Lens help, I have no lens background

[Barry Bishop]

I come from a fixed lens background. I always bought cameras with a lens (Fuginon for instance) and never ventured out to the lens, IE DSLR world. the one time I did footage the footage was horrible! I really have no idea what lens to buy. I dont want to spend more then 3k on a single lens for the scarlet. So I am asking for help with buying a lens or multiple lenses. I do mostly Chroma key work, so my room sizes vary depending on locations but I generally am about 7-12ft away from the subject. Canon mount preferably as my boss has a 5DMII and im sure he would like to play with the lenses too

 

[Zeb B]

Tokina 11-16
Canon 17-40
Canon 24-70

That's it

 

[Charles Wood]

http://usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/ef_lens_lineup/ef_24_70mm_f_2_8l_usm

Very good starter lense that covers a bit of wide, and some portrait at 4k. I see these and other canon glass on Epics and Scarlets alot for demos. You can find a used one on ebay, or even go old school FD mount for alot cheaper than 3 grand.

 

[Barry Bishop]

Thank you Josh. I'd like to give him maybe 8-10 choices. Are there any others? I'd say my budget is around 8k for lenses.

 

[Josef Gatti]

The 50mm 1.2 is magic, look into that. Results can be outstanding.

 

[Barry Bishop]

What about the Zeiss Compact Primes EF mount? If I got a set of these would this do the job?

 

[Stivan Widick]

How about zooms on the long end for wildlife and bird photography, including nighttime?

 

[D Fuller]

What about the Zeiss Compact Primes EF mount? If I got a set of these would this do the job?

Sure would, but they'll cost $20,000+, and you said you wanted to spend $3K. Also, the CPs will require you to change lenses every time you want to change focal length (and that means carrying a lens case with you) which is a much different production style than the fixed zoom you mentioned being comfortable with.

 

[D Fuller]

How about zooms on the long end for wildlife and bird photography, including nighttime?

beyond 200mm, zooms won't be a great choice for nighttime. Long telephoto primes are much wider-aperture than zooms.

 

[Barry Bishop]

Sure would, but they'll cost $20,000+, and you said you wanted to spend $3K. Also, the CPs will require you to change lenses every time you want to change focal length (and that means carrying a lens case with you) which is a much different production style than the fixed zoom you mentioned being comfortable with.

I was thinking more of the 55 or 85mm lens not the complete set. I agree its not what I am used to, but Its probably something I should start becoming used to. I didnt sleep last night cause these questions kept haunting me. RPP and Zeis CP are pretty close in PQ according to the threads and examples I saw. Zeis are smaller and compact and the RPP are heavy and are PL mount. So I think im going to tell my boss the canon L lens above and tokin lenses along with the 85mm Zeis Lens. or should I do the 55m Zeis?

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

The Zeiss CP are not even close to the sharpness of the RPP's. Only Master Primes ($100K) are sharper.
At Reducation the CP's were by far the WORSE performing lenses. Seemed way too soft when projected at 4K. Believe it or not, while the mechanics are not perfect (a little stiff) the original Red Pro 18-50 can be had for $2500 to $3K used and is very sharp and contrasty and a perfect Scarlet lens. This zoom
also out peformed the CP 2's. I actually cant stand those lenses, so I am biased. I think the Zeiss Planars and Distagons are far superior for way less $

If you have $8K. Then buy the newer RPZ 17-50 and add an 85mm RPP and you cover most every focal length... IF you are going with PL mount.

OTherwise the Canon's Josh suggested are an excellent bet. and then add the 70-200 and you will have sharp clean images.

PRIMES give you low light SPEED - less light also saves $

 

[Zeb B]

I do mostly Chroma key work, so my room sizes vary depending on locations but I generally am about 7-12ft away from the subject.

At 5K you have a 1.4 crop on Canon L lenses. At 4K and below you are very much in wide angle lens territory. Not sure how anything longer would work for your stated application.

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

CPs

CPs

I agree with Tim
CPs are a disgrace to Zeiss- changed my perception of the company from craftsmanship to common greedy sleazy salesman:001_tt2:
Now if you want to know what I really think about them......

