Wide angle reality check

[PaPa]

Is there an adapter currently on the market that can control the aperture? Does the Voigtlander VM Micro 4/3 Adapter let the camera body set the f-stop because I don't see an aperture ring on the lens. Perhaps it would be smarter to wait and see how the Birger mount looks.

From the looks of things I may either go with:

Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 + Voigtlander 25mm f0.95
or
Olympus 14-35 f2

this one looks like it does the trick:

[J Davis]

yeh here's two for you that both have aperture controllers

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Nikon-G-AF-S...ht_1834wt_1030

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikkor-NIKON-G2-...ht_3097wt_1141

also you can do what I did 18 months ago when the gh1 first dropped and back then all the m43 f mount adapters had no controller.
You get a q-tip (cottonbud in europe) and cut the heads off so that your stem is about 15mm long. It wedges perfectly in the groove on
the back of the lens holding the iris lever at wide (f2.8) or close to wide (~f2).

[Steve Kahn]

Just to double check...

The Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 does NOT have an aperture dial on the lens? Correct?

Then this adapter lets you control the f-stop through the electronics of the AF100?

I have a similar adapter for Canon FD lenses but with those you still must stop down manually on the lens.

EDIT: Found the answer!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikkor-NIKON-G2-...ht_3097wt_1141

Looks good!

[Michael Olsen]

Interesting...I didn't know the F-mount electronic Nikon lenses still had any sort of manual aperture actuator lever...good to know.

[CineStill]

Nikon G lens adaptor

Hi Steve On the back of a nikon G lens is a little flange that I imagine is controlled mechanically by the adaptor, I have ordered one but have not seen it yet. I doubt with this adaptor that there will be any electronic communication as it only costs $35. I am using;
Nikkor 14-24 2.8 G ED
Nikkor 24-70 2.8 G ED
Nikkor 80-200 2.8 G ED
Nikkor 24mm 1.4 G ED
Nikkor 50mm 1.8
Nikkor 55 mm 3.5
Nikon 100mm 2.8
The Alpha Romeo shoot looked like they were using the Nikkor 14-24 2.8 and it looked plenty wide to me. It is a reasonable price lens with fantastic optics for the price in my opinion. The 7-14 when panned draws attention to itself as it is so wide! So I feel I would rarely us it.

[Steve Kahn]

The Nikkor 14-24 2.8 and it looked plenty wide to me. It is a reasonable price lens with fantastic optics for the price in my opinion. The 7-14 when panned draws attention to itself as it is so wide! So I feel I would rarely us it.

Agreed! Looks good. Thanks!

fwiw today I talked to a film steady cam op whose been in the business 30 years. I asked him his opinion and he agreed with you. He thought 14mm was wide enough for him without a doubt.

[PaPa]

Just to double check...

The Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 does NOT have an aperture dial on the lens? Correct?

Then this adapter lets you control the f-stop through the electronics of the AF100?

I have a similar adapter for Canon FD lenses but with those you still must stop down manually on the lens.

EDIT: Found the answer!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikkor-NIKON-G2-...ht_3097wt_1141

Looks good!

looks like a decent option, but im thinking the adapter i posted might be an easier option since the ring can let you actually dial in specific f stops if you are able to use a waveform monitor and set marks on the dial as opposed ot this screw which would be very difficult to measure.

[Multi-Media]

I've had experience with the 10mm Standard Speed... any vertical lines such as architectural elements close to the lens and at the sides has some funky distortion. 10mm is just really wide lens. Keeping the shot locked off helps hide this distortion from the audience. Pans or camera movements really lets it show.

As I understand it, the Lumix lenses combined with the Panasonic Cameras provide (some) barrell correction.
I've been using the Tokina 12-24 with a Nikon body for a few years and it is a GREAT lens!.... However, the 14-140 that I just got almost covers that... The 7-14 seems really tempting... I've been considering selling the Nikon body (along with the 12-24 and the 24-120) and getting a GH body for stills and then having only to deal with one set of lenses and compact ones at that for both video and stills. I did get the 20mm 1.7 for low light and weight and I plan to keep the Nikon Macro and tele, but the idea that the Lumix glass works with the AF100 right now is a powerful incentive... That 7-14 would round out the collection nicely at least in the near term. It's ironic, that I thougt I was getting the AF100 because I would be able to use my existing Nikon glass and here I am buying Lumix lenses... albeit happily... just ironic.

