Are Bower Filters Good Quality?

Whether you're shooting with a DSLR, Compact System Camera (CSC) or large sensor interchangeable lens video camera, you lot probably take discovered ii things near lenses. Those that are designed for still cameras are far from platonic when used for cine piece of work, and lenses designed for cine work are very expensive.

Why Notwithstanding Photographic camera Lenses Aren't Ideal for Cinematics

Optically, as long as a lens volition mountain, focus to infinity and embrace the sensor, you're fine. But information technology's the mechanical side of things when in that location are issues. Here are a few…

– Aperture stops. Stills lenses have 1/3rd or 1/2 stop clicks. These create sound dissonance volition filming and also cause visible jumps in brightness level. Cinematics lenses have no click stops and are continuous.

– Focusing. Autofocus is rarely used when shooting video or picture palace. Manual focus is used and a lens with clearly marked distances and a smooth mechanical plough of between 90 and 120 degrees is desirable. Lenses that have "wing-past-wire" focusing are very difficult to work with.

– T Stops. Cine lenses are typically rated and marked in T (Manual) Stops rather than F (Focal Ratio) stops. This means that the aperture shown and set is the existent amount of light transmitted, non the theoretical value. The difference isn't often large, simply it is a distinguishing characteristic of the precision that cinematographers need from their optics.

– Geared Rings. Picture palace lenses have geared aperture, focus and zoom rings. These are and so that so-called follow-focus devices may be used. For still photography a rubberized or plastic grip is fine. For cine use the gears on the follow-focus device have to mesh with gears on the lens. If the lens has none then adaptors must be used. These lenses have an industry standard 0.8 pitch, making them compatible with most external controls, including remote electronic aperture and focus.

– Marker Orientation. In the film world focus, aperture and other lens-based controls are typically done by an banana that stands to the left side of the camera. Cine lenses have these markings on the side rather than the elevation of the lens. Even when working without an assistant this is helpful because with the camera high on a tripod side markings are easier to come across and read than pinnacle markings, which might require standing on ones tippy-toes.

How Expensive are Cine Lenses?

Very! Other than the lenses beingness discussed hither under the Samyang, Bower and Rokinon brands the least expensive cine lenses mostly available are from Zeiss, in their CP.2 line which typically run between $four,000 and $6,000 apiece. Beyond that, the sky is the limit. For example, a set of eight Summilix-C lenses from Leica volition cost $178,000. Yeah, the cost of a house in many places. Or, but more just, about $22,000 a lens!

Affordability & Availability

So, now that you understand what a cine lens is, and why, and what they tin cost, here's an culling. Quite an inexpensive alternative. Samyang, a budget lens maker from Korea has taken 5 of their yet camera lenses, in Canon EOS, Nikon F, Sony E mount and MFT, and made them into cine versions. These lenses are sold around the earth under unlike brand names – Bower, Rikonon and Samyang. These are all essentially identical, other than for some pocket-sized cosmetic differences, packaging and warranty.

Note that these are so-chosen total-frame lenses, and are designed to embrace the full135mm format.

The available cine lenses under theBowerlabel, with EOS mount, and with current B&H pricing are….

8mm T/3.viii Fisheye – $279

A little quick math shows that all five lenses combined come in at under $2,100. A truly remarkable price. The cost wouldn't exist that remarkable, of course, if the lenses were crap, but they're not. In fact if you browse the spider web, look at reports on Video and YouTube, and read various exam of both the still photographic camera and cine versions (optically the same) these lenses acquite themselves very well indeed.

At present if you own loftier-terminate cine lenses worth as much as a small motorcar, don't get your knickers in a twist. These lenses are not competition. Just, for the film maker on a upkeep (someone using a Blackmagic rather than a RED Epic or Ari Alexa, for example), these lenses make perfect sense and are quite serviceable.

What You Don't Get

Why so inexpensive? Well, yous don't go…

– no auto-diaphragm

– no autofocus

– no image stabilization

These are fully manual lenses, with no concessions to modernity other than their optical designs, coatings and glass. Exterior construction is high grade plastic, only the lenses accept a heft that belies the fact they they appear to have decent quality helicals. This is confirmed by their smoothen focusing. A pleasure to use compared to many fly-by-wire AF lenses.

Using Filters

Manfrotto Matte Box

One area where the quality of the Bowers and their sister lenses are sub-optimal is when it comes to the filter threads. On most manufacturers lenses these are metal, and tin can take continuous mounting and unmounting of filters. On the Bowers, and their cousins, the threads are plastic and you may find that constant threading and unthreading variable DN filters either jambs the threads or strips them.

The solution is to mountain a good quality UV filter permanently on each lens (the 8mm and 14mm take large bulbous front end elements and thus don't take filter threads) then adhere your Fader to it. If the UV filter is of practiced quality there shouldn't be whatsoever noticeable paradigm degradation. Of course of y'all're just using your lenses in the studio then y'all'll likely be using a matte box so none of this is relevant.

Indeed, I would suggest that purchase a matte box fifty-fifty (and peculiarly for) outdoor use is a good idea. You just need to have one set of filters for all your lenses; they piece of work with lenses similar the Bower 8mm and 14mm that have large front end elements and therefore can't accept screw-in filters, and they have adjustable French Flags (sun shields).

The Manfrotto Matte Box is a relatively cheap and versatile solution that takes 4X4″ filters. I'll be examining these and other cinematics accessories when our Blackmagic 4K camera review goes live.

January, 2014

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