 

[Carelton Holt]

We have a wide array of EOS mount lenses for stills and video, mostly Canon with a few primes from Sigma. I will list the ones that are real workhorses and produce the best images. Do not be put off by the Sigma prime Aspherical glass primes, they produce amazing results at a reasonable price. The Sigma 85mm f1.4, the 50mm f1.4 and the 28mm f1.8 have superior sharpness in independent test studies and produce killer 5K stills in our 5D II. They are very well built and have given us outstanding results in professional aplications. Our favorites go as follows:

Canon Zoom: (great lenses, but definitely not quite as sharp as either the Canon or Sigma Primes in similar ranges at wide open apertures)
16 - 35 f2.8 (a super versitile and fast zoom lens. Be careful for edge softness wide open and expect really sharp edges corner to corner at f8 or higher).
70-200 f2.8 (another workhorse and really sharp at almost all aperture settings. The image gets a little soft wide open at 200mm, so try to aviod zooming all the way at f2.8. It actually tests sharper using the Canon 1.4x teleconverter if you need 200mm or slightly higher. But with the teleconverter, it definitely gets soft zoomed all the way.)
24-70 f2.8 (pretty darned sharp everywhere)

Sigma Primes: (amazing results even at 21 megapixel stills and solid pricing)
85mm f1.4 (I know everyone raves about the Canon 85 f1.2 and it is awesome, but so is the Sigma! Absolutely SICK bokeh and sharp everywhere at all apertures and under $1000. We wear this lens out... a real money maker for us!!!)
50mm f1.4 (Same rave revies as the 85mm above. Killer bokeh and razor sharp. We do a ton of video with this lens and commercial product photography. An absolute STEAL at $500)
28mm f1.8 (Another killer under $500! It is so cool to get really shallow DOF at 28mm. We stop it down to f16 for razor sharp images and shoot almost all our aerial video footage with this lens... another money maker)

These Sigma lenses have performed so well for us, I am ordering the 20mm f1.8and 24mm f1.8 Sigma primes for the Scarlet due to the multiplyer. You could get all 5 lenses for $3100 and have perfect steps from 20 to 85mm with spectacular results. I am not just talking about line skipped 1080P video from the 5D, We shoot video AND 21 megapixel stills with these lenses for a living. I certainly love my Canon glass, but am a definite fan of the price/value of this set of lenses!

Canon Primes:
15mm f2.8 circular fisheye (Just plain wicked what this lens creates!)
35mm f1.4 (Super sharp all the way through. I prefer the Sigma 50mm in full frame cameras like the 5D, but this is going to be a workhorse with the Scarlet due to the 1.6x to 2.0x multiplyer in 3K or 4K)
135mm f2.0 (Fastest lens in it's calss... unbelievably sharp everywhere. Great compression and really dramatic images)
17mm f4.0 Tilt Shift (Unless you are shooting a fair amount of architectual stuff, this lens is expensive and a luxury. If you know about tilt/shift, you get it, but the real surprise is what it can do for video. Not just the "miniature effect" which is certainly cool and occasionally useful, but correcting inward angles and "falling" buildings in video is just awesome)

Sorry to run on... hope this helps. I have purchased several lenses in the past that have not worked out so well and certainly would have appreciated some guidance along the way.
A good source for technical info on a fair number of lenses is below.
Good Unbiased Test Site:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/

Cheers,
C

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

At 5K you have a 1.4 crop on Canon L lenses. At 4K and below you are very much in wide angle lens territory. Not sure how anything longer would work for your stated application.

Lenses don't have crop factors, sensors do. 5K on EPIC/Scarlet is a 1.3X crop from shooting 35mm full-frame. Doesn't matter what lenses you put on there. A 50mm lens is going to give the same field of view on you camera, regardless of whether it is a Canon L designed to cover FF35 or a Canon EF-S designed to cover APS-C sensors. You would get the same field of view even if you used a 50mm designed to cover 8x10 large format film...

I agree with Tim
CPs are a disgrace to Zeiss- changed my perception of the company from craftsmanship to common greedy sleazy salesman:001_tt2:
Now if you want to know what I really think about them......

I am in total agreement with this. And yes, I've shot with both the CP's and CP.2's a few times. Almost bought a set back when they introduced the CP's... So glad I didn't. If you want to have essentially the same glass, but at a much lower price, at the expense of SLR mechanical components, look at the Zeiss ZF's. Duclos packages a nice set of them for under $10K complete with de-clicked iris and focus gears installed, however they are Nikon F mount. This is not a bad way to go for a "starter" set of primes. Zeiss makes a ZE series of primes, which offer Canon EOS mount as well as focus rings that turn the Canon and Cinema direction. However, they don't have a mechanical iris...

