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00:00Hey what is up guys, MKBHD here and welcome back to the first DopeTech episode in a little
00:08while, but I'm glad it's back.
00:10So the last one was actually on this crazy high-end, ridiculous piece of video gear,
00:14the camera robots.
00:16This one is also returning to another insane, really high-end piece of video gear.
00:24This is the Venus Optics Laowa Macro Probe Lens, and as you can tell, it's super worthy
00:32of the name.
00:33So, I've actually had this lens for a couple weeks now, started messing with it.
00:37It's definitely not the type of lens that you use very often, it's super specialty,
00:42but it's already responsible for one absolutely crazy shot in the last video, the OnePlus
00:477 Pro review.
00:48Definitely check it out if you haven't already.
00:49I'll go ahead and drop a link below that like button.
00:51Okay, hold up, let's rewind for a second.
00:53So, the company Venus Optics makes a bunch of other weird specialty lenses, like this
00:58one, this super ultra-wide tilt-shift macro lens that I've used for a couple of videos,
01:03especially car ones, but why did this one specifically, I mean, it probably would catch
01:11your eye too, but why this one?
01:12Why the probe?
01:13Well, you might be like me, and you might've seen a couple of clips of this lens floating
01:16around the internet.
01:17There's even one really well-done viral video of someone literally shooting this lens through
01:21various subjects and getting all these crazy shots.
01:25And then most recently, it appeared in this behind-the-scenes video on Twitter from Phyllis
01:28Pizzito of The Verge as the critical tool for getting that crazy intro shot from their
01:34Galaxy Fold review.
01:39Once I saw that, that sort of piqued my curiosity, I looked it up, turns out it was on B&H with
01:45like expedited shipping, and that was sort of all I needed to see.
01:49So within a couple of days, it was here at the studio.
01:51So what's the deal?
01:52If you're a video shooter or a creator or a YouTuber or anything, why on earth would
01:57you want a crazy lens like this?
02:00If you think about it, this is a lens that's made specifically for video, and it's kind
02:04of all in the name, the probe lens, and there are a lot of crazy things about this lens.
02:09So this is what a normal camera lens looks like, you've probably seen one before.
02:13This is what a cine lens looks like, made specifically for video, and this is the probe
02:17lens.
02:18It looks pretty wild.
02:19It's almost a foot and a half long, just a few centimeters wide for most of the barrel.
02:24And the specs, it's full frame, fully manual, 24mm macro lens, f14 to f40.
02:31F14 to f40?
02:35What?
02:36Yeah, no, that's weird.
02:38Let's break this down.
02:39So first of all, the fact that it covers full frame is pretty amazing.
02:42It's a fully manual lens, which means the aperture ring and the focus ring are both
02:46de-clicked and fully hand operated instead of electronic.
02:49There also happens to be seven aperture blades, by the way, and 27 different optical elements
02:54in the whole tube.
02:55And it's a macro lens, meaning the minimum focus distance is really close, one and a
02:59half feet.
03:00But when you measure minimum focus distance from the flange or from the sensor, basically,
03:04that one and a half feet puts it just inches away from the end of the barrel of the lens,
03:10which is also pretty crazy.
03:11And then the 24mm is also odd.
03:14Those macro lenses are around 100mm in focal length, which is great.
03:17That gets you really close to the subject, but also really isolates it with the super
03:21shallow depth of field.
03:23A 24mm macro, it still lets you get super close, but it keeps this wide angle field
03:29of view and more is in focus.
03:30And then the f14 to f40 is kind of a blessing and a curse.
03:34On one hand, if you could go all the way wide open to f2.8 or f4 or something, you'd probably
03:39get almost nothing in focus.
03:41So it kind of saves you from that.
03:43But on the other hand, at f14 wide open, it means you need a lot of light for this
03:49lens.
03:50Like a lot of light.
03:51And then keeping up with the probe theme, the front end of this lens is actually waterproof.
