DZOFilm Arles: the Perfect Lenses?

[@Artfulscience1]

Got my 35mm love it. Thanks for being the KZbin voice for this set. Someone on BH left a review and mentioned your name!

[@nick_salazar]

That’s so fun, thank you!

[@kevin-haggerty]

I think thats the reason why these new companies are working hard to make the products shine. When it comes to the look its all about what makes the image the way you want it to be. Great products and I saw them at NAB this year. Solid units and very reasonable for price.

[@davidlcaldwell]

Guaranteed, this guy will be onto the Newest Bestest lenses within a month. His G.A.S. Will demand it.

[@nick_salazar]

OMG, my wallet sure hopes not. I do have ONE more big lens purchase on preorder, but it’s very different from this set. Stay tuned for that ;-)

[@WalterTheBalter]

we're here for it somebody gotta do it

[@SwishBeats]

I recently got the 35mm Arles and now i NEED the whole set 😮‍💨🔥

[@nick_salazar]

You DO!!! Hahaha, enjoy that 35. Honestly the 50 and 100 might be my favorites, but the 35 is fantastic as well. Really they are all great.

[@lawrencegress9831]

Thanks, the video Nick great content.

[@MrMoviePhoneEx]

I have my eyes on these, but it's still wait and see for now. The one thing holding me back is the size as I do more B cam than A cam work in my day to day and need a lens set that works on well on gimbals and other rigs... But the looks I've see so far has been really impressive - And I shoot B Cam for a good friend of mine that works with a mini and Arri Signature Primes.

[@nick_salazar]

They work fine on gimbals, you just have to watch the total weight and so forth. On an anything like a Komodo-X or smaller it will be totally straightforward. On my V-Raptor it’s more complicated but still totally doable even without anything custom. Maybe I’ll post a video later to demo that setup.

[@HenryOrtlip]

Hey Nick! Loved your video and thought process. I can relate heavily, but more so on the anamorphic side and my decision to go with the Atlas Mercury's. You nailed the description of the Arles and had gorgeous examples. By far the Arles are my favorite spherical set out right now. Would love to see you break down each lens individually in later videos. Subbed!

[@nick_salazar]

Thanks Henry! Mercury are also fantastic lenses, and I did consider them strongly as well. I’ll definitely have more content related to Arles - the first thing will be when I review the DJI LiDAR that I just started using with them.

[@HenryOrtlip]

@@nick_salazar awesome!

[@LorenzoYearby]

My comparison lenses are Cooke S4 and Tokina Vista Primes, and although you said youd on't care about that. These do feel closer to The Tokinas which are my favorites. These are clean with less of the character-like of the Vespids. It's between these and the Tokina Vista Primes for me

[@BTFilmz]

A comparison that I don’t see a lot of people make is that these lenses are about as close to Arri DNA Pimes we can get as consumers that won’t bankrupt you, vista vision lenses with just the right amount of character, I find it funny that a set this cheap in comparison is closer to the feel of DNA lenses than almost every other set available for purchase

[@nick_salazar]

It’s not surprising you haven’t seen the comparison. You probably won’t see a comparison to Panavision Primos either for the same reason, haha. Big budget productions usually don’t look this far down the budget scale. Their loss :-)

[@filmmakerali]

Nice video mate, how do these compare with the xeen meisters?

[@theodorereid4406]

Nick! The video I was looking for! I sold my Athena's before your video was posted but it helps me better feel of my decision! Im excited also to make Arles a part of my workflow!

[@nick_salazar]

Enjoy them!

[@WalterTheBalter]

what made you get rid of Athenas or what did you not like about them

[@nick_salazar]

@@WalterTheBalter hey Walter, I do talk about that pretty thoroughly in the video. Is there something about my explanation in there that you want me to clarify?

[@keith-knittel]

Awesome lenses - can't wait to see what you make with them!

[@nick_salazar]

Thanks Keith! So did you ditch your Vespids for them in the end?

[@nick_salazar]

By the way I just bought the DJI Focus Pro and OMG it changed my life instantly. Now I’m eyeballing that transmission system …

[@pikasalsachu]

Amazing I hope my work gives me the money to afford lenses like these. Thanks for sharing

[@96FilmStudios]

Great stuff

[@PametniTelefoniRS]

Great video. Thank you! 💪

[@jackieronimo8112]

I’ve had a ton of problems with the vespid primes shifting back-focus over time and throwing off minimum/infinite focus. I’m really hoping these lenses don’t have that same issue. They seem really nice though!