For Barry, since he's looking for a lens or two on a tight budget, I think sticking to Canon EOS mount is probably a good choice for him. I would recommend he start with one zoom lens to get a feel for focal lengths in relation to the size of the Scarlet sensor and how it all works. The Canon 16-35 f2.8 L is a great one to start with for the wide-end of things. Carelton has a nice summary in his post above.

 

[Zeb B]

Lenses don't have crop factors, sensors do. 5K on EPIC/Scarlet is a 1.3X crop from shooting 35mm full-frame. Doesn't matter what lenses you put on there. A 50mm lens is going to give the same field of view on you camera, regardless of whether it is a Canon L designed to cover FF35 or a Canon EF-S designed to cover APS-C sensors. You would get the same field of view even if you used a 50mm designed to cover 8x10 large format film...

All Canon "L" lenses are designed for 35FF. When using a 50mm "L" lens on a S35 sensor your angle of view goes from 27.9 degrees (on a FF35 sensor) to 39.6 degrees (for the S35 at 5K). That makes the 50mm coverage almost identical to a 70mm lens - at 5K, it gets more tele as the "K" is reduced. My grammar might have been off but the advice to the OP remains: for small room green screen work you will need wide angle lenses. Also, I understand that the crop factor from S35 to FF35 is 1.4 not 1.3

 

[Tiana Hall]

I have the Canon efs 17-55mm 2.8 lens. I'll be using it as my go to lens on my scarlet. I think it should cover 4k pretty well. Hopefully I won't have to wait too long for my scarlet to test it out.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

The Epic/Scarlet sensor at 5K is roughly equivalent to an APS-H sensor, thus a "crop factor" factor of about 1.3 (compared to a FF 36x24 mm still camera). At 4K, it is more like an APS-C or S35 and has a "crop factor" of about 1.6, again as compared to a FF 35mm still camera. :mellow:

One of the points Jeff is making is that an L lens and an EF-S lens, as long as they are the same focal length, produce the same image - no "crop" difference.

 

[Dave Blackham]

I come from a fixed lens background. I always bought cameras with a lens (Fuginon for instance) and never ventured out to the lens, IE DSLR world. the one time I did footage the footage was horrible! I really have no idea what lens to buy. I dont want to spend more then 3k on a single lens for the scarlet. So I am asking for help with buying a lens or multiple lenses. I do mostly Chroma key work, so my room sizes vary depending on locations but I generally am about 7-12ft away from the subject. Canon mount preferably as my boss has a 5DMII and im sure he would like to play with the lenses too

It really depens on on what you want to do and achieve. These are just some ideas about stills lenses that may suit you but these lenses are not made for cinematography but can offer an alternative aproach.

If you want to have Canon L lenses then I don't think you will go far wrong.

But if you want to have manual primes then you can consider inexpensive Contax Zeiss primes, Y/C mount. The 21mm Distagon is particularly good, they are manual only, we think they are better than the CP and CP2s but some way if you find good copies. Some of the best stills lenses are from Leica with an R mount are outstanding however thay are not cheap, we use these lenses and they are just fantastic. Nikon F also work and look good, they are not our preference as they don't focus cinewise and the throw is short, we use these on 5D's for timelapse, they can make nice very images though if you can put up with the rotation and short throw. All three mounts can use an A mount system and Jarek has a Nikon mount which is very good by all reports.

 

[D Fuller]

All Canon "L" lenses are designed for 35FF. When using a 50mm "L" lens on a S35 sensor your angle of view goes from 27.9 degrees (on a FF35 sensor) to 39.6 degrees (for the S35 at 5K). That makes the 50mm coverage almost identical to a 70mm lens - at 5K, it gets more tele as the "K" is reduced. My grammar might have been off but the advice to the OP remains: for small room green screen work you will need wide angle lenses. Also, I understand that the crop factor from S35 to FF35 is 1.4 not 1.3

First, watch this: A Lens is a Lens is a Lens

It does not matter that the Canon lens is designed for 35mm full-frame 24x36. What matters is that it is a 50mm lens. Its angle of view is the same as any other 50mm lens, whether that lens was designed for S35, medium format, or a 4x5" view camera. What changes the angle of view for a lens is the size of the sensor (or film) that you are using. Use a smaller sensor, you get a smaller (narrower) angle of view. It does not matter what format the lens was intended for. If it's a 50mm lens, it's a 50mm lens.