In this box is the Chiopt Xtreme compact zoom, full frame lens with a focal length of 28 to 85mm with a continuous T-stop of 3.2.
You might not have heard of Chiopt, though this is their first rodeo making a cine lens, but Chiopt has more than a decade of experience developing and manufacturing lenses.
In the box we get a really nice carrying case, with several accessories, but the protagonist of this video is the lens itself.
The Chiopt Xtreme is a full frame lens that comes in different flavours of mounts of PL, EF and Sony E-mount, but the mounts are also swappable if needed.
I really like that they made this with an EF mount option, if you are using mirrorless cameras, you can take advantage of adapters from EF to RF, EFM, L, M43, X , Z and probably few more mounts you can adapt it too, but also make use of specialty adapters with a built in ND or speed boosters.
The Chiopt extremer being a cine lens we can expect all the standard features of having a clickless aperture and standard gears that work with any follow focus. You can find the focus distance is in metric on the left side and imperial on the right. The focus stroke is 288 degrees so it is easier to get a precise focus and the minimum focus is at 70cm or 2feet and 3 inches. When rack focussing there is a very minimal focus breathing and you have to look very carefully to even notice it.
At its minimum focus at 85mm you are able to get nice close up shots, but it is a tad soft wide open and needs to close down to f5.6 to get sharp again. However focussing on things more than a meter away or wider seem to still get a sharp image wide open.
The front of this lens does not have a front filter thread, but the 114mm front diameter makes it work perfectly with the Smallrig matte box which you can add professional 4×4 or 4×5.65 filters. But there are also a few brands that make filters that clamps onto lenses with a 114mm diameter.
The Chiopt extremer is parfocal, meaning that when you zoom in or out, the focus stays at the same spot. Which is really great for rack zooms as you don’t need to refocus while zooming.
In the case we can find a gasket box with shims, with these you can back focus the lens to achieve a proper parfocal zoom as not every camera mount is perfect and minor differences in the mount could affect the focus while zooming. Though using shims need a lot of trial and error to get to the correct focus, I wish it had a built-in back focus system like broadcast lenses, which are easier to back focus with.
Though the zoom range of 28 to 85mm is quite uncommon, but it does cover the commonly used focal lengths nicely.
With the aperture being T3.2 it’s not the fastest zoom lens out there. But it is enough to get a nice shallow dof still. But also it keeps the brightness the same throughout the zoom range, as you don’t see any brightness shifts when zooming.
The weight of the lens is dependable on its mount, being 2.7kg for the PL mount. 2.75kg for the EF and
2.8kg for the E-mount. When using lenses this heavy, a lens support is recommended, as it is a lot of weight hanging on the small mount on your camera. Under the lens is a support mount which you can get specific supports that screws into it, but personally I went with universal support to hold the lens up, but I would suggest a screw in support, that would hold the lens in place better when using a follow focus. When using this lens handheld it’s quite a workout and can feel the weight holding it up for a few minutes at the time.
Overall the Chiopt Xtreme is an awesome lens for anybody looking for a cine zoom lens for their full frame or speedboosted Super35 or M43 camera, but also without the extreme price tags attached as other brands might cost you well over 20.000usd, while the Chiopt extremer will be priced less than 3000. And Chiopt already has plans for more cine lens releases, like the 75-250mm t3.2 which is in the same series and style as the Xtreme. These two full frame cine zoom lenses cover a good range for most uses and I am looking forward to their future releases and testing them out.
For more information check out their website here: http://www.chioptfilm.com/product/extremer.html
