Melting Bloke, Richard Gale from Dog Schidt Optiks tests an uncoated pre-production Olivia Scope 1.5x and Summicron R 35 – 50 – 90 + sb ultra combo on a Sony mirrorless camera.
Olivia Scope 1.5x and Summicron R 35 – 50 – 90 + sb ultra a7rii (uncoated front element on Olivia – pre production) from Melting Bloke (Richard Gale) on Vimeo.
initial testing. a7rii in aps-c crop mode with speed booster ultra and the leica summicron R 35mm/2, 50mm/2 and 90mm/2 lenses. this combination accurately portrays the field of view and dof you should typically expect from a s35mm camera and the following lenses:- 25mm/1.4, 35mm/1.4 and 65mm/1.4. sony fs7 users will find the Leica R and Contax lenses a great choice for use with the sb ultra.
to obtain the same fov, dof and aspect ratio on other cameras:-
– Alexa, shoot open gate 1.55:1 and use lenses from 28mm and up.
– RED users, the widest focal length is dependent on resolution but typically 6k Dragon should be shot with a 28mm and up, 8k Dragon – 35mm and up
– Scarlet W, F55, and other s35mm(3perf) camera users should use a 25mm and up.
– BMPCC+ speed booster 0.58x use a 21mm lens and up
-Canon 5dmk3 users – shoot ML Raw patch, and use a 35mm or longer.
Some notes to be taken on board:-
-light leaks (this test was performed without a rear light seal(coupling port) between the prime and OLIVIA SCOPE.- meaning occasionally a bright patch appears on the picture. Users will be able to order various coupling ports for the rear of olivia for all popular lenses (80mm, 95mm, etc, as well as a range of ports specifically for non cinema primes such as Leica M, Leica R, Contax, etc)
-colour shift – camera was set to auto white balance (bah! forgot to disable it!!) – so you;ll see a change is hue which auto corrects gradually.
-low contrast – the front optical element on this test unit is not antireflective coated meaning the shots where the sky in in frame have a rather hefty shadow lift. production pieces are currently being bbar coated for durability and highly efficient antireflective properties. all internal glass is coated in single layer mgf2 so apart from the lift on the shadows caused by the bright sky, this gives a very good indication of the way the lens renders contrast.
– defocus – I can see a number of 2x purists jumping on this and saying that there is not enough oval defocus. what needs to be considered is the working distances here – 3meters is pretty far – particularly for a 35mm prime. working at closer distances and a f2 aperture delivering good resolution and refinement, in combination with these rather wide fov's is a very different look – quasi medium format in the dof rolloff. assuming the summicron were exchanged for a contax 35/1.4 or a summilux-r 35/1.4 the optical performance is very close to what you can see here at f2.0. but dof is reduced by half.
a7rii was set to pp1 – cine4 and on the ev meter I was aiming for a -1.0stops. this tends to provide the right level of exposure for this picture profile. No grading or any post production was applied. simply a desqueeze /downscale from 4k to 2.5k.
camera position was around 3meters. current minimum focus distance is a shade over 1meter.