Lens stop DOF question

A

Andrew McMillan

Well-known member
If I was wanted to get the most DOF on an HPX I would look for the fastest zoom lens I could find right. Like a 1.6 or something

If You use a really wide and zoom in to say 74 mm will it have more DOF than a normal lens at 74 mm?

Lets make it a poll
Which do you care most about in a lens

Zoom ratio
Speed
Breathing
Sharpness and overall goodness(no CA, Vingteing)
 
Define "most" ?
I think you are thinking the wrong way if you want a fast 1.6 lens.
A wide open lens on 1.6 will give you a shallow DOF than it would at say F: 8..
So F:8 would give you "more" DOF than 1.6
 
For ENG/ Documentary style shooting, I would say:


1. A good compromise between wide and telephoto (with more weight on the wide side because there are always situations when it would help to go wider, but fewer times when you what more telephoto, in my experience anyways)
2. Optical quality (Image performance)
3. Breathing- not a huge issue but it depends what your shooting
4. Speed- anything over f2 is fine for me

I would give your attention first to focal length's and optical quality.
 
Rent a digiprime set., a pro35 or a Red. Or you could find an older cinezoom (pre-"HD") and use that, but you will lose the ability to shoulder your camera unless you use hand grips.
 
Relating back to the opening post if you want to get "...more DOF..." out of your HPX. You first have to define what "...more DOF..." means, either a more shallow DOF or more of a DOF. Reducing your F-stops on a set focal length, in this case 74mm, will shallow your DOF. So when you compare aperture on a fast zoom that opens to 1.6 at a 74mm to a "...normal..." lens you need to define what "...normal..." means, a prime of the same focal length...!? To that matter what is the fastest aperture on the lens? If the lens is fast enough to open to 1.6 then they will have the same DOF, arguably not when considering the fact that most zooms are softer than most primes. This you can know only by testing both lenses in the same lighting condition.

If your looking for a shallow DOF your better of hiring a P&S Pro35 and a kit of primes if your REALLY want a zoom then ask the hiring house to add in a zoom to the kit. Either way you'l need to compancate for the 1.5-2 stops loss of light. Some hiring houses around here were sometimes willing to add a zoom to the kit for not much extra cost.
If you want to use an ENG HDlense then yes the wider you can open the lens on a set focal length the shallower the DOF.
 
Science we're in the HPX forum I obiously can't spend more than 10k. So I am gona go lokking for the fastest eng lens I can find, or a used SD cinepzoom.

But wait shouldn't I just wait for the Letus or brevis B4 over a cinezoom?
 
Brevis from what I've read sounds good not sure about it's avalabilty. I remember reading about the extreme35 I think it was Hunter that posted about it, Hunter?

If its not to pricey and has a Nikon adaptor you could use your couple hundred $ Nikon lenses on it. Ryan Walters on reduser posted a thread about a very interesting set of experiments comparing Ziess super speeds to SLRs. Albeit Ziess not what you would probably use but still a good comparison of SLRs to primes marginal if at all differences between them. I have used SLR camera lenses many times and have been very happy with the result, short on cash worth a try.
 
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