Best 3 Focal Lengths ?

[Jason beaumont]

I just bought an alexa 35 and im getting some signature primes with it. I'm going to be shooting independent films, music videos and documentaries. Eventually i'm going to buy a full set but for now, I'm just going to start with 3. What in your opinions would be the best lengths to start with? I was thinking 18, 35, 75. Your thoughts?

 

[Phil Holland]

I'd say that's a very reasonable range for S35 filmmaking and from my personal experience/taste very desirable. Particularly when working with my Schneider Cine-Xenar III Primes, I go with 18, 35, and 75mm or 25, 50, and 95mm when longer is more interesting. Carried the same mindset on Ultra Primes and Leica (now Leitz) Summilux-Cs. Years back much of my work on Dragon was 18, 35, and 75mm for a couple years.

One caveat I'll slap in there. Something in the 27, 28, 29 range may feel more "normal" and desirable for you at some point, but I wouldn't avoid the 35mm focal length. I personally feel 35mm is pretty essential across S35, LF, and VV formats. Arri's Open Gate format size on A35 is a bit larger than S35 proper and this may be less of an desire in practice.

Compared to Super 35mm 4-perf Full Aperture the FOV of 18, 35, and 75mm in A35 Open Gate comes out to an equivalent FOV of 16, 31, and 67mm. Not a huge deal, just good to know.

Also be aware some S35 glass on the A35 won't fully cover Open Gate. Most film in 4.6K 16:9 though and you'll be good to go on pretty much anything.

 

[Jason beaumont]

thank you phil,

 

[Michael Lindsay]

I use signature primes and have a set here.. but this stuff is so subjective and market/project specific

if I 'had' to pick for a Arri S35 (really great camera) 3 x Signatures I would prob pick 29, 40, 58 ... and buy the 18mm (or 21mm) and 75mm (or 95) later.. the 29 is a cracker and the 40 and 58 are great and have really good close focus!

However Phil def gave more balanced FL advice... the 18mm is clearly wide but not too crazy, the 35mm is a good 'normal' and the 75mm is a nice telephoto...

So my ill informed ;-) but real suggestion would be buy a Raptor or 2nd hand Monstro (cause these camera all look pretty similar anyways and enjoy the full fat goodness of a proper set of signatures! the price difference would allow for a set of 5 or 6 Signatures ... and lenses are where it is at for me!


PS also I really like Signatures (was using them yesterday with the impression filters) BUT if I was wed on S35 I'd maybe look for a short set of Sumillux C lenses? Signatures are 'great' enough to work at FF and S35 but the Sumillux C's a clear Sig dev influencing factor and are really lovely personal lenses

 

[James Sielaff]

It may seem counter intuitive, but having a 35 and a 50mm are really important with most lens sets.

A 50mm will get you closer to a subject than some telephotos.

Matching between normal lenses is also crucial. You can get away with using a different brand on a 100mm or 85mm because the perspective changes so much. Same goes for the extreme wide. That is why those obscure wide angles by Lowa and Irix end up getting mixed into other sets all the time. 18mm vs 21mm is a personal preference.

75, 85, 90, 100mm all typically have a close focus of 2.5ft or more, so you are doubling the close focus distance(2x), while changing the FOV by 1.5x? So, despite the 50mm being close to the 35mm in fov, it can actually give you more shot variety.


The exception is if you need reach. Like docu work and TV work, but in single cam cinema, i think a 47, 50, 55, 58, or 60 tends to be more useful than ~85mm on s35.




28mm vs 35mm is also one of those things, where you immediately know if you like one over the other. i rarely meet a person who likes the 28 and 35 equally. I more often find people that hate one and love the other. 28mm adds a slight distortion on actors faces, so I tend to go for something between 30 and 40mm as a normal lens. With a bias towards 32/35mm. But I must admit, it is a big jump from 35mm to 18mm, and goong without a 24mm equivalent is a dramatic choice. The good thing about going with the Signature 18mm or 29mm is the T1.8 is pretty rare on those focal lengths. Gives those wider angles the little bit of BG separation.


