BLAZAR APEX 35mm and 50mm Autofocus Anamorphic Lenses Review - Great Quality for the Price
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- ► Read more: cined.co/BLAZA...
Earlier this year, BLAZAR (formally known as Great Joy) announced their plan to bring 35mm and 50mm autofocus 1.33x anamorphic lenses to the market. Luckily, we got our hands on early pre-production samples to test them in the field. So how do these lenses perform and are they good value to your hard-earned money? Do these first-ever autofocus 1.33x squeeze anamorphic lenses have a look of 1.5x?
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BLAZAR APEX 35mm T1.6
► Order on B&H*: cined.co/APEX3...
BLAZAR APEX 50mm T1.8
► Order on B&H*: cined.co/APEX5...
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Photo by Stefan Krenn: stefankrenn.at/
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![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
BRAVO. Beautiful footage btw!! Been using the lens the past few days along side the Cato’s and a lot of the times you can’t tell the Apex is 1.33X, it’s kinda wild!
Need your review injected in my veins
hi , Cam. this one looks flat compare to remus and cato (i'm your followers).
@@andyz_w3584 from personal experience I disagree. I mean, it’s def no 2X obviously haha. But it def has more OOOMPH than a regular 1.33X lens. Still can’t really figure out what they’re doing to make it look like 1.5X but whatever it is I’m diggin it. Regardless though 1.33X is a friendly format for a lot of people including myself. And even though is S35x I’ve actually been using it at full frame 16X9 with a final 2:1 crop and it shows just a hair of converting that I personally like. This is coming from a guy that grew up living 90s cinematography where they would use obvious gradation glass filters that looked totally unnatural and obvious but made the frame feel so painterly. I still do things like that myself but in post. So to each their own!
Who cares about what you think you small time youtuber. You will comment everywhere to get more views, go to the street and beg to everyone 😂😂😂😂
Looking forward to your Apex videos. Looks like an fun lens, especially if you don't like the characteristics of 2x. Looks pretty sharp too. 1.5x has slight upper hand in characteristics i think?
These look awesome ! I’m excited for FX30 users to get their hands on these
Same!
My goodness... $800 for an autofocus anamorphic and f/1.8?!? I for sure thought you were going to say $1500. This is gonna get even more hype than the Remus, for good reason too. It's an easy buy for me, I just hope they get their quality control down when mass producing these.
Price shocked me
I’m not that sold on the look at first glance. Would love to see some more tests with them in different scenarios before I can judge them fully.
I was just about to say the same thing :( They don't look good at all and the colorization is off
A fun review with real-world footage and some charts to show how T-stop impacts sharpness. Much appreciated! It's wild that autofocus anamorphic lenses are coming to the market.
Big Love to Blazar 🎉for making the first AF Anamorphic, so affordable, lightweight and beautifully designed. ❤ It looks like a nice lens to get more character but not to extreme anamorphic. For me as FX3 user I wait for Full Frame Sony E with x1.5 stretch.
Thank you for the nice review. I’m not sold on the look yet but I love seeing AF coming to anamorphic lens and I really hope it is just the beginning! What an awesome innovation!
I love this because anamorphic dimensions look so much cooler on the iPhone in landscape mode than the alternative. It really fills the screen up.
I have an A1 so the apsc shooting is 21 mp. Which is good enough for photography. So I’m def getting ones of these.
even before you mentioned about their effort to make it look like a bigger squeeze, i thought to myself that it looks really quite stretchy for a 1,33x. nice barrel distortion too
great move by Blazar, hoping to see f2.8 full frame autofocus variants soon, excellent review
Price Point Sounds a GREAT Bang for Buck !
Great review! Thanks!
just wow
We are living in exciting times! The project is awesome and very interesting with ïndy" filmmakers in mind.
With that said, the anamorphic look to me is very very subtle. I was desperately looking for that oblong bokeh and anamorphic defocusing, but this did not appear in the footage, I believe. To me it looked very modern and "spherical". Maybe we need to wait for a full-frame counterpart. Or maybe I am asking too much...
Also, understanding how well the IBIS works with this lens would be interesting. Stabilizer with anamorphics is always an issue, but again, the effect being so subtle it may not be an issue here.
Do you have any hints on them adding a Full Frame auto focus versions?
they will, trust blazar. might take some time but no way they give up on FF users.
