I have heard old timers at camera shows refer to classic Leica still camera lenses as being in a camp with more character than the Zeiss camp which values sharpness instead. I have seen several online posts where users state that Voigtländer lenses are close to the Leica look.
dpreview.com - in the thread
Re: Are Voigtländer lenses really inferior to Leica lenses? bosjohn21 said "...I own and use the f1.5 50mm (Voigtländer) Nokton from Cosina and I find it to be an excellent. Perhaps not as good as the newest iterations of the Leica lenses but every bit as good as the older lenses. ...if we can see any differences in our files it will be in the micro contrast and color rendition ...the coating and corrections of the cosina seem very good."
in response Jim Evidon said "My two Zeiss lenses, the 35mm Biogon and the 50mm Planar are now my go-to lenses. It's not that they seem optically the equal of the much pricier Leica lenses. They draw differently and have a slightly greater contrast and the colors appear to be brighter."
Keep in mind that the BMPCC 4K only has a 8.3 MP sensor and you are not going to get as much of the benefit from a high contrast, high sharpness lens as you would from other cameras.
The Voigtländer Nokton series has been competing in the same space with Leica for over half a century. I am not an expert on the various generations of the Leica lenses but have found examples of them on the REDuser forum that are very cinematic.
Maybe one of our viewers can grace us with some examples of Leica images on the BMPCC 4K.
Although I usually shoot using F/1.4 or more for sharpness, I have found situations where the bloom of a Voightlander near wide open can be an asset. The advantage of leveraging shooting in 12 bit in post production means that you can produce amazing images. They would look different if I shot using a 10 bit codec. You can view them here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=97333&p=540384&hilit=truth+in+beauty#p540384Re: Need help choosing a prime lense for the BMPCC 4KHere is another example of the Voigtländer near wide open:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=90015&p=504547&hilit=Voigtlander+Nokton+Cine+Mod#p504547Re: Voigtländer Nokton Cine-Mod Set or FUJINON MK18-55mm T2.Although there are times where the Full Frame ex soviet-era lenses can shoot images with a lot of character, they were not designed with an MFT camera in mind. Keep in mind that you are only using 25% of the area of a full frame lens on an MFT camera.
A Full Frame F/2.8 lens on a BMPCC 4K is F/5.3 equivalent Depth of Field. This is bad news if you were counting on going for a more creative shallow DOF with a MFT lens, unless you get a very fast one.
If you don't have a fast lens then I've heard that you have to raise the ISO on the BMPCC 4K a couple of stops to get an equivalent image to a Full Frame lens = more noise.
Although the Voigtländers are not for cheapskates, they are less than the price of a Leica and have a lot of character. They are carefully crafted to reduce chromatic aberration, unlike most vintage ex-soviet character lenses. They are easy to focus with a click-less aperture ring (selectable) that has a 270 degree throw and they have enough contrast to show in the colored lines of a BMPCC 4K's focus assist. They hold their value and if you buy used, you can sell them back for about what you paid for them if you need to.
I tried a Rokinon. They are made for a larger image circle and adapted to MFT and I was disappointed by the purple fringing. Here is a comparison to the Voigtländer:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=72506&p=504279&hilit=peace+officers#p504279Re: Pocket Cinema Camera 4k lens adviceIf you are shooting portraits, the Voigtländer 42.5mm MFT F/0.95 gives the skin a nice glowy, creamy bloom that hides facial imperfections when you add an ND filter and open up the aperture beyond F/1.4.
Finding a full frame lens in the 18-24mm focal length that has a filter size of 52mm or less is a tall order. The MFT Voigtländers are 58mm. The old Olympus OM 21mm F/2.0 & F/3.5 "backpackers lenses" come to mind with a 49mm thread. Here is an example on a BMPCC 4K:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=95201&p=530991&hilit=olympus+om+21mm#p530991Although using a full frame lens on an MFT mount camera can be an economical and versatile solution, I wonder if you are inviting internal reflections by doing so.
Here is an example on the BMPCC 4K where I shot myself using a Voigtländer 17.5mm from 4 feet away against a green screen using Braw Q0 and placed it in front of an overcast afternoon scene using a Voigtländer 42.5mm F/0.95 MFT lens with Vormax Compact 1.33x anamorphic adapter plus .3 and .5 diopters from 40 and 60 feet away using Braw 3:1.
- Voigtländer 17.5mm & 42.5mm F/0.95 MFT lenses & Vormax Compact 1.33x anamorphic adapter
- DonOlmecV17&V42Vmx.jpg (997.67 KiB) Viewed 13705 times
The 1993 Helios 44M-7 58mm F/2.0 lens, which is based on Zeiss Biotar patents has a different look. It's sharper (the sharpest of the Helios 44 series), but has less character compared to the Voigtländer 42.5mm F/0.95 MFT lens.