SGPro with AI or AI-S Nikon Lenses

S

Shaker

New member
I'm planning to buy an SGPro pretty soon. I'm going to start with the following 3 Nikon lenses:

28mm f/2.8 AI or AI-S
50mm f/1.4 AI or AI-S
85mm f/1.4 AI-S

My question is regarding the first two, is there a major difference between the AI and the AI-S if used with the SGPro? Because price-wise, I'm finding much cheaper AI lenses than AI-S.

Thanks for your help guys.
 
Either will work great, but there are some differences in the Ai and Ai-S versions of many Nikon lenses. Often, the most noticeable difference is the number of shutter blades - generally, but not always, the Ai-S lens will have more shutter blades which will give you nicer circles for your out of focus highlights. The only other thing to consider is the age of the lens, as Ai will be invariably be older than Ai-S.

Any other advantage gained from Ai-S lenses will only be useful to you if you are shooting with a 35mm Nikon SLR.
 
Ai are also usually built better than Ais (not always) and are almost always cheaper. If you can find a decent Ai copy there is no reason to choose Ais.
 
If you're on a budget then those are great to start with. I would maybe suggest a 35 and a 25 rather than a 28.
 
Thank you all guys for your feedback.

I'm definitely on a budget and I still need to buy a decent tripod and a Matte Box and some lighting stuff and an LCD monitor, AND I'm shipping all this from abroad... I'm gonna be so broke :-)
 
Shaker said:
Thank you all guys for your feedback.

I'm definitely on a budget and I still need to buy a decent tripod and a Matte Box and some lighting stuff and an LCD monitor, AND I'm shipping all this from abroad... I'm gonna be so broke :-)
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Don't get too caught up with the supposed necessity of a matte box. For most situations, the standard lens hoods work fine and you can get rubber lens hoods on eBay for the Nikkor lenses for cheap. Unless you're going to HAVE TO use square glass filters, feel free to skip the matte box. It's definitely not a necessity.

.
 
Don't get too caught up with the supposed necessity of a matte box.
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Ditto

"a decent tripod ...and some lighting stuff and an LCD monitor."

All far far more important.

Lenny Levy
 
jenningsp said:
matte boxes will make women want to have sex with you.
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oh thats the reason.... you mean a good personality has nothing to do with it? so if your matte box has smaller trays than mine, does that mean I get more, or if you have french flags does that mean I get some Frenchie action? lol. Matte boxes are great, but a Field monitor and in my opinion a Follow focus's are mandatory. I say an FF because when you start using the 200-300mm lenses the minute you touch the focusing ring(especially AF lenses), the whole picture moves more than what I feel is acceptable, I just ordered my Indiefocus yesterday, so I should be pimping a FF soon, for a field monitor I use a 22'' HP computer monitor with component in, and that works great as long as I have 110V, I currently have a Ikan 8'' next on my list, then the indieDollypro, then a Mattebox(crossing my fingers for the RR).


Cheers,

Jon
 
Shaker said:
I'm planning to buy an SGPro pretty soon. I'm going to start with the following 3 Nikon lenses:

28mm f/2.8 AI or AI-S
50mm f/1.4 AI or AI-S
85mm f/1.4 AI-S
Click to expand...


Random, but: If you ARE going to get a 28mm, and you may want something brighter for the sake of use with your adapter, Sigma makes an aspherical 28mm lens f/1.8 to fit Nikon mount. You can get it new at adorama.com for about $250. I don't know about the average cost of one used.

Heck, if money were not an object and you were going for bright lenses, you can get a whole spectrum of Nikon primes 20mm through 135mm all with less than 2 stops of light lost. But that gets a bit pricey.
 
Thank you all guys for your great advises...

1- Chris / Lenny: OK then, no matte box for me for the time being if you think it's not of a big necessity, I could really use the extra money

2- Jenningsp / Ecking / Rafa: LOL, I'm not sleeping with ANYONE these days! I'm busy reading all those books about cinematography and testing setups and buying stuff to complete my gear! And all this in the evenings, because I have my day job also... But I will CERTAINLY consider the matte box pretty soon, it's very tempting :)

3- Jon: My next question was going to be about the FF. Is it a necessity right now for the 3 lenses I'm getting (28, 50, and 85 AI-S)? Can I do without for the time being? As for the monitor, I'm gonna buy a 7" low res one for now, just to flip the screen, and will consider the hi res later, and like you, I'll use a computer monitor. That's the most economical way to go I guess for now

4- Armisiano: I am on a very tight budget, I will surely consider the Sigma lens, I was a bit reluctant about the 2.8 anyway

Once again, really appreciate all your feedback.

Cheers!
 
with ai and ais lenses, a FF is not totally needed, as in you can make a film without one, but a FF will always give you smoother and more steady focuses than with your hand. With wide lenses (20mm-35mm) focus is much less critical than with your faster longer lenses(85mm 1.4) I have an AI 135 2.8 and a 105 2.5 and all the films I have done with those are just with my hand, and they look fine. You have a lot more headroom if your shooting in SD, you can get away with not Tack Sharp focus 100% of the time, but when you go HD, you will find out that you need to be much more precise.

Jon
 
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