Thypoch Simera-C vs Vespid vs Arles vs Arles Lustre
Thypoch.com discount code for 5-20% off: KEITHKNITTEL
Introduction
I like the vespids, love the arles, but what about the Thypoch Simera-c’s? Where do those fit in?
Recently, a local guy let me borrow a set of simera-c’s for a project that fell through, but I still wanted to figure out where these lenses would fit in my workflow. So I did some testing against the Vespids, Arles and the Arles Lustre for good measure.
For the record, this isn’t the simera-c, I had to give those back to joe but I still need something to point at because I talk with my hands. Huge shoutout to Joe for responding to my Instagram story and letting me borrow the Simera-C’s.
All of the footage in the above video, and all of my other lens tests videos, is ungraded footage - unless explicitly stated on screen. The only adjustments were a color space transform to rec 709 and small exposure adjustments if needed. But I try to keep the footage as “Straight off the card” as I possibly can.
Pricing & Rental Rates
Simera-C Sony E: $880/lens. 5-lens kit: $4048
Simera-C Leica M: $959/lens. 5-lens kit: $4319
Rental: $30/lens/day. 27 or 29 days to pay off
Vespid: 5-lens kit: $5800, on sale for $4,000
Rental: $50/lens/day. 16 days to pay off (23 if paid full price)
Arles: 5-lens kit: $9800
Rental: $50/lens/day. 39 days to pay off.
Arles Lustre: 4-lens kit: $10,799
Rental: $175/lens/day. 15.5 days to pay off - (I’d likely get $100/lens/day in my area, more in line with regular arles)
Size, weight and My Opinions on Travel-friendly-ness
When it comes to opinions on lugging these lenses around:
The Simeria-C’s you barely notice them on your camera. Tiny and excellent to travel with the entire lens set in a backpack. Taking these around as a one-man band is zero problem at all. They come with a silver case, which gets some looks.
The Vespids are not too heavy but well built. Can fit a few in a backpack to travel, but you’ll need the case if you want the whole set. Good to travel with if you only need like 3 lenses. If you’re taking the set to multiple locations as a one-man band you’re going to get tired, but you can do it.
The Arles are huge chunky boys. They feel very solid and well built, but you’ll most definitely need to take the pelican case if you want 3 or more lenses. I’ve traveled with 3 in a backpack, with adapters, mics and my FX3 and had a terrible time. 2 is the sweet spot if you have to. One is best. Taking the set around with you as a solo operator, you’re now in camera cart territory. Or hire someone strong, that you don’t like, to lug these around for you.
Image Quality & “the look”
Now, onto the part I’m most interested in, the look. Let’s go over some test footage and I’ll tell you what I think at the end.
(Check the video for this part!)
Going over charts as fast as possible here,
21: Center is sharp wide open, takes until T4 for edges to sharpen up. Vignette wide open, Slight vignette at T2.8, but never quite goes away.
50 and 75mm behaved exactly the same on the charts: Center is very sharp wide open, edges are pretty sharp. As sharp as the center by T2. Was very surprised at how sharp the 50 and 75mm are is. Vignette wide open, slight vignette at T2.8, gone by T4
I cant comment on the charts for the 28 and 35, since their minimum focus distances were too far away, I wasnt able to fill the frame with the chart.
Minimum Focusing Distance
Another boring test, but worth mentioning, here is a list of all of the different minimum focusing distances. The two outliers on this list, to me, are the Simera-C in 28mm and 35mm. Like I said, at 28 and 35, I wasn’t able to fill the frame of the focus chart I’ve used for all of my lenses.
I initially thought, this is a look at one of the first compromises were making here with the tiny size and light weight form factor of the simera-c’s. However, I wouldn’t be able to do this sharpness chart test with the 21mm arles either. It would be too far away. Another outlier here is the 75mm Arles, that feels a little far away. I was trying to find a pattern here, like the smaller lenses had farther minimum focusing distances, but in some cases, they performed better than the Arles. I have no idea.
Vespids handled all of these no problem.