03:54So you can not only probe, you know, small spaces, but you can submerge it, even get
03:59underwater shots if you want to.
04:01And then you can see up front, there's actually this ring of, that is right, LEDs, because
04:06this lens has lights built in to the lens.
04:11It's a lot.
04:12So if you're shooting in a very small space or a dark space, you can use the light to
04:15illuminate your subject.
04:16There's literally a micro USB port on the barrel of this lens that plugs into it.
04:20And it comes with a micro USB cable in the box.
04:23So if you attach it to some sort of power brick like I did, and then plug it in and
04:28turn it on, you end up with this sort of a magic wand of an experience.
04:34It's pretty bright too.
04:35That's all the LEDs lit up at once, a ring light at the end of your probe lens.
04:39It's crazy.
04:40But it all comes down to it.
04:41Of course, the shape of this lens is what makes it such a unique tool, obviously being
04:45so narrow, you can get right up, like super close to things.
04:49You can be in small spaces.
04:51And then of course, you're sort of really close to something while being far away from
04:55it at the same time.
04:56And there's also a bunch of YouTube videos detailing a bunch of examples of this.
04:59Even that viral video depicting kind of shooting it, the shooting part is fake.
05:04There's nothing detaching from the lens here.
05:07That's definitely edited.
05:09But the shots it got that they included, those shots are actually real, and they're
05:13super well done.
05:15And there's so many other good ones.
05:16So that, of course, got the gears turning about how to possibly use the probe lens
05:21for a tech video, or a shot in a tech video, or just to shoot tech in some way.
05:26And then of course, we saw Phil's video with the Galaxy Fold.
05:30So the story goes, as you know, I got the OnePlus 7 Pro a couple weeks beforehand and
05:35had this lens in hand the entire time.
05:38So I knew I had to try something.
05:40So of course, to maximize how dramatic it is, you want to get as close to the phone
05:44as possible.
05:46And like I said, even at F14 wide open, you need a ton of light to even see anything usable.
05:53Even in broad daylight or super strong studio lights, you got to crank the ISO at F14.
05:57The thing is, phone screens are actually really not that bright.
06:02And if you shine lights at them, they get less bright.
06:05So it turns out, that's actually why the Verge's video was shot in this dark setting
06:09with a dark background, because it's the only way to really see the phone's display with
06:13this lens.
06:14So that's why I ended up having to do basically the same thing for the OnePlus 7 Pro.
06:18Phone screens just aren't bright enough to compete against other lights.
06:21So the only way to really see it vividly is to turn the rest of the lights off, kind
06:25of like how your phone screen looks the brightest at night.
06:27But we had some other practicals and some other lights in the scene.
06:30And then even after we set everything up with a shot like this, the work isn't done until
06:33a little bit of coloring, a little bit of editing to brighten up the phone, denoising,
06:38effects adding, and potentially even sound design, et cetera.
06:42But the final shot is so worth it.
06:44So really, as it's turning out, the best way to maximize this lens when shooting objects
06:49with it is, number one, to get really, really close to your subject, usually a small subject,
06:54and then play with movement a bit, and specifically things around the barrel to really get that
06:59perspective that it creates of being like a tiny person on like a small surface with
07:04things going past you.
07:05So that's what we tried to do.
07:08So here are some other examples of some shots we've done with the Pro Lens.
07:12All right, so this was a fun one.
07:29Yes, in the studio, we do have CD racks that have never held a CD in their life.
07:34Instead, they hold smartphones.
07:36Don't worry, it's perfect.
07:37So I was literally just wondering what it would look like to move through the phones
07:41as if you were like a bug flying through them.
07:44So the red is on a slider, we pointed lights at it, like lots of lights, and there's almost
07:49no other point to this shot other than really just seeing how cool it would look from that
07:52crazy inside perspective.
07:54We had a couple different versions, you know, pull versus push moves.
07:57But other than that, there's no subject in the middle.
