FS5: Another FS5 Lens thread.

M

mattjeh

Well-known member
Hi all. I'm an FS5 owner that came from the workhorse ex1, so I only have the kit 18-105 lens currently (which since the new firmware has improved vastly). I have a modest budget (£400-500max) to look at a new lens and would value a couple of opinions from FS7/5 owners.

I'd prefer to stick with native E mounts for now as it would be difficult to push for a half decent non-Sony lens along with the adapter.

I have been looking at the Sony 10-18 as I'd really like something on the wider end, for me it would be more useful than telephoto which I'd consider further down the line. Reviews for the 10-18 are mostly positive, but I can't really find any information as to their performance on pro video platforms like the FS7/5. Does anyone have much experience with this lens?

I'd consider other options, but I know my budget is not the best but it's what I have to work with currently.

Also a consideration, I have access to a movi so am looking for a lens that would give me a nice wide, with a deep focal length for gimbal work without needing to rely on AF. Any ideas?
 
Your driving motives sound a bit back to front, to me.

Is this a hobby for you or do you want to make a living out of it?

If it's the former, spend your money on having fun.

If the latter, I suggest you save more money (or borrow/lease) and invest strategically. If you restrict yourself to £500, what happens when you get offered a gig where you'll need a range right through from 11mm to 400mm?

The following suggestions are based on a good, middle of the road, set of zooms that I know will give you flexibility, value and credibility with paying clients. You can spend a lot more on cine primes etc - only you know what kind of lenses you need, according to the way you shoot, the subject material and the time you have to change lenses.

The 18-105 is a great all-purpose lens and will earn you money as your main hand-held donkey/workhorse. Wide and Tele? Until Sony E-Mount lenses get properly established - and that's going to take a while - I suggest a couple of cheap but brilliant Commlite EF adapters and a Tokina 11-16/2.8 EF and Canon 100-400 L (Mk1 is fine.) Both have good residual values, produce lovely pictures if you frame and expose well, and earn you money in the meantime. I rely on this combo of 3 lenses for the majority of work I do - with a collection of old 35mm primes for master interviews (40mm Konica most of the time) and a 70-200/2.8 occasionally cos I just like it.

The advantage of Canon (and Nikon) mount lenses is that they're flexible, when used with cheap adapters. The Sony 10-18 has some lovely reviews, but you'll only be able to use it on a Sony E Mount body. In 2 years time, your needs may well change.

As you earn more money, you might want to invest in slightly more niche lenses and primes along the way.

I hope that's helpful - it's all meant in an encouraging spirit.

Ben.
 
Thanks for your reply Ben. I am a general videographer it's just that I'm new to the world of interchangeable lenses. You make some very valid points about the spread, and while I was thinking the wide Sony 10-18 would be good for use on a movi I have access to, a longer lens would perhaps be more beneficial and useful overall for now.

Thanks for the lens suggestions, I'm going to spend some time looking them up now.
 
For various reasons I'm inclined to stick with the native e mount. Does anyone have experience with the Sony mk1 18-200 or 24-240? I can't find any good references to how these lenses perform on the fs5/7, in terms of sharpness when filming 4k.
 
Personally a 10-18 would be considered a specialty lens and would get very little use from me. I have a 16-35 canon and I don't even really use that much. My current Movi lens is a 24-105 which offers some really great range. I would focus on picking up a fast prime, either a 35 or 50mm since you already own a zoom lens.
 
Going off of what everyone else has been saying I wouldn't go for the 10-18 as i personally don't see the need to shoot that wide more than once a specialty project. Piggy backing off of what Ben was saying you might want to grab EF lenses and use a speedbooster. Speedboosters act as focal reducers which actually turn lenses .7x wider (think ef 24-105 = 17-75 ish). Having a booster and another smart adapter is an ideal choice as it allows me to get multiple focal lengths from the same lens which otherwise would only be 1 distance.

It also seems if you have access to a movi (which i presume you would borrow) you might know someone willing to lend you some L glass as well. Just some food for thought.
 
Actually with the FS5's own crop of 1.5, along with the Speedbooster Ultra's .7, the 24-105 would be 25.2 - 110.25mm.

