Canon L Lenses - Zoom or Prime?

[Lliam Worthington]

I personally would like to do exactly as Paul advises and get the 18-85 BT for 6K.
The problem for me is that I feel the Tokina 11-16 - is a must have lens for Scarlet and my needs baring in mind cropping to 2 and 3k respectively. And I can't afford the 18-85 BT as well as a Duclos cine modded tokina 11-16 and upgrading my Scarlet package to PL mount. Would need a budget of about 11K when I have 6-8K. Hurts when you know just how paramount an investment getting the best glass is. Sigh. So I've been looking at L zooms, Zeiss ze primes and Leica used. My use is narrative.

The decisions are hard. Each seems to have different pros and cons.
Leica seem to be agreed as the best quality. Need an adapter. Used. No AI or IS, warranty....
Zeiss, argued better quality than L series, and focus pulling is kinder.
L zooms, ease, great value and still good quality + AI and IS.

A combination?
Tokina 11-16
Zeiss 21mm or Zeiss 28mm? (Prob cant afford both)
Zeiss 35mm
Zeiss 50mm (Cheapest of the lot and have read this is not the pick of the bunch when it comes to Zeiss though - canon nifty fifty perhaps?)
Canon 70-200 L

Most people say keep it in the same family though... And then you start throwing individual characteristics of different lenses...
greatly appreciate any feedback by the many experienced users on here.

Best Wishes

Lliam

 

[Paul Ellington]

I made do with Canon glass, and will proudly rent them out, I will probably almost never shoot a film with them again. Duclos, from what I hear great, there is an alternative. Rent glass on a need to basis. Bring your rental house a 6 pack, ask them to hook you up and see what happens. When you save up. Buy glass from Red -- it's truly amazing, will post shots from my music video (frame grabs) from TV Carpio in a bit, 18mm and 50mm... outstanding pictures. Value for money, = Red. It's worth the wait, I am not getting paid by them, but I can honestly say, I have waited all my cine career for their lenses.

 

[AJ Aguirre]

I currently have a good amount of Canon L glass, but I definitely plan on saving up for the red 17-50 and PL mount

 

[PC Greene]

Hi Lliam...glad I'm not the only one feeling quite stuck.

Yes...additional input is welcome. Thank you Paul for your help...I now know have another option...spending my entire budget on a RED zoom

Sigh...I suppose there are worse problems to have...

 

[PC Greene]

Red. It's worth the wait, I am not getting paid by them, but I can honestly say, I have waited all my cine career for their lenses.

That's quite an endorsement! Really....over Zeiss, Leica Cooke...all others? Hmmm. There are some other threads here from some pretty rabid Leica fans...wonder if they'll chime in...thanks again Paul!

 

[Paul Ellington]

Ask yourself, do you wanna spend 250,000 for lenses? can you get the same picture by working harder lighting? All I ever wanted was great manual lenses, and the red lenses are heavy which some people complain about but I like that. All that glass makes for good picture. Now, the 3d folks probably want smaller lenses. Still learning about that but for my use, if I had to get one lens - that 18-85 would be it.

 

[Luuk de Kok]

Whould would be the equivalent FOV of the 8-15mm Canon L f4 when cropped to 3K be 16-30mm?

Remember that the 8-15L is a Fisheye zoom, so even when your shooting 1k @8mm it will still distort the picture due to the shape of the glass.
If you want an extreme wide-angle lens that isn't fisheye i would suggest one of these:
Sigma 8-16mm f4.5 / 5.6 (a great extreme wide-angle but not fisheye, not that light sensitive though and can't use screw-on filters)
Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 (great price, made for full-frame camera's such as the 5D)
Canon 10-22mm f3.5 / 4.5 (a bit less light sensitive but it's canon, so you know what you can expect from there quality )
Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 (great light sensitive lens on an wide angle, probably the best bang for you buck if you don't need the extra width the other lenses gives you)

This is my advice if you would go for wide-angle lenses
I have experience with almost all of these lenses except the sigma 10-20.
I use most of these lenses for urban exploring and they are great, i really like the build of the tokina but i love the sigma with his sharpness and his angle

 

[BrandonChristensen]

