Barry_Green
Moderator
Nikon lenses all focus backwards, it's what I find quite annoying about Nikon gear and why I've always gone for Canon. But many follow focus units let you reverse the direction.
Best 50mm prime for $500?
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Barry_Green
Moderator
People seem to complain a lot about charts, even though they're the only way to do precise qualitative analysis.
So, instead, I used the cheapest 50mm I can find, which is a tiny little c-mount Bell & Howell lens from an old Filmo 16mm movie camera. Put it on the GH1 (because you can't put c-mount on a 7D) and shot out my front door. Brought the footage frame grabs into PhotoShop, did the typical "auto contrast/auto tone/auto color" to equalize them out, and presented here are the results:
vs.
Now, that's a $10 lens vs. a $550 lens. Both shot at f/5.6.
I'll say it again -- the way the movie mode works in these SLRs is a HUGE equalizer among lenses. If you want better glass for stills, or for bokeh, go right ahead. But if you can't afford the better glass, don't sweat it -- the cameras can't take advantage of the better resolving power anyway, when in video mode.
For those who want to pixel-peep, here's a multi-layer photoshop document with pixel-for-pixel extractions from the frames, overlayed so you can hide the top layer and see the differences (or, largely, lack thereof) between them.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Oh, you might be surprised. A couple of days ago we had a flock of at least 5,000 come through. I've never seen anything like it. I actually grabbed the 7D and shot some of it. First time I've gotten "mud" on the 7D, with so many flapping wings and grass detail and handheld and long telephoto... but yes, sometimes we get overloaded with birds here. It was awesome.
Actually, crappy soft lenses might act as a low-pass filter and reduce aliasing in video mode in these DSLRs.
Barry_Green
Moderator
They may indeed. As long as they pass enough resolution for what the camera can resolve, anything more is just wasted.Actually, crappy soft lenses might act as a low-pass filter and reduce aliasing in video mode in these DSLRs.
I'm not advocating people buy cheap lousy lenses, of course. Better glass is always better. But I think that low-budget folks just shouldn't even worry about it. If you had a little money and you were thinking of spending it on a $500 lens, or a better tripod, get the tripod. Or the external sound recorder. Or the light kit. Or the Z-finder. Or, well, pretty much anything else that you need that will actually have a serious iimprovement in the quality of your productions, because the glass just really isn't gonna do all that much for an HDSLR.
Of course, when we start talking about the Scarlet or the next generation of cameras, that better glass will definitely come into play.
Trust me, I would rather see a *huge* difference between these $20 lenses and my new $1,000 lenses. But it just isn't there, in video mode on either of my HDSLRs. (It is in still photography mode, yes... but not in video).
sammysammy
Well-known member
Barry,thanks for this test,but how about in the gh1 case, why do you think people say the 20mm 1.7 is "sharp" in video mode, is that something else ? or is it because its auto focusing and getting a better focus?
tflak
Veteran
Of course, I was just making a joke about the empty feeder, but that flock you describe does sound pretty awesome! Have never been lucky enough to witness something like that.