E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't afford. - Page 2 at DVinfo.net
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Old February 26th, 2017, 08:03 PM   #16
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

I don't know how much I'll actually be using it.... I never use the 28-135 all that much. Most of the time I have primes or Canon glass on there. But for the money it seems like a nice run n gun lens so far.
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Old March 17th, 2017, 03:24 PM   #17
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

I went by Abel Cine in NYC today to check out the lens on their demo unit. I found out some operational things which were mostly positive. I probably will buy one soon.
The manual focus is very nice but if you find yourself in need of a closer focus than the .95m distance you get in full manual then the Auto Manual setting on the lens lets you focus around 10 inches from the lens. You could do a rack focus manually while in this mode. Very little breathing. The focus marks don't apply in this mode so not quite as nice as it could be.
The zoom with Sony handle while pretty good is not as responsive as the zooms I have used on my broadcast cameras but seemed usable.
The auto iris function is a little strange since you seem to have to put the iris in the Auto position which is past the f4 position of the iris. Not momentary Auto Iris while in manual is possible.
Lens felt pretty good handheld. Much better than the 18-105.
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Old March 21st, 2017, 08:32 PM   #18
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

Before buying this lens I would definitely have a look at Fuji's new 18-55 T2.9 - cheaper, faster and better build quality but not the same focal length. Also no autofocus, but true manual focus and no power zoom (as yet) but geared for one. Parfocal, backfocus and macro ring and all reviews seem to be very positive about the quality.

They're also bringing out a longer lens (50 -135 I think?) later this year. Sigma also has 2 new cine zooms which are probably worth checking out but they aren't parfocal (so how are they cine zooms?) and the long one breathes a lot (apparently)...
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Old March 28th, 2017, 02:09 PM   #19
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

John,
One of the main reasons to buy the Sony Lens is the power zoom concept. Also the longer reach makes sense to me. Of course it would be good to compare the optics side by side. NAB might be interesting to see what other lenses might be announced.
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Old May 27th, 2017, 09:31 AM   #20
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

I've been curious about this 18-110 mm OSS lens so thought I would give it a quick trial on the FS7. All in all for the price I think it'a pretty good value for a useful focal length constant aperture lens, albeit f/4, that's not too heavy and comes with a servo zoom.

Could not get it to loose focus even with repeated manual crash zooms. Something you couldn't do with the earlier 28-135 version. That was zoom by fly-by-wire. This 18-110 is a true mechanical zoom with servo assistance though it does use electronic focus tracking to keep the lens groups working in a parfocal way even when you use 100% manual focusing.

It acquits itself quite well. It doesn't have any serious vices that would stop me working with one. For a 4K capable six times zoom for UD$3.5K I don't think there is anything out there to come close to it.

The only thing I felt was a bit off putting at the start was the slight lag on the iris ring of all things. It is a mechanical iris ring but it connects to the internal iris blades via a servo. Once I knew what it was doing I was okay with it, On the plus side it kinda softens any accidental iris jerks,

Summing up I'll probably get one sooner than later.

Some quick shots out in the back street can be seen here. Available in UHD 2160p for those who have fast enough connections to watch YouTube.


Alternately if you want to bypass the Tube's compression the UHD MP4 version can be downloaded from here. Beware it's 1.4GB!

https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/foa94s

A 360MB down-rez rendered HD version can be had here:

https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/z875s9

Chris Young
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Old November 2nd, 2018, 09:24 AM   #21
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

this parafocal wide to short-tele zoom could close the gap between camcorders and still cameras for video applications that still require a real camcorder (complete coverage of a football game or soccer from the press box for example, where zooming and panning are to be performed often at the same time requiring a remote controller on the handle of the tripod). Unfortunately this lens didn't pass my test. I need to specify that in order to use a remote zoom controller I connected 2 cables/adapters (VMC-AVM1 and a regular av/r to 2.5mm). same connection works fine on x70 and ax100 .
the remote sets 8 zoom speeds (between constant and variable on pressure)
At a slow speed the zoom is smooth and precise (and slow enough). but faster the speed and the AF gets lost in blurland the moment you start zooming. It will be back but too late. it feels like those cheap camcorders that blur everything when zooming.
now because the price is over 3K (USD) I think that the lens needed more work in the design and production. (unless the limitation was created in purpose to keep the gap alive).
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Old November 5th, 2018, 07:43 AM   #22
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

