RED lenses Sigmas?

[Nova Invicta]

Dalsa have a guy called Dan Sasaki working for them that used to work at Panavision, Dan was the head optics service guy at PV and he put together various one off lenses which Im sure he will be doing at Dalsa as well as putting together sets from various made up stills lenses. The key to people like Dan is understanding how optics work, what you can and cannot get away with and engineering into re-works improvements to the mechanical flaws so you maximize the optical performance of the glass. What you cannot do however is improve on the optics themselves that is why cinematography lenses are so expensive because they are optimized utilizing the best glass & coatings available whilst being configured to work best at maximum apertures down to about 5.6 whereas most stills lenses are normally configured to give optimum performance at 4 - 5.6 depending on design.
Zooms are realy where cinematography has no equal in stills these lenses are extremely complex both mechanically and optically and for good reason as stills do not require zooming in shot or splits etc etc. So whilst the Red One is aimed at all manner of cinematographer if the likes of Peter Jackson want to get the most out of it then they need to take optics seriously.

[Sanjin Jukic]

The Third Man
Actually as well as Dalsa Vantage in Germany claim that they have a set of Leica Lenses that they developed with Leica with the same maximum T-Stop. If however you review the Leica catalogue your see mixing the R & M series lenses as re-housed lenses you can cover all the focal lenghts they have produced with the same 2.8 stop. Of all the stills lenses I have tested for consistancy the Leica lenses are by far the best certainly better than Sigma, Nikon or Canon, thats not saying those companies dont produce good lenses its just saying that there quality control is not as rigorous as Leica.

4K cameras (I wont get into why currently Red is not 4K) in order to maximise the potential of the sensor need the best optics or all your doing is highlighting the abberations of that lens or any number of other issues. This is why SD video lenses clearly needed to by replaced by HD lenses on the
2/3" cameras where its even more critical. Olympus for instance acually made different lenses for their E system not simply because the sensor was a different format but because they wanted to optimize the lenses for digital as oppsed to film where price sensitivity really counts.
Think of image capture this way, early photographers had very basic cameras and the most important piece was the lens, spin forwards to digital and its no different the lens is still important anyone who thinks differently really doesnt understand photography be it still or moving.

Great reply Nova Invicta.

Optics.

Just think how your eyes are working.

Dalsa have a guy called Dan Sasaki working for them that used to work at Panavision, Dan was the head optics service guy at PV and he put together various one off lenses which Im sure he will be doing at Dalsa as well as putting together sets from various made up stills lenses. The key to people like Dan is understanding how optics work, what you can and cannot get away with and engineering into re-works improvements to the mechanical flaws so you maximize the optical performance of the glass. What you cannot do however is improve on the optics themselves that is why cinematography lenses are so expensive because they are optimized utilizing the best glass & coatings available whilst being configured to work best at maximum apertures down to about 5.6 whereas most stills lenses are normally configured to give optimum performance at 4 - 5.6 depending on design.
Zooms are realy where cinematography has no equal in stills these lenses are extremely complex both mechanically and optically and for good reason as stills do not require zooming in shot or splits etc etc. So whilst the Red One is aimed at all manner of cinematographer if the likes of Peter Jackson want to get the most out of it then they need to take optics seriously.

No doubts that Leica's are the best factory controlled still lenses.

I cannot afford 500.000-400.000 €/$* to buy the full sets of Cooke S4 and Arri/Zeiss Master Primes now.

(* This approximate price is for both sets together).

Future is always unwritten.

Who knows?

But me as an experimentalist and a little movie maker, producer and renter can afford to

get a set of best still glass (vintage and new models) that could fits to RED.

And of course it would be a mix of different brands and lenses.

Also it would produce almost a similar result as cine lenses especially for a film drama like a style directing.

[vincelucero]

Very informative info. Thanks guys.