08:00We literally just got the shot to see if you could get it, and you couldn't with any other
08:05traditional lens.
08:06Even a GoPro wouldn't fit in the opening this lens is fitting through.
08:09All right, so this was just fun, and I think a lot of that's just because it's really colorful
08:17and I was hungry.
08:18But I think it would be even more awesome with maybe the robot or with possibly a true
08:23slow motion camera like a Phantom or something crazy.
08:25But the setup is similar.
08:27It's got a lot of light, and then just timing the M&Ms falling over and spilling basically
08:32over the lens.
08:33And that was the challenge is to time it right.
08:36So this was shot in slow motion.
08:37The RED does handle 120 FPS at 4K, so that was not a problem.
08:41But we had plenty of other versions and other bloopers with this shot with the M&Ms spilling
08:45everywhere.
08:46And weird timing because it's human error, you know, you're not going to get it perfect
08:48every time.
08:49But the final version, it couldn't have worked out any better with the M&Ms bouncing pretty
08:54much right over the lens, just like a transition.
09:05All right, shout out to Andy.
09:14So this one actually is inspired by that Varo video where it looks like it goes through
09:18this brush with all the bristles.
09:20This one, just fake plants.
09:23So for this one, I was thinking we were going to use the light on the front of the lens
09:26for this one.
09:27But after a few test shots, it turned out to definitely still be too harsh, like a spotlight.
09:31So we turned that off and basically doubled down on lighting the environment a lot better.
09:36So there's still a ton of light here.
09:38And the original shot was actually pulling the move on the slider backwards so the fake
09:43grass would sort of naturally move over to cover up the lens as it goes past.
09:47So the final shot you see is just playing it back reversed.
09:51And then the lighting on the Android at the end as it dims out, that was just timed by
09:54hand just by moving the light I was holding.
09:56100% practical effects, 100% problems.
10:01So this was a horizontal slide, of course, as you could tell.
10:10Similar lighting setup to the last one, but just moving the lights higher up so they
10:13didn't glare off this matte black keyboard so much.
10:16And then you can actually see the RGB lights better.
10:18I'm actually honestly surprised these showed up on video so well.
10:21And then just getting super close to the keyboard, kind of like you really couldn't with any
10:25other lens.
10:26So that was a fun one.
10:30The perspective we imagined when we were dreaming up this shot is like the zipper
10:35sort of opening past you, like you're this tiny, like a bug again.
10:40And this giant zipper is sort of chasing you away.
10:42The tough part is obviously since the depth of field is so shallow, it's super easy to
10:46go in or out of focus if the timing, which is by hand, isn't absolutely perfect.
10:51So there's plenty of takes of that where my hand goes in and out of focus.
10:53So I didn't worry about that too much.
10:55Instead, the more interesting part is making it feel like the zipper is closing around
10:59you and being so low to the ground, like only the probe lens can, definitely helped with that.
11:04So this is the last and I'll say the most difficult one, just because it's entirely
11:29handheld and free flowing and it is not a lightweight camera.
11:33But the perspective is basically as if you're, you know, attached to the marker, like you're
11:37a bug holding onto the marker for dear life as I write something.
11:40And it kind of turned out pretty well.
11:42And you could probably do this with another 24mm lens if the minimum focus distance was
11:46close enough.
11:47But you know, that was fun to shoot anyway.
11:48But yeah, that is the probe lens.
11:51It's clearly not a conventional lens and there's almost no reason to actually go get one.
11:56You kind of have to invent ways to use it.
11:58But those couple of times where you do actually find a good use for it and it turns out to
12:02work really well, it's so worth it.
12:04So that's what makes this dope tech.
12:06So of course, now that you've seen it on video, you'll be the first to recognize it when you
12:09see a shot occasionally from it in a future video, kind of like the robot shots you guys
12:14recognize.
12:15I promise not to overuse it, but I'm super glad we have it.
12:18Thanks for watching.
12:19Catch you guys in the next one.
12:21Peace.