Dedicated 3rd Party Lens Discussion (Examples Updated)

[franknitty69]

Also some mentioned above are s mount and others m12 are these both fine or is one the longer mount I saw frank mention needing extra modding in the GoPro itself?

the old 3.8mm lens had a thicker flange and longer fbl. the new one is shorter do it doesn't require any modification to the gopro at all. these are all m12 lenses btw.

as far as the coating on the ir cut filter, the old 3.8mm i have is red and the new 3.8mm is blue. i think there may be red variant as well. you won't be able to see any differences. all that matters is the wavelength.

 

[pete]

So anybody been able to see a difference between the blue or red IR cut yet. I'm about to order the 3.8 and Alie has the blue 3.8 16mp for 58 bucks total and gitup has the red, but with shipping it'd be 80. I'm leaning toward the Alie, anybody notice any real difference between em so far?

Also some mentioned above are s mount and others m12 are these both fine or is one the longer mount I saw frank mention needing extra modding in the GoPro itself?

I don't think you need the mod that @franknitty69 mentioned earlier, that was applicable to the older version of 3.80, the new 3.80 is a straight swap for the stock lens and when installed the lens top glass element comes out only 0.5mm more than the stock lens.

I have the new 3.80mm (8 glass elements), I also got new 3.87mm from Git2 store (also 8 glass elements), 3.97mm from Peau (8 glass elements) and the new "animal" on the scene 4.35mm (13 glass elements). The 4.35mm is not the older one that some people mentioned previously, this is the new one that just came out and @franknitty69 mentioned it above.

They are all 16MP lenses

from left to right : 3.80 --- 3.87 --- 3.97 --- 4.35






this last photo is right to left : 3.80 --- 3.87 --- 3.97 --- 4.35


EDIT : Here you see the filters, the 3.80mm (far right on this photo) is the blue filter and 4.35mm (far left) red filter, these 2 lenses give me best colour reproduction, the implementation of the filter attachment is different from any other lenses, it's kind of inset rather than attached flat across the bottom. I don't know if this would affect anything, for example reflectance.

They all go straight in, the only small issue is with the 4.35mm which is the shortest of them all and gets in focus almost instantly on 1st or 2nd turn, so there is not much holding it in the thread, it actually comes with a mount which I believe is longer than the stock mount and I believe if you take GoPro completely apart and replace the mount then the 4.35mm would hold in the thread more securely.

EDIT: I tried all of these lenses so I can quickly give you my opinion but I'm out of time to the some extensive tests as I'm currently packing and leaving tomorrow for a trip. (I received the new 3.87mm and 4.35mm only 2 days ago)

the new 13 glass element 4.35mm is very good, but it's not better than the 3.80mm, they are about the same, same sharpness and minimal distortion, softness in corners (typical for the other lenses) is not really an issue with these 2, colour reproduction is identical between these 2 lenses and it's on par with the GoPro stock lens.

3.87mm is also good, but there is no point getting this one because 3.80mm is somewhat better, 3.87mm colours are little bit more washed out compared to the other two and is tiny bit softer in corners.

3.97mm - I don't really like to comment on this one because my one is really bad despite Peau telling me there is nothing wrong with it, I'm convinced I just got a bad sample (colours are washed out and extremely soft in corners, it's sharp only in the center of the frame)

as it is I'm sticking with 3.80mm (in my main GP4B with profile removed) and I've installed the 4.35mm in Git2 camera (16MP Sony Exmor sensor) - this will be my photography camera for vertical shots (mounted on the accessory bay). 4.35mm installs better on the Git2 camera than on GoPro. I really really like this camera but that's for another post (image stabilization, no issues with pink corners nor mucking around with profile removal, you can set shutter speed !!! and heaps of other things).

I also have 5.4mm and the old 4.3mm, they are not as good as any of the lenses above.

Then I have 7.2mm just for some special applications if I need zoom for photography and lastly
2.7mm wide low distortion lens (no fisheye), again for special application when I need wide lens with no fisheye distortion.
2.7mm is now permanently in my GP3+B, it should not give pink corners because it's a wide lens, I'll be using this one primarily as my dashcam or on the roof of my car or on the camper trailer.

 

[pyrate]

Nice work there, thank you for the time to do all of that

 

[SteveReno]

Your officially the "Lens Guy" now.
Good work Pete. We appreciate all your efforts.
Have a safe trip.

 

[Adimuzio513]

Just wanted to say thanks a lot fellas, seems Pete and Frank already did all the heavy lifting for us lens wise. Think I'll go with the newer style from Alie than since it's less expensive and I can't seem to get a delivery time frame from git either. I'll grab this 3.8 now and maybe another after I receive it and see if I have any need for options. Wanted the peau profile removal, but seems overpriced and by the looks of this threads samples not as necessary as I'd thought. I'm glad cause with hero 5 coming before too long I really didn't want to dump money into or onto another 4.

