Need help choosing a prime lense for the BMPCC 4K

Hello,

I just switched to the BMPCC 4K and use it with the Panasonic 12-35 F2.8 OIS. Its works fine, but I want a more shallow depth of field and thus want to add some faster primes. First something around 42.5 mm and later something around 17.5 mm.

My setup is quite minimal. I mostly do documentary and travel and prefer a super small rig. No cage. No follow-focus. No gimbal if I can avoid it (but i do have one). The smaller the camera, the more unnoticed I can shoot. The less intimidating it is to people. But thats just my personal taste, in case it matters.

I looked at the Voigtländer 42.5 F0.95 but I heard that its quite soft wide open and if stopped down, the bokeh becomes edgy.

Another option could be the Panasonic Leica Nocticron 42.5 F1.2 OIS. A bit pricy, but I try to buy used lenses anyway.

What are your thoughts on this. Any other lense that I should check out? The Meike/Veydra are too slow for my taste, I guess.

Kind regards, Jan

The Panasonic HS043 (42.5 mm F1.7 OIS) looks also very promising. Test results seem to be good and its quite affordable. And has OIS.

The Panasonic HS043 (42.5 mm F1.7 OIS) looks also very promising. Test results seem to be good and its quite affordable. And has OIS.

I strongly recommend the Olympus Pro series of lenses if you are sticking to m43 mount lenses. 12-100 f4 is awesome and I would choose this one over the 13-35 Panasonic, the 17 f1.2 is great, the 45 f1.2 is great. I also very much like the 17 f2.8 if you want to go super tiny.

I love my Voigtlander lenses. You can see examples searching for them on Vimeo. There even seems to be footage showing up with “voigtlander bmpcc4k” as a search term.


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There are times when the low light ability of the BMPCC4K and the cinematic flaring ability of a very fast lens near wide open adds to your palette in spite of the softness. I posted the image on the left of a former Burning Man statue (Truth is Beauty by Marco Cochrane) shot with a Voigtländer 17.5mm F/0.95 pretty wide open at ISO 2000 on June 16 in the forum topic - Re: Lenses for the Bmpcc4k.

17 minutes earlier I had the same lens at a more conservative f-stop of maybe f4 to f2.8 since I had enough light and wanted the sharp image on the right. It shows the detail of the stainless steel mesh better, but the flare on the led lights that I got from the softer image gave the statue the illusion of skin made of light for a more magical shot. This is part of the character of the lens and is not a flaw. The type of film that you make will determine if this is an asset. This glow could also be useful in a portrait to smooth out wrinkles.

Voigtländer 17.5mm F/0.95 F/0.95 - L F/4 - R

Twilight1AVoight17_f_95L_f4R.jpg (665.83 KiB) Viewed 3193 times

Unlike other character MFT lenses, the Voigtländer 17.5mm F/0.95 can be bought used for under $600 USD.

In a situation with more light, I found that a lot of sharpness can be gained back by post processing of a F/1.4 image, or by using a polarizer. I went into detail on this is my post on August 15 in Re: Circular Polarizer focus problem - P4K.

Both the following images have had minimal processing in Adobe Lightroom, just the auto process. There was no filter on the left and the softness of this lens at the near fully open (F/1.4) aperture is evident. On the right it was taken with an adjusted B + W XS-Pro Kaesemann Circular Polarizer Multi-Coated Glass Filter and this is a fix for the softness since it is sharper, even at F/1.4.

Voigtländer 17.5mm F/1.4 - Left Voigtländer 17.5mm F/1.4 & Circular Polarizer - Right

V17NCp&CpInF1_4_60UCBBall.jpg (664.18 KiB) Viewed 3193 times

A dng image like the same one above and on the left with minimal processing can be processed to have more sharpness in the image on the right. Even sharper results can be had on a polarized picture.

Voigtländer 17.5mm F/1.4 - Left same picture processed - Right

V17NCp&NCpF1_4_60UCBBallB.jpg (760.91 KiB) Viewed 3193 times

Have you considered Meike 25mm?

Remember there’s controversy surrounding those lenses which likely involves litigation as the designs appear to have been those of the Veydra lenses no longer available from their creator. Prior to that Veydra had their entire inventory of lenses stolen (I think it was 200 lenses) which leaves a bad taste around how that could occur and where did the lenses go, so many of us steer clear of these otherwise good lenses.


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Remember there’s controversy surrounding those lenses which likely involves litigation as the designs appear to have been those of the Veydra lenses no longer available from their creator. Prior to that Veydra had their entire inventory of lenses stolen (I think it was 200 lenses) which leaves a bad taste around how that could occur and where did the lenses go, so many of us steer clear of these otherwise good lenses.

"Stolen" hehe


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Yes, the lost of stolen lenses could have been shipped back to China for re-branding, etc... I do not buy from those who sell something that is not really theirs to sell.

While the Veydras were excellent glass (I had a set), they had some issues on the MFT mount. The focus ring was nicely dampened, some a little too much, and would rotate the lens in the slightly loose MFT mount in the camera, causing image shift when changing direction in a focus pull. You had to lock these lenses down with a bracket Veydra designed, or use a front clamping matte box to eliminate this issue.
The stolen Meike design (which is the Veydra design) has the same issue from what I understand.

While Veydras had a very strict QC, the Meike lenses seem to have less QC, with more variance from one copy to the next (even in the same focal,length), and not a complete IQ match between different focal lengths, so getting a match set will be a challenge.
Cheers

Voigtlanders are awesome. 10.5, 17.5, 25 and 42.5mm.