You also gain a stop of much needed light, so an f/4 lens becomes an f/2.8. Sony Zoom lenses tend to not be that sharp compared to a Canon. I would recommend anyone just flip for the 650.00 speedbooster, then get the Sigma Art Lens f/4 24-105 as a workhorse, then branch out later. The glass is a career-long investment that stays with you, while your camera bodies will change. It's not going to work to give your self a 500.00 max budget. You're just cheaping out your whole image and wasting a 6,000.00 camera with crap glass. Save up and stay away from overpriced Sony glass.
 
Thanks all for your thoughts, you all make valid points about the respective lenses you're suggesting. Having to balance cost against value for money, quality of lens build and sharpness, it's a headache.

It's funny it comes back to the Sigma/Canon 24-105 f4 as you suggest Chad, as a practical replacement for the sony 18-105 as the general go to lens. It's the lens recommended by Doug Jensen, and it may be starting to call me in!

Quick question to those with the 24-105. When you compare the two, is the Canon significantly sharper and better quality when it comes to the end result in 4k than the sony 18-105?
 
Actually mattjeh it's the Sigma that beats the Canon, and is 100.00 cheaper when buying them new (on the B&H site). Also It has been reported that the Canon's IS is sort of loud and the sound can get into a camera mounted mic, where the Sigma's IS is silent. Look up some YouTube comparisons to see the sharpness differences between those two lenses. And Yes it's sharper than the Sony 18-105. I bought the 18-105 with the camera, and I never use it. There's just an extra sparkle when using the Sigma. The Sony is very light though, so it would be good for hand held stuff, but personally I put the camera on a tripod 98% of the time. The Sigma is a half pound heavier than the Canon. And as I said, the Speedbooster Ultra (the 650.00 one, not the 400.00 one) gives you an extra stop of light and a .7 crop, making the focal length of any full frame lens close to the numbers marked on the lens.

All that being said, you may be able to find the Canon used for significantly cheaper, as it comes as a kit lens in a lot of their cameras. For me though I want that edge to edge sharpness, build quality and silence. I bought my Sigma at DigitalRev for 769.00 US.

Here's a video. Hit the "YouTube" icon to open it in YOuTube so you can play it full screen.
 
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Thanks Chad, I did look up the sigma further after your post and read some good reviews, I'm certainly considering it.
 
Chadfish said:
Actually with the FS5's own crop of 1.5, along with the Speedbooster Ultra's .7, the 24-105 would be 25.2 - 110.25mm.
Click to expand...

Actually, if you are talking in Super 35mm FOV (as the FS5
is a Super 35 cam) the 24-105 will be approximately
17-75mm. It will be wider than 24mm because of the
speed booster. Very easy to test this, just put the Sigma
24-105mm on a speedbooster on your FS5 and zoom full wide.
Now take it off and put you 18-105 Sony on and zoom full
wide. Almost the same FOV. That is because, even though
the Sigma is a 24mm at the wide end....the speedbooster
gives it the wider FOV of a full frame lens, which means
it is about 17mm wide in Super 35 terms (which is very close
to the 18mm on the Sony, hence they look similar on the wide
end.). I'm pretty sure that you are talking FF field of view with your
25.2-110.25 calculation. But be careful. If you are working
with a cinematographer (not a stills photographer), he or
she will recognize the 24-105 speedboosted...as a 17-75mm
lens. I've been an AC on several shoots and the cinematographer
does NOT convert lenses into their FF equivalents, when
asking you to mount a certain lens on the camera.
 
Let's do the math. Correct me if I'm wrong. I guess I don't know the proper way to figure using both the Super35 with the Speedbooster.

Start with a 24mm full frame lens. Factor in the Super35 crop of 1.5. 24 x 1.5=36mm Then factor in the Speedbooster's .7 crop factor. 36 x .7 = 25.2mm.

What's wrong with my math? Do you just drop the 1.5 of the Super35?
 
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alaskacameradude, I did just put on both lenses, and it dies look look the Sigma is wider by a little at 24mm than the Sony at 18mm. But what is wrong with my math?
 