Remember that the 8-15L is a Fisheye zoom, so even when your shooting 1k @8mm it will still distort the picture due to the shape of the glass.
If you want an extreme wide-angle lens that isn't fisheye i would suggest one of these:
Sigma 8-16mm f4.5 / 5.6 (a great extreme wide-angle but not fisheye, not that light sensitive though and can't use screw-on filters)
Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 (great price, made for full-frame camera's such as the 5D)
Canon 10-22mm f3.5 / 4.5 (a bit less light sensitive but it's canon, so you know what you can expect from there quality )
Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 (great light sensitive lens on an wide angle, probably the best bang for you buck if you don't need the extra width the other lenses gives you)

This is my advice if you would go for wide-angle lenses
I have experience with almost all of these lenses except the sigma 10-20.
I use most of these lenses for urban exploring and they are great, i really like the build of the tokina but i love the sigma with his sharpness and his angle

No one ever mentions the Rokinon 14mm f2.8

Fast, really wide...and cheap (around 350).

I'm on the fence about buying it because, other than Ken Rockwells review (which sounds like he got a bad copy), it's not really reviewed that much.

 

[Luuk de Kok]

No one ever mentions the Rokinon 14mm f2.8

Fast, really wide...and cheap (around 350).

I'm on the fence about buying it because, other than Ken Rockwells review (which sounds like he got a bad copy), it's not really reviewed that much.

True, and it's all from the same company (samyang) who created perhaps my favorite affordable cine prime, the samyang 35mm 1.4!
Great bokeh, great DOF, manual focus with a nice focus ring, manual aperture and it's affordable, it's great!
Never had any experience though with the 14mm, would love to try that one out too!

However, the reason i didn't mentioned the 14mm in this list is that it's not wide enough for that list.
These are all calculated for the 1k res for 120fps the scarlet shoots so to still be able to shoot a little bit wide would be the 8-16 from sigma (which becomes 51,2mm at the wide angle) while the 14mm woud be a lot closer (89,6mm) that's why i didn't mentioned it in my list

 

[BrandonChristensen]

True, and it's all from the same company (samyang) who created perhaps my favorite affordable cine prime, the samyang 35mm 1.4!
Great bokeh, great DOF, manual focus with a nice focus ring, manual aperture and it's affordable, it's great!
Never had any experience though with the 14mm, would love to try that one out too!

However, the reason i didn't mentioned the 14mm in this list is that it's not wide enough for that list.
These are all calculated for the 1k res for 120fps the scarlet shoots so to still be able to shoot a little bit wide would be the 8-16 from sigma (which becomes 51,2mm at the wide angle) while the 14mm woud be a lot closer (89,6mm) that's why i didn't mentioned it in my list

I see.

I have the 85mm and buying the 35mm soon. There is a 24mm 1.4 coming from them soon as well. If they can add a 50, they'll have a nice little, low-priced set on their hands.

 

[N.D. Paolo]

Remember that the 8-15L is a Fisheye zoom, so even when your shooting 1k @8mm it will still distort the picture due to the shape of the glass.
If you want an extreme wide-angle lens that isn't fisheye i would suggest one of these:
Sigma 8-16mm f4.5 / 5.6 (a great extreme wide-angle but not fisheye, not that light sensitive though and can't use screw-on filters)
Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 (great price, made for full-frame camera's such as the 5D)
Canon 10-22mm f3.5 / 4.5 (a bit less light sensitive but it's canon, so you know what you can expect from there quality )
Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 (great light sensitive lens on an wide angle, probably the best bang for you buck if you don't need the extra width the other lenses gives you)

This is my advice if you would go for wide-angle lenses
I have experience with almost all of these lenses except the sigma 10-20.
I use most of these lenses for urban exploring and they are great, i really like the build of the tokina but i love the sigma with his sharpness and his angle

Helpful list- Thanks.

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

Zeiss 50mm (Cheapest of the lot and have read this is not the pick of the bunch when it comes to Zeiss though - canon nifty fifty perhaps?)

I have the nifty fifty - great price, great quality - had a lot issues using a follow focus with it though, so probably better to find a review of the lens using your choice of follow focus to see if its a problem

 

[Luuk de Kok]

I have the nifty fifty - great price, great quality - had a lot issues using a follow focus with it though, so probably better to find a review of the lens using your choice of follow focus to see if its a problem

If you really like the nifty fifty try to find the mark 1 version of it.
It has almost the same glass but the mark 1 has a metal build body and a much better focus ring which is capable for follow focus.
However, if you really want a 50mm prime for some good focussing i would suggest a carl zeiss lens or an old m42 lens with adapter.

I see.