[dop16mm]

I own lenses from 18mm and up. I almost never use an 18mm except on occasion. My 25mm is a good wide angle lens I tend to seldom breach. Only once or twice did I have to rent a 10mm or 12mm for a special shot under very special circumstances. Although a crop difference between the AF100 and 35mm film / Super35mm film does exist, it is minimal thus I still don't think I'll ever need to venture under 18mm, but that is my opinion, past experience, and aesthetic taste speaking. Others can have different taste (and do! )Those who like the look of super wide field of views will have to concern themselves with things I do not.

The above quote summarizes my intent in starting this thread, in that extreme wide lenses are rarely used, with the typical range starting around 25mm. There is a slight crop factor so 20mm may be close to 25 and 14 equals 18, but on the whole these ranges will be easy to cover on this camera. If you need high quality wides with minimal distortion they exist in rental PL line-ups, and other anecdotes point to the 11-16 tokina with adaptor, or the panasonic 7-14 as viable budget solutions. All of these solutions are better than wide adaptors on standard video lenses.

[PaPa]

yeh here's two for you that both have aperture controllers

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Nikon-G-AF-S...ht_1834wt_1030

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikkor-NIKON-G2-...ht_3097wt_1141

also you can do what I did 18 months ago when the gh1 first dropped and back then all the m43 f mount adapters had no controller.
You get a q-tip (cottonbud in europe) and cut the heads off so that your stem is about 15mm long. It wedges perfectly in the groove on
the back of the lens holding the iris lever at wide (f2.8) or close to wide (~f2).

The first link you have there, is that the rainbow adapter? Looks piece for piece the same as the one i posted. Just curious because if there are people complaining about not being able to remove the adapter i wonder if there is really any difference between the two?

[Barry_Green]

if you want ultra wide, stick with a 5d moire II.

LOL! Post of the decade.

[Barry_Green]

I think it is rather humorous that over the last while everyone has been clamoring for telephoto shallow focus solutions for video cameras, and as soon as someone builds one, everyone starts complaining about lack of wide angle.

Hah! You are exactly correct!

Compared to what? Yes there are super wide lenses for full frame stills for shooting big group interiors, but guess what we are movie shooters and can move the frame to take in the shot.

Extremely wide on cinema cameras isn't all that common. Especially in a zoom. Look at cinema zooms, the LWZ 14-45 and the Angenieux 15-40 are about as wide as you get. And those are $50,000 lenses.

On 16mm, about as wide as you would normally get would be a 10mm or 12mm. Which translates into about 20mm-24mm on an AF100.

All of the standard zooms in m4/3 start at 14mm which is already wider than any video camera you've ever used.

Correct. That's wider than the EX1, it's wider than the HVX200, it's wider than the DVX100, it's even a hair wider than the HPX170, which has about the widest standard angle of any fixed-lens camcorder on the market.

Add the 7-14mm and it will blow your socks off.

Correct. The 7mm is mega-wide. I have an 8mm Peleng which is astonishingly wide, and it's super-barrel distortion. The 7mm Panasonic (the 7-14 lens) is nearly rectilinear, and even wider, than that 8mm Peleng!

Yes at f4 it is a bit slow, but consider the pains we have gone through to shoot hv20 with no gain, f2 at maybe 100asa, that would be f4 at 400, if the cam is clean at 800 - 1600 it is a non issue, if so turn a light on.

Yes f4 is slow. But you know what? At 7mm, you're getting a wider field of view than a 14mm lens on the 5D Mark II. And if you want a 14mm lens on the 5D Mark II, it's not going to be any faster than f/2.8, is it? So yeah, you'll have to go with 200 ISO on the AF100 instead of 100 ISO on the 5D, but you'll get the same sensitivity and a wider field of view.