Hopefully we get some other gimbal options for things like the git or other nice cheaper options. Gimbal, camera and lense all together would be less than just our GoPro most likely.

As always best site on the web for fast accurate info. Fly safe and have a great weekend.

 

[franknitty69]

Pete is definitely the lens guy lol. if peau ever gets that remote lens profile removal service off the ground i will gladly give them money to remove it.

 

[Adimuzio513]

Pete is definitely the lens guy lol. if peau ever gets that remote lens profile removal service off the ground i will gladly give them money to remove it.

Yea the removals great, would be better without the sending in, I more meant the price on a lense, an install and the service and didn't explain well. I'm definitley crossing my fingers for an app or online route, cause needless to say buying their hero 4 blacks a bit much as well.

 

[Thierry]

I just focused my new 3.8mm lens and it has really crappy soft edges. Do you guys noticed that too?
This is the one I got, the one that doesn't require to shave the GoPro.
The distortion isn't really good either (+ pink edges that I expected.)

3DR better release a better camera at NAB...

 

[SteveReno]

I just focused my new 3.8mm lens and it has really crappy soft edges. Do you guys noticed that too?
This is the one I got, the one that doesn't require to shave the GoPro.
The distortion isn't really good either (+ pink edges that I expected.)

3DR better release a better camera at NAB...

Mines looked like that, when i just adjusted lens in house @ "25tf" Then i readjusted at 72ft, it was a lot better but the right distance is 110 ft.

Marks off 110 ft, i put a small "18"x24" sign at that point.
Then get your GP at the other end of the 110 ft mark & put it on a tripod or anything steady.

Mark your outer cover of the lens with 4 lines 2 to 3 mm apart on each side of the present position of lens. "8 Lines total" then proceed Camera settings.
I set my GPH4B to:
Picture mode to 12mp, Protune on, sharpness low.
I took 1 shot at each adjustment line.
Then i took out the SD card & imported images to a Photo Shop, zoomed to sign & chose the best clarity.
Images not need to be really sharp, cause being zoomed X25, nothing going to be sharp, just chose the sharpest one.

 

[Dmitry]

3.97mm f/2.8 82d HFOV 16MP
(No Distortion)
Protune
Flat
ND8 PolarPro

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[Adimuzio513]

I just focused my new 3.8mm lens and it has really crappy soft edges. Do you guys noticed that too?
This is the one I got, the one that doesn't require to shave the GoPro.
The distortion isn't really good either (+ pink edges that I expected.)

3DR better release a better camera at NAB...

Yea I can't say for sure cause mines on its way now, but from all I've seen and heard this is the only bad comment on these 3.8s around. Unless you got a bad one I'd agree to try to focus it at an ideal distance again and let us know if anything changes. If your confident it's in focus could be like the one peau 3.97 discussed earlier. Their few and far between, but I'm sure some less than ideal lenses slip through qc no matter who's selling them.

Ended up going through Alie for mine, but after paying for faster shipping I think this ones actually a few bucks cheaper. How long did it take to get to you, I asked repeatedly for an estimated arrival and got nothing from Git was the only reason I got the one I did?

 

[pyrate]

3.97mm f/2.8 82d HFOV 16MP
(No Distortion)
Protune
Flat
ND8 PolarPro

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All round, still the best one so far. In my opinion. that 3.8 is interesting and would be my second choice. Waiting to hear about this one with all the new elements

 

[Ian [P13]]

I just focused my new 3.8mm lens and it has really crappy soft edges. Do you guys noticed that too?
This is the one I got, the one that doesn't require to shave the GoPro.
The distortion isn't really good either (+ pink edges that I expected.)

3DR better release a better camera at NAB...

As it's a fairly wide angle lens it's soft at the corners, for video I don't think in practice this matters much, for photos it's more of a headache. I would add though the lens flare is fantastic, you'd never guess the flare was from a GoPro. In 2.7K for video you could record in medium if the edges bother you. Personally at the moment I'm still choosing wide, I've seen other GoPro lenses which are softer for sure.

 

[Thierry]

@SteveReno

Thanks for the advice. I took 20 shots with tiny increments in focus to pick the best shot of all. All other frames are softer than what you see there. So that's as good as it'll get :/
The lens thread is quite lose in the gopro (inaccurate manufacturing) and I needed 2 turns of teflon to make it snug. It might have to do with that too. I'm so tired of swapping lenses. I wish it was as staightforward as it is on the P3.

@Ian [P13] It's definitely not ideal for photography, nor stitching. In video, it would be ok if you focus on a subject in the center but for simple scenery shots it's not as good. It's fine as hobby drone footage but not if you're selling anything. I thought I was so smart saving the hefty Peau Production 3.97mm mod. Now I'm thinking i might just bite the bullet.
Recording in Medium give me too much vibration. I have the 5.4mm too and that's why I wanted smth wider. I hate post stabilization. It softens the image too much to me, regardless what software you use (Premiere, Prodrenalin)
By the time you stabilize and remove lens distortion, your 4k footage is basically as good as a stretched 1080p. It's ok, but not great.

