18mm film lenses

A

andrew00

Well-known member
Hey,

So I was talking to a friend who was talking to one of the cameramen from a well known film franchise, featuring a wizard with a scar on his face and big round glasses, which is made here in the UK.

The cameraman said that they mostly use an 18mm lens on the filming.

I was wondering if any lens bods here can comment on why they use this lens? I know a lot if personal choice etc, but to me I would have thought this lens would be too wide for normal usage and wouldn't give the focus control needed. I don't know what it's like as a film lens, naturally, but the DSLR equivalents don't offer focus, and/or depth of field control.

I also appreciate, given we've covered this in the 5d/7d debates, this 18mm lens on S35 would actually be about 28.8mm on a full frame camera.

However, the question is still interesting to me, and I wonder if anyone could comment please.
 
Yes, sorry my bad. What I meant was, as a 5Dmk2 owner, for me to get the equivalent i'd need to put a roughly 28.8 on my 5D - i.e. when the camera dude was saying they use an 18mm, they mean, for full frame, they use an 18mm which has a crop factor taking it to about 28mm equivalent, ergo for me to get the same look, coverage etc, I'd need to put, say, the 28.8 1.8 on my 5dmk2.
 
On red it is actually slightly cropped too.
Most theatrical releases are shot much wider than people think and not wide open either. The crazy shallow dof thing is not really common in mainstream movies.
 
Matty_g said:
On red it is actually slightly cropped too.
Most theatrical releases are shot much wider than people think and not wide open either. The crazy shallow dof thing is not really common in mainstream movies.
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Addendum: at all.

I keep telling people this, just go and watch a few of your favorite feature films and study composition. Even movies like PRIMER are comprised primarily of wide shots.

Check out the Cinematography in LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. Nearly EVERY frame is sick, and RARELY do you roll into a telephoto arena.

I do enjoy longshot compositions, though. Errr... Michael Bay. lol
 
I don't know how much of a difference there is between shallow dof, and 'crazy shallow dof', but I have been starting to pay attention in the Cinema thanks to these arguments online.

And it seems surprising just how many movies use shallow dof a lot of the time.

For instance, my third viewing of Inglorious Basterds, I started paying attention. I think I can safely say that for most of the movie, the whole frame was not in focus.

Certainly romantic comedies seem to be the same way, and even such varied fare as last nights 'Peaceful Warrior' (they sometimes recycle bizarre box office stuff down here) was shallow for a huge part of the film.

I guess what I'm saying, is that trying to keep one's head in an online argument, reading that it's just a tool and overused on vimeo, I'm pretty surprised by just how much shallow depth of field IS used in Hollywood.
 
Aye I agree, we don't often see extremely ultra shallow dof except in stylistic cases - I notice they use it a lot on House for example when House is having a meltdown.

However, you certainly do more than often see a degree of blurring in order to focus the attention on the subject.

That's why the 18mm lens seemed a curious one to me - I appreciate that cinema is much wider than tv and web video, something I like incidentally. However, I would not have thought an 18mm lens would give the desired width AND control over Dof/focus to have that gently blurred background. Esp as, afaik, most films tend to shoot around f2.8-5.6.
 
Matty_g said:
On red it is actually slightly cropped too.
Most theatrical releases are shot much wider than people think and not wide open either. The crazy shallow dof thing is not really common in mainstream movies.
Click to expand...

Yes but its not that simple, every portait shot has DOF shallow enough to blur the background even if rest of the shots are on super wide lenses.Wide lenses are used but its not like big sensor is not needed because wides are used on 60% of the shots.
It has to be shallow enough to blur the background on portraits OR if you are shooting on film you can shoot with whatever lens you want it will still look like shot on film,if youre not shooting on film youve got to be more careful to not make it look like regular hd video on wide shot.Motion pictures are mostly on f4 ,im not a fan of shots with f1.4 50mm lenses.

This primer ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AfB1POoHZQ&fmt=18

Its mostly on telephotos there and DOF is very visible on most shots.Its super 16mm but they clearly wanted it to look like 35mm.
But anyway primer was shot on film,it will always look like shot on film,doesnt matter which lens,it could be shot on wide lens all the time but if you will shoot with DSLR like 7D on wide lens all the time it wont be like film,on telephoto with visible dof is easier to get closer to look of the film .
 
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Matty_g said:
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3738173977/

doesn't look that shallow to me(especially for anamorphic) and looks like there are a lot of wides.
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The trailer isn't the whole movie, and also, it's more apparent on the big screen, but anywhere even on the medium shots, Brad Pitt talking, the soldiers feet, Melanie Laurent running, close-up of sniper dude shooting, nazi emblem, soldiers/prisoners walking, even Eli Roth grinning (can't tell in web size), the bar scenes, easily over half of the trailer, the background is at least somewhat out of focus. It's not Canon MKII Phillip Bloom people out of focus, but it's out of focus. And it's a hell of a movie...

Which is why I'm asking if you guys are differentiating between levels of shallow focus?