[@LenzFactor]

In one of your videos you mentioned they fit well on your Breakthrough DFM. Did you need to shim them at all? I’ll be running these on an fx3 with the DFM. Thank you 🙏

[@nick_salazar]

The Breakthrough DFM comes pre-shimmed to achieve a very exact flange depth to the sensor. The PL standard is 52mm to the sensor, and Breakthrough includes a card with your DFM that shows the exact distance as measured with their shims, down to 0.01mm (I believe mine was like 52.03mm or something like that). You can change the DFM shimming if you want, but I wouldn't, as it's already quite accurate. The Arles lenses were each factory-shimmed to different individual settings, I'm not sure exactly what the goal was with how they were shimmed, possibly to achieve accuracy against the focus marks on the lens. I took some time to re-shim all my Arles lenses, with the goal of maximum center sharpness. I'll tell you what I did for my lenses, but this is probably not universally applicable. The 25mm was at 0.5mm shims and I left it unchanged. The 35mm was at 0.5mm shims and I changed it to 0.3mm The 50mm was at 0.6mm shims and I changed it to 0.3mm The 75mm was at 0.55mm shims and I changed it to 0.3mm The 100mm was at 0.6mm shims and I left it unchanged. It's a tedious process, but I'm very happy with the results. If you choose to do this, make sure to write down how the lenses were before you started, in case you want to revert to factory settings. Hope this helps!

[@LenzFactor]

@@nick_salazar thanks! Your videos on this set have helped a lot. I’m currently using all GM Primes and looking to get a set of cine primes. I think these will be the ones. Have you used the 14mm yet? I can’t find any reviews on this specific lens yet. I do real estate videography and the 14mm will be a workhorse for me and replace my 12-24 GM. Trying to see if has any significant barrel or pin distribution.

[@nick_salazar]

Happy to help! No, I have not used the 14mm Arles yet. However, there is a little bit of barrel distortion on the 25 and 35 mm lenses, so it might be there on the 14 as well. Try the Cine Dailies channel, I believe he tested the 14mm recently. But I wouldn’t worry about the distortion. Easy enough to remove in post, as none of them seem to have very complex distortion patterns.

[@8KHDRVideoBySittipong]

I also love this lens. It is amazing.

[@theodorereid4406]

Hey Nick! Can you do a comparison to the new Simera C by DZOfilm with the Arles?

[@nick_salazar]

I will try! I'll be taking a look at the Simera C lenses soon and I'm VERY excited about them.

[@theodorereid4406]

@@nick_salazar Please do! Love your input on lenses! What I've found so far on it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fKmZaaBsp6dgqJo

[@NorthwestCameraCo]

came for the tank top, stayed for the review ;)

[@nick_salazar]

I can’t let Galen be the only one with tickets to the gun show!

[@markisface]

Audio is a bit chesty and muffled and would do well to boom your audio with a nice sennheiser

[@IlyaPodnebesmiy]

This is a really valuable conclusion about the stage at which these lenses are located. But I wanted to ask - does this mean that the issue of super35 cameras is closed for you? That is, they are not interesting to you and cannot be interesting, because part of the blurred background image is lost, and part of what you paid for is lost? And a clarifying question - will super fast lenses like the Laova T1 on the super35 camera be able to get closer to the full frame by the blur that you have now with your lenses?

[@nick_salazar]

Thanks! Yeah I tend to lean full frame most of the time. On the Raptor, you can get higher framerates by cropping in, so I do essentially shoot super35 on occasion. Yes, a T1 set on Super35 would give the same depth of field as T1.4 on full frame for an equivalent field of view. And the Laowas are fun, but they don’t perform as well (sharpness, aberrations, veiling glare, bokeh), but more importantly it isn’t a complete set. Just three focal lengths in a tight range. It would be a very interesting set if they fleshed it out more on the long and wide ends, even if they weren’t all T1.

[@Elektro_Homyak]

Is the laowa s35 bokeh bad? Is it poor in structure or does it have the disadvantages of aberration on the surface of the light circles?

[@nick_salazar]

I haven’t tested their super 35 lenses. But from what I’ve seen some focal lengths have a bit more ringing/fringing on the bokeh, highlight fringing, just worse performance generally. But they are definitely fun lenses. I recently posted a video about one here: m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/gWnPdp6dj56jqq8

[@Elektro_Homyak]

Thank you. From the cinematic videos, I realized that 18 and 25 give the best quality picture, and 33 is a little worse. Do you have the same impression?