I have the 85mm and buying the 35mm soon. There is a 24mm 1.4 coming from them soon as well. If they can add a 50, they'll have a nice little, low-priced set on their hands.

I could totally see myself using a complete set of samyang primes.
How is the 85mm?
If it has the same bokeh and great focus ring as the 35mm i'm already convinced of buying that one haha!

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

If you really like the nifty fifty try to find the mark 1 version of it.
It has almost the same glass but the mark 1 has a metal build body and a much better focus ring which is capable for follow focus.
However, if you really want a 50mm prime for some good focussing i would suggest a carl zeiss lens or an old m42 lens with adapter.

I actually did end up getting a m42 lens (along with a 25mm, 85mm & 300mm)... adaptors were cheap enough and were really good quality, I'm looking forawrd to seeing what they'll look like with the Scarlet X. I imagine I'll probably be adding more Canon L glass though

 

[Luuk de Kok]

So which brands did you get from the m42?

I'm still in doubt of which lenses i'm going to buy, the canon lenses have some great glass but i don't like the focussing rings.

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

So which brands did you get from the m42?

I'm still in doubt of which lenses i'm going to buy, the canon lenses have some great glass but i don't like the focussing rings.

Well, a long story short - My girlfriends grandfather passed away, and when clearing out his house they found a set of Fujica of lenses and a Fujica body. The family kindly gave me the lenses, knowing I was a keen filmmaker and photographer.. In the case was:
Fujica 50mm f1.8
Fujinon 85mm f1.4
Fujinon 100mm f2.8
Fujinon 300mm f5.6

There were also a few adaptors with the lenses etc - certainly a great find. And I was thankful to be given them!

 

[Lliam Worthington]

Thanks Gary and Luuk for your posts re the nifty fifty. Greatly appreciated.

Best

Lliam

 

[Luuk de Kok]

Well, a long story short - My girlfriends grandfather passed away, and when clearing out his house they found a set of Fujica of lenses and a Fujica body. The family kindly gave me the lenses, knowing I was a keen filmmaker and photographer.. In the case was:
Fujica 50mm f1.8
Fujinon 85mm f1.4
Fujinon 100mm f2.8
Fujinon 300mm f5.6

There were also a few adaptors with the lenses etc - certainly a great find. And I was thankful to be given them!

I'm sorry about the loss but that's a nice kit you've got there!
Only a lack of wide angle lenses.
The 300mm would be awesome to use on 1k (6.4 crop if i'm correct?) it would be equivalent of an 1920mm lens!!!
I own a meyer optik 300mm f4 lens (it's huge and heavy! look it up on google!) and i have an 2x range extender, that would mean i could use the lens for an 3840mm lens! holy... crap...
Not that i would see myself in a position ever to use that kind of range but it's one hell of a showoff haha.

Thanks Gary and Luuk for your posts re the nifty fifty. Greatly appreciated.

Best

Lliam

Your welcome

 

[Justin Talley]

Re: 'Nifty 50' and older stills glass...

I had a full set of Nikon AI-S primes. Really beautiful lenses, great color rendering etc. Then I put one of the Zeiss ZF lenses on my FS100 and aimed it straight at a bare light bulb, wide open... no ghosting, no flares. From three feet away. I never thought you could get economy glass with coatings of that quality. In real world shooting, commercial or narrative, for the money, they are insanely good. I would love to have some hard mounted gears put onto them, and I would love to get my 85 lubricated so that you can use the same Preston/Bartek motor for all of my lenses, but again, for the price, they are insanely good.

Recently I did a commercial shoot as 2nd Unit DP. 1st unit had 3 Alexas with Ang. zooms and Zeiss/Arri Master Primes. I was shooting on the FS100 with my Zeiss ZFs. Upon final grading, you really can't tell the difference. The DP I was working for was as pleasantly surprised as I was. I'm not saying that they're as good as Master Primes, or as convenient to use in pro settings, but they really can stand up with a little bit of grading.

 

[BrandonChristensen]

If you really like the nifty fifty try to find the mark 1 version of it.
It has almost the same glass but the mark 1 has a metal build body and a much better focus ring which is capable for follow focus.
However, if you really want a 50mm prime for some good focussing i would suggest a carl zeiss lens or an old m42 lens with adapter.




I could totally see myself using a complete set of samyang primes.
How is the 85mm?
If it has the same bokeh and great focus ring as the 35mm i'm already convinced of buying that one haha!

Best lens I own (and I have a lot of them).

A no-brainer at 270 bucks.