Beautiful! A question tho.. when using the FX30, ive heard that the Autofocus is disabled when using the in camera 1.33x anamorphic sqeeze option. That would mean you would need to use an external monitor always
Not bad. But nothing compared to the Remus line. If you are using APSC sensors, I think this will be a good option. A sure winner in that realm
But I cant wait for Full Frame 1.5x AF Anamorphics from Blazar. I know they will do such a great job! CANT WAIT!
Eagerly waiting for L mount , this would be a dream combo with s5iix & 35mm
It looks too clean , its missing that signature look from remus line
Have they mention the release date?
Love the footage and I love that it’s auto focus but there were only some points it actually looked anamorphic to me.
exactly its too clean, its missing that chararacter which remus had.
FX30 here, looking to pick the 35 up for Christmas. Solo shoot moving subjects (dancers), and want to take advantage of wide horizontal FOV, and flares from stage lighting. Hopefully they're out by Christmas so I can get one before my event on Jan 10th!
Hi there!
Thanks for the video!
Ama footage!
I was just wondering
Were you able to see the weird skips when panning present on the Blazar's official video for this lens or was that not a problem for you?
Thanks!
really want to try these
either the LUT isnt working for this or not enough distortion, will need to see more test footage
Time stamp 5:30 which focal length lens were you using ?
How was the aberration?
I currently shoot with the FX30 inside of a Camera Foundry Cineback gold mount rig with a 40mm Atlas Orion Anamorphic which is a SUPER heavy! I would love to try these out to compare the image quality vs weight.
Waiting for FF version!
Nice !!
We need the URSA Cine 12k in your hands to expose how bad that camera truly performs (compared to price ) !
What ?
Off topic but I'm kind of surprised to see the FX30 having that much blocky color noise in broad daylight... was considering one for a B or C cam but not too sure anymore. Off topic aside I think the lenses look great!
Hi videotuotannot2693. I suggest looking at the footage before grading (which can be aggressive at times, and this is what might cause the noise). I'm happy to share any clip with you before it is graded. Thank you! Johnnie
Is this a buy or a pass?
Beautiful 👍
Ya know, if you're gonna 'test' an autofocus cine lens I would have liked to see a test that a focus puller would want. A person runs towards the camera , pull to the foreground profilenof character 2.. then back to person one still running. Something like that. Would I expect this to work 100% for $799 ? No, but help a guy see whether his fantasies have been realized (or not).
It looks alright. I don't think I am blow away by them.
The anamorphic look seems very understated to me compared to the Remus and certainly the CATOs. Depending on who you are and what you want, that may be a positive or a negative. Being pre-production models with just a bit of footage I'm not going to judge em too hastily though. Don't get me wrong, the footage looked great, but I felt that if you shot spherical on slightly wider lenses and cropped you'd have a similar (not identical, but similar) aesthetic. I felt that way with the Sirui 1.33x lenses as well. But I've been overly studying Remus and CATO footage the last couple weeks...so my eyes might be ruined. 😂
Feeling the same way. Bit of CA, bit of (tiny bit) of Squeeze, a missaligned flare, and some barrel distortion.... On a different scale / world / level of lens.. Hawk 1.33 gives you some amaizing anamorphic goodness a 1.33 (but that's a rental only lens sent ;) ).
Question what’s the price point for both lenses ?
$799 for the 50mm lens. For the 35mm, we don't have information yet. Thank you
@@CineD INSANE DEAL
Do You know if Sony records gyro data with those lens? It's usually not the case for full manual lenses (those lack connectors), hence the question.
How does the manual focusing perform and for that matter work when you want to go that route?
Hi Johnnie, do you know if these will these be available for EF mount any time soon?
Hey. To my knowledge, those lenses won't be available in EF mount. Thank you!
EF is a DSLR system and the flange distance is much different than a mirrorless, which is to say that it is a completely different lens design. But you can expect versions for Nikon Z, Fuji, and Panasonic.
Definitley love the look of the lenses but idk if its just me but these seem to exhibit more chromatic aberration than the remus line
Remus (set A from personnal experience) has way more CA than whats showing here. But it all depends on aperture setting.
why was the video test done on fx30 and not on fx3?