A few more sleeps and hopefully NAB will bring us a real solution.

 

[pete]

I just focused my new 3.8mm lens and it has really crappy soft edges. Do you guys noticed that too?
This is the one I got, the one that doesn't require to shave the GoPro.
The distortion isn't really good either (+ pink edges that I expected.)

3DR better release a better camera at NAB...

is the left inset picture 100% crop (pixel for pixel) ?

if so, that bench which is more or less in the center of the photo should be sharp if focused correctly, it looks correct distance from your view point for it to be sharp, but it's not.

if the center is not in focus then it's hard to asses the softness in corners.

at f/2.8 any lens would have softer edges and corners, it's just a question of finding a lens that minimizes this effect. I tried most lenses already discussed in this thread and found that for me the new 3.80mm has best overall sharpness and least amount of softness around the edges and corners (only the new 4.35mm could match that but it's just too narrow for me).

even the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 (Pro DSLR lens) which is regarded as one of the finest wide lenses ever produced when used at f/2.8 is not going to have same level of sharpness around the edges as in the center.

 

[Thierry]

is the left inset picture 100% crop (pixel for pixel) ?

if so, that bench which is more or less in the center of the photo should be sharp if focused correctly, it looks correct distance from your view point for it to be sharp, but it's not.

if the center is not in focus then it's hard to asses the softness in corners.

at f/2.8 any lens would have softer edges and corners, it's just a question of finding a lens that minimizes this effect. I tried most lenses already discussed in this thread and found that for me the new 3.80mm has best overall sharpness and least amount of softness around the edges and corners (only the new 4.35mm could match that but it's just too narrow for me).

even the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 (Pro DSLR lens) which is regarded as one of the finest wide lenses ever produced when used at f/2.8 is not going to have same level of sharpness around the edges as in the center.

I took a series of pictures and picked the one where the garbage can in the center was the sharpest. The bench is closer than my average subject, therefore I chose the bin as my ref. The city in the BG is also as sharp as it gets.
Any other position is softer.
You can look at the picture in full size (4000x3000px)

@pete Did you purchase the same one I did? Could you upload a full res photo from your GoPro with the 3.8mm so I can evaluate how bad mine is?
I shot is at 100 ISO with the sharpness set to Low.

 

[franknitty69]

@SteveReno

Thanks for the advice. I took 20 shots with tiny increments in focus to pick the best shot of all. All other frames are softer than what you see there. So that's as good as it'll get :/
The lens thread is quite lose in the gopro (inaccurate manufacturing) and I needed 2 turns of teflon to make it snug. It might have to do with that too. I'm so tired of swapping lenses. I wish it was as staightforward as it is on the P3.

@Ian [P13] It's definitely not ideal for photography, nor stitching. In video, it would be ok if you focus on a subject in the center but for simple scenery shots it's not as good. It's fine as hobby drone footage but not if you're selling anything. I thought I was so smart saving the hefty Peau Production 3.97mm mod. Now I'm thinking i might just bite the bullet.
Recording in Medium give me too much vibration. I have the 5.4mm too and that's why I wanted smth wider. I hate post stabilization. It softens the image too much to me, regardless what software you use (Premiere, Prodrenalin)
By the time you stabilize and remove lens distortion, your 4k footage is basically as good as a stretched 1080p. It's ok, but not great.

A few more sleeps and hopefully NAB will bring us a real solution.

Theirry the 3.97 has been known to have soft edges as well. we are pushing the gopro to its limits. boldly going where no man has gone before. due to size constraints, it is damn near impossible to get better performance then what we are seeing now from these m12 security camera lenses.

 

[Thierry]

@franknitty69 thanks for your view on this matter. Those lenses aren't designed for cinematography indeed. I'll try to dial it as best as I can.
I feel like the softness I get is so bad partly because I didn't wrap the lens with teflon evenly on both sides. There might be double the teflon on the left than on the right, giving a slight tilt to the lens and aggravating the issue. It's very sensitive, and the lens was orginally very lose in the thread.
I'll try to wrap with with exactly 2 or 3 turns and see if I get an improvement.

It's a little frustrating that we need to currently need to stabilize + undistort + fix pink edges + fix edge softness.
A lot of the sharpness gets nuked by all this. Although in 1080p it still looks pretty good.

5 more sleeps til NAB.

 

[jibcamera]

@franknitty69 ...

5 more sleeps til NAB.

and I'm sitting here needing to pull the trigger on a Hero4B+lens...i know the second I do it, they will drop the price, 3DR will introduce 5 new killer supported cameras, and Ill find some random NAB discount code I couldve used....agghh

 

[Thierry]

and I'm sitting here needing to pull the trigger on a Hero4B+lens...i know the second I do it, they will drop the price, 3DR will introduce 5 new killer supported cameras, and Ill find some random NAB discount code I couldve used....agghh

Can't you wait for a week?