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21mm: 9.1" / 23 cm
28mm: 15” / 40 cm
35mm: 17” / 45 cm
50mm: 17” / 45 cm
75mm: 22” / 55 cm
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21mm: 11” / 28 cm
25mm: 11” / 28 cm
35mm: 12” / 30 cm
50mm: 18” / 46 cm
75mm: 24” / 61 cm
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21mm: 13” / 33 cm
25mm: 13.78" / 35 cm
35mm: 13.78" / 35 cm
50mm: 19.7" / 50 cm
75mm: 29.5” / 75 cm
Flare
Flaring is pretty subjective, and the flares change based on aperture, but I had all of these lenses in one place, so I had to see how all of these lenses flared when paired next to each other. Also, I just wanted an excuse to blast a flashlight down the barrel of the Arles Lustre while I had it.
In my opinion, the Simera-C reminded me of the Arles flare, but not as well controlled. The simera-c’s werent bad, but still the Arles seem to handle flaring very well and they’re a little more fuzzy on the Arles, and not as sharp like they are on the Simera-c. They both seemed a little cooler.
The Vespid seemed to be fit between the Simera-C and Arles in terms of flare control, but the vespid has a slightly warmer flare. Were splitting hairs here, but to me the Arles has the most pleasing flare.
That is until you get to the Arles Lustre. I love the the very pronounced warm flare on the Arles lustre. I have a whole video coming out about the Arles Lustre, I know they might not be everyones favorite, but I love the warm flares.
Bokeh
Taking a look at the bokeh, the out of focus areas on the simera-c’s go past the slight cats eye shape, like the Vespid has, and lean into more of a swirl effect.
It’s tough to illustrate this, but I found that this test showed the differences the best. Notice how the bokeh shape changes as I’m panning the camera around.
The bokeh towards the edges of the frame behave very differently on each of these lenses .The Simera-C’s have more of a swirl effect, the Vespids have a bit of a cats-eye shape towards the edges, and the arles has the least amount of distortion in the out of focus areas.
Color Cast
Using these lenses, I can tell there are some color differences in these lenses, but my eyes lie sometimes, so taking a look at a vector scope of color chips I shot with each of these lenses, overall they are a touch warm but vary a little bit from lens to lens.
The 21mm is a little bit warm, the 28 is a little bit warmer, 35 is a tiny bit warmer still, the 50 is more in line with the 21mm. The 75mm is the most color neutral of the bunch. Similar to the colors of the 40mm Arles.
The Vespid is a touch cooler than the arles, but are you ready for this one. Boom the Arles Lustre is way colder, skeweing cooler than warm.
I know vector scopes arent everyones cup of tea, so here is some test footage and I’ll just run through everything again. The Simera-C is a touch warm. The Vespid is a little cooler than the simera-C, but still warm overall. The Arles is cooler than the Vespid, but still warm overall. Then boom, the Arles lustre is cold as ice until you get even a tiny amount of light down the lens and you can see those warm flares. I love that, but I have an entire video going over the Arles Lustre, so just subscribe and check back for that video later.
Filter size and Outer Diameter
Arles: Filter: 86mm. OD: 95mm | Consistent Throughout Set
Vespid: Filter: 77mm. OD: 80mm | Consistent Throughout Set
Simera-C: Filter: 62mm. OD: 67mm | Inconsistent, 75mm: Filter: 67mm. OD: 72mm
Focal Lengths
Another important aspect of buying a set of lenses, is the amount of focal lengths available in the set. The Simera’s have 5 lenses from 21 to 75. For most things, that covers your general shots, but I love mixing macros, and wides and I personally like the Vespid’s because they have such a wide range of focal lengths available, the vespid macro is a total workhorse for me for product videos.
The Arles has a great selection, but they’re just expensive. Spending $2,800 on a 14mm is a tough one to come to terms with. I’m going to have to do it some day, but I’m just kicking that can down the road and using my Vespid 12mm for as long as I can.
I assume there will be more simera-c’s in the future, and I’d love a really wide lens, and a macro lens in this set. Please Thypoch, make this happen.
On a Gimbal
A few opinions on using these lenses on a gimbal, you can use any of these lenses on the RS4 Pro. If you’re using these for a few minutes at a time, any of these lenses will work. But the longer you use the gimbal, the more you’re going to notice the weight difference between the vespid and the Arles.
The Vespid is nice to use, and easy to balance, the Arles can require some counter weights depending on your camera and accessories.
