Relative Focal Length, Angle of View, and CCF Chart

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Barry_Green

Moderator
B&H has a nice chart for stills cameras on their site to show the relative focal length needed on various stills cameras to achieve certain fields of view. But it's not very adaptable to the AF100 or cinema cameras.

Here I've put together a chart that shows the sensor sizes of common video and film formats, their Cinema Crop Factor as related to Academy Aperture 35mm Cinema Film frame size, and normalized for 16:9 image shape. It's not all that easy to put together a field of view chart when comparing different aspect ratios, so I normalized all the sensors for their widest 16:9-shaped field of view.

Without further adieu...
Cinema Crop Factor presentation chart.jpg
 
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Jesse Brauning said:
Panasonic 7-14mm
Panasonic 14-140mm
Panasonic 100-300mm

With those three lenses, you cover the whole gamut. Nice.
Click to expand...
You do cover the whole range of focal lengths, but at the penalty of a small maximum open iris of f4. Sometimes you want and need more light, or shallower DOF. My kit includes the 7-14 and 14-140, but I also picked up the 20mm f/1.7, as well as having the Zeiss CPs and ZFs (ZFs will be sold soon). The ZFs/CPs deliver an f/1.4 at 50mm and 85mm, and an f/2 at 28mm, 35mm and 100mm. Sometimes you just gotta have that f/1.4 or f/1.7.
 
Here's what I have so far:

Lumix 7-14mm f/4.0
Lumix 14-140mm f/4.0-5.8
Lumix 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6 (pre-ordered)
Leica 25mm f/1.4
Zuiko 14-35mm f/2.0
Zuiko 35-100mm f/2.0
Zeiss Ikon 100mm f/2.0 Makro Planar (ZF)
Tokina AT-X AF 300mm 2.8 (ZF)

I realize I have some holes in there as far as really fast glass goes. Reviews on the Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 aren't all that great. Have been considering the Sigma 50mm f/1.4, and maybe something fast at 85mm like the Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 Planar or the 85mm Nikkor 1.4

Any thoughts or suggestions?
 
I hope to one day be able to afford some CPs. I'm definitely buying the 20mm 1.7 and the 14mm 2.5 soon. They're more in my price range.
 
Wonderful chart Barry, thanks for doing this. I'm sure the time you spent making the chart will save you 100x that in the long run.

Just curious about the equivalent focal length numbers, I was trying to do a quick conversion of the HPX-170 zoom lens range regarding FoV. I'm sure there are charts out there that include 1/3" chip cameras, but as your chart includes the AF-100, I am hoping to just confirm. Right now, I'm looking for zoom lenses for a possible documentary, and I'm quite happy with the range the HPX-170 has given me in the past.

My question is... should I simply divide the 2/3" chip information by two in order to attain the equivalent focal length in 1/3"?

This may see like an obvious, but if I recall, terms like 1/3" and 2/3" are not the exact size of the chips thus I'm not sure if a 50% reduction is the most accurate math.

Thoughts?
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
I was trying to do a quick conversion of the HPX-170 zoom lens range regarding FoV. I'm sure there are charts out there that include 1/3" chip cameras, but as your chart includes the AF-100, I am hoping to just confirm. Right now, I'm looking for zoom lenses for a possible documentary, and I'm quite happy with the range the HPX-170 has given me in the past.
Click to expand...

I don't shoot 35mm motion, but started (many years ago) shooting 35mm film stills (that, and Super and Regular 8).
I've never weighed in on the "crop," FOV, etc. but that's my... "frame" of reference.
50 is medium ("normal" or close to the human eye), 28 is wide, 85+ tele.

But it's not just in the post-5D world that 35 stills (or FF) is used as a reference point.
B&H uses 35 stills for their 1/3" equivalents:

FROM B&H: Panasonic AG-HPX170
Lens Leica Dicomar 13x Zoom
3.9-51mm f/1.6-3.0
(35mm Equivalence 28-368mm)
72mm Filter Diameter
Click to expand...
And I too like the HPX170 range.
So all I need is a Canon FD or EF 28-368mm, and while you're at it, can you make it a constant 2.8, please? :thumbup:
 
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