Which lens for Helium for documentary

[Olivier Gresse]

Hi,

I need your opinion on the most suitable zooms for documentary films with the Helium 8K sensor.

I own the Sigma 18-35 art, the Tokina 11-16mm and the Tamron 24-70mm.

I admit that of the 3 objectives, only Sigma convinces me completely.

What do you recommend for other focal lengths? The sigma 50-100mm? The new Tokina 11-20? and for higher focal lengths (like 70-300)? In photo or movie version?

Thank you very much for your help

 

[Joachim Hoge]

18-35mm cover most of what you need, but I find it lacking in reach sometimes. I presume you have a EF mount? Otherwise the Red Zoom 17-50mm is a very nice. The Sigma 50-100mm breathes quite a lot

 

[Aaron Green]

Yeah the 50-100 breathing is atrocious. Red Zoom 17-50 is a good choice IMO.

 

[Grzegorz Gill]

For lower budget I find myself using cn-e 18-80mm for most daytime situations, and sigma 18-35+50-100mm for lo light or when I'm feeling a shallow depth look. 50-100mm breathing is terrible but I never see myself focusing from near to far. The EZ series zooms I prefer to use over the above setups but only if there is a budget for glass. Mind you none of these lenses cover 8kff cleanly. Back in the day I wanted to get a set of red pro zooms, but never got around to it. Hear the red 17-50, and 50-150 are solid, and decent price used market.

 

[Scot Yount]

I still use the RED 17-50 all the time. Greatly underrated lens. My go to solution on my Helium camera is the Fujinon 19-90. Can't beat it. unlike the similar Canon it doesn't' ramp, and has a larger image circle than the Fujinon 20-120 and for the most part, covers Helium in all but ff, (and is a shade faster....). And, you can shoot it like an ENG lens if you want to go that kind of simple, which in doc work, means a lot.

 

[Blair Thornton]

Hi,

I need your opinion on the most suitable zooms for documentary films with the Helium 8K sensor.

I own the Sigma 18-35 art, the Tokina 11-16mm and the Tamron 24-70mm.

I admit that of the 3 objectives, only Sigma convinces me completely.

What do you recommend for other focal lengths? The sigma 50-100mm? The new Tokina 11-20? and for higher focal lengths (like 70-300)? In photo or movie version?

Thank you very much for your help

Angenieux EZ-2 15-40mm S35 Cinema Lens https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1292132-REG/angenieux_ez_2_s35pl_ez_2_15_40mm_s35_cinema.html

https://www.angenieux.com/collections/ez/ez-1-ffvistavision/

Review of 15 -40mm: https://www.newsshooter.com/2017/04/04/angenieux-ez-2-review/

Review on EZ lenses: http://www.fdtimes.com/2016/09/06/angenieux-type-ez/

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

do you guys know if sigma art series are parfocal?

 

[Olivier Gresse]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Do you have any suggestion for long focals (100-300mm)?

The sigma zooms are not parfocal.

 

[Olivier Gresse]

What do you think of the Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8?

There is a discount at B&H today...

Do you think we can use this lens at 14mm with Helium without vignetting?

Or do you prefer the tokina 11-20mm (I already have the Sigma 18-25mm but I can use it just between 24 to 35 with Helium)?

Thanks

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Can you say more about the subject of your doc? You ask about 11mm on one end and 300mm on the other end, but your subject line reads "lens" not "lenses".

We are wrapping a doc shot over 4 years that amassed 172TB of R3D media. A good fraction of that was shot on a Fujinon Premier Pro 24-180 T2.6 zoom at 7k. For higher frame rates we had to reduce resolution further.

There is not best one lens for everything. But there are much better lenses for one kind of thing or another.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Fujinon Cabrio 19-90mm T2.9 PL with motor. is really nice.

 

[Oron Cohen]

It really depends what kind of docs you shoot. Can you be more specific?

For general use, you defiantly want a lens that could cover a wide range, and as others suggested, I feel the Cabrio 19-90 is a great choice. Another lens which is much cheaper in price, is the Zeiss 21-100. Still, the Cabrio has no real competition to date, maybe the Canon 17-120, it's just that the Canon is a bit heavier and bigger which usually puts many dop's off it...