Best Canon Lens for Low Light Video Shooting

What are you shooting? All lowlight scenes are not the same so it will depend largely on your subject and your shooting style.

If money is really not an object, I'd suggest hiring a lighting director!
 
What are you shooting? All lowlight scenes are not the same so it will depend largely on your subject and your shooting style.

If money is really not an object, I'd suggest hiring a lighting director!


There is no best lens as every situation is different. What's the point in having an 85m 1.8 lens if you are shooting a wide scene indoors? The op needs to really think the question he is asking + I agree with deltoidjohn, as a lighting director would truly make your project come to life
 
Focal length is whatever you like best. Personally 24mm 1.4L, 35mm 1.4L, 50mm 1.2L, 85mm 1.2L, 100mm 2.8L Macro.
 
Lighting director? You mean gaffer?

Haha - Well, on a small scale project you could have either. Any good lighting director (ie the designer) would be able to perfrom the gaffer's job, and any good gaffer (ie the technician) would also be able to double as the lighting director. It's like "camera operator" and "Director or Photography." On a big production you have both. On a small production you have only one and you can call it whatever the hell you fell like calling it!
 
This is kinda a hard question because my first answer is invest in some lighting will be cheaper but not always practical. If your shooting in the forest and you want to add light that means a generator as well and a lot of extra equipment to lug to a remote location like that. So sure buying a light kit can run you around $500 but the extra time and effort required to use it say in a tent on the desert is a lot more cost in the end. So what type of scenes are these? Is lighting not really much of an option? For low light i really like the canon 50mm 1.4. I haven't had the luxury of shooting on the 1.2. The other thing i have found is that i dont really like to shoot at that low of an f-stop because the depth of field is so minimal and it will likely end up coming out looking soft. that however is mostly personal preference so you may differ there.
 
it depends on what focal length you want; the central part of the L range is pretty fast: 24mm f/1.4L, 35mm f/1.4L, 50mm f/1.2L, 85mm f/1.2L
 
Go for the canon f/1.2L, but there are more lenses out there that would be more practical. This is a good lens guide specifically for DSLR filmmakers.

http://flickfire.com/forum/tid/48

You'd be interested in the ultra-fast lenses, but furthermore, the 2.8 aperture lenses are going to be pretty okay for low-light situations as well.

And also as someone mentioned, the noctilux, but I don't think getting that lens is a good idea. The DOF will be too shallow at 0.95 and furthermore, you need to get some lighting equips.
 
And also as someone mentioned, the noctilux, but I don't think getting that lens is a good idea. The DOF will be too shallow at 0.95 and furthermore, you need to get some lighting equips

Dude, I was joking. That lens is like 10 grand.
 
the leitz noctilux is for the nokia-M mount, and so won't work on canon-EOS (more accurately, it will only focus on the macro range)

you could use it on a m4/3 camera, but then the voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 is 1/10th of the price...

the leitz works on full frame, though, so you could use it on an F3, for example (whereas the voigtlander will show a hard -totally black- vignette)
 
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