Because it seems like anywhere there is a really wide shot, yes, you are completely in focus, but anything else in film, you've got some kind of shallow depth of field cropping up.

I'm not qualified to comment on the amount of wide shots vs close-ups or even how that relates exactly to the depth of field. I'm just saying that when you start to notice, Hollywood films have got a lot of blurry backgrounds.

This might all be a function of the science anyways though, right? Films like Harry Potter and say the Lord of the Rings are going to have a lot of awesome sweeping wide vistas, which have deeper depth of field by default, right? So going wide might be an artistic choice, but it's somewhat motivated by the genre, and the shallow or deep focus is going to be heavily dictated by the length of the lens? (This could be way off, I'm asking.)
 
On the DVD for A History of Violence, Cronenberg said that almost every shot of the movie was done with a 27mm lens. Take that for what it's worth.
 
OK now im confused , i have 18-55 kit lens for 7D and i thought it will give more field of view than my manual old lens but it just doesnt !
So is there any way to have as wide 18mm like it appears on 5D ? Cause 50mm kit lens have the same field of view as my old manual pentacon lens ,so kit lens is also cropped.
What kind of lenses are made for APS-C sensor so 18mm on 7D and 5D would have the same field of view ?
 
bwwd said:
OK now im confused , i have 18-55 kit lens for 7D and i thought it will give more field of view than my manual old lens but it just doesnt !
So is there any way to have as wide 18mm like it appears on 5D ? Cause 50mm kit lens have the same field of view as my old manual pentacon lens ,so kit lens is also cropped.
What kind of lenses are made for APS-C sensor so 18mm on 7D and 5D would have the same field of view ?
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Focal lengths only have practical meaning on any given image format. On a different image format, they will have different meanings. So an 18mm lens on an APS-C camera will provide the same FOV as any other 18mm lens, whether the lens was designed for APS-C or not.

In order to achieve the 18mm FOV that you'd get on a full-frame camera, you'd need an 11mm lens for your APS-C camera. The best choice is the Tokina 11-16mm, which is priced at $600.
 
So they dont make smaller glass for APS-C , like for example smaller glass for sensors on minidv camcoders?Cause if you would use dslr lens on minidv cam sensor and its18mm lens then crop is ridiculous.
Do they make real wide angle lenses with smaller 18mm glass to fit the same field of view on APS-C as it appears with 18mm full frame ?So if you put 7d and 5d side to side and 7d is not cropped.
We can experiment and i was wndering where we can get such glass wchich would give full frame 18mm fov on 7d,maybe some old manual lenses for rare brands where they only used picture as big as aps-c for image.
 
I read an article about "Rosemary's Baby" and the DP said they used a 18mm to make the rooms look larger and a 25mm for the closeups. Most of the film ideas I come up with require small rooms and spaces, hell I live in NJ, in a small house, small yards, etc... So I got a 20mm for my D90 to see if I could get that "look" of a 18mm. One thing I learned is that I just can't tell someone or something to "stand there" and shoot and expect it to look like Hollywood. Every shoot has to have the subject at a given distance from the background relative to the camera/lens/f-stop. I'm sure you guys understand this already but it was a big missing piece for me with regard to my shot composition.

Here is a simple example of a 20mm on my D90 in bright sun light and I still was able to get a slightly blurred background after considering the subjects position in the shot.

http://www.vimeo.com/3088180
 
bwwd said:
Do they make real wide angle lenses with smaller 18mm glass to fit the same field of view on APS-C as it appears with 18mm full frame ?
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Please re-read my post again carefully. I explained it all there, and I named a lens that's perfect for your purposes.

We can experiment and i was wndering where we can get such glass wchich would give full frame 18mm fov on 7d,maybe some old manual lenses for rare brands where they only used picture as big as aps-c for image.
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Such old lenses don't exist. Explaining why takes a lot of time, so please read this article for illumination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Photo_System

So they dont make smaller glass for APS-C , like for example smaller glass for sensors on minidv camcoders?Cause if you would use dslr lens on minidv cam sensor and its18mm lens then crop is ridiculous.
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Yes, there are plenty of lenses made specifically for APS-C. Examples include Nikon DX and Canon EF-S. But you have to realize that "18mm" means something different on APS-C sensor than it does on a full-frame sensor. On FF, 18mm is "ultra-wide." On APS-C 18mm is "wide." This doesn't change even with lenses designed for APS-C.

Do yourself a favor a take a close look at the actual focal lengths on the lenses of DV camcorders. You'll be shocked at how small they really are.

I really need to finish my work on that crop factor FAQ...
 
Aye I used to be super into my tele lenses, would rarely take my 105mm off my D90, which would actually have been more like 170mm with the crop.

These days I'm appreciated a wider angle, not just for what it brings, but also for the, and I don't know the technical term so maybe someone can guide me, 3D effect it gives - i.e. if you were to compose the same shot on a, say, 170ish mm vs a 28 mm, you'd naturally have to have the 28 a lot closer.

I'm finding I prefer the 28-50 range in this respect - it gives a more naturalistic effect. I'm a big Malick fan so it ticks those boxes in that regard.
 
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