Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Best Inexpensive Lenses

TrevorBarnes

TrevorBarnes

Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2020
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
29
Location
New Jersey, United States
Website
www.trevorbarnes.me
So I am wondering if anyone has any good lens recommendations for the red one mx? I really just want a couple of primes. I have an ef mount, a nikon, and pl mount for my red one. I have only used ef lenses in the past but I don't shoot on Canon anymore and don't have any good glass. I am open to anything but am looking for something inexpensive as I don't want to spend to much on a camera that is 10 plus years old. Maybe even some vintage lenses?
 
lomo standard speeds for vintage, period, special look
 
I use a lot of nikon glass from 24mm all the way to 600mm (I used nikon professionally for photography)

You can get a lot of older glass for nikon that produces amazing video for very little money and some of the even older stuff (AI) looks stunning and coats between 20-80 off eBay.

I also have a PL mount for my RED One MX and will at some point but a nice PL lens prime when I'm ready for the upgrade. But my nikon kit works wonders!
 
Lenses these days, 2021 (happy new year!), range in prices from $15 used to $$$,$$$ new. Inexpensive is relative really to that, but generally when I think of highly affordable it's in the realm of $15-$1200 a lens.

Helios of course has been mentioned, but you can adapt a bunch of good glass to EF like Nikons-F, Leica-R, Mamiya 645, Pentax 645, Olympus OM, M42 lenses, etc.

Best in that group is going to largely depend on your taste. Some have more character, some lean on the cleaner side of things. Nobody is going to scoff at a good set of Leica-R primes. Summicrons f/2 primes are gold in my book, though many like the more expensive Summilux f/1.4 primes. Both are great.

Vintage Nikon glass I feel is pretty impressive and still pretty cheap.

But yes, the cheapest is the Russian stuff like the Helios, Mir, Tair, etc. I bought a bunch of Helios for $15 each long ago and they are my "I'm gonna ruin this lens to make something with weird lens flares" lenses.

On the cinema side, there's many options likely exceeding inexpensive. You'll be stepping up from a few lenses for $1000-ish to a few lenses for several thousand.
 
Super Taks got some nice flavor to them. And yep to the above Contax Zeiss glass. Those are about as popular as Leica-R in some circles.

In the lower price brackets which mostly equates to vintage glass that can be adapted then Cine-Modded for motion picture use it's all about the charm of the character and if you aim right you'll have a decent focus pull without image shift, but most of these lenses really weren't designed for motion. Expect slop and play when racking focus for sure more often than not.
 
I have never used this guy who specializes in Nikon, but know people who do and are happy with their lenses. I have a bunch of vintage Nikkor glass and you can pick that stuff up on eBay for next to nothing. A great value.

http://www.rplens.com
 
FD glass indeed is K35 in still housings, basically. Has a great look. Unfortunately for the OP there are not FD mounts for R1 so it's of no use to him. Hence no mention of it in this thread.... until now of course, meaning we have just lost the original reason for this thread and are drifting away, as usually ;-)...
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
FD glass indeed is K35 in still housings, basically. Has a great look. Unfortunately for the OP there are not FD mounts for R1 so it's of no use to him. Hence no mention of it in this thread.... until now of course, meaning we have just lost the original reason for this thread and are drifting away, as usually ;-)...
Click to expand...

With a bit of effort most FD glass can be converted to EF, though with Mika now essentially out of the picture less easy these days. But the OP said EF and he didn't shoot Canon anymore :)

Canon FD and more specifically something like the 55mm f/1.2L FL is very, very K35-like. *hides*
 
I had originally written a more detailed list but, really, the simplest options would be the Sigma Art APSC 1.8 zooms, the 18-35 and 50-100. Those two cover you completely and do a great job of it. The second option, for inexpensive but good, I would actually recommend some of the newer lenses like Ttartisan, Mitakon, Laowa, and Meike. There's some nice options in there and they are a little different from Rokinon Cine DS, which we use and had a great time with on our first feature, but the DS lenses are of course a mainstay option as well depending on your budget.
 
Everyone has already mentioned Nikon, Super Taks, Helios and other good options. Some not-so-popular, yet a really nice lens option, around the $1k range would be Irix. Consider looking into their Primes. They have 3 out, I believe. Maybe look into some Meike Cine Lenses too.
 
Y Vaca said:
Everyone has already mentioned Nikon, Super Taks, Helios and other good options. Some not-so-popular, yet a really nice lens option, around the $1k range would be Irix. Consider looking into their Primes. They have 3 out, I believe. Maybe look into some Meike Cine Lenses too.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, Irix! I almost forgot about those, tasteful choice indeed but i haven't worked with them personally. They look cool though!
 
I have Takumar 50 1.4. It is fun lens on the Helium. it brought back the memory I used to shoot 6x7 Pentax on film and even when i had a nice collection of Hasselblads and Rolliflex lenses i always picked the pentax over them when it came to color transparency advertising works. I am thinking to build a full set next to my Leicas.
I shot a test with the 50 in case if you wanna check it out.
https://vimeo.com/455171710
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top