I shoot video, and have various cameras. All of them have non-removable zoom lenses. I wasn’t available for a recent shoot for a regular client (note: if you want me for a shoot at 7:00 pm, ask me earlier than 3:00 pm). The competitor apparently had a camera that had a lens that cost $4000. My best camera cost nearly $4000, but that bought me a large number of features that are vital for the type of work I shoot, and really excellent image quality.
Now I can look at video and see the difference between my more expensive camera and my cheaper ones, but that is the difference between a 3 chip imager and a single chip one. But I really can’t see the difference between the obviously cheaper lens on my cheaper camera and the lens on my more expensive one - let alone being able to imagine in what way a lens that costs more than my entire more expensive one is better. I shoot concerts with multiple cameras, and will have one of the cheaper cameras on a wide shot, a second one on a medium shot and get the close-ups with my most expensive one with the longest lens and smoothest zoom. I edit the footage from all three cameras into one production.
I can understand lenses with more reach, or faster lenses, or fixed lenses to get depth of field effects. But if we are comparing two 20x zoom lenses? What do I need to see that am not seeing?
Do you have a sample video clip shot from your camera you can share? I’m sure we could point out a myriad of ways the image quality sucks due to the cheap lens.
Edius. It was originally by a company called Canopus, but it got bought by Grass Valley (the broadcast equipment company) a few years back.
I’ve been with this product since it was called RexEdit, and worked with a board set called DV Rex that allowed real-time editing on computers that were far too slow. Now of course computers are faster and I don’t need any additional hardware, and Edius now allows me to edit 3 1080i sources in real time on a dual-core laptop.
My favorite part of this software is that I can mix formats (HD and SD) and work with sources that use different codecs. In my case, I am able to record from one camera using FireWire via DVRack in AVI, another on HDV tape and a third in AVC/HD format on an SD card, bring them all into the program and edit directly without having to transcode anything.
I just drop each camera in it’s own layer on the timeline and sync them (two of the cameras I use lack timecode, so I use a camera flash). Once synced, the program has a “Multicam” mode that splits the preview screen to show all the tracks at once, and I can play all of them at the same time and cut from one camera angle to another as if I were switching the program live.
A friend once loaded me a Mac with Final Cut Pro and I tried to do the same thing, and everything had to be transcoded and the various camera sources had to be combined into special format. To hell with that!
OK, here’s one. It’s very static, as I did not have a second camera operator that night…I was the shooter, switcher for the webcast and chatroom host. I was shooting from behind the soundboard, had a second camera beside me and a third camera on the other side of the soundboard (it’s a little overexposed, but I was hopping around like a headless chicken, so forgive me).
Another feature of Edius I like is that I can match the cameras by using an eyedropper from one track to another. It’s not perfect, but given the limitations of how I do things (one person running everything) it is not bad.
Constant aperture for zooms - cheaper lenses go something like f/3.5 at the wide end to f/5.6 at the long end, while many high-quality lenses might be f/2.8 throughout the range
Build quality - better focus motors, more metal construction, weather sealing and the like
Image stablisation, depending on manufacturer and lens
To a certain extent, branding. Canon’s L lenses, for example, are painted white partly to distinguish them from the crowd and advertise their usage.
These might apply more to SLR lenses than to video cameras (of which I have little experience), but in general, you are definitely paying more for better quality. In some cases, the premium seems worth it, but in others, it does seem a bit ridiculous, but YMMV.
Theoretically, Canon’s L lenses are white (really more of a cream color) to reflect heat so the mechanisms don’t expand and bind up or change the optical behavior of the lens. Being very distinctive is just a side-effect. (And to some, it’s a detriment - there are people who sell “camouflage” wraps for the lenses to make them less obvious.)
Other than that, they’re hand-assembled and the glass used is more carefully mixed and contains relatively exotic chemical elements to manage chromatic and spherical aberrations, etc. Perhaps the most obvious characteristic is artistic - the smoothness of out-of-focus areas of the image is a prized hallmark of those L lenses.