This past weekend I went to Mass Media Expo in Boston at WGBH, great event. While there I stopped by the Fujinon booth since I am getting another FS7, and check out the MK lens which I have owned the 18-55 (excellent). I was surprised to see there was a servo zoom sent up on the lens, which uses the FS7 handle.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1376889-REG/chrosziel_cdm_mk_z_compact_control_unit_for.html/BI/2855/KBID/3801
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Old November 6th, 2018, 03:57 AM   #23
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony Lelli View Post
...complete coverage of a football game or soccer from the press box for example, where zooming and panning are to be performed often at the same time requiring a remote controller on the handle of the tripod.
I own the 18-110 but there is no way that this lens is suitable for serious football or stage entertainment at distance for a variety of reasons. a, It's not long enough even with center crop engaged, b. You need a professional ENG/EFP zoom capability to cover team sports / motor sports efficiently and c. While it does have decent focusing it's not quite in the league of a good B4 lens.

Seriously If you don't need to shoot in 4K the FS7's Super16 Center Crop function works very well with a quality adapter like the MTF B4 to S16 adapter. It's optically and CA corrected to use three chip lenses on a single S35 sensor. It's sharp to the edges on a decent HD B4 lens and even on the last of the very high end SD lenses. Lenses that cost upward of $25K that can now be bought for around $2.5-5K. The adapter will give you a crop of just on 1.32 so an 18x B4 gives you a very useful 23.76 long end. A traditional 22x ENG lens gives you a whopping 29x. Good for most sports. You will lose 0.8 of a stop in light loss but that's no big loss on an FS7 with an ENG lens that is typically f1.6. At minimum all you need to drive the setup is a 'D' Tap to 12 pin Hirose connector to power the lens. There are other cables out there that do this plus allow record stop/start from the lens or a zoom demand by connecting via Lanc to the FS7. Used in combination with quality B4 zoom demand shooting sport and entertainment is so much easier.

The end result is that you end up with a constant aperture lens of about f2.3 that is parfocal and that has a fantastic broadcast quality servo zoom that has enormous reach. I've used this combo on numerous broadcast sport and entertainment shows and the clients have loved the images. I've been totally happy with the results. Sure it's not a Fuji Cabrio but the image quality is quite surprising and for the price very hard to beat. Expands the FS7's versatility considerably.

Explanation of how the adapters work work:



https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1197319-REG/mtf_services_ltd_mtb4s16sem_b4_2_3_to_super16.html/BI/2855/KBID/3801

A stage sample mid shot using an 18x with the MTF S16 adapter. Shot 1080i for BD and DVD:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=hj3wOzL1Y-Q

Chris Young
Sydney
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E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't afford.-fs7-mtf-2.jpg  

Last edited by Christopher Young; November 6th, 2018 at 04:48 AM.
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Old November 10th, 2018, 08:21 AM   #24
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

Chris,
That looks like a great setup. I need to rent one for my next sports shoot.
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Old November 10th, 2018, 10:01 AM   #25
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

Quote:
Originally Posted by Christopher Young View Post
I own the 18-110 but there is no way that this lens is suitable for serious football or stage entertainment at distance for a variety of reasons. a, It's not long enough even with center crop engaged, b. You need a professional ENG/EFP zoom capability to cover team sports / motor sports efficiently and c. While it does have decent focusing it's not quite in the league of a good B4 lens.

Seriously If you don't need to shoot in 4K the FS7's Super16 Center Crop function works very well with a quality adapter like the MTF B4 to S16 adapter. It's optically and CA corrected to use three chip lenses on a single S35 sensor. It's sharp to the edges on a decent HD B4 lens and even on the last of the very high end SD lenses. Lenses that cost upward of $25K that can now be bought for around $2.5-5K. The adapter will give you a crop of just on 1.32 so an 18x B4 gives you a very useful 23.76 long end. A traditional 22x ENG lens gives you a whopping 29x. Good for most sports. You will lose 0.8 of a stop in light loss but that's no big loss on an FS7 with an ENG lens that is typically f1.6. At minimum all you need to drive the setup is a 'D' Tap to 12 pin Hirose connector to power the lens. There are other cables out there that do this plus allow record stop/start from the lens or a zoom demand by connecting via Lanc to the FS7. Used in combination with quality B4 zoom demand shooting sport and entertainment is so much easier.

