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Natural

"PHOTO STYLE"

CONTRAST

-0

SHARPNESS

-5

NOISE

+4

SATURATION

-0

HIGHLIGHT SHADOW

-3+3

iDYNAMIC

OFF

LUMINANCE LEVEL

16-255

Unsharp Mask*

ADOBE
POST-PRODUCTION

AMOUNT

​

RADIUS

​

THRESHOLD

​

Blur / Sharpen

DAVINCI RESOLVE
POST-PRODUCTION

LENS @FULL WIDE

​

 LENS @MID-ZOOM

​

LENS @FULL TELE

​

 REAL  RATINGS

After testing each lens-sensor combo, I like to know if the rendering is going to look realistic SOOC (Straight Out of Camera) or if it will need a LUT (to match the shots to other lenses and cameras).

Greyscale Landscape

CONTRAST

B

 IS THE CONTRAST "REAL"? 

Black and White Building

SHARPNESS

C

 IS THE SHARPNESS "REAL"? 

Lucid

NOISE

B

 IS THE NOISE "REAL"? 

Too-Much-Bokeh.jpg

COLOR

B

 IS THE COLOR "REAL"? 

*Click here to learn more about "REAL" Ratings. These ratings are AFTER my custom settings are applied (most combos don't look real good with default settings).

NOTES: 

OVERVIEW:
My first impression of this lens-sensor combination wasn't too good, but after getting these custom settings worked out, there are some good things to say about it. Overall, it's got a lot of character, and the strange thing is that it renders the image MUCH differently at different F-stops (in more ways than depth of field and sharpness). It's hard to put in words, but it just kind of makes the image look like it's from different film stocks at different aperture values. This made it difficult to decide on one set of settings, but what I'm using is working pretty well (see the above settings).

WIERD NOTES:
There's a lot of "weird notes" for this lens-sensor combination, because it behaves so differently than most of the other lenses I've tested. One thing is that it gets MORE contrasty at f/2.8 and LESS at 5.6 or f/8 (most lenses become more contrasty as they stop down). As normal, the SHARPNESS increases as it gets closer to f/8, but I find it weird that the CONTRAST is greater at 2.8. In general, I like using this combination (this lens + PIXCO speedbooster) at f/2.8, as it has just the right amount of bokeh, as well as good sharpness, and contrast as mentioned. Also, focus pulling is really nice at f/2.8, with a short focus throw, and infinity focus being pretty much right on (in my experience). The sharpness isn't good enough below f/2.8 either, so needless to say, I use it at f/2.8 almost all of the time.

SHARPENING SETTINGS:
This is a very difficult lens to give SHARPENING settings for because the sharpness changes so much at different aperture values! However, I'll start working on figuring this out after I've gathered enough footage to run it through tests (in Davinci).

FIRST IMPRESSION (OLD NOTES):
The #1 thing I'm starting to notice with this focal reducer/speedbooster, is that it causes a big flare ball (not hair ball) in the middle of the frame, no matter what lens is used. I tried shielding the lens (I put my hand about 6 inches in FRONT of the lens, and slightly above) and it removed the flare, but it's pretty bad without this. The only solution would be to use a BIG French flag above the lens. The lens flare does the normal bad things to the lens really bad flare does (reduces the contrast and color saturation) and in this case, it almost totally destroys the image. So, for now I'm not going to recommend this lens-sensor +BOOST (speedbooster) combination (and I might look into some other speedbooster brands for M42).

The goal of our camera settings is to improve what we call the "lens-sensor relationship" by adjusting the contrast, sharpness, noise reduction and color to create an image that looks less digital and more organic (more like film, etc). Therefore, the first step is to apply the custom settings while shooting, and the second is to add a lens-sensor LUT, to finalize the image.

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