S35 Sensor, FX3 crops to 1080p I believe
Is it worth shooting anamorphic with full frame? I don't have any aps-c cameras or open gate option.
Do you think this is a good option for full frame sony cameras still?
Hey. You will have to have the camera on an APS-C/Super 35 mode, otherwise, you are “risking” too much vignetting. Thank you.
@@CineDdoesn’t the A7 IV shoot crop in 4K 60 fps?
@@ThaLastLap it will be equal to the crop ratio on sony a7iv 60fps. But you will lose the lens horizontal deformation we want
Hi @CineD, is there anyway to use the de-squeeze monitor to 1.33 on the Sony body AND keep the autofocus and image stabilisation active? (WITHOUT using an external monitor to De-Squeze)
News about RF mount and how much vingette it has on FF?
Hello, where did you get 35mm Apex , on the official site I see only 50mm , it turns out 75mm on FX 30?
Hey. The 35mm is not ready to be delivered. It will hopefully come early next year, but no announcement has been made yet. Thank you
The only thing to improve imo is CA, it seems a little much. Some is fine with stylized lenses, but atm its very strong
Ok. But how fast is this autofocus???
There are going to make this type of lens for full frame, i have a a7iv
Which length do you prefer for fx30?
Hey. Personally, I like the 35mm. Thank you!
Does it work on full frame?
Our Apex 1.33x series is meant for S35 formats. Using the Apex on FF lenses will show some serious vingetting.
@ do you have any FF?
This is a dream! but i think it has a very bad chromatic aberration on the orange/red side, i like chromatic aberration but i think this is too much in my opinion. Its like a Halation. You can see it very hard at 1:04 on the painting and in 3:17 on the car grid. Maybe at t2.8 it starts to dissapear.
Very Nice.
is there a Nikon z version?
We plan to release Z mount, yes. E mount will be first.
I think they failed to make it look anamorphic on top of that the flair is grose and the lens seems to have ghosting issues.
amazing lent for an independent filmmaker not everyone can buy an Atlas or ARRIS LENTS
Great footage! I do wish they worked on lowering the longitudinal chromatic aberration though, it's been a bit off putting for me on the Cato's and (retrospectively) the Remus lenses as well.
Sony should buy this company.
They honestly shou'dve just went with a 1.5X or 1.8X squeeze with AF. This looks flat compared to the Remus line.
The Remus line is great for the money! AF anamorphic lenses are challenging to make and therefore I can assume that the company’s decision was to start with 1.33x. Thank you.
@@CineD They are decent. But the real issue is Blazar saying they look close to 1.5X. They should have just not said that.
Anamorphic Photography!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🥹🥹🥹🥹
The talking head shot looks like it was de squeezed improperly. Or he just has a funky shaped head. 😂
Is there any specific reason to be doing tests on aps-c camera? I feel like we can't really tell the full characteristic of a lens and squeeze factor when we lose 1.5 of the image. Also that fx30 really struggles with keeping the shadows clean 120/100 fps.
It’s an APS-C lens, and therefore the test has been done with an APS-C camera. Thank you.
@@CineD Got it. I was a bit confused when you mentioned you were shooting on A9
gamma is way off. shadows are just noise. in outside clips.
Is there such a thing as an anamorphic that’s too sharp? Too flat field? This may be the one.
Not enough! But this is the right path. More squeeze, more speed, more CHARACTER! What we see now, is almost normal lens footage. Boring.
Let me make a 5 Euro Banknote look like a 500 Euro Banknote,.... easy peasy..... i wonder what they are thinking here, if their squeeze is 1,33x then it is not a 1,5x ....... PERIOD. ....Off topic: I was also thinking about our wishes in this sector, and realized , that the first thing one would do, is judge the quality of the footage, the barreling, warping, vignetting, focus and detail or softness in center and at all 4 edges first,...then, right away put a price tag on it in your head, ....what this good, or bad quality, lens would need to be prized at. Thats the first thing i do. Usually i am shocked what some manufacturer would ask for in relations to their shitty optical engineering they did..... but hey very cool housing around the shitty glass.... so many might fall for this. And thats ok.I certainly won't after 40 years doing this Photography and Filming Thing professionally around the World. ... But, ....Hey...maybe that's just me......
it looks spherical, nothing special, too clinical.
Very poor color grading...