The end result is that you end up with a constant aperture lens of about f2.3 that is parfocal and that has a fantastic broadcast quality servo zoom that has enormous reach. I've used this combo on numerous broadcast sport and entertainment shows and the clients have loved the images. I've been totally happy with the results. Sure it's not a Fuji Cabrio but the image quality is quite surprising and for the price very hard to beat. Expands the FS7's versatility considerably.

Explanation of how the adapters work work:

Using B4 lenses on the Blackmagic Studio Camera - YouTube

Newsshooter at IBC 2015: MTF - B4 to Sony E-Mount adapter on Vimeo

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1197319-REG/mtf_services_ltd_mtb4s16sem_b4_2_3_to_super16.html/BI/2855/KBID/3801

A stage sample mid shot using an 18x with the MTF S16 adapter. Shot 1080i for BD and DVD:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=hj3wOzL1Y-Q

Chris Young
Sydney

Chris,
thanks! Im quoting your entire post because it deserves to be re-posted. And in 1 post you gave a complete and detailed picture of the reality and the mountains that we have to climb when lost in the marketing intentional barriers and greed of this industry.
Like everybody else I was stunned and disgusted and sad (all at the same time) when somebody came over to show me (several years ago) a 30 seconds footage from a Nikon D90. Disgusted because of what we had to shoot with at that time. The clarity of a simple D90 was light years ahead. How was THAT possible? LOL. By then I'm pretty sure that Nikon had no idea about it (they didn't sell camcorders).

I have no doubt (none) that "today" the servo zoom (wide to tele) limitation on still cameras is the current barrier imposed on the segment.

What used to be the low light (ridiculous) barrier on base camcorders is now the servo on stills

and to make my point clear I'd like to link a clip of what the low light barrier was about (with nothing to do with the size of the sensor or the sensitivity or the resolution or the lenses but only the price of the camcorder and the limited or less limited processing applied)

today that barrier doesn't work anymore because still cameras made it obsolete (the barrier).

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Old November 11th, 2018, 01:50 AM   #26
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

Paul it works surprisingly well and overall the price/performance/flexibility ratio was a no brainer from my point of view. It's allowed the FS7 to be used on many jobs that previously couldn't be covered like power boat racing and our Bells Beach National Surfing Championships. Over crank surfing shots being one thing the older XDCam disc cams couldn't do.

If you are interested from the technical point of view this is what I have discovered with the Sony center crop mode.

Sony’s Super 16 crop sensor dimensions are 12.7mm x 6.75mm for 2178 x 1148 which results in a diagonal of 14.5mm, a fair bit larger, 32% larger than the 11mm diagonal of a 1920 HD sensor. 2178 x 1148 gives us total of 2,500,344, a resolution of approximately 2.5K. The generally accepted figure is a Bayer sensor loses about 20% of its resolution after demosaicing. For example a 4K single sensor has a resolution of 3.2 K a 2K sensor has a resolution of 1.6K and a 1920 sensor has a resolution of 1.5K.

Based on Sony’s Super 16 figures of 2178 x 1148 the center crop function results in a 2.5K crop. One could then argue the following. After applying a 20% loss in resolution after demosaicing the image produced is in the order of 2,000,275. Very close to 2K in other words.

BTW you can now buy the M4/3 mount for the S16 adapter as an extra. It comes with all necessary screws and it is then just a simple screw driver swap job if you want to use it on a BM S16 sensor camera. I think some guys have even used it on the GH series cameras in crop mode. What kind of crop results you get I've not followed up.

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Old November 11th, 2018, 12:39 PM   #27
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Re: E PZ 18–110mm F4 G OSS. The lens you've been waiting for at a price you can't aff

Thanks Chris,

Couple of questions, but I started a new thread here.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdc...ml#post1947782
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