Lovely lens, new Possibilities (no, I'm not from Canon ;-). I really love the 6X, the missing part for camera, at last found. And the Macro is great, have look!

Jonas, thanks again for posting. The only bad thing is that I assured (not really **promised**) my wife that I'm done spending big dollars on video stuff for a while. But this may have forced me to consider "a while" to have elapsed.

Just curious, as I wasn't clear from the previous several posts...are you shooting with or without a UV or other filter? From an optical standpoint it would be better not to, of course, but from a safety standpoint it might be a bit frightening to put that front element very close up to some subjects!

I'll have to also show our daughter the latest pictures so she knows what doing homework looks like (just kidding, she does fine).
;-)

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences with this "new tool" Jonas. It seems that these photos have no meta data or atleast I could not find the info. I wonder why ?

I haven't recieved my B+W Skylight filter SLIM ;-) fit yet, so this last post without any filter. And it's frame grabs, so there isn't any meta data!

And Peter, this is actually a rare momen't; my doughter doing her math homework, without any threat, persuasion or reward ;-D

The distortion is enough to make me wary of using max wide-angle as I track through buildings, because door frames that bow outward as I pass through them do not look good to my clients. If you've got a flat-screen TV, try this: stand in front of the TV with your camera perfectly perpendicular to the screen. Zoom to wide-angle and move so that the TV frame fills your v'finder frame. I’ll bet the results surprise you. As you move further away though and zoom in, things begin to look better and the barrel distortion lessens. On the Z1 you've got to go to 12 on the 00>99 zoom scale to get zero distortion. All is not lost though. My single element Bolex aspheric (a 0.5x) actually cures the Sony’s barrel distortion to some extent. At full wide-angle it’s still barrel distorted, but zooming in a bit gives perfectly straight lines.

As I show in the picture: Barrel Chart @ full wide.jpg, on page two in this thread, there is a obvious barrel distortion. I should have done the picture on a larger chart, so I could fix the cameras CCD really parallel with the chart, but it is there and you can see it.

Compared to the Z1 EVF picture (which have the widest focal lenght 32,5 mm in a 35 mm SLR camera comparison, the 6X zoom has 24,5 mm), I get the overall impression that the barrel distortion may be equivalent or less (I assume that there isn't any wide angle adapter mounted). Compared to wide adapters I have used mounted on the 20X the barrel distortion is far less!

''Compared to wide adapters I have used mounted on the 20X the barrel distortion is far less!'' ... as so it should be considering the price of this lens Jonas.

Yes, my shots show the Z1's 12x zoom at its widest angle and it's well known for its barrel distortion. But my Bolex Aspheron (a 0.52x converter lens that limits the Zeiss zoom to a 6x) doesan't add *any* barrel distortion, and that's filming at a 17 mm equivalent focal length.

tom.

"I’ll bet the results surprise you." My post was an answer to your claim. What result should we experience (as you say in your post) as a surprise? Barrel distortion? And I don't know the Bolex, but adapters usually degenerate the overall quality as well, or? Sorry I don't follow...

You're quite right Jonas - anything placed in front of your front element will degrade the image quality to a greater or lesser degree. But folk fit softening filters, thick polarisors and so on - so absolute image quality isn't necessarily the only Holy Grail.

So it goes with the Aspheron. This is a single aspherical glass element made by Bolex in Switzerland, beautifully Zeiss T* multicoated and it costs. But the ace up its sleeve is the 17 mm (equiv) focal length and the fact that you can track room to room and not have the door frames bow outwards as you pass through them.

Anyway, if we make movies that have people watching the edges of the frame looking for chromatic aberations, then we're not really getting the audience effect we're after. The 17 mm focal length is wild, but at an actual 2.3 mm the lens must be absolutely *spotless*!

tom.

I've got two Nikon 122mm filters for the front of my telephoto Nikkors...

Can someone post footage shot with this new lens? I have to admit that I have been one of the biggest complainers on this board of CA problems with the 20x lens, and I have been waiting anxiously for this new lens to come out.

The stills I have seen are very impressive. The fringing appears to have been reduced to what I consider to be negligable.

I have had high hopes for this lens and it appears that I won't be disappointed. But how the camera performs in motion rather than stills is the real test, IMHO.

I hope someone can post some clips with high contrast vertical lines with changes from dark to light, and hard edges at the outer edges of the frame.

This is, I feel the real test. But I love what I have seen so far.

Thanks, in advance, Dave.

wow, will we get the updated comparo between all of the XL lenses? thx for sharing pix.

Maybe I'm not looking in the right place, but does Zotz still sell the body only kit? I can't find it on the site at all.

Imatest MTF50/P SFR Resolution Test
 

These are from Jona's grabs of the ISO 12233 resolution chart. I put all of the charts through the Imatest software. They are normalized to a standard sharpening 2 pixel radius. The best results are at the full telephoto end, posted below. Very impressive!

MTF50 Horizontal Resolution = 750.1 line widths per picture height
MTF50 Vertical Resolution = 720.8 line widths per picture height


http://vsdrives.com/graphics/resolut..._Horz_best.png
http://vsdrives.com/graphics/resolut..._Vert_best.png

Anyone find info on a new Chroziel barrel focus gear that fits the new 6X yet.

Searched around and no info is available. Chroziel's website is little light on info and email response.

Great matte box and follow focus setup though - just trying to get it set up for the 6X which has a different barrel outside diameter.