[@nick_salazar]

Are you talking about the S35 Argus set? I haven’t looked at them at all.

[@cogmission1]

Hi Nick! Awesome acquisition! Congratulations! (DZO SHOULD be paying you!) I almost have my finger on B&H's submit button now! LOL. QQ, do they all balance on the RS3 with the V-RX ?

[@nick_salazar]

Thank you! So it’s possible to balance. But you have to strip everything from the Raptor (no battery, no handles, no rails/cage, no monitor) and you need the Smallrig extra long RS plate.

[@cogmission1]

@@nick_salazar So you're ok with the choice to sell your NiSi's leaving you without a real gimbal solution? I guess you can use the Tilta Ring and battery backpack solution, (mounting the monitor on the ring)?

[@nick_salazar]

Yep! I can gimbal these lenses if needed. And there’s always my R5 C as well.

[@markwiemels]

How is the color match across the set?

[@nick_salazar]

Hey Mark! I haven't done strict testing on that front. But I've shot some scenes with multiple lenses and didn't notice anything weird. Honestly I feel like color matching issues are way overblown. Every lens set manufactured in the last quarter century is made with really good glass and negligible color cast. Even matching one set to a completely different one is relatively easy. For me, perfect color matching isn't a high priority when choosing a lens.

[@markwiemels]

@@nick_salazar that’s really not my experience with budget Chinese lenses at all. I agree, when it comes to stuff by Sigma and Canon, they are all pretty good. I’m seeing an over 600k shift in some of the budget sets, which can make a significant difference. I think there was a 200k shift between the Arles 35 and 75, that I have, which is acceptable, but not even on Sigma budget cine lens level. I tried to get a straight answer out of DZO, about their target for color consistency, and they didn’t seem to have a straight answer, which left me a little concerned.

[@simplyfrank72]

Would love to see how these perform on S35 cameras. All of the tests show FF cameras only.

[@nick_salazar]

Just imagine the image cropped in a bit, that’s how they perform ;-)

[@pjtavera]

How I wish I can afford the set and I cannot argue enough how these glasses are the perfect of use at its price point to date. Well I will have to stick to completing my Athena's which I can barely afford to own and excited to use. Until then, renting the Arles is next to owning one. Cheers!

[@nick_salazar]

Enjoy your Athena lenses! Or, sell them and just get one or two Arles instead ;-)

[@pjtavera]

@@nick_salazar considering ;)

[@khanmimaad]

Curious if you’d ever test the Sigma Cine Primes, the current standardized test lens of the GSCA? Lower price than the Arles, but used on movies like TG Maverick for cockpit shots

[@nick_salazar]

Yes I have. The Sigma lenses are actually MORE expensive than the Arles. About double actually. They’re generally very good, and lighter on most focal lengths. I considered trying to build a set of those, but again they are much more expensive and they also have a bit of breathing on many focal lengths because they were derived from stills lenses. Overall, I was very happy to get the Arles set.

[@khanmimaad]

@@nick_salazar Ah, my bad, confused the Tokina Vistas with the Arles, those are the uber expensive sub-$10K ones. Glad the Arles work well for you, might grab a 40mm instead if the Sigma Cines breath that badly

[@nick_salazar]

I think people get WAY too worked up about breathing. Its SO rare that it even mildly affects a shot. If the Sigma lenses meet your needs and you’re interested in them, go for it! They have idata too which Arles does not.

[@Elektro_Homyak]

What kind of variable ND filter do you use with your set of lenses? It was precisely because of the poor quality of external filters that I chose c70 and super35 lenses at one time. But maybe good NDs have appeared on the market? Then there is no reason for me to stay at super35 when I can buy blackmagic ff + alres.

[@nick_salazar]

Most of the time I’m using the Breakthrough DFM with their X4 VND. It still introduces a color shift (inevitable with VND) but it’s easily correctable. Either shoot with a color chart or just get really good at correcting by eye/scope/waveform. My color grading is still mediocre at best, but whenever I work on getting better at it it’s proven to be worth the effort.

[@Elektro_Homyak]

Thank you. Is this a rear variable nd? Is there any difficulty why you don’t use 86 diameter front filters? Do they cause reflections from the front lens?