So, yeah, i'd say 35mm and a ~50mm(47,58?) then whatever wide you think you need. The 18mm is useful as relatively normal on s35 and becomes epically wide on LF, so perhaps a nice choice?


EDIT:
going off the Arri specifications sheet there is more details....

Minimum marked focus distance from the front of the lens:
47mm 9"
58mm 9"
75mm 17"
those are pretty good specs. 9" is basically up under the french flag on some matteboxes. All three lenses are the same length from the flange. So the there is nearly half the distance on the shorter lenses from the front of the lens.

Minimum marked focus from the sensor/image plane:
47mm 17.75"
58mm 17.75"
75mm 26"
From the sensor the distance is less than half.


What this means, is that anyone of them could be used for insert and detail shots. However, I still consider the fact that the 47mm do Godfather style framing on s35, as well as getting insert details, that it is the more versatile for narrative. The 58mm is also unique, in that it can sort of be both a coverage lens, near macro, and a long lens on super35. But is sort of redundant if you have the 47mm and 75mm.


While not a rule, ~50mm is more often an insert or ultra close up lens. and ~85mm is a long lens. you might get a very compressed shot of someone further away on a 75/85, but those longer lenses just can't get that insert detail shot from 30" away.


So, for s35 narrative, 35mm and 50mm equivalents give much more shot variety than a longer lens might.








I'd say: 35mm, 47or58mm and for a third lens, whatever you decide, and maybe find a 100mm prime that can sort of stand in until you can acquire more Signatures. My personal choices might be the 35(normal), 47(the godfather), but i'd be hard pressed choosing between the 25mm (car interior and wider accentuated low angle option) and 75(pan the action, second cam angle). i rarely use wide angle beyond 24mm, but I know wide angle is in style right now, as well as being very useful for a variety of shooting styles and narrative techniques.

 

[Russ Fill]

I just had this sort of similar dilemma only with a much more conservative budget.
we ended up with a CP-3’s and CZ, 15mm 35m and 50m but ended up renting a 70-200mm2.8 to round up the kit so to speek for everything beyond 80m needs. A lot of the reason was directly related to what James was explaining about minimum focus on longer lenses and for us falloff that sort of seemed similar to the shorter lenses.
basically the 50m and 35 are the work horses in that order and everything else falls on the other lenses for specific needs. We do feel a hole for some shots in the 21/25m window every now and again but we’re pretty happy with our results.

 

[Zack Birlew]

On my first feature, we used mostly the Rokinon 35mm T1.5 Cine (our only non-DS model) as it just turned out to suit our tight location more so than the 50mm as we had thought in pre-production and the other ones we swapped back and forth between were our 85mm Rokinon Cine DS and Sigma 24mm Macro Super Wide II 2.8 which was super cheap and awesome. The 50mm covered us for when we physically couldn't move in close enough for the 35mm, like back and forth seated conversations but the Sigma 24mm was our unsung hero for certain scenes. We didn't have a Rokinon 24mm Cine DS at the time because I had heard it wasn't very good compared to the others (spoiler for later after getting one, it isn't) and the 20mm I don't think was available at the time. The only lens in our lineup that I regret choosing was a Vivitar 28mm 2.8 which, according to reviews, was supposed to be a very competent and neutral 28mm choice, however, even stopped down it didn't have the bite I had expected and it just didn't stand up to the Rokinons, the Sigma, or our handy Tokina 11-16. I'm going to be correcting the one Vivitar shot soon as I'm almost done with post but I remember from a quick test that it was very correctable for how we used it. We used a few other oddball lenses but that's a story for another time.

 

[Jason beaumont]

Ended up with 18, 25, 40, 75

 

[James Sielaff]

how are you liking the 40mm?

 

[Jason beaumont]

I like all the lenses, the quality is really nice. From a DP standpoint, its one of my favorite sweet spots

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I was thinking 18, 35, 75. Your thoughts?

How odd, because before I read your post, those were the ones I was going to suggest!