Did you upload it to YouTube as low-res intentionally or is that the highest resolution you have? It’s harder to tell in standard def, but there’s a lot of blocky noise in the out-of-focus areas such as the background at 2:16 and the guy in the shadows at 2:34, for example.
I only uploaded it at 720 x 480, it is nothing I’ve uploaded specifically for the purposes of this discussion. What you are describing are normal MPEG artifacts. I’m headed back to Kansas City and my source material tomorrow, and could post a higher res version.
Here’s something else I posted. I shot this with two cameras, the Canon HF-200 and the Canon XH-A1 and uploaded it in 1080i (which YouTube transcoded to 1080p). One camera costs 5 times what the other one does.
Purely anecdotal, but I love my old Kodak camera (4 Mpixel), because of its excellent Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon zoom lens. It takes better pictures than my 11 MPixel Kodak (with the cheap no-name lens).
Unfortunately, fixing it (when it breaks) will be impossible.
Hard to compare in my application, as the size of the imager differs in my various cameras. It would be like comparing 110 to 35mm.
Resolution.
In an HD video camera, where the maximum resolution is 1920 x 1080, would the difference be apparent?
Improved resolution across more of the film plane (i.e. - not just the center is sharper).
I can see that one. But I’ve not noticed a lack of sharpness in the sides and corners on my cheaper camera. But of course it wouldn’t tend to be noticeable due to framing for video.
Lower distortion.
Can’t say I’ve see distortion.
Lower aberrations, which reduces color fringing.
I notice color aberrations, with a red fringing on white items, but I’ve only seen it in movie theaters, never on any video I’ve shot.
For zoom lenses, improvements in resolution across the zoom range
That’s something I’ve have to look for.
Better evenness of exposure across the film plane.
Another thing I’d have to look to see if I notice.
Constant aperture for zooms - cheaper lenses go something like f/3.5 at the wide end to f/5.6 at the long end, while many high-quality lenses might be f/2.8 throughout the range
I wouldn’t have noticed this as the scenes I tend to shoot (concerts) have constantly varying lighting and I have to ride the aperture anyway.
Build quality - better focus motors, more metal construction, weather sealing and the like.
OK.
Image stablisation, depending on manufacturer and lens
My better camera says that it has a much more sophisticated stabilization system.
To a certain extent, branding. Canon’s L lenses, for example, are painted white partly to distinguish them from the crowd and advertise their usage.
Not a factor in my use.
More blades in the aperture, the second factor (1.4 or faster lens being the first) in creating that creamy bokah.
No idea what this means.
Perhaps the most obvious characteristic is artistic - the smoothness of out-of-focus areas of the image is a prized hallmark of those L lenses.
“Now I can look at video and see the difference between my more expensive camera and my cheaper ones, but that is the difference between a 3 chip imager and a single chip one.”
I dont think you could really separate out whats the sensor and whats the lens with that comparison. Unless you can have the same highest quality sensor with each lens, seeing whats causing any improvement lenswise will be difficult to distinguish from the better sensor, particularly with downsampling involved as well.
Im surprised noone has mentioned autofocus performance, and speed of zoom motors either.
Of those three cameras, the most expensive also has the largest zoom range. All things being equal, getting a higher zoom range with the same lens quality costs more too.
Ah, but you would, since the lens itself has to be physically larger in order to maintain that constant aperture across the zoom range, so you’ll be working with a larger sweet spot in the glass, which takes us back to point 3:
Improved resolution across more of the film plane (i.e. - not just the center is sharper).
That larger lens puts better quality towards the edges.
In fact, for 95% of the DSLRs out there, (the ones using crop sensors) lenses designed for full-frame cameras are better than the lenses designed for the crop-sensor cameras themselves, (ex.: Canon’s EF-S series), since they cover the sensor with plenty of overlap.
Cheap glass is cheap. As a photographer, my mantra is: "Buy cameras, invest in lenses’.
Bah. Very few - if any - of the new, more-than-adequately-corrected Canikons can match the creaminess and the sharp-to-unsharp-transitions of the old not-that-bitingly-sharp Zeisses and Leitzes.