[@nick_salazar]

Yes it’s a rear VND, inside the PL to RF adapter. It’s handy because you don’t have to swap anything when changing lenses, the VND stays where it is, like an internal one. I never use threaded filters if I can avoid it. Such a hassle. If I’m going with a front filter, I usually use a matte box. On these the Tilta Mirage is a nice fit, and also has ND and VND options, plus I just bought the DJI Focus Pro and mounted the LiDAR unit onto the matte box itself.

[@davemorphling7432]

Nick, what do you think of the recent RED price drops?

[@nick_salazar]

They make Komodo even more attractive!

[@2kirabo]

Hey! do you have any recommendations for a MFT cine lenses? I love using my vintage lenses on my bmcc 2.5k but am looking for something with a sharper cleaner look

[@nick_salazar]

I’ve never shot MFT. But anything that’s good on FF will generally be good on smaller sensors as well.

[@eugeneiii9564]

Would expand the set with the set b lenses? I think they start shipping next week.

[@nick_salazar]

I might add something on the wide end like the 14mm. And the 40mm looks wonderful too. I hope to demo them soon.

[@eugeneiii9564]

@@nick_salazar congratulations on finding your set.

[@thelocalfilmpro231]

That flair looks exactly like the samyang v af lenses

[@jarooshify]

I'm not sure how much of it is lens' character or grading, but I'm getting the feeling those lenses are yet on the more "clinical" side of cinematic spectrum, seems great for documentary, but not sure about their character for narrative work at least for the vintage feel I'm looking for. Maybe you have more insight on that having a chance to play with them a bit more ? I'm seriously considering the set cause otherwise they seem to knock it out of the park

[@nick_salazar]

As mentioned in the video, I don't really like words like "clinical" because they're so subjective. Whether something is "clinical" or "has character" depends on who is making the statement. I can tell you I love the image from these. But I can't tell you if you're going to like them. I'd advise you to look at all the test footage you can. There's plenty from me, CVP, Northwest Camera Co, ProAV, and Of Two Lands.

[@kevinjohnson7288]

Check out V35 project’s Takumar Arles mod. Ordered my set this week and think they’re on the nose for what you’re looking for. Awesome people at that company too!

[@jarooshify]

@@kevinjohnson7288 this looks amazing ! Will definitely check it out, though the 2.5k modding on top of the lens is on the pricey side, ngl

[@nigel_the_director]

Don't want the 25 .... I'll have the 14 & 21 for the set so ill wait a bit.

[@nick_salazar]

The 25 is definitely an outlier in terms of bokeh, noticeable onion rings. But I still love it! Such a great focal length for certain things.

[@nigel_the_director]

@@nick_salazar seems ill also have to wait for the 8 lens carrying case .... only the 5v lens is for sale atm.

[@thedp]

used them in the cold yet ? big problem is cheaper lenses basically freeze or stiffen up to being unusable in temps that aren't even that cold - 32F through 0F.

[@nick_salazar]

I am not the reviewer for testing at -32 F temps. Hard pass. :-)

[@thedp]

@@nick_salazar your freezer is 0F :) . put lens in plastic bag, couple hrs to get to temp , and while its still in bag try the rings and see if they work ok. can let it warm back up in the bag. Its been a problem with other lenses. I had Sigma degrease a lens because the grease was only rate to 40F and at 28F it mostly locked up :(

[@nick_salazar]

@@thedp No thanks 🙂I'm sorry to hear you've had bad experiences with other lenses, but I have no desire to put mine in a freezer. Best wishes friend.

[@JulianaJordan-q7d]

Wolf Trafficway

[@JimboSkinner]

I can't breathe without a 21mm in my kit.

[@nick_salazar]

Good thing they make the B set now (14, 21, 40, 135, and 180mm) 🙂

[@matheusbastosdp]

What lens did tou shoot the shot of the 25mm on at 3:13?? Looks so creamy.

[@nick_salazar]

I think that series of shots was taken on my Laowa Argus 45mm f0.95 lens (I have the stills version, but they make the same lens in a cine housing now too). Shot around f1.4 I believe. It's definitely got very smooth (undercorrected) bokeh circles, leading to the creamy background. If there's ONE thing I sometimes miss in the Arles, it's that smoothness in the bokeh circle - Arles has a very defined edge most of the time.

[@tehbadger2810]

bro stop yapping so much and get to the point