However, you wont even notice the Simera-C’s on your camera. If you’re using a gimbal for a long period of time, and need a cinema lens, these are pretty good.
The Vespids are fine, but the Simera-C’s are just unbelievable light for a lens this fast.
Focus Breathing
When it comes to focus breathing, this is where the Simera-C’s struggle a bit, especially when comparing them to the vespid and arles. Here is some test footage showing the differences between the lenses. Knowing these lenses breath like this, I would try to minimize any shots that I’m racking focus. I can definitely notice the focus breathing, but for the price, is the an acceptable amount of focus breathing? Let me know what you think in the comments.
Mounts: M vs PL
When it comes to the different mounts available, the Simeras-c’s come in E or M mount, that you can not change. The Arles and Vespids come in EF or PL, and you can swap and shim the mounts.
The PL mount feels more robust when you are using it, the M-mount is tiny, and thats one of it’s strengths, but it’s also one of it’s weaknesses too. When I was doing a focus breathing test at the studio, my DJI follow focus would torque these lenses on my camera when it came to the ends by infinity or minimum focus. I use the same DJI Focus motor settings on my PL lenses and do not do this since the mount is more robust.
Again, this is pretty picky here, but something that I did run into and wanted to mention.
Adjusting focus
These lenses are really small, that’s a good thing and maybe a bad thing when adjusting focus on the lens by hand. I found that it’s a little bit annoying if you have to adjust focus a lot by hand. I think the Vespids have the best focus ring out there, it’s huge. The Arles is good too, but the Thypochs being so small, I found it a little annoying at times.
This is me being grumpy and picky, but it’s something I wrote down, so I wanted to include it.
Handling
Another really picky thing I wrote down was, it’s tough to put on the lens when using adapter, I grab the focus ring when swapping lenses and move the focus ring instead of putting the lens on or off the camera.
Huge advantage: Traveling
I know I’ve talking about this already, but a huge advantage of this lens set is it’s size, especially when traveling around. You can fit the entire lens set in a backpack and still have plenty of room for a camera, mic and not feel overloaded. Very easy to travel light with these lenses.
Conclusion
Choosing between these lenses is extremely subjective and based not only on how you want your image to look, but how you work, and your budget.
If you’re a solo shooter, the M-mount Simera-c’s make a lot of sense.
Very small, light, fast, contrasty, and have unique bokeh wide open, but can hide the swirly effect if you stop down a bit. It could be a little overkill for corporate work wide open, but stopping down the look very nice. Great price point for an entire set of lenses. They breath a lot, have inconsistent filter sizes with the 75mm, but I feel like if you’re a solo creator on a budget these are things you can work around pretty easily. It’s more of an annoyance than a deal breaker that you have to use a step up ring to keep all of your filters the same. The minimum focus can be annoying, especially with the limited number of lenses, but then again, at this price point and the lenses being so small, I’m sure sacrifices needed to be made some where. These are all things you can work around if you have the time to do so.
Stepping up to the Vespids, I feel like these lenses are better fitted for teams.
Consistent filter and outer diameters, PL mount, built like a tank, a little slower than the simera-c’s but T2.1 is still pretty fast. A little focus breathing, but not enough to be distracting. Much less focus breathing than the simera-c’s. Very good minimum focus distance. Very wide range of focal lengths, and the 90mm macro is a life saver for product shoots. The 12mm is one of my favorite lenses to use.
I have my set of Vespids and absolutely love the versatility and price of these lenses.
Going to the Arles, all of these tests just cemented how much I love these lenses. In the side by sides, I always found myself liking the Arles image. They are built like tanks, pretty heavy, but they just have an image that I really like the look of. They have just the right amount of contrast and warmth to be nice but not overkill for most of the work that I do.
The Arles Lustres are a completely different animal. They are beautiful lenses, and I love the flares, but the are a little cooler in my initial testing.
I can see myself picking up a set of these lenses if I’m doing more traveling in the future, and I do like the swirly bokeh.
Thanks for reading until the end, let me know what you think of these lenses in the comments on YouTube!
Thypoch Discount Code
After making this video, thypoch reached out and offered my viewers 5% to 20% off using the coupon code: KEITHKNITTEL at checkout!