Chadfish said:
alaskacameradude, I did just put on both lenses, and it dies look look the Sigma is wider by a little at 24mm than the Sony at 18mm. But what is wrong with my math?
Click to expand...
Well, nothing is wrong with your math, you are just using full
frame as your standard or 'reference' of measurement.
Which is fine if everyone else is using that as their 'reference' of
measurement. In the stills world, full frame IS the standard so
it is used by most. Further complicating things, many Canon 5D
(which is a FF stills camera) shooters moved into shooting video.
Plus, many people who use the 'cheaper' cinema cameras like the
FS100/700, C100, FS5/7 also use DSLR stills glass...and many
people use the FF as the standard of reference when talking about
these lenses, because it is stills glass. However, in the cinematography
world, Super 35 is the standard. Hence a experienced cinematographer
knows what a 35mm or an 85mm lens looks like in Super 35mm field of view.
Hence a cinematographer doesn't ask his AC to put on 'the lens that gives
a FOV that a 50mm will give on a FF camera'. He'd just ask for the 35mm.
If he DOES ask for a 50mm, he doesn't want the AC performing 'crop
calculations' and bringing him a 35mm, he actually wants the 50mm.

So basically, you were using a different way to say the same thing.
100 kilometers an hour equals 60 miles an hour. But you don't want
to tell a driver in the U.S. that 'the speed limit is 100' just because
you are from Canada and have performed the conversion in your head
when you see a speed limit 60 sign. You want to talk in the language
he will understand right? In a similar manner, your 25-110mm is correct if
you are using FF as the 'standard of measurement'. If using Super 35
as your 'standard of measurement' it is 17-75mm....because you don't need
to calculate a 'crop factor'. Hope this makes sense, I know it confuses
a lot of people.
 
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Chadfish said:
Let's do the math. Correct me if I'm wrong. I guess I don't know the proper way to figure using both the Super35 with the Speedbooster.

Start with a 24mm full frame lens. Factor in the Super35 crop of 1.5. 24 x 1.5=36mm Then factor in the Speedbooster's .7 crop factor. 36 x .7 = 25.2mm.

What's wrong with my math? Do you just drop the 1.5 of the Super35?
Click to expand...
Long explanation above. Short explanation....yes just drop the
1.5 crop of Super 35 ��
 
OK now I know where you're coming from. I am using full frame as the standard of how to apply crop factor because that's what the numbers on the lens relate to since these lenses are designed for full frame still cameras, in which case my calculations are accurate. A 24mm FF lens ends up being a 25.2 still on a super35 sensor with a .7 speedbooster, and the sony 18mm on a super35 camera with no .7 speedbooster is a 27mm effectively - in the Full Frame world.
 
alaskacameradude said:
Actually, if you are talking in Super 35mm FOV (as the FS5
is a Super 35 cam) the 24-105 will be approximately
17-75mm. It will be wider than 24mm because of the
speed booster. Very easy to test this, just put the Sigma
24-105mm.
Click to expand...

Knew I wasn't wrong regardless of the several beers I had that night haha. Abel cine has a pretty sweet FOV calculator thats simple for cine cameras http://www.abelcine.com/fov/

I use the S35 as my reference as its my platform and a vast majority of other cinematographers use this system as well. Much how cine lenses use a T rather than an f stop to show how much light enters rather than merely the openings size.

Thanks for the backup and extremely detailed answers alaska. Explanations like that are why you have over a hundred +1's and more always on the way.
 
Man this is tricky to get my head around. So the actual focal distance of the Sigma is more like an 18mm like the kit sony 18-105. But isn't the sony a FF lens so is actually more like a 27-158 (as listed on some documentation as the 35mm equivalent?) /confused

Also Chad, I like the look of that sigma 24-105, can you please recommend the best adapter for full compatibility with the E mount?

Edit:
It seems all adapters are not created equal, I take it something like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Neewer-Me...041917?hash=item2ca902013d:g:thAAAOSwUuFW0CDH Would do the job of actually attaching the Sigma EF to the E mount, but that's it. Whereas a speedbooster: http://cvp.com/index.php?t=product/metabones_ef-e-bt4_canon-ef-to-e-mount adds the extra stop and the wider field? The additional functionality brings the additional expense?
 
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