And here's the kicker -- the extreme wide angle on the 5D is going to make it look its worst. Deep-focus shots look like crap on a DSLR, because that's where you get the most aliasing. Super-wide shots show off the DSLR's shortcomings. I am extremely confident that 7mm f/4 on the AF100, at 200 ISO, would look substantially superior to 14mm f/2.8 at 100 ISO on the 5D. Not a doubt in my mind. And I'm sure that 7mm f/4 at 3200 ISO on the AF100 would look better than 14mm f/2.8 at 1600 ISO on the 5D, too.

On my 16mm kit the widest lens I have is 10mm and I've never had trouble getting a shot, that should have a FOV similar to the 20mm pancake, which at f1.7 should be more that fast enough to cover the dance at a wedding reception.

Agreed. 16mm normally maxes out at about 10mm wide. That's all we've ever really used, folks. And it's enough.

I actually have an astonishingly wide 5.9mm on my 16mm camera. It's mega-super-wide, and fixed-focus -- everything is in focus pretty much from the lens surface to infinity, so they didn't even put a focus ring on it. And do you know how wide it is, in terms of the AF100? About 14mm. In Super16 it'd be equiv. to about 12mm on the AF100.

If You've ever read American Cinematographer Magazine, you'll see that most every shot in every movie you see is 25mm or longer. 18mm is typically the widest standard lens. The prime kits do go down to 12mm but lenses that wide are a speciality item. 10mm on a movie really stands out, there are only a handful of shots in Hollywood history that have used it, and if you saw it, you knew it.

This is all correct. Look at cinema prime lens sets, you'll see that 18mm is almost always the widest lens offered in a standard kit. There are specialty lenses that go wider, but look at what you rent -- 18, 21, 25, 28, 35, 50, 85. That's what we use. And 14mm on the 14-140 is wider on an AF100, than 18mm on a 35mm cinema camera.

And if you need wider than that, the 7-14 zoom provides it.

I really don't see the overblown situation of demanding wider lenses. For what? What are you going to shoot on your Red with? The Red Pro Primes go down to a maximum wide of 18mm. The 14mm on the AF100 is wider than 18mm on the Red.

Sure we'd all love to have even more options (and the 7-14 provides it) but -- these super-wide-angle lenses everyone seems to want are NOT the norm. They're a specialty item.

[Barry_Green]

Nice discussion.

So, the 20mm 1.7 would be consider a nice wide angle option, acording to film standards, in a m4/3 chip?

thanks.

It would be a very common focal length. It's wider than a 25mm lens on a 35mm cinema camera. It's moderately wide, but I wouldn't call it an actual wide angle.

The forthcoming 14mm f/2.5 is wider than some cinema lens sets can go. And it's substantially faster than the Zeiss Compact Prime's T3.6.

[Barry_Green]

I think a 20 would be fine as a kind of "medium-wide". As dop16mm said, though, for a true "wide" I would consider something around 15mm.

Exactly agreed. For a true wide, the 14mm f/2.5 looks like the lens to consider.

[Barry_Green]

Is there an adapter currently on the market that can control the aperture?

Yes, look for any "Nikon G" adapter for m4/3. Rainbowimaging makes one. They're cheap, but they're manual control, so ... for a budget they're available now. I don't know if it actually lets you set the f-stop you want, or if it just closes the iris down and you decide that the image looks good at that point? Haven't used one.

Does the Voigtlander VM Micro 4/3 Adapter let the camera body set the f-stop because I don't see an aperture ring on the lens.

No. I have one of those and it doesn't letyou control the iris.

Perhaps it would be smarter to wait and see how the Birger mount looks.

There's no rush, the AF100 is still two months away, so def. wait and see what Birger (or any other manufacturer!) does. But if worse comes to worst, yes, there's a solution on the market today that would let you use the Tokina (or any aperture-ring-less lens) on the AF100 right now.