss(MTF machine) only allowed for up to 40lp testing- I would love to see a shootout on the MTF at 100lp for both Sony and MP- that would be interesting....
In plain English it means that the lens resolves very clean image- not much of aberrations present even wide open...
Of course the MP tested at T1.3 and the Sony at T2 but still..
In projection another surprise( actually not so much after the MTF test)
Very clean and flat image easily resolving the 200lp target across the field- around 36mm image circle BTW- good for full sensor Epic coverage.
The performance seems to peak at T2.8 and stay there for a while.
Breathing- I haven't noticed much but I also did not pay much attention to it.
Bokeh- looks like at least a 7or 8 blade iris so that should give you an idea.
Since the lens is so crisp I think that the focus falloff will be pretty dramatic- a good thing IMO(?)
There is is a smallish issue with the PL mount(looks like LDS contacts were installed on this one) we concluded that one of the clearance diameters is too big and that makes lens caps hard to remove and makes the lens either hard or even impossible to mount on non F3 PL cameras- but that is a slight mechanical error easy to fix -CAN YOU HEAR IT SONY? I know you are here and for your sake I hope you are listening.....:wink:
That's all folks- I hope you enjoyed the reading.....
Yesterday I accidentally had an opportunity to do a fairly throughout test of the 35mm prime.
Since the facility has pretty much all test equipment including MTF setup by Zeiss and a test projector I can call it a comprehensive technical evaluation.
We also had a 25mm Master prime for sanity check.:001_smile:
Let's get to it:
It's big, Master Prime big. But light-about 3+ lbs(1,5 kg)- from what it felt like in my hand- did not put it on a scale. Nice surprise really since my biggest issue with the majority of late lens designs is their weight. After a closer look it turns out the barrels are at least partially plastic- hence the low weight.
Phew- what a relief- I thought they put some levitation electronics in it:wink:
Not surprisingly the size of the lens pretty much is not an issue anymore with such a low weight.
This is not your mother's plastic lens barrel either- it feels tough and it's hard to tell from painted metal- some kind of advanced polycarbonate or hardened ABS I think.
Focus action and iris control felt smooth and fairly light- good for focus motors.
Only about 180 degrees focus rotation- could be better. The interesting thing about it is that it looks like they implemented non linear cam design- what this means in English is that the focus marks are properly spaced and seem focus puller friendly-they are not cramped together towards infinity. Very cool...
We put it on the Zeiss MTF machine and surprise!!!-very high numbers in center (we did not go off axis- not enough time and thought we'll see easily enough in projection) easily comparable to the Master prime. The objective in the Zeiss(MTF machine) only allowed for up to 40lp testing- I would love to see a shootout on the MTF at 100lp for both Sony and MP- that would be interesting....
In plain English it means that the lens resolves very clean image- not much of aberrations present even wide open...
Of course the MP tested at T1.3 and the Sony at T2 but still..
In projection another surprise( actually not so much after the MTF test)
Very clean and flat image easily resolving the 200lp target across the field- around 36mm image circle BTW- good for full sensor Epic coverage.
The performance seems to peak at T2.8 and stay there for a while.
Breathing- I haven't noticed much but I also did not pay much attention to it.
Bokeh- looks like at least a 7or 8 blade iris so that should give you an idea.
Since the lens is so crisp I think that the focus falloff will be pretty dramatic- a good thing IMO(?)
There is is a smallish issue with the PL mount(looks like LDS contacts were installed on this one) we concluded that one of the clearance diameters is too big and that makes lens caps hard to remove and makes the lens either hard or even impossible to mount on non F3 PL cameras- but that is a slight mechanical error easy to fix -CAN YOU HEAR IT SONY? I know you are here and for your sake I hope you are listening.....:wink:
That's all folks- I hope you enjoyed the reading.....